Tavor (Mount Tabor)

תבור


Now known as Jebel-et-Tur, it stands in the Yizri-El (Jezreel) Valley (עֵמֶק יִזרְעֶאל), usually called Esdraelon in English translations, about seven miles east of Nazareth, and provided a key point on the border between 
Yisaschar and Zevulun (cf Joshua 19:22).

Judges 4 tells the story of Devorah and Barak's defeat of Siys-Ra (סִיסְרָא - Sisera), who led the army of Yavin (יָבִין - Jabin), the king of Chatsor (Hazor) - though the text actually calls him the "king of Kena'an", and the existence of such a national king is one of the details that suggests that the Book of Judges belongs to a period of history concurrent with the patriarchs, or even previous to them, rather than several hundred years later, as the order of the Tanach prefers. Joshua 19:12 mentions a town named Ha Devarat (הַדָּֽבְרַ֖ת) on the slopes of Mount Tavor (today's Deburich), which was probably the shrine or oracle of the bee-goddess Devorah, and therefore the likely starting point for Barak's descent from the mountain to rout Siys-Ra; we should read the tale as being Barak visiting the oracle of Devorah, to obtain her "assent" and support, and then going out to battle, rather than the Joan of Arc legend of a woman leading the army.

Mount Tavor's significance as a "holy" mountain is affirmed in Jeremiah 46:18; I have placed the word "holy" in quotation marks because, if it was a shrine to the bee-goddess, then it would have been denegrated as heathen by the later prophets, as indeed it was in Hosea 5. And it would also be the likely site of Alon Bachot, the tumulus below the weeping oak where Rivka's "wet-nurse" Devorah was buried in Genesis 35:8; we have absolutely no evidence to suggest that it was here, but I am intrigued to see that Easton's Bible Dictionary makes the supposition in its entry for Mount Tabor (Easton also rejects Tavor as the site of the Transfiguration - see below).

Judges 8 tells how Gid'on (Gideon) captured the kings of Midyan, Zevach (זֶבַח) and Tsalmun'a (וְצַלְמֻנָּע) who had murdered his brothers.


Mount Tavor's other significant appearance is in Mark 9, retold in 
Matthew 17:1, a somewhat unlikely tale known as the "Transfiguration", which is echoed in a similar incident in Muhammad's life, the Lailat al Miraj, spoken of in Sura 17.




Copyright © 2019 David Prashker
All rights reserved
The Argaman Press


Egyptian mythology

AB: The grain god. The name probably means "father", exactly the same as the Yehudit Av (אב).

AMENTI: The goddess of the underworld and of fertility.

AMUN: sometimes written in English as Amon, the Egyptian god of wind, fertility, and "secrets" - the hidden life-powers within Nature. Like Greek Ouranos, he had thousands of children, including Bast, Neith, Hapi, and Khons. Amun is often shown with the large, curving horns of a ram that is unique to the Nile Valley; also as the Sphinx. He is sometimes referred to as Amun-Ra, a combination of Amun and Ra (this was normal in the ancient world, as cults developed: so we see Apollo and Dionysus merge in the Greek world, and names like Eli-Yahu in that of the Beney Yisra-El). The name probably means "The Invisible One".

AN-HUR: The god of the power of the sun. He was depicted as a warrior wearing a headdress with four tall, straight plumes. He represents the elements of air and fire.

ANUBIS: Primarily the god of embalming and of cemeteries, and as such, obviously, connected with the dead and the underworld and the Afterlife. However, the Jackal does not generally come in the colour black, and his coat not only symbolises the discolouration of the body after death, but also the fertility of the Nile, as the rich silt that floods the banks every year is also black in colour. Therefore, he is not only a symbol of death, but a symbol of rebirth, of the cycles of life, of Karma. Some scholars identify Set with Anubis, but others say no, Anubis merely inhabited Set's kingdom.

APEP: The serpent in Egyptian lore that tries to destroy the sun every day; an element of the moon goddess in their eternal spousal battle, equivalent to Shimshon (Samson) and Delilah, Adam and Lilit.

ATCHET: The Egyptian goddess who nurses children.

ATEN: In Egyptian lore, the disk of the sun. A unique cult arose around ATEN for a very brief period under Pharaoh Amenhotep IV, also known as Akhenaten because of the cult; he was the father of Tutankhamun (pictured at the top of the page), and is generally regarded as an early precursor of monotheism. Aten should not be counted in the regular pantheon of the Egyptian gods, but rather as a passing anomaly; nonetheless, his central shrine was at On, called Heliopolis by the Greeks, where the Pharaoh had his palace and Yoseph (Joseph) served as Vizier and High Priest. 

ATUM: As ATEN he appears in the form of a disc, and is unquestionably an abstract, metaphorical deity. But this is not the case with his earlier incarnation as ATUM. In some creation myths he is the creator of the universe, and is astrologically related to the Leo sign of the zodiac. Atum fathered the twins Shu and Tefnut, who married and fathered the twins Geb and Nut, who married and fathered the twins Osher (Osiris) and Eshet (Isis), Set and Nephthys; the eternal recurrence of incest and of twins - cf the equivalet tales in the Tanach! Given Atum's role in Creation, is he a variant of Adam?

AT-HOR: The Egyptian goddess of light. One of the daughters of Ra.



BASTET: cats were sacred to her.

BES: A dwarf-god. In contrast to the other Egyptian deities, who were usually depicted in profile, Bes was depicted full face. He was originally the protective deity of the royal house of Egypt, but came to be a popular household deity throughout Egypt. He was believed to guard against evil spirits, protect children, kill snakes, and ward off misfortune. He assisted Tawert in childbirth, and was associated with fertility and human pleasures.

BUTO: The main Egyptian Delta goddess, commonly associated with serpents and snakes, especially the cobra. She would protect those she favoured by spitting poison in their face, or burning them with her glare. She is the Queen of the goddesses, and a symbol of the Pharaoh's reign over the land.

CHONS: The god of the moon. The best-known story about him tells of him playing the ancient game Senet ("passage") against Thoth, and wagering a portion of his light. Thoth won, and because of losing some of his light, Chons cannot show his whole glory for the entire month, but must wax and wane.

DUAMUTEF: One of the sons of Hor (Horus), he protected the stomach of the deceased.

EMUTET: The cobra-headed goddess of the harvest and agriculture.

GEB: The god of the earth, symbolising the element of fire. Known as "The Green Man" (is this the same Green Man that you can find at the entrance to every Christian church? - click here - and is that the same Green Man who lies at the heart of the fables of Robin Hood - click here), and always depicted as such, with a goose on his head, often shown lying down beneath the feet of Shu with his phallus pointing straight up. He was said to imprison the souls of the dead, disallowing them to move on to the afterlife. His laughter caused the earth to shake. Many shrines in Kena'an (Canaan) bore his name, including important ones like Giv-On and Giv'ah; these were probably the result, early on, of Egyptian conquest and colonisation; later, in Solomonic times, of political marriage; then, after Shelomoh, of further conquests - as with Set, there is much evidence that post-Mosaic Yehudism still included much that was Egyptian. (Other scholars identify Geb as female, which may be because the ancient barrow-tombs, dug into man-made tumuli but bearing Geb's name, were beehive-shaped - see my notes to Devorah and to ALON BACHOT).

GENGENVER: The Egyptian fowl god, depicted in the form of the goose who laid the Cosmic Egg.

HAPI: The deification of the blessed river Nile, and especially its annual floods. Eventually she came to be thought of as the creator of everything, presumably because, for the Egyptians, without the waters of Hapi, all life would perish.

HAT-HOR: "The Beautiful Face In The Boat For Thousands Of Years". The Egyptian goddess of joy and love and beauty and happiness; she also represented the element of Air and was identified with the moon, specifically the horns of the moon which are the waxing and waning crescents, and through that image with the cow. She was depicted as a cow; but very much the wild marsh-cow, not the tame farm-cow. Her belly was the firmament, her legs the pillars of the four quarters of the world. Hor flies into her mouth at night, and re-emerges in the dawn, thus making Hor the bull of his mother, i.e. her son and father. Hat-Hor means "House of Hor" (as Pharaoh means "the great house", a screening name for the real divinity); she served as his wife and mother, he as her son and husband. As father he was Osher (Osiris) in his dead Pharaoh aspect, as Hor the living Pharaoh. In the Rg Veda (c1500 BCE) Aditi, the mother of the gods, was depicted as a cow; she gave birth to the sun-god Mitra and to the Lord of Truth and Universal Order Varuna; also to Indra the king of the gods, who is depicted as a bull. Later Shiva was identified as a bull, Vishnu as a lion. Shiva's animal was the white bull (Nandi?). Le'ah also = "cow", and Phoenician Io was a cow too. In the British Museum there is a coffin showing Osher as a galloping bull with crescent horns taking the dead to the underworld. By the time of the pyramids the lunar bull was replaced by a solar lion and the accompanying myths likewise altered.

HIQAIT: the frog-headed midwife who was present at the birth of the world.

HOR (Horus): "The Mighty One of Transformations". The son of Eshet (Isis) and Osher (Osiris), he was the god with the all-seeing eye (compare his eye in this illustration with the Eye of Ra in the cat portrait above). To understand the cycles of Hor's life, you should know his manifestations. The father of the gods; the falcon was sacred to him. To the Greeks Hor was Harpocrates; Eshet hid the child Hor from the sun-god Set, who had ass' ears like King Minos of Crete.

IMHOTEP: The god of healing who was raised from mortality to god status.

IMESETI: The god who protected the liver of the dead.

ESHET (like Osiris and Horus, Isis was her name among the Greeks; the Egyptians knew her as Eshet = "mother", similar to the Yehudit ISHAH = "woman", but also "wife"): mother goddess of the day and of moisture. It was Eshet who retrieved and reassembled the body of Osher after his murder and dismemberment by Set. Because of this she took on the role of a goddess of the dead and of funeral rites. She impregnated herself from the corpse and gave birth to Hor in secret, hiding the child from Set in the papyrus swamps. Hor later defeated Set and became the first ruler of a united Egypt. Eshet, as the mother of Hor, was revered as the mother and protectress of the Pharaohs. The relationship between Hor and Eshet may have been an influence on the Christian relationship between Jesus and Mary. Icons of Eshet holding the infant Hor as he suckled are quite remininscent of such images of Jesus in Mary's arms. Statues of Eshet and Hor were gradually disallowed by the Christian churches.
"Oh Isis, Great Goddess, Mother of God, and Creator of Life You reign over Philae and all other lands. Oh Mighty Goddess, Queen of Philae You rule over the celestial bodies And give the stars their place."
                                                                                                              A Hymn to Isis

KHEPERA: "The Self-Created". Another god of the sun, his symbol was the scarab beetle. He symbolised the element of Air and was also known as Kherpi.

KHONS: another moon goddess, probably the young crescent.

KHNUM: The god of childbirth. Sometimes shown as a ram-headed human, often at a potter's wheel forming the child in the womb with his clay.

MA'AT: The goddess of truth, justice and the order of the universe. Her symbol was the feather. She sat in the Underworld, judging the souls that passed through. Absolutely no connection whatever with MOT or MAVET, the concept of Death among the Beney Yisra-El.

MARY THE EGYPTIAN: A rather belated figure in Egyptian mythology, representing the abstract ideal of Love.

MASKHONUIT: the goddess of birth and the cradle.

MERTSEGER: the goddess of flowers and death. Usually depicted with the head of a snake.

MESHKENT: The goddess of birth. It is said that she will be present on Judgement Day.

MIN: "The Firm One". Yet another god of fertility, on this occasion specifically connected with the rain, with agriculture, and honoured as the protector of roads and travellers. His epithet suggests that he symbolised sexual prowess as well as fertility.

MONTU: "Nomad". The god of war.

MUT: The original Egyptian mother goddess. The wife of Amun, she had thousands of children, among them Bast, Neith, Hapi, and Chons. She lost importance once Eshet (Isis) became the primary mother goddess. She too symbolises the element air.

NEITH: "Our Lady Of The Sails". The goddess of war and weaving, a symbol of strength, love, the moon and courage. Possibly a variant of the Hittite goddess Anat, wife of Ba'al.

NEPTYHS: The goddess of death and mystery, she is said to have guarded the corpse of Osher along with Eshet. Also called Nebt Het, Nebet Het, Nebthet, or Neb-hut, Nepthys or Nephthys is the Greek version of her name.

NUT: The goddess of the sky, who gives birth to the sun-god Ra each morning.

OSHER (Osiris): Originally the god of the the corn - or really of all vegetation - he became the god of life, death, the after-life and the underworld. Osher ruled the world of men in the beginning, after Ra had abandoned the world to rule the skies, but he was murdered by his brother (in some versions his uncle) Set. Through the magic of Eshet (Isis), he was restored to life. Being the first living thing to die, he subsequently became Lord of the Dead.
Homage to thee, Osiris, Lord of eternity, King of the Gods, whose names are manifold, whose forms are holy, thou being of hidden form in the temples, whose Ka is holy.
                                  "Hymn to Osiris", The Papyrus of Ani, 240 BCE.

PTAH: The creator-god of Moph (Memphis), he made the cosmos and the bodies in which Humankind's souls dwell. Some legends say he created things as Thoth directed him to. It is also said that he created the elder deities. He is shown as a bald man, a scarab beetle, or a hawk. He can be invoked for stability, and served as the god of craftsmanship. The Apis-bull (Hapi-Ankh) was scared to him, the equivalent of Nandi to Shiva. Ptah's consort was the lion-goddess Sekhmet; Shiva's was called Shakti - just one more instance of Jones' "Common Source". The son of Ptah and Sekhmet was the Sphinx-Pharaoh. The priests of Ptah were responsible for Egypt's art and architecture. A Memphis text of the mummy-god Ptah has Creation as "every divine word came into existence by the thought of the heart and the commandment of the tongue", which parallels the Divine Creation through Naming in Genesis, and the Greco-Christian concept of the Logos. In Yehudit lev (לב) = "heart", and was the seat of thought (cf John Donne's "naked, thinking heart", or John of Patmos' "Logos". The idea is that the heart conceives, the tongue realises - and this 2000 years before Genesis! The Greeks identified this mummy-god with Hephaestus - his priests bore the title "master of the master craftsman" (cf Tuval Kayin).

QEBEHSENUF: The god who protected the intestines of the deceased. One of the four sons of Hor.

QETESH: Another of the many Egyptian deities, this one a goddess, associated with love, nature and beauty. She was depicted as a beautiful nude woman, standing or riding upon a lion, holding flowers, a mirror, or snakes. She was generally shown full-face, which is unusual in Egyptian artwork. She can be invoked for matters of the heart, fertility, beauty, and self-esteem.

RA: The Egyptian sun god, comparable with the Christian God, as a supreme deity and creator. He created the eight great gods, and the human race came from his tears. He was usually depicted as a human, with a falcon's or ram's head. The sun was either his eye or his body. He travelled the sky every day, passing over the lands and then going down into the Underworld; his overnight return is told in two of the great Egyptian sagas, the Am Tuat and the Book of the Gates. Because of this legend, he is considered to be the god of the Underworld as well, though generally this role was identified elsewhere. Ra also stopped wars between humans because he was too decent to let them perish. He may be invoked for cat magic. Ra was also known as Re; as the sun-god he crossed the sky by day in a heavenly boat bearing the souls of the dead to Osher in the Underworld (a variant of No'ach's Ark and Helios' Chariot). Between 2450 and 2350 BCE, the sun-god Re appears as the father of Pharaoh, rather than as his son, the role that had previously belonged to Hor. He is sometimes identified with Atum, but is actually different, a fact which may reflect a multitude of different god-lists amongst different Egyptian people, later amalgamated, or merged, and the reason why there are so many gods, and so many repetitions of functions, associations, elements and symbols. The first three Pharaohs all claimed virgin birth (as opposed to being born from "the mouth of Hat-Hor"); in this a masculinisation appears to be taking place, as it did throughout the Middle East: can we date the end of the matriarchy here as well?

RENENUTET: The goddess who took care of children. Also known as Renenet.

RENPET: The goddess of the year, youth, and spring. Portrayed as a woman wearing a palm shoot on her head.

SATI: The goddess of the elephantine; she too was understood to symbolise the element of Fire.

SEBEK: The crocodile god, he assisted in the birth of Hor, according to the Egyptian "Book of the Dead". Also known as Sobek.

SEKER: The god of light and the protector of souls passing to the Underworld. He was usually depicted with the head of a hawk, and wrapped like a mummy.

SEKHMET: The goddess of the sunset, destruction, death and wisdom. Originally created by Ra from his fire to be a creature of vengeance who would punish humans for their wrongdoings, she became a loving goddess of peace and compassion, and a protectress of the righteous. Her symbols were the lion and the desert. She symbolised health, rebirth, fire and wisdom.
O Lady, Mightier than the Gods, Adoration rises unto Thee!
All beings hail Thee! O Lady, Mightier than the Gods!
Preserved beyond Death That Secret Name,
O Being Called Sekhmet.
At the Throne of Silence even,
shall no more be spoken than Encircling One!
I lose myself in Thee!
                                                                   "Hymn to Sekhmet".
SELKET: Scorpion-goddess, and helper of women in labour, often depicted as a beautiful woman with a scorpion on her head. Her scorpions would strike death to the wicked, but she saved the lives of the innocent people who were stung by scorpions. She was also viewed as a helper of women in childbirth.

SET: The god of darkness and evil, best known for murdering his brother, but also revered as a protector of Egypt. Set was one of the earliest Egyptian deities, a god of the night often identified with the northern stars. He was variously hailed as a source of strength, and a protector, especially from the serpent Apep. Within Egyptian theology, there are conflicting opinions regarding Set's strength, and his warlike resolution. At first, pictures of a god with two heads appeared - that of Set, as the god of darkness, and that of his brother Horus, god of light, a pre-Zoroastrianism we might say, or a pre-Gnosticism, reflected in the Dualism of Christianity. At first this was a symbol of harmony, the union of polarities. However, later, it came to be regarded as a symbol of the conflict between dark and light. Set is depicted as being untamed and wild looking with white skin and fiery red hair. He is symbolized by barren wastelands and deserts. Also known as Seth and Seti, he reappears as SHET (Seth), the third son of Adam and Chavah, in Genesis 4:25.

SHAI: The god of destiny and fate. Also known as Shait.

SHU: "The Dry One". The god of the air, he personifies the sun's light rather than the sun itself. He was usually represented in human form, sometimes as a warrior, or else as a lion, or a lion-headed man with a feather.

SOTHIS: The Egyptian feminine name for the dog-star Sirius.

TEF-NUT: Goddess of precipitation and clouds. Her sacred animal is the lion.

TAURET: "The Great One". Yet another goddess of childbirth, once again suggesting that this list is really an amalgamation of many different pantheons. She was depicted as having the head of a hippopotamus, the arms and legs of a lion, the breasts of a woman, the tail of a crocodile, and a great swollen belly like a pregnant woman. Her fierce and strange appearance was supposed to frighten away any spirits that were a threat to the safety of the baby. She is often in the company of Bes, the dwarf god. Pregnant women in Egypt used to wear amulets bearing the goddess' head. Also known as Taweret, Taurt, Apet and Opet.

THOUERIS: The hippopotamus goddess of fertility, women and childbirth, which means she could very well be yet another name for Tauret.

THOTH: The god of wisdom, considered to be a messenger or intermediary between the gods and the god of the Underworld, a Vizier to Osher we might say, thinking of how Yoseph in the Bible story ruled the land of the dead (a pit first, then a prison), but was "restored to life" by Pharaoh. His animal symbols are the ibis and the baboon. He is a god of the moon, and is associated with magic, communication, time, mathematics, scholarship, music, medicine, astronomy, drawing and writing - just like Yoseph! He was also known as Tahuti and Djeheuty, both of which sound like names from further south in the African continent, and add to the conviction of amalgamated deity-lists, perhaps reflecting the difference between Lower and Upper Egypt. Thoth was also held to be the god of the moon, which makes for yet another double. Note that the moon gods to the Egyptians were always male. His shrine was at Khmunu, "the city of the Eight {principal deities]", known by the Greeks as Hermopolis, because they identified him with Hermes.

UPUAT: "He Who Opens the Way", the jackal or wolf-headed god of the dead.



Birds of Prey:



The hawk or falcon (solar falcon) was Hor's sacred bird. The hawk in Yehudit is the Ayah (אַיָה).

The kite was sacred to Boreas of the north wind; his Thracian sons Calais and Zetes wore kite-feathers in his honour. Kite in Cymry (Welsh) is "Barcut" and in Pharsi (Persian) "Barqut". Persian Mithras' birthday was at the winter solstice (which is in fact December 21st and not 25th; but remember that the calendar shifted 4 days after the reforms in the mid 14th century). The Roman soldiers brought Mithras back with them from their eastern wars, and identified his birth with Sol Invictus (though Zeus also shares that birthdate) - the establishment of Christ's birthday on the same day is not therefore coincidental. Mithras was worshipped as a bull.

The griffon-vulture was sacred to Osher. Deuteronomy 32:11 identifies YHVH with the same bird (כְּנֶשֶׁר יָעִיר קִנּוֹ עַל גּוֹזָלָיו יְרַחֵף). The Leviticus 11 list of unclean animals is intended to denote those which are tabu because sacred to a particular god or goddess, which is not the same as unhygienic.

Sir Galahad was probably Sir Gwalchaved = "hawk of summer", as opposed to Gwalchmai = "hawk of May", or Gwalchgwyn = "white hawk", who became Sir Gawain - a fact I mention only because Gawain is associated with the "Green Knight", who is yet one more mythological variation of the Green Man noted above.




Copyright © 2020 David Prashker
All rights reserved
The Argaman Press


The Flood

Matsya - the fish avatar of Vishnu in the Indian Flood myth
Flood evidence has been excavated at Shuruppak and Uruk in the Jemdet Nasr period circa 3000 BCE; at Ur in the Ubaid (sometimes written as Obeid) period 500 years earlier; at Kish circa 2700. All of these were local floods, connected with the annual cycles of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and not universal, though the myths that evolved out of them are all universal.

The earliest known flood text was found at Nippur in 1895 and is known by the elegantly poetic name "Incantation 10673". Dated 1750 BCE, it finds the gods discussing the corrupt state of Humankind, with Enlil threatening a deluge to sweep them away. Enki plans to rescue Humankind. The cities to be destroyed are five (like the number in the Av-Rahamic version in Genesis 18:20-19:38), in this case Eridu, Larak, Bad Tibira, Sippar and Shuruppak, which just happen to have been the five royal cities of Sumer, each with its own patron god or goddess.

The Biblical account coalesces two separate versions, one a J (YHVH) legend from (probably) the 9th century BCE, the other a P (Priestly) legend from (probably) the 5th century BCE (both very late texts!). In the J, No'ach is told to take two of everything; in P seven of every clean and two of every unclean animal. In J the flood lasts 40 days, in P 120 days. In one, the bursting of the Raki'a (the firmament of the heavens - cf Genesis 1:6) causes constant rain, regardless of the swelling of the rivers; in the other the flood comes explicitly from the rivers.

In the "Incantation" text one good man is to be saved, King Zisudra of Shuruppak. His ark story exactly mirrors No'ach (see Campbell, "The Masks of God", Vol 2, p125), and parallels the (probably earlier) Akkadian tale of 
Atrahasis (or Atram-Hasis).





Another almost-identical Indian Flood legend has Manu for No'ach, and a fish who is really the god Vishnu who is not only responsible for the flood, but a very early prototype of both Jonah's whale and Melville's "Moby-Dick".

Greek and Akkadian legends are also worth comparing (see further down this page, after the illustration of the Latin Noah's Ark, for a fuller account). The Akkadian, also current among Hurrians and Hittites, was that of Gilgamesh and Utnapishtim. Along with this myth there seem to be historical memories of the great flood of 3200 BCE, noted by Sir Leonard Woolley; and also elements of the vintage autumnal New Year feasts of Babylonia, Assyria and Canaan, where the ark was a crescent-shaped moon-ship containing sacrificial animals. The feasts took place at the New Moon nearest the autumn equinox with libations of new wine to encourage the winter rains: whence the moveable feast of Rosh Ha Shana.

A Midrash informs us that Ya'akov (Jacob) spent fourteen years in the ancient Semitic centres of learning, the schools of Shem and Ever (see also Shemever) which are believed to have been in Zefat (Safed) in upper Galilee; there he received the ancient traditions which record the primaeval tales of the Tanach, amongst them this flood legend. The Midrash also tells us that No'ach spent the years building his ark as a preacher of repentance, like John the Baptist later; this echoes the Babylonian version in which Utnapishtim (which possibly means "superlatively clever one") does the same.

In the Babylonian version the flood lasts six days and nights (reflecting the first version of Creation in Genesis 1); Utnapishtim sends out a dove on the seventh day (thus identifying it with a god), which comes back the same day, and immediately he sends out a raven which does not come back. They leave the ship that same day, making the whole story last just one week. This version was written down, albeit in cuneiform, by the time of Av-Raham. Most Biblical scholars reckon the Bible version post-dates Moshe, in written form anyway (there was no writing in Yisra-El before David's time; a statement which would make the Mosaic writing of the law impossible).

The Greek myth of 
Deucalion and Pyrrha is told by Robert Graves on pages 117/8 of his "Greek Myths"; and was probably imported to Greece from Kena'an.

Besides the No'ach story in Genesis 6:9-9:29, Ararat is also referred to in identical verses in 2 Kings 19:37 and Isaiah 37:38 (I mention the identicality because these parallels are vital clues to who wrote the various texts, and when), and is regarded as being the land of Urartu, on Lake Van; the mountain is actually named Judi, which sounds like it might be an early form of Yehudah/Judah, though the Turks pronounce it Chudi, which rather undermines that nice idea. If you want to follow up on Ararat and Urartu and Judi et cetera, check the Qur'an first, and follow some of the Moslem links, which look at the Flood from a very different perspective than either the Jewish or the Christian.

Besides the ones mentioned above, Flood stories are known from... well, actually, almost everywhere, and I am not going to list them, because Mark Isaak has already done it; just click here and be astonished!

The theme is always a) Mankind offends the gods; b) punishment by universal flood; c) one man chosen to survive and repopulate.




The Babylonian and Biblical Floods, in more detail


The first account of the Babylonian flood was written by Berossus, a priest of Marduk or Bel (a variant of Ba'al; cf Jeremiah 51:44 et al; also Bel-Marduk appears in scripture as a single name, and as two different deities, e.g. 
Jeremiah 50:2) in Babylon, writing in Greek around 275 BCE; it was dedicated to Antiochus 1 (279-261 BCE) and entitled "Babyloniaca" or "Chaldiaca"; Berossus told in three books the whole history of Babylonia from its origins to its "liberation" by Alexander of Macedon. Berossus' book is mostly lost (what there is is at this link), but the rest is known through quotations in Alexander Polyhistor, Abydenus, Eusebius, Syncellus, Josephus and the Armenian Moses of Khoren.

No'ach's equivalent in that story is Utnapishtim (the Hebrew word NEPHESH = "soul" or "spirit" is connected, and if the root were ever used in the Hitpa'el or reflexive form it would yield LEHITNAPESH - להתנפש and would mean "to restore the soul"). In Babylonian it is taken to mean "I have found Life". The Akkadian version calls him 
Atrahasis (Atram-Hasis - "exceedingly wise") as well, whence Berossus names him Xisuthros, the same in Greek. In fact the original comes from the Sumerian Zi-u-sudra, meaning "life of long days", which most of the characters in the Biblical Toldot also experienced (Genesis 4 and 5). In the Sumerian king list Zi-u-sudra is the last antediluvian king; the son of King Ubar-Tutu he reigned 36,000 years. His capital was at Shuruppak, modern Fara, 95 miles south-east of Baghdad and 40 north-west of Ur.

Gilgamesh (in Sumerian Bilga-mes) appears as the 28th post-diluvian king, ruler of Uruk for 126 years. Uruk is Biblical Erech. Gilgamesh later became deified (an oracular king turned god, 
à la grec), and was credited with building the walls of Uruk and the temple at Nippur ("the holy city"). Some texts say he was a son of the goddess Nin-sun and her husband Lugal-banda, but the king list makes him a son of a Lilu-demon (cf the Hebrew Lilit/Lilith), a sort of incubus just like Merlin. Aelian, in Rome in the 2nd century CE, tells how Seuechoros king of Babylon heard prophesies that his grandson would deprive him of his realm, and kept his daughter confined in the Akropolis so she would not know a man. But a spirit made her pregnant. Her guards hurled the boy to his death, but an eagle saved him, and placed him in an orchard; the gardener brought him up to be Gilgamos. This echoes some of King Sargon's origins and the myth of Etana (not to be confused with Mount Etna) who flew into heaven on an eagle. In the king-list Gilgamesh is the grandson of Seuechoros, who in Sumerian was En-merkar. If nothing else, this demonstrates yet again how similar the myths and cults of the ancient world were, and how easily they translated and were transferred from one cult or tribe or nation to another. Sargon is probably the true name of Nimrod, hence his naming immediately before the No'ach story.

The King list has En-merkar; Lugul-banda (a shepherd); Dumuzi (a fisherman); Gilgamesh. The latter three were all later deified, Lugul-banda as the husband of the goddess Nin-sun; Dumuzi as Tammuz; and Gilgamesh as one of the infernal judges. Dumuzi's origins as a fisherman are immensely significant when we consider the Galilee version of the Jesus story.

Babylonia was the region of what is now southern Iraq, from Baghdad to the Persian Gulf; its capital from the 11th century BCE was Babylon. Southern Babylonia was Sumer, northern Babylonia was Akkad (Akkadia). Southern Akkadians spoke Babylonian, a dialect of Akkadian; northern Akkadians spoke Assryrian, the language of Ashur (Assyria) or Mesopotamia. Akkadian is a Semitic language, linked to Yehudit, Arabic etc. The root of Sumerian is unknown.

In the Sumerian version Enlil, angry with Humankind decides to punish him by means of a flood. Innana wails in protest; Enki decides to save king Zi-u-sudra; speaking through the reed wall of his house (he is the wind) he tells him to build a boat for his family. The flood lasts 7 days and nights; then Utu the sun-god appears and brings back light. Zi-u-sudra prostrates himself before Utu and sacrifices an ox and a sheep. The gods recompense him by immortalising him, making him live in Dilmun - the place where the sun-god rises - probably Bahrein.

The Akkadian version was written (we know from the colophon on the clay tablet of the third section, now in the British Museum) by Ellit-Aya, a junior scribe of King Ammi-saduqa in 1692 BCE, 439 lines (of which only 50 are left), written on the 28th day of the month Shabat (Hebrew Shevet: usual links to Shiva, Lishbo'a, 7 etc). It begins "Inuma ilu awilum - when the man of god" - the title, like Hebrew book titles, taken from the opening words. Note that Ilu = god = El.

The second section of the Epic of Atram-Hasis was written by same scribe in month of Ayyar (Hebrew Iyar) of same year. It states that the text of the second section had 390 lines and whole thing 1245; as we know the third section had 439 lines, the lost Tablet 1 must have had 416 lines. 170 in total are left.

Tablet 1: The gods create the world; the mother-goddess Mami, also called Nin-hursanga (Our Lady of the Mountain) and Nin-tu (Our Lady of Birth) creates Lullu, the first man, to "bear the yoke of the world" (an obvious link to Lilith here). A minor god is slain; his flesh and blood mixed with clay to fashion the first man; Man founds cities and establishes the kingship.

Tablet 2: The world has too many people and is too noisy, upsetting Enlil. He calls an assembly of the gods and decrees famine, drought, other plagues. When these fail he decrees a flood. Some of the gods oppose this since how would the gods fare without human sacrifices? Enki persuades Enlil to let him organise the flood, and secretly tells Atram-hasis, the pious king of Shurupak.

Tablet 3: Enki cannot tell men the secrets of the gods, so he tells the reed wall instead. Enki gives explicit instructions on the building of the ship; Atram-hasis goes aboard with his family and possessions plus various beasts of the field and survives.

The third flood story is in the Epic of Gilgamesh. 12 cantos entitled "He who saw everything", from the opening words. It consists of tales of Gilgamesh and his faithful friend Enkidu (a variation perhaps of the god Enki). Enkidu is killed, Gilgamesh is devastated, and pursues eternal life. He goes to see Utnapishtim, the only known immortal man, in his home beyond the Waters of Death where he has lived since the Flood. Utnapishtim tells his secret by recounting the story of the Flood. There is no mention of why there was a flood, simply Utnapishtim is told by Ea that the flood will hit Shuruppak. The same reed-hut speaking is described. Utnapishtim's ship was 120 cubits per side (200 feet), divided into 7 storeys each with 7 compartments. It was made of bitumen pitch, like No'ach's, and used oil to seal it. There was a door, one window and a rudder; a boatman went with. The whole was a cube, which is perfect, but strange, since it couldn't float (was it really a temple?). The whole structure was 3000 feet (5 stadia) long and 2 stadia (1200 feet) high; the Biblical ark was 300 cubits in length by 50 wide and 30 high = 450 feet by 75 by 45 which is better proportioned for sailing. Utnapishtim took with him silver and gold, cattle and beasts of the field, plus several wild creatures of the field, and craftsmen, as in the Atram-hasis version. The boatman was named Puzur-Amurru. Adad (a variation of Amorite Hadad) the storm god rumbled. Shullat and Hanish - other gods, probably wind-gods - led the onslaught; Irragal wrenched out the bollards; the god of Chaos Ninurta and the fire god Anunnaki joined in, and the boat rose to the Heaven of Anu. Ishtar cried for her lost progeny, exactly as Rachel would for her lost children in a passage of Isaiah (31:15) that clearly alludes to this tale (and which, incidentally, reinforces our identification of Rachel with the moon-goddess). 7 days of flood follow, before the ark comes to rest on Mount Nisir above the Tigris. Utnapishtim waits 7 more days, then sends out birds to reconnoitre: first a dove, then a swallow, finally a raven which did not return. Sacrifices of thanksgiving are made as they disembark. Ishtar tries to prevent En-lil from sharing the sacrifice, at which En-lil is at first angry, but the gods rebuke him. He goes on board the ship, makes Utnapishtim and his wife kneel before him, and bestows immortality and a dwelling place beyond the waters of death. Utnapishtim then tells Gilgamesh of a plant which gives eternal life. Gilgamesh eventually finds it but while bathing in a stream a serpent steals it.

Shittim wood, of which No'ach's ark was made, was probably the (waterproof) wild acacia; the same was used for Osher's (Osiris') ark and the Ark of the Covenant. Wild acacia is a host tree of the loranthus, a form of mistletoe, whose flaming buds are suggested as a possible for the burning bush. Mistletoe is a very significant plant in mythology.




Copyright © 2016 David Prashker
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The Argaman Press

Hadoram

הדורם


Genesis 10:27 names him as a son of Yaktan (יָקְטָן), sixth in line of descent from No'ach, in the family of Shem. His elder siblings were Almodad (אַלְמוֹדָד), Shaleph (שָׁלֶף), Chatsar-Mavet (חֲצַרְמָוֶת) and Yarach (יָרַח), his younger siblings
 Uzal (אוּזָל), Diklah (דִּקְלָה), Oval (עוֹבָל), Avi-Ma'el (אֲבִימָאֵל), Sheva (שְׁבָא), Ophir (אוֹפִר), Chavilah (חֲוִילָה), and Yovav (יוֹבָב). "Their dwelling was from Mesha, as you go toward Sephar, as far as the mountain of the east." Once again thirteen sons, so we can assume one is an error; which one? Yarach is clearly a variation of Yerach = moon; my guess is Chatsar-Mavet, who will turn out to be the god of the underworld. Let's see...

1 Chronicles 1:21 gives the same list, save only that it has Eyval (עֵיבָל) for Oval, which is Mount Ebal.

1 Chronicles 18:10 has a Hadoram who is the son of To'u (
תֹּעוּ), king of Chamat (חֲמָת), sent by his father with presents to King David, to thank him for defeating their shared enemy Chadad-Ezer (הֲדַדְעֶזֶר ) of Tsovah (צוֹבָה)

2 Samuel 8:9/10 tells the same tale, but has Yoram (יוֹרָם) who is the son of To'i (תֹּעִי), king of Chamat. Which is correct? Generally Chronicles is less reliable on matters connected with the southern kingdom, as this is, but it may just be a dialect variation.

2 Chronicles 10:18 has a Hadoram, sent by Rechav-Am (Rehoboam) to impose the king's will on a rebellious people; the people stone him to death, which becomes the pretext for Yerav-Am (Jeroboam) to lead them in civil war and split the kingdom.


1 Kings 12:18 tells the same tale, but has Adoram (אֲדֹרָם) rather than Hadoram.

Gesenius offers some classical texts that refer to Hadoram, suggesting its precise geographical location in Arabia Felix.




Copyright © 2019 David Prashker
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The Argaman Press


Migdal Eder

מגדל עדר


Genesis 35:21 names it as a village near Beit Lechem (Bethlehem), though some scholars claim it was actually an alterative name for Beit Lechem itself, as well as for the House of David, and cite Micah 4:8 in defense of this; I can see nothing in that text to corroborate the claim. The only argument I can think of is that Beit Lechem was not originally a town at all, but a shrine (Beit Lechem Ephratah: the temple of the Corn God of the Euphrates; i.e Tammuz) around which a town grew up; and perhaps the shrine was called Migdal Eder, or even, perhaps, the shrine had a tower, and the tower (Migdal - מגדל - is generally understood to mean a "tower") was called Migdal Eder.

The name is usually taken to mean "Tower of the Flock", which like so many of our English renderings is actually quite meaningless. Migdal (מגדל) in fact comes from the root Magad (מגד) = "nobility, honour, glory" and, as has been pointed out in the notes to Magdi-El (מגדיאל), the link to "tower" is erroneous. A Migdal was simply any royal city of the Beney Kena'an, and having a tower denoted its royalty, because the tower functioned both as a protectie watchtower and the place from which the observations of the heavens could take place; given that the Kena'ani (Canaanite) royal family also served as its priesthood, we can evince the title and duties of this particular local dynasty from its proximity to Beit Lechem. 


Eder (עדר) does indeed mean "a flock", here not in the sense of sheep but in the sense of a congregation of worshippers.

Mary Magdalene in Aramaic was probably Mor-Yah or Mir-Yam of Magdala, the feminine equivalent of Migdal being, in her case, a small village in the north-west corner of the Sea of Galilee, about half a mile from the shore, and the same distance from Genaseret (which is probably where Jesus' family lived, not Nazareth), Kfar Nachum (Capernaum), where he was based at the start of his ministry (Matthew 4:13), and a short walk further to Tabgha, where he fed the five thousand (Mark 6:30-46).

Exodus 14:2 names a MIGDOL in the earliest part of the Mosaic journey across the wilderness: "Speak to the Beney Yisra-El. Tell them to turn back and make camp outside Piy Ha Chiyrot, between Migdol and the sea, before Ba'al Tsephon. Make your camp right up against it, on the sea side." Clearly a very different location from the above.




Copyright © 2019 David Prashker
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The Argaman Press