Silly etymologies like these irritate me.

The explanation of "long live the king" blows my mind.

This has abundant meaning in it. This common British royal salute is not for the benefit of the king, but instead expresses desire for the beneficent rulership of the people.

The very first recorded use of the phrase which is translated such, appears in Hebrew literature about 1000BC. The Hebrew prophets taught that at some future pre-appointed time, God shall grant literal corporeal immortality to those who suffered and took from their suffering the balance between mercy and justice, to those who are truly morally incorruptible even by absolute power.

Though modern Brits have lost this ancient meaning, this common British salute expresses the desire to have the morally incorruptible in authority.

It is equivalent to saying "May our king rule as wisely and benevolently as those chosen by God for to be "saved" by God." Or more succinctly "God ' save ' the king!." "Long life" is not the life of suffering, but bodily life immortal to reign and rule for ever having been vetted by God himself as worthy to rule, wise and incorruptible.

There is even more to this theological doctrine. This doctrine of the "resurrection to everlasting life" taught by the Hebrew prophets is the doctrine which Jesus of Nazareth taught nearly a thousand years later. When Jesus of the Christian Bible says "saved," He was referring to this teaching of the prophets. This is why Jesus tells his followers "if you follow me, you shall suffer" This is why Jesus expressly refused to aid of His best friend John the Baptist during his suffering.

This doctrine of resurrection was the reason Christianity remained a sideline religion thought of as a heretical Jewish cult for three centuries after its institution in Antioch. "Where they were first called Christians." Pliney the younger, a Roman historian who gives us the account of Vesuvious' eruption, explains his view of Christians. "A herd of superstitious simpletons."

It was not until Constantine that Christianity was stripped of this problematic doctrine of "resurrection," and incorporated into it such popular festivals as Saturnalia which we know today as Christmas that Christianity became a popular religion. Now Christianity dominates the world followed distantly by Islam.

Today the doctrine of resurrection has been turned into something more acceptable, akin to the Hindu and Buddhist idea of Nirvana where suffering ends for each individual when he "transcends" life entering into some undefined incorporeal existence some how at one with the universe.

The British "God save the king" harkens back to a theological doctrine made nearly extinct save for a small remnant who follow the ancient riddles for kings. "The way which leads to immortality is narrow and the gate constricted. Few find it." This is the promise which Jesus made. Life immortal "Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear [God's] voice and come out [of their graves] - those who have done good will rise to live," words attributed to Jesus

From modern etymologies of the phrase, it is evident that as the Queen ages, modern Brits won't know what they mean when they have it to say the next time. Are these ancient records the source of our modern usage?

A distinction without a difference. These ancient records are the very first recorded use of the terminology. If some rationale for a phrase was so compelling that it arose twice independently of each other, then it stands to reason the first arising was for the same compelling rationale as the second. In any respect, the accounts below are indeed the very earliest written record of the following nine phrases that exist today.

The Hebrew texts are the single largest body of literature which survive in tact from the earliest period of human history.

None are older, not the Hindi Vedic nor Homer nor the Greek philosophers, the very earliest of whom began to write one century after Ezra of Trans-Euphrates, an official in the ancient Persian government, had already reassembled the Hebrew library in Jerusalem 516BC from the more ancient Babylonian and Sumerian documents which comprise the body of literature with became the modern Jewish, Christian Bible.

No Chinese texts that old survive. No Mayan. Scant Egyptian scraps of text and shards of tablets are unearthed, but no body of literature. We have no full copy of the Egyptian Book of the Dead. While we have multiple copies from different regions and in multiple language translations of the Hebrew, all in good agreement. No modern scholar argues that the body of Hebrew literature underwent systemic alteration.

Systemic alteration of the Hebrew texts is merely a modern mythology. Just like no modern scholar agues that the modern copies of the writings of Buddha's followers, Anaxagoras or of Plato represent anything other than what those authors intended to convey. This modern myth is much like the modern myth that the ancients believed the world was flat. No one in any time of human history ever believed that. Aristarchos of Samos 200BC wrote the oldest accurate written record of the earth's diameter, distance to the moon and to the sun. No one changed these texts when the correct values were determined. Aristarchos claims in his writing that he got these calculations from the Semitic Babylonians before him, (Hebrews literature.)

God Save The King. Long Live The King.