19

David

The elders and the rulers of the tribes of Israel, after being victorious over the Philistines (a non-Semitic people inhabiting ancient southern Canaan, according to the Bible, they were one of the Sea peoples who originally came from Crete), came to Samuel. He was a judge with authority over the land in place of a king, conducting a yearly circuit of the principal places. They told him his sons were not fit to take his place when the time came, and that they desired a king to rule over them all, like other nations. Samuel tried to dissuade them, but they were adamant, and so God told Samuel to find a king.

He came to the house of Kish, a descendant of Benjamin, the youngest son of Jacob. Kish is referred to as a ‘mighty man of power’ 1:1. His son Saul is described as ‘goodly’ which means attractive, excellent and admirable, there was no-one to match him. He was taller than anyone else around him, even when all the tribes are gathered together, he still towers over all of them. This physical attribute, may indicate that his father being called a ‘mighty man’, is a reference to his semi-divine descent, whose offspring, of course, were renowned for their great height.

Samuel anoints Saul and he becomes king, but Saul was a bitter disappointment, not heeding the voice of God lying behind Samuel’s orders. For instance, Samuel told Saul to destroy all the people of Amalek, including women, babies, children, the aged and their livestock. But Saul spared their king Agag from death, so Samuel took a sword and hew Agag in pieces.

Samuel, deciding secretly Saul can no longer fulfil his kingly role, goes in search of another. God told Samuel to go to Jesse of Bethlehem, a descendant of Judah son of Jacob, and he would find a king amongst his sons. When he arrives, he chances upon Jesse’s son Eliab. Samuel thinks he is the chosen one, but God tells him not to be taken in by his height or countenance, and that he is not the one.

From this remark, and the fact that Saul was of great height, was Samuel expecting these traits – height and a certain complexion – to be exhibited by a future king? He eventually chooses David, the youngest son of Jesse, overlooking his elder brothers, just as in Mesopotamian tales. This clearly made an enemy of Eliab, for later he is shown, accusing David of pride and wrongdoing.

David’s complexion is particularly remarked upon in the Bible, it is called ruddy, which indicates a fiery red colour. His eyes are also special, they are called beautiful. In Gill’s exposition of the Bible, he remarks that ‘beautiful eyes’ are usually considered to be bright, clear and sparkling. Did David’s eyes possess a radiance, that made people remark about them? The nature of a person’s eyes and countenances, aren’t usually emphasized in the Bible – so David must have looked remarkable indeed to his fellows.

David was also of great height, the same as Saul. This is revealed later when David goes out to fight Goliath, the champion of the Philistines. Saul gives him his armour to wear, but David rejects it, after trying it on, only because he is not accustomed to wearing it. After he has slain Goliath, who is nine feet tall, by a pebble shot from a sling, he uses Goliath’s sword to decapitate him, which alone shows the degree of his stature and hand breadth. But then this is the man, who said he killed a lion and a bear single-handed. This is nothing like the image of David that haunts the popular imagination, wherein he is thought of as a youth, and not an incredibly fierce and physically impressive fighter.

Did Samuel expect to find in God’s candidate for kingship, traits of great height and bright countenance, and possibly beautiful eyes, as a specific sign that they were truly descended of Abraham’s semi-divine lineage; and therefore, worthy of kingship?

After his secret anointing by Samuel, David was summoned by the attendants of Saul, to soothe his troubled mind with his exquisite playing on the harp. He played for the king and Saul was greatly pleased, he made him his bodyguard, and David also gained the love of Saul’s son and daughter.

After David slew Goliath, the rest of the Philistine army fled, and the relieved populace offered great praise in his name. This gained David, Saul’s enmity – how uneasy is the head that bears a crown. Saul offered the hand of his daughter in marriage to David, if he would bring him two hundred Philistine foreskins. Saul secretly hoped David would be killed in the endeavor, but his hopes were not realized, successful David presented him with the grisly evidence; and he eventually became the king’s son-in-law.

Saul then hatched numerous plots to kill him, but David aided by Saul’s son and daughter on several occasions, managed again to escape death. Eventually Saul died in battle against the Philistines, and David was proclaimed king of Judea in the south, while Saul’s son Mephibosheth ruled the northern kingdom.

Later Mephibosheth is murdered, by those who thought it would please David, but he showed them his pleasure by having them executed; David becomes king of the united southern and northern kingdoms, creating the kingdom of Israel. He is thirty years old when he is made king.  His next action, is called a surprising one.

20

Jerusalem

He decided to make the Jebusite city Jebus, which became known as Jerusalem, the capital of the new nation. Up to that moment, for seven and a half years, he had reigned as king of Judea from its capital city Hebron. Robert Graves states that the inhabitants of the city, were highly offended by this abandoning of his first capital.

The reason for his choice of Jebus, has been questioned, for geographically, politically and strategically, there were better sites for him to select. Such as Gibeath, that had a commanding view of the central Benjamin Plateau, and was near an important trade route. This was the case with the great city of Gibeon, also situated strategically on the same Plateau.

Whereas Jebus, not located near any important trade route, was isolated by being surrounded by mountains.  The Jebusite city was situated on an uneven rocky plateau, at an elevation of 2,550 ft. In David’s time it towered over the deep valleys, that encircled it nearly on every side. Jebus stood at a point, where three deep, steep, narrow gorges – the Kidron, Tyropoean, and Hinnom – join to form one valley. Between the Kidron and Typropoean, a long, narrow spur of land extends southward, on which the city rests.

The ridge has been occupied since the Chalcolithic period fifth millennium BC, during the Middle Bronze Age. Four thousand years ago a walled city existed there, called Salem in the Bible. It is thought around 1000 BC David conquered it.

When David announced his intention to the Jebusite inhabitants of Jebus, they were not very keen on his occupying their city, king or not; which enraged David. Had he thought the honour of being the new capital, would be inducement enough; for them to accept him as their new overlord?

 It was not an easy place to take by force, but the Bible says he found a way to surreptitiously enter the city, through a ‘gutter’ connected to the city’s water source, the spring of Gihon. Excavations have revealed, that the ancient Canaanite inhabitants of the city, in rocks below their city, and outside its walls, made a massively fortified pool fed by the Gihon spring. They descended to the pool through a tunnel, from the city above, and this is the ‘gutter’ through which David and his men accessed the city. A risky business, not knowing who you would meet coming down, while you were going up. Also, a tunnel would be a difficult place to affect a rapid retreat in, if an overwhelming force descended upon the foremost going up.

But David had a hardy troop of soldiers at his command, called his ‘Mighty Men’, among these men may have been those of the same stature as him. For Benaiah, who is reputed to have killed a lion in a pit, in a previous conflict, went up against an attacking eight-foot tall Egyptian, who was carrying a spear as big as a weaver’s beam; and managed to take it and kill him with it.

David encouraged them on the risky undertaking, by saying the first to strike the Jebusites, would become the chief and captain of the force. His stealth operation succeeded and there he was king of the castle now called Jerusalem – one he then ruled over for thirty-three years.

I need to point out, that in the Bible Jerusalem is also referred to as Zion, such as in Samuel 2:7 ‘. . . David took the strong hold of Zion, the same is the city of David.’, and this name has become a synonym for the city. It is also referred to as the ‘city of God.’

So, there he is, this exultant, fearless (although perhaps not first up the tunnel) man, a king of a great nation, but not over nations, as God promised his race, through his ancestor Abraham.

The narrative now comes, to what I believe is his real reason, for establishing his kingship in this particular city, which he was even prepared to take by force.  To begin, I first want to consider the mysterious actions of his ancestor Abraham, towards a past king of this city called Melchizedek.

Abraham’s nephew Lot lived in the city of Sodom, and when the king of that city was defeated in battle by King Chedarlaomer, the victor and his army sacked the city; and took Lot and his goods with them, when they departed.

When Abraham heard of this from an escaped inhabitant of the city, he gathered together three hundred and eighteen of his household, racing after the king. In a stealth tactic, which would have warmed David’s heart, he attached the camp of the king by night. They fled in disarray, and taking advantage of the moment, Abraham’s troop pursued them far afield (which has been the undoing of other forces). He then freed Lot and gathered up the captured booty, returning to the people of Sodom and its king, what belonged to them.

 This is when he meets Melchizedek, the king of Salem (Jerusalem). The name Melchizedek is from melek meaning ’king’ and sedeq meaning ’righteousness’ – ‘king of righteousness’. He is also a priest of El Elyon the Most High God, and he brings bread and wine and blesses Abraham, stating his victory is due to that deity, who had delivered his enemies into his hands.

Abraham, curiously not offended on behalf of his God El Shaddai, then gives him a tithe from his spoils of battle. A tithe means one-tenth of goods or money, that is given in support of a religious establishment. This action is called a startling occurrence, for Abraham to recognize the authority of a Canaanite priest-king and his god.

In the Bible, the prophet Isaiah 1-4 13-14 writes of the Most High El Elyon as being enthroned on the mount of the council of the farthest north. The mount in question, is said to refer to the Mesopotamian World Mountain Kharsak Kurru. It will be remembered, El Shaddai the God of Abraham, is also considered to be linked to this mountain. With both gods associated with the same World Mountain, are they different names for the same deity? This would explain why Abraham accepted the blessing, and then recognized the god of Melchizedek, and gave part of his bounty to the Salem monarch.

Abraham (or his God) must have also accepted the holiness of the site on which Melchizedek’s city stood, for it was on Mount Moriah – now called Temple Mount – south of the citadel, that Abraham, at the command of his God, brought his son Isaac to be sacrificed.

This was said to be a test of his faith, but fortunately before he could reluctantly carry out the deed, God told him to desist, he had proven himself worthy of his God. Then Abraham saw a ram, caught by its horns in a thicket, and he sacrificed the ram instead of his son. According to Robert Graves, this was part of a royal ritual, where a kingly substitute was burnt to death, to represent the fires of a new sun and regeneration of the earth. The ram itself, also has associations with renewed vitality, in the star constellation Aries – the sun enters that sign at the vernal (spring) equinox, when the earth is reborn in verdant foliage. Abraham bringing his son to Mount Moriah, for such an important rite, indicates his veneration of the place, and offers further grounds to explain his acceptance of the Jebusite king and his god.

David’s actions seen in this light, are made understandable, Jerusalem, its king and god had been recognized by his ancestor Abraham, and is most probably the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. But there is another element that needs to be put into the equation, for Jerusalem itself, in its mythology, was regarded as a World Mountain (the location of the garden of Eden) – a link between Earth-Underworld-Heaven. It may be remembered that at the beginning of this narrative, I said that mountains could also be regarded as navel centres, although Jerusalem is a hill not a mountain, it was still in its mythology referred to as a mountain. This must be why Abraham choose the site for his own king making ritual – the man who was said to have erected a holy shrine over another important navel of the earth. His veneration for the priest-king of Jerusalem, is now understandable, he knew he fulfilled the same cosmic model of kingship as his own race.

Jacob’s World Pillar site at Bethel pales in significance, in comparison with Jerusalem the World Mountain. The reason David didn’t choose Bethel as the site of his new capital, may be because it was never recognized as a major Earth-Underworld-Heaven spot. In the Book of Jubilees an angel visits Jacob and tells him, Bethel was not the chosen place. Perhaps all along the remnant of the semi-divine race that produced David, knew that Jerusalem was thepre-eminent site – that up onto that point had been in the hands of others. This is what drove him to take it.

 I will defer to a later chapter, presenting the evidence for defining Jerusalem as a World Mountain. I next want to highlight, this remark of David’s, in one of his Psalms:

‘And they remembered that God was their rock

                  and the high God (El Elyon) their redeemer.’ 78:35

Most people interpret the ‘rock’ as referring to God as a solid support, in other words a rock to lean on. But this God who acts as a support to them, is not the one to lead them on the road to salvation, this is the role of the El Elyon a higher God; like the Mesopotamian Anu. This is a very strange verse, considering the Israelites worshipped only one God, for it clearly indicates two deities: a God and a higher one.

 But supposing one interpreted the ’rock’ as the World Mountain, that when embodied in the being of the king, is as a god, a support for his people as a divine link between this world, the Underworld and Heaven. This again has echoes of the Mesopotamian model – the king is godlike, when he takes on that divine role. The verse makes it clear, this divine conduit should not be confused with the true God, the one all worship is directed to, El Elyonthe Most High God, whose dictates – coming down from the cosmic link – will be their road to salvation.

El Elyon is the God of Melchizedek, and it is clear from Psalms 110:2-7, that the model of kingship David is set to fulfill, is the one embodied by that long-ago king.

‘The Lord shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion(Jerusalem). . .

The Lord has sworn and will not repent,

Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek’

He shall strike through kings in the day of his wrath. . .

He shall wound the heads of many countries’

He then, is not only a king, he is also a priest, the same as Melchizedek; and it is from this role that the power and security of his new kingdom will be established, exultant over others. This is the potent reason behind his determination to establish his kingship from Jerusalem, he understood its mystical importance, and wanted to align and enhance his reign with it

This kingship has nothing to do with Deuteronomy, the book of Mosiac religious observances. ‘. . . (In) the coming of monarchy (David’s) and the Canaanite palace-temple of Jerusalem, the language of kingship became popular. But this was the resurgence of an old language, not the introduction of a novel, pagan language. The elements making up Israel derived from Canaanite and Amorite stock, spoke a South Canaanite dialect, and preserved North Mesopotamian traditions and Canaanite traditions rooted in the second millennium BC.’50

This underlying reality is so often obscured in the Old Testament, by the Jewish exile colony in Babylon, reshaping it into their own vision of a resurrected Judah. Leaving their imprint on the works of the prophets Isiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, the final form of the history of Israel found in Deuteronomy to 2 Kings. It also included name changes, ‘Baaliah, one of David’s heroes. . . whose name was composed of the noun ba’al ‘lord’ and yah. . . meaning ‘Yahweh’ is lord’. . . was changed to Bealiah. The reason for changing the first vowel was that the noun ba’al was also widely used as the name of the Canaanite god Baal. . . This same reasoning was behind the name changes of Eshbaal. . .’the man of Baal’. . . to Ishbosheth ’the man of shame’. . . Meribaal. . . ‘hero of Baal’ to Meribbaal ‘the Lord contends’. . . The name changes in Samuel were clearly editorial revisions which were historically inconsistent. Though biblical and religiously motivated. . .’ 51 In such small ways is a true history lost. When the exiles returned to Jerusalem and sought to implement their attitudes and views – in conjunction with rebuilding the Temple – they found themselves totally at odds, with the beliefs and practice of the local population.

Before considering Jerusalem, the World Mountain, the narrative first needs to go to Phoenician Tyre and the temple of Melqart.

21

Melqart and the Phoenician World Mountain

David possessed plans to build a temple in Jerusalem, which included the design of the furnishings and articles to be used there, the gold show bread tables, golden tapestries, gold plated almogin trees, which may have been made with coral. He also detailed the nature of the temple music and its rituals. He accumulated gold bullion, for the temple was to be coated inside and out with gold, silver, brass, iron, precious gems, pearls, wood and stone; for its eventual construction.

But according to the Bible he was unable to build it himself, because of the moral blemish of being a man of blood, a warrior who had taken lives. The task fell upon his son Solomon noted for his wisdom, although one could doubt this: in the Bible, he is said to have sacrificed children to the god Moloch, on one of the high places outside Jerusalem.

I very much doubt the real reason had anything to do with morality, but with economics, it cost an unseemly fortune to erect the temple. To pay the builders, Solomon transferred ownership of twenty cities in Galilee, but this was still not enough to cover the whole debt. To construct the temple, he used forced labour: ten thousand manual workers, eighty thousand quarry workers and three thousand six hundred overseers. Later one of the leaders of a forced labour gang, led a rebellion, that eventually split Israel again, into two separate kingdoms.

When Solomon decided to build the temple, because his own people lacked the necessary masonry skills, he was obliged to call upon the skilled workers in stone, belonging to the Phoenician King Hiram of Tyre. This is what his father had done, when he desired to have a palace constructed at Jerusalem.

Scholars have remarked upon the similarities of design and ornamentation, between the already existing temple of Melqart at Tyre, and the temple at Jerusalem, created by Phoenician masons. But there are also similarities in the mythology, and form of kingship, attached to both temples. This implies common religious beliefs, which is supported by Canaan and Phoenicia having a similar history, religion, names and written language. And the Phoenicians, just like Abraham and his people, have their origins in the semi-divine race. Was the plan for the temple David had in his possession, from a common ancient source, perhaps the design of the ‘house’ Abraham or Jacob would have built, if they had, had the necessary resources?

But to return to the Phoenicians of Tyre. They were renowned for their skills in masonry, extending their harbour far out into the Mediterranean Sea. Their stone buildings, constructed of giant blocks fitted together without mortar, is Pelasgian in nature.

Philo of Byblos c64-141 AD, wrote a history of the Phoenicians, claiming his source was an earlier work by the Phoenician Sanchuniathon, composed in his own language; which Philo translated into Greek. Sanchuniathon’s source for his work, according to the Neoplatonic philosopher Porphry c234-c305 AD, was obtained from a priest of the god Ieuõ or Taautos, who is identified with the ancient Egyptian god of wisdom, Thoth.

In his history, Sanchuniathon begins with a list of pairs, some mortal men – which may represent generations – who each are responsible for discoveries or inventions, that advance the civilizing of the race. Prominent among them are the twin brothers Hupsouranios or Hysauranios, also called Ousoos and Usoos. Next is outlined a completely different genealogy, which includes Elioun meaning ‘the Most High’, who is also identified with El Elyon, and Ouranos and Ge which are the equivalent of the Greek progenitors of the Titans; Uranus sky/heaven and Gaia earth. The Phoenician pair, like the Greek, are trapped in a toxic marriage, like Uranus, Ouranos tries to destroy his own children:  Kronos (Cronus), Atlas and Baitu meaning ‘house of god’. Eventually Kronos (just like Cronus), overthrew his ruling father and reigned in his stead. It is from this Phoenician version of the Titan lineage, that Melqart and the Cabiri are born, called in Sanchuniathon’s account Kabeiroi, Korybantes or Samothracians. Phoenician sailors venerated the twin Cabiri.

Melqart (sometimes inaccurately spelt as Melkart) is derived from milk-qart meaning ‘king of the city’. The mythology of Melqart is tied up with the story of Usoos (or Usous). Usoos had a twin brother Osoos, the other form of his brother’s name Hysuranios, means ‘high heaven’, he was also known as Samenroumous ‘exalted by heaven’. The brothers, pursuing different modes of living, have no love for each other, they quarrel and part.

Osoos invented huts made of reeds and rushes, then houses of bricks and created urban centres. He also invented papyrus, which indicates the civilizing art of writing. In contrast Usoos is a hunter, who taught men to honour their dead, by erecting stelae – wooden or stone slabs broader than they are long – the origin of tombstones, over them. Usoos, offered libations of animal blood before the stelae he erected, and founded a cult of the dead.

 Usoos, was the first man to cross the ocean, when the natural world was in calamitous disorder – the elements of fire and water, unable to maintain their proper limits. He erected two rods or pillars, to act as a gate for the sun, creating a path for it to run a stable course; and by this regulation, stilled the unruly elements and created order in the world.

It is highly likely, this mythology is related to the rites of the Cabiri and their twin gods, and a memory of a time, when the world was turned upside down in the Flood. Here is the unhealthy scar tissue, covering the wound of that painful race memory, and by necessity heroes are created; who ensure such mayhem will never happen again.

The tale of Usoos and Osoos is said to be a Phoenician version of the Hebrew one of Esau and Jacob, or it might be the other way around. Esau is also a hunter, and Jacob a dweller in tents who climbs a heavenly ladder and is blessed by God, which relates to the name Hysuranios or Samenroumous meaning ‘high heaven’ or ‘exalted in heaven’. There is also the Hebrew account of the conflict between Cain and Abel, ending when Cain murdered Abel. Brothers or twins, sometimes in enmity with each other, are found in many mythologies, and I believe reflect the ancient understanding of the earthly and heavenly twinship of the first humanity: the Greek Castor and Pollux, Pollux mirroring Hysuranios was the divine brother born of Zeus and Castor the mortal son of Tyndareus king of Sparta. The Italian Romulus and Remus ended in conflict with each other when they founded the city of Rome, in the end Remus was killed, either by Romulus or his supporters. The Anglo-Saxon warriors Hengist and Horsa, stemming from the divine twins of the Indo-European religion.

       Melqart, mirroring Usoos, also sets out across the ocean, in some accounts on the back of a hippocamp which is a seamonster, or a dolphin, or a team of walking-on-water stags which are depicted on a Tyrean coin in the British Museum. The coin also shows Melqart being guided in heaven, by the five-pointed Morning Star.

Melqart, like Usoos, sets up pillars as a gate for the sun, so that it may follow an orderly path. He then continues over the ocean, far into the west, in search of a floating, wandering island also called the ambrosial rocks. Ambrosial denotes the food and the drink of the gods, that confers immortality. Sometimes the rocks are depicted, with two stelae upon them. Also, upon this island grows a burning olive tree of immortality, around which a snake is entwined, while an eagle – which is identified with the phoenix – is perched in its fiery branches. The olive tree, as I previously related, is identified with the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden.

Melqart is a sun hero, embodying the powers of a right working sun. His searching for a fount of immortality on the floating island, in the west, the place associated with darkness, the cold sun of midnight, and death; is really about him embodying solar rejuvenating powers of rebirth, resurrection. This role was celebrated in the Melqart Temple, in the annual spring ritual of renewal, called ‘The Awakening’. In the innermost sacred sanctuary, an image of Melqart was consumed by flames, and then ritually resurrected – the reigning king playing the role of the reborn sun hero.

This Phoenician floating island, has a remarkable number of similarities with the mythology attached to the small Greek island of Delos, at the centre of a large group of islands, called the Cyclades.

Delos was also called a floating island and the only refuge the Titan Leto, made pregnant by omnipresent, omnipotent Zeus, could find; as she fled from the wrath of his wife Hera. Two Hyperborean maidens accompanied her to the island, and she eventually gave birth to Apollo and his sister, while supporting herself on an olive or palm tree. The palm tree is also identified with the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden.

The maidens eventually died on the island, and it is where they were buried, and tombs erected in their honour.  Two other Hyperborean maidens visited the island, making the long journey from the north with male protectors, but they also died there (clearly not the best place for northern constitutions), and upon their grave an olive tree was said to grow.

The olive is also said to have originated in Hyperborea, and had been brought to Greece by Hercules, to be worn by the winner of the Olympian games. Hyporborea, was the land preferred by Apollo, once Zeus commanded him to ride his swan drawn chariot to Delphi, but disobeying, Apollo ordered them to fly to Hyperborea. If it was the northern land he went to, rather than the celestial location, it may have been to visit the great round temple dedicated to him there.

In both the Phoenician and Greek accounts, there is then an olive tree, symbolic of immortality, growing in a place that commemorates the dead, and related to solar powers of rebirth and resurrection, in a god and king. These are the hallmarks of a navel site with a World Tree of immortality connecting the Underworld, doubtless commemorated by the stelae on the ambrosial rocks, and the Hyperborean tombs which carry the symbolism of gateways to eternal life, between the Earth and the Heaven.

Delos itself was recognized as a navel site, its omphalos stone has a snake entwined around it, emerging from foliage decorating its base. The ambrosial rocks of Phoenician mythology are clearly similar to the Semitic World Mountain on which the garden of Eden is located.

The Greek epic poet Nonnus of Panopolis lived fourth to fifth centuries AD, relates how, under the direction of Hercules (who throughout the Mediterranean was identified with Melqart), the first boat ever built was launched, sailing to the floating ambrosial rocks and its flaming olive tree. Going ashore, the party sacrificed the eagle-phoenix, where upon the island became fixed to the spot, and on its two rocks or hills, the city of Tyre and the temple of Melqart was built.

 In Tyre the mystical olive tree was venerated, the Greek writer Achilles Tatius fl. second century BC, writes: ‘. . . the olive and the fire live together. A sacred spot enclosed by a wall sends forth an olive tree with bright branches. A natural fire plays round the boughs with much flame and its smoke (ash?) makes the tree thrive.’ 52

The myth of the temple of Melqart being built on a navel site, is obvious in the writings of the Hebrew prophet Ezekiel, who refers to the site as a World Mountain; it will be remembered Jerusalem was called such, even though it also is set on a hill.  According to the Old Testament scholar and professor of divinity Willian Robertson Smith: ‘. . . the prophet describes the fall of Melqart, the god ‘full of wisdom and perfect in beauty’. The king of Tyre was ‘in Eden the garden of God. His covering was of precious stones and his place was in the ‘holy mountain of God’ where he walked between the fiery stones. Now those fiery stones are plainly the luminous pillars of Melqart and the holy mountain the rock on which the temple and the whole is pictured as Eden, the garden of God, and the king as its Cherub.’ 53

The pillars of Melqart, referred to, stood at the entrance to the temple. Melqart was said to have erected them there, upon returning from the floating island, mimicking the gate of the sun. Herodotus visited the temple, and said one was made of gold, and the other of emerald, which was dedicated to Melqart’s consort the goddess Astarte – whom the Phoenicians equated with Aphrodite or Venus. Gold is a solar metal, and the green most probably reflects Astarte’s connection to Aphrodite or Venus, for as I have mentioned green was the love goddess’s sacred colour.

The narrative has already encountered Astarte as Ishtar, associated with the Mesopotamian Tree of Life, and it will shortly encounter her again in relation to Solomon’s Temple. There were also two pillars standing at the entrance to the temple of Solomon, named Boaz and Jachim, also embodying male and female energies. Boaz means ‘strength’ the male principle, and Jachim means ‘established’ the female formative principle. It will be remembered, there were two great pillars outside the entrance to the temple on Samothrace.

The decorative trees and vegetation adorning both the Melqart and Jerusalem temples, relates to them both representing the Garden of Eden – for the Jerusalem temple as I previously maintained, was also founded on a World Mountain, where the Garden of Eden was thought to be located.

Time for the narrative to return to Jerusalem, presenting the evidence for this assertion.