(28) That day Joshua took Makkedah. He put the city and its king to the sword and totally destroyed everyone in it. He left no survivors. And he did to the king of Makkedah as he had done to the king of Jericho. (29) Then Joshua and all Israel with him moved on from Makkedah to Libnah and attacked it. (30) The Lord also gave that city and its king into Israel’s hand. The city and everyone in it, Joshua put to the sword. He left no survivors there. And he did to its king as he had done to the king of Jericho.” Those passages from Joshua 10:28-30, are only the beginning of the slaughter of the goddess worshipers. The passages then go on to say how Joshua conquered city after city, putting all the men and women to death and deposing 31 kings. Under Moses, in the battle against the Midianites it’s revealed that the Hebrews took in plunder and confiscated wealth, recorded in Numbers: “(32) The plunder remaining from the spoils that the soldiers took was 675,000 sheep, (33) 72,000 cattle, (34) 61,000 donkeys (35) and 32,000 women who had never slept with a man.” – (Numbers 31:32-35) This would have given the Hebrews quite a few new wives and slaves if we assume these numbers correct, which I personally do not. (55) The number 72,000 is most suspicious. Where are the actual records? There are many astrological references in the Old Testament especially. In the desert Jacob met Rachael at a well and became her father’s shepherd, serving seven years to win her dowry. He was tricked by Laban, her father, and given her sister Leah, and in order to win Rachael, had to work seven more. Jacob and Rachael then had twelve sons. (56) Seven of course, being the days in the week, and twelve being the number of “solar” months in a year. The Old Testament, despite the idea of the Hebrews being originally goddess or moon worshipping people, was written for a Middle Greek era audience which was already very paternally biased and moving in the direction of solar deity veneration which was not to be full blown for another 1000 years in the Roman era. Giants / Nephilim / “Fallen Ones” The myth of the “Giants” can be traced back to India as can most myths we read about. The first we hear of giants is in the Ramayana. Notice all the mushroom references, as well as those which pertain to trees: CANTO XX: THE GIANTS’ DEATH. (Ramayana) The hero saw: his anger grew To fury: from his side he drew Fresh sunbright arrows pointed keen, In number, like his foes, fourteen. His bow he grasped, the string he drew, And gazing on the giant crew, As Indra casts the levin, so Shot forth his arrows at the foe. The hurtling arrows, stained with gore, |
Through the fiends' breasts a passage tore, And in the earth lay buried deep As serpents through an ant-hill creep Like trees uptorn by stormy blast The shattered fiends to earth were cast, And there with mangled bodies they, Bathed in their blood and breathless, lay. With fainting heart and furious eye The demon saw her champions die. With drying wounds that scarcely bled Back to her brother's home she fled. Oppressed with pain, with loud lament At Khara's feet the monster bent. There like a plant whence slowly come The trickling drops of oozy gum, With her grim features pale with pain She poured her tears in ceaseless rain, There routed S'úrpanakhá lay, And told her brother all, The issue of the bloody fray, Her giant champions' fall. In the Greek mythology of the “giants,” the gods defeated the Titans and Gaia created the human giants to get revenge against the gods, and Zeus led the gods in the fight against the human giants. Zeus was supposed to have banished the giants to the earth where they would live forever in the volcanoes. (57) The giants were depicted in art approximately five centuries before they were adapted in literature. They first appeared in Etruscan art around the late 6th century BC, and in Greek art during the 4th century BC. (58) They were commonly depicted on vase art from 560-520 BC. (59) One of the first examples comes from the Temple of Athena at Priene in modern day Turkey, which was dedicated by Alexander in 334 BC. (60) Typhon was one of the common anguipedes depicted on Greek vases c. 540 BC (45g), and actually resembles the gorgon Medusa. The first mention of the giants as snake-legged though does not appear in literature until Ovid’s Metamorphosis in the 1st century AD: “when the snake-footed Giants laid each his hundred hands on captive heaven.” (61) (55) When God was a Woman, p. 172 (56) Occidental Mythology, p. 138 (57) Hanfmann, G. 2003. “Giants.” In the Oxford Classical Dictionary (eds. S. Hornblower and A. Spawforth) 616. Oxford (58) Hanfmann, G. 1937. “Studies in Etruscan Bronze Reliefs: The Giantomachy.” The Art Bulletin 19:463-85 (59) Moore, M. 1979. “Lydos and the Gigantomachy.” American Journal of Archaeology 83:79-99 (60) Vian and Moore 1988:207, Cook and Spawforth 2003:1209, Richmond et al. 2003:1247.) (See drawn image, fig. 4 (61) Ovid, Metamorphoses 1.183-4 |