16

Nimrod

Nimrod, in the biblical Genesis and Chronicles, is called the son of Cush. Cush was the grandson of Ham, the son of Noah. Nimrod was a postdiluvian Mighty One, a giant and a mighty hunter. According to George Stanley Faber in his book ’The Mysteries of the Cabiri’, in one tradition, written of in the works of Moses Chorenenssis c410-c490 AD1135-1204, a Sephardic Jewish philosopher, astronomer and physician, he is not surprisingly, referred to as a Titan king. Nimrod was a great civilizer, founding cities across ancient Mesopotamia, Babylon, Uruk, Akkad and Kalneh in the land of Shinar (Sumer). Later in Assyria he built the city of Nineveh, Rehoboath Ir, Kalhu and the great city of Resen. The high degree of masonry skills attached to his name is not surprising, and to be expected, in the mythology of a descendant of the semi-divine race. He was said to be the first emperor of the postdiluvian world.

But his name is a malignant one, bestriding that area of the world, like a dark behemoth, a tyrant consumed by hubris so great he wanted to build a tower to heaven, trying to overreach God – and only reached his own doom. Well, this is how he is portrayed in the Bible and he was known thus amongst the Arabs, who call him Al Jabbar ‘the tyrant’, saying he was the first to wear a crown, that he fashioned from one he saw in the heavens. This mirrors the Sumerian account, that kingship descended from heaven, after the Flood.

But they surely would view him through a dark lens, a great empire by its very nature oppresses others, if not through warfare then culturally. The Babylonian, Assyrian Empires in both their early and later incarnations cast a great shadow over the regions surrounding them, while from the north an Egyptian one loomed, and dominated Canaan, ranging from nominal lordship to the establishing of manned garrisons.

The malignancy of these foreign powers, would have been seared into Jewish minds, when in 586 BC Judah and Jerusalem, was destroyed as an autonomous region, by the neo-Babylonian Empire. Before this, they had enjoyed prosperity as a client state. The Babylonians, as was their policy, to fragment any further resistance in conquered regions, transported the country’s central ruling body – including kings, priests, scribes and prophets – and sent them into exile in Babylon.

I’m going to discard this dark lens, and consider Nimrod as a mythic Mesopotamian figure, tied to their historical, cultural and religious beliefs; who captured the imagination of the peoples of that region.

Apart from his mention in the Bible, Nimrod is an elusive character, for instance the first king of the Babylonian king list after the flood is called Evechous, the first in the Sumerian postdiluvian king list is called Etanna. The search to find him in one person, has revealed more than one with his main characteristics, but not one that can be definitely thought of as him.

Ninus, who doesn’t have a place in the Assyrian king list, is the legendary founder of Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, called Nivou ‘the city of Ninus’ by the Greeks. Nimrod is also called the founder of Nineveh, and the wife of Ninus, Semiramis, is identified with the similarly named wife of Nimrod. Ninus and Semiramis first appeared in the writings of Ctesias the Cnidian or Ctesias of Cnidus c400 BC, a court physician to the Persian king, Artaxerxes II Mnemon 435 or 445 – 358 BC. He claimed he based his account on royal historical archives. Ninus is said to be the son of Belus, who is also the father of Danaus the ancestor of the Tuatha de Danaan. Belus is also said to be the Mesopotamian god Bel-Marduk. Etanna, the first postdiluvian Sumerian king, was said like Nimrod, to have consolidated the region under his one rule. The heroic god Ninurta, was a hunter, a warrior, and founder of civilization. Izdubar, a giant, a mighty leader and hunter who established an empire. Or the Sumerian hero Gilgamesh, or historical kings who seemed to fit the profile: the Sumerian Lugal-Banda, the Akkadian Sargon of Akkad, Naram-Sin and the Assyrian Tukulti-Ninurta. He is most probably found in all of them, he is the personification of the great civilizations that flourished there, the Hebrew prophet Micah used Nimrod’s name to signify the land of Mesopotamia.

The main body of traditions connected to this towering, omnipresent figure, is found in Genesis and Chronicles, rabbinical writings from the Babylonian Talmud, from Babylonian Berossus, the Greek historian Herodutos, and the Roman Jewish historian and general Josephus.

Nimrod is said to have instigated the building of the Tower of Babel, that was to reach heaven and provide a high place, to preserve humanity from another flood. In the account in Genesis the tower is constructed so that the people who built it can make a name for themselves, and not be scattered over the face of the earth. In all the accounts of this tower making, God is displeased, seeing the tower as a challenge to divine authority, and cursing the builders with the speaking of many tongues, whereas before they spoke only one. This is the origin of the word ‘babel’ meaning the confusing noise of many voices, or ‘babble’ meaning to talk rapidly, foolishly, in an excited incomprehensible manner. This lack of understanding was then said, to cause the builders to fragment over the earth. The one thing that was feared, had happened anyway.

This sounds like post-Flood trauma, a desire for security in a world turned upside down, to not have to suffer such chaos and heartbreak again, to establish themselves as a people; their name meaning something, known and talked about.

When looking at Mesopotamian religious buildings, the origins of this biblical tower can be found. Babel is from Akkadian bab-lu meaning ’gate of god’ and refers to the Mesopotamian ziggurats – stepped pyramids – erected as houses for their gods (Babylon the city carries the same meaning).Plate 2 figure 2 There is presently no evidence to show they were used by the public or for ceremonial purposes. They were either made of two or seven receding tiers, upon a square or rectangular base, with three or one ramped staircases leading up to higher stories, or a spiral ramp from the base to the summit where a temple stood. The temples were the home of a particular god or goddess, the ziggurat was dedicated to, who were thought to use the staircases, to descend to the earth plane and ascend back to heaven. In the myth of Nergal and Ereshkigal the staircase of the ziggurat at Sippar, is used by the messenger of Ereshkigal to journey from the Underworld, to the gate of the god at the top.  

Mesopotamian cosmology envisioned the earth as an upturned round boat, similar to a bowl or cauldron in shape, floating on the watery abyss. The hollow interior formed the region of darkness, the domain of terrestrial spirits, and the kingdom of the dead called Arallûor or Irkallu ‘the great below’ into which all human souls (no special treatment for poets, kings, heroes and initiates) descended to after death, and lived, entombed in its gloomy halls, as wraith-like and powerless ghosts. No wonder the Sumerian hero Gilgamesh journeyed to find the plant of immortality, growing at the bottom of the sea.

On the top of the bowl-shaped earth, stood a majestic mountain, from the base of which issued the great rivers of the world, and whose summit acted as a pivot, around which the starry firmament revolved. ‘The Akkadians, who antedated even the most ancient empires of the Tigro-Eupharates valley, had. . . a ‘Mountain of the World’. . .. a support on which heaven rested and around which they revolved . . . called Kharsak Kurra. It was so rich with gold and silver and precious stones as to be dazzling to the sight. An ancient Akkadian hymn respecting it uses this language ‘O mighty mountain of Bel, Im-Kharsa, whose head rivals heaven, whose root is the deep.’ 42

They divided heaven into three: realm of the celestial bodies, the lower heaven of the Igigi the celestial gods, and the upper heaven or Anu’s heart. Anu was the supreme ruler of the heavens, he created the stars as warriors to destroy the wicked, dispense justice and maintain the right working of the cosmos.

The seven-tiered ziggurat, the seven levels representing from the bottom up: netherworld – apsû (watery depths beneath the earth) – earth – atmosphere – heavenly bodies – the gods – Anu, is a cosmos in miniature. The ziggurat, a symbolic axis mundi, uniting them all together, as is attested to by the names conferred on them, ‘Temple of the Foundation of Heaven and Earth’, ‘Temple of the Seven Decrees of Heaven and Earth’, ‘Temple which links Heaven and Earth.’

But the only way this Mesopotamian link could function for humanity, was in the mediating body of the king. This is illustrated in the New Year Akitu festival held in Babylon, at the beginning of the agricultural year, in which the king had to successfully ’take’ the hand of the god Marduk (god of the city): which not only legitimatized and assured his continued kingship, but also the prosperity of the kingdom and its people. It was an elaborate event that spanned eleven days, including a procession of cultic statues, and the ritual humiliation of the king at the hands of the priests of Marduk.

 It’s not hard to imagine Nimrod in resplendent robes, hair elaborately oiled, fresh from a purifying bath; jewels flashing on his rich robes, climbing those steps, in a similar route taken by the messenger of Ereshkigal. Gradually as he surmounted the seven levels, the whole of his city (the place from where he began his empire building) was spread out below him – the impressive stone edifices, the streets, the people, and the river gliding nearby, a jewel of affluence. Following his own sacred street to the top, on the roof of the world, standing at the gate of god – with the whole prosperity of the land and its people hanging on his every move.

In the ziggurat is found another elevated city of turnings, a maze, climbing the staircases, following a route along the terraces, then another flight of stairs upwards and upwards – revolving around a Heaven-Earth-Underworld axis. Each ziggurat was then a navel of the Earth, and as with the navel sites of Atlantis, Delphi and Egypt, these Mesopotamian gates of God were linked to a World Tree, the Tree of Life.  ‘. . .Babylon, before receiving from the Semites the name Bab.llu, ‘Gate of God’ was called, in the old language of the country, Tin-tir-ki, or Dintir-ra, which most Assyriologists translate as ‘the place of the Tree or Grove of Life’4 This Mesopotamian Tree of Life, introduces into the narrative the goddess Ishtar (also known as Astarte or Inanna). She was called the divine Lady of Eden or Edin, and the goddess of the Tree of Life ‘Its root (or fruit) of white crystal stretched towards the deep. . . Its seat was the (central) place of the earth (a navel); its foliage was the couch of Zikum the (primeval) mother. Into the heart of its holy house which spreads its shade like a forest hath no man entered; there (is the house of) the mighty mother (Ishtar) who passes across the sky; (in) the midst of it was Tammuz.’44   

 According to Henri Frankfort 1897-1954, the Egyptologist, archaeologist and orientalist, the king underwent a ritual marriage with this goddess. They tended to undergo this ritual, not at the beginning of their reign, but at a later stage; which may indicate they had to prove themselves as king, before such a ritual could take place.

It was doubtless performed as a sacred drama, the king becoming her divine bridegroom, in an act of ritual or actual copulation with a priestess impersonating the goddess. ‘In a hymn King Idin-Dagan of Isim is portrayed as a symbolic Tammuz. . .King Ishme-Dagan said ‘I am he whom Inanna Queen of heaven and earth, has chosen as her beloved husband. . .’ 45  After the ritual marriage the king was referred to as the ‘Great ruler of Heaven’ which is a title of Tammuz (the consort of the goddess), and a divine determinative was placed before his name in inscriptions, thereby declaring him to be a god; after having embodied the being of the god Tammuz, when he became the goddess’ bridegroom.  

In her mythology, the goddess Ishtar, decides to journey to the Underworld, ruled over by her sister Ereshkigal (the one who sent a message up top to the gods). To reach the darkling halls of death, she needs first to go through seven gates, at each one she is forced to surrender a jeweled ornament or piece of clothing, until upon entry she is naked – as a true soul passing into the possession of death and leaving behind all earthly glamour. She then sits down by her, no doubt depressed, sister Ereshkigal.

Upon her entry the judges of the dead – the Anunnaki – examine her with remorseless death in their eyes, and she becomes a corpse and is hung up from a metal hook. The goddess frantic to escape such a fate, knows it is only possible if someone else takes her place – such is the inexorable nature of death, it will not give up one garnered soul, unless another is put in its place. She appealed to the gods for one to take her place, but all refused (understandably) her request. She finally pleaded with her consort Tammuz who sat on her throne, asking him to take her place. He refuses, so in the end she sends demons to drag him down to the dark realm, so that she may escape.

But once freed, and upon her throne of Queen of Heaven and Earth, she has time to repent her actions, and tries to find a way to release Tammuz from his dark imprisonment. In the end, it is arranged that he can spend one half of the year in the Underworld, and the other half on the Earth.

The narrative has already encountered such a tale in, Zagreus, Demeter and Persephone. Tammuz is a god of vegetation, rebirth and renewal after winter, a sun child born when the solar powers were waning, so that the new potent solar powers he embodies, could once more rejuvenate the earth.

In the ancient world his incarceration in the Underworld at the summer solstice was a period of mourning, when worshippers would mark their foreheads with a tau cross T. The prophet Ezekial in the Bible, complains about the practise of lamenting his death, still taking place at the northern gate of the Temple in Jerusalem.

The king embodying the being of Tammuz, relates to his World Pillar role as a conduit for solar, rejuvenating powers ensuring the fertility of the land. In the mythology of Nimrod, his solar role lies behind the myth of his violent death and dismemberment (an end said to be a warning to others, not to engage in false worship). The pieces of his body were then sent far and wide throughout the land, and his wife Semiramis sets out to find all the pieces. She finds them all, except his phallus, which mirrors exactly the tale of Osiris and Isis. But instead of like Isis creating a magical phallus, she raises great obelisks to the sun in her dead husband’s name; and afterwards magically gives birth to a sun child (as Isis gives birth to Horus), who was also the embodiment of her husband.

It is clear, behind this mythic tale, lies the role of the king as a rejuvenating conduit for solar powers; and in the case of Nimrod, explains why his emblem was a snake. Maimomides relating a tradition about Nimrod, that must have arisen from these solar mysteries, asserted he was put to death not only for worship of the stars, but also for veneration of the phallus, as an emblem of the sun’s vital regenerating powers. The snake is also symbolically attached to Inanna or Ishtar, in her association with the sacred Tree of Life – one figurine of her dated 1800 BC shows her with a snake entwined around her upper body.

After his death Nimrod was worshipped as the god Marduk and his consort Semiramis as the goddess Ishtar. His deification and resultant worship, is another grave charge laid against him, from those viewing him from a biblical perspective.

Marduk, in his mythology, defeated the terrible chaos embodied in Tiamat – the primeval mother of the earth – her dark force was threatening to engulf the very gods themselves. He was the only divine being willing to face her terrors, and after he had slain her, he made Heaven and Earth from the two halves of her body.

But before Marduk confronted Tiamat, he had put a price on performing this formidable task, he asked for the kingship of Heaven, and this had been granted him. Marduk successful, then became king of Heaven, and it is this kingship that then descended on the earth:

‘They (the gods) had not yet set up a king for the beclouded people,

No headband and crown had (yet) been fashioned. . .

No scepter had (yet) been studded with lapis lazuli. . .

Scepter, crown, headband and staff

Were (still) placed before Anu in heaven.’ 46

 The story goes that it did descend upon the earth, when the god Enlil and the goddess Inanna (Ishtar) came to earth, and searched for a good shepherd or king, but found not one, so they instituted kingship and chose someone worthy of being a king. This king was then a mortal charged with fulfilling a divine role, a role that could be taken from him if he proved unworthy, or if a disastrous time indicated that he had lost the approval of the gods.

This belief that the king was divinely chosen, and was not an inherited right, is mirrored in one king stating he came from lowly origins, until he was chosen by Heaven to be king. Or the tale of a younger son being promoted above the elder, because he showed the signs of the favour of heaven.   

The ancient Mesopotamians were supreme astronomers and astrologers, who avidly consulted the stars, as indicators of future events. If a predicted unfavorable time appeared to be on the horizon, during that period the king would have a substitute rule in his place; who could shoulder the blame if adverse things happened. During Alexander the Great’s 356-323 BC stay in Babylon, the astrologers predicted his death and wanted to install a substitute king, to prevent the calamity befalling him, but they were too late – for he died in the Gate of God, a tormented, but functioning alcoholic.

This form of kingship would have endowed the priesthood, supervising this ritual religious framework which governed the life of the land, with a great deal of power; who must have at times been involved in schemes to manipulate royal selection or decide the favour of Heaven no longer rested on a particular monarch.  

But to return to Nimrod, his deification as Marduk, must be based upon the belief, that upon a king’s death, his royal soul joined with the celestial king; whose kingship on Earth he embodied. After death statues of the king were made, to be worshipped, for the Mesopotamians believed that such statues were imbued with magical powers; in the case of kings, the supernatural powers of their celestial kingship, not the essence of the kings themselves.  

The giant Nimrod the mighty hunter, is linked to the celestial giant mighty hunter, the constellation Orion. There is a tradition, that after death, God had Nimrod manacled, for his attempted assault on the divine kingdom by building his tower; and then set him captive up in the skies, as the Orion star constellation. This tradition about Nimrod, is based, on a much deeper connection between Orion and Mesopotamian kings.

 In Mesopotamia, the Orion constellation was called Sipa.Zi.An.Na ‘The Heavenly Shepherd’ or ‘True Shepherd of Anu’, and Mesopotamian kings were referred to as shepherds. The archetype of a king as a shepherd, endows the role with the aura of a caring ruler, who protects and provides for all the needs of his people, and will steer them away from danger.

Rulers are depicted wearing a shepherd’s hat or holding a lamb. The staff of rulership was a shepherd’s crook, the same as in Egypt. Etanna, the first Sumerian king after the flood, who ascended to Heaven, was called the shepherd. Alorus the last king in the Chaldean king list to rule before the flood, said god had designated him as a shepherd of his people. Gudea ruler of the state of Lagash in southern Mesopotamia ruled c2144-2124, called himself a shepherd. Warad-Sin 1770-1758 called himself, a righteous mighty man and a shepherd. And as the tale of Enlil and Inanna revealed, the definition of a kingship for them, was to be a good shepherd.

Tammuz was called the divine shepherd, and in the heavens, he is depicted as the figure of a ram or lamb, called the hired man; the title relating to the extra labour employed during the barley harvest. While the lamb represents the birthing of kids, lambs and calves in the springtime. To the right of this sign stands Orion the shepherd, with crook in hand.  

On star maps, this shepherd Orion is accompanied, below and behind, by the rooster Pasqual a messenger of the gods. Orion is accorded a similar function, in being called the herald of the gods – one of the duties of a herald is to carry official messages. Because he is a shepherd of Anu, the messages must be about the workings of the highest heavens, where Anu resides, manipulating the fabric of the universe, as he did when he created the stars as soldiers of light.

This role of Orion, also relates to the constellation’s non-Mesopotamian mythology –  a sphere of influence through which cosmic intelligence, design, expresses itself in the material world. He was most probably, the celestial template for Mesopotamian shepherd kings, a role not connected to a particular god, but the highest heaven. He was the true shepherd, the shepherd of righteousness, because he embodied the unsullied dictates of the highest God – who stood at the centre of creation – and viewed humanity as his children to be cared for, in the way a shepherd cares for his flock.

In Nimrod, is realized the kingship of the semi-divine race, a cosmic conduit for the fertility of the land, the personification of the link between heaven and earth, a navel of the world. But there is something much darker, more earth-bound about the Underworld this king rules over. The souls of the dead languish like ghosts, not even heroes, poets, kings or initiates can escape such an end, the bright gift of immortality denied them – immortality is only for the gods, who use the king as their footstool to rule on earth.

Time is passing like a swift flowing river, like the blood of the semi-divine race, flowing into different territories, transformed by mingling with different gene pools at the river’s edge; but still valued as an indication of something different, something special. Genealogies are carefully kept, descent from Noah chronicled, and new figureheads emerge from the river’s flow, like markers to something still greater, a heavenly purpose on earth. One figure was Abraham, there is no historical evidence for his existence either, he is most probably an eponymous Nimrod-type figure embodying the myths and culture of a people.

17

Abraham

Nine generations after Shem, son of Noah, Terah his descendant became the father of Abraham. I shall call him Abraham throughout the narrative, although in the Bible he underwent a name change from Abram to Abraham. He, like Noah, had a special relationship with God, who spoke to him directly and promised not only the land of Canaan for him and his descendants, but domination over others as well. According to the Bible, Canaan was the birthright of the descendants of Shem: ‘Blessed be the Lord God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.’ Genesis 8: 26-27.

One can but guess at the vicissitudes and fortunes of Shem’s lineage, during the intervening generations, before Abraham came on the historical scene. But there is convincing evidence they roamed as far as Syria, and became submerged in the Amorite population there, who established a number of city states. ‘Terah’s family were not Sumerian. They have long been identified with the. . . Amurru or Amorites. . . William Hallo, Professor of Assyriology at Yale University, confirms that ‘growing linguistic evidence based chiefly on the recorded personal names of Semitic ancestral to later Hebrew, Aramaic and Phoenician.’ What is more, as depicted in the Bible, the details of the patriarch’s tribal organization, naming conventions, family structure, customs of inheritance and land tenure, genealogical schemes, and other vestiges of nomadic life are too close to the more laconic evidence of the cuneiform records to be dismissed out of hand as late fabrications.’ 47

The name Amorite is thought to be from Akkadian Amurru, which refers to ’the west’. They were a semi-nomad people, moving their livestock from one grazing ground to another in a seasonal cycle, who also practiced farming.

Although their origins are thought to be in Syria, many established themselves in western Mesopotamian cities like Mari, Ebla, Babylon and Ur. While others continued to roam, settling in Egypt where they became known as Habira or Hapira, thought to mean ‘one who sells his services’ and grew in numbers, eventually overthrowing native rule and establishing the Hyksos dynasty. Until they in turn were thrown out of Egypt by a victorious Egyptian king, and allowed to go into Canaan, which caused great misfortune for the settled inhabitants of the region.

Life can be a desperate business. Whole peoples are forced to move, by incoming conquerors or natural disasters, such as drought. Or they move because they think there is something better on the horizon. When they move, they often move others out of place, in their turn.  Around the third millennium BC there was a movement of Amorites out of Mesopotamia and into Canaan, where they established towns and cities there.

From evidence in the Bible some Amorites, possessed the traits of the semi-divine race, being described as giants. ‘Yet it was I who destroyed the Amorite before them, whose height was like the height of the cedars, and he was as strong as the oaks. . .’ Amos 2:9-10. In the account I mentioned earlier of Moses sending out scouts to survey the land of Canaan, and their discovering giants, the Amorites were cited as being among this giant race. Because of their semi-divine antecedents, it’s possible to think of Terah’s family as exhibiting these traits. Particularly as in an account of Abraham’s birth, he exhibits the same shining characteristic as Noah.

Terah and his family had come to settle in Ur, a coastal city and major port on the Persian Gulf, at the mouth of the Euphrates river. It was a wealthy and sophisticated city, with quarters housing different professions. Terah’s family were makers of sacred images, so they would have lived in the artisan quarter.

The tradition goes, that Amitlai the wife of Terah, pregnant with Abraham and near to her full turn, left the artisan quarter and retreated to a cave by the Euphrates. When she eventually gave birth to him, his semi-divine nature was immediately clear, for it is said, the radiance of his face lit up the entire cave.

When he grew up, he was said to excel in nobility of character, and according to Berosus and Josephus, was a renowned astrologer, so learned he even taught the Egyptians – this may have been the influence of Mesopotamian culture, or perhaps it was Amorite.

In Jewish tradition, Terah is depicted as forsaking his ancestral home, where resided the incredibly long-lived Shem, and chose instead to serve Nimrod; believing his monarchy divinely ordained and Nimrod himself a god. There are different versions of what role he played in that monarch’s life, in one he is the general of his army, in another he is his vizier. In his mythology, mirroring his son’s, he is in his seventies without having sired any children.

One night, Nimrod’s astrologers noticed a new star rising in the east, which continued to grow brighter. Nimrod gathered together his astronomers, astrologers and diviners, he asked them what the star signified? They replied a new baby would be born, a boy, who might be a danger to Nimrod’s continual rule. Then one night, this new star, grew very bright and like a comet streaked across the heavens, in one direction then another; as it did so it swallowed up the other stars in its wake. The king was informed, that this event signified that very night the boy had been born.

Fearing the existence of such a heavenly ordained child, Nimrod ordered all boys born that night to be killed. This is a familiar theme, Cronos swallows his potential rivals, Herod mirroring Nimrod, orders the death of all newly born infants. This was after the three wise men seeking the newly born Jesus, informs him of the portents accompanying another celestial phenomenon.

Nimrod is unaware, that the wife of the seventy-year-old Terah, had become pregnant, and that very night had given birth to their son in a cave, as I previously mentioned. Terah continues to hide his newborn son in the cave, while at the same time ordering the murder of all boys born the same night. His son remains in the cave for next three years, like the baby Zeus was hidden in a cave for years, protected from the menace of his father Cronos.

Caves have important esoteric significance, therefore so many mythic and legendary figures are born in them. They represent the womb, in which the mighty new forces of consciousness they embody are conceived, as in the underground rituals of the Eleusinian Mysteries; where the understanding of the candidates is illuminated with a new reality that banished fear of death.

Although I have not mentioned it previously, in Virgil’s tenth Eclogue, when the shepherds Menalcas and Mopsus, relate the life of Daphnis, they choose to do so in a cave. There is an early tradition within Christianity, that also placed the birth of Jesus in a cave. Justin Martyr, also known as Justin of Caesarea or Justin the Philosopher 103-165 AD, a theologian and famed author, wrote that the cave was known and visited during his life time. In the mythology of Osiris, he is said to have been born in a cave, and his resurrection at the hands of Isis, so that he can father their son Horus, takes place in a mysterious cave. Chiron the centaur, deemed the wisest of beings, a healer and renowned teacher of many heroes, instructed them in a cave on Mount Pelion in Thessaly Greece. Pythagoras of Samos c570-c495 BC, philosopher, mathematician, geomancer, musician, and musical theorist created a school at Samos, but it was said to be in a cave, that he imparted his own arcane philosophical, metaphysical, musical and mathematical teachings.

Abraham is clearly a special being, the heavens proclaim his birth, the setting of his birth proclaims he represents a new consciousness that will transform those around him; which is confirmed later when God speaks to him directly.

When Abraham, surviving the murderous purge, is grown, Nimrod recognizing his abilities, becomes his enemy; once throwing him into a fiery furnace, which Abraham miraculously survives. In this mythic struggle between Nimrod and Abraham, wherein Abraham is always the victor, is again the wish-fulfillment of the Hebrew people; who rarely enjoyed a victory again those great Mesopotamian empires which Nimrod symbolizes.

Although Abraham is marked to fulfill a great destiny, it will be discovered, there still wasn’t a clear route to its acheivement, but a testing one (the Roman Catholic saint Padre Pio said the souls God loves, he tests the most); sustained throughout by a sense of destiny for him and his people.

In the Bible Terah decides all the family should leave Ur, they depart for Canaan. This was the beginning – true to their semi-nomadic roots – of long years of wandering, while they carried with them knowledge of their superior lineage, a sense of a divinely ordained destiny through his son Abraham. This must have separated them from other Amorites. Unfortunately, they never reached Canaan, and instead settled in Haran, a major city in Upper Mesopotamia.

It was there, when Abraham was seventy-five years old, that God directly told him (Abraham like Noah doesn’t need a temple to commune with God) to go to Schechem in Canaan, where God would finally make his people a great nation. This man, touched with nobility, radiant in countenance and most probably physically towering over his contemporaries – just like Oliver Cromwell and his visionary moment – became something more, heaven touched and resplendent with a destiny. A figurehead, who would eventually plant the Amorite cultural and religious heritage in Canaan. His importance in the land, that he and his descendants would finally occupy, is mirrored in the importance of descent from his bloodline – as Noah faded into the background.

But even though you are called by God, nothing is straight forward on earth, on their arrival in Canaan they were greeted by a land in the grip of famine – no wonder the rituals of fecundity of the earth played such a pivotal role in cultic activities – and he turned aside into Egypt. Perhaps he had time to tell the Egyptians, a thing or two about astrology, before he and his family were thrown out of the country, for deceiving Pharaoh. Abraham had pretended his wife, who had caught Pharaoh’s fancy, was his sister. His father Terah being compliant in infanticide, and Abraham’s allowing his wife to forsake the bonds of marriage for material gain – show how the desire for survival undermines the most pristine natures.

It was after this, that they settled amongst the trees of Mamre, near the city of Hebron in Canaan.  He may have come here because of familial ties, because Mamre is the name of the Amorite chief, who owned the grove. The grove was a local cultic and religious centre, and Abraham set up his own altar there. Tree worship was common in Canaan. They worshipped Ishtar’s Tree of Life, represented by a pole stuck in the ground, draped with hashêrah pieces of cloth and flags, called an ashêrah – a portable Tree of Life earth navel.  

The narrative has already disclosed the importance of the World Pillar for the semi-divine race, so was the Amorite Abraham, setting up an altar in an Amorite tree grove; performing ritual worship of, and mystic connection with, the heaven-earth link? Considering the importance of ashêrah in the temple worship of his descendants, and the importance of the Tree of Life in the temple of Solomon itself, the answer, I think, would be yes. Particularly as the God who answers him is called El Shaddai.

In Exodus this deity is called the God of Abraham, his son Isaac and grandson Jacob. El’translates as ‘god or lord’, but there is debate about the Shaddai. According to Wikipedia, W. F. Albright 1891-1971, the biblical scholar, archaeologist, philologist and ceramics expert, believes ’Shaddai’ refers to a god inhabiting a holy mountain ’god of the mountain’, the mountain in question being the Mesopotamian World Mountain Kharsak Kurru – which I have previously shown to be a World Pillar.

Abraham venerating a god of a World Pillar, relates to traditions about him found in Muslim accounts – wherein he is shown to be responsible for erecting a shrine over another World Pillar site.  

Abraham is said to have built the shrine of the Kaaba at Mecca, which houses a mystical cubic black stone, that fell from heaven onto a sacred mountain. There is said to be a pit below the site, known as the well of the Kaaba, which is believed to be the navel of the earth. ‘Muslim pilgrims walk around the Kaaba like the stars travelling about the Pole. For this is what the Kaaba has been said to be: the point on which the pole of the seven worlds and the seven heavens is planted, the highest point on earth and nearest to God.’ 48 The seven-fold nature of the worlds and heavens, may relate to the nature of the Ursa Minor and Major star constellations, both composed of seven stars.

The Jewish community in Medina referred to the Kaaba as the ‘House of Abraham’, which the authors of ’The Ark of the Covenant’ ‘trace back to the Book of Jubilees, where Abraham tells Jacob that the house he has built himself will be named the house of Abraham forever. . . and it is given to Jacob and his seed forever ‘because Jacob will build his house and establish his name before God forever.’50 The Book of Jubilees is found in the Ethiopian version of the Old Testament.

This tradition, and the origins of the god El Shaddai linked to a World Pillar, is very strong evidence, that the World Pillar was of vital importance in the religious thinking and practices of the people of Abraham.

When the Quyraysh tribe ordered a permanent structure, to replace the tent that covered the Kaabah, they employed a Christian craftsman called Pachomiu. He built the roof and decorated it with images of the prophets, including Abraham, Mary and Jesus. The Quyraysh, also moved to the site, the stone called the ‘Station of Abraham’, because Abraham was said to have stood on it – leaving his footprints in the stone – when he erected the shrine.

 But to return to Abraham performing his ritual in the sacred grove, it was successful, for afterwards El Shaddaiagain addresses him directly. He is told, despite his age, he was ninety-nine years old, he would have an heir by his equally aged first wife Sarah who is ninety – which makes her laugh at the thought. He was told by his God, again, he would be the father of many nations, and received instructions for the covenant – an agreement between God and his people – which included circumcision.

 Later, three divine messengers appeared, and said by the next year Sarah would have a son. Of course, later, in accordance with the message, she does bear him Isaac – hopefully she could still laugh when giving birth.

 Abraham doesn’t live to see his people become a great nation – to cease being remnants with spheres of influence here and there – or establish an empire as El Shaddai predicts. Abraham is no Genghis Khan, who transcended his nomadic tent dwelling, Mongolian roots; utilized the fighting strengths of his people, creating just such an empire. What Abraham bequeathed to his lineage, was a special relationship to his God, and a sense of having a divine destiny.

Jacob was the grandson of Abraham, the next figurehead, in the establishing of a divinely inspired identity and a country – for a people who had roamed far from their original place in the world.

18

Jacob

In the Book of Jubilees, it will be remembered, Abraham says Jacob will build his own ‘house’ or ritual navel site, and I now want to consider two mystical events, experienced by Jacob, which reveal him establishing his own ‘house’; as part of a king-making ritual, just as Abraham predicted.

Jacob had two supernatural experiences. Once on his way to Padran-aram, he stopped and camped near Luz. He took a stone for his pillow, to put beneath his bedroll, to provide an elevated rest for his head. When he slept he had a powerful dream: he saw angels, ascending and descending a ladder, and at the top stood a god-like figure who spoke: ‘I am El Shaddai be fruitful and multiply, a nation and a company of nations shall come out thy loins.’ Genesis 28:13

He awakes and exclaims ‘How dreadful is this place! This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of God.’ 28:17 He then took the stone he had used as a pillow and set it up on a pillar, anointing it with oil, and named it Bethel saying ‘The stone that I have set for a pillar, shall be God’s house.’ Genesis 28:22

According to E. O James in his ‘Studies in the History of Religion’ the place Jacob lay down to sleep in, was already an ancient megalithic site, a sanctuary for local divinities, predominately a bull cult – so it is not surprising Jacob had a mystical vision in this sacred space.

Jacob calls the site ‘the gate of God’, a term applied to ziggurats, a place where Heaven meets Earth. Was there a phallic-shaped stone, a menhir, an omphalos stone, already erected at Luz, to represent the place was a ritual navel spot of the earth? His going to an existing sacred space and having a mystical experience, indicates he was engaged in a ritual activity of some sort. Setting up his own pillar, creating his own ’house’ within that setting, may indicate he assumed control of ritual activity there.  

There is convincing evidence, that Jacob’s activity was part of a king making ritual. In Genesis, it is written: ‘The mighty God of Jacob. From thence is the Shepherd, the Stone of Israel.’ 49:24. The Shepherd is a title for a king, in Ezekiel there is this remark about David: ‘And David my servant shall be king over them; and they all shall have one Shepherd.’ 38:24. One Shepherd refers to David being king over the united two kingdoms of Judea and Israel, whereas before they were ruled separately. The stone referred to, in relation to Jacob’s God, can only be the stone he honoured at Bethel, which is now the ‘house’ of El Shaddai. The verse in Genesis, is then stating the stone, or pillar stone, he raised up at Bethel, embodies his kingship.

The title Shepherd, of course, evokes an association with Mesopotamian kingship. Jacob’s family having roots in that region, one can surmise, the title carries the same meaning of an earthly shepherd king, embodying the celestial template of kingship, being established in the land of Canaan.

There is evidence in II Kings, that a pillar was part of the rite of king-making in Israel. ‘When Athaliah heard all the noise made by the palace guards and the people, she hurried to the Lord’s Temple to see what was happening. When she arrived, she saw the newly crowned king standing in his place of authority by the pillar, as was the custom at times of coronation.’ 11:4.

To view what happened at Bethel as a king-making ritual, is further supported by the site itself becoming a royal shrine and sanctuary in the north. The place where the king could, through a representative attached to it, exercise political and social control.

 Jacob experienced another supernatural incident, he spent the night alone on a river side, communing with El Shaddai, when a mysterious being appeared. Called in Genesis 32:2,28-30 both a man and God, and in Hosea 12:4 an angel. Although Jacob makes it plain it is God, for afterwards he calls the place Penuel, Hebraic for ’face of God’, because he says he had seen God face to face.

The two wrestled all night, and when the being realized that Jacob could not be overcome, he touched his hip socket and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint, so that afterwards he limped. It is then Jacob says he will not let the stranger go, unless he blesses him. The stranger asks Jacob’s name, and when he hears it, says from then on, he shall be called Israel meaning ’He who struggles with God’. Because of this incident the people of Israel, would not eat the sinew of the thigh, that is on the hip socket.

Robert Graves in The White Goddess writes, that this event was also part of a sacred king- making ritual, and that his grandfather Abraham also had a sacred thigh; which he made his servant put his hand under, when making an oath. The thigh itself was called the royal part of an animal carcass. In Greek mythology, Anchises suffered the same injury after copulating with the love goddess Aphrodite – which was doubtless more enjoyable – the mother of his son Aeneas.

  The foot affected by the injury was, according to Robert Graves, called a bull-foot and may be connected to fertility rites – the bull apart from its Underworld associations was a symbol for strength and fecundity. Hobbling dances, such as performed by the priests of Baal as recorded in 1 Kings XV111.26, when bonfires were lit, lighting up the old year, representing new regenerating solar powers, enabling the advent of spring. A ‘bull-foot’ in relation to the king, would of course, not only represent his embodiment of those rejuvenating powers, but also his powers in the Underworld.

This linking the pillar stone to kingship and its exercise, offers some validity to the legend that the Tuatha de Danaan Lia Fàil stone was Jacob’s pillow – the legend representing a common heritage of king-making cultic activity. The king in Jerusalem cementing his kingship by a sacred pillar, as did his Irish counterparts. The ancestors of the Tuatha de Danaan originated in that part of the world, and oral traditions so often have a large kernel of truth in their centre.

Hiding behind the person of Jacob, ambitious, full of a sense of destiny, lies the history of a people who are claiming that part of the world as their nation, the wandering ones have taken root, and become Israel.

The narrative next turns to a descendant of Jacob, through Jesse, David; who doesn’t establish an empire, but rules over a united Israel and Judea.