“The God of ALOHA”
The word ALOHA is almost synonymous with Hawaii.
Many Hawaiian words, like the early Hawaiians, came from the Middle East. Solomon’s ships sailed the Pacific almost 3,000 years ago. About a thousand years after that, Egypt’s “answer to Captain James Cook”, used the old maps to explore the Pacific for Egypt and the Ptolemies (Egypt[s ruling “dynasty” in the centuries after Alexander The Great.
“Captain Maui” was real. He had the old maps. With them, he was able to find islands in the middle of an open ocean. His sailors told the stories which became legend – the stories of him being able to dredge up islands out of an empty ocean.
The early Polynesians believed that they originally “came from God”. There were probably deep theological reasons why the “Image of God” was “reversed” for them.
But, in simple terms, they saw God as being “in their rear view mirror”. They saw their new home in the northern Pacific as being like their earlier “home(s)”. They named their new home(s” after their Name for God, but, “in reverse”.
Spell Hawaii in Hebrew or Aramaic letters, i.e. in the Semitic alphabet.
The letters come out (the reverse order) as Hah-Va-Ha-I.
Devout Jews often disguise God’s Names, so HaVaH-I sometimes became Havaiki.
God’s 4-Letter Name. Spell it backwards (Left to Right) and it is Hawaii (Havahi).
The contact between Polynesia and the Middle East continued into the early Christian era. The word/Name ALOHA is New Testament Aramaic for “God”.
In New Zealand, ALOHA becomes AROHA, meaning LOVE. The “logic” is simple. GOD IS LOVE.
ALOHA was used as a form of greeting which recognised the Divine spark/origin in people.
The German expression “grüß Gott“, “I greet the God in you” is something similar. The Hawaiian/Aramaic expression of ALOHA packs a bit more “punch”. It is derived from a Hebrew root word that is connected with the structure of The Periodoc Table of The Elements, with Jesus’ 42 generations in Matthew’s Gospel, with the slope of the Great Pyramid “edges”, and with Moses’ 42 stops/journeys in the desert.