Families, Clans, Tribes and Caste Systems
Many cultures have symbols that represent their families, which may have originated as a deity symbol, but if a whole family or clan followed it, it could easily have been used as a family representation or crest of sorts. Much in the same way that you can tell the various Scottish clans by their tartans. Another identifier are the various forms and colors of pagri/turbans worn in the Middle East and India ; or the fezes of the Turkish Ottoman Empire.
Throughout these Indo-European cultures, they implemented caste systems, very much as the Indo-European caste system of Hindustan / India . In the Sanskrit, the caste systems are referred to as the varnas, which means color. In the Ancient Vedic time period, there were only 3 castes: the Kshatriya – the kings and warriors were the first, then the Brahmins – the priests and then vaishya – the merchants, cattle herders, artisans. Later in late Vedic times, the Brahmins supplanted the kshatriya for the first position. Also, a fourth was added, the shudra – the workers, laborers. The first three caste names are Proto-Indo-European, but the 4th, shudra, is not. Then there are those outside of the caste system the outcasts, called the dalits, from the marthi language which means ground, suppressed, crushed. These outcasts do the work of the ritually impure, such as leather work, butchering, waste removal. Through various time periods and by various methods, the castes were marked, whether by a hair style, hairlock, a sacred rope/thread, color of clothing, or a shudra not being allowed to ride a horse or carriage, the privilege of the upper castes, etc.
Ancient Hellenes states of Sparta and Attic had their own types of castes and the even older Thracians were mentioned by Herodotus as marking their women of the higher castes. History of Herodotus, Book 5 states concerning the Thracian women, “Tattooing among them marks noble birth and the want of it low birth.”
Guilds and Tradesmen
In the ancient Greek religion, Uranus was the patriarchal Sky god. Before the newer Olympian wave or generation of gods, Uranus was the main sky deity. The Kyklops (Cyclops) [round or wheel – eyed] were the sons of this sky god. Before the later Olympian legends of Kyklops having an additional eye in the middle of their forehead, there are accounts of them and artwork to show more of what was really taking place. “The Kyklops seem to have been a guild of Early Helladic bronzesmiths. Kyklops means ‘ring-eyed’, and they are likely to have been tattooed with concentric rings on the forehead, in honour of the sun, the source of their furnace fires; the Thracians continued to tattoo themselves until Classical times. Concentric circles are part of the mystery of smithcraft; in order to beat out bowls, helmets, or ritual masks, the smith would guide himself with such circles, described by compass around the centre of the flat disk on which he was working.” The Greek Myths, pg. 32. Below is a frieze showing three kyklops smithing with Hephaestus. Athene, goddess of the craftsmen stands behind Hephaestus.
The Jewish Talmud records that tradesmen wearing signs of their trades in their ears. Talmud Shabbath 11b, “But it was taught, A tailor must not go out with a needle sticking in his garment on the eve of the Sabbath just before sunset?-The author of that is R. Judah, who maintained, An artisan is liable [for carrying out an object] in the manner of his trade. For it was taught: A tailor must not go out with a needle stuck in his garment, nor a carpenter with a chip behind his ear, nor a [wool] corder with the cord in his ear, nor a weaver with the cotton in his ear, nor a dyer with a [colour] sample round his neck, nor a money-changer with a denar in his ear; and if he does go forth, he is not liable, though it is forbidden: this is R. Meir's view.”
Slaves
In the Laws of Eshnunna (ancient Sumerian city 1930 BCE) there is mention of the slaves hairlock called an abbuttum. Unfortunately, no one knows exactly what this looks like. In the scarce ancient writings, it was not described. In the later Hammurapi Code, begun by Hammurapi, the Amorite king of the Babylonian empire of the time, the slaves hairlock is again, not described.
Hammurapi Code (1760 BCE)
226. If a barber, without the knowledge of his master, cut the sign of a slave on a slave not to be sold, the hands of this barber shall be cut off.
227. If any one deceive a barber, and have him mark a slave not for sale with the sign of a slave, he shall be put to death, and buried in his house. The barber shall swear: "I did not mark him wittingly," and shall be guiltless.
“Slave girls were already distinguishable from free women by their hair style and possibly by a brand on their forehead.” The Creation of Patriarchy, pg. 137.
Hammurapi’s Code also describes the case of a female slave who was trying to improve her lot in life by trying to change her slave brand into that of the temple brand. Cattle rustlers of the US history are quite familiar with the practice. Had she succeeded, she would have gained housing, clothing and steady food as a temple servant. By about 1000 BCE, the marks became tattoos or brands, to ensure permanency. Also in the Hammurapi Code, rebellious slaves ears were cut off to mark them.
In the text of the Hebrew Tanak, we see the marking of a slave that wishes to remain a slave in his masters house, by the piercing of his ear.
Shemoth [Exodus] 21:1-6, “now these are the ordinances which you are to set before them, 2 if you buy an ibriy slave, he will serve for six years; but on the seventh he will go out as a free man without payment. 3 if he comes in with his body, he will go out with his body; if he is the master of his wife, then his wife will go out with him. 4 if his lord gives him a wife, and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children will belong to her lord, and he will go out with his body. 5 but if the slave plainly says, i love my lord, my wife and my children; i will not go out as a freeman, 6 then his lord will bring him to the elohiym, then he will bring him to the door or the doorpost [mezuzah]. and his lord will pierce [ratsa – bore] his ear with a borer; and he will serve him permanently.”
The second account in HaDebariym [Deuteronomy] 15 is basically the same, except these scribes write that the man is released with provisions, verses 13-15, “and when you send him out free from you, you will not let him go away empty. 14 you will richly adorn him from your flock, and from your threshing floor, and from your winepress, with that which YHWH your el has blessed you, you will give to him. 15 and you will remember that you were a slave in the land of mitsrayim, and YHWH your el redeemed you. on account of this i command you this thing today.” The word ratsa – bore and martsea – borer are only used two times each in the Tanak, and those two uses are in the above verses.
Having basically explained the various aspects of marks in the Indo-European religions and cultures, let us look to the main passage in the Tanak that deals with the seal of “YHWH” and the mark of those to be destroyed.
Yechezqel
Yechezqel [Ezekiel] 9 1 and he cried in my ears with a loud voice, saying, let the overseers of the city draw near, even each with his destroying weapon in his hand. 2 and, look, six men were coming from the way of the upper gate, which faces north. and each had his shattering weapon in his hand. and one man among them was clothed in linen, and an ink horn of a scribe at his loins. and they went in and stood beside the bronze altar. 3and the honor of elohay yisrael had gone on, from on the kerub where it was on it, to the threshold of the house. and he called to the man clothed in linen with the ink horn of a scribe at his loins. 4 and YHWH said to him, pass through in the midst of the city, in the midst of yerushalam, and marking [tawah – taw, waw, he] a mark/sign [taw, waw] on the foreheads of the men who are groaning and are mourning over all the abominations that are done in her midst. 5 and he said to those in my hearing, pass over in the city after him and strike. do not let your eye spare, and do not have pity. 6 slay the aged men, the young man, and the virgin, even children, and women, all to destruction. but to every man who has the mark [taw,waw] 
on him, do not come near. and begin from my sanctuary. and they began with the aged men who were before the house. 7and he said to them, defile the house and fill the courts with the dying. go forth. and they went out and killed in the city. 8 and it happened as they struck, and i remained, even i. then i fell on my face and i cried out and said, ah, adonay YHWH. will you destroy all the remnant of yisrael in your pouring out of your fury on yerushalam? 9 and he said to me, the iniquity of the house yisrael and of yahudah is very great, and the land is filled with blood, and the city is full of perversity. for they say, YHWH has forsaken the land; and, YHWH does not see. 10 and even i, my eye does not spare, and i will not have pity. their way on their head, i will put. 11 and, look, the man clothed with linen, with the ink horn at his loins, reported the matter, saying, i have done as you commanded me.
on him, do not come near. and begin from my sanctuary. and they began with the aged men who were before the house. 7and he said to them, defile the house and fill the courts with the dying. go forth. and they went out and killed in the city. 8 and it happened as they struck, and i remained, even i. then i fell on my face and i cried out and said, ah, adonay YHWH. will you destroy all the remnant of yisrael in your pouring out of your fury on yerushalam? 9 and he said to me, the iniquity of the house yisrael and of yahudah is very great, and the land is filled with blood, and the city is full of perversity. for they say, YHWH has forsaken the land; and, YHWH does not see. 10 and even i, my eye does not spare, and i will not have pity. their way on their head, i will put. 11 and, look, the man clothed with linen, with the ink horn at his loins, reported the matter, saying, i have done as you commanded me.
Below is the Talmudic explanation of the above passage of Yechezqel.
Talmud Shabbath 55a
R. Zera said to R. Simeon, Let the Master rebuke the members of the Resh Galutha's suite. They will not accept it from me, was his reply. Though they will not accept its returned he, yet you should rebuke them. For R. Aha b. R. Hanina said: Never did a favourable word go forth from the mouth of the Holy One, blessed be He, of which He retracted for evil, save the following, where it is written, And the Lord said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark [taw] (the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet) upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof, etc. The Holy One, blessed be He, said to Gabriel, Go and set a taw of ink upon the foreheads of the righteous, that the destroying angels may have no power over them; and a taw of blood upon the foreheads of the wicked, that the destroying angels may have power over them. Said the Attribute of Justice before the Holy One, blessed be He, ‘Sovereign of the Universe! Wherein are these different from those?’ ‘Those are completely righteous men, while these are completely wicked,’ replied He. ‘Sovereign of the Universe!’ it continued, ‘they had the power to protest but did not.’ ‘It was fully known to them that had they protested they would not have heeded them.’ ‘Sovereign of the Universe!’ said he, ‘If it was revealed to Thee, was it revealed to them?’ Hence it is written, [Slay utterly] the old man, the young and the maiden, and little children and women; but come not near any man upon whom is the mark; and begin at my Sanctuary [mikdashi]. Then they began at the elders which were before the house. R. Joseph recited: Read not mikdashi but mekuddashay [my sanctified ones]: this refers to the people who fulfilled the Torah from alef to taw. And straightway, And behold, six men came from the way of the upper gate, which lieth toward the north, every man with his slaughter weapon in his hand; and one man in the midst of them clothed in linen, with a writer's inkhorn by his side. And they went in, and stood beside the brazen altar. Was then the brazen altar [still] in existence? — The Holy One, blessed be He, spake thus to them; Commence [destruction] from the place where song is uttered before Me. And who were the six men? — Said R. Hisda: Indignation [Kezef], Anger [Af], Wrath [Hemah], Destroyer [Mashhith] Breaker [Meshabber] and Annihilator [Mekaleh]. And why taw? — Said Rab: Taw [stands for] tihyeh [thou shalt live], taw [stands for] tamuth [thou shalt die]. Samuel said: The taw denotes, the merit of the Patriarchs is exhausted [tamah]. R. Johanan said: The merit of the Patriarchs will confer grace [tahon]. While Resh Lakish said: Taw is the end of the seal of the Holy One, blessed be He. For R. Hanina said: The seal of the Holy One, blessed be He, is emeth [truth]. R. Samuel b. Nahmani said: It denotes the people who fulfilled the Torah from alef to taw.
Revelations
Revelations 13:16-18 from various translations and languages of the earliest versions.
Greek
“and the small and the great and the rich and the poor and the freemen and the slaves, it causes that they give to them all a mark [charamga] on their right hand or on their foreheads, even that not any could buy or sell, except the one having the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man – and its number is six hundred and sixty-six.”
Etheridge’s Translation of the Peshitta
"and he caused all, small and great, and rich and poor, and sons of freedom and slaves, to have given to them a signature upon their right hands, or upon their foreheads; as that no man might be able to buy or sell, unless he had the signature of the name of the beast of prey, or the number of his name. here is wisdom. let him who hath mind, calculate the number of the beast of prey; for the number is of man; and his number is six hundred and sixty and six."
Beast - literally, (chaivith sheno,) a beast of the tooth, i. e., a carnivorous animal. The same expression occurs throughout. 5 Polyglots. 6 Polyglots.
Murdock’s Translation of the Peshitta
"and to cause that all, great and small, rich and poor, bond and free, should receive a mark on their right hands, or upon their foreheads; so that no one might be able to buy or to sell, except those who had the mark of the name of the beast of prey, or the number of his name. here is wisdom: let him that hath intelligence, compute the number of the beast of prey; for it is the number of a man: and its number is six hundred and sixty and six."
Peshitta from the Hebrew
“and caused all small, and great, and rich and poor and sons of freedom and slaves, to give to them a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads; so that no man might be able to buy or sell, unless he had the mark of the name of the beast of the tearing/torn flesh or from the number of his name. here is wisdom. let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast of the tearing/torn flesh, for from the number belongs that of man, his number is six hundred, sixty and six.”
TERMS
Now we need to define some of the words that are involved in the these texts. First, lets look at the Greek.
Charagma (caragma) means an imprint, mark, character, sign, stamp or inscription that is engraved. The Romans adopted much from the Greek culture and language. When the book of Revelations was written, it was during the Roman occupations. Therefore we need to see how this word was applied in those times. Specifically, it was used not just as the general term, but also for the imperial stamp of the images of names of the emperors on Roman coins, deeds of sale containing the names of the emperors, which included the year of his reign.
Just as the book of Daniel, written not during the time in which it is supposedly set, but during the Roman occupation, the writers did not name the images of the dreams with the current Roman government, which would threaten their lives, but with terms of beast. This same beast, though a number of years later in the book of Revelations, was still a beast in the eyes of the occupied peoples. It is also important to understand that just about all of the Roman emperors viewed themselves as gods in the flesh and used such imagery and titles to validate their rule, further associating the roman emperors with a beast in the eyes of the occupied peoples.
666 - CxV - Chi, Xi, Stigma are the Greek letters that also represent numbers in the passage of the mark.
Stigma – from stizo, to stick, i.e. prick, a mark incised, or punched (for recognition of ownership), i.e. scar of service. Stigma is an obsolete ancient Ionic Greek letter. It appeared between the 5th and 6th letters. Numerically it was used for 6. Not to be confused with a final sigma. Stigma was a ligature, or combination of two letters – sigma and tau.
Prior to stigma being used for the number 6, another ancient Greek letter, digamma 
[derived from the Paleo-Phoenician waw and looks like a capital F], because it looked like two gamma's superimposed. Gamma represented the number 3, so two 3's equaled 6, one of the three numbers needed to flesh out the 24 letter Greek alphabet numerical system. In the 24 letter to numerical system, they were lacking the 6, 90, and 900. Three ancient letters were adopted to represent these numbers. The digamma/stigma for 6, koppa for 90 and sampi for 900. The digamma, as a letter, fell out of use as the w sound disappeared from the Greek language.
[derived from the Paleo-Phoenician waw and looks like a capital F], because it looked like two gamma's superimposed. Gamma represented the number 3, so two 3's equaled 6, one of the three numbers needed to flesh out the 24 letter Greek alphabet numerical system. In the 24 letter to numerical system, they were lacking the 6, 90, and 900. Three ancient letters were adopted to represent these numbers. The digamma/stigma for 6, koppa for 90 and sampi for 900. The digamma, as a letter, fell out of use as the w sound disappeared from the Greek language.
In the Aramaic and Hebraic Peshitta texts, the following terms are defined.
Teref – tear, torn flesh – used for beast.
Siyman – PBH mark, sign, signal. Mnemonic sign. From siman – to mark. [Denominated from siyman (=sign, mark), or perhaps related to AKKa. Simanu (=fixed date, time) Greek semeion – a sign, mark or token, which a person or thing is distinguished from others and is known. A sign, prodigy, portent, for example an unusual occurrence transcending the common course of nature. Signs portending remarkable events soon to happen.
Isopsephia, is a system of numerical superstition. It literally means in the Greek, equal pebble, because pebbles were used to calculate and each letter was equal to a number. Gematria is a Hebrew derivation of isopsephia. The earliest cases of letter to number usage are Babylonian, around the 8th century BCE. It crops up under Greek domination around the 5th century BCE and the oldest known usage in the Hebrew culture is around the first century BCE.
Isopsephia riddles, abounded in the first few centuries CE, the time period of the writing of the book of Revelations.
"Here is an example of an isopsephia riddle recorded by the Roman historian Suetonius in his account of the Roman Emperor Nero, who reigned from 54-68 AD. Suetonius records the following piece of graffiti was written on the walls of the city after the people learned that Nero ordered the assassination of his own mother (59AD):
Calculate the number
of the letters in the name of "Nero"
and in "killed his own mother"
... the sum is the same!
of the letters in the name of "Nero"
and in "killed his own mother"
... the sum is the same!
Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars, circa 110 AD
Revelations 7:3,4, “Do not harm the earth, nor the sea, nor the trees, until we seal the slaves of our god [theo] on their foreheads. And I heard the number of those having been sealed: one hundred forty-four thousands, having been sealed out of every tribe of the sons of Yisrael.” The word slave here is doulos, appearing as far back as the Indo-European Mycenaean inscriptions. It is the opposite of freemen. Interestingly enough, another ancient Greek word for slaves exists, one which denotes a slave of the god, te-o-jo do-e-ro, or any of the later Greek linguistics to show cultic personnel.
Revelations 14:1-4, “And I saw, and look, a Lamb having stood on the mount Tsion, and with him an hundred forty-four thousands, having the name of his Father written upon their foreheads; and I heard a voice out of the heaven, as a voice of many waters, and as a voice of great thunder, and a voice I heard of harpers harping with their harps, and they sing, as it were, a new song before the throne, and before the four living creatures, and the elders, and no one was able to learn the song except the hundred forty-four thousands, who have been bought from the earth; these are they who with women were not defiled, for they are virgin (parthenoi – refers to the temple virgins whose duty it was to protect the Parthenon, the temple of Athene Parthenos); these are they who are following the Lamb wherever he may go; these were bought from among men, a first-fruit to God and to the Lamb.”
This passage has some serious problems. First, no where in the rest of the bible is marriage ever a defiling thing. Second, the use of parthenos for these males is incorrect. Parthenos is used of a virgin woman, such as in the case of Miryam [Mary]. This is not just in the case of the Greek Septuagint and the New Testament, but throughout Classical Greek texts. Athene has, as one of her titles, Athene Parthenos – the Virgin. So also does Artemis, the later offshoot of the original mother figures, especially the triad of women stages – the maid, the mother, the grandmother/sage. Artemis was considered the patron goddess of the parthenoi (plural), protecting them until they either married or died as parthenoi (sometimes sacrificed). These supposed males can not be parthenoi – virgin females. Third, this passage is unbelievably misogynistic stating that being with women is defiling, contrary to the anything associated with YHWH or Yahusha, yet very much the party line of the patriarchal Indo-European belief system, especially for Judeo-Christian Gnostics.
Gnostics are not one set group. Gnosticism is rather an application of mystical elements that can be combined with Greeks to form Greek Gnostics, or Jews to form Jewish Gnostics (think qabbalah) or with Christians for Christian Gnostics. Though Greek philosophy is different from Judaism and different from Christianity, they can each add Gnosticism to their beliefs and come up with a different sect, which is what occurred with Gnosticism. There are, however, common elements to Gnosticism, regardless of the original foundation. Numerology, heavy allegory, hidden knowledge, mysticism are all common elements. In addition to these aspects, misogyny, the hating of women, is also common to Gnosticism, the aspect that women are defiling and need to be avoided to be pure. When you look at the book of Revelations, which by the way was not added to the canon for the New Testament until much later and was not included in the canon of the east, you can easily see that the book is a Gnostic writing and needs to be dealt with as such. Otherwise, a person either has to ignore such elements to accept the book to fit with the rest of the New Testament or ignore most of the rest of the Bible to accept all of Revelations.
Woman Riding the Dragon
Revelations 17:3-5, “and he led me into the desert, in the spirit; and i saw a woman sitting on a beast of prey which was red, full of names of blasphemy, and having seven heads and ten horns. and the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and golden with gold and precious stones and pearls; having a cup of gold in her hand, full of pollutions and uncleanness of her fornications, by which she has polluted the earth. and on her forehead the name was written. sod [council, secret, confide]. babel the great, the mother of the zonah [prostitutes, harlots] and of the abominations of the earth.”
In biblical Hebrew, sod is clearly used for council and confidences. But in post biblical Hebrew times ( again, the time of the book of Revelations), sod takes on a more mystical aspect, the hidden secrets that need to be sought out, the deeper truths. Modern translators use punctuation, which did not occur in the older texts, to interpret. So by placing a comma after “written, sod” they make the word sod as one of the words written on the forehead, rather than the period after sod, which would translate “and on her forehead the name was written. Secret truth (now a statement of a name or symbol written on the forehead, not one of the names written on the head)…” Punctuation can seriously alter the meaning of a sentence and when translators add punctuation in, where none was originally, they can seriously change texts.
As mentioned in several parts of this study, under the patriarchal religious system of the Indo-Europeans, the mother figure became a dragon and was then slain by the warrior king who became head of the pantheon. In this passage of revelations, this woman is riding the beast. She is the daughter of the mother, the newer generation of the mother just as Tiamat the mother, slain and her daughter Inanna/Ishtar being forced to marry and validate the king. Some of the Mesopotamian titles of Ishtar are the Great Mother, Harimtu [heavenly harlot], Great Harlot, Mistress of all Harlots. The problem here, is our concept of a harlot and those of the Sumerian, Akkadian, Assyrian and Babylonian, where and when the inscriptions to Inanna and Ishtar occur. Modern scholars are seriously questioning the fact that earlier male translations of certain terms, were applied to modern Christianity’s perspective of a harlot. Ancient Semitic terms such as naditu, qadistu and entu have no association with harlotry, they are just different levels of female cultic personnel. Then there are also the followers of Ishtar called ishtaritu. There is one term that many believe is close to our concept of commercial prostitution, at least from the tavern perspective and that is harimtu. Harimtu is the Semitic source for the Arabic word harem. The Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, pg. 453, lists Ishtar as the patroness of prostitutes and other independent women.
Clearly, the patriarchal Indo-European system of Christianity was associating the woman on the beast with the mother cultures. Again, with the punctuation, and possible editing, the terms written on her head are a combination of known terms for Ishtar. So instead of “Babel the Great, the Mother of the Zonah…”, it may have been “Babel , the Great Mother, Mother of Zonah, …”, which are known titles of Ishtar.
Mark Conclusion
As shown by numerous examples, there are various forms of marks that identify a person - either by clan/tribe, deity association, caste/slavery or tradesman. There are also a variety of ways that these marks were formed – symbols on bands, amulets, tattoos, branding, scarring, marks that were made with various materials yet could be washed off and marks that were applied during ceremonies, yet not left on permanently.
We have also seen a variety of marks representing various deities. Yet regardless of the marks, the only difference between a seal of god and a mark of a beast is whose side you are on. To those that were polytheistic and tolerated other deities, perhaps acknowledging one as their main patron deity, for another person to bear a symbol of another god was acceptable, unless of course that symbol happened to be of an enemy and therefore enemy deity. At which point, they might liken that enemy as being a beast or some other term to manifest their animosity. To the monotheistic religions (which are generally not really monotheistic, having taken the lesser deities and made them into saints and such, but that is another study) any other deity is an opposition with followers being called pagans, heathens, heretics, unbelievers, etc.
Concerning the Jewish Mysticism of the book of Yechezqel, we have no way of exactly identifying what the mark was, that was placed on the foreheads of those that were protected from death, nor exactly the purpose of the Hebrew letter thau, if that is what was really being referred to, though I have provided a strong example of the common solar images that were used. Since the Gnosticism was a varied religion and not many of the earlier writings survive, since they also believed in hidden knowledge and often followers of such religions kept the bulk of their religion secret to the masses and open to their initiates, we may never really know what the exact mark of “the beast” that Revelations was referring to. But, due to the time of the book and the terms for the Roman Imperial stamps and coinage, there is a good chance that the Judeo-Christian Gnostics that wrote the book, were making an association with the Roman system of coinage and taxation. So from the two mystical texts referred to, there is nothing concrete as to a specific “seal” of god that protects.
Regardless, of whatever may have been intended by these authors and editors of the similar mystical texts, the application they speak of is talismanic. Which means it is a token of some sort that wards off evil. In my eyes, that is not of YHWH anymore than a talisman to ward off the evil eye. The Creator knows those that there is a relationship with and needs no such designation. As to your identifying another believer of this Creator, is this some secret club that you need a secret handshake or password to recognize one another? Can you not tell by their actions? Or is it simply a means to designate those that will not be slaughtered by you for not believing the same? And if so, who are you that you know every man’s mind and heart and at what stage of their journey is acceptable to you? It seems then to be more of a seal of man, rather than of a god.
Below are the deities that are mentioned or referenced in the Tanak. Each section is broken down into their cultural pantheons. The deities are listed, names defined, characteristics listed, passages in scripture that are pertinent, people and city names that show where a beyth/house/temple to that deity was located. Deity names are in the Hebrew, where applicable, but you will need the Hebrew font at my site to view it, available for download, otherwise you will see odd letters in lowercase. The biblical references are in a font called copperplate and mimic the caseless Hebrew, to avoid translator emphasis of capitalization. That is also on the font page for download. As mentioned earlier and in other studies, you need to ignore the vowel points of the later masoretic scribes. When viewed in the Hebrew, you will see, clear as day, the names that in many cases have been hidden by the Medieval scribes vowel points, what they truly are. http://www.lebtahor.com/Resources/fonts.htm
Also, when it comes to place names that bear a deity’s name, there is no way to know which culture the name originated from when several cultures share the same deity. For example, Beyth Dagan: Dagan is in the Amorite, Canaanite/Ugaritic, Phoenician, Philistine and Syria/Aramean cultures. So which cultures influence was responsible for the Beyth Dagan? Some of the information to a particular deity is specific to a culture and some of it is general to a number of them, in which case you may see a wee bit of the general repeated, so that you are not having to flip all over a large document to follow the “see this heading” trail. I know that some of you may not want to print this large document out, where flipping between hardcopy pages is far easier than scrolling up and down in a net document. Please remember, these are not complete cultural pantheons either. They are provided to show the influence on the Tanak, either by direct name, assimilation or inference.
Another important note is the fact that I have placed the main female goddess names at the top of each cultural grouping. This is due to the fact, as mentioned above in the From Clan Mother to Goddess section, that archaeology, anthropology and history have proven that all these cultures had a main mother – goddess culture, prior to the waves of patriarchal domination that occurred with the Kurgan / Indo-European invasions. These invaders subjected the local peoples to servitude, created caste systems and set themselves up as the king/warrior rulers with their priests in the next caste. These priests set to work, re-mything the existing beliefs of the subjugated peoples. They took the mother goddess, and in many instances had their new male god, kill off the mother (and sometimes her son), then marry the daughter, or they outright raped and married the mother. They then took all of the creation and gifts of civilization aspects of the mother, as well as her stories and attributed them to the new male conqueror deity. Female goddesses were then demoted, demonized, and vilified. Once again, do not mistake the facts of what happened for my advocating a goddess system of worship or a matriarchal government instead of the predominant patriarchal. I do not believe that either the matriarchal nor patriarchal systems are the will of YHWH.
Asratum – Asratum / Ashratum / Ashratu / Ashirta, also known as Asherah, is the wife of Amurru. She is the mother goddess. The worship of Ashirta was early introduced into Mesopotamia by the Amorites that migrated there. The name in time became pronounced Ishtar in Babylonian and Assyrian, though some forms of Astartu have been found from the time of Esarhaddon. “A Babylonian hymn, rewritten in the Greek period, informs us that in her original home, where her name was Ashrat, and regarded as the ‘goddess of the plain,’ she was the consort of Amurru (Mar-Tu-e) ‘lord of the mountain.’ “The Empire of the Amorites, Albert T. Clay, pg. 173.
“Ashirta offers the most complicated and intricate of all problems in connection with the names of the West Semitic deities, the reason being that her worship was spread throughout the Semitic world, that in certain lands her sex was changed; and that her name appears in so many forms.” The Empire of the Amorites, Albert T. Clay, pg. 171. The later writings of this deity from the Canaanite perspective are in that section. Since there is not much documentation for the Amorite culture, I will not add other cultures documentation to this section. The fuller version is obviously in the Canaanite section.
City Name: Atharoth, Ashtharoth
In an inscription on the walls of the temple of Amun , at Karnak, from a military campaign of Thutmose III , who reigned in Egypt from 1479-1425, there is a listing of cities from the territory of Kenaan Ashtoreth , which has the same written consonants.
Shamash – a solar goddess in the Amoriy culture. Shapash is the Canaanite solar goddess and plays a large part in the Ugarit texts, especially concerning the Rephaiym and the Baal cycle. Before I came across the Amurru pantheon, while researching the Canaanite, I thought it odd that there were people and place names with Shamash, which is attested in the Assyrian and Babylonian pantheons. In those cultures though, Shamash / Shemesh is male. Why was there so much correlation to the Canaanite pantheons in the people and deity place names of Israel and Judah , yet not Shapash? Why choose a deity farther away and from a much later time period? Then I came across the Balaam inscription, which involves a solar goddess whose first and last letter is shiyn [Sh] – Sh_Sh, but the middle letter, what they believe is an mem [m], is not distinct. In papers on the translation, it is generally rendered as Shemesh, yet the deity is a solar goddess. Then I came across research on the Amorite deities and Shamash/Shemesh is a female solar deity. Due to the Amurru and Ammonite connection of Shamash, I am including associations of Shapash for comparison.
Shapash, as a sun goddess, spends half her time in the underworld, by virtue of her descending there each night. which is where ancients believed the sun went when it set. The following is part of a Ugaritic text praising Shapash for her role in locating and securing the body of Baal, placing it on the back of Anath, who returned it to the land of the living: O Shapsu, may you judge over the heroes, O Shapsu, may you judge over the gods, the divine ones constitute your regular company, look, the dead ones constitute your regular company.
Each night she makes her descent to the underworld and was therefore associated with escorting the dead to their abode. One ritual states that Shapash, the Judge, carries those from above to below and from below to above.
For the oracle aspect, see Shamash in the Akkadian / Sumerian section.
Personal Name: Shamashon [Shimshon/Samson], Shamashriy [pertaining to Shamash],
City: Beyth Shemesh [house of Shamash], Eyn Shamash [eye of Shamash], Iyr Shamash [city of Shamash ]
Biblical Passages:
Chabaqquq [Habakkuk] 3:11, “shemesh and yarech stood still in their dwelling. at the light of your arrows they go, at the shining of your gleaming spear.”
Amurru / Uru – Also referred to as Martu in the Sumerian dialect, was the son of the sky god and father of the gods - Anu. He is called the Lord of the Mountain – Bel Shade [Bel Sade], revealing that the Amoriy originally inhabited the mountainous region. Many scholars associate Shade with Shadday, meaning mountain. This gives rise to El Shadday [Bel Shade] as the Mountain One. Though Shadday means breasted one, a later application by a patriarchal culture could associate the male with mountains where before it was breasts from a woman. Another title is Bel Tseri, Lord of the Steppes. Amurru is characterized as a storm god, equal with Adad or Yahweh. According to a Sumerian hymn, Amurru is a warrior god, strong as a lion, using a bow and arrows. Being a storm god, thunder and lightning are also his weapons, giving rise to the title The Thunderer. Amurru is viewed as a shepherd god and is depicted with a shepherd’s staff in his hand, as well as bearing the title Shepherd who treads on the mountains. The curved staff frees from punishment. Viewed as nomadic, Amurru dresses in sheepskins and lives in a tent, having no house and is therefore the patron deity of nomads. He is viewed as a family god by the title God of the father. Later Amurru is often equated with Adad.
Personal Name: Many Amorite names in the Tanak have been altered by the scribal editors with the vowel points. For example, Amraphel [Bereshiyth (Gen.) 14:1] Alef, Mem, Resh, Fe [Pe], Lamed – AMRPL, is written Amurru-ipal, in the Amoriy and means Amurru has answered. Some scholars view Amurru-ipal as Hammurabi, whose name is sometimes spelled as Hammurapi, depending on the cuneiform dialect. Hammurabi claimed descent from Shamshi-Adad, an Amorite and founder of the first northern Mesopotamian empire [Archaeology in Syria , Akkermans and Schwartz, pg. 288.].
City Name: Urushalim [Urusalimmu, Jerusalem ] Amurru is appeased or at peace. All the more understandable when you realize that in Yahusha [Joshua] 10:5, Adonitsedeq [Adoni-Zedek] is listed as one of the five Amorite kings and he is king of Urushalim [Jerushalem]. Moriah is a scribal change as well. Bereshiyth [Genesis] 22:2 states, “he [el] said, take now your son, your only son, whom you love, yitschaq [isaac], and go to the land of moriyah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which i will tell you." Mount Moriah is associated with Jerusalem , the site of the threshing floor of Arunah, which became the site for the temple of Shlomoh Mount Gerizim Jerusalem or a Samaritan perspective of Hamor and Shechem, both territories are ancient Amorite centers of worship and both bear the root of the deity name Amurru.
Biblical Passages:
Bereshiyth [Genesis] 14:13, “then a fugitive came and told abram the ibriy. now he was living by the oaks of mamre the amoriy, brother of eshkol and brother of aner, and these were allies with abram.”
BeMidbar [Numbers] 13:29, “amaleq [amalekites] is living in the land of the south, and the chiththiy [hittites], and the yebusiy [jebusites], and the emoriy [amurru / amorites] are living in the hill country, and the kenaaniy [canaanites] are living by the sea, and by the side of the yarden.”
Yechezqel [Ezekiel] 16:3, “and say, so says adonay YHWH to yerushalem, the place of your origin and the place of your birth is of the land of the kenaaniy [canaanite]. your father, the amoriy [amarru, amorite] and your mother, chiththiyth [female suffix with hittite, basically hittitess].”
Dagan / Dagaan / Daganu – An Amorite/Canaanite/Ugaritic/Syrian/Mesopotamian god of fertility. Some scholars believe that Dagan is another name for El. The belief that his name means fish because of the Felishthiym [Philistine] association with the sea is a stretch. The fact that the Semitic word for grain is dagan is more likely. Some scholars question which came first. Did grain come to be called by the deity that he was over or the other way around? Another possible confirmation of that name meaning grain/corn is from an account handed down over many years by several authors. The supposed original author is Sanchuniathon – a Phoenician, who then is translated by Philo of Bylos, who then is copied by Eusebius. The following are the two quotes involving Dagon and grain. “...Dagon, which signifies Siton (grain/corn in Greek)...” and, “And Dagon, after he had found out bread-corn, and the plough, was called Zeus Arotrius.” The idea that his name is associated with fish has no basis in any Semitic language. It is a later rabbinic tradition that Dagon means fish.
In the book, Time at Emar by, Daniel Fleming, the ritual texts dealing with the Zukru Festival have a number of names that bear witness to the fertility aspect of Dagan: Dagan, Lord of the Seed, Dagan, Lord of the Offspring, Dagan Lord of the Firstborn, Dagan, and Lord of Creation. Fleming writes in note 178, pg 90, that the Aleppo citadel stone has an inscription stating Dagan as the Father of Gods. He also sites in the same note that a Mari text A. 1258+ :9 calls Dagan, “the great mountain, father of the gods.” On pg. 91 he states, “Even under the zukru festival’s royal sponsorship, Dagan is not celebrated as the king of the gods but as their parent.” This father of the gods aspect ties in with the fact that the Emar zukru text mention the gods as amounting to 70, just as the number of the offspring of El and Asherah at Ugarit.
The name Dagan is frequently a theophoric element in Amorite names from numerous kingdoms. On Hammurabi’s Code, Hammurabi writes that he is a warrior of Dagan. Dagan first appears in 2500 BCE at Mari, in 2300 BCE at Ebla and 1300 BCE at Ugarit . Hammurapi [the Amorite spelling, Hammurabi is the Akkadian], an Amorite, gives credit for the subjugation of the settlements along the Euphrates River Ebla , Emar and Ugarit . Dagan was the chief god of the Ebla pantheon, also having one of the four gates named for him. He was also the chief deity of Emar where a major festival, similar to Pesach / Passover was performed. The worship of Dagan spread from the east westward, to Syria and through Canaan . At the time of the Ugaritic texts, Dagan was new to the scene and does not appear prominently in their texts, though there is a temple to him there. He was adopted by the Felishthiym [Philistines] and was the patron deity of the city of Ashdod .
City Name: Beyth Dagon [House of Dagon]
Biblical Passages:
Shoftiym [Judges] 16:23 , “and the rulers of the felishthiym [philistines] gathered to sacrifice a great sacrifice to dagon their elohiym, and to exult. and they said, our elohey has given our enemy shimshon [samson] into our hand.”
I Shmuel [Samuel] 5:1-12, “and the felishthiym took the ark of the elohiym and brought it from ebenezer to ashdod ashdod ashdod ashdod gath
Hoshea 7:14, “and they have not cried to me with their heart, when they howled on their beds. they slash themselves for dagan and thiyrosh; they turn against me. ” Thiyrosh in the Ugarit is Tirsu, the god/goddess of wine, possibly related to the Akkadian beer wine goddess Siras. Another similar aspect is that of the Sumerian Dumuzi (please see the Babylonian/Assyrian section for Tammuz, specifically Dumuzi.) After Dumuzi is bound and dragged to the netherworld in the place of his wife Inanna, one account states that his loyal sister, Gestinanna [Gestinanna of the vine] agrees to share her brothers fate, with the two of them alternating six months each in the netherworld. Dumuzi represents the grain, which became beer and his sister, Gestinanna, the wine.
Hoshea 9:1, “yisrael, do not rejoice for joy, like the peoples. for you have whored away from your elohey. you have loved the whores wage on all threshing floors of dagan.”
Adad / Hadad / Addu – a storm, weather, tempest god, whose symbols are lightning and thunderbolts. Adad was also a war deity. Hammurabi called him “the mighty bull who gores the enemy.” He is pictured as resting his foot upon a bull, or standing on it entirely, leading the bull on a leash attached to a ring in its nose. In the same hand he holds a thunderbolt and the other he usually holds against his breast. Originally Hadad was an Amorite, then Syrian / Aramean god called Addu/Haddu in the cuneiform text. Later he was known as Rammanu, the Thunderer, vocalized as Rimmon in the Tanak, a god of thunder and storm. Some texts say he is the son of Dagon. Also known as Baal Hadad. Adad / Hadad was also part of the neighboring Hittite pantheon. The second image is that of Hadad from Hittite territory. You can see the thunderbolts in both images.
Ug. V. 3.1-4, “Balu [Baal] sits enthroned, his mountain is like a throne; Haddu the Shepherd; like the flood. In the midst of his mountain, divine Sapan, in the midst of the mount of his victory, seven bolts of lightning he hurls, eight store-houses of thunder. A shaft of lightning he wields in his right hand.”
The third image is that of the Hittite Teshub, also associated with Adad.
Syrian / Aramean inscriptions called the Hadad Panammu inscription was found in Zenjirli [also spelled Zincirli], northwest Syria . It is a large statue of Hadad, erected by Panammu at his grave. Panammu Bar Qarli was a king of Yadi. On the statue of Hadad is a 34 line inscription, which does have some damage in places, therefore lacks a complete text at times. The inscription is cataloged as KAI 214. The following are lines 1,2 and 14-18 adapted from the transliteration and translation of George Albert Cooke, A text-book of North Semitic Inscriptions, pgs. 159-162.
“I am Panammu Bar Qarli, king of Yadi, who have set up this statue to Hadad in my ? There stood by me the god Hadad and El and Reshef and Rekub-El and Shamash...Hadad gave indeed to...he called me to build and in my? Hadad gave, indeed ? to build, and i built indeed? And set up this statue of Hadad, and the place of Panammu Bar Qarli, king of Yadi, together with a statue...whoever? of my sons will hold the scepter, and sit on my seat and grow strong and sacrifice to this Hadad, and make mention of the name Hadad, or...will say, may the soul of Panammu eat with you and may the soul of Panammu drink with you, will memorialize the soul of Panammu with Hadad...this sacrifice...may he look favorably on him to Hadad and to El and to Rekeb-El and to Shamash.”
Personal Name: Hadadezer [Hadad is helper]
Biblical Passages:
ZekarYahu [Zechariah] 12:11 , “in that day the mourning in yerushalaim will be great, like the mourning of hadad rimmon [like the weeping for baal or tammuz], in the valley of megiddon.”
II Melekiym [Kings] 5:18, “may YHWH pardon your servant for this thing, when my master goes to the beyth [house of] rimmon to bow there, and he is supported by my hand, and i bow myself in the beyth rimmon; when i bow myself in the beyth rimmon, may YHWH pardon your servant in this thing.”
There is no fixed order in the Ugarit pantheon. As people migrated, so did various deities and their different traditions of the deities jockeyed for position.
Asherah / Athirat / Athirath / Ashratu - dxy` In the Semitic, Ugaritic/Canaanite/Phoenician pantheon she is the mother goddess, the creatress. She is later married to El and one of her other names is that of Elat [female version of El]. Her symbols are the tree of life, sacred trees or poles, at times with serpents twined on them. She is also viewed as standing on a lion occasionally. At Ugarit her children are called her pride of lions. Asherah, primarily being the mother goddess is portrayed with suckling breasts and is sometimes viewed in the maternal role of wet nurse, suggesting that kings are made quasi-divine by suckling from the Goddess Athirath/Asherah. In Ugarit she is called the creatress of the gods, and was said to have borne 70 sons [gods]. One of her titles is Lady Asherah. Though the Tanak pairs Asherah with Baal, who is blended with characteristics of El, this did not occur in the Ugaritic texts. Some scholars believe that this was the traditional method of usurping a throne, to take the ruler’s wife, as Dawiyd [David] took King Shaul’s wife while he was still alive; and as Dawiyd’s son Abshalom did with the concubines that Dawiyd left behind in Yerushalem, when Dawiyd was forced to flee the city. But the more likely probability is that later editors chose to pair Asherah, whom they detested with an equally detestable rival to their monotheism, Baal. In some late archaeological inscriptions, she has been paired with YHWH. As explained later, Baal is also a title that is paired with El and also with Dagan, so the biblical references could simply be acknowledging
Below are a number of archaeological images of Asherah. These are not the only artifacts of course, but are a sampling chosen to reveal the progression of the Asherah images over time. First you see the goddess alone, holding plants/branches, a sign of her fertility and orientation with nature. Next you see her on a throne, again holding branches with caprids being sustained from them. Then you see her being represented by a stylized tree with the caprids eating from the tree. The next image is from a jar, where you see the stylized tree with caprids on both sides. The following image is a blow up of that section of the jar. As you can see, over time, the tree becomes stylized and begins to resemble the menorah. The next image is a copy of the famous ZekarYahu [Zechariah] vision of the two olive trees on each side of the menorah. The menorah became an accepted image of Asherah as the tree of life and was in the Second Temple
In Eastern Orthodox (Greek and Russian mainly), there is a hymn called the Akathist Hymn. Akathist means “not sitting”. The history behind this hymn, accepted by the church in 626 CE, is that outside the walls of Constantinople , hordes of “barbarians” which comprised mostly of Avars, began to attack the city. The Patriarch Sergius and his clergy, marched around the wall of Constantinople with an icon of Theotokos. Theotokos means god bearer and is one of the many titles of Mary. Shortly after, a great storm with tidal waves destroyed the enemy fleet, with the remaining retreating. At this point, the hymn, which has been added to over time, had the lines of the Invincible Champion added. As a result of the victory, the faithful of the city filled the Church of Theotokos and prayed all night, sang praised to Mary without sitting, hence the name that came to be attributed to this hymn.
The earliest portions of this hymn are quite old and bear a pattern of assimilation from the Asherah motifs. The following are portions of the hymn that are applicable to this point. “Rejoice, star that causes the Sun to appear. Rejoice, womb of the Divine Incarnation. Rejoice, You through whom creation is renewed. Rejoice, You through whom we worship the Creator. Rejoice, Seer of God's ineffable will. The power of the Most High then overshadowed the Virgin for conception, and showed Her fruitful womb as a sweet meadow to all who wish to reap salvation, as they sing: Alleluia. Rejoice, branch of an Unfading Sprout. Rejoice, acquisition of Immortal Fruit. Rejoice, laborer that labors for the Lover of mankind. Rejoice, You Who gives birth to the Planter of our life. Rejoice, You Who makes to bloom the garden of delight. Rejoice, You from whom flows milk and honey. Rejoice, tree of shining fruit, whereby the faithful are nourished. Rejoice, tree of goodly shade by which many are sheltered. “
Bear in mind that Constantinople is modern Istanbul , Turkey [ancient Hittite], though the larger Constantinople spread further west in what is now Bulgaria . This city had sea access from the northeast Black Sea and the southwest Mediterranean Sea . Trade routes traded more than just physical goods, they also traded deities. This area is considered where Europe meets Asia , right on the edge of the territory that was home to the myths of Asherah, the bearer of many gods. The ancient Hittite name for Asherah was Asherdu, Ashertu or Asirat. While this is Eastern Orthodox, the motifs attributed to Mary are clearly ancient Asherah motifs that have continued and spread, added to over time like many layers of paint and plaster on old home walls.
Biblical Passages:
I Melekiym [Kings] 18:19, “and now send, gather all yisrael to me, to mount carmel and four hundred and fifty of the prophets of baal, and four hundred of the prophets of the asherah, who eat at the table of jezebel.”
In these two passages the writer has substituted a common suckling association of Asherah for Tsiyon [Zion – Jerusalem ].
YeshaYahu 66:11, “that you may suck and be satisfied with her comforting breasts; that you may milk out and delight yourselves with the fullness of her honor.”
YeshaYahu 60:16, “you will also suck the milk of nations, and you will suck the breast of kings. and you will know that i, YHWH, am your savior and your redeemer, the mighty one of yaaqob.”
Shapash / Sapsu - yty Shapash is the Canaanite solar goddess and plays a large part in the Ugarit texts, especially concerning the Rephaiym and the Baal cycle. While biblical place names in Kenaan do not incorporate Shapash into names, the solar deity Shamash / Shemesh does. While this name is associated with the Assyrian and Babylonian pantheon, whose solar deity was male, I found it hard to believe that all the rest of the Canaanite pantheon was very evident in personal and place toponyms [names], as well as in the Tanak, except Shapash. Then I came across the Balaam inscription, which involves a solar goddess whose first and last letter is shiyn [Sh] – Sh_Sh, but the middle letter, what they believe is an mem [m], is not distinct. In papers on the translation, it is generally rendered as Shemesh, yet the deity is a solar goddess. Then I came across research on the Amorite deities and Shamash/Shemesh is a female solar deity.
Shapash, as a sun goddess, spends half her time in the underworld, by virtue of her descending there each night, which is where ancients believed the sun went when it set. The following is part of a Ugaritic text praising Shapash for her role in locating and securing the body of Baal, placing it on the back of Anath, who returned it to the land of the living: O Shapsu, may you judge over the heroes, O Shapsu, may you judge over the gods, the divine ones constitute your regular company, look, the dead ones constitute your regular company.
Each night she makes her descent to the underworld and was therefore associated with escorting the dead to their abode. One ritual states that Shapash, the Judge, carries those from above to below and from below to above.
For the oracle aspect of Shapash, see Shamash in the Babylonian / Assyrian section.
Anath / Anat / Anatu – zpr Anath is the daughter of El and Asherah, as well as sister to Baal. Some scholars like to present her as a consort to Baal, that she is a goddess of sexuality as well, but there is too much controversy and not enough textual evidence to support that belief. She is represented as a virgin and one of her titles is that of Maiden Anath. She is also the goddess of war and is a huntress, depicted with a helmet, shield, spear and battle ax. In the role of a violent warrior, one of Anath’s titles is Anath the Destroyer. Please see Athene in the Sea Peoples section for the origins of Anath.
Anath with battle axe, shield and spear, from “Anat, Queen of Heaven, Mistress of the Gods.”
Anath is a wee bit different from the other deities, in that she does not abide by social norms, and by norms, I mean the patriarchal societies that dominate most cultures. Anath does not live in the house of her father El, nor does she marry and live in the house of her husband. She speaks disrespectfully to El and threatens his life, saying that she will cause his grey hair to run with blood and his grey beard with gore if he does not grant her requests. In both cases, El simply replies, I know you my daughter, that you are like a man.” Anath does not respect any authority and seems to do as she pleases, when she pleases. The fact that Anath chooses occupations that are generally considered a man’s occupation, seems to be a great problem, especially for the patriarchal, deuteronomistic writers of portions of the Tanak. There are portions of text about her, but her name has either been removed or was intentionally deleted in an effort to remove anything female from the rising monotheism that they were advocates of. The portrayal of women, that did not conform to the subservient confines of the patriarchal religions, were depicted as aberrant women, out of control without a man to dominate them, unruly.
One inscription concerning Anat, states that she is the strongest of the astartes. In this case, astarte is not the female deity, but it is the generalized term for goddess, much as the word goddess is used in English. An actual praise to Anath from the Chester Beatty Papyrus VII : “Anath, the Victorious Goddess, the woman who acts like a warrior, who wears a kilt like men and a sash like women.” It is said that she gets into a blood lust and slays her enemies, wading thigh deep in the blood and gore. One of the passages about her, that is now attributed to YHWH is in the book of YirmeYahu [Jer.] 46:10-12, " for this is the day of adonay YHWH tsebaoth, a day of vengeance, that he may avenge himself of his foes. and the sword will devour, and be sated, and made drunk with their blood, for there is a sacrifice to adonay YHWH tsebaoth in the north country by the river ferath.11 go up into gilead and take balm, virgin daughter of mitsrayim [egypt
In the older Egyptian religion, the virgin daughter of Mitsrayim [Egypt ] was Bastet, the daughter of Ra, portrayed as a lion headed female. She was considered one of his eyes. She was a virgin warrior goddess, much in the same way that Astarte / Anath were. She was said to have attacked men for their turning away from Ra, to the point that she had a blood lust and had to be stopped to not totally wipe out mankind. She was wading thigh high in blood, which ties into the preceding verse in YirmeYahu about the day of YHWH being a day of vengeance on His foes and His sword will devour till it is satisfied, till it has quenched its thirst with blood. But Ramses II, who ruled Egypt from 1279 BCE to 1213 BCE , adopted Anath as his patron deity. There are a number of stele and inscriptions depicting her and stating that she is the maiden daughter of Ra, just as Bastet was in the older religion. At the time that this passage of the Tanak was written, the virgin daughter of Mitsrayim [Egypt ] would have been the Canaanite Anath adopted by the Egyptians, the daughter of Ra. This passage is an attack on pagan deities and what they are known for, but due to translators editing, you miss who this is really about.
There was a verse in Shemoth [Exodus] 23:19 , 34:26 and HaDebariym [Deuteronomy] 14:21, that mentioned not cooking a kid in its mother’s milk. No one knew exactly what that was all about, for hundred and hundreds of years, until the Ugaritic library was uncovered. At that time, they found the inscription on Ugaritic Tablet SS, line 14, about a Canaanite custom of cooking a kid in its mother’s milk, a ritual ceremony to draw the blessing of fertility to the earth. Now, it is understood that the warning was about a pagan fertility practice. In like manner, there are two verses which I believe pertain to Anath. The first, HaDebariym 22:5, usually translated in most English texts as something like this, a woman will not wear the garments of a man, nor a man women’s clothing. This passage always concerned me, due to studying archaeology and seeing paintings on walls and such, the clothing between men and women, regardless of culture, looked pretty much the same. And in these modern times, I love wearing jeans. So on a personal level, I did not want to offend YHWH, but this lone passage caused more questions than it answered and no one seemed to have answers for me. Then recently while doing some other work, I looked the verse up in the Hebrew and saw that it was no where near the typical English translations. “there will not be the thing of a geber [warrior/hero] on a woman, nor will a geber [warrior/hero] put on a woman's mantle/cloak. for whoever does these things is an abomination to YHWH your elohey.” This word geber - warrior/hero, has the Hebrew root word of gabar, which means to be strong, overpower. This is not your typical, general word for man, such as iysh, adam, or enosh. Obviously, we need to understand the context, to better understand what this verse is about. A woman is not to have a thing, which does not specify a garment, but any thing of a warrior on her, which can include armor and weaponry. And likewise, a warrior is not to have a mantle, cloak of a woman. That part is not as specific, but can possibly be figured out, based on cultic context. If we understand the first part of women not dressing and acting as a warrior, such as Anath, then looking to the opposite role for men, it might be applied that warriors were not to dress as women, as the male shrine prostitutes were said to have done. Women who battled were a great source of trouble to patriarchal societies, such as the factual Amazon women warriors to the Greeks. I am not stating that YHWH does not want women to fight, wear armor or brandish weapons. I am simply relaying what patriarchal, deuteronomistic authors have written on the subject and then ascribed to YHWH for authority.
Another Ugaritic example connected with Anath is that of Pughat. Danel was a man of the Rephaiym in the Epic of Aqhat. He had no son and prayed for one and was eventually granted one, named Aqhat. Aqhat was given a bow by the gods. Anath coveted the bow and demanded it, threatening him if he refused. Aqhat refused and she sent one of her servants, Yaptan, to kill him. Pughat, the sister of Aqhat, decides to avenge his death. To kill Yaptan, “she washed and rouged herself with rouge from seashells whose habitat is a thousand fields in the sea. Beneath, she put on a warriors garment. She placed a knife in its sheath; she placed a sword in its scabbard. On top she put on a woman’s garment.” In this manner she sought to gain audience as a prostitute, then kill him with the weapons of the warrior.
Anath and Astarte were one and the same mother goddess at one time. Then they were separate goddesses, which came to be merged at times, even considering Anath an astarte. There is a late Roman cultic practice of the initiates of Astarte involving the men wearing of women’s clothing. During the rituals, when the initiates were in a frenzy, they would castrate themselves with stone or pottery, no metal was allowed. They would then assume the clothing of women and serve Astarte. With this in mind, the command for men not to wear women’s clothing might stem from the same goddess’s worship. In later Ugarit culture, Anath is associated with Athene, both the warrior goddess daughter of the chief male deity in the pantheon. There are bilingual inscriptions from Cyprus (KAI 42) that have Athene in one language and Anat in the other.
The other two verses that were oddly placed in a chapter of other miscellaneous warnings of pagan practices deals with the side whiskers and beards. Wayiqqra [Leviticus] 19:27 states, “you will not strike off the side of your head, nor destroy the side of your beard.” And 21:5, “they will not make their heads bald, and they will not shave the side of their beard; and they will not make a cutting in their flesh;” The possibility of these passages being applied to cult of the dead practices exists. The second verse was addressed to leaders and mentions other things that would disqualify them from their positions, but does not specifically mention the cult of the dead. The first verse is in a chapter of mishmashed verses of a wide variety of subjects, but does precede a verse about not making any cuttings in your flesh or tattoos, a verse most English translations associate with the dead, but the word for Moth, nor the dead ones, mothiym, does not occur in this verse. These cuttings and tattoos could simply be the tribal or deity marks of association or ownership.
Another warrior/male aspect associated with Anath is that of her shaving her side whiskers and her beard with flint, to mourn Baal when she found his dead body and then went to kill Moth to avenge the death of Baal. This is important, not because she may have been a wee bit hairy, like some photos I have seen of women in Eastern Europe, but because of exactly what she is cutting and why.
If Anath was known to cut the side whiskers on the side of her head and shave her beard, as her father El had done when he heard the news of Baal’s death, this may be an indication of the way a man mourned in the cult of the dead. Another thought might be the warrior aspect that this is the general appearance of soldiers in some cultures. After doing a brief search through images from archaeology on Canaanites, most of which encompass deities and warriors, you see a pattern of the side burns and sides of the beards being shaven. This occurs in some other cultures as well, so it is not strictly Canaanite. My theory is battle. Alexander the Great, when viewing a battle between his Macedonian soldiers and some Persians, noticed the propensity of the soldiers to grab their enemies hair and beards, pulling the men in closer to stab them. He decided that if there was nothing to grab, his men would have an advantage, so he ordered that his soldiers shave their faces and cut their hair short as a military tactic. So whether Anath did the shavings as a sign of morning, in a fashion that men would do, or whether it was a warrior trait, possibly as a warfare advantage, Anath, a woman, is following a male practice of shaving the sideburns and sides of the beard, or a patriarchal society is making her more male since they could not wipe her out as a female.
Another archaeological find is that of some arrowheads dated to the 11th century BCE . These arrowheads belonged to the warrior class Ben-Anat – son of Anath. One is inscribed with the personal name meaning servant of the lioness, the lioness associated with Anath. Another is inscribed `bdlb’t ben anath, a personal name meaning servant of lioness + son of Anath. Four arrowheads have the inscription of another personal name beginning with a Chet, Shiyn before servant of the lioness.
Please see the Phoenician / Philistine – Sea Peoples section below on Athene / Athena for further information on the Anath connection.
Personal Name: Shamgar ben Anath [ben = son of] – a warrior, Shoftiym [Judges] 3:31
City: Beyth [house of] Anath, Anathoth
Biblical Passages: no direct verses as mentioned above.
El / Il / Ilu – l` In the Semitic, Ugaritic/Canaanite pantheon, as well as the Phoenician pantheon. El is the creator of the earth, who is supreme, Father of the Gods, the Ab Adam – Father of Mankind. He is referred to as the Father of Years, with a grey beard, as the ancient of days and another of his titles is Elyon. In the patriarchal accounts he is married to Asherah/Athirath and begats many gods and goddesses. The symbol for El is that of a bull. He reigned over the assembly of the elohiym [gods] at Mount Hursanu [place of judgment], in the Amanus Range CTA 4.IV.20-24, “Then they set face to El at the source of the two rivers, to the midst of the streams of the double deep. They opened the domed tent of El and entered the tabernacle of King, Father of Years.” He is also depicted as a male god, seated on a throne, generally with a palm extended forward. El lived in a tent, not a palace or temple. The tent of El, on his mountain was where the assembly of the gods met. This tent did not have one room, but a number of chamber, as revealed by CTA 3.V.33-35, “El answered from the seventh chamber, from the eighth enclosure.” This is similar to the way the Mishkan was set up with the various courts, with the innermost court being the Holy of Holies.
Ugaritic text CTA 10.III .6-7 states, “For our creator is eternal, for ageless is he who formed us.”
Personal Name: Abiyel [my father is El], Daniyel [my judge is El]
City: Beyth El [house of El]
Biblical Passages:
Bereshiyth [Genesis] 14:19, 22 “he blessed him and said, blessed be abram of el elyon, creator of heaven and earth;”
Bereshiyth 21:33, “abraham planted an eshel [type of tree] at beer sheba
Shemoth [Exodus] 34:6, “then YHWH passed by in front of him and proclaimed, "YHWH, YHWH, el, compassionate and favorable, slow to anger, and abounding in kindness and truth;”
Thehillah [Psalm] 82, “a mizmor of asaf. elohiym [gods] stand in the assembly of el; he judges in the midst of the elohiym [gods] . 2 until when will you judge unjustly, and lift up the faces of the wicked? selah. 3 judge the poor and fatherless; do justice to the afflicted and needy. 4 deliver the poor and needy; save out of the hand of the wicked. 5 they neither know nor will understand; they walk in darkness; all the foundations of the earth are shaken. 6 i have said, you are elohiym, and all of you are sons of elyon. 7 but you will die as men, and fall like one of the rulers. 8 rise, elohiym, judge the earth; for you will inherit in all the goyim.” This ties in with a Ugaritic passage about King Kirta, who is ailing and his son, Yassib, gives the following as to the reason why, “You do not judge the case of the widow, nor do you judge the case of the wretched. You do not drive out the oppressor of the poor. You do not feed the orphan before you, nor the widow behind you.” These were all principles of what El judged. This principle is not a new one.
Thehillah 68:5,6, “in his set apart dwelling elohiym is a father of the fatherless, and a judge of the widows. 6 elohiym causes the lonely to live at home; he brings out those who are bound with chains, while the rebellious dwell in a dry land.”
YirmeYahu [Jeremiah] 10:10-13, “but YHWH is the true elohiym, he is the living elohiym and the eternal king. at his wrath the earth will tremble, and the goyim will not be able to stand his indignation. 11 so you will say to them, the elohay who have not made the heavens and the earth, they will perish from the earth and from under these heavens. 12 it is he who made the earth by his power, who established the world by his wisdom, and who stretched out the heavens by his understanding. 13 when he utters his voice, there is a noise of waters in the heavens. he causes the vapors to go up from the ends of the earth; he makes lightnings for the rain and brings forth the wind out of his storehouses.”
YeshaYahu [Isaiah] 14:13 , “for you have said in your heart, i will go up to the heavens; i will raise my throne above the stars of el, and i will sit in the mountain of assembly, in the sides of tsafon.”
Hoshea 12:1, “efrayim [ephraim] circles around me with lies, and the beyth yisrael [house of israel ] with deceit; but yahudah [judah
Yechezqel [Ezekiel] 28:2, “son of man, say to the ruler of tsur [tyre], so says the adonay YHWH, because your heart is lifted up, and you have said, el i am , i sit in the seat of elohiym, in the heart of the seas; yet you are a man, and not el, though you give your heart as the heart of elohiym.”
Dagon / Dagan / Daganu - pbc pebc An Amorite / Canaanite / Ugaritic / Phoenician / Felishthiym / Syrian / Mesopotamian god of fertility. Some scholars believe that Dagan is another name for El. IN Ugarit there was a temple to Baal and one to Dagan, but not one to El, that has been found. The belief that his name means fish because of the Felishthiym [Philistine] association with the sea is a stretch (I would say bullshit). The fact that the Semitic word for grain is dagan is much more likely. Some scholars question which came first. Did grain come to be called by the deity that he was over or the other way around? Another possible confirmation of that name meaning grain/corn is from an account handed down over many years by several authors. The supposed original author is Sanchuniathon – a Phoenician, who then is translated by Philo of Bylos, who then is copied by Eusebius. The following are the two quotes involving Dagon and grain. “...Dagon, which signifies Siton (grain/corn in Greek)...” and, “And Dagon, after he had found out bread-corn, and the plough, was called Zeus Arotrius.” The idea that his name is associated with fish has no basis in any Semitic language. It is a rabbinic tradition that Dagon means fish.
In the book, Time at Emar by, Daniel Fleming, the ritual texts dealing with the Zukru Festival have a number of names that bear witness to the fertility aspect of Dagan: Dagan, Lord of the Seed, Dagan, Lord of the Offspring, Dagan Lord of the Firstborn, Dagan, and Lord of Creation. Fleming writes in note 178, pg 90, that the Aleppo citadel stone has an inscription stating Dagan as the Father of Gods. He also sites in the same note that a Mari text A. 1258+ :9 calls Dagan, “the great mountain, father of the gods.” On pg. 91 he states, “Even under the zukru festival’s royal sponsorship, Dagan is not celebrated as the king of the gods but as their parent.” This father of the gods aspect ties in with the fact that the Emar zukru text mention the gods as amounting to 70, just as the number of the offspring of El and Asherah at Ugarit.
“The pantheon of 70 gods appears to be a Syrian convention, attested also in the Ugaritic Baal myth as the 70 children of Athirat (KTU 1.4 VI:46).” Time at Emar, pg. 57, note 29. The 70 gods of Emar (pg. 59) not only ties in with the Amorite / Canaanite Ugaritic myth of children born to the Canaanite goddess Athirat / Asherah and El, but also connects with the biblical account in HaDebariym [Deuteronomy]. Chapter 32:8, “when the most high divided to the nations their inheritance; when he separated the sons of adam, he set up the bounds of the peoples, according to the number of the sons of yisrael.” In the Hebrew Masoretic text, it states that the Most High divided the nations into their inheritance and that He set their number according to the beney Yisrael [sons of Yisrael] which is attributed to be 70, according to Shemoth [Exodus] 1:5. Remember, that Yaaqob and Yisrael are the same person. The Aramaic and Qumran texts of HaDebariym 32:8 have beney elohiym – sons of the elohiym. The Greek Septuagint also uses sons of God in that verse. So here we see the Amorite 70 gods of the Emar pantheon, the Ugaritic 70 gods born to Asherah / Athirat and El and the 70 sons of Yisrael / Yaaqob, also reckoned as gods in three other language texts of the same passage. This is not a coincidence. To make matters worse, the traditions of Judaism have continued this theme with the 70 elders of Yisrael in Shemoth [Exodus] 24:1.
“Although the monumental script on the basalt may tend toward archaized forms, the stone should be from at least the early second millennium, Nergal, Sin, Isharat, and Samas follow Dagan a-bi dingir, (‘the father of the gods’) in a list of curses. Whatever preceded the curses is entirely lost, and what follows is too broken to read. Mari text A. 1258=:9 calls Dagan ‘the great mountain, father of the great gods’ (a-a dingir-gal-gal-e-ne-, a-bi dingir ra-bu-tim]).” Time at Emar, pg. 90, note 178. “Even under the zukru festival’s royal sponsorship, Dagan is not celebrated as the king of the gods, but as their parent.” Pg. 91. In line 98, pg. 243, of the zukru festival text, Dagan is also called the Lord of Creation.
The name Dagan is frequently a theophoric element in Amorite names from numerous kingdoms. On Hammurabi’s Code, Hammurabi writes that he is a warrior of Dagan. Dagan first appears in 2500 BCE at Mari, in 2300 BCE at Ebla and 1300 BCE at Ugarit . Hammurapi [the Amorite spelling, Hammurabi is the Akkadian], an Amorite, gives credit for the subjugation of the settlements along the Euphrates River Ebla , Emar and Ugarit . Dagan was the chief god of the Ebla pantheon, also having one of the four gates named for him. He was also the chief deity of Emar where a major festival, similar to Pesach was performed. The worship of Dagan spread from the east westward, to Syria and through Canaan . At the time of the Ugaritic texts, Dagan was new to the scene, so it is believed, and does not appear prominently in their texts. He was adopted by the Felishthiym [Philistines] and was the patron deity of the city of Ashdod , according to the Tanak.
Another biblical passage that bears mention is that of YeshaYahu 46:1, “bel has bowed; nebo stoops; their idols [images, forms] are for the living being, and for the cattle; your things carried are loads; a burden for the weary.” Bel became basically a title of other deities, like god came to be. Baal was also reckoned the same way. The reason I bring this passage up is that in the Septuagint translation of this passage, it has Dagon instead of Nebo. So in that translation it is Baal and Dagon. Now the Hebrew preposition l cane be translated as “for”, “belonging to”, but it is also “of”. If we translate this passage with the Septuagint Dagon and “of”, it looks like this, “baal has bowed; dagon stoops; their images are of the living being, and of the cattle; your things carried are loads; a burden for the weary.” This is important in a number of ways. First in the second Tanak passage below, I Shmuel, you see an account of the image of Dagon falling to the ground before the ark of covenant, representing YHWH. This account could be likened to “stooping”. There is no account of Nebo doing such. Next, Baal is represented as a bull calf, the son of El, the bull. That is cattle, behemah, which is listed in the YeshaYahu verse. Nebo is never likened to any form of cattle. Dagan and El are likened to be the same deity at times and both are reckoned to be the father of Baal. El is likened as a bull – cattle. One aspect of ancient Hebrew linguistic style is to say the same thing twice, but in two different ways. “Sayce mentions a cylindrical seal of the seventh century B.C., now in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, with the words ‘Baal Dagon’ in Phoenician characters;” – History of the City of Gaza, Martin Meyer, Columbia University Press, New York, 1907, pg. 117. This seal could be an indicator of the later Sea People assimilation of Dagan and the Tanak passage Phoenician/Philistine influence. If we apply this poetic double principle to the verse, the verse is about Dagan only, referring to him as a title Baal and to his name Dagan, stooping and bowing, an image of a living being and cattle, a load and a burden – 4 poetic doubles. So it seems more probable that this Septuagint version of Dagon is more correct, than Nebo.
Please see the Origins of Pesach / Passover study in the Observe section for further information on Dagan.
City: Beyth Dagon [House of Dagon]
Biblical Passages:
Shoftiym [Judges] 16:23 , “and the rulers of the felishthiym [philistines] gathered to sacrifice a great sacrifice to dagon their elohiym, and to exult. and they said, our elohey has given our enemy shimshon [samson] into our hand.”
I Shmuel [Samuel] 5:1-12, “and the felishthiym took the ark of the elohiym and brought it from ebenezer to ashdod ashdod ashdod ashdod gath
Hoshea 7:14, “and they have not cried to me with their heart, when they howled on their beds. they slash themselves for dagan and thiyrosh; they turn against me. ” Thiyrosh in the Ugarit is Tirsu, the god/goddess of wine, possibly related to the Akkadian beer wine goddess Siras. Another similar aspect is that of the Sumerian Dumuzi (please see the Babylonian/Assyrian section for Tammuz, specifically Dumuzi.) After Dumuzi is bound and dragged to the netherworld in the place of his wife Inanna, one account states that his loyal sister, Gestinanna [Gestinanna of the vine] agrees to share her brothers fate, with the two of them alternating six months each in the netherworld. Dumuzi represents the grain, which became beer and his sister, Gestinanna, the wine.
Hoshea 9:1, “yisrael, do not rejoice for joy, like the peoples. for you have whored away from your elohey. you have loved the whores wage on all threshing floors of dagan.”
Baal / Balu – lra In the Semitic languages Baal means master or lord. While Baal was one of the sons of El, baal can be combined with a number of other deity names and came to be used as a general term for deity, much as el and god have. Baal Had or also named Baal Hadad / Adad, he was represented as the storm god and depicted holding lightning bolts. He is also represented as a bull calf. As the storm god, he was also the god of vegetation, since his storms bring water to the vegetation. One aspect of the vegetation is the dying/rising, which is characteristic of Baal, the Canaanite counterpart to the Mesopotamian Dumuzi/Tammuz, who also was over vegetation and died, rising annually. When he was found dead, as mentioned in the Cult of the Dead section, El, his father and Anath, his sister/consort, both gash themselves in mourning. An interesting passage in I Melekiym [Kings] 18:28 associates this gashing with the worship of Baal, “and they called with a loud voice, and cut themselves, according to their way, with swords and with spears until blood gushed out on them.”
Baal is called the “Rider on the Clouds”. The aspect of warrior is very much associated with Baal. He is represented as a bull at times. Some passages mention Baal having played a lyre, in connection with him as Haddu, the shepherd [remember the shepherd David who played the lyre?]. In some texts he is listed as the son of Dagon. Also, in some texts, Asherah becomes the wife/consort of Baal. Baal ruled from Mount Sapan
Baal contended with his brothers Yam [sea – twisting sea serpent] and Moth [death – dragon (sometimes with 7 heads)]. These battles were for the right to become the MELEK – King. With the concept of a national patron deity, you have a national warrior to defend you/protect you. With the help of his sister/consort Anat, Baal defeated Yam and Moth and became melek – king.
Ug. V. 3.1-4, “Baal sits enthroned, his mountain is like a throne; Haddu the Shepherd; like the flood. In the midst of his mountain, divine Sapan, in the midst of the mount of his victory, seven bolts of lightning he hurls, eight store-houses of thunder. A shaft of lightning he wields in his right hand.”
KTU 1.3 iii , “In the midst of my divine mountain, Sapan, in the holy place, on the mountain of my possession, in the pleasant place, on the height of my victory.”
Personal Name: Yerubaal [foundation of Baal], Eshbaal [man of baal], Abiybaal [my father is baal]
City: Baal Gad, Beyth Baal Meon [house of Baal’s habitation], Baal Chamman [ Baal’s sun pillar – ChMN occurs frequently in Phoenician with ElChamman, BaalChamman and EbedChamman], Baal Feor/Peor [Feor/Peor - to open wide the mouth, gape], Qiryath Baal [city of Baal ]
Biblical Passages:
Thehillah [Psalm] 18:9-14, “he bowed the heavens also and came down, and darkness was under his feet; 10 and he rode on a kerub [cherub], and he flew; and he soared on the wings of the wind. 11 he made darkness his covering, his pavilion all around him, darkness of waters, thick clouds of the skies. 12 out of the brightness before him, his dark clouds passed through, hailstones and coals of fire. 13 YHWH also thundered in the heavens; and elyon gave forth his voice, hailstones and coals of fire. 14 and he sent out his arrows and scattered them; and he shot out lightnings and confounded them.”
Thehillah 68:34, “to him who rides on the heavens of heavens of old; look, he gives forth his voice, a mighty voice.”
Thehillah 48:2, “beautiful on high, the joy of all the earth, mountain tsiyon, yarkethey tsafon (zaphon), the city of the great king.” Yarkethey is sometimes translated “on the sides of”, which is not correct. Others translate it as summit, peak. Kleins translates it as hinder part, hinder side, innermost parts, recesses, remote parts. Yet there is no article or preposition attached to it. It is as though another word, dealing with the association of Mount Tsiyon to Mount Zaphon
YeshaYahu [Isaiah] 14:13 ,14, “for you have said in your heart, i will go up to the heavens; i will raise my throne above the stars of el, and i will sit in the mountain of assembly [moed], yarkethey of tsafon [zaphon]. 14 i will rise over the heights of the clouds; i will be compared to the most high.” Here you can see that the same word, yarkethey is used of Tsafon / Zaphon, which is identified as being the mountain of assembly. You can easily see that the later Jewish editors were either confusing the accounts of El and Baal, or did not know the difference between them for the mount of assembly was the mount of EL, which was Amanus [Hursanu], not the Mount of Baal, Sapan. The assembly of gods always met with El on his mountain, in his tent, according to Ugaritic accounts. At any rate, the YeshaYahu verse sheds some light on the Thehillah 48 verse, which should be viewed as Tsafon, not translated as north, which is derived from the root tsafan which means the hidden or dark region, to hide, conceal, treasured.
Moth / Mot / Motu – zen / zn In the Ugaritic/Canaanite pantheon, Moth/Mot is the god of death and the underworld, which is what the Semitic languages use for the word death. He was one of the sons of El. Symbols associated with Mot are the dragon, including one with seven heads. In Canaanite accounts, Moth battles Baal, being one of the main enemies to the warrior god Baal, with Moth swallowing Baal. Anath, sister and consort of Ball, goes looking for him and slays Moth with a sythe, forcing him to regurgitate Baal, who comes back to life. Moth is also stated to climb through windows to kill, hence Baal would not have any windows in his palace to thwart his enemy Moth. The appetite of Moth was said to be insatiable, with an enlarged appetite and an open mouth, voraciously consuming gods and men, which are often likened to sheep. He is also represented as the summer heat and drought of summer, being called the heat of Moth. Moth is no longer a deity in the monotheism of Yahweh, he is now represented as a demon, evil spirit or angel of death.
Personal Name: Azmoth [strength of Moth], Meshelmoth [reign of Moth], Mermoth [bitterness of Moth]
City: Chatsermoth [village of Moth
Biblical Passages:
Iyob [Job] 18:13, “it devours parts of his skin; the firstborn [disease] of moth eats his parts.”
Thehillah [Psalm] 49:14, “like sheep, they are appointed to sheol. moth will reign for them. and upright ones will rule over them in the morning; and their form is for rotting; sheol is home for him.”
YirmeYahu [Jeremiah] 9:20, “for moth has come into our windows, entering into our fortresses, to cut off the children from the street, the young men from the plazas.”
Hoshea 13:14, “from the hand of sheol i will ransom them; from moth i will redeem them. where are your plagues [deber], moth? where is your ruin [qeteb] sheol? repentance is hidden from my eyes.”
Chabaqquq [Habakkuk] 2:5, “and also, wine indeed betrays a proud man, and he dwells not content; who widens his being like sheol. and he is like moth, and is not satisfied, but gathers all the goyim [gentiles] to himself, and collects all the peoples to himself.”
This passage does not name Moth directly, it may have originally, but does the kingdom he rules – Sheol.
YeshaYahu 5:14, “so sheol has enlarged its appetite, and opened its mouth without measure, and her honor and her multitude, and her uproar, he who exults in her, will come down in it.”
YeshaYahu 25:6-8, “and YHWH tsebaoth will make a feast of fat things for all the peoples in this mountain; a feast of wine on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, refined wine on the lees. 7 and he will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering which covers all people, and the veil that is woven over all nations. 8 he will swallow up moth in victory. and adonay YHWH will wipe away tears from all faces. and he will reprove the reproach of his people from all the earth; for YHWH has spoken.” This verse obviously attacks the characteristics of Moth, saying that YHWH will do to Moth what he is known for doing.
YeshaYahu 28:14,15, “so hear the word of YHWH, scornful men, rulers of this people in yerushalaim. 15 because you have said, we have cut a covenant with moth [mot-death]; and, we have made a vision with sheol, when the overwhelming rod passes through it will not come to us for we have made the lie our refuge, and we have hidden in falsehood.”
A New Testament application is in the book of Revelations. Chapter 12 with the enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on his heads that seeks to devour.
Another aspect of Moth and frequently paired with Reshef [see below] are two names Deber [pestilence, plague] and Qeteb [ruin, destruction – Post Biblical Hebrew name of a demon of destruction.]. These two are paired a number of times. Some scholars believe that Deber and Qeteb [Qetsib in Ugaritic] are kinsman of Moth, based on some Ugaritic texts. If nothing else, they are at least servants. An example of the pairing is the Hoshea verse above and Thehillah [Psalm] 91, “he who dwells in the secret place of elyon will abide in the shade of shadday. 2 i will say to YHWH, my refuge and my fortress, my el; i will trust in him. 3 for he delivers you from the snare of the fowler, from the plague [deber] of destruction. 4 with his feathers he will cover you, and under his wings you will seek refuge; his truth is a shield and buckler. 5 you will not fear the terror of night, nor of the arrow that flies by day [possibly a reference to reshef, master of the arrows and god of war, plague and pestilence, and gatekeeper of the underworld that moth rules– see below]; 6 of the plague [deber] that walks in darkness, nor of the destruction [qeteb] laying waste at noonday. 7 a thousand will fall by your side, and a myriad at your right hand; it will not come near you. 8 only with your eyes you will look, and see the retribution of the wicked. 9because you, YHWH, are my refuge; you make elyon your habitation, 10 no evil will happen to you, nor will any plague come near your tent. 11 for he will give his malakiy charge over you, to observe you in all your ways. 12 they will bear you up in their hands, that you not dash your foot on a stone. 13 you will tread on the lion and adder; the young lion and the serpent you will trample under foot [asherah is depicted as standing on lions and holding serpents, which are her symbols. asherah’s children [the gods] are said to be her pride of lions.]. 14 because he has set his love on me, therefore i will deliver him; i will set him on high because he has known my name. 15 he will call on me and i will answer him; i will be with him in distress; i will rescue him and honor him. 16 i will satisfy him with length of days, and will make him see my salvation.”
Reshef / Resheph / Resep / Rashpu – tyx is the god of war, plague and burning [related to fever], pestilence and is generally invoked to end a crisis. In some inscriptions he is referred to as the deer or gazelle god, the sacred animal representing him, whose horns he wears on his helmet. He is also called Reshef of the Garden and Reshef of the Arrow, known to shoot arrows of disease. For further information on Deber and Qeteb, please see Moth, above.
Reshef is the gatekeeper of the underworld. “The mythical terminology masks the concurrence of two astronomical phenomena: an occultation of the sun, eclipse or sunset, and its conjunction with the planet Mars, described by the metaphor of a ‘gatekeeper’ attributed to Rapsu (Mars).” – Canaanite Religion According to Liturgical Texts of the Ugarit , Gregorio Del Olmo Lete, pg. 351.
Personal Name: Reshef [I Dibrey HaYamiym (Chronicles) 7:25 ]
Biblical Passages:
Chabaqquq [Habakkuk] 3:5, “deber goes before him, and reshef went forth at his feet.”
Thehillah [Psalm] 76:2,3, “and his abode is in shalem; and his dwelling place in tsiyon. 3 there he broke fiery arrows [reshef] of the bow, the shield, and the sword, and the battle. selah.”
Iyob [Job] 5:7, “for man is born to trouble, and the sons of reshef rise, flying upward.”
HaDebariym [Deuteronomy] 32:22-25, “for a fire has been kindled in my anger, and it burns to the lowest sheol, and consumes the earth and its produce; and sets on fire the foundations of the mountains. 23 i will heap evils on them; i will use up my arrows on them. 24 sucked dry by hunger [possibly moth], and devoured by reshef, and bitter qeteb [see the hoshea 13:14 reference under moth], and the teeth of beasts, with the venom of crawling things of the dust. 25 the sword will bereave from without, and terror from within, both the young man and the virgin, the suckling with the man of gray hairs.”
Yam – ni In the Ugaritic/Canaanite pantheon, Yam, also called Yam-Nahar, is a son of El, which also means sea or ocean and is the god of such. Nahar is the word for river. He is identified as a sea serpent. Baal contended with his brothers Yam [sea – twisting sea serpent] and Mot [death – dragon (sometimes with 7 heads)]. These battles were for the right to become the MELEK – King. With the concept of a national patron deity, you have a national warrior to defend you/protect you.
In the Hebrew LWYThN [liwyathan – Leviathan] is defined as serpent, dragon. The root is lawah – to wind, twist, surround, encircle. Thaniyn means sea monster, serpent from the root Thnn, which means serpent in both Hebrew and Ugaritic. In the Ugaritic LThN - lawtan / lotan is another name for Yam. So liwyathan is a contracted name for twisting serpent.
Biblical Passages:
Thehillah [Psalm] 93, “YHWH reigns. he is clothed with majesty; YHWH is clothed with strength; he girded himself; and the world is established; it will not be shaken. 2 your throne is established from then; you are from eternity. 3 the floods have lifted up; YHWH, the floods have lifted up their voice; the floods have lifted their roaring waves. 4 YHWH on high is mightier than the voices of many waters, than the mighty waves of yam. 5your testimonies are very sure; set apartness becomes your beyth to length of days, YHWH.”
Nachum 1:2-4, “el is zealous, and YHWH is avenging, YHWH is avenging and is a possessor of wrath. YHWH takes vengeance against his foes, and he keeps wrath against his enemies. 3 YHWH takes long to anger, and is great of power, and he does not by any means acquit the guilty. YHWH has his way in the tempest and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet. 4 he rebukes yam and makes it dry, and dries up the rivers. bashan and karmel wither, and the flower of lebanon
YeshaYahu [Isaiah 27:1, “in that day YHWH will visit with his great and fierce and strong sword, the liwyathan, the fleeing serpent; even on the liwyathan, the twisting serpent; and he will slay the monster that is in the sea [yam]. ”
Thehillah [Psalm] 74:14, “you cracked open the heads of liwyathan [lothan/lotan in ugarit
Chabaqquq [Habakkuk] 3:8,15, “did YHWH burn against rivers? or was your anger against the rivers? or your fury against yam? for you ride on horses; your chariots of salvation.” “you trod on yam with your horses, the surging of many waters.”
The New Testament application is in the book of Revelation chapter 13 with the beast coming out of the sea serpent, merged with the dragon motif, a blending of the accounts of Mot and Yam, the dragon and the sea serpent.
Yarich / Yarech / Yarikh - gxi The Amorite/Ugaritic/Canaanite moon god. He is represented by a crescent moon, sometimes referred to as horns. This aspect of the first light of the new moon is called chodesh in the Hebrew Tanak. In the Tanak, the moon is mentioned as being the lesser light in the book of Bereshiyth [Genesis], while the sun is the greater light. In Mesopotamian culture, Sin, the moon god was the greater, with Shamash, the lesser. In the Ugaritic texts, Yarikh has a lesser role to that of Shapash / Shapsu, the sun goddess.
Personal Name: Yerach [Jerah],
City Name: Yericho [Jericho ]
Biblical Passages:
II Melekiym [Kings] 23:5, “and he caused to cease the idolatrous kohaniym [priests] whom the kings of yahudah had given place to burn incense in the high places in the cities of yahudah, and in the places around yerushalaim, and those burning incense to baal, to shemesh, and to yarech, and to constellations, and to all the host of the heavens.”
Thehillah [Psalm] 148:1-3, “praise YHWH. praise YHWH from the heavens; praise him in the heights. 2 praise him, all his malakay [messengers]; praise him, all his armies [tsabaoth]. 3 praise him shemesh [sun] and yarech [moon]; praise him, all you kokabiy [stars] of light.” Please see Astral Cult section for further information.
YirmeYahu [Jeremiah] 8:1,2, ”at that time, declares YHWH, they will bring out the bones of the kings of yahudah, and the bones of its rulers, and the bones of the kohaniym [priests], and the bones of the nebiyiym [prophets], and the bones of those living in yerushalaim, out of their graves. 2 and they will spread them before shemesh and yarech and all the armies of the heavens whom they have loved, and whom they have served, and after whom they have walked, and whom they have sought, and whom they have worshiped. they will not be gathered or buried; they will be dung on the face of the ground.”
Chabaqquq [Habakkuk] 3:11, “shemesh and yarech stood still in their dwelling. at the light of your arrows they go, at the shining of your gleaming spear.”
Shachar / Shaharu – xgy The Gracious and Beautiful Gods in the Canaanite pantheon, twin sons of El. Shachar is the god of the dawn, equated with the morning star, twin brother Shalim, god of the sunset. Shachar’s son is Helel, the bright morning star. Another example of later editors blending Canaanite accounts with the Tanak is in the passage below. In the Ugaritic account, when Mot kills Baal, they try to find someone to reign as king. One of the sons of Asherah is chosen, but he is not capable of sitting on the throne of Baal, which was in his palace on Mount Tsafon
City: Tsareth HaShachar [splendor of the Dawn]
Biblical Passages:
YeshaYahu [Isaiah] 14:12-15, "oh heylel [shining star], son of shachar [morning, dawn], how you have fallen from the heavens. you weakening the goyim, you are cut down to the ground. 13 for you have said in your heart, i will go up to the heavens; i will raise my throne above the stars of el, and i will sit in the mountain of meeting, in the sides of tsafon. 14 i will rise over the heights of the clouds; i will be compared to the most high [elyon]. 15 yet you will go down to sheol, to the sides of the pit."
Shalim / Shalem / Shalimu – nly The Gracious and Beautiful Gods in the Canaanite pantheon, twin sons of El. Shalim means dusk, peace, completion and is the god of the sunset, equated with the evening star and twin brother of Shachar the god of the dawn. An altar was built by Gideon and named YHWH Shalim, which editors have tried to explain as fearing not, being the peace of YHWH.
Melkitsedeq was listed as king of Shalim/Shalem, Bereshiyth [Genesis] 14:18-20, “and malkiy-tsedeq, king of shalem brought out bread and wine; now he was a kohen [priest] of el elyon. 19 he blessed him [abram] and said, blessed be abram of el elyon, possessor of heaven and earth; 20 and blessed be el elyon, who has delivered your enemies into your hand. he gave him a tenth of all.”
Thehillah [Psalm] 76:1,2, “...elohiym is known in yahudah; his name is great in yisrael. 2 and his abode is in shalem; and his dwelling place in tsiyon.”
Personal Name: David named two of his sons with the Shalim root, whose capitol city was also Urushalim. Shalemah [ShLMH - Shlomoh/Solomon] and Abshalim [father of Shalim, though scribes have inserted a waw to make it shalom], Shalem [ShLM - Shillem], Shalemon [ShLM], Shalemnetser [ShLMNTsR – Shalem’s overseer], ShalemYahu [ShLMYHW].
City: Shalem [Melkitsedeq was king of Shalem/Salem], Urushalim [Urusalimmu, Jerusalem ] Amurru is appeased, at peace or completed. All the more understandable when you realize that in Yahusha [Joshua] 10:5, Adonitsedeq [Adoni-Zedek] is listed as one of the five Amorite kings and he is king of Urushalim [Jerushalem].
Gad – cb Canaanite god of fortune, similar to Syrian Baal Gad, master of luck. Gad is represented as a lion.
While some translators claim that gad can just mean fortune, the Tanak never uses it as a general word, but always as a proper name. In Bereshiyth [Genesis] 30, we see the births and names of the sons of Yaaqob [Jacob]. Verse 9 states that Leah had stopped having children, gave her maidservant Zilpah to Yaaqob and she conceived and bore a son. The Tanak editors explain the child’s name as Leah saying, ”what good fortune,” trying to avoid any connection with another deity’s name, but the fact of the matter is that gad is never used as a general word. Bear in mind that Zilpah’s other son’s name is Asher. If you remove the scribal vowel pointing that makes it an “e” pronunciation, you have the same name as another deity – Ashur. Is that also a coincidence?
Personal Name: Gad, Gadiyel [Gad is my El],
City: Baal Gad [master of fortune], Diybon Gad [which was built by Gad – Fortune], Migdol Gad [tower of Gad
Biblical Passages:
YeshaYahu [Isaiah] 65:11, “but you are those who forsake YHWH, who forget my holy mountain; who array a table for gad, and who fill mixed wine for meni. ”
This section of people is a little more difficult to define than most of the others, so bear with me.
Below is a map of the territories that we are dealing with, from around 1200 BCE. To the left you will see the originating (after the Indo-Europeans attacked and settled the Aegean territories) territories of the Sea Peoples – Achaea, Mycenae , Kaftar, Telchinia, Alashiya, the Aegean Sea area. The Sea Peoples invaded, in stages, the coastlines from Ilion, south through Lukka, down around Ugarit , the coastline of Kenaan and attacked Egypt , who thwarted the Sea Peoples (at least according to their monument accounts). The Sea Peoples settling south of Ugarit , which was destroyed, but north of Kenaan, came to be called Phoenicians (at least as some scholars can piece together based on wee bits of inscriptions and texts). The Sea Peoples that settled on the coast of Kenaan came to be called Philistines. Later, when a group of the Phoenicians at Tyre break away, they travel west, across the Mediterranean Sea and establish Carthage , shown in a map a wee bit further down. The first wave of invasions from the Indo-Europeans (Hellenes) occurred around 3000 – 2500 BCE. The next wave, referred to as Ionians and Aeolians (Mycenaeans) occurred around 1600-1500 BCE. The third wave, called Dorians, occurred around 1200-1100 BCE.
There is an added factor of non-Indo-European refugees from Krete, Alashiya [Cyprus ], Telchinia [Rhodes] and other Aegean Sea locations that originally had a clan mother and possibly worshipped an earth mother/creatress, fleeing the Indo-European invasion. These refugees, according to archaeology prior to the invasions, had trade with ancient Anatolia, Levant coastline and Egypt . When the Indo-European invaders spread south through Thrace, Macedon and Mycenae, the island of Krete (later termed Minoans for king Minos) was able to hold out for a longer period of time than the mainland. After the major volcanic explosion on Thera, destroying a part of that island, you see the incursions by the invaders. Some scholars speculate that a number of these highly civilized mother oriented groups left with their followers, a number of which were highly skilled artisans, to areas that they already had trade with, only to eventually be attacked by the Indo-European Hellenes invaders in the lands they fled to. This is further backed up by the fact that some of their communal cave burial sites, are missing the bones, but grave goods were left behind. Grave robbers don’t take the bones leaving the treasures, but people that believed in their ancestors would not leave them behind. Also, some of the pottery of the refugees turns up in the settled coastal towns of the land of Kenaan
There are some differences between the two groups that can help to differentiate them. The Minoan and similar cultures were mother oriented. They were matrilineal ( family line descended from the mother) and the clan mother figures prominently. They were highly skilled artisans, depicting nature heavily in their work. There was equality in their communities. Communities focused on agriculture and animals, and the homes had hearths and other evidence of domestic skills such as weaving looms (loom weights) and such. The burials were in a communal tomb or cave, showing no preferences, nor titles. The invaders were patriarchal (male ruling) and patrilineal (descent through father. They worshipped weapons, rather than nature. They were not agrarians, focusing on looting and pillaging from those that were. They built fortresses and high fortified walls around their palaces, which the Minoan type cultures did not. They prized metals and sought to control those who had access to it, to limit who could create weapons. They did not have communal burials, they preferred the exalted graves and markers of the dominant warrior males, burying weapons and afterlife items with them.
We cannot refer to this confederation of Sea Peoples as Greek, that would be a misnomer. The older term was Hellenes. The Term Greek/Greece does not appear until the 8th century BCE. It was originally used by the Illyrians, modern day Italians, to describe a group of immigrants. The Illyrians called the place that they had immigrated from Graia and the immigrants themselves Graeki. Though no one knows exactly where Graia was, the Latin term stuck and Europeans, as well as Americans, continue the trend. On the island of Kaftar , modern day Crete , a civilization developed that spread. No one knows what these people may have called themselves, but an archaeologist dubbed them Minoans for King Minos. The next civilization was an assimilation of the Minoan by the invading, warlike Mycenaeans. After that we have the Archaic time period. The inhabitants of the Islands that most associate with Greece , call themselves, and have for thousands of years, Hellenes, and the islands and mainland, Hellas . In Homer’s writings (about 750 BCE), the confederation of the Aegean Sea peoples (Indo-European invaders) were called Achaeans, Danaans and Argives, the Archaic time. Next you have the Classical Greek period from 500-323 BCE, the Hellenistic from 323-146 BCE with the takeover by the Romans. So please, don’t think of these Sea Peoples as Greek. There was much back and forth development of culture and religion, between the Anatolian territory and the Aegean Sea territory, for thousands of years, not to mention the originating land of the Indo-Europeans from between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea territory. What we know as Classical Greek Mythology is a late development.
The coastal land of Kenaan [Canaan] stretched from Gaza in the south, to Lebanon in the north. Some of the oldest writings mentioning this name of Kenaan are the Amarna Letters [1450 BCE ] – letters EA #’s 8, 9, 26, 30, 50, 131, 162, 222a and 367. The spellings in the Akkadian cuneiform are kenaani, kinaani, kinahhi and kinahni. The Memphis stele of Amenhotep II [1427-1400 BCE ] relating the military campaigns, mentions the Canaanites as Kinanu. One of the Karnak inscriptions of Seti I [1294-1279], relating his military campaigns writes Knn for Kenaan. These three examples occur prior to the invasion of the “Sea Peoples”, which occurred around 1200 BCE . At no point prior to the invasions, is the name Phoenicia associated with any portion of northern Kenaan, nor is Felishthiym [Philistine], father south on the coastline. It is only after the invasion of the “Sea Peoples” that the people and geography designation of Phoenicia and Felesheth [Philistine] occur in texts and inscriptions.
While occupying coastal land and assimilating with the local people, the Sea Peoples came in a mass exodus / migration of sorts, through their navy, conquering and settling on various parts of the western coastline, bringing with them their animals, tools and pottery. In a letter from the king of Ugarit , before their destruction by the Sea Peoples, he states that the enemy lived on boats, that they landed their ships and set fire to the towns in the land. Archaeologically, the evidence shows that these people came, occupied, brought monochrome Mycenaean pottery with them, certain types of kitchenware, special types of loom weights, Aegean – derived hearths, murex shells, characteristic food practices, such as eating pork, metal smithing, as well as burial practices (Sea Peoples and Their World, Finkelstein, pg. 165) . What prompted the exodus, scholars do not know with absolute certainty, speculating that it could have been an attack against them from a neighboring nation, plague, or a natural disaster (such as agricultural failure, prolonged drought), causing them to relocate, not just warriors, but whole families on their ships.
Philip Betancourt, in The Sea Peoples and Their World, pgs. 297-301, specifically discusses the various possibilities. Stating that there is no archaeological record for any plague or epidemic [for example no mass graves], he rules out that option. He also sites that whenever an invading force arrives in an area, such as the Sea Peoples in the Levant , they leave their mark, which does not occur in the Aegean area either, thus ruling out an invading force. He believes that the cause for such a migration / exodus is that of “regional disruption of agriculture”, pointing out that evidence of climate changes do show up at that time period. “Irish oaks have poor growing seasons in the decades at the middle of the 12th century (Baillie 1988a; 1988b). Abnormal fluctuations show up in the Gordion tree-ring sequence from about the same time (Kuniholm 1990:653). The latest ice core from Greenland shows volcanic activity in 1192 and 1190 BCE (Zielinski et al. 1994).” –pg. 300.
Itamar Singer, The Sea Peoples and Their World, pgs. 21-29, points out that the archaeological record shows there was a famine in the Hittite and Canaanite land. The availability of grain was seriously reduced and the price for what was available was severe. Texts from Emar show that at the point that the grain prices were the highest, it was the same time that the invaders (Sea Peoples) laid siege to the city. Emar’s fall is dated to around 1185, the same time period as the Sea Peoples invasions.
Phoenicians
Michael Astour has authored a paper titled, “The Origin of the Terms ‘Canaan ,’ ‘Phoenician,’ and ‘Purple’. He writes, “Of all explanations of the Greek Phoinix, ‘Phoenician,’ (plur. Phoinikes) and Phoinike, ‘Phoenicia,’ the most convincing is certainly the derivation from phoinix, ‘purple,’ referring to the characteristic Phoenician trade...If, then, phoinix can no longer be considered a Greek word, its source must be sought, most probably, among the very people who were famous as crimson and purple dyers and whom the Greeks called Phoinikes. Now Hebrew puwwa, Arabic fuwwa, is the name of Rubia tinctorium L., or dyers madder, a herbaceous plant at home in Syria, Palestine and Egypt, one of the most common sources of red dye and imitation purple in antiquity. Pwt appears as early as Ugarit in a context that firmly established its meaning as ‘madder-dyed textile.’...Phoinix is not the only Greek term for ‘purple’ that can be traced back to West Semitic...The establishment of the West Semitic origin of phoinix and, probably, of porphyra, is interesting not only from the etymological point of view. It also serves as another confirmation of steady Greco-Semitic contacts during the Mycenaean Age. It now becomes more difficult to consider the toponyms and personal names Phoinix, Phoinike, Phoinikus as purely Greek, without any relation to the Phoenicians, and to claim that the Greek traditions on Phoenician penetration of the Aegean were based on a misinterpretation of theses names. At the very least, the Greeks must have met the Phoenicians and borrowed from them the word for ‘red dye’ before they could use it in their onomastica.” – Journal of Near eastern Studies, Chicago University Press, 1965, Vol. 24, No.4, pgs346-350.
One of the many items found at Sea People sites are murex shells. Christopher J. Cooksey wrote a review for Molecules, an Open Access journal of synthetic organic chemistry and natural product chemistry, published by Molecular Diversity Preservation International (MDPI) online monthly. In the 2001 issue, 6, 736-769, he discusses Tyrian or Royal Purple, also known as shellfish purple and Purple of the Ancients – a shellfish dye. He states, “Arguably, it is the oldest known pigment, the longest lasting, the subject of the first chemical industry, the most expensive and the best known. The colour is derived exclusively from marine shellfish of the Muricidae and Thaisidae families.” These shellfish came mainly from the species Murex (Phyllonotus) trunculus, Murex (Bolinus) brandaris and the Purpura (Thais) haemastoma. Jenny Balfour-Paul writes, in her book, Indigo in the Arab World, “As there must have been innumerable dyeworks throughout Palestine, and the dyeing techniques for the different blue/purple vat dyes were a closely guarded secret, it is hardly surprising that the whole subject of shellfish purple and plant indigo/woad dyes was enveloped in mystique and confusion. Indeed, even today’s sophisticated dyers and dye chemists have not fully worked out the methods used by the dyers of antiquity to produce purple/blue dye from shellfish. Despite all the literary references, in the Classical works and elsewhere, there are still relatively few archaeological textile samples or other items of evidence, although shellfish purple residue has been found on potsherds thought to have formed dye vessels, and crushed shells have been found on some sites...Shellfish purple became known as ‘Tyrian’ purple because the best quality came from Tyre.” – pg. 5. This purple/red/blue dyeing was a key industry of the invading Sea Peoples, giving rise to the northern Sea Peoples settlers name of Phoenicians.
Major Phoenician cities were Byblos , Sidon and Tyre .
Felishthiym / Peleset / Philistines
The Name Felishthiym [Hebrew] is attested to on the Medinet Habu or Mortuary Temple of Ramses III (1180-1150 BCE ), located in Luxor Egypt . In the inscription, describing the victory over the Sea People confederation, one of the Sea Peoples mentioned are the Peleset. Later in the Assyrian inscriptions we see territory settled by these Felishthiym referred to as Palastu, such as an inscription on a Nimrud slab from Adad-nirari III (811-783 BCE ), king of Assyria, stating that he brought them, and other nations from Tyre southward, into submission, and imposed tribute and tax upon them. So the closest time period and the closest neighbor to the invaded territory, who had an established recording history, is that of Egypt . If you reckon the Semitic origin of the word, then the roots are listed as to roll in the dust, to burrow into, also to open through, penetrate, invade. What is not known is if that is the name given by the nations that were invaded or if that was the name that the invaders called themselves and had a different meaning for.
As to the invaders settlement in the southern coastal lands, “These flourishing urban centers clearly reflect the Aegean background of the inhabitants as the came into contact with the reality of Canaan , a reality that was by no means monolithic. The three cities (Ekron, Ashdod and Ashkelon - Felishthiym) all reveal similar patterns of settlement, evidence of an impressive urban momentum, or urban imposition (Stager 1995:345), in which the new cities vigorously expanded beyond the confines of the smaller Canaanite cities, and grafted onto these sites urban traditions of the Aegean milieu. They provide evidence of fortification, sophisticated town planning, extensive ceramic production and a distinctive repertoire, metallurgy and glyptics, architectural features such as the adaptation of the megaron plan and the hearth in different configurations such as the cultic and domestic, cult practices, which when taken together, make up the Philistine/Sea Peoples culture.” – The Sea Peoples and Their World, Trude Dothan, pg. 145.
The five major Philistine cities were Ashdod , Eqron, Ashqelon , Gaza and Gath .
Carthaginians
As mentioned in the Melek section, some of the Phoenicians split from Tyre , an established Phoenician center, and relocated across the Mediterranean Sea, calling their new city Carthage [modern Tunisia ]. The Carthaginians, being Phoenicians relocated, were great seamen and merchants, settled colonies all over the Mediterranean . But common religious practices and deities remain a constant. The Carthaginians established colonies all over the Mediterranean . A 3rd century BCE Greek writer, Cleitarchus/Kleitarchos, writes of the Phoenician and Carthaginian connection, “Out of reverence for Baal Hammon, the Phoenicians, and especially the Carthaginians, whenever they seek to obtain some great favor, vow one of their children, burning it as a sacrifice to the deity, if they are especially eager to gain success.” Lawrence Stager writes in his Child Sacrifice at Carthage article, “At Hazor in northern Israel , an amazing discovery paralleling these symbols on the Carthaginian stelae was made. At the center of a group of stelae (masseboth in Hebrew) in a small sanctuary, a 1 ¾-foot high massebah was found carved with a relief of upraised hands and a disk and crescent. Although the Hazor sanctuary predates the Tophet by a thousand years, Yigael Yadin, excavator of Hazor, believes that the hands and the disk and crescent symbolize the same deities – Tanit and Baal Hammon. Yadin concludes that ‘it is quite clear that the Punic culture preserved the elements of the Phoenician culture, and the latter was definitely influenced by Canaanite elements, similar to the ones uncovered in Hazor.’ “
Assimilated Account of Samson
Before going into the deities for this section, I would like to share a prime example of the convergence of the Sea Peoples influence, assimilation with Canaanite cultures of the land and the carrying of this merging into the Hebrew Tanak by its editors – the story of Samson from the book of Judges 13-16.
Tribe of Dan
To lay the foundation, we need to take a look at one of the Sea Peoples nations that of the Danaoi. In the Egyptian inscriptions of the Sea Peoples, they are listed as the Danuna and Denyen. In the epic poetry of Homer (about 9thcentury BCE ), the Odyssey and Iliad, the confederation of Mycenaean peoples are called Achaeans, Argives and Danaans. So what does this have to do with Samson? Samson was of the tribe of Dan – Danites. A tribe that is associated with one of the 12 tribes of Israel . Yet Dan is a Sea Peoples tribe. Lets look at the Tanak verses about Dan. In the book of Shoftiym [Judges] 5:17, a part of the Song of Deborah, considered to be one of the oldest fragments of the Bible, mentioning the different tribes, it states, “...and why did Dan stay in ships?” Why would an agrarian / pastoral tribe, which the tribes of Israel are portrayed as being, be on ships?
A passage that shows that Dan was outside of some of these “native Israel ” tribes is that of Bereshiyth [Genesis] 49, the blessings of Yaaqob [Jacob] chapter. 49:16, “dan will judge his people, as one of the tribes of yisrael.” The Hebrew preposition k means like or as. In no other verse of the blessings does it state “like or as” concerning one of the tribes of Israel . Clearly Dan was not one of the original confederation of tribes that came to be called Israel .
The original territory of Dan was on the coastline, just north of the five major cities of the Felishthiym (Ashdod , Ekron, Gath , Ashkelon and Gaza ). According to Shoftiym 1:34, the Amurru/Amoriy pressed the sons of Dan into the hills, not allowing them to come into the valley, so Dan could not hold that territory.
The next major move of Dan for territory, is in the book of Shoftiym [Judges] 18, where it states that in those days the tribe of THE Daniy was seeking a possession to inhabit, remember above where the sons of the Amoriy were pressing the Danites, who could not hold that territory. The sons of Dan send out scouts to spy out the land and bring back a report. This part ties in with the account of Miykah [Micah], which I have related under the terafiym section and in the Perpetual Idolatry study, where Miykah has set up his own cult center, appointing his son as kohen/priest, made his idols and such. Then a wondering kohen comes by and Miykah appoints him as priest. Then the Danites come by, ask the kohen to seek the elohiym for them and go on their way with the good report. After reporting, 600 warriors of the Danites arm themselves to attack a certain location and pass by the house of Miykah, forcibly taking all his idols, the priest and belongings, then proceed to attack the city of Laish – a people quiet and secure. The city was named Dan after that. If you look at the deity map, at the end of this study, you can find the original territory of Dan Israel with their patriarchal priesthood phobia of “pagan” cultures, move so far away from their “own people” and into the hotbed of “paganism”? I can tell you why. Because if you were a Sea People tribe you were amongst brothers in the invasions of the land of Kenaan
Another account is in Yahusha [Joshua] 19:47, which states that the border of Dan came out too little for them so the sons of Dan went out to fight against the people of Leshem, oddly similar to Laish, and they took it, struck it with the sword and possessed it, naming it Dan after their father.
A parallel in Homer’s Iliad occurs in Book 20. Dardanus is the son of Zeus, the founder of Dardania, named after him. They settled on the slopes of Mt. Ida Troy ] was the “holy” city raised on the plain to shelter all the people. This is a strong parallel to the passage stating that Dan was pressed by the Amorites into the hills and could not hold the valley.
The next account is in Wayyiqra [Leviticus] 24:10-23, “and the son of a woman of yisrael, and he was a son of a man of mitsrayim [egypt Egypt . This is important because it ties in with another account of the Danites.
The account of the Exodus is roughly the same time period as that of the Sea Peoples invasions, the Danaans being one of the Sea People Confederations. In the Egyptian accounts of the invasion, some of the Sea Peoples were killed, over 9000 were taken prisoner, including the women and children. Some of the prisoners were settled and others were made part of their soldiers. Now let us look at late Greek mythological accounts of a similar situation involving the Danaans. There are a number of accounts that have to be gleaned, but Danaus, the father of the Danaans, is said to be the brother of Aegyptus [Egypt ] in some accounts. Danaus has daughters that vary in number, up to 50, depending on which accounts you read. Danaus flees Aegyptus to avoid a battle. Aegyptus, who coincidentally has 50 sons, wants the sons to marry the 50 daughters of Danaus, pursues them and forces a marriage. The daughters, having to capitulate to the patriarchal time, go through with the marriages, but on the night of the marriages, kill their Egyptian husbands. Different accounts say one did not, others that a few more did not. These women then have to flee. Myths have a way of consolidating time and facts. We know there was a Sea People attack on Egypt involving some Danaans with wives and children and prisoners were taken and settled. We know historically there were some disgruntled settlers that left Egypt around this time period. While the account from the Tanak is greatly magnified, as to numbers that do not bear record from Egypt , nor archaeologically in the territory of Israel
If you look at the genealogies credited to Dan, you see next to nothing. Bereshiyth [Gen.] 46 says that 70 persons went to Egypt and breaks down who had who. 46:23 states that Dan had Chushiym, that’s it. Then in BeMidbar [Numbers], when they leave Egypt , the editors list that Dan had Shucham [looks like Chushiym transposed?] of the family of Shuchamiy and the total was 64,400. That is the second largest amount of men for all the tribes, yet they only list one person. Where did all those people come from? The Aegean Sea territory, I would say.
Yechezqel [Ezekiel] 27:19 states, “dan and yawan [greece
Now, lets take a look at Shimshon [Samson], the Danite. This story is straight out of the Hellenes/Greek mythology of Herakles/Heracles [Hercules Roman], exalting the Indo- European invader / warrior… Othniel Margalith, in The Sea Peoples in the Bible, has a 12 point comparison of Heracles/Samson. I cannot by space and ethics copy all of his writings, so this is the condensed version of sorts with my references and notes. I have checked out and verified the sources, which I have listed, as well as adding pertinent material added for the verification, but the original 12 points, which are underlined, are his.
1. The heroes father is a god, making them a demi-god: Herakles father was Zeus, who mated with a mortal woman named Alcmene, disguising himself as her husband. Manoah’s wife, not named, is barren. She comes in and tells her husband in verse 6 that a man of the Elohiym came in to her and then tells her that she is pregnant. Y’all really need to get the Hebrew text to see and understand this, because English translators have messed this one up. The verb phrase “came into/unto” is l` `a (ba el). The verb by itself may mean anything, but it is how it is used in this case and the others that makes it obvious that it is being used for intercourse. Please, those of you with the Hebrew text, check the references for the following other uses of intercourse and see for yourselves. Hagar - Bereshiyth (Gen.) 16:4; Lots daughters - Bereshiyth 19:31-36. Verse 31 states there was no man in the land to “come into” them; Leah – Bereshiyth 29:23; Rachel – Bereshiyth 29:30, Bilhah – Bereshiyth 30:3; Tamar – Bereshiyth 38:8,9, 16-18. These are not all of them, just enough of a sampling to prove that Shimshon’s mother became pregnant when a “god” had intercourse with her.
2. Adoption of the son by the father’s wife. Herakles [originally Alcides] was adopted by Hera, the wife of Zeus, taking the name of Herakles, meaning the glory of Hera. Diodorus Siculus: 4. 39, “We should add to what has been said about Heracles, that after his apotheosis Zeus persuaded Hera to adopt him as her son and henceforth for all time to cherish him with a mother's love, and this adoption, they say, took place in the following manner. Hera lay upon a bed, and drawing Heracles close to her body then let him fall through her garments to the ground, imitating in this way the actual birth; and this ceremony is observed to this day by the barbarians whenever they wish to adopt a son.” While Shimshon was not adopted, his tribe namesake was. Bilhah, the maidservant of the barren Rachel, gave birth on Rachel’s knees, an ancient ceremony of adoption. She gives birth to Dan, Bereshiyth [Gen.] 30:3-6. This ceremony is not mentioned with the other sons of the maidservants of either Bilhah, nor Zilpah.
3. Hero with Magical Hair: According to the Shimshon account, Shimshon was a Nazirite (religious vows) and was not allowed that a razor should touch his hair, where his strength came from. When his hair was shaven, his strength disappeared until his hair began to regrow. I will not get into the Nazirite aspect, since it is moot. Shimshon broke so many aspects of the vow of Nazirite that it is a feeble attempt, on behalf of the Judaic editors, to use that as a cover for the mythical base of this story. There is no similarity of Shimshon’s magical hair to the other cultures around Kenaan, except the Mycenaean. Homers Iliad 20.39 calls Apollo [Phoebus – Shining One] “of the unshorn locks”.
4. Hero Enslaved by Womanly Wiles: Herakles apparently has the same problem with women that Shimshon does in the book of Shoftiym. For a man who supposedly took a religious vow of a Nazirite, he is sexually involved with Felishthiym women exclusively.
Herakles first wife was Megaera, whom he accidentally killed, along with their children, from a Hera induced post traumatic stress syndrome, mistaking them for enemies. There are other wives and many other affairs, producing numerous offspring called the Heraclids. Finally, he marries Deianeira, who unwittingly causes the death of Herakles by burning, where he races to Mt. Oeta Gaza ; finally is the account of Deliylah from Shoreq. Besides the women and dying comparisons here, there is that of the weaving. Herakles was a bonded servant to the Queen Omphale, who made him work with the Ionian girls at weaving and spinning (Ovids Heroids IX 55-118), his hair braided with a woman’s turban, holding the distaff, drawing the coarse threads, using the spindle, women’s work. Deliylah was a weaver and wove Shimshon’s hair into the weft and when she yelled that the Felishthiym were upon him, he jumped up with the pin, the hand loom and the web woven into his hair.
5. The Hero with the Club: Herakles first labor was to kill the Nemean lion and bring back his hide. It could not be pierced by bow and arrow, so Herakles pulled up an olive tree to use as a club and defeated the lion, killing it with his bare hands. While Shimshon did not use a tree for a club, he did find a jawbone of an ass and use it as a club to strike the attacking Felishthiym.
6. Hero Who Tears His Bonds Apart Like Straw: Apollodorus II.5.11, when Heracles goes to Egypt on one of his labors, he is captured to be sacrificed, “So Hercules also was seized and haled to the altars, but he burst his bonds and slew both Busiris [the king] and his son Amphidamas”. In Shoftiym [Judges] 15:13, Shimshon is bound with two new, thick cords, which were as flax and burned off, enabling him to kill his enemies. Again in 16:11 he tells Deliyah that his strength is undone if he is bound with new ropes which he bursts off as though they are thread.
7. The Slayer of the Lion With Bare Hands: As already mentioned in the account of the club, Herakles strangles the Nemean lion with his bare hands. Another account of Herakles killing a lion with his hands is that of the hunt with King Thespius, who beds his 50 daughters with Herakles to have offspring by him (Apollodorius II.4.10). Shimshon, in Shoftiym 14:5,6 came across a young lion and tore it as cleaving a kid, with nothing but his hands.
8. Samson’s Foxes: In retaliation for Shimshon’s father in law giving his wife away to another man [Shoftiym 15:4], he takes 300 foxes, pairs them up, tying their tails together with a torch and lights the torches on fire, setting the foxes out in the fields, which burn the Felishthiym grain. Now this is more serious than some of you might think, due to the fact that the Felishthiym made beer with some of the grain. Margalith points out that there are no comparative accounts, in any myths, with this motif. Another matter is that there are no foxes in Kenaan. They do have a related species member the jackal, which does group together and could be caught in groups, while foxes are solitary. Foxes do occur in the Mycenaean territories. Another point and possibly an editors explanation for a foreign loanword is that the word fox in Greek (lampuris), means torchtail. Jackals do not have such tails. Wherever Greek legends use fox, the Canaanite and further east peoples applied it to the jackal.
9. Samson’s Riddle: Riddles are very common in the Mycenaean culture and mythology. But the riddle that has been carried forth in the Tanak is not a valid riddle, due to many factors, one of which is that bees would never be in an animal carcass. Hornets would, but hornets do not produce honey. Judaic editors like to remove elements that very much deal with other gods, so this may have gone through editing, removing the necessary elements that make it understandable. There are slightly similar Mycenaean riddles, involving bees, that pertain to sun worship. The original riddle must have been understandable to the Sea Peoples, where it originated.
10. Glorification by Fire: In Shoftiym 13:19, 20, is the account of Manoach, the husband of Shimshon’s mother, who builds an altar to sacrifice upon. While he does so, the man of god, no longer appearing mortal to them, goes up to the heavens in the flame, as they were watching. As mentioned in point 4, Herakles is married to Deianeira, who suspects Herakles of infidelity, with very good reason. She uses a centaurs blood that was infected with the venom of the hydra from Herakles arrow, as a love potion, per the instructions of the dying centaur. She places the blood on a requested cloak for Herakles, who cannot remove the cloak and is in agony from the hydra’s venom. Herakles races to Mt. Oeta
11. Portals on the Top of the Mountain: Shoftiym 16:1-3 gives an odd account of Shimshon ripping up the leaves and side posts of the gate of the city of Gaza , in the middle of the night, putting them on his shoulders and taking them to the top of the mountain before Hebron . This is not possible archaeologically. Margalith points out that excavations show, “These gates were all of a distinct pattern: the doors had protrusions at the top and bottom fitting into matching hollows in the lintel and threshold which served as hinges; the lintel and threshold were gigantic monoliths, as were the gateposts into which they fitted. It was impossible to wrest the doors of such a city-gate without smashing either the lintel, the posts, the threshold or the doors, let alone to lift out the latter undamaged.” – pg.113. Mythologically, after the death of Herakles and his being made a god, he went up to Olympus and was appointed its gate keeper, who stood in the gate, holding it open for the returning gods from the netherworld.
12. Hero Clasping Two Pillars: Herakles, in commemoration to his 10th labor of seizing the cattle of the three bodied giant Geryon, set up two pillars at the strait, which many believe to be the Strait of Gibraltar
Another author, Ev Cochrane (dealing with myth and archaeoastronomy) , has pointed out several more similarities with Herakles, in another study of Samson. Again, the main points are his and I have filled in the material, adding additional material I thought more pertinent.
Hero Shorn of Hair: Herakles, returning from a battle with the Amazons, sees Hesione, a Trojan princess, chained naked to a rock, about to be devoured by a sea monster. Herakles jumps into the monsters throat and takes three days to hack his way out, killing the monster. When he emerges, his head is bald. Shimshon had his head shaved bald by Deliyah to remove his strength. I think another example that I found is more applicable, of the shorn hair removing strength/life, is that of Scylla/Skylla cutting off her father’s, Nisus/Nisos’ lock of hair. “In the war waged by Minos king of Krete against the Athenians, on account of the death of his son Androgeos, Megara was besieged, and it was taken by the treachery of Skylla the daughter of Nisos. This prince had a golden or purple lock of hair growing on his head; and as long as it remained uncut, so long was his life to last. Skylla, having seen Minos, fell in love with him, and resolved to give him the victory. She cut off her father’s precious lock as he slept, and he immediately died: and the town was taken by the Kretans.” – The Mythology of Ancient Greece and Italy , Thomas Keightley, Leonhard Schmitz, George Bells and Sons, London , 1877, pg. 342.
Woman to Bring the Hero Down: Sophocles 1058-1063, quotes Herakles as saying, “Neither the spear of battle, nor the army of earth-born giants, nor the violence of beasts, nor Greece, nor any place of barbarous tongue, not all the lands I came to purify could ever do this. A woman, a female, in no way like a man, she alone without even a sword has brought me down.” Shimshon has his strength removed when he tells the truth to Deliyah about shaving his hair from his head. She puts him to sleep on her lap and called for a man to shave his head.
Renewed by Spring Water: The Clouds of Aristophanes 1051, “A scholiast upon these words thus discourses : — ‘ Ibycus says, that Vulcan made a gift to Hercules of a bath of warm water, from which some affirm, that warm baths are called Herculean ; but others say that Athena sent up warm baths for Hercules when fatigued with his toils ; Peisander, for example, writes, ' And the blue-eyed Athena made for him, at Thermopylœ, a warm bath, on the shore of the sea.’ ” –Aristophanes, Cornelius Conway Felton, Cambridge 15:18 , was thirsty after slaying the Felishthiym, crying out to YHWH, says that he is dying of thirst. Elohiym opened up a spring and water came out, reviving Shimshon.
While a few comparisons could be called a coincidence, I have provided 15 comparisons. The accounts of Shimshon, are obviously taken from the Indo-European Hellenes/Greek myths of Herakles by the Sea Peoples, assimilated into the invaded territory of Kenaan
Another quick example is that of the blessings of Yaaqob [Jacob] in the 49th chapter of Bereshiyth [Genesis]. Before Yaaqob dies, he gathers his sons, telling them what will happen in the future. I have always been very perplexed by this chapter, wondering about the symbolism and what it meant. I was especially concerned with the passage about Shimeon and Lewiy, the brothers. I could somewhat understand Yaaqob saying that their swords were implements of violence, slaying men, due to Shimeon and Lewiy killing the men of Shekem, for their sister Diynah being raped by Shekem, after they were circumcised as a condition of the marriage of Shekem and Diynah (Gen. 34). But I could never understand why it was said that they lamed / hamstrung oxen. There is no biblical account for this statement. AQR, the word that most translators use for lame or hamstrung, in the Hebrew, can mean to sterilize, castrate and hamstring, but it also means to pluck up, move, remove, up root, also applied to landing property. Very convenient of the translators to make it sound like the brothers were hamstringing cattle, rather than stealing them. So recently after all this other work and questioning many other passages and assimilations, I did a google search on “brothers + cattle + violence.” Immediately accounts of Kastor and Pollux, the adventurous and violent brothers came up, from late Greek mythology. It appears that the brothers Kastor and Pollux were very close. They had a sister Helen, a very famous sister who came to be known as Helen of Troy, whose abduction and rape sparked the epic battle between Sparta and Troy, which by the way, occurred as part of the Sea Peoples battles. Helen was abducted and raped by Paris Athens Sparta Paris , it happens when she is left alone with Paris
There are other accounts in Jacob’s Blessings that are of Sea People origin and other Indo-European nations, which may be better suited to a study all its own, for time and space.
Athene / Athena – Athene / Athena is a shortened Anglicized version of this woman’s PIE name, a title actually, Athana Potnija, which means Mistress / Lady of Athana, later coming to be associated with the creation of Athens, but this title occurs on Late Mycenaean (a PIE culture that invaded Crete and the Minoans) inscriptions at Knossos, prior to the establishment of Athens as it came to be known. Athana or rather Athene, was part of the Minoan culture, which had ties to the western Anatolian culture, prior to these PIE invasions. The character of Athene is very complex and is a very strong bridge between the original mother cultures and the later invading Indo-European cultures views of women and goddesses. As a result, I have to cover in detail, this personification of the mother, so that you can see all the original elements and how they came to be applied in the Tanak/Bible.
Athene, “by any other name”, is the central female figure that came to be incorporated into the Greek Indo-European accounts. She was one and was fractured into many female goddesses and demi-goddesses. “Athene had been the Triple-goddess, and when the central person, the Goddess as Nymph, was suppressed and myths relating to her transferred to Aphrodite, Oreithyia, or Alcippe, there remained the Maiden clad in goat-skins, who specialized in war, and the Crone, who inspired oracles and presided over the arts.” The Greek Myths, pg. 99. The triple-goddess that Robert Graves is referring to is a common belief system that originally represented the three phases of a woman’s life: the young woman, generally sexually charged, yet not having children yet; the mother; and the older wise woman, which the patriarchal culture preferred to diminish and refer to as a Crone, also depicting her as a witch to be feared.
Athene preceded the Olympian pantheon and since they could not wipe her out, they re-mythed her to be born from Zeus’ head and made her his daughter, removing the spindle from her hand and replacing it with a spear. The re-mything of her city, Athens , associated with a sacred fresh water spring at the Athenian Acropolis, is very much like the accounts of the sacred spring at Arinna, increasing the connection with the goddess of Arinna. “In her central function, as in the extent and profundity of her worship, Athena shows marked similarities to an earlier guardian deity, one we have come to know only in recent years, the great Anatolian war-goddess of the second millennium BC, the protectress and champion of the Hittite kings, the widely and intensely revered Sungoddess of Arinna. (note 4 – the Hittite deity also shares Athena’s association with craft: her holy city of Arinna was a centre of metalworking.).” Athena in the Classical World, pg. 349. Linguistic evidence points to the borrowing from the Hattian Arinna, through the Luwian (PIE) Adana to the Mycenaean (PIE) Athana. “It is, finally, of some considerable interest to note that Homer’s Trojans, who quite likely spoke Luwian outside Greek epic, address Athena with a typically Anatolian title: Potni’ Athenaie, using (in Greek) a morphological form shared with – and prominent in Hittite (the adjectival suffix - iya) and a syntactic feature of Luwian syntax being the use of adjectives (in –assa in Luwian) to replace genitive in indicating the relationship of one noun to another.” Athena in the Classical World, pgs. 364, 365. Athena in the Classical World, pgs. 364, 365. Athene (Hellenes – Classical) = Atana (Mycenaean in Krete) = astanus (Luwian in Anatolia - sun) = Estan (Hattian in Anatolia ).
Another example of the origins of Athene in the Anatolian territory is the story of her birth. In the later Greek account, Athene, the prior earth mother that could not be wiped out, is born from the head of Zeus. Zeus’ first wife was Metis, a Titaness, the previous grouping of deities. There was a prophecy that a child from Metis would be greater than the father. Zeus, trying to avoid an overthrow by his offspring, as he had done with his father Kronos and he had with his father Ouranos, decides not to swallow the offspring, as his father had done, but to swallow the pregnant mother Metis, after tricking her to change herself into a fly first. After having severe migraines, he tells Hephaestus, the smith god, to crack open his head and Athene, fully dressed and in armor, with a spear, leaps out of his head. Yet in previous accounts and art, it is not Hephaestus who helps with the birth, but Eileithyia (Ilithyia), the earlier goddess of midwifery and childbirth (shown below), written in the Linear B of Crete as e-re-u-ti-ja. “J. E. Harrison rightly described the story of Athene’s birth from Zeus’s head as ‘a desperate theological expedient to rid her matriarchal conditions.’ “ The Greek Myths, pg. 46.
Midway Hellenes accounts ascribed the paternity of Athene to Poseidon, prior to Zeus and the Olympian cult. Robert Graves writes, “It is plain that the Ionian Pelasgians of Athens were defeated by the Aeolians, and that Athene regained her sovereignty only by alliance with Zeus’s Achaeans, who later made her disown Poseidon’s paternity and admit herself reborn from Zeus’s head.” The Greek Myths, pg. 62.
In much older Hittite accounts, Kumarbi, the son of Anu, the god of heaven, tries to overthrow his father. When Anu tried to escape, Kumarbi bit off and swallowed the genitals of his father. When he discovered that this had impregnated him, he spat out the semen, but the pregnancy of Teshub, his son, remained and had to be cut out of him. Another account has another deity, Kazal, emerging from his skull. Yet another example of a PIE’s culture trying to take on the mother roles of childbirth.
To make matters even more clear, in the city of Wilusa (later known as Troy , Hatti territory), on the western portion of Anatolia , the patron deity of the city and the major temple there was Athene. If you look at the symbolism on Archaic Greek pottery associated with Athene and those of Troy archaeology, especially spindle whorls, it is the same. The legend was that the city could not be taken, so long as the image, palladium, of Athene remained in the city. Apollodorus [3.12.3], “But Ilus went to Phrygia , and finding games held there by the king, he was victorious in wrestling. As a prize he received fifty youths and as many maidens, and the king, in obedience to an oracle, gave him also a dappled cow and bade him found a city wherever the animal should lie down; so he followed the cow. And when she was come to what was called the hill of the Phrygian Ate, she lay down; there Ilus built a city and called it Ilium (Troy ). And having prayed to Zeus that a sign might be shown to him, he beheld by day the Palladium, fallen from heaven, lying before his tent. It was three cubits in height, its feet joined together; in its right hand it held a spear aloft, and in the other hand a distaff and spindle.”
Pausanias, Description of Greece Thebes ] Kadmos and the host with him were to make their dwelling [found Thebes ] where the cow was going to sink down in weariness. So this is one of the places that they [the Thebans] point out. Here there is in the open an altar and an image of Athena, said to have been dedicated by Kadmos. Those who think that the Kadmos who came to the Theban land was an Aigyptian (Egyptian), and not a Phoinikian (Phoenician), have their opinion contradicted by the name of this Athena, because she is called by the Phoinikian name of Onga, and not by the Aigyptian name of Sais ." In later Ugarit culture, Athene is Anath, the warrior goddess daughter of the male god El. There are bilingual inscriptions from Cyprus (KAI 42) that have Athene in one language and Anat in the other.
Mother
Athena is the 4th generation personification of the earth mother. Gaia is one of the older renditions of the mother in the Hellenes culture. She is the earth personified. Gaia gave birth to Rhea, another version of the ultimate mother in a later generation of the goddesses. Rhea gave birth to the titaness Metis, which means wisdom, skill, cunning. Metis was the first wife of Zeus, according to the older accounts. A prophesy was given that the children of Metis would be very powerful. Zeus, who had overthrown his own father, in typical Proto-Indo-European fashion, was the third generation of sons overthrowing their fathers for the throne in the Greek accounts. Zeus did not want to reap what he had sown, so after lying with Metis, he tricked her into changing herself into a fly and when she did, he swallowed her. Metis was already pregnant with Athene, who was then born from the head of Zeus. Athene is the fourth generation of the mother manifestations and the association of wisdom (which is covered further on in this section). Athene originally is listed as a mother, a creatress of humans from clay, as well as being over the crafts and skills. In referring to the title Athana Potnija, John Pinsent writes, “It means ‘the Athenian one’, and refers to another manifestation of the pre-Greek mother goddess worshipped, as she continued to be worshipped, in the Parthenon on the Acropolis at Athens ,…” Greek Mythology, pg. 31. “ ‘Lady’, ‘Mistress,’ and ‘Queen’ are very frequently employed as the titles of those fertility goddesses known as ‘mother goddesses’. For this reason, among many others, it has often been classified that Athena is such a fertility goddess. Her title and depiction as queen, that is refers not only or even primarily to her patronage of the domestic community but rather to her lordship over the surrounding forces of nature.” “Here the terms ‘queen’ (potnia) and ‘mistress’ (desponia) seem to lead naturally in Eurpides’ mind to that of Athena as Mother (mater). Indeed, in Elis, the northwest of the Peloponnesia, where ancient cults had a way of resisting transformation, the goddess was formerly worshipped as Athena Meter (‘mother’), and was said that she was responsible for the great fertility of the men there.” Symbolic Elements in the Cult of Athena, pgs. 136, 137. The particular quote referenced is from Pausanias, Description of Greece 5. 3. 2 :
"The women ofElis , it is said, seeing that their land had been deprived of its vigorous manhood [following the war with Herakles], prayed to Athena that they might conceive at their first union with their husbands. Their prayer was answered, and they set up a sanctuary of Athena surnamed Meter (Mother)."
"The women of
Another aspect of the mother and queen, especially in western Anatolia , is that of sitting on a throne, which in some ancient writings, the queen mother is simply called the Throne. It was by these women that the later Indo-European kings received their authority. Athene, is originally depicted on thrones, especially with spinning spindle and distaff. Later, as she is made militant by the Indo-Europeans, she is seen standing and bearing a spear and shield. Strabo, Geography 13. 1. 41 : "There are to be seen many of the ancient wooden images of Athena in a sitting posture, as, for example, in Phokaia, Massalia, Rome , Khios , and several other places." Pausanias, Description of Greece Lydia ] a temple of Athena Polias
Part of the Mother aspect of the goddesses was the original connection with the earth and its produce, which was also attributed to Athene before all the militaristic aspects were all they left her with. Suidas s.v. Procharisteria :"Prokharisteria (Thanksgiving) : A day on which all Athenian office-holders used to sacrifice to Athena, with the crops beginning to grow and winter already ending. The name of the sacrifice was Prokharisteria. Lykourgos in the speech On the Priesthood writes : `so the most ancient sacrifice is held because the goddess is coming up; it is named Thanksgiving because the growing crops are sprouting.'"
Bird Association
Another aspect of Athene is the association of the birds. Originally, there were a number of birds associated with her, such as the owl, crow, vulture, sea bird. For example, Pausanias, Description of Greece 4. 34. 6 (trans. Jones) (Greek travelogue C2nd A.D.) : "The statue of Athena also on the acropolis [of Korone Messenia] is of bronze, and stands in the open air, holding a crow (koronis) in her hand." Later, the main association of a bird, is that of the owl. The owl (glaux from the same root as glaukos) is not only depicted with Athene, but is used to represent her, as well as the body of a woman and the head of an owl, sometimes, even having the owl, holding a spindle. As the Indo-European patriarchal religions dominated, aspects of what were originally the mother Athene, came to be even more fractured. Instead of the generational goddesses, there were now personality goddesses, with a different goddess being over just a few aspects of life, where they had previously been bundled as one personification. As the Indo-European patriarchal culture became more misogynist, at least as far as the goddesses were concerned, this fracturing led to the goddesses being vilified. So what was originally the mother Athene, became the gorgon Medusa, with all the same symbolism. Below are some images of the Mistress of Animals (Potnia Theron), sometimes winged herself, which some claim represents the later fractured goddess Artemis, but as I will prove, is clearly the original Athene.
Below is an image from an Attic amphora, dated between 550-525 BCE. The scene on one side of the amphora is that of the birth of Athene from the head of Zeus, mentioned above. Zeus is the one sitting on the throne. Metis, the titaness mother of Athene, that he swallowed when she was in the form of a fly, is depicted under his throne. Notice how she is winged. This imagery repeats in the other winged images of the goddess.
Below is a necklace of pendants showing the winged Mistress of Animals from Rhodes , dating from 620-600 BCE. Beside it is a close up of the gold pendants.
Below is an amphora from Boeotia dating 680 BCE. I have provided a blow up of the crucial image of the Mistress of Animals, showing her winged arms and bird face. The third image is an aryballos from Boeotia dated to 590 BCE.
Below are images from 1. an attic ceramic dated to 570 BCE, 2. Archaic Mistress of Animals, 3. a plate from Rhodes depicting the later myths version of Athene as the Gorgon Medusa (which means guardian, protectress, a characteristic of Athene as a patroness, as well as the snake association). An epithet of Athene is Gorgo Epekoos, meaning Gorgon-like. Later Greek mythology depicts Athene wearing the severed head of the Gorgon Medusa, called the Aegis, on her garment and depicted on her shield.
Below are 3 bird women statues from Boeotia dating from 900-700 BCE.
So lets take a look at the personification of the woman with the bird heads and at times bodies, from the areas and times of the mother cultures. Below is a small sampling of these personifications as specifically owls, but there are many more, especially in the Troy territory and south central ancient Anatolia, modern day Syria .
1. Romanian owl pot 3500 BCE, 2. Hungarian owl vases, 3500 BCE, 3. Crete bird goddess, 1400 BCE, 4.Toad (Troy ) owl pot 1300 BCE, 5. Athene owl goddess, Boeotia , 7th cent. BCE.
In modern day Tel Brak (Syria ), an ancient late Neolithic site, a building was found, that archaeologists dubbed the Eye Temple
While these owl eye images are from 3500 BCE, the design has been carried forth in the weavings of Anatolia for who knows how long. Being a weaver and learning of weaving styles from various countries and times, I have loved the Anatolian kilim weavings probably most of all. Some of the symbolism that is evident of the mother association on ceramics and inscriptions, is also evident in the weavings in a more rectilinear style. Below is such a weaving from the early 1900’s, but the style is much older and the patterns are more ancient, from my weaving research. Tapestries are difficult to preserve over time, so many do not make it from more ancient times. You can clearly see the same type of shape and image as the Tel Brak owl eyes, as well as the Tel Brak monolith beside it. This weaving has the owl/bird symbolism, the mother symbolism, as well as the plant imagery that is often associated with the mother.
Below are four coins: the first and second - Athens , third – Troy (notice Athene carrying the spindle and distaff) and the fourth – Gaza .
Another aspect of the bird association, which came to be a further demonization of women in the Semitic culture is that of Lillith. Lilitu / Lilit / Lilith – Lilitu is the later Sumerian handmaid of Inanna, also called the hand of Inanna. I am including this here with Athene, because this woman bird, especially owl, association is very strong in the Aegean and ancient Anatolian culture, more so than in the Assyrian/Babylonian cultures. The Hebrew name Lilith is a loan word from the Akkadian Lilitu. In the later Babylonian accounts, very much due to the established Kurgan , Steppe / Indo-European male dominated influence, that demonizes women, the texts list her as the prostitute of Ishtar, addressed below. In the Semitic languages, laylah, means night. Lilith is the Hebrew variation of Lilitu. Lilitu is depicted as a woman with features of an owl, but this is an older and more western theme that migrated to Sumeria and then Babylonia . “Of greater importance, however, is the sexual aspect of the – mainly- female demons lilitu and (w)ardat lili. Thus the texts refer to them as the ones who have no husband, or as the ones who stroll about searching for men in order to ensnare them or to enter the house of the man through the window.” Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, pg. 520. Clearly, as with so many cultures, any woman that did not submit to the invading patriarchal system, who refused to take a husband, became a threat, and was demonized, like the Greek Amazons and Anath of the Canaanites. The patriarchal invaders made women property of their father and then to a husband. Should a husband die, she then became the property of her husbands brother.
Some believe Lilith’s name occurs in the Tanak, others that it is just a personification of her. The word liyliyth (lilith) occurs in the following passage with a grouping of other desert animals, some only used once and therefore hard to define. YeshaYahu [Isaiah] 34:14, “the desert creatures will also meet with the howlers; and the shaggy goat will cry to his fellow. the screech owl [liyliyth- lilith] will also settle there, and find a place of rest for herself.” It is translated as screech owl, a representation applied to her, as a night bird. There are a number of mother goddesses that are also associated with various birds, one especially with the owl, including Inanna, Ishtar and Athene.
Just because a passage of text deals with certain animals, does not mean they are literal animals. I have run into whole passages of text in the prophets that list one, very well known image of the mother goddesses after another. The passages of the curses seemed to be directly attacking the mother goddesses, without directly naming them, by using the animals representation instead. In Judaism’s mythology, Lilith was the first wife of Adam. She refused to submit to his authority, even sexually, refusing to lie beneath him, saying they were both equal, and flew from Eden . She has since then been viewed as a creature of the night, seeking to seduce men and was demonized of course. The ironic part of this mythology is that Lilith stated they were equal, which is a common pattern amongst cultures that were matrilineal, in contrast to the Indo-European patriarchal system on castes and slavery, even of the native men they conquered.
There is an image, called the Burney Relief, after Sidney Burney, a London antiques dealer, who purchased the relief in 1935. It was originally purchased from a Syrian dealer, but the provenance is unknown. Many people associate the relief with either Inanna or Ishtar, due to the figures hands holding the rings of power, which is a Sumerian and Babylonian symbol. But I think that the image is from the Syrian to western Anatolian territory, which also had some similar imagery, but more especially the images of women and owls combined or beside each other. This subject is more fully covered in the Athene section. At any rate, other writes have named the image Lilith because of the associations. There are no inscriptions on the relief to tie it to any one goddess with certainty.
Another passage with the woman, wings and wickedness association is ZekarYahu 5:5-11, “then the malak who was speaking with me went out, and said to me, now lift up your eyes and see what this is that goes forth. 6 and i said, what is it? and he said, this is the ephah that goes forth. and he said, this is their form in all the earth. 7 and, look, a lead cover was lifted up, and a woman was sitting in the middle of the ephah. 8 and he said, this is wickedness. and he threw her into the midst of the ephah; and he threw the lead stone over its opening. 9 and i lifted up my eyes and looked. and, look, two women came out. and the wind was in their wings; for they had wings like the wings of the stork. and they lifted up the ephah between the earth and the heavens. 10 and i said to the malak who was speaking with me, where are they going with the ephah? 11 and he said to me, to build a house for it in the land of shinar
The Hebrew for stork is chasiydah. Yes, the root is chasiyd, which means devout. Chasiydah is so named because it is literally the pious, devout bird. According to Klein’s, it is so called in allusion to its love for its young – she that practices maternal care. The nurturing aspect of women and the bird association is one of the mother / creatress / goddess characteristics. This is clearly a patriarchal demonized view of women.
Another example is that of a Qumran text that is nearly identical to passages in Mishley [Proverbs], about the Whore, Woman of Folly, etc. The Qumran text was found in cave 4, 4Q184, which some title, the Seductress. Below is a translation of the text. Writing between brackets are projected restorations from corrupted text.
4Q184
“[From her mouth] she brings fort vanity and…errors, she seeks continually [to sharpen her] words. And mockingly she flatters / deals smoothly, she insults altogether with [lips] of perversity. Her Heart establishes recklessness and her kidneys… …in perversity they are touched and her hands go down to the pit. Her feet go down to do evil and to walk in guilt [of rebellion]. Foundations of darkness… great are the rebellions in her wings [kanaf]. …eminence of night and her coverings… Her covers are deep darkness of twilight and her ornaments are touched with ruin. Her couches are beds of the pit, from the low places of the pit. From her night huts are beds of darkness and in the midst of [night are her tents]. From the foundations of the deep darkness she pitches dwelling and she sits in tents of silence. In the middle of everlasting fires, not in the middle of all luminaries is her inheritance. She is the beginning of all the ways of perversity. Woe, ruin belongs to all who possess her and destruction to [all] that takes hold of her. For her ways are ways of death and her paths are paths of sin. Her tracks are strayings of perversity and her [byways] are wrongdoings of rebellion. Her gates are gates of death, at the entrance of her house she steps into [Sheol]. [All] who enter, [they will not return] [and look] all her inheritors go down to the pit. And she lies in wait in secret places [near] every [corner… In the broad places of the city she covers herself and in the gates of the city she stations herself. And she has [no repose from walking continually]. Her eyes glance here and there and her eyelids she lifts wantonly. [To look at] a righteous [man] and trip him up and a [might] man she causes him to stumble. Upright men to pervert their way and [prevents] the righteous elect from keeping the commandment. The sustained ones to cause to be foolish with wantonness and those who walk straight to alter their [custom]. To cause the meek ones to rebel from El and to turn their steps from the ways of righteousness. To bring [insolence to their hearts] so that they are not [ordered] on the paths of righteousness. To lead humanity astray into the ways of the pit and to seduce with smooth talk the sons of man.”
You will notice toward the end of the first quarter of the text the phrase “great are the rebellions in her wings.” The word wings is kanafiym [plural of kanaf]. Some translators have translated skirts, but this should actually be wings for a number of reasons. Kanaf’s primary definition is wing, according to Klein’s, not just in Hebrew, but in another of the Semitic languages. Kanaf also means to cover with ones wings. This is a common theme with the mother goddesses, as well as the assimilated passages later ascribed to El or YHWH. Another reason this should be wings, instead of skirts, is the night [liylah] references which have the female ending, as well as other night terms such as darkness and twilight in the same context. These are all male dominated characteristics they have placed on the female goddesses they have vilified.
Of the 109 uses of kanaf in the Tanak, almost all are translated as wings, except where the translators agenda is clearly to remove the obvious assimilation of the mother goddess culture from El or YHWH, such as Yechezqel [Ezekiel] 16:8, now associated with YHWH, “and i passed by you, and i looked on you, and, look, your time was the time of love. and i spread my wings over you and covered your nakedness. and i swore to you and entered into a covenant with you, declares adonay YHWH. and you became mine.” Other places it is clearly wings and no attempt to hide it was made, the associations were simply assimilated. Malakiy 4:2, “but to you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness will rise up, and healing will be on his wings.” This was an older association with the mother goddesses, which were also solar and healing deities. Thehillah [Psalm] 17:8, “keep me as the pupil, the daughter of the eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings,” Shemoth [Exodus] 19:4, “you yourselves have seen what i did to mitsrayim [egypt], and how i bore you on the wings of eagles , and brought you to myself.” HaDebariym [Deut.] 32:9-11, “for portion of YHWH is his people; yaaqob is the lot of his inheritance. 10 he found him in a desert land, and in the waste, a howling wilderness. he encircled him and cared for him; he guarded him as the pupil of his eye. 11 as the eagle stirs up its nest; it hovers over its young; it spreads out its wings and takes it, and bears it on its wing.”
There are a few references in the Talmud to Lilith. Shabbath 151b, “R. Hanina said: One may not sleep in a house alone, and whoever sleeps in a house alone is seized by Lilith.” Erubin 18b, “R. Jeremiah b. Eleazar further stated: In all those years during which Adam was under the ban he begot ghosts and male demons and female demons (night demons), for it is said in Scripture: And Adam lived a hundred and thirty years and begot a son in his own likeness, after his own image, from which it follows that until that time he did not beget after his own image. An objection was raised: R. Meir said: Adam was a great saint. When he saw that through him death was ordained as a punishment he spent a hundred and thirty years in fasting, severed connection with his wife for a hundred and thirty years, and wore clothes of fig [leaves] on his body for a hundred and thirty years. — That statement was made in reference to the semen which he emitted accidentally.” Niddah 24b, “Rab Judah citing Samuel ruled: If an abortion had the likeness of Lilith (A female demon of the night, reputed to have wings and a human face.) its mother is unclean by reason of the birth, for it is a child, but it has wings. So it was also taught: R. Jose stated, It once happened at Simoni that a woman aborted the likeness of Lilith, and when the case came up for a decision before the Sages they ruled that it was a child but that it also had wings.” There are two other references in the Talmud, but the verses are unclear as to meaning, other than the notes that Lilith is a night demon – Gittin 69b and Baba Bathra 73a. Clearly the Talmud reflected the beliefs that Lilith had wings, was a seducer of men, propagated by collecting the seed of masturbating men and was a demon of the night.
Mistress of Craftswomen and Craftsmen
One of Athene’s titles is Athene Ergane (Erganh - worker, craftsman). “The root of the words ergon and Erganh bears another and more primitive meaning than that in the later times usually implied. Ergon is a ‘land’ as well as the result of a craft and Ergane is she of the tilled ground as well as she of the needle and loom, the chisel and hammer. We need go no further than the Erga kai Hmerai of Hesoid and the andrwn piona erga of Homer. This meaning is put second in the lexicon but surely came first to primitive man. The ‘works’ of Ergane changed from the ploughed fields to statues as her worshippers changed from rural labourers to city craftsmen and artists, but even ceirwnax lewV dare not omit from the cultus of Ergane her sacred symbol of the liknon (winnowing basket/cradle): she would remember though they might forget.” The Classical Review, 1894, Jane E. Harrison, pg. 270. Also, the Chalkeia, a festival to dedicated to Hephaistos (not originally involved) and Athene of artisans, was originally a ploughing festival.
In a later Homeric Hymn to Hephaestus XX, (ll. 1-7) “Sing, clear-voiced Muses, of Hephaestus famed for inventions. With bright-eyed Athene he taught men glorious gifts throughout the world, -- men who before used to dwell in caves in the mountains like wild beasts. But now that they have learned crafts through Hephaestus the famed worker, easily they live a peaceful life in their own houses the whole year round.,” Athene was attributed as being the creator of these pairs of humans, their teacher of the skills, later Mycenaeans could not eradicate this belief in the mother and added men such as Prometheus and Hephaestus (an obvious PIE addition – the metal smith that makes weapons for the gods) to share in the earlier attributes to Athene, the earth mother and teacher of men. “Hephaestus and Athene shared temples at Athens , and his name may be a worn-down form of hemero-phaistos, ‘he who shines by day’ (i.e. the sun), whereas Athene was the moon-goddess, ‘she who shines by night’, patroness of smithcraft and of all mechanical arts.” The Greek Myths, pg. 87.
One of the earlier mentioned islands of the Aegean Sea, who held to the mother cultures was that of Rhodes , previously known as Telkhinia. The Telkhines were believed to be the original inhabitants of Rhodes , prior to the Hellenic invasions and were replaced by the mythologically younger people referred to as the Heliadai. Telkhines are attributed as being the offspring of Athene, being viewed as having all sorts of magic talents, which were not magic, but simply artisan skills, especially known for their metallurgy. They were cultivators of the soil. Their origins are hard to place, some accounts state they came from Krete to Cyprus to Rhodes or from Rhodes to Krete and Boeotia . All these areas were previously mother cultures with strong artisan communities. It is said that they fore saw the coming flood, and fled to Lycia , north of Rhodes on the mainland, and other locations. The important aspect of the Telkhines is that they were a mother culture of artisans, also considered offspring of Athene, the patron goddess of artisans and the teacher of these skills. All of these locations have artwork depicting Athene and all have a specific symbol and wing imagery associated with her.
“The potters feared lesser gods and daemons who might destroy their work. Among the relics of popular poetry preserved in the biography of Homer ascribed to Herodotus there is a Potter’s Song. It begins with a prayer that Athena my hold her hand over the potters’ oven and that the vessels my be well fired, receive a beautiful black color and yield a good profit when they are sold… He uses the common mythology, of course; but it is interesting to note not only that Athena is the potters’ protectress, but also, and especially, that the potters believed in a lot of mischievous goblins which were apt to destroy their work… In Athens , Athena was the protectress of the artisans. This was quite natural, for she was already so in Homer. She protected the weaving of the women and the art of the gold-smiths and the coppersmiths. An Attic vase shows her in a potters workshop. For the popularity of Athena among the artisans at this time some verses of Sophocles are characteristic: ‘Come out in the street you, all the people of the handicraftsmen, who venerate the daughter of Zeus, Ergane, with sacrificial baskets and beside the heavy anvil, beaten with hammers.’ Evidently Sophocles hints at some popular festival of Athena celebrated by the artisans in the streets of the town. There was such a festival, the Chalkeia. The word signifies the festival of the coppersmiths. It belonged to Athena, but at a later date another god of the Athenian artisans, Hephaistos, was associated with Athena.” Greek Popular Religion, Martin Persson Nilsson, pg. 71.
There may be a very good reason for the pairing of the ceramics and metallurgy in the accounts of the mythology, that of the kilns. “Several scholars are convinced that a connection existed between the crafts of ceramics and metallurgy.”
Spinning and Weaving
This brings up another very important association with Athene, that of spinning and weaving, which is also older than the Greek and has its origin in ancient Anatolia . She is the patron goddess of these skills and the teacher of them to the crafts women and men. According to Hesiod, Works and Days 60-64, when woman was created by the direction of Zeus, “So said the father of men and gods, and laughed aloud. And he bade famous Hephaestus make haste and mix earth with water and to put in it the voice and strength of human kind, and fashion a sweet, lovely maiden-shape, like to the immortal goddesses in face; and Athene to teach her needlework and the weaving of the varied web;” “In Homer’s Odyssey 7.110-11, it is said that the Phaiakian women ‘are skilled in weaving,’ having been ‘dowered with wisdom bestowed by Athene, to be expert in beautiful work’; later in the same text, Athena is described as the one who instructed the daughters of Pandareos ‘in glorious handiwork’ (Odyssey 20.72). This same sentiment is expressed elsewhere in the Homeric tradition in the Homeric ‘Hymn to Aphrodite,’ lines 10-11 and 14-15, in which we read that ‘pleasure’ for Athena lies ‘in fostering glorious handicrafts,’ so that she ‘taught smooth-skinned palace maidens at work in their quarters to weave bright strands.’ “Asherah, the West Semitic Goddess of Spinning and Weaving?, Susan Ackerman, PDF, pg. 5. Pausanias, a geographer in the 2nd century CE, wrote, “At Erythrse (Erythrae, near Mt. Ida in the Troad, western ancient Anatolia, south of Wilusa/Troy) there is also a temple of Athene Polias, and a huge wooden statue of the goddess seated on a throne, in one hand a distaff in the other a spindle.” Pausanias VII 5.9.
Athene, as the patroness of spinners and weavers, later came to be further separated into the personifications of the Moirae (apportioners - Fates) of Greek mythology. Zeus feared these Moirae, whose number came to be fixed at 3; Klotho (spinner), Lakhesis (allotter – measured the thread), and Atropos (inevitable – cut the thread of life). Curiously the Hebrew word for fear, terror is mora (mem, waw, resh, alef). This fear of death very much ties into the Prot-Indo-European belief system.
In the ancient Hellenes culture, there were a number of different priestess positions, three of which dealt with the spinning and weaving. “This can be observed in our very earliest documentation of sacred offices preserved in the Linear B tablets from Pylos. Here we have thirty women’s occupations listed among the workers in service to the goddess. We hear of the wool carders, ‘pe-ki-ti-ra’ (pektriai); spinners, ‘a-ra-ka-te-ja’ (alalateiai); and weavers, ‘i-te-ja-a’ (histeiai).” Portrait of a Priestess, Women and Ritual in Ancient Greece
Below that is a drawing from a Greek terracotta loom weight from the 4th century BCE, depicting the owl, representative of Athene as the patroness of spinners and weavers, holding a distaff and drop spindle. Next is a coin from Troy (notice Athene carrying the spindle and distaff, not the spear and shield of the militaristic, patriarchal PIE Hellenes).
A weaving account from a Corinthian aryballos jar, dating 600 BCE, depicting the weaving competition of Athene and Arachne.
In the Hebraic text, there are not as many accounts concerning spinning and weaving, but the few there are, are generally not shown in a good light and associated with prostitution by Hebrew associations and English translators, except those which directly correlate to wisdom, perhaps showing the wise mother roots, as opposed to the patriarchal view of these women and this craft. The Hebrew word, to spin, is tawah (teyt, waw, he). This is important because tawah begins with the Phoenician letter “teyt”. Paleo-Phoenician letters were symbols with meanings before they came to be used alphabetically. Teyt’s 
, meaning was spindle. Which is all the more important, as I get into the older variations of this symbol, archaeologically, further down the study.
, meaning was spindle. Which is all the more important, as I get into the older variations of this symbol, archaeologically, further down the study.
The first account we see of spinning or weaving in the bible, based on the book order, not oldest textual account, is that of the Shemoth [Exodus] 35:25,26, with the building of the mishkan, the tent of El, “and every wise hearted woman with her hands spun [tawah], and they brought spun yarn, in the blue and the purple and the scarlet material and in fine linen. 26 all the women whose hearts lifted up in wisdom spun [tawah] the goats hair.” These are the only 2 times that tawah is used in the Tanak. Please note that it did not speak of women in general, but of women with wisdom in their heart , chakmath – leb. 36:1,2 has another connection, which may cast some further light on this situation. “now betsalel and ahaliyab, and every wise of heart in whom YHWH has given wisdom and understanding to know how to do all the work of the service of the qodesh [the set apart], will perform in accordance with all that YHWH has commanded. 2 and mosheh called betsalel and ahaliyab [tent of my father] and every wise of heart to whom YHWH had given a heart of wisdom, everyone whose heart lifted him, to come to the work to do it.” This states that YHWH, the deity of this text, is the one giving the knowledge of these crafts, to these people. This is the same belief that Athene gives the knowledge/wisdom of the crafts to those that she favors and it is only through her that any of the artisans have these abilities.
The Akkadian word spindle, felek/pelek, is only used once, in conjunction with spinning, in Mishley [Proverbs] 31:19, concerning the virtuous woman, covered below. Likewise the one time the word distaff, kiyshor (Aramaic) is used, it is also in Mishley 31:19.
Erag is the Hebrew word, to weave, weaver and weaving. It is related to the Phoenician word for weaver, by the same three letters (alef, resh, gimel), which coincidentally, or not, is the same root as the title of Athene – Ergane.
This is where things get tricky in the Tanak/Bible, concerning weaving and spinning. For an occupation that is so dominant and necessary in a culture, at least for clothing, there are few references to it, especially directly. Aside from the wise women mentioned in Shemoth [Exodus], above and the virtuous woman of Mishley [Proverbs] 31, below (which does not mention weaving and spinning directly, but the spindle and distaff, flax and wool, and making garments – obviously spinning and weaving) the other accounts are associated with prostitutes, who are not really prostitutes, or they associate this craft with the Felishthiym [Philistines], which is just as bad in the eyes of the priestly scribes.
Yahusha [Joshua] 2 gives an account of the spies scouting out Yeriycho [Jericho ] before they attack it. Verse 1 states, “and yahusha` ben nun sent two men out of shittiym to spy secretly, saying, go look over the land, and yeriycho. and they went and came into the house of a woman, a whore; and her name was rachab. and they lay down there.” Now, I am not fond of the misogynist attitudes of men that call any woman they disagree with a whore. The Hebrew word that the translators use for whore is zonah. Now zonah can mean whore or prostitute, but more commonly means a person that went after other gods – in their eyes, a non-believer. Rachab hides these men, where? On her roof, under stalks of flax. Now why would she have stalks of flax? Flax is the fiber that is used to spin linen. Not something the average person has lying spread out on their roof, but a spinner and weaver would, especially a spinner of the more costly, finer linen. She lets the spies down from her window by what translators call a rope. Tell me honestly, how many women do you know that have coils of rope in their upper floor house? Well, besides me. This word, hebel, meals cord, rope, measuring line. Whether it is rope, as we think of it, cording or a measuring line, all of which would be the tools and product of a spinner and weaver. For her help, she secures a promise from the spies that when they take the city, she and her family will be protected. The sign is a line of scarlet thread (THIS scarlet thread, meaning something they were handling or the same line she let them down by) from the window. The Hebrew word for line is thiqwah, which means a twisted cord, twisted. Chot is the Hebrew for thread. Scarlet is not a common color. It is more costly for dye and therefore not used by commoners, but is yet again, a tool of the spinners and weavers. All of the elements of this woman’s story show her not to be a prostitute, but a spinner and/or weaver.
Shoftiym [Judges] 16, we see a woman named Deliylah, who was a weaver, yet many religious leaders and teachers relay this account as her being a prostitute. As mentioned earlier in the Shimshon [Samson] parallel, Deliylah wove Shimshon’s hair into the weft and when she yelled that the Felishthiym were upon him, he jumped up with the pin, the hand loom and the web woven into his hair. Again with the Felishthiym association, we see the spears of two Felishthiym men, Golyath [Goliath] and his brother, whose spear shafts were like a weaver’s crossbeam (Hebrew manor) (I Shmuel 17:7 and II Shmuel 21:19).
In II Melekiym [Kings] 23, we see the religious changes enacted by King YoshiYahu [Josiah]. He is purging his territory of anything that is contrary to the temple priestly religion. Verse 7 states, “and he broke down the houses of the qedoshiym [set apart ones] that were in the house of YHWH, where the women were weaving, bethiym for asherah.” This passage is horribly mutilated by translators, in order to hide what is really going on. They translate BThYM (beth, thau, yod, mem) as bethiym - houses, which makes absolutely no sense at all. In the temple of Athene
On the third line, I have typed kethoneth in red and overlaid it with the letters, in black, of bethiym, to show you how little a scribe would have to do, in order to change this word and remove the context of what is trully taking place in this sentence.
This weaving of garments for the idols is a common practice at many of the temples all around the Aegean, Anatolia area and Mesopotamia . Why would the Kenaanite Asherah be any different? What translators don’t want you to realize, is that there was an Asherah in the temple (verse 6) and there were women and daughters weaving the garment of Asherah, there in the houses of the temple. Yet there are passages in the prophets that speak of the clothing of the idols. YirmeYahu [Jeremiah] 10:8,9 , “but they are at once foolish and animal like; their tree is an instruction of vanities. 9 silver beaten into plates is brought from tharshiysh, and gold from ufaz, the work of the craftsman and the hands of the goldsmith. violet and purple is their clothing; they are all the works of wise ones.” Yechezqel [Ezekiel] 16:17, 18, “and you have taken beautiful things of my gold and of my silver, which i had given to you, and you made images of males, and fornicated with them. 18 and you took your embroidered clothes and covered them. and my oil and my incense you have given to their face.” The women were not weaving houses for the Asherah in the temple, they and the daughters were weaving clothes for the Asherah.
Remember the passage above, about one of the aspects of religion, the separating of characteristics of a deity and create newer deities? Remember the passage about the Moirae (apportioners - Fates) of Greek mythology? These Moirae, whose number came to be fixed at 3; Klotho (spinner), Lakhesis (allotter – measured the thread), and Atropos (inevitable – cut the thread of life). One spun the threads of a persons life, the other measured it with her measuring rod and when it was determined that your life was at an end, the last cut the thread. Your life was woven on a loom, until the time of your death, at which point the weaving was cut off the loom. This is a common PIE mythology element. They were also called the Fates.
YeshaYahu the prophet is sent to tell ChizqiYahu [Hezekiah] the king of Yahudah that he is going to die and to get his house in order. ChizqiYahu prays to YHWH, who directs YeshaYahu to return and tell ChizqiYahu that he will have 15 years added to his life. ChizqiYahu writes in YeshaYahu 38:12, “my generation is plucked up and carried away from me, like a shepherd's tent; i have cut off my life like the weaver. he will cut me off from the warp threads; from day to night you will make an end of me.” Iyob [Job] 7:6 states, “my days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle and are ended without hope.” Thehillah [Psalm] 139:13-15, “for you have possessed my inward parts; you wove me in the womb of my mother. 14 i will thank you, for with awesome ways i am distinguished; your works are marvelous, and my being knows it very well. 15 my bones were not hidden from you when i was made in secret; when i was woven in the depths of the earth.” Clearly some of the life weaving beliefs are assimilated into the Tanak/Bible.
Goddess of Wisdom
In dealing with Athene as the goddess of wisdom, and how this relates to the Tanak/Bible, you need to understand the background, or genealogy of Athene. Gaia is one of the older renditions of the earth mother in the Hellenes culture. She is the earth personified. Gaia gave birth to Rhea, another version of the ultimate mother in a later generation of the goddesses. Rhea gave birth to the titaness Metis, which means wisdom, skill, cunning. Metis was the first wife of Zeus, according to the older accounts. A prophesy was given that the children of Metis would be very powerful. Zeus, who had overthrown his own father, in typical Proto-Indo-European fashion, was the third generation of sons overthrowing their fathers for the throne. Zeus did not want to reap what he had sown, so after lying with Metis, he tricked her into changing herself into a fly and when she did, he swallowed her. Metis was already pregnant with Athene, who was then born from the head of Zeus, when Hephaestus cracked open his skull with a double bladed axe (clearly this account is a PIE assimilation of older accounts because Hephaestus was not born until after Zeus took a second wife Hera and Hera had Hephaestus on her own, in retaliation to Zeus “birthing” a child on his own-scribes cant get their own lies straight). Athene is the fourth generation, according to the Hellenes accounts, of the mother manifestation and the association of wisdom.
In the Classical Greek, wisdom is written as sophia. But in the more archaic Greek, sophia is not just wisdom, what most associate with mental functions or intelligence, it is not a separate mental function from that of the hands. A sophist was a person possessing a certain skill or craftsmanship (techne). This is the same belief that Athene was the goddess of wisdom and the giver of it to people that she favored, blessed, they were the craftspeople, the artisans - not the latter groups of men that sat around studying and debating subjects like philosophers (lovers of wisdom).
Another aspect of this wisdom is the association with the mind of god, as personified by Athene’s birth from the head of Zeus, the chief deity of the Olympian pantheon. Plato’s (428/427 BCE – 348/347 BCE) Cratylus 407 a and b,
“Hermogenes - Yes; but what do you say of the other name?
Socrates - Athene?
Hermogenes - Yes.
Socrates - That is a graver matter, and there, my friend, the modern interpreters of Homer may, I think, assist in explaining the view of the ancients. For most of these in their explanations of the poet, assert that he meant by Athene "mind" (nous) and "intelligence" (dianoia), and the maker of names appears to have had a singular notion about her; and indeed calls her by a still higher title, "divine intelligence" (Thou noesis), as though he would say: This is she who has the mind of God (Theonoa);- using a as a dialectical variety e, and taking away i and s. Perhaps, however, the name Theonoe may mean "she who knows divine things" (Theia noousa) better than others. Nor shall we be far wrong in supposing that the author of it wished to identify this Goddess with moral intelligence (en ethei noesin), and therefore gave her the name ethonoe; which, however, either he or his successors have altered into what they thought a nicer form, and called her Athene.” Please note that this account of Athene being the mind of God, the wisdom of God was believed and written in the fourth century BCE. This is over 370 years before Philo, the Hellenistic Alexandrian Jew who wrote of the divine wisdom, being the firstborn son of God, the logos (word) made flesh. This is over 400 years before the birth of Yahusha, the messiah and the same attribution in the Gnostic gospel of John.
Socrates - Athene?
Hermogenes - Yes.
Socrates - That is a graver matter, and there, my friend, the modern interpreters of Homer may, I think, assist in explaining the view of the ancients. For most of these in their explanations of the poet, assert that he meant by Athene "mind" (nous) and "intelligence" (dianoia), and the maker of names appears to have had a singular notion about her; and indeed calls her by a still higher title, "divine intelligence" (Thou noesis), as though he would say: This is she who has the mind of God (Theonoa);- using a as a dialectical variety e, and taking away i and s. Perhaps, however, the name Theonoe may mean "she who knows divine things" (Theia noousa) better than others. Nor shall we be far wrong in supposing that the author of it wished to identify this Goddess with moral intelligence (en ethei noesin), and therefore gave her the name ethonoe; which, however, either he or his successors have altered into what they thought a nicer form, and called her Athene.” Please note that this account of Athene being the mind of God, the wisdom of God was believed and written in the fourth century BCE. This is over 370 years before Philo, the Hellenistic Alexandrian Jew who wrote of the divine wisdom, being the firstborn son of God, the logos (word) made flesh. This is over 400 years before the birth of Yahusha, the messiah and the same attribution in the Gnostic gospel of John.
If you think that this association with Athene’s wisdom and the mind of God is my being very farfetched, think again. This is a very old debate that Christianity could not avoid. Justin Martyr lived from 103-165 CE (AD). In his Apology 64.5 he writes, “And in like manner also they craftily feigned that Minerva (the Latin name for Athene) was the daughter of Jupiter (Latin name for Zeus), not by sexual union, but, knowing that God conceived and made the world by the Word, they say that Minerva is the first conception [ e)/nnoia]; which we consider to be very absurd, bringing forward the form of the conception in a female shape. And in like manner the actions of those others who are called sons of Jupiter sufficiently condemn them.” The ironic thing here is that Justin claims the Greeks craftily feigned an account of Athene being attributed to wisdom and the mind of god, yet those accounts are far older than anything that Judaism or Christianity ever wrote by nearly a 1000 years. Who is borrowing from whom here?
Now let us look at the accounts of Gaia and remembering the weaving and spinning of Athene, in comparison with the biblical accounts of a virtuous woman in Mishley [Proverbs] 31 and the accounts of Wisdom, personified as a female [chakmah – wisdom, which has the female gender in the Hebrew].
Homer hymn to Gaia, Homeric Hymns, 34 hymns, written about 700-500 BCE. Attributed to Homer, but are a collection.
Gaia
XXX. To Earth the Mother of All
(ll. 1-16) I will sing of well-founded Earth, mother of all, eldest of all beings. She feeds all creatures that are in the world, all that go upon the goodly land, and all that are in the paths of the seas, and all that fly: all these are fed of her store. Through you, O queen, men are blessed in their children and blessed in their harvests, and to you it belongs to give means of life to mortal men and to take it away. Happy is the man whom you delight to honour! He has all things abundantly: his fruitful land is laden with corn, his pastures are covered with cattle, and his house is filled with good things. Such men rule orderly in their cities of fair women: great riches and wealth follow them: their sons exult with ever-fresh delight, and their daughters in flower-laden bands play and skip merrily over the soft flowers of the field. Thus is it with those whom you honour O holy goddess, bountiful spirit.
Hail, Mother of the gods, wife of starry Heaven; freely bestow upon me for this my song substance that cheers the heart! And now I will remember you and another song also.
Proverbs 31 from the Greek Septuagint
10 Who shall find a virtuous woman? for such a one is more valuable than precious stones.
11 The heart of her husband trusts in her: such a one shall stand in no need of fine spoils.
12 For she employs all her living for her husband's good.
13 Gathering wool and flax, she makes it serviceable with her hands.
14 She is like a ship trading from a distance; so she procures her livelihood.
15 And she rises by night, and gives good to her household, and appointed tasks to her maidens.
16 She views a farm, and buys it: and with the fruit of her hand she plants and a possession.
17 She strongly girds her loins, and strengthens her arms for work.
18 And she finds by experience that working is good; and her candle goes not out all night.
19 She reaches forth her arms to needful works, and applies her hands to the spindle.
20 And she open her hands to the needy, and reaches out fruit to the poor.
21 Her husband is not anxious about those at home when he tarries anywhere abroad; for all her household are clothed.
22 She makes for her husband clothes of double texture, and garments for herself of fine linen and scarlet.
23 And her husband becomes a distinguished person in the gated, when he sits in council with the old inhabitants of the land.
24 She makes fine linens, and sells girdles to the Chananites; she opens her mouth heedfully and with propriety, and controls her tongue.
25 She puts on strength and honour; and rejoices in the last days.
26 But she opens her mouth wisely, and according to law.
27 The ways of her household are careful, and she eats not the bread of idleness.
28 And her kindness to them sets up her children for them, and they grow rich, and her husband praises her.
29 Many daughters have obtained wealth, many have wrought valiantly; but thou hast exceeded, thou hast surpassed all.
30 Charms arms false, and woman's beauty is vain; for it is a wise woman that is blessed, and let her praise the fear the Lord.
31 Give her of the fruit of her lips; and let her husband be praised in
Hebrew version of Proverbs 31:10-31, “who can find a wife of virtue? for her value is far above jewels. 11 the heart of her master [baal] trusts in her, so that he has no lack of gain. 12 she deals good with him, and not evil, all the days of her life. 13 she seeks wool and flax, and she works with her hands with delight. 14 she is like the merchant ships, she brings in her food from afar. 15 she also rises while it is still night and gives game to her house, and a portion to her maidens. 16 she has examined a field and takes it; she plants a vineyard from the fruit of her hands. 17 she has girded her loins with strength, and has made her arms strong. 18 she tastes whether her gain is good, her lamp is not put out by night. 19 she has sent forth her hands on the distaff, and her hands have held the spindle. 20 she spreads out her hands to the poor, and she stretches out her hands to the needy. 21 she is not afraid of the snow for her house, for all her house are clothed with scarlet. 22 she makes herself ornamental coverings; her clothing is bleached linen and purple. 23 her master [baal] is known in the gates, when he sits with the elders of the land. 24 she makes fine linen garments, and sells, and she delivers girdles to the merchant. 25 strength and dignity are her clothing, and she will rejoice at the day to come. 26 she opens her mouth in wisdom, and the thorath of kindness is on her tongue. 27 she watches the ways of her house, and does not eat the bread of idleness. 28 her children rise up and call her blessed, her husband also, for he praises her: 29 many are the daughters who act with virtue, but you rise above them all. 30 favor may be deceitful, and beauty vain, but a wife who fears YHWH, she will be praised. 31 give her of the fruit of her hands, and let her works praise her in the gates.”
Hebrew version of Proverbs 3:13-18, “happy is the man who finds wisdom [hakmah - female gender], and the man who gets understanding. 14 for its profit is better than the gain from silver, and its increase more than fine gold; 15 she is more precious than rubies, and all the things you can desire are not to be compared with her. 16 length of days is in her right hand, riches and honor in her left hand. 17 her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths shalom. 18 she is a tree of life [another mother symbol] to the ones who lay hold on her, and happy are the ones holding her fast.”
Proverbs 8:1-21, “does not wisdom call? and does not understanding speak? 2 she stands in the top of high places, by the wayside, in the houses of the paths, 3 beside the gates; at the mouth of the city, at the doors, she cries. 4 i call to you, men, and my voice is to the sons of men. 5 understand wisdom, simple ones; and fools, be of an understanding heart. 6 hear, for i will speak of excellent things, and from the opening of my lips will be right things. 7 for my mouth will speak of truth, and wickedness is hateful to my lips. 8 all the words of my mouth are in righteousness; nothing crooked or perverse is in them; 9 they are all plain to the understanding one; and right to those who find knowledge. 10 receive my instruction, and not silver; and knowledge, rather than choice gold. 11 for wisdom is better than jewels, and all delights cannot be compared to it. 12 i, wisdom, dwell with sense, and i find knowledge of discretions. 13 the fear of YHWH is to hate evil; i hate pride and loftiness, and the evil way, and the perverse mouth. 14 counsel and sound wisdom are mine; i am understanding; i have strength. 15 by me kings reign [a common theme once the PIE invasions occurred with the men marrying the mother rulers and goddesses to validate their kingship], and leaders decree righteousness. 16 rulers and nobles rule by me, and all the judges of the earth. 17 i love those who love me, and those who seek me early find me. 18 riches and honor are with me; enduring wealth and righteousness. 19my fruit is better than gold, and fine gold; and my increase is better than the best silver. 20 i walk in the path of righteousness, in the midst of the paths of justice; 21 to cause those who love me to inherit wealth, and i will fill up their treasuries.”
As you can see from these passages, they are very much like the hymn to Gaia and the attributes of Athene, her successor, only in the patriarchal culture, the earth mother and wisdom, was made to be subservient to the husband/mater of the patriarchal system. Quite a number of scholars believe that the personification of Wisdom in the book of Mishley [Proverbs] is a flat out plagiarism of Athene from the Greek’s religion, with good reason. Let us take a look at a few other points of comparison between Wisdom and Athene.
Proverbs 8:2,3 states, “she stands in the top of high places, by the wayside, in the houses of the paths, 3 beside the gates; at the mouth of the city, at the doors, she cries.” Athene’s main temple in Athens was on the Acropolis. Acropolis means highest city in the Greek and generally related to the highest point of the city. Athene is also the one who called out to men to teach them, appear to them in dreams and in disguise, especially from the patriarchal perspective of the heroes, whom she was a patron to and would follow around to aid them on their journeys.
Proverbs 8:15,16 states, “by me kings reign, and leaders decree righteousness. 16 rulers and nobles rule by me, and all the judges of the earth.” This was also the position of Athene, who was considered the kingmaker and counselor to kings and judges and also sat in judgment with them in trials.
Proverbs 8:30, in relation to creation and the god creating, “then I [wisdom] was at his side, like a master workman;” In the newer accounts of various things being created, including man, the creator is often portrayed as Prometheus or Hephaestus, with Athene at their side. In the case of man, Prometheus created the men out of clay and Athene breathed life into them.
Proverbs 24:3-6, “through wisdom a house is built, and it is established by understanding, 4 and by knowledge the inner parts will be filled with precious and pleasant riches. 5 a wise warrior is in strength, and a man of knowledge firms up power. 6 for you will make war for yourself by wise advice, and safety is in the abundance of counselors.” Spoken like a true Indo-European invader making war and amassing wealth. Athene adopted as the goddess of war, but not just any war, the strategy and art of war, versus the blood lust of war which was the domain of Ares. She was the counselor of strategies and protectress of the warriors.
I could cite many more examples of the comparisons between Athene and Wisdom, within the biblical text, but that should probably be left for a whole study in itself, being thoroughly documented for those without all the resources of the Greek texts for comparisons. It is much too lengthy to place here.
Protectress / Evil Eye
Another connection of Athene to the Anatolian territories is that of the evil eye talisman. Athene was considered a protectress and patron of many places and groups of peoples. She is also called bright eyed Athena [Athene Glaukopis, also referring to the owl headed or owl faced], because she had blue/green eyes. Pausanias, Description of Greece Athens ] and the portico called the King's Portico is a temple of Hephaistos Lake Tritonis Troy , the Owl Faced Goddess of Troy. Another account connecting Athene to that of the eye is from Pausanias, Description of Greece 3. 18. 2 (this may be a latter application to an older name and belief system) : "As you go towards what is called the Alpion [in Sparta ] is a temple of Athena Ophthalmitis temple of Athena Ophthalmitis
“Beads are found more frequently in burials than any other artifact. They were used for adornment and as amulets. Eye-beads to deflect the ‘evil eye’ are common in Phoenician graves, though less so in Israelite/Judahite ones.”- Life in Biblical Israel , King and Stager, pg. 277. In the excavations of Ashkelon , a major Felishthiym [Philistine] city, these Phoenician evil eye beads have been found. The evil eye talisman to ward off the evil eye is known in the Mediterranean before 6th century BCE . In the Turkish community the evil eye amulet is called nazar. Turkey is just north of where the major Phoenician cities of Gubal [Byblos ], Sidon and Tyre are. Please see the Tanith/Tanit section below for more information on the blue evil eye talismans in connection with the Hamsa, hand talisman.
The first two images of beads are ancient Phoenician evil eye beads, the second two are modern beads that are sold everywhere.
Gammadion Symbol
Yet another aspect associated with Athene and especially Ilios/Troy and the Aegean territories, is that of a symbol most know these days as a swastika. The term swastika comes from the Sanskrit Indian for suvastika, which means good or well being, with good reason because this symbol came to represent the sun with its equinoxes and solstices, the 4 cardinal points and the 4 winds. Without those elements, nothing would survive as we know it. Prior to the adoption of this symbol in ancient India , the oldest forms of it occur in the Old Europe / Aegean / Western Anatolian territory. In the Greek, it was called a gammadion, 
for 4 gamma’s, the third Greek letter - G. The gamma would be placed to represent the 4 winds, the 4 cardinal directions, and eventually the wheel. At times this symbol is slightly rounded, as if you have a wheel with 4 spokes, with a small portion of the wheel missing around each spoke, other times it is represented in a squared fashion with parts of the square missing. This symbol is very ancient, older than its adoption by Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Mithraism and Shamanism in the East and far older than the horrible representation of the Nazi’s false Aryan supremacy. Below are several examples of the gammadion in ancient art and archaeology, showing the variations from the squared base and the circular base.
for 4 gamma’s, the third Greek letter - G. The gamma would be placed to represent the 4 winds, the 4 cardinal directions, and eventually the wheel. At times this symbol is slightly rounded, as if you have a wheel with 4 spokes, with a small portion of the wheel missing around each spoke, other times it is represented in a squared fashion with parts of the square missing. This symbol is very ancient, older than its adoption by Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Mithraism and Shamanism in the East and far older than the horrible representation of the Nazi’s false Aryan supremacy. Below are several examples of the gammadion in ancient art and archaeology, showing the variations from the squared base and the circular base.
While the most dense ancient sources of the gammadion symbol is from the Aegean Sea territory and ancient Troy/Wilusa in western Anatolia , I have found the symbol in an ancient pre-Proto-Indo-European culture dating back to 4500 BCE. The Vinca culture covers Hungary (Tordos), Romania (Turdas) and Bulgaria (Gradeshitsa). Below is a chart involving the symbols used by the Vinca civilization and you can see the gammadion symbol in the 5th row, as well as other variations on that symbol.
Now you might have a few questions about what this has to do with Athene, why is this symbol important and what does it have to do with the bible. So first, lets look at what it has to do with Athene. If you will look back at the images that I provided there is a common denominator between the majority of them, the symbol that I spoke of earlier that is only applied to her and no other deity – for lack of a better name, we will use the oldest recorded patriarchal name, that of the gammadion.
You will notice that on several of the vases depicted in the older artwork, the gammadion is a repeated design on the skirt of her dresses. In the bird imagery subsection, 3 bird women statues from Boeotia dating from 900-700 BCE, the gammadion in on the statues, not just on the dresses, but also on the neck of one. It surrounds the image and is on the dresses of the images of her with the animals as Mistress of Animals. It is also on the Gorgon plate and the owl pot from Troy (as well as many other pots from Troy ). Below are a few more examples of the gammadion symbol connected with Athene in ancient Greek pottery. The first is an Attic pot, depicting the slain Athene/Gorgon head on her shield with gammadions on her dress. The second is an Athenian Andokides vase from the 6th century BCE, again showing the gammadion on the skirt portion of the dress. The third is also an Attic amphora from 500 BCE. The fourth is from an Attic amphora from about 525 BCE.
Now, I will present some examples of the spindle whorls from Hissarlik / Wilusa / Troy , a city dedicated to Athene, which also bear this symbol. Please remember that tawah, to spin, begins with the Phoenician letter “teyt” and Teyt’s , meaning was spindle. Just in case there are some of you who do not know what a drop spindle looks like, here is an image. The ceramic, stone or wooden disk at the bottom is called the whorl.
, meaning was spindle. Just in case there are some of you who do not know what a drop spindle looks like, here is an image. The ceramic, stone or wooden disk at the bottom is called the whorl.
As you can see from this small sampling of thousands of whorls, there are a number of variations to this symbol from gammadions whirling in both directions, curvilinear styles, boxed, freeform, circles with dots in the center with legs, circles with the whirling from the center out and crosses with varying or no feet. These variations also show up in the Vinca culture symbols from 4500 BCE and also occur on the body and clothing of the Athene and Gorgon/Medusa images.
In the Migration of Symbols, the Count Goblet D’Aliella states that in the earlier graphic representations of the sun, sometimes just a circle, circle with a dot in the center or circle with rays emanating from the circle, the gammadion was clearly a symbol of the sun, sometimes being represent with the moon and replacing the previous circular representations of the sun. He goes on to state that the legs of the gammadion represent the sun in motion. “Moreover, after having figured the sun in motion, it may have become a symbol of the astronomical movement in general, applied to certain celestial bodies, the moon, for example – or even to everything which seems to move of itself, the air, water, lightning, fire – in as far as it really served as a sign of these different phenomena, which fact has still to be made good.” The Migration of Symbols, pgs. 52-59. “That ancient mythology the sun was frequently represented as a wheel is well known…’As far as I have been able to trace or connect the various manifestations of this emblem, they one and all resolve themselves into the primitive conception of solar motion, which was intuitively associated with the rolling or wheel-like projection of the sun through the upper or visible arc of the heavens, as understood and accepted in the crude astronomy of the ancients. The earliest phase of astronomical science we are at present position to refer to, with the still extant aid of indigenous diagrams, is the Chaldean. The representation of the sun in this system commences with a simple ring or outline circle, which is speedily advanced towards the impression of onward revolving motion by the insertion of a cross or four wheel-like spokes within the circumference of the normal ring.’ “ Ilios, pgs. 348, 353, 354.
Solar, Sky, War God Symbol Association With Gammadion
These obvious solar wheel associations with the earliest known archaeo-astronomy of the Chaldeans come from the times and territories of the patriarchal Indo-European territories, where their chief male deity became the solar god in each of heir cultures and is always depicted with a symbol of the sun. As the Indo-Europeans spread their beliefs, practices and war culture, this symbol came to be associated with the chariot, often solar chariots when deities were involved. The following four images are from Attic pottery dating around 800 BCE. Not only do you see the early form of the chariots, the sun on the shield, but you see the 4 spoke wheels (the earliest rendition of the wheel), the gammadions and the square cross symbols, which was also used for the Archaic Greek letter Theta, equivalent to the Phoenician Teyt. In the Hellenic territory of Boeotia
Another solar chariot image is of a terracotta statue from Cyprus . Here you see the wheels representing the 4 spokes and in between the spokes, there are gammadions. The shield of the warrior has the stylized curvilinear solar symbol.
Suns in various forms are common on shields of the warriors, as well as solar disks representing the solar, sky, patriarchal gods that throw thunderbolts at their enemies and are a sun to shine on those they favor. The following are a few verses from the Tanak that carry this symbolism.
HaDebariym [Deuteronomy] 33:26-29, “none is like el yeshurun, riding the heavens for your help, and the clouds in his majesty. 27 el qedom [east-where the sun rises] is a refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms. and he will cast the enemy out from before you, and will say, destroy. 28 and yisrael will live alone in safety; the fountain of yaaqob in a land of grain and wine; and his heavens drop down dew. 29 blessed are you, yisrael. who is like you? a people saved by YHWH, the shield of your help, and he who is the sword of your excellency. and your enemies will be found liars before you, and you will tread on their high places.”
II Shmuel [Samuel] 22:2-20, 29-40, “and he said: YHWH is my rock and my fortress, and my deliverer. 3 my el is my rock; i will take refuge in him; my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower, and my refuge. my savior, you will save me from violence. 4 i call on YHWH, the one to be praised; and i will be saved from my enemies. 5 when the waves of death surround me, the floods of the wicked terrify me, 6 the cords of sheol are all around me, the snares of death confronted me. 7 in my distress i called on YHWH, and i called to my el. and he heard my voice from his temple, and my cry was in his ears. 8 and the earth shook and trembled, the foundations of the heavens were troubled, and were shaken; for he was angry. 9 smoke rose up in his nostrils, and fire devoured out of his mouth; coals were kindled by it. 10 and he bowed the heavens and came down, and thick darkness was under his feet. 11 and he rode on a cherub, and did fly, and was seen on the wings of the wind. 12 and he made darkness pavilions all around him, the gathering of waters, thick clouds of the skies. 13 from the brightness before him were brands of fire kindled. 14 YHWH thundered from the heavens, and the most high gave forth his voice. 15 and he sent forth arrows and scattered them; lightning, and troubled them; 16 and the channels of the sea were seen; the world's foundations were revealed by the rebuke of YHWH, from the blast of the breath of his nostrils. 17 he sent from above; he took me; he drew me out of many waters. 18 he delivered me from my strong enemy, from those who hated me; for they were stronger than me. 19 they confronted me in the day of my calamity, and YHWH was my support; 20 and he brought me out to a large place; he delivered me, for he delighted in me.” “29 for you are my lamp, o YHWH; and YHWH will light up my darkness. 30 for by you i have run through a troop; by my elohey i have leaped over a wall. 31 as for elohey, his way is perfect; the word of YHWH is tested; he is a shield to all those who seek refuge in him. 32 for who is elohey except YHWH? and who is a rock except our elohey? 33 the el is my strong fortress; and he sets the blameless free in his way, 34 making my feet like hinds' feet, even causing me to stand on my high places; 35 teaching my hands for battle, so that my hands may bend a bow of bronze. 36 and you have given to me the shield of your salvation; and your affliction has made me great. 37 you have enlarged my steps under me, and my feet have not slipped. 38 i have pursued my enemies and destroyed them; and i did not turn until they were consumed. 39 and i consumed them, and struck them, and they did not rise; but fell under my feet. 40 yea, you girded me with might for battle; you caused those rising against me to bow under me. ”
Thehillah [Psalm] 7:6-13, “arise, YHWH, in your anger; be lifted up at the rage of those distressing me; and awake for me. you have commanded judgment. 7 and the assembly of the peoples will surround you, and over it you will return on high. 8 YHWH will judge the people. YHWH, judge me according to my righteousness, and according to my integrity on me. 9 oh let the evil of the wicked come to an end; and you will establish the just; for the righteous elohiym is a trier of hearts and reins. 10 my shield is on elohiym, who saves the upright of heart. 11 elohiym is a righteous judge; and elohiym is angry with evildoers every day. 12 if he will not turn, he will whet his sword; he has trod his bow, he made it ready; 13 and he has fitted for him instruments of death. he will make ready his arrows for pursuers.”
Thehillah 76:1-13, “to the chief musician. for stringed instruments. a mizmor of asaf. a song of praise. elohiym is known in yahudah; his name is great in yisrael. 2 and his abode is in shalem; and his dwelling place in tsiyon. 3 there he broke the fiery arrows [reshef] of the bow, the shield, and the sword, and the battle. selah. 4 you are radiating, more excellent than the mountains of prey. 5 the stouthearted have been stripped; they slept their sleep; and none of the men of might have found their hands. 6 by your rebuke, elohey of yaaqob, both the horse and chariot have sunk into a sleep. 7 you, even you, are terrifying; and who can stand before you when you are angry? 8 you have caused judgment to be heard from heaven; the earth feared and was stilled; 9 when elohiym arose to judgment, to save all the meek of the earth. selah. 10 for the wrath of man thank you; you encircle yourself with the wrath left over. 11 vow and pay to YHWH your elohey; let all that are around him bring presents to the fearful one. 12 he will cut off the breath of rulers; he is feared by the kings of the earth.”
Thehillah 84:11,12, “for a sun and shield is YHWH elohiym ; YHWH will give favor and honor; he will withhold nothing good from those who walk in integrity. 12 YHWH tsebaoth, blessed is the man who trusts in you.” Tsebaoth is the Hebrew word for armies, making this very much a martial allusion including the solar shield.
Malakiy [Malachi] 4:1-3, “for, look, the day is coming, burning like a fire-pot; and all the proud, and every doer of wickedness, will be chaff. and the coming day will set them ablaze, says YHWH tsebaoth, which will not leave root or branches to them. 2 but to you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness will rise up, and healing will be on his wings [feathers]. and you will go out and frisk like claves of the stall. 3 and you will tread under the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day which i am preparing, says YHWH tsebaoth.”
Now, for those of you without a copy of the Tanak in Hebrew or those that cannot read the Hebrew, the word “shield” in each of the above passages is magen. Magen is the term applied with David for the Magen David, which they translate as the Star of David, but star is kokab. They say this because they conceived a six pointed star on the shield. The oldest archaeological use of a star associated with Judaism is that of the Kefar Nachum Synagogue in north Israel .
This synagogue dates from the 3-4th century CE, very late considering the archaeology that we have been dealing with sometimes dates to 4500 BCE. At any rate, this Magen David is a later rabbinical invention. The term does not appear in the Tanak [Bible], nor does it appear in the Talmud. What is even more important than a 6 sided star at this synagogue is that there are several other “star” motifs at this synagogue ruins, all of which appear in the artwork and shields depicting the sun in Aegean and Mesopotamian art. Yet, Judaism and Christianity would have you to believe that the six pointed star is sacred and they even try to insert it into a time period where it does not actually occur, by associating it with the shields of Solomon and David.
So let us take a look at another Jewish synagogue, in Chorazin, near Kefar Nachum and also form the 3-4th century CE. At this synagogue ruins you find a chair, that is called the Teachers Seat or Moses Seat. Notice at the back of it you have the 4 spoked solar symbol, just as in all the Aegean patriarchal symbols. Also at this ruin, there is a repeated carving of what the archaeologists call a Medusa, which also appears in the Hellenic artwork and shields.
And the third synagogue that we will look at is from the 6th century CE, the Beit Alfa Synagogue, which I covered in the Astral Cult sub-section because of the zodiac floor mosaic. This mosaic has several Aegean solar symbols in it. The wheel has a braided border around the outer and inner circle. This braided border also creates 4 spokes radiating from the inner to outer circle. The artist made a mistake on the top left braid, placing it one image too low. This is the patriarchal solar wheel. In the center of the inner circle is Apollo the sun god with his sun chariot. The 4 winds are depicted as bird women, which will be explained a bit later.
Clearly the Hellenistic patriarchal solar motif continued within the most religious of Jewish circles and was resurrected and alive and well within Judaism today as the Star of David, appearing as a symbol of Judaism itself in many different forms of cultic items, jewelry, artwork, clothing and on printed materials.
Returning to the Hellenistic application, there was a town in Thrace , just across from Troy , named Mesambria (Mesembria), which means midday or noon. Some of their coins from the 4th century BCE depict Athena, her head on one side and full view with spear and shield on the other. Another has her helmeted head on one side and a sun with the solar rays on the other. Inside the sun is the older solar symbol the circle with the cross and in each section of the cross are the letters META – which in the ancient Greek usage was mid, in this case, midday. In the Numismatic Chronicle and Journal of the Numismatic Society, 1880, pages 49-61, author Percy Gardner discusses the solar symbols on the coins of Macedon and Thrace . On the top of pg. 60 he gives an example of another coin from Mesambria with a helmeted head on the front and on the back, in between the spokes are the letters MES and then a gammadion symbol, which he writes as 
. This clearly shows the solar symbol, but also, another association with Athene, which later became dominated by the patriarchal culture and their symbolism.
. This clearly shows the solar symbol, but also, another association with Athene, which later became dominated by the patriarchal culture and their symbolism.
But this symbol was associated with the mother culture prior to these patriarchal takeovers, as shown by the examples of Athene and the Vinca culture symbols. There is another example from Hissarlik (Troy ) archaeology, with a female image made of lead. She has the triangular pubic area defined and accented. On the triangular portion, there is a gammadion symbol. By associating this symbol with the pubic region, the association is generally that of fertility, generation and motherhood. The fact that this image comes from Troy , there is a strong possibility that it is of Athene, the original mother figure.
So within the mother cultures, this symbol is associated with mothers and the fiber industry by virtue of spinning and possibly, by extension, weaving as well. Therefore, it might possibly be a trademark of sorts, not just of the goddess, but what she represented as patron goddess of these arts within the goddess and god culture. Prior to these deity cultures, such as those of the Vinca culture 4500 BCE, we may never know what that symbol represented.
4 Winds Association With Gammadion
Now lets take a look at the 4 winds association, connected to the solar application of the turning sun creating winds, represented in the gammadion by the 4 feet from the cross posts. In ancient Hellenic lore, Hera, a mother personification, was originally associated with the winds. The patriarchal cultures took those and later ascribed the winds, 4, as demi-gods that were born, and to Aeolus as the keeper of the winds. Another account shows the mother orientation. When Kronus castrated his father Uranus and threw the genitals into the sea, the drops of blood became the Eumenides, the Kindly Ones. They are also called the Erinyes, the Angry Ones. They are described as being winged with serpents on their arms and at times in their hair (similar to the portrayal of the gorgon Medusa, the statues from Krete where a strong mother culture centered prior to the patriarchal invasion of the Mycenaeans, and with the wings like the earlier Athene and Metis). Originally they were not numbered, but Virgil later places their number at three. They are called the Furies by the Romans. They were born from the murder, in a fertility sense from the castration, and that is one of the aspects of the Erinyes, the condemnation of those that kill their parents. The patriarchal culture made this only applicable to the death of a father, not counting the original application of matricide, which is literally what happened to the mother cultures by the patriarchal cultures.
In another account Athene tries to pacify the Erinyes when a court case against Orestes for matricide votes him innocent. The court ruled that his mother was not his mother, but simply a nurse, a common view from the patriarchal Indo-Europeans of mothers to degrade them. The Erinyes threaten to let fall drops of their own blood from their hearts, which would make the soil barren and the crops would then be blighted and destroy all the offspring of the city of Athens . Athene intervenes and talks them into settling in a particular grotto, and to receive worship for various aspects of the culture (very minor involvement considering what the previous mother culture had involved) as well as being responsible for fair winds. That is why the mosaic on the synagogue floor shows winged women for the winds.
A similar situation occurs in the Mesopotamian territories. First you have Inanna, the mother goddess who is depicted as winged in the older images. Later she is shown with a bird nearby, named Anzu, who becomes her representation. Then as the patriarchal warriors gain dominance, you see the warrior kings killing the Anzu bird. Then in latter Mesopotamian mythology the Anzu bird becomes the male winged wind god Pazazu, a demi-god demon of the southwestern wind, with 4 wings, and he becomes the keeper of the winds, just as Aeolus did in the Hellenistic culture. Below you will see several images: First, winged Inanna from a Sumerian cylinder seal 3000 BCE; Second, Anzu bird, depicted just as Inanna standing on the backs of lions 2500 BCE and finally, Inanna dewinged and the bird a separate entity from a cylinder seal 2100 BCE.
All of the biblical passages that specifically speak of 4 winds, are all late writings, meaning that they were from the time of the exile and later.
Thehillah [Psalm] 104:1-7, “bless YHWH, my being. YHWH my el, you are very great; you have put on honor and majesty, 2 covering yourself with light like a cloak, and stretching out the heavens like a curtain; 3 who lays beams in the waters of his upper rooms; setting thick clouds as his chariots; walking on the wings of the wind. 4 he makes his messengers winds, his ministers a flaming fire. 5 he founded the earth on its foundations; it will not be shaken forever and ever. 6 you have covered the deep as with a robe; the waters stood above the mountains. 7 from your rebuke, they flee; from the sound of your thunder, they hurry away.”
YirmeYahu [Jeremiah] 49:35-37, “so says YHWH Tsebaoth [armies], look i will break the bow of eylam, the chief of their might. 36 and i will bring the four winds from the four ends of the heavens on eylam, and will scatter them toward all those winds. and there will be no goy where the outcasts of eylam will not come. 37 and i will cause eylam to be afraid before their enemies and before those seeking their being. and i will bring evil on them, the burning of my anger, declares YHWH. and i will send the sword after them until i have destroyed them.”
Yechezqel [Ezekiel] 37:9, concerning the valley of dry bones, “then he said to me, prophesy to the wind. prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, so says adonay YHWH, come from the four winds, wind, and breathe on these slain ones, that they may live.”
Daniel 7:2, “daniyel spoke and said, in my vision by night i was looking. and, look, the four winds of the heavens were stirring up the great sea.” 8:8, “then the he-goat became very great. and when he was mighty, the great horn was shattered. and in its place came up four outstanding ones toward the four winds of the heavens.” 11:4, “and when he stands up his kingdom will be shattered and will be divided to the four winds of the heavens, and not to his posterity, nor according to his authority with which he ruled. for his kingdom will be pulled up and given to others besides these.”
ZekarYahu, [Zechariah] 2:6, “10 (6) woe. woe. flee then from the land of the north, says YHWH. for i have scattered you as the four winds of the heavens, declares YHWH. 11 (7) woe, tsiyon. escape, you who live with the daughter of babel.”
This Hellenistic 4 winds elements continues into the New Testament writings that borrow heavily from these latter post-exilic writings. Revelations 7:1, “and after these things i saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on every tree.”
Please see the Seal of God, Mark of the Beast section for the continued solar application.
Astarte – Ashtart / Astarte is the Greek form of the name for the mother goddess figure that dominates the Middle Eastern territory – Asratum, Ashratu, Ashirta, Asherah, Athirat, Ishtar. She like the other goddesses such as Athene, represents the mother goddess / creatress aspect, as well as that of sexuality and fertility. But like Ishtar, she seems to have incorporated some of the warrior goddess aspect as well. She is a lunar goddess. At times, the name Astarte comes to be used as a common word for goddess in general, such as in the Egyptian case where Anath is listed as the strongest of the astartes. Yet in the later assimilation by Egypt , Astarte is also a separate goddess. Both Anath and Astarte are wives of Seth and both are the daughters of Ra. Ramses III called Anath and Astarte his shield. In New Kingdom Egyptian art Astarte is armed and frequently seen riding a horse. She also is viewed as having a helmet with two horns, representing the lunar crescent. She had major cults and temples in the Phoenician cities of Byblos , Sidon and Tyre .
The first image is from Nahariya, 19th century BCE mould which idols were made from and the second image is from Horvat Qitmit, 7th century BCE.
In biblical texts she is paired with the name Baal, for El, consistent with that of the Phoenician/Carthaginian culture and inscriptions. She is listed as Ashtoreth, another example of the scribes taking the vowels of the word bosheth [shame] and inserting them in the name. The name is also used in the plural.
City Name: Ashtaroth, Ashteroth Qarnayim (plural horns)
Biblical Passages:
Shoftiym [Judges] 2:13 , “yes, they forsook YHWH, and served baal and the ashtoreths.”
Shoftiym 10:6, “and the sons of yisrael did evil in the sight of YHWH again, and served the baals, and the ashtoroth [pl.], and the elohey of aram [syria], and the elohey of tsiydon, and the elohey of moab, and the elohey of the sons of ammon, and the elohey of the felishthiym. and they forsook YHWH and did not serve him.”
I Shmuel [Samuel] 7:3,4, “and shmuel said to all the beyth of yisrael, saying, if you are returning to YHWH with all your heart, put aside the elohey of the stranger from among you, and the ashtoroth. and prepare your heart to YHWH, and serve him only, and he will deliver you out of the hand of the felisthiym. 4 and the sons of yisrael put away the baals and the ashtaroth, and served YHWH only.”
I Shmuel 31:9,10, “and they cut off his [shaul] head, and stripped off his weapons, and sent into the land of the feleshthiym [philistines] all around to proclaim the news in the beyth [house] of their idols, and among the people. 10 and they put his weapons in the beyth ashtaroth, and they fastened his body on the wall of beth shan.” It is speculated that the reason the weapons of King Shaul were put in the Beyth Ashtaroth [pl.] is because she was a goddess of war as well as sexuality and fertility. This would definitely be the latter blending of the Canaanite Asherah and Anat into Astarte, for Asherah was not a goddess of war and weapons, where Anat was. Another reason to look to this as Astarte, rather than the Canaanite Asherah is that we are dealing with the Felishthiym, one of the Sea Peoples.
I Melekiym [Kings] 11:5, 33 “and shlomoh [solomon] went after ashtoreth, goddess of the tsidoniym [sidonians], and after milcom, the abomination of the ammoniym;” Remember that Tsiydon was a major Phoenician city.
II Melekiym 23:13, “and the high places that were before yerushalaim, which were on the right hand of the mountain of corruption, which shlomoh the king of yisrael had built for ashtoreth the abomination of the tsidoniym, and for kemosh the abomination of the moabiym, and for milkom the detestable thing of the sons of ammon, the king defiled.”
Dagan / Dagaan / Daganu
Dagan has been covered from various aspects in the Amurru, Canaanite and Syrian / Aramean sections. Please see those for full details. Below is additional information that is specific to the Sea Peoples. Suffice is to say that Dagan was native to the Amurru territories, became Canaanite and when the Canaanites were conquered along the coastline by the Sea Peoples, was adopted by them and became part of their religion. Dagon was listed in the Tanak as a Felishthiym deity with temples there. According to the Commentary on Isaiah by Jerome, 46:1-4, he states that Dagon is the idol of Ashkelon, Gaza and the other cities of the Philistine (Dagon, qui tamen in Hebraico non habetur. Et est idolum Ascalonis, Gazae, et reliquarum urbium Philisthiim.)
Besides the Tanak verses below, another biblical passage that bears mention, because of the Phoenician/Philistine implications, is that of YeshaYahu 46:1, “bel has bowed; nebo stoops; their idols [images, forms] are for the living being, and for the cattle; your things carried are loads; a burden for the weary.” Bel became basically a title of other deities, like god came to be. Baal was also reckoned the same way. The reason I bring this passage up is that in the Septuagint translation of this passage, it has Dagon instead of Nebo. So in that translation it is Baal and Dagon. Now the Hebrew preposition l can be translated “for”, “belonging to”, but it is also “of”. If we translate this passage with the Septuagint Dagon and “of”, it looks like this, “baal has bowed; dagon stoops; their images are of the living being, and of the cattle; your things carried are loads; a burden for the weary.” This is important in a number of ways. First in the second Tanak passage below, I Shmuel, you see an account of the image of Dagon falling to the ground before the ark of covenant, representing YHWH. This account could be likened to “stooping”. There is no account of Nebo doing such. Next, Baal is represented as a bull calf, the son of El, the bull. That is cattle, behemah, which is listed in the YeshaYahu verse. Nebo is never likened to any form of cattle. Dagan and El are likened to be the same deity at times and both are reckoned to be the father of Baal. El is likened as a bull – cattle. One aspect of ancient Hebrew linguistic style is to say the same thing twice, but in two different ways. “Sayce mentions a cylindrical seal of the seventh century B.C., now in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, with the words ‘Baal Dagon’ in Phoenician characters;” – History of the City of Gaza, Martin Meyer, Columbia University Press, New York, 1907, pg. 117. This seal could be an indicator of the later Sea People assimilation of Dagan and the Tanak passage Phoenician/Philistine influence. If we apply this poetic double principle to the verse, the verse is about Dagan only, referring to him as a title Baal and to his name Dagan, stooping and bowing, an image of a living being and cattle, a load and a burden – 4 poetic doubles. So it seems more probable that this Septuagint version of Dagon is more correct, than Nebo.
Biblical Passages:
Shoftiym [Judges] 16:23 , “and the rulers of the felishthiym [philistines] gathered to sacrifice a great sacrifice to dagon their elohiym, and to exult. and they said, our elohey has given our enemy shimshon [samson] into our hand.”
I Shmuel [Samuel] 5:1-12, “and the felishthiym took the ark of the elohiym and brought it from ebenezer to ashdod ashdod ashdod ashdod gath
The Septuagint version of verse 4 has, “and the head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands were cut off each before the threshold, and both the wrists of his hands had fallen on the floor of the porch; only the stump of Dagon was left.” Clearly not a fish body as later Rabbis would like people to believe.
TsefanYahu [Zephaniah] 1:9, “and i will punish all those who leap above the threshold in that day, who fill the house of their masters with wealth gained by violence and deceit.” This passage is another reference to the practice of not stepping or leaping over the threshold of the temple of Dagan
The temple of Dagan is also attested to in the Jewish book of I Maccabees 10:83-87, “The cavalry, which by now was scattered all over the battlefield, fled to Azotus, where they took refuge in the temple of Dagon, their god.84 But Jonathan set fire to the city and to the temple of Dagon, burning to death all those who had taken refuge there. Then he set fire to the surrounding towns and looted them.85 That day about 8,000 were either killed in the battle or burned to death.86 Jonathan left and set up camp at Ascalon, where the people of the city came out to welcome him with great honors.87 Jonathan and his men returned to Jerusalem with large quantities of loot.”
Adonis – According to Kleins A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language, adon means lord, master, possessor, is of Phoenician origin, from Adonis. Adonis is viewed as the dying and reviving god of fertility and vegetation, much as Baal is to the Canaanites and Thammuz to Mesopotamia . As to the origins of Adonis, there is much confusion.
Even in the Biblical texts, by translators, there is some confusion as to who is being represented. The Vulgate [Latin] version of Yechezqel [Ezekiel] 8:14 has Adonis where the Greek Septuagint and the Hebrew have Tammuz. Latin – “et introduxit me per ostium portae domus Domini quod respiciebat ad aquilonem et ecce ibi mulieres sedebant plangentes Adonidem” “and he brought me to the opening of the gate of the beyth of YHWH, toward the north. and, look, women were sitting there weeping for tammuz.”
Personal Name: Adonay Bazaq [lord of lightning flash] , Adonay Tsedeq [lord of righteousness], Adoniram [lord exalted]
Carthaginian
Tanit / Tanith – Tanit was a lunar goddess and the patron goddess of the Carthaginians. She is a later version of the mother goddess Athirat / Athirath / Ashratu / Asherah with ties to Athene and Anath. She was the consort to Baal Chammon, having the epithet Pene Baal [Face of Baal]. Her symbol is a circle inside a crescent, supported by a triangle.
If you notice in the images below, they resemble the images of Asherah, with the fertility/plant and animal life to her sides. The grouping of amulets were found in Ashkelon , a Felishthiym [Philistine] city. In Stagers article, Child Sacrifice at Carthage ..., showing an ivory plaque, ”Ivory plaque naming ‘Tanit Ashtart,’ found in a small shrine in the industrial quarter of the seventh-century B.C. Phoenician city of Sarepta , eight miles south of Sidon on the Mediterranean coast. Professor James Pritchard of the University of Pennsylvania SLM , son of MP’L, son of ~ZY made for Tanit Ashtart.’” William Dever, Did God Have A Wife?, pg. 232, writes, “Additional iconographic motifs that can be related to Asherah (Keel and Uehlinger say to ‘the goddess’) later in her history in Israel and Judah include doves. Doves appear frequently in connection with the goddess Tanit, the late Phoenician counterpart of Asherah.” Early History of God, Mark Smith, pg. 119, mentions a text (KAI 81:1) of Tanit in Lebanon , a Phoenician city. Pg. 122, note 64, provides examples of text, “Tanit, face of Baal”, (KAI 78:2, 79:1, 10-11, 85:1, 86:1, 137:1, 87:1).
Stager also writes, “Tanit was the leading goddess of Carthage ; her consort was Baal Hammon, who was probably the Phoenician equivalent of the patriarch of the Canaanite pantheon, El. El appears frequently in the Hebrew Bible as a general term for God, including the Israelite deity.” Just as el is a general term, so is baal, for master. Baal, as a deity, never resided on Mt. Hammon Mt. Tsafon/Tsaphon. El resided on Amanus/Hammon.
Archaeoastronomists have noted a correlation between a change in the Tanit steles and an astronomical event. In the above stelae, the crescent is below the solar disk. From the time period of 462-145 BCE , the crescent appears above the solar disk, in what some call the “Protective Crescent Avator.” Below are three stelae showing the protective crescent. On April 30th, 462 BCE , a near total eclipse of the sun occurred over Carthage , with the sun under the moon position. Only speculation can explain the significance to the ancient Carthaginians and how it involved their religious beliefs. Once the Romans conquered Carthage , these stelae stop.
A further development of Tanit involved the open hand of blessing, which was also protective. This is evidenced by the following stelae. This hand symbol continues and becomes more dominant, especially in Judaism and Islam.
Within Judaism, the protective, blessing hand is called a Hamesh. Within Islam, it is called the Hand of Fatima, Hamsa / khamsa / chamsa , which is Arabic for five. These amulets are rampant within Judaism and Islam. “A frequent occurrence is a hand inscribed on the paper parchment amulets. Silver amulets made in the form of hands are common and are usually North African in origin and the hand is supposed to ward off the ‘evil eye.’ It is considered by some to be the hand of Fatima, who was Muhammad’s daughter, but hands have appeared on North African amulets since the times of the Carthaginians and these people antedate the Muslim tradition by more than a thousand years. The tradition of using hands on amulets still persists strongly in Morocco , Tunis , and Algeria , as well as throughout the Muslim world.”-Encyclopedia Judaica CD under Amulet.
After mentioning a reference in the Talmud, Ber. 55b, about how to avert the evil eye by sticking your right thumb in your left hand and your left thumb in your right hand, then proclaiming who you are, the son of and of the seed of Joseph, Encyclopedia Judaica mentions under the subject of Evil Eye, “The belief in the evil eye and the various means, both sacred and profane, of averting it, were very prevalent among the Eastern European Jews; to this day they exist in many oriental Jewish communities. In modern times the use of blue paint and a metal amulet in the form of a (sp) open palm of the hand are still widespread in oriental communities, “
Later this hand symbol includes an eye in the center of the hand to ward off the evil eye.
“Beads are found more frequently in burials than any other artifact. They were used for adornment and as amulets. Eye-beads to deflect the ‘evil eye’ are common in Phoenician graves, though less so in Israelite/Judahite ones.”- Life in Biblical Israel , King and Stager, pg. 277. In the excavations of Ashkelon , a major Felishthiym [Philistine] city, these Phoenician evil eye beads have been found. The evil eye talisman to ward off the evil eye is known in the Mediterranean before 6th century BCE . In the Turkish community the evil eye amulet is called nazar. Turkey is just north of where the major Phoenician cities of Gubal [Byblos ], Sidon and Tyre are. Please see the Athene / Athena section for more information on the blue evil eye talismans.
The first two images of beads are ancient Phoenician evil eye beads, the second two are modern beads that are sold everywhere.
Baal Chammon / Baal Hammon – While the meaning of Chammon/Hammon is uncertain, with some scholars associating it with the sun pillars and some with a brazier for burning, the certainty is not supported with any texts or inscriptions at this time. The possibility of Hammon being associated with the Mountain range Amanus, where El resided is very good. Baal Hammon is represented as the solar disk, over the Tanit lunar symbol. Images are in the Tanit section below. Baal Hammon and Tanit were the Carthaginian patron deities. As explained earlier in the Melek section dealing with the tophets, there are dedicatory inscriptions on the stelae and urns to Baal Hammon and Tanit.
Stager (see reference below in Tanit) also writes, “Tanit was the leading goddess of Carthage ; her consort was Baal Hammon, who was probably the Phoenician equivalent of the patriarch of the Canaanite pantheon, El. El appears frequently in the Hebrew Bible as a general term for God, including the Israelite deity.” Just as el is a general term, so is baal, for master. Baal, as a deity, never resided on Mt. Hammon Mt. Tsafon/Tsaphon. El resided on Amanus/Hammon. Stager also writes, “During his brief reign, Elagabalus transported his favorite deity’s cult image, a conical ‘black stone’ from Syria , and brought the statue and dowry of the Phoenician goddess Tanit from Carthage . Both were enshrined on the Palantine, and as the divine couple they reigned as the leading deities of Rome . And, of course, therein lies the clue to solving the mystery of the identity of Elagabal; he was none other that Tanit’s spouse in Carthage, the well-known Phoenician (and Syrian) deity Baal Hamon, or ‘Lord of the Mt. Amanus.’ Actually his Latin name Elagabal disguises another valuable clue to his identity, for it is the Latinized form of the Semitic El Jebel, which means ‘El of the mountain.’ “- Ashkelon Discovered, From Canaanites and Philistines to Romans and Moslems, Lawrence E. Stager, pg. 49. Elagabalus (203-222), son of Julia Soaemias (Syrian) and Sextus Varius Marcellus, became the Roman emperor when he was 14 yrs old. He was the priest of El Gabal at Emesa, in Syria . The Syrian is Ilah hag Gabal, God of the Hill/Mountain.
City: Chammon [sun pillar/brazier in Phoenician, occurs frequently with ElChamman, BaalChamman and EbedChamman], Baal Chammon [master of sun pillar?]
Dagan / Dagaan / Daganu – An Amorite/Canaanite/Ugaritic/Syrian/Mesopotamian god of fertility. Some scholars believe that Dagan is another name for El. The belief that his name means fish because of the Felishthiym [Philistine] association with the sea is a stretch. The fact that the Semitic word for grain is dagan is more likely. Some scholars question which came first. Did grain come to be called by the deity that he was over or the other way around? Another possible confirmation of that name meaning grain/corn is from an account handed down over many years by several authors. The supposed original author is Sanchuniathon – a Phoenician, who then is translated by Philo of Byblos, who then is copied by Eusebius. The following are the two quotes involving Dagon and grain. “...Dagon, which signifies Siton (grain/corn in Greek)...” and, “And Dagon, after he had found out bread-corn, and the plough, was called Zeus Arotrius.” The idea that his name is associated with fish has no basis in any Semitic language. It is a rabbinic tradition that Dagon means fish.
In the book, Time at Emar by, Daniel Fleming, the ritual texts dealing with the Zukru Festival have a number of names that bear witness to the fertility aspect of Dagan: Dagan, Lord of the Seed, Dagan, Lord of the Offspring, Dagan Lord of the Firstborn, Dagan, and Lord of Creation. Fleming writes in note 178, pg 90, that the Aleppo citadel stone has an inscription stating Dagan as the Father of Gods. He also sites in the same note that a Mari text A. 1258+ :9 calls Dagan, “the great mountain, father of the gods.” On pg. 91 he states, “Even under the zukru festival’s royal sponsorship, Dagan is not celebrated as the king of the gods but as their parent.” This father of the gods aspect ties in with the fact that the Emar zukru text mention the gods as amounting to 70, just as the number of the offspring of El and Asherah at Ugarit.
The name Dagan is frequently a theophoric element in Amorite names from numerous kingdoms. On Hammurabi’s Code, Hammurabi writes that he is a warrior of Dagan. Dagan first appears in 2500 BCE at Mari, in 2300 BCE at Ebla and 1300 BCE at Ugarit . Hammurapi [the Amorite spelling, Hammurabi is the Akkadian], an Amorite, gives credit for the subjugation of the settlements along the Euphrates River Ebla , Emar and Ugarit . Dagan was the chief god of the Ebla pantheon, also having one of the four gates named for him. He was also the chief deity of Emar where a major festival, similar to Pesach was performed. The worship of Dagan spread from the east westward, to Syria and through Canaan . At the time of the Ugaritic texts, Dagan was new to the scene and does not appear prominently in their texts. He was adopted by the Felishthiym [Philistines] and was the patron deity of the city of Ashdod .
City Name: Beyth Dagon [House of Dagon]
Biblical Passages:
Shoftiym [Judges] 16:23 , “and the rulers of the felishthiym [philistines] gathered to sacrifice a great sacrifice to dagon their elohiym, and to exult. and they said, our elohey has given our enemy shimshon [samson] into our hand.”
I Shmuel [Samuel] 5:1-12, “and the felishthiym took the ark of the elohiym and brought it from ebenezer to ashdod ashdod ashdod ashdod gath
Hoshea 7:14, “and they have not cried to me with their heart, when they howled on their beds. they slash themselves for dagan and thiyrosh; they turn against me. ” Thiyrosh in the Ugarit is Tirsu, the god/goddess of wine, possibly related to the Akkadian beer wine goddess Siras.
Hoshea 9:1, “yisrael, do not rejoice for joy, like the peoples. for you have whored away from your elohey. you have loved the whores wage on all threshing floors of dagan.”
Hadad / Adad– ccd a storm god, whose name means thunderer. Originally Hadad was an Amorite, then Syrian god called Addu/Haddu in the cuneiform text. He was a chief deity. Later he was known as Rimmon, a god of thunder and storm. Some texts say he is the son of Dagon. Also known as Baal Hadad.
Ug. V. 3.1-4, “Baal sits enthroned, his mountain is like a throne; Haddu the Shepherd; like the flood. In the midst of his mountain, divine Sapan, in the midst of the mount of his victory, seven bolts of lightning he hurls, eight store-houses of thunder. A shaft of lightning he wields in his right hand.”
Personal Name: Hadadezer [Hadad is helper], Hadad
Biblical Passages:
ZekarYahu [Zechariah] 12:11 , “in that day the mourning in yerushalaim will be great, like the mourning of hadad rimmon [like the weeping for baal or tammuz], in the valley of megiddon.”
Rimmon – penx also known as Adad Rammon, he was a god of storm and lightning. He is identified with Hadad, the Canaanite/Syrian god of storms.
Personal Name: Tobrimmon [good Rimmon - pomegranate]
City: Rimmon, Eyn Rimmon [eye of Rimmon], Rimmon Ferets/Perets [Rimmon separate]
Biblical Passages:
ZekarYahu [Zechariah] 12:11 , “in that day the mourning in yerushalaim will be great, like the mourning of hadad rimmon [like the weeping for baal or tammuz], in the valley of megiddon.”
Baal Gad – cb lra master of luck or fortune.
City :Baal Gad
Biblical Passages:
Yahusha [Joshua] 11:17, “from mountain hachalaq, that goes up to seiyr, even to baal gad in the valley of lebanon
I need to explain this section. Many people use a number of terms synonymously and frequently mistakenly. Please refer to the first map at the beginning of this study, dealing with the ancient nations to see these empires that are discussed. Before Babylon was a major kingdom, there were the southern Sumerian city states, which were assimilated by the Akkadian empire that began in Akkad , in the north. Then the Amurru/Amorite empire made inroads as far south as Babel . A number of Akkadian and Sumerian cities were held as Amurru for a time. Later the northern Assyrian empire rose from Ashshur and conquered Sumeria. Still later, the southern kingdom of Babylon arose from Babel , conquering, absorbing and assimilating Assyria . The empires in this territory kept expanding, conquering their neighbors, absorbing the cultures of those they conquered and assimilated some of their deities and their practices, as well as their languages and script. This is important to understand that what came to be known as Assyrian and Babylonian, had much foundation in the previous three cultures, and therefore, some similarities.
Akkadian and Sumerian are also the terms used for the two languages of those territories. So the terms are not just geographical for the empires, but also apply to the linguistics and their cuneiform scripts. Included in this Babylonian and Assyrian section are the Akkadian and Sumerian deities that were assimilated.
Inanna – (Lady of the sky) is viewed as a queen of heaven and mother goddess, and is the granddaughter of the Sumerian Creator goddess Nammu, who created the gods and mankind. Nammu is like the later Babylonian mother creatress Tiamat. “Nammu was known as ‘She who gives birth to heaven and earth,’ as well as ‘the mother of all deities.” When God was a Woman, pg. 82. The Mes were Tablet of Destiny (Civilization) which were worn around the neck of the Creatress. In one account the Mes are given by Enlil to Enki, who was a son of Nammu. Enki is later listed as Marduk’s father. Later accounts clearly show that when the mother was killed by the warrior king/son, the usurper took the tablets to rule with. Yet the older system was matrilineal and the Mes would have passed to the daughters. Ninhursag another earth and mother goddess, also known as Ninmah, is the daughter of Nammu. With the help of her mother Nammu, she creates the first people. It is at this time that Enki has possession of the Mes and is given credit for establishing world order, which is what the Mes are all about. Enki tried to kill Nammu / Tiamat and could not, but he did kill her husband/consort. This killing of Nammu / Tiamat is later achieved by Enki’s son, Marduk, who takes the Mes from her body. In the Sumerian accounts, Inanna asks for the Mes and is denied so she gets her father drunk and he then gives her the Mes, which she takes back to her city of Uruk . This may be a representation of Inanna trying to reclaim what was originally the work and teachings of the mother culture that the patriarchal invaders took and claimed as their labors and inventions. Inanna was associated with the earth, grain groves, wine and love. In the older accounts, Inanna prefers to wed Enkidu a farmer god, but Dumuzi, obviously a Kurgan / Indo-European shepherd deity takes her for his wife.
One of the other Sumerian names for Inanna is Iahu, which means, “Exalted Dove”. It is in this form that the legend of Marduk cutting Tiamat in half, in the form of a dove, is represented. This was understood at a Babylonian spring festival when they cut a dove in half, representing Marduk cutting Tiamat in half and establishing his governmental order. Inanna, also spelled Ninanna, Innina and Irnina is also related to the Hattian Arinna mother goddess before the Indo-European Hittites subjugated them and diminished the goddess in their mythology. She is also related to the Hurrian Hannahannah mother goddess of that native culture that the Indo-European Hurrians conquered and assimilated. Arinna and Hannahannah are both from the 2500 BCE time period. Another association is with the Canaanite Anath and the Aegean , western Anatolian Athene / Athena. This is especially obvious when you add Lilitu to the situation.
Lilitu / Lilit / Lilith – Lilitu is the later Sumerian handmaid of Inanna, also called the hand of Inanna. In am including this here, between Inanna and Ishtar, because she is an offshoot of the two goddesses. The Hebrew name Lilith is a loan word from the Akkadian Lilitu. In the later Babylonian accounts, very much due to the established Kurgan / Indo-European male dominated influence, that demonizes women, the texts list her as the prostitute of Ishtar, addressed below. In the Semitic languages, laylah, means night. Lilith is the Hebrew variation of Lilitu. Lilitu is depicted as a woman with features of an owl, but this is an older and more western theme that migrated to Sumeria and then Babylonia . “Of greater importance, however, is the sexual aspect of the – mainly- female demons lilitu and (w)ardat lili. Thus the texts refer to them as the ones who have no husband, or as the ones who stroll about searching for men in order to ensnare them or to enter the house of the man through the window.” Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, pg. 520. Clearly, as with so many cultures, any woman that did not submit to the invading patriarchal system, who refused to take a husband, became a threat, and was demonized, like the Greek Amazons and Anath of the Canaanites. The patriarchal invaders made women property of their father and then to a husband. Should a husband die, she then became the property of her husbands brother.
Some believe Lilith’s name occurs in the Tanak, others that it is just a personification of her. The word liyliyth (lilith) occurs in the following passage with a grouping of other desert animals, some only used once and therefore hard to define. YeshaYahu [Isaiah] 34:14, “the desert creatures will also meet with the howlers; and the shaggy goat will cry to his fellow. the screech owl [liyliyth- lilith] will also settle there, and find a place of rest for herself.” It is translated as screech owl, a representation applied to her, as a night bird. There are a number of mother goddesses that are also associated with various birds, one especially with the owl, including Inanna, Ishtar and Athene. Please read the Athene / Athena section of the Phoenician / Philistine – Sea Peoples section for more specific information. Just because a passage of text deals with certain animals, does not mean they are literal animals. I have run into whole passages of text in the prophets that list one, very well known image of the mother goddesses after another. The passages of the curses seemed to be directly attacking the mother goddesses, without directly naming them, by using the animals representation instead. In Judaism’s mythology, Lilith was the first wife of Adam. She refused to submit to his authority, even sexually, refusing to lie beneath him, saying they were both equal, and flew from Eden . She has since then been viewed as a creature of the night, seeking to seduce men and was demonized of course. The ironic part of this mythology is that Lilith stated they were equal, which is a common pattern amongst cultures that were matrilineal, in contrast to the Indo-European patriarchal system on castes and slavery, even of the native men they conquered.
There is an image, called the Burney Relief, after Sidney Burney, a London antiques dealer, who purchased the relief in 1935. It was originally purchased from a Syrian dealer, but the provenance is unknown. Many people associate the relief with either Inanna or Ishtar, due to the figures hands holding the rings of power, which is a Sumerian and Babylonian symbol. But I think that the image is from the Syrian to western Anatolian territory, which also had some similar imagery, but more especially the images of women and owls combined or beside each other. This subject is more fully covered in the Athene section. At any rate, other writes have named the image Lilith because of the associations. There are no inscriptions on the relief to tie it to any one goddess with certainty.
Another passage with the woman, wings and wickedness association is ZekarYahu 5:5-11, “then the malak who was speaking with me went out, and said to me, now lift up your eyes and see what this is that goes forth. 6 and i said, what is it? and he said, this is the ephah that goes forth. and he said, this is their form in all the earth. 7 and, look, a lead cover was lifted up, and a woman was sitting in the middle of the ephah. 8 and he said, this is wickedness. and he threw her into the midst of the ephah; and he threw the lead stone over its opening. 9 and i lifted up my eyes and looked. and, look, two women came out. and the wind was in their wings; for they had wings like the wings of the stork. and they lifted up the ephah between the earth and the heavens. 10 and i said to the malak who was speaking with me, where are they going with the ephah? 11 and he said to me, to build a beyth for it in the land of shinar
The Hebrew for stork is chasiydah. Yes, the root is chasiyd, which means devout. Chasiydah is so named because it is literally the pious, devout bird. According to Klein’s, it is so called in allusion to its love for its young – she that practices maternal care. The nurturing aspect of women and the bird association is one of the mother / creatress / goddess characteristics. This is clearly a patriarchal demonized view of women.
Another example is that of a Qumran text that is nearly identical to passages in Mishley [Proverbs], about the Whore, Woman of Folly, etc. The Qumran text was found in cave 4, 4Q184, which some title, the Seductress. Below is a translation of the text. Writing between brackets are projected restorations from corrupted text.
4Q184
“[From her mouth] she brings fort vanity and…errors, she seeks continually [to sharpen her] words. And mockingly she flatters / deals smoothly, she insults altogether with [lips] of perversity. Her Heart establishes recklessness and her kidneys… …in perversity they are touched and her hands go down to the pit. Her feet go down to do evil and to walk in guilt [of rebellion]. Foundations of darkness… great are the rebellions in her wings [kanaf]. …eminence of night and her coverings… Her covers are deep darkness of twilight and her ornaments are touched with ruin. Her couches are beds of the pit, from the low places of the pit. From her night huts are beds of darkness and in the midst of [night are her tents]. From the foundations of the deep darkness she pitches dwelling and she sits in tents of silence. In the middle of everlasting fires, not in the middle of all luminaries is her inheritance. She is the beginning of all the ways of perversity. Woe, ruin belongs to all who possess her and destruction to [all] that takes hold of her. For her ways are ways of death and her paths are paths of sin. Her tracks are strayings of perversity and her [byways] are wrongdoings of rebellion. Her gates are gates of death, at the entrance of her house she steps into [Sheol]. [All] who enter, [they will not return] [and look] all her inheritors go down to the pit. And she lies in wait in secret places [near] every [corner… In the broad places of the city she covers herself and in the gates of the city she stations herself. And she has [no repose from walking continually]. Her eyes glance here and there and her eyelids she lifts wantonly. [To look at] a righteous [man] and trip him up and a [might] man she causes him to stumble. Upright men to pervert their way and [prevents] the righteous elect from keeping the commandment. The sustained ones to cause to be foolish with wantonness and those who walk straight to alter their [custom]. To cause the meek ones to rebel from El and to turn their steps from the ways of righteousness. To bring [insolence to their hearts] so that they are not [ordered] on the paths of righteousness. To lead humanity astray into the ways of the pit and to seduce with smooth talk the sons of man.”
You will notice toward the end of the first quarter of the text the phrase “great are the rebellions in her wings.” The word wings is kanafiym [plural of kanaf]. Some translators have translated skirts, but this should actually be wings for a number of reasons. Kanaf’s primary definition is wing, according to Klein’s, not just in Hebrew, but in another of the Semitic languages. Kanaf also means to cover with ones wings. This is a common theme with the mother goddesses, as well as the assimilated passages later ascribed to El or YHWH. Another reason this should be wings, instead of skirts, is the night [liylah] references which have the female ending, as well as other night terms such as darkness and twilight in the same context. These are all male dominated characteristics they have placed on the female goddesses they have vilified.
Of the 109 uses of kanaf in the Tanak, almost all are translated as wings, except where the translators agenda is clearly to remove the obvious assimilation of the mother goddess culture from El or YHWH, such as Yechezqel [Ezekiel] 16:8, now associated with YHWH, “and i passed by you, and i looked on you, and, look, your time was the time of love. and i spread my wings over you and covered your nakedness. and i swore to you and entered into a covenant with you, declares adonay YHWH. and you became mine.” Other places it is clearly wings and no attempt to hide it was made, the associations were simply assimilated. Malakiy 4:2, “but to you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness will rise up, and healing will be on his wings.” This was an older association with the mother goddesses, which were also solar and healing deities. Thehillah [Psalm] 17:8, “keep me as the pupil, the daughter of the eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings,” Shemoth [Exodus] 19:4, “you yourselves have seen what i did to mitsrayim [egypt], and how i bore you on the wings of eagles , and brought you to myself.” HaDebariym [Deut.] 32:9-11, “for portion of YHWH is his people; yaaqob is the lot of his inheritance. 10 he found him in a desert land, and in the waste, a howling wilderness. he encircled him and cared for him; he guarded him as the pupil of his eye. 11 as the eagle stirs up its nest; it hovers over its young; it spreads out its wings and takes it, and bears it on its wing.”
There are a few references in the Talmud to Lilith. Shabbath 151b, “R. Hanina said: One may not sleep in a house alone, and whoever sleeps in a house alone is seized by Lilith.” Erubin 18b, “R. Jeremiah b. Eleazar further stated: In all those years during which Adam was under the ban he begot ghosts and male demons and female demons (night demons), for it is said in Scripture: And Adam lived a hundred and thirty years and begot a son in his own likeness, after his own image, from which it follows that until that time he did not beget after his own image. An objection was raised: R. Meir said: Adam was a great saint. When he saw that through him death was ordained as a punishment he spent a hundred and thirty years in fasting, severed connection with his wife for a hundred and thirty years, and wore clothes of fig [leaves] on his body for a hundred and thirty years. — That statement was made in reference to the semen which he emitted accidentally.” Niddah 24b, “Rab Judah citing Samuel ruled: If an abortion had the likeness of Lilith (A female demon of the night, reputed to have wings and a human face.) its mother is unclean by reason of the birth, for it is a child, but it has wings. So it was also taught: R. Jose stated, It once happened at Simoni that a woman aborted the likeness of Lilith, and when the case came up for a decision before the Sages they ruled that it was a child but that it also had wings.” There are two other references in the Talmud, but the verses are unclear as to meaning, other than the notes that Lilith is a night demon – Gittin 69b and Baba Bathra 73a. Clearly the Talmud reflected the beliefs that Lilith had wings, was a seducer of men, propagated by collecting the seed of masturbating men and was a demon of the night.
Ishtar – Ishtar is another of those goddesses with composite characteristics as time progressed and nations rose and fell. One of these goddesses that came to be merged with the Akkadian Ishtar is the Sumerian Inanna. While not directly named in the Hebrew text, there is a reference that could refer to several of the goddesses – Asherah / Ashratu / Ashirta, Astarte and Ishtar, the Queen of Heaven. Ishtar was demoted to the daughter of the Moon god Sin and sister of the sun god Shammash and the wife of Dumuzi/Tammuz in the patriarchal re-mything. In the city of Nimrud she is stated to be the Directress of People. She is characterized as the goddess of sexual love, yet is also a war goddess, much as Anath in the Canaanite lore. She is represented by the planet Venus, the morning and evening star, which accounts for her symbol, the eight pointed star. Astronomers and archaeologists have noted the correlation from ancient texts and stelae between Ishtar and the planet Venus, showing that the ancients kept very good records to record such patterns and associate it numerically with her symbol.
“Because some astronomical objects move through the sky in repeated and known intervals of time, the behavior of the celestial gods associated with them ban be symbolized numerically. Ishtar, as the planet Venus, perhaps was handled this way in the eight pointed star that usually stands for her on Babylonian boundary stones...One clay tablet found at the site (Uruk) says ‘star Inanna,’ and another contains symbols for the words ‘star, setting sun, Inanna.’ Inanna is Venus, known later as Ishtar, and the tablets specify her celestial identity with the symbol for ‘star’: an eight-pointed star.” Echoes of the Ancient Skies, Edwin Krupp, pg. 303. “By the Kassite Dynasty, roughly 1600-1150 B.C., the eight-pointed star had acquired a more specific meaning. It belonged to Ishtar, as Venus, and shows up on numerous kudurru, or boundary stones, which were an innovation of the Kassite kings.” pg. 304. “Perhaps the number eight is itself symbolic, for Venus experiences an eight-year cycle...To establish the importance of this cycle we must verify that the Mesopotamians were familiar with it and made something special of it. In fact, we know they were well aware of it. Omen texts from the First Babylonian Dynasty (ca. 1900-1660 B.C.) confirm that the old Mesopotamian skywatchers understood that Venus as the morning star and as the evening star were the same thing. By the Seleucid period (ca. 301-164 B.C.), we have a number of late goal-year texts in which the eight-year period was used to predict the appearance of Venus.” Pg. 306.
Below is first a Babylonian boundary stone, a stelae of King Melishipak and a Kassite boundary stone, each portraying the eight pointed star of Ishtar, the crescent moon symbol of Sin and the solar wheel symbol of Shammash.
Biblical Passages:
YirmeYahu [Jeremiah] 7:18 , “the sons gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead dough, to make cakes for melketh hashamayim [queen of the heavens], and to pour out drink offerings to other elohiym, that they may provoke me.”
YirmeYahu [Jeremiah] 44:16-25, “16 as for the word that you have spoken to us in the name YHWH, we will not listen to you. 17 but we will certainly do whatever thing goes out of our own mouth, to burn incense to the queen of the heavens, and to pour out drink offerings to her, as we have done, we and our fathers, our kings, and our rulers, in the cities of yahudah [judah ] and in the streets of yerushalaim [jerusalem egypt
Bel – la is a title meaning Lord, similar to Baal and is not a separate deity. The Babylonians gave the title Bel to Marduk and he was known as Bel-Marduk. Feminine form is Belit.
Personal Name: Beletshatsar [Belit protect the king]
Biblical Passages:
YeshaYahu [Isaiah] 46:1, “bel has bowed; nebo stoops; their idols are of the living being, and of the cattle; your things carried are loads; a burden for the weary.”
YirmeYahu [Jeremiah] 50:2, “declare among the goyim, and make them hear, and lift up a banner. make them hear, do not hide it; say, babel is captured, bel is put to shame, merodak is broken in pieces, her images are put to shame, her idols are broken in pieces.”
YirmeYahu 51:44, “and i will punish bel in babel, and i will bring forth out of his mouth that which he has swallowed up. and the goyim will not flow together any more to him; the wall of babel will fall.”
Ashshur – xy` / xey` Also written Assur [pronounced Ashur] / Ashur became the chief, creator deity of the old Assyrian patriarchal pantheon, later associated with Marduk when the Babylonian empire took over the Assyrian. He was the patron deity of Assyria , specifically the town Assur, which was a holy site in ancient times, bearing his name. Ashshur was given the characteristics of the older Akkadian Ellil and Sumerian deity Enlil, Lord of Wind, god of breath, wind and storms, the head of the ancient pantheon, who stole the Tablets of Destiny. Ashshur is represented as a dragon slayer and warrior. He is lord of the four cardinal points and is also represented as the god of four faces, one of a bull, an eagle, a lion and a man. His symbols are the winged solar disk and the bow and arrow.
Personal Name: Ashshurchaddon [Ashshur-aha-iddina – Ashshur has given a brother to me – Esarhaddon], Ashurbanipal [Ashshur creator of an heir – Ashshur-bani-apli, poorly written in the Hebrew text as Osnapper in the book of Ezra]
City: TelAshshur [mound,heap, sometimes hill of Ashshur – steps, success]
Biblical Passages:
YeshaYahu [Isaiah] 14:25, “to break ashshur in my land, and trample him on my mountains. then his yoke will depart from them, and his burden will depart from his shoulders.”
YeshaYahu 30:31-33, “for through the voice of YHWH, ashshur will be crushed, the rod with which he strikes. 32 and every passage of the appointed staff that YHWH causes to rest on him will be with timbrels and with harps. and in brandishing battles he fights with her. 33 for topheth is ordained from yesterday. also, it is prepared for the king; he deepened; he widened its pyre; he makes great with fire and wood. the breath of YHWH burns in it like a torrent of brimstone.”
YeshaYahu 31:8, “then ashshur will fall by a sword, not of man; yes, a sword, not of man, will devour him. for he will flee from the sword, and his young men will become forced labor. ”
Marduk – kcxn Marduk [ Also called Bel Marduk] became the King of Gods, supreme, in the late Babylonian pantheon. He is represented as the god of storm and lighting, as well as the sun, therefore the fertility god and patron god of Babel . His name in Akkadian is Amar Utu, which means calf of the storm. Many scholars believe that Amar Utu / Marduk originated elsewhere and was adopted by the Mesopotamian groups. This is also believed by Albert Clay, who states that Amar Utu is the Amorite god Amurru / Uru. When the Amorites ruled in that territory, many of their deities were adopted and assimilated.
There is a relief that deals with a legend of Marduk slaying the dragon, which has 7 heads, just as the Ugaritic account of Baal and Mot, who was also portrayed as a dragon with 7 heads. This slaying of the dragon is the patriarchal portrayal of the Sumerian primordial mother goddess Tiamat, who gave birth to all the gods and goddesses and was later vilified as a dragon. Tiamat was the creator and possessor of the Mes – Tablets of Destiny (Civilizations), which she wore around her neck. After killing the Mother goddess, Marduk steals the Mes from Tiamat’s body and uses them to build his empire.
The characteristics of Marduk were assimilated from the Assyrian Ashshur and the preceding Akkadian and Sumerian Enlil.
Personal Name: Marduk Baladan [Marduk has given a son, Sumerian –Marduk-abal-iddina], Mardakiy [Mordecai]
Biblical Passages:
YirmeYahu [Jeremiah] 50:2, “declare among the goyim, and make them hear, and lift up a banner. make them hear, do not hide it; say, babel is captured, bel is put to shame, merodak is broken in pieces, her images are put to shame, her idols are broken in pieces.”
Nabu / Nebo – eap The Babylonian Nabu is the son of Marduk. Originally Nabu was introduced by the Amorites when they made inroads into what became the Babylonian territory. In the Akkadian he is called Nabium. Nabu is the god of wisdom, intelligence and justice and therefore presides over writers and scribes, who viewed Nabu as their patron deity. Prior to the patriarchal subjugation and re-mything, these characteristics were attributed to the Sumerian goddess Nidaba, also called Nanibgal and Nisaba. She is credited with inventing the alphabet, clay tablets, the art of writing and learning. She appears on the scene earlier than any of the male deities that replaced her. Nabu was the messenger of Bel –Marduk, his father. In the Akkadian, nabu means to call, announce, proclaim, the same as it does in the Hebrew naba, Arabic nabaa. This is the same root for the Hebrew word for prophet – nabiy/nebiy. “As scribe, Nabu had access to secrets that others could not read, and so could control religious rites and was regarded as especially wise,...He wrote down the decisions of the gods and was the one who kept accounts, reckoning credit and debit, titled Nabu ‘of accounts’ as a manifestation of Marduk.” Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, pg. 608. Nabu had a tablet of destinies, recording the names of those that god favored or was pleased with, which is similar to the concepts in Shemoth [Exodus] 32:32, “but now, if you will, forgive their sin and if not, please blot me out from your book which you have written.”; Thehillah [Psalm] 69:28, “blot them out from the book of life; and let them not be written with the tsaddiyqiym [upright ones].”; and 139:15,16, “my bones were not hidden from you when i was made in secret; when i was woven in the depths of the earth. 16 your eyes saw my embryo; and in your book all my members were written the days they were formed, and not one was yet among them.” This theme is carried into the New Testament book of Revelations, the Book of Life.
Nabu is represented with a winged dragon that he rides on, also with tools of engraving [cuneiform writing].
Nabu depicted in the ancient position of the priesthood with clasped hands.
Personal Name: Nabushazban [Nabu delivers me, Nabu-shezib-anni], Nabusharsikiym [Nabu Nabu-Sharrussu-ukin], Nabuzaradan [Nabu has given seed, Nabu-zer-iddin], Samgar Nabu [be gracious Nabu, Sumgir Nabu], Nabukadnetser [Nabu protect the border, Nabu-kudurri-usur]
Biblical Passages:
YeshaYahu [Isaiah] 46:1,2, “bel has bowed; nebo stoops; their idols are for the beast, and for the cattle; your things carried are loads; a burden for the weary. 2 they stoop; they bow together; they are not able to deliver the burden; and their soul has gone into captivity.” Please see Dagan, in the Canaanite section, for the Septuagint version of this passage.
Shamash / Shemesh – yny is the sun god and was possibly the deity of fire and prophecy by the name Shahan. Shamash is the son of Sin, the god of the moon, a god of prophecy, the giver and interpreter of oracles. His sister is Ishtar. “Yet again, keeping in mind the 14/15th is the night/day of the full moon and given the relationship that in other texts the gtrm have with the astral deities sps, yrh and kkbm [Shamash (sun), Yarich (moon), Kokabim (stars)] , this epithet could refer to them in the context of divination. In this respect the nature of Sapsu / Samas as an oracle god is well known throughout the ancient Near Eastern literature.” – Canaanite Religion According to Liturgical Texts of Ugarit , Gregorio Del Olmo Lete, pg. 242.
Shamash is also the lord of the shades of the dead, whose title is sar etemmi, bel etemmi and bel miti – prince of the dead ones, master / lord of the dead ones, lord of the dead. Shamash is able to bring up a dead one from the dark underworld. He is also viewed as the Watcher who is in charge of the dead gods in the underworld. Shamash has an important role in making sure that the libations and offerings reach the deceased. The libations were crucial to the deceased. One such inscription states that without Shamash the gods of the underworld do not receive the funerary offerings...to curse the dead of an enemy - may Shamash not allow his spirit to receive cold water down below and a new king shows the funerary gifts for his father to Shamash first.
Personal Name: Shamashon [Shimshon/Samson], Shamashriy [pertaining to Shamash],
City: Beyth Shemesh [house of Shamash], Eyn Shamash [eye of Shamash], Iyr Shamash [city of Shamash ]
Biblical Passages:
Thehillah [Psalm] 148:1-3, “praise YHWH. praise YHWH from the heavens; praise him in the heights. 2 praise him, all his malakay [messengers]; praise him, all his armies [tsabaoth]. 3 praise him shemesh [sun] and yarech [moon]; praise him, all you kokabiy [stars] of light.” Please see Astral Cult section for further information.
YirmeYahu [Jeremiah] 8:1,2, “at that time, declares YHWH, they will bring out the bones of the kings of yahudah, and the bones of its rulers, and the bones of the kohaniym [priests], and the bones of the nebiyiym [prophets], and the bones of those living in yerushalaim, out of their graves. 2 and they will spread them before shemesh and before yarech and all the armies of the heavens whom they have loved, and whom they have served, and after whom they have walked, and whom they have sought, and whom they have worshiped. they will not be gathered or buried; they will be dung on the face of the ground.”
Chabaqquq [Habakkuk] 3:11, “shemesh and yarech stood still in their dwelling. at the light of your arrows they go, at the shining of your gleaming spear.”
Tammuz – fenz Tammuz was the later name of the 3rd millennium Sumerian god Dumuzi. Tammuz is the Aramaic of the Akkadian Tammuzi. The Sumerian Dumuzi [Dumu zid] means the good son or the right son. In the Sumerian tradition, Dumuzi is represented as a shepherd, herdsman originally. “Dumuzi’s true nature was always that of the shepherd, best illustrated in the contest between Dumuzi and Enkimdu, in which Dumuzi competes with his animal products against Enkimdu, the farmer, who brings his farm products, in the competition to win the goddess Inanna’s favours as husband.” Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, pg. 829.
It is believed that Dumuzi was not originally a god, but a human being that came to be deified, as a number of deities originally were. Early second millennium BCE Sumerian King List, lists two rulers by the name of Dumuzi, one of which was called, “Dumuzi, the Shepherd.” This is a good example of the ruler/king dying and becoming deified, as covered in the Ancestor Cult/Cult of the Dead section. Later, the characteristics of Damu, a vegetation deity, were assimilated to Dumuzi, becoming associated with vegetation.
“The god Dumuzi evolved into the most complicated, multi-faceted deity in the Mesopotamian pantheon, becoming a syncretic figure embodying, as Jacobsen observes, the power behind the date-palm (Amausumgalanna), the power of the milk (Dumuzi the shepherd), and the power of the life-giving waters entering the tree sap (Damu). Dumuzi/Tammuz was the power in the barley seeds planted in the fall, which ultimately would manifest itself in the bountiful harvest of the spring. Thus from the autumn through the first months of spring, Dumuzi – the grain – was growing and prospering. Yet by summer, the fourth month, the grain had been cut down and only the stubble remained – Dumuzi was spent. Thus the summer was the occasion to mourn for the dead Dumuzi, for the power in the seeds and grain which was no more. Jacobsen observes ‘His [Dumuzi’s] death, accordingly, is when the grain is cut at harvest And then brewed into beer which goes into storage underground; that is to say, into the netherworld.’ “ The Cultic Calendar of the Ancient Near East, Mark Cohen, pg. 263.
After Dumuzi is bound and dragged to the netherworld in the place of his wife Inanna, one account states that his loyal sister, Gestinanna [Gestinanna of the vine] agrees to share her brothers fate, with the two of them alternating six months each in the netherworld. Dumuzi represents the grain, which became beer and his sister, Gestinanna, the wine. This account is very similar to a verse in the Biblical Hoshea. Hoshea 7:14 , “and they have not cried to me with their heart, when they howled on their beds. they slash themselves for dagan and thiyrosh; they turn against me. ” Thiyrosh in the Ugarit is Tirsu, the god/goddess of wine, possibly related to the Akkadian beer wine goddess Siras. Most translators of this verse have grain and wine in the place of the deities names. Why would people slash themselves for grain and wine? Yet accounts prove that slashing and mourning were part of the religious practices for Dagon / Baal / Dumuzi / Tammuz, all of which were associated with grain, which was used in the beer production.
“In the early second millennium Mari the fourth month marked the occasion for a cult of Dumuzi which included female mourners. R. Kutscher cites further first millennium evidence as to the annual observance of the festival of Dumuzi: (1) Gilgames VI 46-47: ‘for Dumuzi, the beloved of your youth, you decreed an annual wailing 9ana satti bitakka)’; (2) an incantation against seizure by demons to be performed: ‘in the month Dumuzi when Istar made the people of the land wail over Dumuzi, her beloved.’ “
Tammuz, like Baal of the Canaanites, is the dying/rising vegetation deity. He is the brother/lover of Ishtar, much in the same way that Dumuzi and Inanna were of the Sumerians. He also was taken to the underworld and the land mourned when he was gone, which prompted the ritual of the weeping for Tammuz. Ishtar also rescues Tammuz, in the same way the sister/lover Anat did for Baal of the Canaanites. After the harvest, of which he was god of, he would die in winter and was resurrected in the spring.
In the Babylonian calendar, they named one of their summer [roughly July: mid-summer] months for this deity. The Hebrews, in exile, adopted the Babylonian month name. Tammuz is the fourth month of the religious calendar, which begins in spring and the 10th month of the civil calendar, which begins in the fall. In the Arabic calendar, Tammuz is the month of July.
Biblical Passages:
Yechezqel [Ezekiel] 8:13 ,14, “and he said to me, you turn back, you will see greater abominations which they are doing. 14 and he brought me to the opening of the gate of the beyth of YHWH, toward the north. and, look, women were sitting there weeping for tammuz.”
Nergal / Nirgalu – lbxp Nergal is the Babylonian god of the underworld, lord of fires and judge of the dead, the god of war and pestilence. He is associated with the sun, Shammash, in the capacity of noontime sun and summer solstice, high heat times, which is representative of the epithet, the burner. He was also viewed as the god of war in earlier myths. He is represented with a sword and the head of a lion, also shown as a winged lion. Ninurta is the older Akkadian/Sumerian deity, that came to be associated with Nergal in the late Babylonian empire.
Personal Name: Nergal Sharetser [Nergal protect the king]
Biblical Passages:
II Melekiym [Kings] 17:30 , “and the men of babel made sukkoth-benoth; and the men of kuth [kuthah] made nergal; and the men of chamath made ashiyma;”
Meni / Menu – ipn Babylonian/Assyrian goddess of fate and fortune. The Akkadian root manu means to count, number, assign. The mina, a unit of weight and money, was borrowed from the Akkadian and is from the same root of manu. This is where the phrase in the book of Daniel, 5th chapter, originates, 5:25-28, “and this is the writing that was written, mina, mina, theqel, and parsiyn [mene, mene, skekel, parsin]. 26 this is the meaning of the thing, mina, eloha has numbered [menah] your kingdom and finished it. 27 theqel [borrowed from the aramaic for weigh, balance - shekel], you are weighed in the balances and found lacking. 28 peras [half mina] your kingdom is divided and given to the maday [medes] and paras [persians].”
Pre-Islam also attests to this goddess, Manah [Manat], the personification of fate and destiny, in the Arabic culture. She was depicted as an old woman. The Arabic maniyya means destiny, from the Arabic root mana – assigned, appointed. The worship of Manat is associated with Al Lat and Al Uzzah, considered sisters, part of pre-Islams history. Muhammad could not eradicate their worship and assimilated it into Islam, calling the three goddesses the daughters of Allah in the Quran. Later these verses, as well as others, were removed and included in what was called the Satanic Verses – Sura 53:19-23
Biblical Passages:
YeshaYahu [Isaiah] 65:11, “but you are those who forsake YHWH, who forget my holy mountain; who array a table for gad, and who fill mixed wine for meni. ” This verse clearly deals with the abandonment of seeking after YHWH for direction, instead they make offerings to Gad [Canaanite/Syrian god of luck/fortune] and Meni [Mesopotamian goddess of fate and fortune].
The following map is simply to locate the cities which bear the names of the deities, in the above sections, that resided in the territory of Israel
The following list of books are sources for the above generalized references. I am not going to footnote every book that mentions a particular aspect of El, when so many of them repeat the same information. Besides, I would much rather you read the books, as I have, to get a broader picture of the situation. It is aptly stated by Israel Abrahams, in the English translation by U. Cassuto - in response to the problem of Israel ’s already developed literary style, when they emerged from bondage, “Now the problem is easily solved if we assume that the Bible is but a continuation of the Canaanite literature, which antedate the former,...” The Goddess Anath, by U. Cassuto, Translated from the Hebrew by Israel Abrahams, Magnus Press, The Hebrew University , Jerusalem , 1971, pg. 19. “From all this we are permitted to infer that not just in respect of a few details, but in the entire range of literary language and in all the rhetorical usages commonly employed therein, there existed a tradition that was shared by both Ugaritic and Biblical writings, and it cannot be doubted that in form the two literatures are only two different branches of a single tree. This solves the problem that we raised above, namely, how it was possible to explain the fact that the earliest compositions of Biblical literature already had a perfected form, as though a long process of development lay behind them. In truth, this is the actual case; they had been preceded by a literary evolution many centuries old, even though it took place outside the ranks of the Israelites, or, more precisely, before the people of Israel came into being. The originality of the Scriptural writings is to be found in their content and spirit; in regard to their form, they continue the tradition of the ancient Canaanite literature.” Ibid. pg. 48
The following works are in alphabetic order.
All Color Book of Greek Mythology, Richard Patrick, Octopus Books Limited, London , 1972
The Alphabet Versus the Goddess, The Conflict Between Word and Image, Leonard Shlain, Viking Press, 1998
Amurru, The Home of the Northern Semites, Albert Clay, The Sunday School Times Company, Philadelphia , 1909
The Ancient Gods, E. O. James, Castle Books, NJ, 2004
Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, James Pritchard, Princeton University Press, 1969
Ancient Records From North Arabia, F. Winnett and W. Reed, University of Toronto Press , Canada
Anthropology and the Classics, Arthur Evans, Oxford At the Clarendon Press, 1908.
Archaeology and the Religions of Canaan and Israel, Beth Alpert Nakhai, American School of Oriental Research, Boston, MA, 2001
Archaeology of the Land of the Bible, Amihai Mazar, Doubleday , New York
Art of the Ancient Near and Middle East, Carel J. Du Ry, Harry Abrams, Inc. Publishers, New York , 1969
Archaeology of Syria , Peter Akkermans and Glenn Schwartz, Cambridge University Press , England
Asherah – Lady of the Serpent, Sacred Trees, get full title from interlibrary loan records
Ashkelon Discovered, From Canaanites and Philistines to Romans and Moslems, Lawrence E. Stager, Biblical Archaeology Society, Washington , D.C.
The Assembly of the Gods: The Divine Council in Canaanite and Early Hebrew Literature, E. Theodore Mullen, Jr., Scholars Press, Atlanta, Georgia, 1980
Athena in the Classical World, edited by Deacy and Villing, particular section, Chapter 19 by Annette Teffeteller, pgs. 349-365.
The Balaam Text From Deir Alla Re-Evaluated, edited by J. Hoftijzer and G. Van Der Kooij, Brill, Leiden , 1991
Beyond Babel, A Handbook for Biblical Hebrew and Related Languages, John Kaltner and Steven McKenzie, Society of Biblical Literature, Atlanta, Georgia, 2002
The Birth of the Gods and the Origins of Agriculture, Jacques Cauvin, transl;ated by Trevor Watkins, Cambridge University Press, UK, 2000
The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World’s Ancient Languages, Roger Woodard, Cambridge University Press, England, 2004
Canaanites, Jonathan N. Tubb, British Museum Press, London , 1998
Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, Frank Moore Cross, Harvard University Press, Cambridge , MA
The Chalice and the Blade, Our History, Our Future, Riane Eisler, Harper and Row, New York , 1987
Child Sacrifice At Carthage - Religious Rite or Population Control?, Lawrence 10:01 , Jan/Feb 1984.
The Creation of Patriarchy, Gerda Lerner, Oxford University Press, New York , 1986
Creation Stories of the Middle East, Ewa Wasilewska, Jessica Kingsley Publishers, Philadelphia , 2000
The Cult of Asherah in Ancient Israel and Judah , Judith M. Hadley, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge , U. K., 2000
The Cultic Calendars of the Ancient Near East, Mark Cohen, CDL Press , Maryland , USA
Cults of the Dead in Ancient Israel and Ugarit , Theodore Lewis, Scholars Press, 1989
Development of Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt , James Breasted, Harper, New York , 1959
Dictionary of Ancient Deities, Turner and Coulter, Oxford University Press, New York , 2001
Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, Van Der Toorn, Becking, Van Der Horst, Brill Academic Publishers, Leiden, Netherlands, 1999
Did God Have A Wife, William Dever, Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids , Michigan
The Early History of God, Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel, Patrick Miller, Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2002
Echos of the Ancient Skies, Dr. Edwin C. Krupp, Harper and Row Publishers, New York , 1983
The Empire of the Amorites, Albert T. Clay, Yale University Press, London , 1919
The Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture, J. P. Mallory and D. Q. Adams, Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, London , 1997
Excavations at Hacilar, James Mellaart, Edinburgh University
God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality, Phyllis Trible, Fortress Press, Philadelphia , 1978
The Goddess and the Warrior, Nanno Marinatos, Routledge , New York
The Goddess Anath, by U. Cassuto, Translated from the Hebrew by Israel Abrahams, Magnus Press, The Hebrew University , Jerusalem , 1971
The Goddess Anath in Ugaritic Myth, Neal Walls, Scholars Press, Atlanta , Georgia
The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe, Marija Gimbutas, University of California Press, Berkley , 1982
Gods and Heroes of the European Bronze Age, Demakopoulou, Eluere, Jensen, Jockenhovel and mohen, Thames and Hudson, Great Britain, 1999
Goddesses and Trees, New Moon and Yahweh, Ancient Near Eastern Art and the Hebrew Bible, Othmar Keel, Sheffield Academic Press, 1998
Gods, Goddesses and Images of God in Ancient Israel, Othmar Keel and Christopher Uehlinger, Fortress Press, Minneapolis, 1998
Gods of the Ancient Northmen, Georges Dumezil, University of California Press, Berkley , 1973
Gods of Our Fathers, Richard Gabriel, Greenwood Press, 2002
The Great Cosmic Mother, Monica Sjoo and Barbara Mor, Harper San Francisco , 1987
Greek Mythology, John Pinsent, Paul Hamlyn, New York , 1969
The Greek Myths, I & 2, Robert Graves, Penguin Books, New York , 1960
Hacilar, James Mellaart, Edinburgh University
The Hebrew Goddess, Raphael Patai, Wayne State Universtiy Press, Detroit , Michigan
Hesiod and Theoginis, Dorothea Walker, Penguin Books, London , 1973
Historical Dictionary of the Hittites, Charles Burney, The Scarecrow Press, Inc., Oxford , 2004
History of Art in Phoenicia and Its Dependencies, from the French of Georges Perrot and Charles Chipiez, translated and edited by Walter Armstrong, Chapman and Hall, London , 1885
History of the City of Gaza , From the Earliest Times to the Present Day, Martin A. Meyer, The Columbia University Press, New York, 1907
Hittite Prayers, Itamar Singer, Society of Biblical Literature, Atlanta , Georgia
The Hittites and Their Contemporaries in Asia Minor, J. G. Macqueen, Thames and Hudson , New York
The Horse, the Wheel and Language, David Anthony, Princeton University Press, New Jersey , 2007
How To Read the Bible, James L. Kugel, Free Press, New York , 2007
The Hyksos: New Historical and Archaeological Perspectives, Elizer D. Oren editor, The University
Museum, Philadelphia , 1997
The Iliad, Homer, translated by Robert Fagles, Penguin Group, NY, 1998
Ilios: The City and Country of the Trojans, Dr. Henry Schliemann, John, Murray Publisher, London , 1880
The Image and the Book: Iconic Cults, Aniconism and the Rise of Book Religion in Israel and the Ancient Near East, Karel Van Der Toorn, Brill, Leiden , 1997
In Search of God the Mother, The Cult of Anatolian Cybele, Lynn E. Roller, University of California Press, Berkeley , US
In Search of the Indo-Europeans, J. P. Mallory, Thames and Hudson , London , 1989
Indigo in the Arab World, Jenny Balfour-Paul, Curzon Press, London , 1997
Jeremiah, The Anchor Bible, John Bright, Double Day, 1965
Judahite Burial Practices and Beliefs About the Dead, Elizabeth Bloch-Smith, JSOT Press, Sheffield , England
Lectures on the Religion of the Semites, William Robertson Smith, edited by John Day , Sheffield Academic Press, 1995
L’Enigme Des Steles De La Carthage Africaine, Leo Dubal and Monique Larrey, Editions L’Harmattan, Paris, 1995
Life in Biblical Israel , Philip J. King and Lawrence E. Stager, Westminster John Knox Press, Kentucky , 2001
The Living Goddesses, Marija Gimbutas, edited by Miriam Robbins Dexter after Gimbutas death, University of California Press, Berkley, 1999
The Lost World of Old Europe, The Danube Valley, 5000-3500 BC, David Anthony, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2010
Magic and Divination in Ancient Palestine and Syria , Ann Jeffers, Brill, Leiden , 1996
The Migration of Symbols, Count Goblet D’Alviella, Archibald Constable and Co., Westminster , 1894
Minoan Religion, Ritual, Image, and Symbol, Nanno Marinatos, University of South Carolina
The Mythology of Ancient Greece and Italy , Thomas Keightley and Leonhard Schmitz, George Bell and Sons, London , 1877
Near Eastern Archaeology, Suzanne Richard, Eisenbrauns , Indiana , US
The Neolithic of the Near East, James Mellaart, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York , 1975
The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land, 4 Volumes, Ephraim Stern Editor, Israel Exploration Society & Carta, Jerusalem, Israel, 1993
The Neolithic of the Near East, James Mellaart, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York , 1975
Old Testament Parallels, Victor Matthews and Don Benjamin, Paulist Press, New Youk, 1991
On the Trail of Women Warriors, The Amazons in Myth and History, Lyn Webster Wilde, Thomas Dunne Books, New York , 1999
Only One God? Monotheism in Ancient Israel and the Veneration of the Goddess Asherah, B. Becking, M. Dijkstra, M. Korpel, K. Vriezen, Sheffield Academic Press, England, 2001
Pagan Rites In Judaism, Theodor Reik, Gramercy Publishing Co., New York , 1964
People of the Sea, The Search For the Philistines, Trude and Moshe Dothan, Macmillan Publishing Company, New York , 1992
Philo of Byblos , The Phoenician History, Attridge and Oden, Catholic Biblical Association of America , Washington , DC
Portrait of a Priestess, Women and Ritual in Ancient Greece, Joan Breton Connelly, Princeton University Press, New Jersey, 2007
Prelude to Israel ’s Past, Niels Peter Lemche, Hendrickson Publishers Inc., Massachusetts , 1998
The Religions of Ancient Israel , A Synthesis of Parallactic Approaches, Ziony Zevit, Continuum, London , England
Religions of the Ancient World, Sarah Iles Johnston, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, MA, USA, 2004
Sanctuaries of the Goddess, Peg Streep, Bulfinch Press Book, New York 1994
The Sea Peoples and Their World: A Reassessment, Eliezer D. Oren editor, The University Museum, Philadelphia , 2000
The Sea Peoples in the Bible, Othniel Margalith, Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden , 1994.
The Search for God in Ancient Egypt , Jan Assmann, Cornell University Press, New York , 2001
The Serpent Symbol in the Ancient Near East: Nahash and Asherah: Death, Life and Healing, Leslie Wilson, University Press of America , 2001
Stories From Ancient Canaan, Michael David Coogan, The Westminster Press, Louisville , 1978
The Swastika, Thomas Wilson, Government Printing Office, Washington , 1896
The Syrian Goddess (De Dea Syria ), Herbert A. Strong, John Garstang, Forgotten Books, 2007
Symbolic Elements in the Cult of Athena, Robert Luyster, History of Religions, Vol. 5, No. 1, 1965, pgs. 133-163.
Symbols and Warriors: Images of the European Bronze Age, Richard J. Harrison, Western Academic & Specialist Press Limited, England , 2004
A Text-book of North Semitic Inscriptions, George Albert Cooke, Clarendon Press, Oxford , 1903
Time At Emar, The Cultic Calendar and the Rituals From the Diviner’s Archive, Daniel Fleming, Eisenbrauns , Indiana , USA
The Violent Goddess Anat in the Ras Shamra Texts, Arvid S. Kapelrud, Universitets Forlaget, Oslo, Norway, 1969.
What Did the Biblical Writers Know, and When Did They Know It? : What Archaeology Can Tell Us About the Reality of Ancient Israel, William Dever, Erdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids , Michigan
When God Was a Woman, Merlin Stone, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers, New York , 1976
Women in Scripture, Carol Meyers, with Toni Craven and Ross Kraemer, Houghton Mifflin Company, New York , 2000
The World’s Writing Systems, Peter Daniels and William Bright, Oxford University Press, New York , 1996
Writings From the Ancient World, Ritual and Cult At Ugarit , Dennis Pardee, Society of Biblical Literature, Atlanta , Georgia
Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan, John Day, Sheffield Academic Press , England
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