Noah, Japheth and the Greeks

Salverda
Mar 11, 2012 10:35 PM

There is much to be gleaned from this article, especially the inference that the Greek god Ouranos is to be identified with the Hebrew patriarch Noah, and that Ouranos’ castration episode originates with the Hebrew story of Noah’s drunkenness. But the last sentence of this article reveals a chronological bias of the author that it will be difficult for him to overcome; “Japheth, who is absent from all other Near Eastern accounts, may well derive from Hesiod’s Iapetos.” Here the author assumes that the writings of Hesiod are older than the account in Genesis. This is a blatant error and a very unlikely assumption.

Even the premise, that Japheth is absent from all other Near Eastern accounts, is an unrealistic assumption. There is a strong possibility that the Persians had a tradition about Japheth. According to Herodotus (VII, 72, 450 BC.), there was a group of People who were known to the Greeks as the, "Leucosyri," or the "White Syrians," they lived in the land, that the Persians called "Cappadocia." Therefore it seems that White People are associated with, this time the Persian form of the name, Japheth. (The Hebrews say, "Japheth," the Latins say, "Gepetto," and it seems as though the Persians used a version of the name that was very much like the Latins, "Cappado,") Japheth is the famous progenitor of the White People, and as it turns out Iapetus has a connection with White People, as well. Iapetus is the father of the earliest known, and arguably the most famous, “Caucasian” who ever lived! Prometheus (As the mythical creator of mankind, we assume these men, must have been Caucasian men, for why are White folks named after the well known mountain of Prometheus, Mount Caucasia?).

Another false assumption, inferred although unstated, is the idea that the Greek Myths did not get the names of their mythological characters from the Hebrews. However, there are dozens of examples that would argue otherwise; “Melamp-us and Phylac-us” as “Balaam and Balak,” “Salmone-us” as “Solomon,” “Sisyph-us” as “Joseph,” “Inach-us” as “Anak,” or “Phorone-us” as “Ephron” Any one of which is at least as compelling as “Iapet-us” as “Japheth.”

A logical question to ask ones self after reading the foregoing is this; Did the writer or writers of the Biblical book of Genesis derive Japheth from the Greek Iapetus, or was it the other way around? I trust that the discerning reader will reach a better conclusion than the author of this article seems to have done.

Reply

AMAICMar 12, 2012 03:21 PM

I am glad that you picked this up, John. I was going to send it to you.



I fully agree with your comments about who influenced whom.



Best regards

Damien Mackey.

Bellerophon and Joshua. The Conquest Left Incomplete



[The AMAIC considers the Middle East – West comparisons of John R. Salverda as interesting, with some of them we think being very likely. But we do not necessarily agree with all of the following] 

Bellerophon and Joshua,
The Conquest Left Incomplete

by John R. Salverda

The next group of enemies that Bellerophon was sent to clear out was the pirates of the Carian coast.

The origins of the Carian people was just as much a mystery to the ancients as it is to historians today. Herodotus was able to trace them back to the time when they served as sailors for the fleet of King Minos of Crete. We have seen that the Minoans were originally from Phoenicia, descendants from Europa the maiden of Phoenicia. The Carians were often associated with the sea faring Phoenicians and there were even at least two cities in the land of Caria named for the Phoenicians, Phoinix and Phoinikus. The Carians were famously known to the Greeks as pirates of the Mediterranean Sea, in fact the Egyptians called the Mediterranean Sea, "the sea of Kharu," presumably, the "Carian" Sea. If it was one of the tasks of Bellerophon to dispel the Carians, and Bellerophon was Joshua, then the Carians must have been one of the peoples of Canaan, such as the Hurrians. In his greatest historical work, a book called, "Ages in Chaos" the heretical genius Immanuel Velikovsky identifies the Carians with the Hurrians, and in the light of his reconstruction of ancient history he leaves little doubt but that he is correct. As Velikovsky has told us, the Assyrian cuneiform texts referred to the Hurrians as the "Khurri" and in the Egyptian chronicles they were called the "Kharu." The Hurrians are not mentioned in the Scriptures, but many historians identify the Horites with the Hurrians and while Velikovsky does make a distinction between the two groups, it should be pointed out that the Septuagint calls the Horites the "Chorreans." Furthermore, if the Horites can be identified with the Hurrians, then so can the Hivites and also the Jebusites of Jerusalem, also called "Uru-salim," (Hurrian Salem') in the El-Amarna correspondences.

    Just because the Hurrians are not called by that name in the Scriptures is no reason to doubt their coexistence with the Hebrews, for archaeologists have found evidence of the Hurrians all over the promised land, (Abraham himself is said to have hailed from "Ur" of the Chaldees, presumably the Chaldians of Armenia where the Hurrians are also said to have come from. Furthermore, the city of Harran, where Abraham lived for some time before he moved to the land of Canaan, has been shown to be of Hurrian foundation.) and after all, the Scriptures don't seem to know about the Phoenicians by that name either. The Scriptures do mention the Carians as a troop of bodyguards to the kings of Judah, in the Scriptures the Carians are referred to as the "Cherethites," these served as the bodyguard to King David (2Ki. 11:4, 13-16, 19 see also 2Sam. 8:18). In the Greek Septuagint the term "Cretans" is substituted for "Cherethites," which brings us back to the statement made by Greek Herodotus so saying that "Carians" served King Minos of Crete. The Egyptian kings Psammetichus and Amasis used Carian mercenaries and the Carians also formed the bodyguard for the kings of Lydia.

    The end of the myth about Bellerophon's battles in Lycia, is the story about the overthrow of the Lycians themselves. Luz was the Canaanite name for the city that was known to the Hebrews as Bethel. It was the warriors of the House of Joseph who were specifically accredited with overthrowing the Canaanites of Luz. This corresponds to the Greek myth because it was Bellerophon of the house of Sisyphus who defeated the Lycians, and this is in keeping with the theory that Sisyphus was the Greek equivalent to Joseph.

    At this point we may be able to tell how these Canaanites came to be known to the Greeks as the Lycians of Lycia, despite the common transliteration from the Greek as "Lykia," the name of the nation in Asia Minor is pronounced "lish'ee-ah." Although the Greeks had their own various versions concerning the founding of Lycia, (The bulk of opinion makes Lycia to be founded by Phoenicians through Europa's son Sarpedon.) the Scriptural account about the fall of Luz may hold a more satisfying explanation. In the book of Judges chapter 1, verses 22 through 26, we see that the House of Joseph made a deal with one of the Luzians. If the unnamed man would turn against his own city and show the Hebrews the way in, then the Josephites would deal mercifully with him and his family. And so it was, the man wisely consorted with the Israelite enemy and was allowed to take his family out from the doomed city of Luz and they got away unharmed. Then the scriptural account goes on to say how he took his family to the "land of the Hittites," where he set up a colony from, and named it after, his recently destroyed homeland, Luz. While the promised land was sometimes known as the land of the Hittites, it was only a part of the vast Hittite empire, the bulk of their kingdom, and the land of their nativity, was in Asia Minor. Since the promised land of Canaan was being taken away from the Hittites and given to the Israelites, it doesn't seem likely that the new Luz should be set up, as some have suggested, at another location within the land of Canaan. Therefore the designation, "land of the Hittites," at verse 26 of the Scriptural account, is most probably referring to the Hittites of Asia Minor, where indeed, the land of Lycia did end up being located. Now, while the Greek myths have Bellerophon making his deal with the king of Lycia, whom they called by the very Semitic looking name, "Iobates," there is no indication in the Scriptures that the unnamed traitor at Luz was its king. However, if Iobates was the traitor at old Luz, then he was also the founder of its replacement colony in the land of the Hittites, which would, of course, qualify him as the preeminent king of the new place. This scenario may also help to explain why the Greeks would call the king of Lycia "Iobates" for generation after generation, because it was not unusual for the name of founding, or otherwise exemplary, kings to leave their name as an hereditary title to subsequent regents, examples of this practice may be seen in the cases of Gordius and Midas, famous kings of the neighboring kingdom of Phrygia.

    Joshua and the Hebrews did not wipe out all of the Canaanites, at first with divine assistance, they were quite successful against the Canaanites but then, even though they had God on their side, they began to make deals with the enemy, the interloping Israelites intermarried with the Canaanite nations and even left them with sovereignty in many cases. The case of Bellerophon was quite comparable in this regard for he also fought successfully against the Lycians but then their king, seeing that Bellerophon had the gods on his side, sued for peace, and allowed the hero to marry into the Lycian royal family, giving him only half of the Lycian kingdom while the king was able to retain sovereignty in the remainder. It is perhaps because of this incomplete conquest of Canaan that Ezekiel was forced to lament about Jerusalem, "'Thy birth and thy nativity is of the land of Canaan; thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother an Hittite." (Eze. 16:3) Looking back we have to admit that the racial "impurities" of Israel are like a labyrinth that is impossible to straighten out. Abraham can be associated with the Hurrians as well as the Chaldeans. The Amorites of Babylon are called Canaanites, and the Chaldeans have been identified with the Hittites by Velikovsky. The Hittites are said, by modern historians, to have adopted the religion of the Hurrians (such as their mother goddess, Hebat who has in turn been identified with Eve). The kings of Assyria refer to the Kings of Israel as "the King of the Hittites." King David himself is the direct descendant of Rahab the Canaanite prostitute of Jericho, and of Ruth the "Moabitess." The Ishmaelites are the Midianites are the Kenites are the Cushites. Moses himself (the supposed institutor of monogamy) married a Cushite woman and their descendants became the priesthood of the widely roving Danites (If you are a "Dane" then perhaps you have a mole or a freckle that reflects this last fact.). Therefore I would strongly appeal to those of us who would attempt to Identify "lost" Israelites based upon their ethnicity or racial makeup to reconsider the strategy completely. There are no "pure" Israelites, for both the Hebrews and the Greeks report that the conquest of Canaan, or "Lycia," as its referred to in the "myths" of the Greeks, was incomplete, you can blame Joshua, or as the Greeks seem to have called him, Bellerophon.

For more articles by John R. Salverda on the Hebraic Connections of Greek Mythology, see:

"Helleno-Yishurin. The Hebrew Origin of Greek Legends"

Jerusalem’s History as Athenian Myth



Taken from:
http://forums.about.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx?tsn=1&nav=display&webtag=ab-ancienthist&tid=5260


From: Salverda



Date: 2/22/11



Jerusalem’s History as Athenian Myth

What has Athens to do with Jerusalem? After even a cursory examination of the two, it is hard to deny that the founding "myths" of Athens share many curious and intricate coincidences with Jewish history and the symbolisms of Jerusalem. For as the founding myth of Athens goes; Cecrops (herein presented as the Athenian version of Moses), lead the Athenians up out of the land of Egypt. He took a colony out of the Egyptian city of Sais, (see the Scholiast on Aristophanes Plutus 773). Diodorus tells us, “the Athenians, they say, are colonists from Sais in Egypt, and they undertake to offer proofs of such a relationship; for the Athenians are the only Greeks who call their city "Asty," a name brought over from the city Asty in Egypt. Furthermore, their body politic had the same classification and division of the people as found in Egypt.” (Diodorus Siculus book 1 Chapter I.28.4). Similarly from Plato, as his ancestor Solon was told by the Priests of Egypt, "At the head of the Egyptian Delta, where the river Nile divides, there is a certain district which is called the district of Sais, and the great city of the district is also called Sais, and is the city from which Amasis the king was sprung. And the citizens have a deity who is their foundress: she is called in the Egyptian tongue Neith, which is asserted by them to be the same whom the Hellenes called Athena. Now, the citizens of this city are great lovers of the Athenians, and say that they are in some way related to them.” (Plato Critias). Just as in the story of Moses leading the twelve tribes to the promised land, so the Greek myth of Cecrops has him leading his people to the area of Athens and dividing the land into twelve districts. Strabo tells us that, “Cecrops first settled the multitude in twelve cities,” (Geography 9. 1. 18 - 20). Notice here not only the division into twelve but also Strabo’s reference to “the multitude” that Cecrops was accredited with settling at the colony of Athens (Sais = Zoan = Tanis = Tanit = Athena = Zion). It’s not my contention that there were two groups, both sharing the stories of Moses and coming out of Egypt, one going to Jerusalem and the other going to Athens, for it is more probable that colonists from Palestine (not necessarily Judeans) brought the stories of Moses to Athens long after the exodus, and even after Jerusalem had been established for a while. For it is not just the story about coming up out of the land of Egypt that they share.

Another example of how Cecrops was like Moses, can be seen in the writings of Pausanias, who says, "For Cecrops was the first to name Zeus the Supreme god, and refused to sacrifice anything that had life in it, but burnt instead on the altar the national cakes which the Athenians still call pelanoi.” (Description of Greece 8. 2. 2-3).# Thus even a kind of monotheism such as that which was advocated by Moses, who was the first to name Yahweh (Ex. 3:14), had it’s parallel in the Greek myth of Cecrops (however corrupt, he advocated Zeus as the “supreme god”). Notice also the bit about the “national cakes” in regards to Moses setting up the festival of the unfermented cakes. Just as Moses was the “legislator of the Jews” so the Greek myths tell us, that it was Cecrops who first gave the people of Athens their laws. Moses also wrote the universal founding story in the book of Genesis, and it is evident that the Athenians were well aware of it, because it is used liberally, as I will demonstrate, in the foundation myths of Athens. Some even say that Cecrops invented writing, another allusion to Moses who is sometimes said to have invented the alphabet.

Cecrops was an anguipede (serpent footed,) this is noteworthy because wayward Jews blasphemously pictured Yahweh, the God of Moses, as an anguipede (This is such an outrageous claim that I implore the reader to look it up on his own. Simply search the term on the internet, there are dozens of sites anxious to malign the Jews for this particular idolatrous blasphemy.). Furthermore, don‘t let the fact that the history of Athens is full of serpents throw you off, for (besides the serpent stick carrying Moses), each of the twelve tribes of Israel had its own leader at the Exodus, and the tribal chief of Judah, was a man named "Nahshon," which is the usual Hebrew word for "serpent." So, while it was Moses who led the tribes up out of Egypt, it was this Nahshon (serpent), who led the specific tribe of Judah, the founders of Jerusalem, at the Exodus. The reason for the serpent symbolism will become a bit more apparent when we cover the dual nature of the Messiah later on in this article.

The Greek myths tell us that it was Cecrops who invented marriage (instituting monogamy), while among the Hebrews it was Moses who outlined the institution of marriage when he compiled the story of Adam and Eve in the book of Genesis. The previous creation story, which apparently had Lilith, was presumably not so insistent upon the marriage arrangement that was detailed at Genesis 2:23,24 (And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be as one flesh.). The Greek myths tell us that Cecrops was the first to recognize patriarchal paternity (Egypt was a matrilineal society). While Moses wrote Genesis 3:16 (Unto the woman he said, …thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.) in order to redefine the roles of men and women for the Israelites as opposed to the custom of their previous Egyptian overlords (Athena had “accidentally” killed Pallas in the Greek myth, much the same as Eve had superseded Lilith in the writings of Moses.). In the previous two points, concerning monogamy and patriarchal paternity, and having brought up the name Lilith, we are presented with an opportunity to explain the Greek character who was originally known as “Pallas” (of Pallas-Athene fame).

In Assyrian, Ilu (as in the Hebrew term “El”) means “god,” while Ilatu means “goddess.” In Canaanite, Baal means “lord,” while Baalath means “lady,” note the feminine suffix (comparable to the English -ette or -ess). In the Canaanite religion El and Baal are sometimes interchangeable, it is therefore a reasonable assumption that Lilith (Elath?) is related to the term Baalath. Accordingly the name “Baalath” is a tempting theoretical origin for the name of “Pallas” (a phonetic shibboleth and not another name altogether), thus as intimated earlier, Pallas is a plausible Greek version of the Hebrew character Lilith/Baalath. In the Greek myths Pallas is either an anguipede giant who is killed by Athena and flayed to make her serpentine shield, or alternately, her maiden sister whom she kills accidentally (the differing opinion depended upon your view of feminism, no doubt. Was Lilith an evil monster who was killed on purpose, or an innocent maiden who was killed by accident?). In any case the Athena of Athens adopted the name Pallas-Athene in memory of Pallas. Athene is therefore often referred to simply as “Pallas.” And, in contrast to Hera‘s dove, the totem bird of Pallas-Athene is the owl (the Hebrew “kos” however, the night owl was referred to as “Lilith”).

Establishing a connection between the two patriarchal monogamists Cecrops and Moses, can give us a bit more “source material” for understanding the story of Adam and Eve. For apparently there was a previous version of our universal foundation myth, that Moses was tasked to build upon and mitigate. The problem with the earlier story was that it was too feminist. Note the sin of Adam in the Moses version of the Genesis account, “harkening unto the voice of thy wife” (Gen. 3:17). The Greek myth about the founding of Athens contains more obvious details about the change from a matriarchal to a patriarchal society that are not so apparent in the Genesis account. A case in point is the contest between Poseidon and Athena as to which deity would be supreme in Athens. According to Varro, the choice between worshipping Athena or Poseidon was put to the vote of the people of Attica. They were asked to pick which would be more beneficial to mankind, Athena’s olive tree or Poseidon’s fountain. In those days, women had an equal vote with men. The men all voted for the god, and all the women voted for the goddess, but since there was one more woman than there were men, Athena won the referendum. Angered, Poseidon sent a great flood. So terrible was his judgment that it was decided to deprive women of the vote and to forbid children to bear their mother's names for the future. (Augustine, De civitate Dei xviii.9). … Furthermore the day on which the vote took place, the second day of the first Attic month of Boedromion, (on or near the modern August 20th) was henceforth omitted from the calendar. (Plut. De fraterno amore 11; Plut. Quaest. Conviv. ix.6.) Apparently it was a big deal transgression with lasting societal consequences to choose the goddess over the god, a type of Athenian “original sin” committed by the women of Athens (whether Pandora, Persephone, or Eve, it seems like a widespread consensus that the woman always gets the blame).

The Garden of Eden had two trees and a fountain, they are mentioned all together at the same place in the narrative, “And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.” (Genesis 2:9,10). Many people think that the scriptural creation story was originally two stories rolled into one, but perhaps there were originally three or four (or even more) sources and it was Moses whose task it was to compile them into a single account. The story of Moses includes an outline of his “sin” for which he was precluded from entering his own “Eden,” a land flowing with “milk an honey” the “promised land” because he had struck a rock with his staff and produced a fountain. The Greek myth about the founding of Athens contains a very similar motif when it comes to the contest between Poseidon and Athena, “the Sea-God standing, striking the rough rock with his tall trident, and the wounded rock gushing sea-brine, his proof to clinch his claim. Herself (Athena) … from the earth struck by her spear, she shows an olive tree," (Ovid, Metamorphoses 6. 70 ff). Perhaps this episode in the life of Moses hearkens back to one of the original versions of the creation story, one that was expunged from his “compilation” that has come down to us in the book of Genesis. In the contest between Poseidon with his miraculous fountain, and Athena, the well known goddess of “knowledge” (of “good and evil?”), with her miraculous tree, we have a kind of doublet with the myth of Pallas verses Athena, as to which version of the maiden would supersede. Was it going to be the fountain (of youth?), or the tree (of eternal life)? Apparently it would be the tree. The result of “picking” the tree was a massive flood. In the book of Genesis Moses tells us that there was a kind of contest between God and the Serpent as to whom mankind would obey. The people were allowed complete freedom of choice, in picking of the tree, mankind decided on the Serpent. God eventually brought the flood. According to Moses, a dove delivers to Noah, the olive branch in spite of the flood. The dove is symbolic of “the woman” delivering her seed, and in Greek mythology it is the totem bird of Hera (Her Latin name, “Juno” is the usual Hebrew word for “dove.”) the parthenogenic mother of Hephaestus, while the branch of the olive tree turns out to be symbolic of the Messiah. Logic propels us to conclude that in the parallel Athenian version of the tale, Athena represented the Serpent, while Poseidon represented God. In the Scriptural book of Genesis, of course, choosing the Serpent was a mistake and a promise was made to correct the error at a later date by means of the Messiah (a promise that was symbolized by the olive branch and as the seed of the Woman).

Now, it is not my intention to equate Athens with Eden, although the temptation is strong to do so ("Athens, a town said to be the first established in the world." So says Pseudo-Hyginus, Fabulae 164), and I would not be averse to the suggestion that the names of the two places have a common ancestor. My point is that the two places share similar stories because the Athenian story tellers were from Israel and were well aware of the stories of Jerusalem and that Cecrops was actually the Athenian version of Moses, the stories that Cecrops told were very similar to the stories that Moses wrote. Specific motifs and themes that we usually associate with the writings of Moses in Genesis and Exodus were carried by Hebrews who migrated to Greece and set up Athens as a local rival to Jerusalem, (as they had done back home at Bethel and Dan) thus they turn up in the Greek myths as the foundation stories of Athens, this is the simplest explanation for the phenomenon. Some may even have been Judeans who had originally come to Thebes in Boeotia with Cadmus and then moved to Athens at a later date. In deed, if the Greeks knew of Moses as Cecrops, and used the Hebrew alphabet, then there is no reason why they shouldn’t know something about what Moses wrote, such as the Theogony of Genesis and the story of Eden. After all, they do seem to have known quite a bit about Moses and not only mere generalities, but even down to intricate details of theological doctrine.

The olive tree is the well known symbol of the Jewish nation (Rom. 11:17-26), more particularly the olive branch is the symbol of peace (shalom), and is incorporated into the name of the capital city of the Jews, Jeru-“salem,” featured herein as the original concept of the Greek city Athens, which is also symbolized by the olive tree in the Greek myths. The symbolism of the olive branch is included in the writings of Moses, delivered by the “dove” to Noah as the remedy for the flood, some take it as the symbol of the Messiah (Christos “anointed” with oil, olive oil). (not to mention the, very ancient, Zodiacal character of Virgo who carries the “branch”) Athena (called Athena-Parthenos, meaning “the virgin”) was a female personification of the city state of Athens, “the virgin citadel of Cecrops” (Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica 5. 646 ff), in the same way that (the Virgin) Zion was a female personification of Jerusalem. “The virgin, the daughter of Zion, … the daughter of Jerusalem” (Isa. 37:22).

The early Athenians even had their own equivalent to the Messiah, this would have to have been Erecthonius who was born the seed of Hephaestus and Gaea, the baby king who was supposed to have been in the Ark that was kept in the temple (that‘s right, they kept an ark in their temple). Hephaestus, born to the dove embodied wife of god (Hera) by a virgin birth, is a reasonable mythic symbol to deliver the Scriptural “seed of the woman.” While on the other hand Gaea is the archetypical mother of all the mythic serpents and monsters, she is the mother of Typhon, Echidna, Python, Ladon the never sleeping serpent guard of the apples of the garden of Hesperidies, as well as the dragon who guarded the golden fleece. Together Hephaestus and Gaea engender, in one person, the “seed of the woman” and the “seed of the serpent,” resolving the enmity between them and producing the dual- natured “messianic,” archetypical, King of Athens.

The Ark and The Twy-Formed Messiah of Athens

“a boy was born, the lower part of whose body was snake-formed. They named him Erecthonius, … Minerva (Hyginus here uses the Latin name for Athena) was secretly caring for him, she gave him in a chest to Aglaurus, Pandrosus, and Herse, daughters of Cecrops, to guard.” (Pseudo-Hyginus, Fabulae 166) “Erecthonius was born, who derives his name from the earth and their struggle. Minerva is said to have hidden him, like a cult-object, in a chest.” (Pseudo-Hyginus, Astronomica 2. 13) “Pallas laid him, the ancient seed of Hephaestos within the chest, until she set a rock in Akte (Attica) for the sons of Cecrops; a birth mysterious and secret” (Callimachus, Hecale Frag 1.2) “Erekhtheus, whom once Athene Zeus’ daughter tended after grain-giving Gaia had born him, and established him to be in Athens in her own rich temple.” (Homer, Iliad 5. 124 ff) We can see from the preceding ancient sources, that The daughters of Cecrops carried with them an ark and were given instructions not to look upon the contents, namely, a baby born to be the dynastic King to the Athenians. An ark, secret, hidden, and mysterious, was kept in Athena’s “rich temple.” Inside the ark something was kept as if it were a “cult object.” Where did they get this idea of keeping a sacred ark in their temple, and why did they represent it as having a baby king in it?

“And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us,” (John 1:14) This “Word” was God’s word, it was His promise, the Messianic promise. According to the New Testament Christians, it is believed that God kept His word by producing Jesus, the Christian Messiah. Before the Word was made flesh, it was written by Moses and kept in the Ark. This notion was evidently much older than Christianity, for all over ancient Greece, wherever the Israelites were scattered, they told this story about the special “baby” who was kept in the ark. (not only the twy-formed Erecthonius but also Perseus, Adonis, Telephus, Dionysus, Oedipus, the twins Romulus and Remus, and the twins Pelias and Neleus, were all said to have been ark babies).

While the Jewish Ark in the Temple at Jerusalem contained the Messianic promise composed by Moses, the ark in the temple at Athens was much the same. For as we are informed by Apollodorus; "Athena brought him (Erecthonius) up unknown to the other gods, wishing to make him immortal; and having put him in a chest, she committed it to Pandrosus, daughter of Cecrops, forbidding her to open the chest. But the sisters of Pandrosus opened it out of curiosity, and beheld a serpent coiled about the babe; and, as some say, they were destroyed by the serpent, but according to others they were driven mad by reason of the anger of Athena and threw themselves down from the acropolis." (The Library 3.14.6) See how Apollodorus makes the baby king in the ark out to be no mere person, but that the purpose of Athena was to “make him immortal.” She was hiding this baby king from “the other gods,” (This was to be a “one god” mission, in which “the gods” would have no part.). Erecthonius (also an anguipede, ‘like unto’ Cecrops) was to be the divine King of Kings to the Athenians, just like the Messianic promise was to the Jews in the writings of Moses; "The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, ‘like unto’ me; unto Him ye shall hearken". (Deut. 18:15, compare Acts 3:22 “For Moses truly said unto the fathers, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, ‘like unto’ me; him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you.”) alluding to the eventuality that a baby would be born who would fulfill the promise. And again notice how Apollodorus also says that there was a strict rule forbidding the looking upon of the contents in the ark, and deadly consequences for disobeying the rule, just like the Ark of the Covenant.

In modern iconography all the “sons of god” (angels) are of a dual nature, they are dove-people and are envisioned as people with big white wings. (Those Scriptural “giants” in the days of Noah are born to Earthly women of the angelic sons of God, these are often identified with the Earthborn giants of Greek myths, however the Greeks portrayed them as serpent footed rather than dove winged. How they are pictured is evidently a matter of theological interpretation.) The “seed of the woman,” (the “woman” is symbolized as the dove who delivers the “olive branch,” as the Messiah) is the archetypical dove-person. (Gen. 8:11 “And the dove came in to him in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf plucked off: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth.”) See how the dove introduces the Messiah right after the waters, and compare this to the new testament references to Jesus in all four gospels. (First in Matthew 3:16, “And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him” Next in Mark 1:10 “And straightway coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him” and again in Luke 3:22 “And the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him, and a voice came from heaven, which said, Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased.” And finally at John 1:32 “And John bare record, saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him.”) In modern iconography the cherub is a baby with wings. The angel baby is clearly symbolic of the Scriptural assurance that a child would be born, the dove baby, Thus, the “Gentile” concept of the cherub is a plausible symbolic representation derived from the widely known Messianic promise. (This brings to mind the cherubic symbols on the Hebrew Ark.)

Some time before Hera (the Olympian dove-woman) and the other Olympians became established, there was Aphrodite, she was a much more ancient (Amorite?) version of the dove goddess. "[Aphrodite] carried by her doves across the sky," (Ovid, Metamorphoses 14.597) "She [Aphrodite] … called to the reign her Amyklaian doves." (Statius, Silvae 1.2.51) "White Turtle-doves are often to be seen. These, they say, are sacred to Aphrodite" (Aelian, On Animals 10.33) "Into the Euphrates River an egg of wonderful size is said to have fallen, which the fish rolled to the bank. Doves sat on it, and when it was heated, it hatched out Venus," (Hyginus, Fabulae 197). "[Aphrodite] carried by her doves across the sky." (Ovid, Metamorphoses 14.597). "[Aphrodite] loves ... snow-white doves." (Ovid, Metamorphoses 13.673). "Four white doves ... submitted to the jeweled yoke. They took their mistress [Aphrodite] aboard and delightedly mounted upwards." (Apuleius, The Golden Ass 6.6). In the earlier stories of Greek mythology there was an original sin against the god of heaven, it is known as the castration of Uranus. The serpent woman, Gaea encouraged this crime, and the dove woman, Aphrodite was born as a result of it. “But vast Gaia … was vexed in her dear heart … if you will obey me, we should punish the vile outrage of your father; … Kronos the wily took courage … and vast Gaia rejoiced greatly in spirit, and set and hid him in an ambush, and put in his hands a jagged sickle, and revealed to him the whole plot.” (Hesiod, Theogony 126 ff). "Then the son [Kronos] from his ambush stretched forth his left hand and in his right took the great long sickle with jagged teeth, and swiftly lopped off his own father's members … and cast them from the land into the surging sea, they were swept away over the main a long time: and a white foam spread around them from the immortal flesh, and in it there grew a maiden. … Aphrodite (Hesiod, Theogony 176 ff). Accordingly the dove woman Aphrodite produced Eros, the cherubic, bow carrying (“gentile”) symbol of the Messianic promise.

The Scriptural cherub was installed in the garden as a consequence of the original sin, it was the symbol of the law, and was mounted as a “covering” on the Ark of the Covenant, and the bow is a symbol (the arch) of the covenant, “I do set My bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between Me and the earth.” (Gen. 9:13). Now, while we moderns do seem to think of the cherub as a baby, it is clear that the Scriptural “cherub” is not portrayed as such. “Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created. Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee. By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.” (Eze. 28:13-16). Just as the cherub means the Law, and the cherub means the Messiah, we are propelled by the extension of this logic to conclude that the Messiah means the Law. The Messiah is the Word and the Word is the Law, thus a plausible explanation for the following enigmatic Biblical verse: “Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross;” (Col 2:14) for it was the body of the Christian Messiah (believed by Christians to be the Word and the Law) that was nailed to the cross.

Because we have explained the Christian Messiah as the “seed of the woman” symbolically delivered by the dove, logic impels us to further equate the New Testament “Spirit of God” or “Holy Ghost” with the Old Testament “Woman” of the Messianic promise. A bit more difficult is explaining the relationship between the Christian Messiah and the “seed of the serpent.” The cherub, as the dove baby can be associated with the Messiah, but the cherub also has an association with the serpent. (Often coupled with the cherub is the “seraph,” this is a Hebrew noun that does indeed mean “a flying fiery serpent.” It is plausible that these two terms were originally equivalent, but the same theological difficulties that separated the “twi-formed” Messiah into two, worked similarly on the cherub/seraph symbol of the Messiah. The noun saraph designates the brazen serpent in Numbers 21:8 and Isaiah 14:29 and 30:6 both designate a flying serpent as "flying saraph" and it is generally surmised that the seraphim of Isaiah chapter 6 were winged serpents. Such mythological creatures are amply attested in the artistic legacy of the ancient Near East and in Greek and Roman art.) The cherub’s Scriptural job of guarding the way to the tree of life has a well known and wide spread mythological equivalent. For guarding the way to the “golden” apples of the Hesperidies is a serpent, and also the way to the “golden” fleece is guarded by a dragon. So as you can see, the cherub is not only a dove but also a serpent and sometimes a winged one (a dragon). Gold, a most valued commodity indeed, is often a mythological substitution for the most valued possession of all, “life.” We can thereby identify the cherub as it appears in many other myths such as the winged gryphon (of the “Scythians”) whose job it is to guard “gold” in general. However life is not always symbolized by gold, there are many myths that use no symbol for it and use the term “life” literally or prosaically. Cerberus keeps us from gaining immortality, or rather, life after death. Heracles was seeking immortality as an Olympian when he destroyed the hydra and stepped upon the “crab,” wounding his foot, (Heracles sought life for everyone in capturing Cerberus, he also destroyed the serpent that guarded the aforementioned “golden” fruit of the famous tree in the ancient garden of Hesperidies.) and the “scarab” is a well known Egyptian symbol of eternal life. (The “gryph” in gryphon is an evident shibboleth of “cherub” as is the “serp” in serpent, the “rep” in reptile, the “herp” in herpetology, the “Cerb” in Cerberus, the “scorp” in scorpion, as well as the words “creep,” “crab,” “scarab,” and “harpy.”).

Do you doubt that there is a double nature to the Messiah? Then why do so many spend so much time trying to explain it? The dual nature of the Messiah is dealt with in many ways by many disciplines. Biblical scholars suppose that there must be two Messiahs, one of the tribe of David (the Jews) the Messiah Ben David, as well as one who is called “the Ephraimic Messiah” or “the Messiah Ben Joseph” who is provided for the house of Israel (the gentiles). The Davidic Messiah is everlasting while the other has to undergo death (and resurrection). I consider this Hypothesis to be the rabbinical equivalent to the Zodiacal sign of Gemini, where (whether Castor and Pollex or Romulus and Remus), one of the pair is immortal while the other is mortal. "Kastor was mortal, and the fate of death was destined for him; but Polydeukes, scion of Ares was immortal." (Homerica, The Cypria Frag 7 from Clement of Alexandria, Protrept 2.30.5) “But because Polydeukes would not accept immortality while Kastor was a corpse, Zeus granted them alternating days among the gods and among mortals." (Apollodorus, The Library 3.136-137). The Athenian counterpart to the Messiah has the two natures rolled into one, the Davidic part is represented by the baby half while the sacrificed part is designated by the serpent half. This is quite consistent with the ancient Scriptural symbolism, and I believe is a better answer to the “double Messiah” question. (Therefore I don’t look for two Messiahs but one double Messiah, I expect the Christian Messiah to return as the Jewish Messiah one day, but we shall see.) “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shall bruise his heel.” (Gen.3:15). And in the new testament as well, “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. This he said, signifying what death he should die. The people answered him, We have heard out of the law that Christ abideth for ever: and how sayest thou, The Son of man must be lifted up? who is this Son of man?” (John 12:32-34) “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:” (John 3:14). As we can see, the Christian Messiah was sacrificed as the serpent, and just as in the Jewish anguipede (serpent footed), so the heel to be crushed is a serpent’s head as well. The sacrifice of the Messiah was foretold in the original promise as “bruising his heel,” and in this one act the serpent’s head was crushed simultaneously. Thus the ancient “enmity” between the serpent’s seed and the woman’s seed had been finally remedied.

“Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands; That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world: But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace; And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby: And came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh. For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father. Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God;” (Eph 2:11-19). Notice here how Paul describes the Christian Messiah as making himself “of twain one” and having “made both one” in order to “reconcile both unto God in one body” and abolishing the enmity between the uncircumcised, “far off,” “strangers and foreigners,” and those who Paul refers to as the circumcised, and the “nigh” making both “fellow citizens.” Now, compare this with the words of Diodorus who had a very comparable interpretation for the dual nature of the Athenian messiah, to wit; “Moreover, certain of the rulers of Athens were originally Egyptians, …(a lacuna here is thought to refer to Cecrops) … He was of double form, … because of his double citizenship, Greek and barbarian, that he was held to be of double form, that is, part animal and part man. In the same way, they continue, Erechtheus (Erecthonius) also, who was by birth an Egyptian, became king of Athens” (Diodorus Siculus Book 28,29). See how Diodorus makes the Athenian messiah to be “of double form” in order to reconcile the “double citizenship” of “Greek and barbarian,” Athenian and Egyptian. Although extremely diverse quotes from highly separate sources, these two are very similar explanations for a very similar motif indeed. Both explain the double nature of the great King as referring to his dual citizenship, a reconciliation between civility and barbarity.

The apostle Paul, known as St. Paul by some and Rav Shaul by others, was quite fluent with the customs and philosophies of the Greeks. He was able to quote from the Cilician poet Aratus, and from the Hymn to Zeus by Cleanthes (Acts 17 :22-31). He may well have been familiar with Diodorus and he certainly was aware of the stories associated with the early kings of Athens for he had made a tour of the Athenian temples. Paul saw an altar to the “unknown god” while he was in Athens and recognized it as an altar to Yahweh. “Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him when he saw that the city was given over to idols. Therefore he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and with the Gentile worshipers, and in the marketplace daily with those who happened to be there. Then certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered him. And some said, ‘What does this babbler want to say?’ Others said, ‘He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods,’ because he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection. And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, ‘May we know what this new doctrine is of which you speak? For you are bringing some strange things to our ears. Therefore we want to know what these things mean.’ For all the Athenians and the foreigners who were there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing. Then Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, ‘Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious; for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you: God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, For we are also His offspring.’” (Acts 17:16-28)

Quote from Herodotus

We don’t have to rely exclusively on the tale that Cecrops lead a multitude out of Egypt to bring the Hebrew stories to Athens. There is another account that indicates a more direct connection between the “Phoenicians” of Cadmus and the Athenians that could have given the Greeks some of the more intricate details of the Hebrew theology that I have outlined here. In my view Herodotus reports the arrival of “Hebrews” first to Thebes and then tells of their movement to Athens. Consider the account of the “Gephyraei” from "Histories" book 5, Pages 57-61 by Herodotus, (the speculation in the brackets about Eretria are mine,); "57. Now the Gephyraei, … according to their own account were originally descended from Eretria [could Herodotus here have gotten Eretria, a Greek city, confused with Eritria, a land on the Egyptian shore of the Red Sea?]; but as I find by carrying inquiries back, they were Phoenicians of those who came with Cadmus to the land which is now called Boeotia, and they dwelt in the district of Tanagra, which they had had allotted to them in that land. Then after the Cadmeans had first been driven out by the Argives, these Gephyraei next were driven out by the Boeotians and turned then towards Athens: and the Athenians received them on certain fixed conditions to be citizens of their State, laying down rules that they should be excluded from a number of things not worth mentioning here. 58. Now these Phoenicians who came with Cadmus, of whom were the Gephyraei, brought in among the Hellenes many arts when they settled in this land of Boeotia, and especially letters, which did not exist, as it appears to me, among the Hellenes before this time; and at first they brought in those which are used by the Phoenician race generally, but afterwards, as time went on, they changed with their speech the form of the letters also. During this time the Ionians were the race of Hellenes who dwelt near them in most of the places where they were; and these, having received letters by instruction of the Phoenicians, changed their form slightly and so made use of them, and in doing so they declared them to be called "Phoenician," as was just, seeing that the Phoenicians had introduced them into Hellas. … 59. I myself too once saw Cadmean characters in the temple of Ismenian Apollo at Thebes of the Boeotians, engraved on certain tripods, and in most respects resembling the Ionic letters: one of these tripods has the inscription, "Me Amphitryon offered from land Teleboian returning:" this inscription would be of an age contemporary with Laius the son of Labdacus, the son of Polydorus, the son of Cadmus. 60. Another tripod says thus in hexameter rhythm: "Me did Scaios offer to thee, far-darting Apollo, Victor in contest of boxing, a gift most fair in thine honor:" now Scaios would be the son of Hippocoon (at least if it were really he who offered it, and not another with the same name as the son of Hippocoon), being of an age contemporary with Oedipus the son of Laius: 61. and the third tripod, also in hexameter rhythm, says: "Me Laodamas offered to thee, fair-aiming Apollo, He, of his wealth, being king, as a gift most fair in thine honor:" now it was in the reign of this very Laodamas the son of Eteocles that the Cadmeans were driven out by the Argives and turned to go to the Enchelians; and the Gephyraei being then left behind were afterwards forced by the Boeotians to retire to Athens. Moreover they have temples established in Athens, in which the other Athenians have no part, and besides others which are different from the rest, there is especially a temple of Demeter Achaia and a celebration of her mysteries.”

Could the word "Gephyraei" be a mere transliteration of the word "Hebrew" in this case (the Hebrew letter “H” being a bit guttural)? The two words are similar enough phonetically, but they also have a similar meaning. We are told by the Hebrew scholars themselves that the root of the term Hebrew, "eber" refers to the idea that they had "passed over," presumably the river Euphrates. While the word "gephyra" is the usual Greek term for a bridge, i.e. "that which crosses over a river." Furthermore, the Latin term for a bridge is "pons" which takes on the combining form of "pont" in words like pontifex (bridge maker) and, pontoon (floating bridge). The Latins referred to things Phoenician as "Punic" and there is speculation that it was the land of Phoenicia that the ancient Egyptians called, the land of "Punt." Therefore one may fairly wonder if the term Phoenician itself isn't somehow related to the terms Hebrew and Gephyraei in the sharing of their meaning, i.e. to cross over (hyper).

The Israelites came up out of Egypt, the Athenians claimed the same, and the city of Cadmus was named after the Egyptian city of Thebes. The Theban serpent that Cadmus destroyed was guarding a fountain not a tree like all the others. However, as Herodotus says, the offspring of the Gephyraei/Hebrews who founded Thebes with Cadmus had moved to Athens, but the Athenians chose the tree over the fountain (the contest between Poseidon and Athena) as it was in the story of the Garden of Eden. The serpentine second nature of the Messiah that was fluent among the Athenians came conceivably from the fact that many of the “Hebrews” of Athens were descendants of those who had immigrated with Cadmus to Thebes as explained by Herodotus. These “Gephyraei” had expected their messiah, whom they had idealized as the Cadmean/Theban culture hero Cadmus, to nail the serpent to the tree. And, in fact, to become that serpent at his own death. “Hidden in the cave there dwelt a Snake, . . . and between its triple rows of teeth its three-forked tongue flickered. ... Agenorides (Cadmus) pressed on and drove the firm-lodged lance deep in the creature’s gullet, till an oak blocked its retreat and Snake and oak were nailed together." (Ovid, Metamorphoses 3. 27 ff.) “Why, Cadmus, why stare at the Snake you’ve slain? You too shall be a Snake and stared at." (Ovid, Metamorphoses 3.28) “Cadmus said ‘Was that a sacred Snake my spear transfixed … ? If it is he the jealous gods avenge with wrath so surely aimed, I pray that I may be a Snake …’ Even as he spoke he was a snake …" (Ovid, Metamorphoses 4. 565) “Cadmus, hear what suffering Fate appoints for you. You shall transmute your nature, and become a serpent. … and grant you immortal life among the blessed gods." (Euripides, Bacchae 1357) See how the testimony of the ancient mythographers have portrayed the Theban culture hero (the Cadmean Messiah) Cadmus, as a serpent at his death to be stared upon, just as the serpent that he had transfixed and lifted up? Compare this with the Biblical, Christian Messiah according to John, “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:” (John 3:14) And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. This he said, signifying what death he should die.” (John 12:32,33), as he is displayed to be the Scriptural Messiah foreshadowed in Numbers and Psalms; “And the LORD said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he ‘looketh upon’ it, shall live. And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he ‘beheld’ the serpent of brass, he lived.” (Numbers 21:8,9) “they pierced my hands and my feet. I may tell all my bones: they look and ‘stare’ upon me. They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.” (Psalm 22:16-18)

The name of the Theban serpent was Ismenios, the story of Cadmus connects him with Ares (plausibly from the “Horus” of Thebes in Egypt). Later, possibly due to Assyrian influence (Back in the homeland of Jerusalem, the Hebrews were vacillating their allegiance between Egypt an Assyria as well at this same time.) Apollo superseded Ares/Horus at Thebes. The Apollo of Thebes then became known by the combination name “Apollo Ismenios” (Apollo, an Assyrian influenced Greek transliteration of the name Baal had, like Baal, many combination names, and was often identified with Horus.). I mention this because there was a Baal associated with Jerusalem who, it is said, helped Solomon to build the famous Temple there with a very similar sounding name, Asmodeus. It seems conceivable that a group of heretical Jerusalemites left Jerusalem and took the legend of Asmodeus with them where he became known at Thebes as Ismenios.

Herodotus outlines eight generations (about 200 years) from the time that Cadmus first arrived with the Gephyraei (just after the days of Europa/Jeroboam) until they were driven from Thebes to find refuge in, and become citizens of, Athens (about the time of the Epigony, just before the Trojan War). The people of Athens were amenable to the refugees from Thebes but they did differ from each other on certain theological grounds. The Thebans saw Europa (the Virgin of the lost Israel named for her first King Jeroboam) as lost among the nations for adoring god in the form of a bull, a Judean point of view. However, the Athenians didn’t think of Europa as lost. To them she had settled and peopled the Island of Crete, the Minoans (named for Manasseh?) a group whom they had close ties to. The Athenians had come to see the Cretans as their overlords and sent Athenian youths to be sacrificed to the bull headed symbol of the Cretan god. Their ancient messiah Erecthonius, who had not achieved immortality but had left a dynasty of kings who were known at the time as the “sons of Pandion,” could not deliver them from this Cretan oppression. A faction of the Athenian populace, who trusted in that ancient male god, the jealous one who had demanded exclusive devotion back in the days before the flood, Poseidon, looked for him to sent his redeemer. This would be Theseus, the deliverer and slayer of the Minotaur, but that is another story, the subject of a future article.

Conclusion

The people of Athens were a special breed, they had superior conditioning during their early developmental stage, by virtue of their ancient religion. The culture and institutions that were advanced by them were instrumental to the evolution of civilization in general and of free societies everywhere. What religion shaped this remarkable populace? They thought the people of their city to be the most ancient of all civilizations (Everyone else were considered to be “barbarians” even the Egyptians). They believed that they had been tested at the foundation of their civilization by a great and jealous god as to whom they should worship, instead of the god they chose a serpent woman and her tree, making her their goddess of knowledge. This was done by the free choice of a woman. For their insubordination they endured a great flood sent by the angered god. They spent some time in Egypt, and considered themselves to be part of a great multitude that was lead up out of the place by a famous ancestral law giver. He taught them to worship the highest god, instituted patriarchal monogamy, invented writing and began an annual festival of cakes. He divided them into twelve groups and settled them in their new land. They had with them had an ark that contained the promise of an immortal king as cult object. They were warned not to look upon the secret contents, under penalty of death, but they had disobeyed. They set the capitol of their land at a city, represented by the olive tree (the symbol of peace), with a mountain, upon which they built their holy temple (the Parthenon, named for the “virgin,” upon the Acropolis). They placed in their temple their extraordinary ark. This city became the seat of wisdom for their nation. Do these themes sound familiar? How many intricate, particular, distinctive motifs does one need to see matched up in a series, before it is admitted that they add up to be no mere coincidence? Does it surprise anyone that Athens, the cradle of western civilization, the birthplace of Socrates, Plato, Aeschylus, Sophocles, (etc.), and of Democracy itself, should be based upon stories that are traceable to the writings of Moses? (Democrat = Adam-isra-ite) As heirs to the legacy of Athens it is no wonder that so many western nations are predisposed toward Christianity, this predisposition is a feature of their ancient cultural development. As they were familiar with their own ancient religion, a production of Judaism, they were well prepared to accept Christianity, which is in many respects, the evident culmination of that same religion, Judaism.

--

-John R. Salverda

Europa Lost



Taken from: http://jrs.bravehost.com/Europa.html

Europe is named after a descendant of Io’s who was called, "Europa." The myth of Europa can be found in any book of Greek Mythology, and has been well known for almost 3000 years. Can anything new be learned from it? No, but oddly enough, we can still learn something old, from it. Let us begin by examining the name itself. The name Europa, is a feminized form of the same Hebrew name that comes to us through Biblical sources, in it’s masculine Latin form, "Jeroboam." I learned this, when I compared two maps of the same city in Syria, one map had the city labeled, "Jerablus," while the other had it as, "Europos" (look up "Carchemish" in the Jewish Encyclopedia). It occurred to me that this was a perfectly reasonable transliteration, and that both names were one and the same.

King Jeroboam, the first king of the northern ten tribes of Israel, is mentioned often in the Bible, unfortunately his name usually follows after the phrase, "the sins of..." This is because Jeroboam was infamous for reintroducing the worship of god in the form of a bull, and calves were set up as images of god’s savior, these constituted the "sins of Jeroboam" (1KI 12:26 -28). This tendency toward tauropomorphism, began at the Exodus, when Israel’s agent of deliverance, (legends say it was Michael the Archangel) was overwhelmingly agreed, by the very witnesses of the event, to have been a calf, of whom they built a golden image. This was an idol, not of God, but of the son of god, and they sang these words as they danced around it, "This is your god oh Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt." Regardless of the efforts of Moses, Jeroboam’s Israel adored God in the form of a bull.

Israel was regularly personified as a maiden (An example scripture referring to the Virgin Israel as lost amongst the nations can be found at Jer. 31:21 "Set thee up waymarks, make thee high heaps: set thine heart toward the highway, even the way which thou wentest: turn again, O virgin of Israel, turn again to these thy cities."). The Virgin Israel was beloved by God and betroth to Him. But the Israel of Jeroboam, went whoring after foreign gods, in the specific case of Jeroboam it was God as a bull. It becomes obvious that, to some, the archetypical personification of Israel was known by a feminized version of King Jeroboam’s name, "Europa." The evidence for this identification is overwhelming. Europa got carried away adoring god in the form of a bull as well, and both the Virgin Israel and the maiden Europa, were from Phoenicia (Otherwise known as the land of Canaan, Phoenicia occupied the same place as Israel. Gen. 17:8). The resulting, "loss among the nations," occurred in both cases, from the same place, and for the same reason. Does it surprise us to think that this story, (which included a promise by God to his People who were dispersed amongst the nations,) may have, in ancient times, received a wider distribution, than to be stored away on some Temple scroll and only be known, eventually, through the Bible? In fact the story was far famed, as we might have known.

The Greek myths tell us that Europa had a son who ruled over the Island of Crete, his name was Minos. If Europa be from Jeroboam, and the Cretans spoke Western Semitic, (the same language as the land of Canaan) which they did, then I’ll bet "Minos," is the same name as "Manasseh." In fact one wonders indeed, if there wasn’t a bit of confusion between the stories of the Cretan, King Minos, and the later Judean, King Manasseh. How many other kings, from this same area, with the same name, were famous for sacrificing youths to a bull headed god? (Minotaur, Manasseh’s Torah? is Manasseh an alternate version of the name Moses? as in Judges, chapter 18, Verse 30, if so, then perhaps the Minotaur was blasphemously named for the Law of Moses.) Thus it seems likely that the "Minoan" civilization was named for the son of Joseph, Manasseh. Of course Crete is not the only place that was peopled with the family of Europa, and evidence of Hebrew influence can be found throughout Greek Mythology.

This series of coincidences about Europa is impressive enough without mentioning this other weird point, which was the fact that Israel was prophesied to be regathered by an heir to the throne, and returned to her homeland in the last days. (Isa. 11;10-12) But, this famous promise, must be cited here as additional evidence that Europa is Israel, because this hopeful prophecy is also coincidental to the "myth." The Greek myth asserts that the true heir to the throne was sent to find the lost Europa, and he was told not to return until he could bring her back. He didn’t return, and he hasn’t found her yet, down to this very day. (unless he’s reading this, in which case he is finding her just now.)

Cadmus the Heir and Brother of Europa

Consider the Myth of the heifer Io (whom I have identified as the "Jew"). Although the story of Io must have been in existence in one form or another, since the Exodus, (parts of her story belong to the days of Abraham, but most of it, is the story of Hermes Argiophontes, her serpent stick carrying deliverer, the messenger of god, the Greek version of Moses who delivers the Jews, god’s earthly wife from her bondage on eagles wings at the Exodus) there is no doubt that the version of her story which has come down to us, did not receive it’s final form, until after her descendant Cadmus came to Greece. We know this, because the story incorporates the use of the Alphabet within it’s body, for Io was able to spell her name in the sand with her cow hoof. (This part of the story relies upon the fact that the Greek "I" was just a "Jot," and the letter "o," resembles a hoof print.) She was thereby identified when she returned home after her extensive "wanderings." This detail limits the Greek antiquity of Io’s story, until about 850 BC. when the Greeks first began to use the Alphabet. But, this was a Phoenician story that was brought to Greece at a later date, generations after these events actually occurred, and the Phoenicians knew about the founding of Argos already for years back home, because, they were Israelites and the city of Argos was a colony of Hebron, also it was they who had an alphabet which Io could spell, the Hebrew alphabet.

No one doubts that the Hebrew alphabet was used in Greece, but it seems to me, calling it "Phoenician," is a bit misleading. If Moses, famous for his writings, wrote anything, then it is logical to assume him to be the oldest known user of this alphabet. The Greeks, in keeping with the identification of Moses with Hermes, credit Hermes as the inventor of the alphabet. Cadmus is accredited with bringing the alphabet of Hermes, from Phoenicia to Greece, but, not until about 850 BC. It’s easy to dismiss all myths in a group as fairy tales, but Cadmus was not a god, he was a man who is famous for doing something which really happened, others who lived within a few hundred years of him speak of Cadmus as an actual historic personage. He came to Greece with a colony and was considered to be the founder of Thebes, a quite well known city in Boeotian Greece, which was even called "Cadmea," after him.

While there seems to have been a real Cadmus, it is, as if a very familiar religious doctrine, has gotten attached to him. This symbolism is not dissimilar to that used scripturally of David, who had an actual historical existence, and also is to have an expected messianic one (Eze.37:21-24; "… I will take the children of Israel from among the heathen, whither they be gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land: … And David my servant shall be king over them; …" Note David’s "expected" role in the return of Israel.). The role of Cadmus in the story about the return of Europa, foreshadows a type of Christian Messiah, accordingly he is made to perform a series of tasks, which are obviously designed to fulfill many key Messianic prophecies ("Acts 13:22,23; ". . . I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after mine own heart, which shall fulfill all my will. Of this man's seed hath God ‘according to his promise’ raised unto Israel a Savior, Jesus: "). Just as it is in the case of the future "David" so it is in the case of Cadmus that these tasks were, perhaps, more "expected," of him than were actually "performed" by him.

"And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. This he said, signifying what death he should die. The people answered him, We have heard out of the law that Christ abideth for ever: and how sayest thou, The Son of man must be lifted up? who is this Son of man?" (John 12:32-34). Cadmus destroys the serpent by transfixing it to a tree, thus, "lifting it up." "And as Moses ‘lifted up’ the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:" (John 3:14) "Why, Cadmus, why stare at the Snake you’ve slain? You too shall be a Snake and stared at." (Ovid, Metamorphoses 3.28). ("And the LORD said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he ‘looketh upon’ it, shall live. And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he ‘beheld’ the serpent of brass, he lived." Numbers 21:8,9 "they pierced my hands and my feet. I may tell all my bones: they look and ‘stare’ upon me. They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture." Psalm 22:16-18), and "nailing it to the tree" ("Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross;" Col. 2:14) Hidden in the cave there dwelt a Snake, . . . and between its triple rows of teeth its three-forked tongue flickered. ... Agenorides [Cadmus] pressed on and drove the firm-lodged lance deep in the creature’s gullet, till an oak blocked its retreat and Snake and oak were nailed together." (Ovid, Metamorphoses 3. 27 ff.) The transfixed serpent, with it’s triple tongue, and it’s triple row of teeth, would appear, to a Christian, as the law (with it’s triple format, commandments, judgments, and ordinances) fulfilled ("Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill." Mt. 5:17).

In this act, the myths have Cadmus winning a nation, a kingdom, and a bride. In reading about his wedding banquet to his new bride Harmonia, which all the gods attended, one cannot help but be reminded, of the long awaited, "marriage feast of the Lamb." The nation he won was of "sown men," the "Sparti," which grew from the destroyed serpent’s teeth, which were scattered upon the earth. ("Therefore say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; I will even gather you from the people, and assemble you out of the countries where ye have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel." Eze. 11:17) Leaving the Sparti in Greece, Cadmus goes to the Northwest, into Europe proper, where they make him King, in the land of the Enchelians, (Angels? Angles, or English?) where, in the end, he and Harmonia, never really die but are instead Miraculously translated. "Cadmus . . . overcome by sorrow and his train of troubles and so many warning signs, he left the city, Thebae, . . . with his pilgrim wife, after long wanderings reached Illyria. And now, . . . Cadmus said ‘Was that a sacred Snake my spear transfixed . . . ? If it is he the jealous gods avenge with wrath so surely aimed, I pray that I may be a Snake . . .’ Even as he spoke he was a snake . . ." (Ovid, Metamorphoses 4. 565) See what Euripides has to say about the fate of Cadmus "Cadmus, hear what suffering Fate appoints for you. You shall transmute your nature, and become a serpent. . . . Zeus foretells that you, at the head of a barbaric horde, shall with your wife drive forth a pair of heifers yoked, and with your countless army destroy many cities; . . . However, Ares shall at last deliver both you and Harmonia, and grant you immortal life among the blessed gods." (Euripides, Bacchae 1357) Take note that the Christian Messiah at his death fulfills prophecy by becoming like the snake in the wilderness and that this prophecy was apparently known to the ancient Greeks who told the "myth" of Cadmus.

Consider the account of the Gephyraei from "Histories" book 5, Pages 57-61 by Herodotus, (the words in the brackets are mine,); "57. Now the Gephyraei, … according to their own account were originally descended from Eretria; [could Herodotus here have gotten Eretria, a Greek city, confused with Eritria, a land on the Egyptian shore of the Red Sea?] but as I find by carrying inquiries back, they were Phoenicians of those who came with Cadmus to the land which is now called Boeotia, and they dwelt in the district of Tanagra, which they had had allotted to them in that land. Then after the Cadmeans had first been driven out by the Argives, these Gephyraei next were driven out by the Boeotians and turned then towards Athens: and the Athenians received them on certain fixed conditions to be citizens of their State, laying down rules that they should be excluded from a number of things not worth mentioning here. 58. Now these Phoenicians who came with Cadmus, of whom were the Gephyraei, brought in among the Hellenes many arts when they settled in this land of Boeotia, and especially letters, which did not exist, as it appears to me, among the Hellenes before this time; and at first they brought in those which are used by the Phoenician race generally, but afterwards, as time went on, they changed with their speech the form of the letters also. During this time the Ionians were the race of Hellenes who dwelt near them in most of the places where they were; and these, having received letters by instruction of the Phoenicians, changed their form slightly and so made use of them, and in doing so they declared them to be called "Phoenician," as was just, seeing that the Phoenicians had introduced them into Hellas. … 59. I myself too once saw Cadmean characters in the temple of Ismenian Apollo at Thebes of the Boeotians, engraved on certain tripods, and in most respects resembling the Ionic letters: one of these tripods has the inscription, "Me Amphitryon offered from land Teleboian returning:" this inscription would be of an age contemporary with Laius the son of Labdacus, the son of Polydorus, the son of Cadmus. 60. Another tripod says thus in hexameter rhythm: ‘Me did Scaios offer to thee, far-darting Apollo, Victor in contest of boxing, a gift most fair in thine honor:’ now Scaios would be the son of Hippocoon (at least if it were really he who offered it, and not another with the same name as the son of Hippocoon), being of an age contemporary with Oedipus the son of Laius: 61. and the third tripod, also in hexameter rhythm, says: ‘Me Laodamas offered to thee, fair-aiming Apollo, He, of his wealth, being king, as a gift most fair in thine honor:’ now it was in the reign of this very Laodamas the son of Eteocles that the Cadmeans were driven out by the Argives and turned to go to the Enchelians; and the Gephyraei being then left behind were afterwards forced by the Boeotians to retire to Athens. Moreover they have temples established in Athens, in which the other Athenians have no part, and besides others which are different from the rest, there is especially a temple of Demeter Achaia and a celebration of her mysteries."

Could the word "Gephyraei" be a mere transliteration of the word "Hebrew" in this case? The two words are similar enough phonetically, but they also have a similar meaning. We are told by the Hebrew scholars themselves that the root of the term Hebrew, "eber" refers to the idea that they had "passed over," presumably the river Euphrates. While the word "gephyra" is the usual Greek term for a bridge, i.e. "that which crosses over a river." Furthermore, the Latin term for a bridge is "pons" which takes on the combining form of "pont" in words like pontifex (bridge maker) and, pontoon (floating bridge). The Latins referred to things Phoenician as "Punic" and there is speculation that it was the land of Phoenicia that the ancient Egyptians called, the land of "Punt." Therefore one may fairly wonder if the term Phoenician itself isn't somehow related to the terms Hebrew and Gephyraei in the sharing of their meaning, i.e. to cross over. (hyper) These "Gephyraei" had expected their messiah, whom they had idealized as the Cadmean/Theban culture hero Cadmus, to nail the serpent to the tree. And, in fact, to become that serpent at his own death. Now, don’t get me wrong I don’t mean to say that Christ copied Cadmus, my intent is to show that the Messianic prophecies were extant among the ancient Greeks because the Greeks were actually transplanted Hebrews, and that these prophecies were known hundreds of years before the life of Jesus.

While Cadmus peopled Europe the Sparti remained in Greece, where they left many descendants, and worshipped Cadmus as a hero, with shrines. One famous, such hero shrine of Cadmus, was located in the Greek nation of Sparta, on the Laconian coast, and was maintained by the Spartans (sown ones), even down to the days of the Jewish high priests Onias, and Jonathan. As reported by Josephus, and recorded in Rabbinical writings, Onias and the Spartans, wrote to each other, and both recognized the Spartans as lost Israelites.

-John R. Salverda

Similarities of Ancient Hebrew and Greek Religion

[The AMAIC considers the Middle East – West comparisons of John R. Salverda as interesting, with some of them we think being very likely. But we do not necessarily agree with all of the following]





Olympus:

The Council of the gods

The contention here being that Greece was colonized largely from Israel, let us look among the Israelites for the origin of the Olympian concept. We won't have to search Israelite theology for long to find such a thing as the Greek "Olympus," the idea of a heavenly council of the gods, who spoke with one voice from a certain sacred mountain, these concepts surely did not originate in Greece. Not only did the Israelites have such a mountain based heavenly council of the gods, but they even called it by the same name! The term that was used among the Israelites for "the gods," was "Ha Elohim." The Greeks borrowed the Hebrew word, and it wasn't just the word that they borrowed.



In the Hebrew scriptures, the gods are not called the Olympians, they are the Elohim, but to the Greeks Olympus was more than just the gods, it was the kingdom of the gods, the Heavenly Kingdom itself. The actual circle of the heavens is naturally divided into its twelve sections by the number of months in a year, because animal shaped gods have been assigned to each section of the sky, it has been called the Zodiac (zoo-dial). Accordingly, the Greeks have twelve members of their heavenly kingdom, Olympus (like the Hebrew tribes, the list of Olympians sometimes changes, but the number always stays at twelve). The nation of Israel is also known as the Kingdom of Heaven, thus there is also the requisite twelve part division, the tribes. Many have made this connection between the tribes and the Zodiacal signs already, (with varying degrees of failure and success,) by conveying a sign of the Zodiac to each of Jacob's inheritors using the poetic language of each individual tribal blessing, (Gen. 49) where indeed it can be said that some animal comparisons are drawn (Judah is a lion, Issachar is an ass, Dan is a serpent, Naphtali is a hind, Benjamin is a wolf.). The point is, that the Olympian gods were like the tribes of Israel, not only in that there happen to be twelve of each, but also because they share the same reason for being so divided, they each stood for the dozenized Kingdom of Heaven. Both groups of twelve were the children and grandchildren of a single patriarch, Israel for the tribes, and Kronos for the Olympians. Kronos and Israel have been identified elsewhere.

Both kingdoms were divided amongst the siblings by lot. Also, it is not insignificant to note, that in each case, the twelve are set up so that one of them is king over the other eleven. The gods of Olympus, like the Elohim of Israel, spoke with one voice, it can therefore be said, that for the Greeks, "Olympianism," was an obvious step toward monotheism. The same thing could be said about the effects of "Elohimism" on Israel, for the term obviously retains its original plural form. It is not unreasonable therefore, to conclude that the Greek term, "Olympus" derives directly from the Hebrew word Elohim, (appending the usual Greek "-us" of course,) meaning, "the gods." Another correlation that becomes apparent when we compare the Hebrew Elohim, with the Greek Olympus, is the fact that they both shared the same serpentine antagonist.

The Idea that there was a great dragon/serpent opponent to the Most High is not foreign to the Hebrew Scriptures, the Biblical dragon, was named "Rahab," and this was apparently the same monster that was also called, "Leviathan." The Hebrew name Rahab, means "storm," and it is perhaps worth mentioning that storm is also what the name of the Greek dragon "Typhon" means. The name Typhon probably derives directly from the Hebrew name of a mountain called "Baal-Tsephon," that was located at the Red Sea crossing, where the Pharaoh met his death (Ex.14:9). There is also extrabiblical evidence for equating Tsephon with Typhon for the name can be recognized amongst the Ras-Shamra texts that were found at the site of ancient Ugarit. There we find that Mount Tsephon is the place from where Baal rushes out to defeat his serpentine foe, whose name we also recognize even in its Canaanite form "Lotan." The name Leviathan, was probably known as well to the Greeks, although altered slightly in form. The name "Python," of the contender with Apollo, if it did not derive from the usual Hebrew word for a cobra, "pe'then," is probably just a clipped version of the Hebrew name, Le-"viathan," (There is also "Phaethon," who was likewise shot down by Jove amidst a similar traumatic geological upheaval, he was not a dragon, but he was, like the Pharaoh of Egypt, the son of the Sun god Helios, after whom the Egyptian city of Heliopolis gets its name.) the Greeks also had the serpent Ladon. The Greek Ladon was a many headed serpent that guarded the way to the tree of the valued fruit in the ancient garden of Hesperidies, the Greek Typhon too, was many headed. According to Psalm 74, verses 13 and 14, the Biblical serpent, there called Leviathan, also has several heads. We learn something more from Psalm 74, for the Arabic Targums here use the phrase, "the strong ones of Pharaoh," in the place where, "the heads of Leviathan," usually appears.

Obviously the Hebrews did not believe in real dragons, the story of God's battle against the great dragon was typical Hebrew poetic symbolism, and in this case it was used in association with the exodus of the twelve tribes from Egypt. The Targums also substitute the phrase, "the Egyptians," for the name "Rahab," at Psalm 87 verse 4. Isaiah even symbolizes the Pharaoh and his Egyptian army as the great serpent Rahab, at chapter 51 verses 9 and 10, also at Isa. 30:7. Well, most of us know what the Bible says, but did you realize that the Greeks and Romans probably did not believe in real dragons either, and that they knew that their great dragon contender with god was, in reality, named after an actual ancient Pharaoh of Egypt? So says the Roman Pliny in book 2, section 91, of his great work, written in 77 AD, and entitled "Natural History." Now, how many ancient Egyptian Pharaohs, who were symbolized as a great dragon, and had a battle with the highest G/god, were there? Surely these two stories were referring to the same event.

The heavenly twelve were in the land of Egypt at the time that Zeus battled Typhon, they had, according to the myth, fled there to hide from the dragon, and while the twelve tribes had gone to Egypt merely to avoid a famine, in each case it was a forced exile with the hope of finding haven among the Egyptians. The twelve had to remain in their Egyptian exile, until the final defeat of the serpentine antagonist by G/god, at which time, both groups of twelve, the Olympians and the tribes, were able to come up out of the land of Egypt.

The Greek variant that mentions the Egyptian exile of the heavenly twelve, has considerable antiquity and has been attributed by others to a lost work by Pindar, a Greek who wrote as early as about 500 BC. Herodotus wrote a book that wasn't lost, in his "Histories," near the beginning of book three, written almost as long ago, about 450 BC., he locates the burial place of Typhon, under the water of a great lake (called Lake Serbonis) at the Syrian border with Egypt. Herodotus also notes that these "Syrians," the Syrians of Palestine as he calls them, wore the sign of the circumcision. Take note, that this is not simply in the same geographical area, but just as the Scriptural Pharaoh of the Egyptian Exodus lies buried under water, so lies this Typhon in the Greek myth about the Olympian exodus from Egypt. That area of the world was well known in ancient times as the location of Typhon's defeat, the Greek geographer Strabo, in book VII of his, "The Geography," even refers to the Egyptian shore of the Red Sea as "Typhonia." Apollodorus and Ovid both tell this story of the Olympian's Egyptian sojourn, the story was fairly well known and wide spread, but the most recent versions of the myth, always seem to mention one weird detail of the story, namely, that the gods took on the shapes of animals while they were in Egypt.

Much of the Greek myth conforms nicely to the Hebrew story of the Exodus, but the Idea that the, usually human shaped, gods had a metamorphoses into animal shapes, seems too crass for a rational explanation. Modern scholars have called this part of the story an etiology, a clumsy attempt, they say, by later mythographers, to explain the origin of the animal shapes in the zodiac. These emphasize that Pan became Capricorn the fish-goat, and that Venus and Cupid became the two fish of Pisces. Others claim that the myth is an attempt to explain the animal companions that attended many of the Greek gods, these cite the raven of Apollo for example, or the goat of Dionysus. Still others say, that the story shows how the animal headed gods of Egypt originated, these point out that Zeus became a ram and then equate Zeus with Ra-Ammon, and also, that Hera became a cow and then equate Hera with Hathor or Isis. I consider the last of these three theories to be the most accurate, however, I don't think that the "animal gods" part of the myth was a later addition, but rather, that it was as ancient as, and was part of, the original story, for the Hebrew scriptures, which I believe has a source in common with the Greek myth, includes a very similar tale.

Human sacrifice was widely practiced in the pre-Exodus times, and also after that, Abraham, the grand patriarch of Israel, had preached against sacrificing the son of man, the image of God, and in favor of animal substitutes, such as, the Abrahamicly authorized ram. It is certainly no mere coincidence that the main god of the Egyptians, Ra-Ammon, was zoopomorphized by them, as the same animal that was suitable for an Abrahamic sacrifice, the ram. It won't surprise us to find that the Egyptians, having lived with the Israelites for several generations, and having witnessed the lessons of the Exodus first hand, should have learned something about the practice of the true religion. Accordingly, Herodotus tells us that the Egyptians didn't engage in human sacrifices, he says that even for the animal sacrifices, which they did perform, the sheep and bulls, first had to be rigorously inspected by the priestly class, having to pass certain tests for cleanness.

The eminent mythologist, Sir James George Frazer shows, in his most renown work entitled, "The Golden Bough," that the sacrificial victim of those ancient rites, was originally meant to represent "the god himself" (Ch.XLIX,4,Pg.551). Perhaps the idea that the highest God would accept animal substitutions for human sacrifices was at first ridiculed by some, as changing the "image" of god. Thus the introduction of the Abrahamic religion into Egypt may have given rise to the Greek myth, a lampoon as it were, where, in Egypt, the gods took on the shapes of animals. Still, it was no lampoon to the Egyptians themselves, who, most reverently it seems, assigned an animal head to practically every god they had. An even closer parallel to the Greek myth can be drawn from the story of the Hebrews themselves. Consider this, the twelve members of the Kingdom of Heaven (the tribes not the Olympian gods,) had an anthropomorphic God when they went into Egypt, while there, they took up representing Him as an animal, thus the calf god. They stayed in Egypt until God "crushed the heads of Leviathan," where upon they came up out from the land of Egypt and abandoned their bovine image of God. Now, read the Greek "myth" about the divine metamorphoses again and wonder no longer as to its origin.

Numerous Biblical scholars, examining the use of the name "Elohim" in the Pentateuch, have concluded that the source of this, "Elohimism," was an author, or authors, who lived during the Omri dynasty about 850 BC., in the area of Samaria the capitol of the northern ten tribes. Elohimism, so say these scholars, was the theological point of view of the house of Israel, as opposed to the house of Judah. With this, I must concur, but only partially. I do find it very likely that the Elohimistic view was, at least codified at that time and place, perhaps even by King Omri himself, who as we know from the Scriptures, (Mic.6:16) wrote at least one work, therein referred to as, "The Statutes of Omri." However, the religious system of Israelite Elohimism had its origin long before the days of Omri. A study of the Greek myths will make it evident, that Elohimism was most likely set up back in the days when Moses and Joshua destroyed the Amorites, at which time it directly superseded the older Amorite religious system, for the error of the Amorites had come to completion (Gen.15:13-16).



To the Greeks, the battle between god and the dragon, their Zeus verses Typhon, was the religious turning point of the Greek religion, it was the establishment of Olympianism. The Olympians had to defeat the giants, whom they called "the Titans" before they could establish their own suzerainty, and Typhon fought on behalf of the giants. The battle between Zeus and Typhon, was considered by some to be the final defeat of the giants. The fact that the Greeks have many names for the giants, (besides the Titans there were the Earthborn, and the Aloeids) and several versions of their final defeat, should not deter the biblical scholars from an identification between the Greek giants and the Hebrew giants, on the contrary, this apparent confusion is just another thing that both sources have in common. The Scriptures have, the Nephilim, the Rephaim, the Zamzammim, the Emim, and the Anakim; the first were destroyed in Noah's flood but apparently not entirely. The Rephaim, the Zamzammim, and the Emim were wiped out by the Elamite King Chedorlaomer in the days of Abraham at the battles of Ashtoroth-Karnaim, Shaveh-Kiriathaim, and Ham (Gen.14:5), except for Og (and apparently his brother Sihon) who was called the last of the Rephaim when he was killed by Moses seven generations later. The Anakim were destroyed by Caleb after the death of Moses, and yet there were still a few giants left in the days of David for him to him to earn the Messianic attribute of giant killer. Enumerating the Greek confusion in this regard is equally as complicated; the Titans, like the Nephilim, were confined to Tartarus but were released and then re-confined. The Earthborn Giants revolted against Olympus on behalf of the Titans, their brothers, but were summarily defeated. Then Typhon was born in order to avenge the giants on the Olympians but he was killed as well. The Aloeids were a pair of gigantic brothers, like Og and Sihon, but the Olympians thwarted their rebellion also. Suffice it to say that, in both cases, the war against the giants lasted many years and involved several battles before Olympianism, or in the case of the Israel, Elohimism, could be firmly established.

Furthermore, the Greek kingdom of heaven was represented by a mountain, in much the same way that Israel is represented by Mount Zion. To say that Olympus is like Zion is to emphasize the obvious, and may seem to be an insignificant point, after all they were both mountains and many diverse nations had holy mountains. Perhaps an ancient memory of Mount Ararat is responsible for such a wide dispersal of the "holy mountain" motif. Mountains are awe inspiring, they are closer to the heavens and therefore seem "sacred" automatically, especially to worshippers of the god of heaven. But beyond this, the Scriptures tell us much more about the intricate theological symbolism connected to Mount Zion. It’s not just a mountain, it's God's abode, it's His people, it's their city, it's the bride of God, and she even has a daughter. Its location is no less ethereal than its symbolism is esoteric. There is a Heavenly Zion as well as an Earthly one, the prophets have it rising above all other mountains in the latter days, while the evangelists have it coming down from the Heavens to establish itself at the end times. Mount Zion had a cosmogonical existence as well as an apocalyptic one. God had a "Holy Mountain" even before David established it at Mount Zion. The Garden of Eden was in God's Holy Mountain, there was Mount Sinai, and Mount Moriah, even the Amorites had their own holy mountain, which the Hebrews called, "Mount Herman," but others, perhaps even the Amorites themselves, called it Mount "Sion."

We know a bit less about Mount Olympus, but what we do know is no less enigmatic. It was the abode of the gods, the bronze floored mansion of Zeus, the mansions of the Muses and all the "shining mansions of the gods" were imagined to be upon the snowy peak of Olympus. Of course, the Greeks knew that there were no real mansions on the actual mountain that they called Olympus, the concept of "Olympia" was not confined to a mere mountain. In Homer, Zeus threatens to pull Olympus up with a golden chain and hang Heaven and Earth from it. Homer usually had the gods living upon the mountain but sometimes he locates them in the sky, which he often distinguishes from Olympus. The concept of Olympus was an abstraction, like the concept of Zion, the literal mountain was only a symbol. Many nations, in order to justify their suzerainty, claimed their own Mount Olympus. There were rivals to Zion as well, and it is apparent that the direct prototype for the Greeks was not Mount Zion at Jerusalem itself, (Athens was already named after Zion,) but a more direct predecessor to Olympianism was the Elohimism from one of the famous rivals to Mount Zion, Mount Gerizim at Shechem.



Nothing in all of Israelite history resembles the Greek story, about the establishment of Olympian order over the Titanic chaos, quite like the account of the convocation at Joshua 8:30-34. Moses directed Joshua to assemble the twelve tribes at Shechem for the convocation, a kind of ceremony of confederation, where blessings for obedience were read to six of the tribes who were gathered together upon Mount Gerizim, and curses for disobedience were read to the other six who were gathered upon Mount Ebal. The spectacle of the twelve tribes taking their places at the Shechem mountains, from which they could look North and see the mountain of the defeated giants, the Amorite's Mount Herman, has everything that the Greek myth needs. Shechem became the capitol of Israel at least four generations before King David captured the Jebusite stronghold of Salem. However, the Shechemites incurred the malediction that was outlined in the very same "convocation of the tribes," that argues for their precedence. (Deut. 11:29; 29:26-28) The Shechemites worshipped foreign gods, and not only Baal-Berith either. A study of the Greek myths about the establishment of Olympianism makes it evident that the Israelites of Shechem had set up a system whereby each of the twelve tribes of Israel was represented by a god, or a goddess, and all agreed to abide by the word of one voice.

Like the Hebrew city/mountain of Zion, there was a Greek city also that was named after their mountain and called "Olympia," while this city wasn't in the vicinity of any mountain, it was none the less, founded to portray the abode of the gods. Here was the Temple of Zeus, with its famous statue by Phidias, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Here too the Olympian games were celebrated, this was due largely, we are told in the Greek myths, to the efforts of Pelops himself, after whom the whole "Peloponnesus" was named. The Achaeans of Pelops, these were the champions of Olympianism in ancient Greece.



-John R. Salverda

For more articles by John R. Salverda on the Hebraic Connections of Greek Mythology, see:

"Helleno-Yishurin. The Hebrew Origin of Greek Legends"