TOPE ALABI AND THE RELIGIOUS IGNORAMUS

Being born into a Christian home, I was named Samson. When I decided not to do religion again, I still maintained my Samson name, but some religious folks would challenge me to change my name since I’m no longer a Christian, and I will always pity their ignorance.

One day, I took my time to lecture one of them. I asked whether he knew the meaning of Samson; he said powerful man but I told him no; the meaning of Samson is "Son of the sun", I asked whether the children of Israel were worshiping the sun in the Bible; he said no. How then do they come about the son of the sun? He didn’t know. That is the case with many of them. Samson has a pagan origin; it was the Kush and Nubians that worshiped Sun in pre-Christian era, and the people who wrote the Bible might have stolen the idea from them. Many other biblical names have the same pagan origin.

Take a look at the days in the week too; every single day is named after one ancient Roman god or Germanic Paganism; in fact, Thursday is a day they worship their god, Thor, who is a replica of Sango in Yoruba and Jupiter in Roman, while Sunday is a day they worship the Sun. Why have those religious ignoramuses not boycotted the names of those days?

Coming back to the richness and beauty of the Yoruba language The language is ornamented with the right wording and robust vocabulary. If you are vast in Yoruba, you would equally be vast in any other language you choose to learn. Soyinka, Achebe, and other prolific writers who have shown excellent control of borrowed languages are also dictionaries of their indigenous languages.

No thanks to Samuel Ajayi Crowther; he did an ignoble disservice to the Yoruba language and traditions, and this is part of the problem we have today. We chant Eledumare and His deities with decorated words, and we are supposed to domesticate these wordings even in religion. You believe there is only one God, but you don’t want to use our rich language to appease God; rather, you choose the good ones and demonize others.

The only son of Eledumare (God) is Ela in Yoruba, Ifa culture. the translators of the Bible refused to translate Ela to Jesus, who is equally regarded as the son of God in Christian mythology, yet he didn’t have a Yoruba name for Satan, who was considered the enemy of God; rather, they chose one of our cherished deities, Esu, to be called Satan. Esu is just one of the 401 deities that are prominent in Yoruba traditions. It took some of us months to sign a petition to tell Google not to translate Esu as Satan again.

Back to the Tope Alabi saga, there are many cases of offered and accepted sacrifices in the Bible. Aboru Aboye are those Yoruba wordings that indicate the offering and acceptance of sacrifice. It simply means a sacrifice has been made and is accepted. If you are not satisfied with the usage of Yoruba language in Christianity, it is better you go and read the Hebrew Bible and communicate with Hebrew, Greek, or Aramaic languages in Christendom to separate your religion from our cherished indigenous languages.

Ogunwoye Samson Gbemiga
Iresapupa, Ogbomoso, Oyo State
ogunwoyesamson@gmail.com