Banquet of the gods, Book II, an Indo-European rite, portrayed on the walls of Etruscan tombs

7/13/2011 Banquet of the gods, Book VI, relationships between the divine heroes in Mediterranean mythologies and the Bible.

Introduction
[From an email to Adil Orlander, November 25, 2007]

Thanks for your kind comment. I talk about the "Branch" and the Tree of Life in many books (1) and am not sure where you saw it. Attached is an image taken from Evans' works, reproduced in a work by Clyde Keeler on the Tree of Life, and another from Kramer's work, "Sumerian Mythology." I comment a bit on the connection of the swastika and Tree of Life, with more images, in my Phrygian.html. The swastika is shown in Mesopotamian pottery in various stages, first with each branch being a tree and finally in a simple geometric form whose tips carry a tiny branch and finally the geometry omits the "branch" from the bars of the swastika.

The Summero-Akkadian stories depict the goddess Inanna guarding the Tree of Life. Associated with the story is that of Gilgamesh's journey to visit the Old Man of the Sea who can tell him how to obtain the "branch" of eternal life. (The Tree of Life represents eternal life and the "branch" is a symbol of the tree.) Other seals from Mycenae and Crete represent the mother-goddess seated on her throne, flanked by two lions, with the Tree of Life behind the throne and from the Tree of Life flows a stream that gushes out at the feet of the mother-goddess. Thus, the Tree of Life and the "Fountain of Youth" carry forth the idea of eternal life. The Bible connects the Tree of Life to salvation. When Adam and Eve ate of the "forbidden fruit" of the Tree of Life they ceased to retain their eternal nature and were thrown out of the Garden of Eden. They were deceived into eating of the forbidden fruit by a snake.
Interestingly the Old Testament prophets continued the theme relating to the "Branch" :

Zechariah 3.8 Hear now, O Joshua the high priest, thou, and thy fellows that sit before thee: for they are men wondered at: for, behold, I will bring forth my servant the BRANCH.
4.12 And I answered again, and said unto him, What be these two olive branches which through the two golden pipes empty the golden oil out of themselves?
4.13 And he answered me and said, Knowest thou not what these be? And I said, No, my lord.
4.14 Then said he, These are the two anointed ones, that stand by the Lord of the whole earth.
6.12 And speak unto him, saying, Thus speaketh the LORD of hosts, saying, Behold, the man whose name is The BRANCH; and he shall grow up out of his place, and he shall build the temple of the LORD.
6.13 Even he shall build the temple of the LORD; and he shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule upon his throne; and he shall be a priest upon his throne; and the counsel of peace shall be between them both.
6.15 And they that are far off shall come and build in the temple of the LORD, and ye shall know that the LORD of hosts hath sent me unto you. And this shall come to pass, if ye will diligently obey the voice of the LORD your God.
Isaiah 4.1 And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel: only let us be called by thy name, to take away our reproach.
4.2 In that day shall the branch of the LORD be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and comely for them that are escaped of Israel.
4.3 And it shall come to pass, that he that is left in Zion, and he that remaineth in Jerusalem, shall be called holy even every one that is written among the living in Jerusalem.
4.4 When the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof by the spirit of judgment and by the spirit of burning.
4.6 And there shall be a tabernacle for a shadow in the daytime from the heat, and for a place of refuge, and for a covert from storm and from rain.

The Book of Enoch carries an interesting discussion relating to the restoration of Adam and Eve to the Garden of Eden:

Book of Enoch 10.8 But God said unto Adam, I have made thee a promise; when that promise is fulfilled, I will bring thee back into the garden, thee and thy righteous seed.
14.2 But God the Lord said to Adam, Verily I say unto thee, this darkness will pass from thee, every day I have determined for thee, until the fulfillment of my covenant; when I will save thee and bring thee back again into the garden, into the abode of light thou longest for, wherein is no darkness. I will bring thee to it in the Kingdom of Heaven.
14.3 Again said God unto Adam, all this misery that thou hast been made to take upon thee because of thy transgression, will not free thee from the hand of Satan, and will not save thee.
14.4 But I will, when I shall come down from heaven, and shall become flesh of thy seed, and take upon me the infirmity from which thou sufferest, then the darkness that came upon thee in this cave shall come upon me in the grave, when I am in the flesh of thy seed.
15.1 Then Adam and Eve wept and sorrowed by reason of God's word to them, that they should not return to the garden until the fulfillment of the days decreed upon them [5 1/2 days]; but mostly because God had told them that He should suffer for their salvation.

The Branch is identified through many allegories. For instance, the branch is described as a rod and Zechariah speaks of two staves (2) :

Zechariah 11.4 Thus saith the Lord my God: Feed the flock of the slaughter; whose possessors slay them and hold themselves not guilty: and they that sell them say, Blessed be the Lord; for I am rich; and their own shepherds pity them not.
11.7 And I will feed the flock of slaughter, even you, O poor of the flock. And I took unto me Two Staves; the one I called Beauty, and the other I called Bands; and I fed the flock.
11.10 And I took my staff, even Beauty, and cut it asunder, that I might break my covenant which I had made with all the people.
11.14 Then I cut asunder mine other staff, even Bands, that I might break the brotherhood between Judah and Israel.
12.2 Behold I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about..
12.8 In that day shall the Lord defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and He that is feeble among them at that day shall be as David; and the house of David shall be as God, as the angel of the Lord before them.
12.10 And I will pour upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications; and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn.

Isaiah 11.1 And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots.
11.2 And the spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD;
11.3 And shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the LORD: and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears:
11.4 But with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: and he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked.

Ezekiel refers to the Anointed servant(s) in the same context:

Ezekiel 37.21 And say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the heathen, whither they be gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land.
37.22 And I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king to them all: and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all.
37.24 And David my servant shall be king over them; and they all shall have one shepherd: they shall also walk in my judgments, and observe my statutes, and do them.
37.25...and my servant David shall be their prince forever.
37.26 Moreover I will make a covenant of pace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them: and I will place them, and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in the midst of them forevermore.
37.27 My tabernacle also shall be with them: yea, I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
37.28 And the heathen shall know that I the LORD do sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary shall be in the midst of them forevermore.

Amos continues the connection between the Servant who is identified with restoration of the Tabernacle, both being connected with the restoration (redemption) of the children of Israel to their land. The Jews have always identified their redemption with the redemption of the whole world. Fundamental to the precept is the idea that the Jews would be evicted from the land and scattered to all the nations. A Sign of the scattering is the Virgin and her son, described in Isaiah 7.14.

Amos 9.11 In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and close up the breaches thereof; and I will raise up his ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old:
9.15 And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, saith the Lord thy God.

Jeremiah 23.5 Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth.
23.6 In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this is his name whereby he shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.
23.7 Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that they shall no more say, The LORD liveth, which brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt.
23.8 But, The LORD liveth, which brought up and which led the seed of the house of Israel out of the north country, and from all countries whither I had driven them; and they shall dwell in their own land.

The Dead Sea Scrolls, Commentary on Habakkuk, has an interesting interpretation of the two Anointed Ones (Messiahs, Christs):

Dead Sea Scrolls: And concerning his words to David, And I will give you rest from all your enemies (2 Sam. 8.11). This means that he will give them rest from all the children of Satan who cause them to stumble so that they may be destroyed by their errors.
The Lord declares to you that He will build you a House (2 Sam.8.2). I will raise up your seed after you (2 Sam. 8.12). I will establish the throne of His Kingdom forever (2 Sam. 8.13). I will be his father and he shall be my son (2 Sam. 8.14). He is the Branch of David who shall arise with the Interpreter of the Law to rule in Zion at the end of time. As it is written, I will raise up the tend of David that is fallen (Amos 9.11). That is to say, the fallen tent of David is He who shall arise to save Israel.

The redemption of Israel and thus the world through the Righteous Servant is likened to breaking the head of the dragon. The contest between good and evil is depicted much after the manner seen in the Sumero-Akkadian epics involving Gilgamesh who defeats the celestial bull and a dragon. Later Murdok, the god whose image is a dragon, contests with other gods, such as Asur, for sovereignty. Thus, the dominion of the Kingdom of God over which the Messiah reigns is established through defeating Satan which is depicted as a snake and a dragon.

Testament of Joseph, 10.38: For I know that ye shall sin, and be delivered into the hands of your enemies; and your land shall be made desolate, and your holy places destroyed, and ye shall be scattered unto the four corners of the earth.
39. And ye shall be set at nought in the dispersion vanishing away as water.
40. Until the most high shall visit the earth, coming Himself as a man, with men eating and drinking, and breaking the head of the dragon in the water.
41. He shall save Israel and all the Gentiles, God speaking in the person of man.

Psalm 40.7 Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me.

The divine hero that defeats the dragon or celestial bull — or the divine king who wages war in the name of his god, such as the Assyrian kings who waged war in the name of Asur — ultimately reduces down to the criteria of establishing righteousness in the world. Interestingly, the Bible and scriptures relating to it, continues the epic of righteousness in the name of a new God who is configured as a Word. The Word replaces the many images established in the mythological past.

The Biblical epic, in fact, is described as a written epic. The Vedas of India, in contrast, were an oral epic, whose foundations include the god Indra, who defeats the dragon in the mountains. Other epics of the Indo-Europeans that contest the dragon or divine bull range from Mithra's contest with the divine bull (Mithra is a god of the Hindus and Persian religions) to the Celtic god, appearing to be Cernnunos, wrestling with the divine bull, as seen on the Gundestrup Cauldron. In Greek mythology Perseus, Jason and others fight the dragon, in one form seen as Medusa. The Anglo-Saxon Beowulf destroys the dragon that comes out of a bog to feed on the people of the castle. And, of course, we can see how the contest flows into Medieval beliefs in the tale of St. George and the dragon, a symbol too of the current British monarchy.

While all of the contests, written or oral, tend to follow a similar theme, the Bible departs from them to establish the sovereignty of its God through the written word. He writes it down beforehand and then claims to confirm it "in the last days." The prophet often says, "When you see these things come to pass, then you will know that the Lord hath sent me." Discerning a true prophet of God from a false prophet is achieved through God confirming his Word to that prophet. The Word, in fact, becomes a contract or covenant. To appreciate this scheme of things one needs to understand the Jewish Wedding tradition. Every Jewish groom had to know how to read and write (Thus, Jesus should have known how to read and write.) He had to know this in order to write a wedding contract. A proper marriage had to be confirmed through a written contract.

The Biblical view of redemption first of Israel and then the nations involves a fulfillment of a written covenant. The context of the covenant is of a marriage:

Isaiah 54.5 For thine maker is thine husband; the Lord of Hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel; the God of the whole earth shall He be called.

Finally, we have Revelation describing the Righteous Servant as Michael:

Revelation 12.7 And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels.
12.8 And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven.
12.9 And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

Revelation depicts the final war between the dragon and his angels that are cast out of Heaven. The divine hero is identified finally as the Word of God:

Revelation 19.11 And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war.
19.12 His eyes were as a flame of fire and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself.
19.13 And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God.
19.15 and out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword..

As indicated above, I have written in many works upon the subject of the divine hero, defending the Tree of Life, as it were, by defeating the beast. The topic involves a scope that is demanding in its perspective, shifting from one allegory to another, one symbol to another, all the which reduces down to a righteous servant defeating evil. In tracing the origin of the precept we must explore the Indo-European and Mesopotamian epics, and, equally meaningful, the myth of Osiris,who was married to Isis, the queen of heaven. His evil twin, Set, who signified the desert, attempted to destroy Osiris. After many contests, Set convinced Osiris to lie down in a coffin to see if it fits. When Osiris reclined in it Set nailed down the lid shut and cast the coffin into the Nile river where it floated out to sea and came to rest at the foot of a palm tree on the beach of Tyre. The tree grew around the coffin. The king ordered the tree — which at that time gave off a wonderful odor — to be cut down to serve as a pillar of his palace. Inside the tree was found the coffin which contained a small child, Osiris, who was raised by the queen of Tyre. The queen of heaven, Isis, heard about the child and went to Tyre to serve as the nursemaid of the child. When the child grew to adulthood Isis and Osiris married. In the meantime Osiris and Isis had had a child named Horus who became the avenger of his father's murder. Osiris became the judge of the dead and symbol of resurrection.

We can speculate as to how the Biblical narrative adapted many of the precepts found in the Mediterranean mythologies. In all probability its prophets adapted familiar themes to explain concepts that would otherwise be obtuse and over one's head.

An interesting theme in the Bible that conveys how it works is in that of the Unicorn, mentioned in Job 39 and the Psalms. Although it is a mythical beast and an allegory of the Messiah, writers speculating on it over time developed an image of a beast that has one horn on its forehead, once envisioned as a gazelle, another as a cross between a rhino and a hippo, and finally in its modern characteristic as a beautiful, white, winged horse. Its horn became prized by European kings who believed its powder had healing qualities and, in particular, would protect against poisoning. The epic that became the story of the unicorn concluded that the only way one could catch the mythical beast would be to set a virgin in the woods, dressed in a white gown. The unicorn would spy the girl and run over to her and place his head in her lap. At the moment he rests his head he can be captured, they alleged. Nevertheless, it was never known to have been captured. All of the tales tended to build upon the criteria set before them. In telling the story one could not negate, or subtract, what had already been written. This is particularly true of the Bible, since it is founded on the precept that God is capable of all things except to lie.

We can apply the same characteristics, of many allegories, to understanding the Biblical Messiah, since he goes by many names. As indicated above, the Bible, Dead Sea Scrolls, and the Jewish Talmud and Oral Torah describe two Messiahs. Of interest is the fact that the first appearance of the Messiah(s) is through a virgin, identified in Isaiah 7.14. She and her child are the sign of the scattering of Israel.

It is a sublime comment, indeed, if the reality of the Deliverer Messiah who appears at the time Israel is restored is in the context of the unicorn. For the unicorn has never been seen and how to catch him has always been the main concern. One never knows when he will descend, snorting and pawing, into the valley.

Jesus was asked about this by his disciples, referring to his second coming. In Luke 21 he describes the world and the signs of his coming. But the essence of the appearance, in the end, would be as the Word, for he must be recognized as being faithful and true to the Word. "Ye will recognize me by my word," he argued. His appearance, of course, would prove his immortality.

In the Gilgamesh epic the hero secures immortality by diving to the bottom of the sea and getting the "Branch." He rested on the beach with the branch beside him. As he was sleeping a snake came up and stole the branch.

In the Mycenaean seals we see a youth stealing the entire tree, and in the Sumerian seals there appears to be Gilgamesh cutting down a tree. It may be another form of the same epic, where he cuts the tree down rather than diving for it at the bottom of the sea.

In the Biblical epic the hero becomes the Branch and God decides to break at least one of them. This can be compared, I suppose, to the Gilgamesh epic, since the gods were jealous of Gilgamesh (like Hera being jealous of Hercules) and they decided to destroy him by creating a double who became known as Enki. They hoped that Enki would destroy Gilgamesh, but the reverse happened: Enki and Gilgamesh became great friends. So the gods destroyed Enki, and when Gilgamesh saw the loss of his friend he realized his own mortality. This is what prompted Gilgamesh to seek out the Old Man of the Sea (Noah) who would show him how to secure immortality. Enki (or Enkidu), whose symbol was water, was the god of wisdom.

In the Bible God destroys the Messiah (see Isaiah, etc.) but promises in terms of the Deliverer Messiah a redemption (marriage) of Israel and eternal peace for Israel and mankind. Here the Biblical story stays within the bounds of earlier myths by destroying both the hero and the dragon, but leaving the Double to reign eternally, like Gilgamesh the king of Erek appears to have done.

It is fairly easy to describe the theme involving regeneration, through the branch or Tree of Life, shown in Mediterranean records. When we see the same images being portrayed in the Bible the task to describe the whole complex seems overwhelming.

I've made somewhat of a lengthy reply to your question, since I had been thinking of such a work anyway.

Chapter 1
"Come to my mountain"

Perhaps the most profound characteristic involving worship of the gods in the ancient world is the call to meet the gods in worship atop a mountain or great height. In the Bible we see expressions of a person going to the roof to worship, and in the Phrygian.html we can see natural mesas converted to outdoor cathedrals. Midas City in Turkey is a phenomenal example of a place containing step-altars to the myriad of gods the Phrygians worshipped there. Similar step-altars atop mountains are also seen in ancient Armenia, but in less abundance. In the Troad an entire mountain, such as Mt. Ida, was dedicated as a holy place, and that place was believed by the ancients to have been established in the name of an earlier place in Crete named Mt. Ida. And across the sea in Greece the ancient Greeks established their holy mounts, Mt. Olympus, the residence of the gods, and Delphi became a special high place where their gods were worshipped. While each Greek community had its own temples of worship, Delphi was the central place where the nation honored its gods and heroes. It may be that Midas City in Phrygia was similar to Delphi, hosting perhaps a hundred gods atop its many altars.

Pausanias toured many ancient cities and holy sites in his time (2nd century A.D.), and in his travelogue we are shown temples hosting portable gods made out of wood, some with ivory faces and decorated with gold, silver and precious stones. Other gods were made out of bronze, and some were perhaps on the scale of the Lincoln Monument in Washington D.C., and many temples had paintings hanging on their walls (as we see in modern churches and cathedrals). Pausanias describes his tour of some temples in a context that a tourist today might describe the works of art displayed in museums and religious places. Some of the gods carved into the rocks of Phrygia were more abstract, where human forms were geometrically represented, similar to the Phoenician goddess Tanit.

Assyrian records (See Phrygian1f.html ff.) describe the Armenian gods that were taken as booty to the Assyrian capital Nineveh. The gods were housed in temples having a square plan. The capture of a nation's gods represents the complete subjugation of a people by the Assyrian god, Asur. The Assyrian conquests of the lands in eastern Anatolia and the Levant were done in the name of Asur; often the goddess Ishtar led the army. The houses, or temples, of Asur and Ishtar were in Nineveh. In the lower, southern end of Mesopotamia were housed the Babylonian gods, among whom were Marduk (portrayed as a dragon) and Ishtar. The Ishtar Gate is the most significant, extant presentation of the Babylonian gods and many of them were hosted in stepped monuments or man-made mountains called Ziggurats. In Babylon and the Sumero-Akkadian civilizations one would go up the ziggurats in worship of the gods. This practice, of course, was not limited to Mesopotamia, as can be seen in the many pyramids of Central America, such as the Mayan temple complexes, and the high places of Peru. What we seen in these examples is a conclusion in the human consciousness in the distant past that the proper place to worship the gods is atop a mountain.

Other gods were not worshipped atop the mountains. Among the Celts, Greeks, etc., we find temples raised beside, or dedicated to, gods of rivers and springs. The Sumero-Akkadian god, Enki, is such a god, and rivers and springs represented life and the ancients concluded that certain water gods were gods of wisdom. Wisdom was also associated with the sun, best typified in the Greek and Anatolian god Apollo. Among the beasts wisdom took on the form of the lion, the king of beasts, all-powerful and all-wise.

The historian and geographer Strabo, who lived about the time of Pausanias, recounts in his mammoth work many of the beliefs and practices of the peoples recorded by himself and historians before him, such as Herodotus. In each region discussed he describes the gods and temples of worship.

Another record of the ancient beliefs and practices relating to worship of the gods is the Bible. It begins as a chronicle of an "Aramean gone astray" who was from ancient Haran and compelled by the LORD (3) to go into Canaan. Among the acts required by God of Abraham when reaching Canaan was the sacrifice of his son Isaac atop the altar on Mt. Zion, believed to be the Temple Mount in Jerusalem (Gen. 22.1). Here the Bible is recalling an ancient practice attributed in particular to the god Ba'al, to whom children were sacrificed. Children were also sacrificed to the Phoenician goddess Tanit, and in the ruins of ancient Carthage a large cemetery has been found containing the graves of such sacrifices. With such ancient practices in mind we can now observe God's temptation of Abraham:

Genesis 22.1 And it came to pass after these things that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and said, Behold, here I am.
22.2 And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.
22.9 And they came to the place which God had told him of; and Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood.
22.10 And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son.
22.11 And the angel of the LORD called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I.
22.12 And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou anything unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me.

The sacrifice of Isaac seems somewhat barbaric from my perspective, since it draws upon practices common in Canaan. There is what appears to be a step-altar atop the highest point on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem that is now preserved in the center of the Dome of the Rock. According to Moslem tradition the site is where Mohammed ascended atop his horse to heaven and also the place where Abraham built his altar to sacrifice Isaac. The step-altar looks very much like the step-altars in Midas City.

The Temple Mount became the site of the Temple of Solomon, constructed about 1,000 B.C., and replaced by the larger, "squared" Temple of Herod. The Herodian temple was destroyed in 70 A.D. during the siege of Jerusalem. The siege took place on the Jewish Passover, when the city's population expanded to about 1 1/2 million souls, most of whom were visiting there to celebrate the Jewish Passover. This was one of several Jewish feast days conducted as a national feast at the temple. Outside Jerusalem the Jews would worship God in synagogues. The only legal place for offering sacrifices was at the Temple Mount on the established, holy feast days.

After Abraham the next major event in the Bible involved Moses who was compelled to seek refuge in Sinai, fleeing from the Egyptian pharaoh. In Sinai Moses was compelled to climb atop a mountain, Mt. Sinai, and there, claims the report, saw God face to face, who identified himself as "I am that I am" (YHVH) and then instructed Moses to return to Egypt to bring forth the Children of Israel. The experience is recorded in Exodus 3 ff. The Biblical account can be compared to Strabo's account. Strabo was not aware of the Biblical account and had reported the event as concerning an Egyptian Moses who led a tribe of Egyptians out of Egypt into Canaan. Interestingly two Jewish philosophers had been published at the time, whose names are Philo Judaeus and Flavius Josephus. Josephus was a captive of General Titus, who laid siege to Jerusalem, taking over from his father, Vespasian, who had returned to Rome to be crowned Emperor of Rome.

In any event, in Jewish records the giving of the Law of Moses (though of God, it is not called the Law of God) at Mt. Sinai and the national worship of God atop Mt. Zion, the Temple Mount. To this day the Jews worship at the only remaining, known ruin of the Temple: the Temple Wall. There is a controversy involving the Temple Mount that has been discussed in "Philistia triumph thou..." and an article, "Why the Crusade and Jihad?"

Men of yesteryear worshipped their gods atop mountains, they conquered and civilized in the name of God, they murdered, slaughtered innocents and wreaked all kinds of havoc too on behalf of God. And these very old mind-sets that have wreaked so much chaos upon the earth are centered upon one place: the Temple Mount of Jerusalem. Many faiths today claim that mount and its holy city [of peace] as their own. Today, as in the eons past, they are willing to destroy peoples and cultures over it.

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Notes

1) I found my research on the Etruscans, and recently the Phrygians, wraps directly into my other research relating to the Bible, ancient Jewish documents, etc. The work relates to the "Banquet of the Gods" theme, of course, in the context of the Passover, and other feasts, and Christian Mass. Revelation's 19.9 invitation to the "Marriage Supper of the Lamb" is of interest, as it tends to wrap all of the teachings of the Bible into that context.

2) Staves were used to dig wells, as illustrated when the Children of Israel led by Moses "dug the well."
3) The Jewish scriptures used codes to represent various names of God, as they believed that the name of God, such as that represented by LORD (Yahwah) could not be written. The name of El, was written as "God" and the plural form, Elohim, was understood as "Gods." In other respects the Phoenician god Ba'al, meaning, "lord," was called Lord (uncapitalized) and the Bible refers to many lords, Ba'alim, followers of Ba'al. Another name of God introduced to Moses was YHVH (Yahwah, also spelled Jehovah, meaning, "I am that I am").

Banquet of the Gods

by Mel Copeland

Book VI
Divine heroes of Mediterranean myths
& the Bible

Banquet of the Gods

by Mel Copeland

Book VI Divine heroes of Mediterranean myths & the Bible

Book VI
Divine heroes of Mediterranean myths
& the Bible