Confronting the Memes Pt 7: Did Jeremiah condemn Christmas trees or are we being anachronistic?

One of the first memes I ever came across (and shared) was in reference to the “Christmas tree” described in Jer 10:2-4. I looked at the referenced verses, read nothing before or after and that was good enough for me. Years later, while studying the entire chapter, I realized that I had perpetuated an “anachronism” on the text and simply stopped sharing such things. Over the last two weeks, however, I ran into multiple Ancient Near Eastern documents describing the very same phenomenon we see in Jer 10:1-15 and using almost the same exact wording – one in a Babylonian epic and the other in a Hittite document. Added to that, I received a request from a facebook friend wondering about a meme she had recently seen on this subject. She wanted to know if she could or could not share it with integrity. So, I took the hint and decided to go ahead and work up this blog post. I get nervous about posting about Christmas too close to Christmas when emotions on both sides of the argument are running too hot for most folks to think straight. As soon as people get invested with posting pro and anti-Christmas memes, this kind of a blogpost can get dangerous and instead of weighing the evidence, insults can start flying.

First of all, let’s look at Jeremiah 10 in context – it is a conversation between YHVH and Jeremiah the prophet. On one hand, we have God denouncing something, and on the other hand we have Jeremiah exalting God over whatever it is that He has been denigrating. But what is God denigrating? Is it an ancient Christmas tree? In fact, do any of the images we have from archaeological finds represent Christmas trees or do they actually depict an entirely separate thematic element? (This is the point in the blog where I make it clear that I do not celebrate Christmas – God gave us feasts, Messiah kept them and I follow Him by doing as He did. Too many traditions associated with Christmas fall into the “hinky” category and I celebrate Messiah’s birth on the Biblical feast of Sukkot, which was the actual day of His birth. As much as I disapprove of Christmas, I abhor any attempt to twist the Scriptures into saying something that they do not say – the ends never justify the means when the means is playing fast and loose with the Word of God – it hurts our witness when the truth does eventually come out).

I am going to remove Jeremiah’s words, and just focus on what God is saying in order to make things clearer but I encourage you to read the entire passage in context:

Hear the word that the LORD speaks to you, O house of Israel. Thus says the LORD:

“Learn not the way of the nations, nor be dismayed at the signs of the heavens because the nations are dismayed at them, for the customs of the peoples are vanity. A tree from the forest is cut down and worked with an axe by the hands of a craftsman. They decorate it with silver and gold; they fasten it with hammer and nails so that it cannot move. Their idols are like scarecrows in a cucumber field, and they cannot speak; they have to be carried, for they cannot walk. Do not be afraid of them, for they cannot do evil, neither is it in them to do good.”

They are both stupid and foolish; the instruction of idols is but wood! Beaten silver is brought from Tarshish, and gold from Uphaz. They are the work of the craftsman and of the hands of the goldsmith; their clothing is violet and purple; they are all the work of skilled men.

Every man is stupid and without knowledge; every goldsmith is put to shame by his idols, for his images are false,
and there is no breath in them. They are worthless, a work of delusion; at the time of their punishment they shall perish.”

The main problem I have with these memes equating these verses with a condemnation of Christmas trees (when nothing of the sort existed during that time period and so there was not yet any reason for such condemnation) is that they conveniently all cut off at verse four – when verse five gives the context as being specifically about the making of idols. When you learn about Ancient Near Eastern idolatry, the subsequent verses about beaten silver and gold, and the fine clothing offer an even more glaring indictment of the comparison to this passage being about decorated trees. And scarecrows are not trees – they are meant to look like men. Can you imagine a crow being scared of a Christmas tree in the field? Or it being necessary to point out that a tree cannot speak, or that it can’t walk? How about the “instruction of idols”? – That refers to the priests going before an idol and asking it questions through divination. No one does that with a Christmas tree. So let me teach you about how to make an worship an idol – lol, I know that sounds bad but everyone in the ancient Near East knew this material that God was making reference to. I am not teaching you so that you will be able to do it, but so that you will get the reference being made.

Let’s add a similar reference from Isaiah 44:9-20, which also explicitly refers to the making of an idol:

All who fashion idols are nothing, and the things they delight in do not profit. Their witnesses neither see nor know, that they may be put to shame. Who fashions a god or casts an idol that is profitable for nothing? Behold, all his companions shall be put to shame, and the craftsmen are only human. Let them all assemble, let them stand forth. They shall be terrified; they shall be put to shame together.

The ironsmith takes a cutting tool and works it over the coals. He fashions it with hammers and works it with his strong arm. He becomes hungry, and his strength fails; he drinks no water and is faint. ¹³The carpenter stretches a line; he marks it out with a pencil.^[a] He shapes it with planes and marks it with a compass. He shapes it into the figure of a man, with the beauty of a man, to dwell in a house.He cuts down cedars, or he chooses a cypress tree or an oak and lets it grow strong among the trees of the forest. He plants a cedar and the rain nourishes it. Then it becomes fuel for a man. He takes a part of it and warms himself; he kindles a fire and bakes bread. Also he makes a god and worships it; he makes it an idol and falls down before it. Half of it he burns in the fire. Over the half he eats meat; he roasts it and is satisfied. Also he warms himself and says, “Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire!” And the rest of it he makes into a god, his idol, and falls down to it and worships it. He prays to it and says, “Deliver me, for you are my god!”

They know not, nor do they discern, for he has shut their eyes, so that they cannot see, and their hearts, so that they cannot understand. No one considers, nor is there knowledge or discernment to say, “Half of it I burned in the fire; I also baked bread on its coals; I roasted meat and have eaten. And shall I make the rest of it an abomination? Shall I fall down before a block of wood?” He feeds on ashes; a deluded heart has led him astray, and he cannot deliver himself or say, “Is there not a lie in my right hand?”

Most people only saw the city idols at a festival, otherwise, they had their own small teraphim at home – small ancestral gods which I will discuss some other time as they are entirely different. The city gods “lived” within their respective temples, called their house, as we see in Isaiah – or rather, their idol did. The idol was not believed to be the god himself, but instead was believed to be sort of a conduit. The essence of the god could enter in to the idol in order to be cared for.

What? A god or goddess that needs TLC? Yes, actually that was the main purpose of the pagan temple. Within the Temple was a house and a human staff to run it. The idol had a bed, was woken, bathed and dressed in the morning, then stood up to be fed through food and drink offerings, was enthroned all day before being undressed and put back to bed at night. The only change to this routine was during festivals where it would be carried through the city, its hand held by the King. We see this same routine in the records of Egypt, Hattiland (Hittites) and Babylon.

Now how was an idol made? We see this in The Babylonian Erra Epic (aka Erra and Ishum) – Tablet 1 contains the following imprints. In context, Erra, the warrior god, is challenging Marduk, the king of the gods, because the idol (image) in his temple had lost its luster. Marduk explains that he left his dwelling when he caused the great flood. Everything in () is my commentary.

(Marduk speaking)

“As to my precious image (aka idol), which has been struck by the deluge that its appearance was sullied
I commanded fire to make my features shine (because it is overlaid with gold) and cleanse my apparel (evidently it wears clothing)

When it had shined my precious image and completed the task
I donned my lordly diadem and returned…. (when his idol looked suitable again, he returned his essence to it)

…I sent those craftsmen down to the depths, I ordered them not to come up
I removed the wood and gemstone and showed no one where…..
Where is the wood, flesh of the gods, suitable for the lord of the universe, (every culture I have come across seemed to believe that only certain kinds of wood were suitable to be the “flesh” of an idol – in this case, the wood is from the “mesu” tree)
The sacred tree, splendid stripling, perfect for lordship,
Whose roots thrust down a hundred leagues through the waters of the vast ocean to the depths of hell,
Whose crown brushed Anu’s heaven on high?
Where is the gemstone that I reserved for {damaged}?
Where is Ninildum, great carpenter of my supreme divinity, (Ninildum is the idol maker)
Wielder of the glittering hatchet, who knows what tool, (although we would think of a hatchet only in the hands of a lumberman, in this case the hatchet is the tool of a crafsman – hatchets are way smaller than axes)
Who makes it shine like the day and puts it at subjection to my feet?
….
Where are the choice stones, created by the vast sea, to ornament my diadem?” (big city gods were crowned with real crowns just as they were dressed with real clothing)

Now, Herodotus claimed that Marduk’s idol was made of solid gold, but like too much of the information he recorded about cultures other than his own, he has been proven wrong through archaeology. His stuff on Greece is great – Egypt and the other ANE cultures, not so much – the guy seemed to pretty much believe everything people told him and he wrote it down. What we know from archaeology is that the large cult statues had a center core of “divine” wood overlaid with hammered precious metals, set with precious stones and dressed in the richest of clothing. As I mentioned before, no one thought that this was actually “the” god, but simply a representation so that the people of the city could care for the god’s basic needs of food, drink and shelter. Although we are accustomed to a God who needs none of that, it was their belief as evidenced in the Atrahasis epic and many epics that without humans the gods would actually starve and the universe would fall into chaos because they wouldn’t be able to do their jobs.

It was in the Akitu barley harvesting festival in the spring (end of Adar/early Nisan) that the idol of Marduk would be carried out of his temple and paraded through the city, with the king holding his hand as the procession made its way through the throng of gathered worshipers. This is the only time that anyone other than the temple staff would see the idol.

We also see this in the Hittite culture. Trevor Bryce writes, ‘In the latter part of the New Kingdom, the statues of the gods set up on bases in the sanctuaries of their temples were life-sized or larger. They were made of precious and semi-precious metals – gold silver, iron, bronze – or else of wood plated with gold, silver, or tin and sometimes decorated with precious materials like lapis lazuli.’ We have actual information on the statuette of the goddess Iyaya, ‘The divine image is a female statuette of wood, seated and veiled, one cubit (in height). Her body is plated with gold, but the body and the throne are plated with tin.’

So now we look back at Jeremiah 10, and we see that everything Jeremiah described was the common practice of the heathens of the day in how they made and treated their graven images. Even without this information, within the context of the entire chapter we see it cannot be about an anachronistic Christmas tree.

“But wait!” you might ask – what about all the cylinder seals and carvings of men worshiping before pine trees? Well, they aren’t pine trees and in fact every single one of these pictures that are used to promote the idea that Christmas trees are ancient are actually depicting the tree of life motif. Every culture had a creation story, about 1% have a flood story, and a great many have tree of life motifs. Life the flood and creations myths of other cultures, the tree of life had also been perverted – the Mesopotamians often portrayed it as being magically fertilized by Genies holding something that looks much like the citrons grown all throughout the region. Yes they are trees that look like pine – but if you were going to carve a tree that is as abundant as possible (as the tree of life would be), it would have fruit from top to bottom and stylistically would have to still leave room for figures depicted all around it. These trees have a great deal of palm tree in their artistic workup. For me, I think it’s kinda funny that they figured a divine tree needed pollination but then, they worshiped gods that needed to be fed and bathed – so par for the course, it’s how their minds worked.

I could pull up a ton of others, notably from the palace of Ashurbannipal, as well as Egyptian examples, there are a great many. There is an interesting feature within google that might be helpful when people post such pictures and attribute them falsely. When you are in Google Chrome, you can actually “right click” on a pic and you will see “search google for this image” which will often lead you to a museum site which will tell you exactly where the image is from and what it depicts. That helps because we like to look at a picture and imagine what it means to us instead of finding out what it actually did mean to ancient peoples.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2001). (Je 10:1–15). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.

Oshima, Takayoshi The Babylonian God Marduk (Chapter 24 of The Babylonian World, Gwendolyn Leick, ed) pp 355-6

The Erra Epic

Bryce, Trevor Life and Society in the Hittite World, p 157

Walton, John H Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament, pp 116-7

Walton, John H et al The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament

Confronting Pseudo-Archaeological Memes Pt 6: Is saying “Amen” Pagan?

If you know me, then you know I do not tread lightly in the area of linguistics. My reason is simple – I am not fluent in any language except English and serious linguistic studies require more than a basic knowledge of a language. I like to joke that I can read Hebrew – but I usually have no idea what I am reading. What I can do is sound out words, and recognize a growing number of them, which does not make me even a novice much less an expert. When I do need to cover this area, I have experts whom I consult – people who can speak the language and who are also knowledgeable about the “rules” and intricacies of the language historically. I refuse to armchair quarterback such an important area of study or to parade my ignorance before you. Beyond my growing ability to use Logos, which does not make me a language scholar, I readily admit that this is most certainly not my area of expertise. Frankly, I just can’t know everything.

Fortunately, answering this question doesn’t require any knowledge whatsoever of ancient Egyptian which is a good thing because no one, and I mean no one who is actually still alive, knows what the language sounded like. Most of the names of Egyptian gods and goddesses in our repertoire are actually Greek. That’s right, the Greeks gave many Egyptian gods and goddesses Greek names–and those are the names, like Osiris, that we are often most familiar with–and they did this long after the Hebrew Scriptures were written with all its “Amens” and “Yahs”. At the time that the Greeks were writing the stories of the ancient Egyptian mythologies (enter Herodotus, who was too quick to tell us what monuments said when almost no one in the world could still read hieroglyphics and has now been proven wrong), they also loved to put their own spin on everything – thus the Grecian naming of deities and cities (in fact we still largely use Greek city names in Egypt to this day). Words that we have popularly believed to be Egyptian are actually Grecian in origin. Pharaoh Thutmose’s real name was actually dhwty-nht – say that three times fast! Oh wait, no vowels, we can’t even say it once!

When Egyptologists unlocked hieroglyphics they found that, like Hebrew and all other languages of the day, there were no vowels. Ancient Egyptian evolved into Demotic (a Greek-influenced form of Egyptian) around 600 BC (only priests in Herodotus’ day could read hieroglyphics) and into Coptic around 200 AD. By the seventeenth century, even Coptic was a dead language – being the African equivalent of Latin and only used for liturgies. Coptic was not the third phase of the language, however, but the sixth. During the times of the Kings of Israel, Egypt had entered into the fourth evolution of its language. Nowadays, Egyptians speak a form of Arabic, as they have for centuries.

Here’s the deal – no vowels – every linguist on the planet and every Egyptologist will tell you that the reconstruction of ancient Egyptian is based on knowledge of consonants only and the vowels are pure guesses. They made certain “executive decisions” about what vowels would go where for sanity sake – there was no choice. For the god known variously as Amen and Amun and Amana, we only have the hieroglyphs for the “m” and “n” sound – which explains the various guesses. If we were to say, therefore, that saying “Amen” is pagan we would also have to throw out words like manna – however, we don’t even have to go that far because “Amen” in Hebrew is aleph mem nun – not simply mem nun. Three consonants, not two as in the hieroglyphic name of the god.

What does this mean? It means that no one can speak ancient Egyptian! Some scholars can read it, but reading and speaking a language are not even remotely the same thing.

Time and time again we see people making claims about ancient languages and pagan words, and much of the confusion can be eliminated with the realization that ancient languages are pretty much all reconstructions and any archaeological linguist or philologist will tell you that if we went back in a time machine to any ancient culture and tried to speak “their” own language to them they wouldn’t understand what we are saying – nor would we understand them. These languages are educated reconstructions meant not to show us how the languages sounded, but which were instead the tools needed to translate documents. To translate a document, one only needs to know what a series of letters meant in context, not how it sounded. Discoveries of artifacts like the Rosetta stone and the Behistun Inscription have unlocked multiple ancient lost languages, allowing us a window into the Ancient Near East, but no one in the field of study (that I have ever come across) thinks that they can actually speak the true original language. No, my favorite TV show Stargate doesn’t count, it’s fiction and Daniel Jackson wouldn’t really have been able to speak with the people of Abydos.

So, the next time anyone tells you that a Biblical Hebrew word is pagan, know that there is no way on earth to prove it and so there is no reason on earth to worry about it. We don’t even know without a doubt how to pronounce ancient Hebrew, let alone other ancient languages. Let’s worry about what we can, in fact, know – context, character, and spiritual application – chasing pronunciations in dead languages is not something that will yield any fruit in our lives save that of confusion. Barring the digging up of a tape recorder of Pharaoh’s conversations with Moses, there is not much chance that we will ever know for sure how ancient Egyptian sounded – and truly, it isn’t very important. It takes more than putting syllables together to call on the name of any god – it takes faith in that god.

Be sure to check out the related posts about the word Lord, Lord and God, Christ, Yahweh, and IHS

Russell D. Rothe, William K. Miller, George Robert Rapp, Pharaonic Inscriptions from the Southern Eastern Desert of Egypt (consulted for the name of Thutmose in transliterated hieroglyph – available online)

Muriel Mirak Weissbach, Unlocking the Civilization of Ancient Egypt: How Champollion Deciphered the Rosetta Stone, Fidellio, Vol 8, No 3, Fall 1999 (great article for a homeschool resource – linked in body of post)

¿Quién fue la Reina del Cielo? ¿Realmente ella pintó huevos en sangre de bebés? Jeremías 7 en Contexto

Gracias a Lisa Velazquez por traducir este articulo. Puede escucharla a traves de Teshuva.tv los Domingos a las 6pm en el programa radial: Caminando en Obediencia.

(En la foto, Ishtar como diosa velada / patrona del amor y la pasión con sus emblemas habituales de leones, así como búhos, que denotan su posición como patrona de las prostitutas)

Ha llegado a mi conocimiento que algunas personas piensan que no soy consciente de que Ishtar es una diosa pagana. Volví a leer mi blog y estoy seriamente luchando en imaginarme el por qué alguien podría pensar que estoy creyendo que ella es real. Este es un estudio del contexto bíblico y estoy enseñando el contexto AMO [Antiguo Medio Oriente] quién es ésta Ishtar y el por qué se adoraba junto a Dios en Su templo. Por favor lea, y si usted tiene alguna pregunta – eche un vistazo al resto de mi blog o deme el respeto al preguntarme sobre ello. Incluso he mencionado al Mesías en mi blog. No sé cómo más clara pueda ser.

Estoy escribiendo esto como una continuación de mi blog acerca de Tamúz, y otra vez, publico una pedido en favor a la civilidad. Escribí un libro que incluía la frase “domingo de Ishtar” sin hacer mis debidas investigaciones. Más de 70,000 palabras de referencias bíblicas cuidadosamente investigadas y lo arruiné todo por simplemente repetir algo que “todo el mundo” sabía. Muchas personas que yo respetaba como maestros y líderes en los últimos diez años dijeron que tomé su veracidad por sentado. La información que presento viene en una pérdida de mi propia facha, pero sólo después de una gran cantidad de investigación sobre la evidencia arqueológica e histórica que tenemos de Ishtar y su adoración durante el cuarto hasta mediados del primer milenio. Tenemos a nuestra disposición, epopeyas y rituales de culto en tablillas cuneiformes, esculturas, estelas, sellos, descripciones contemporáneas de su culto durante su período de tiempo, templos excavados – en verdad tenemos más información sobre Ishtar que cualquier otra deidad mesopotámica. Incluso sabemos los detalles minuciosos de su administración de templo. Ella fue la diosa más amada y poderosa en el panteón mesopotámico por miles de años – incluso alcanzando la esfera hebrea a la altura del poder de Babilonia a mediados del primer milenio. Sabemos quién la adoraba y el por qué, sabemos de sus cónyuges – hombres, dioses e incluso varios animales. Sabemos cómo se celebraba su culto, y cómo se ataviaban sus sacerdotes. Sabemos más acerca de su vida sexual más de lo que yo desearía saber. Sabemos de sus símbolos de culto, y tenemos evidencia de su culto a lo largo de cuatro milenios separados. Presento esta evidencia como un mea culpa, admitiendo mi complicidad en la perpetuación de algo que yo misma no había estudiado. Esta presentación será breve y sólo cubrirá los aspectos más destacados – Podría escribir un libro sobre ella, pero me abstendré de hacerlo.

Lo que presento puede hacerte enojar, pero daré todas mis fuentes, y si después de repasarlas todavía no está de acuerdo conmigo, entonces no puedo hacer nada al respecto, pero les advierto que no reaccionen con enojo a mis conclusiones honestas. Esto no se presenta en contra de ningún ministerio (excepto tal vez el mío), pero en la búsqueda de la verdad – que siempre debemos buscar y nunca conformarnos con menos pues no seremos mejores que cualquier religión que decimos habernos apartado de. Recuerden por favor que soy su hermana, y no alguien a quien insultar. Lo que voy a presentar es tan reñido como con lo de Alexander Hislop de Las Dos Babilonias en todos los aspectos (vea el blog de Tamuz para más información sobre el reverendo Hislop), de hecho, no he encontrado ni siquiera una pizca de evidencia de las afirmaciones que muchos ministerios hacen sobre su supuesta conexión con los rituales de Easter. Si hay algo de verdad en las afirmaciones de Hislop en el siglo 19, por ahora alguien habría encontrado algo. Su libro fue desacreditado en la década de 1920 y todavía sigue siendo uno de los favoritos entre los que quieren pruebas contra cosas que están asociadas con la Iglesia Católica. Que quede registrado, no tengo amor por la Iglesia Católica, ya que arrojaron a mi abuela halándola por su oreja, después de que su marido la abandonó y se divorció de ella con tres niños en la década de 1950 – pero yo no los odio suficiente para no aclarar las cosas. Así pues, aquí les dejo un breve resumen de mis conclusiones, seguido de una extensa bibliografía.

Ishtar (acadio) e Inanna (sumerio) eran diferentes nombres de la misma diosa mesopotámica – ella era la reina indiscutible de los cielos, no hubo otra diosa en cualquier cultura, incluso que igualara su destreza. Ella era originalmente la diosa del comercio y la fertilidad asociada a él, se convirtió en la diosa encargada de darles a los reyes su autoridad, y en días posteriores era la diosa de la guerra, la pasión y las prostitutas. Ella era – como Inanna, representada como la hija virginal y joven ávida novia, entonces como Ishtar, que se caracterizó por su larga lista de relaciones desastrosas (como se detalla en la epopeya de Gilgamesh donde enumera sus múltiples amantes que llegaron a extremos maléficos). Su famoso matrimonio con Dumuzi (Tamúz) bajo el nombre de Inanna a veces se pinta en tonos amables, como cuando él fue asesinado por bandidos que amortiguaron su cabeza, mientras le robaban su ganado, y a veces en tonos brutales, como cuando ella contrató a demonios para llevárselo al inframundo con el fin de intentar sin éxito robarle el trono de su hermana. Ella o ayudaba a su hermana, la diosa de la vid, junto a su madre en la búsqueda de su marido asesinado, o era la causa que su madre y su hermana lo buscaban a él.

Extrañamente, en un mundo donde las diosas son retratadas de manera rutinaria como madres – ella no lo fue. Ishtar fue la novia virginal, o la amante apasionada o en tiempos posteriores la patrona de las prostitutas o – de los travestis. Aquí la vemos junto a los otros dioses del Poema de Gilgamesh.

La adoración a Ishtar tomó varias formas – se instituyeron lamentos, tal vez, en nombre de su esposo Tamúz, así como el ritual del matrimonio sagrado en que los reyes de Mesopotamia promulgaban su matrimonio real con Ishtar como una forma de consolidar su derecho al trono. En estos últimos días, sus sacerdotes se travestían y se comportaban como travestis durante sus festivales muy extraños – festivales que participan en la práctica de juegos de niños, a la edad en general, estatus y confusión de género. No había impregnación de vírgenes, y la religión babilónica no se incluía el sacrificio humano en algún cuento que pude hallar – a pesar de tener una gran cantidad de información. E incluso si, en algún un momento, se había incluido el sacrificio humano – Crassus lo proscribió en los años 90 AEC por todo el Imperio Romano, y señaló que sólo se llevaría a cabo antes de esa rara y en relación con las artes mágicas, y no en el culto regular de dioses o diosas (Pliny the Elder, Natural History XXX). El sacrificio humano fue considerado como bárbaro y “no-romano,” la misma actitud que tenían hacia la práctica del aborto.

El sacrificio de animales era común en la adoración de Ishtar – pero entonces era común en todas las formas de adoración en el Antiguo Medio Oriente y el Primer siglo. Los dioses y diosas tenían templos por una razón principal – para que sus siervos humanos atendiesen sus necesidades físicas mientras ellos realizaban sus funciones cósmicas. Ishtar tenía que proteger al rey, ella supervisaba el almacén, evitando el hambre – si Ishtar pasaba tiempo en la recolección de alimentos y bebidas para ella, entonces ella podría distraerse y el caos sobrevendría. Éste fue el punto de vista antiguo de toda adoración a los dioses – cuidar de ellos. En la parte superior de su zigurat había una pequeña casa – en el interior había habitaciones. El ídolo que proporciona acceso a la esencia de la deidad se le despertaba por la mañana, se bañaba y se vestía con sus mejores galas, se alimentaba con las partes más selectas, se le adoraba, y luego se le volvía a poner en la cama por la noche. Mientras se atendía a Ishtar, ella era libre de hacer su trabajo importante del cuidado de sus funciones en el universo. El sacrificio de animales era simplemente una manera de proporcionarle el alimento que necesitaba para sobrevivir. Ella no tenía ningún vínculo con la adoración del domingo o fiestas que se celebran en ese día – como todos los dioses y diosas, ella era adorada y cuidada todos los días. Ella tenía dos festivales que se celebraban en la salida y la puesta del planeta Venus en el invierno y el verano, ocho meses de diferencia – pues ella era también conocida como la estrella de la mañana y la tarde.

Los símbolos de Ishtar eran el león y la estrella de seis puntas (a veces de ocho puntas) dentro de un círculo (que no se parece a la estrella de David en la mayoría de los casos) y, a veces la estrella de ocho puntas (la imagen de la izquierda no es el mejor ejemplo, por desgracia, el Museo Británico tiene una excelente impresión de sello cilíndrico pero no está disponible en línea). Ella a menudo es representada ya sea de pie, o montando un león, o con una maza león de dos cabezas y una espada enganchada llamada harpe. Ella nunca se representa con conejos ni huevos ni tampoco ninguno de sus rituales o leyendas hacen mención de ellos. Ella a menudo es representada desnuda, como la diosa del amor y la pasión, o llevando un extraño sombrero puntiagudo junto con las armas de guerra como la Dama de Batalla. Para el tiempo del Mesías, el culto a Ishtar era prácticamente inexistente.

Ella nunca se menciona en referencia a Semiramis, la reina mesopotámica del siglo 12 que vivió poco antes del rey David, la cual no estuvo casada con Nimrod, ni tuvo un hijo llamado Tamúz – pero eso es para otro blog.

Sólo por causa de información – No utilizo a Heródoto como una fuente fiable para cualquier cosa fuera de la cultura griega, como fue notorio por simplemente escribir todas las historias de segunda mano que él oyó. Sus escritos sobre Egipto, por ejemplo, no sólo han ido sin fundamento, pero han sido refutados en gran medida.

Soy consciente de que este blog es corto, pero Ishtar es demasiada compleja para ser cubierta de manera adecuada en un blog y no sería apropiado entrar en gran detalle de todos modos. Usted tiene mis recursos, que se enumeran a continuación – estoy bastante segura de que los enlisté todos, pues mi biblioteca está hecha un reguero en el momento.

Bibliografía

(Estos son todos los libros y artículos que he leído, además de los relacionados con Tamúz porque todas las historias sobre él hablan también de ella – asegúrese de revisar cada referencia a Inanna, Ishtar (o Istar), Dumuzi y Tamúz Pero una advertencia al lector, la literatura de Ishtar es a menudo de naturaleza sexual atroz)

The Treasures of Darkness: A History of Mesopotamian Religion, Thorkild Jacobsen (PhD en Asiriología, el individuo incluso enseñó en Harvard, durante su vida y hasta ahora se le considera uno de los principales expertos en el Antiguo Medio Oriente)

The Babylonian World, Gwendolyn Leick, Ed – He descargado esto desde scribd.com, lo cual ha valido la pena la suscripción $50 al año. Capítulos 7 y 22-24 fueron especialmente útiles.

A Dictionary of Ancient near Eastern Mythology, Gwendolyn Leick, (PhD Asiriología)

The Ancient Near East: An Anthology of texts and Pictures, James B Pritchard, Ed (todos los libros de Pritchard tienen pedigríes impresionantes y éste no es diferente – es la obra de diecisiete estudiosos serios del AMO)

The IVP Bible Background Commentary, John Walton et al. Comentario sobre Ezequiel 8

Myths from Mesopotamia, Stephanie Dalley

Handbook of Life in Ancient Mesopotamia, Stephen Bertman

Interpreting the Past: Near Eastern Seals, Dominique Collon

The Ishtar Temple at Ninevah, Julian Reade, Irak, Vol 67, No 1, Nínive. Los trabajos de la 49ª Recontre Assyriologique Internationale, la segunda parte (primavera de 2005) paginas 347-390

Ishtar, the Lady of Battle, Nanette B Rodney, Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin (esto se puede encontrar en línea si se busca por título y autor, pero como no he visto cualquier otro artículo serio o de igualación a Ishtar con Astarté, deje que el lector tenga cuidado en ese punto)

Inanna-Ishtar as Paradox and a Coincidence of Opposites, Rivka Harris, History of Religions, Vol 30, No 3 (Febrero 1991), paginas 261-278 (artículo muy bueno, sino más bien chocante, que detalla algunos de sus festivales)

A New Ishtar Epithet in the Bible, Joseph Reider, Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Vol 8, No 2 (Abril 1949) paginas 104-107

On the Entymology of Ishtar, George A Barton, Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol 31, No 4 (1911) paginas 355-358 (lo incluyo porque lo leí pero es realmente sólo será interesante si le gusta la lingüística)

The White Obelisk and the Problem of Historical Narrative Art of Assyria, Holly Pittman, The Art Bulletin, Vol 78, No 2 (junio 1996), paginas 334-355 (sólo escobillas sobre Ishtar, pero si usted está interesado en obeliscos asirios del primero y segundo milenio de la arqueología asiria, lo encontrará fascinante)

Toward the Image of Tammuz, Thorkild Jacobsen History of Religions, vol. 1, No. 2 (Winter, 1962), paginas 189-213 (disponible en JSTOR.org)

Tammuz and the Bible (éste fue genial), Edwin Yamauchi, Journal of Biblical Literature Vol. 84, No. 3 (Septiembre 1965), paginas 283-290 (también disponible en JSTOR.org)

Context for Kids Youtube channel

Well, big dummy that I am – I started my kids channel without mentioning it on my blog.

Here is the link – I am teaching the same context that I teach adults at an age appropriate level and with age appropriate content.

Next year we will go beyond the first five books and into the “adventure” books of Joshua, Judges and Samuel or maybe into the gospels – still debating it.

Who was the Queen of Heaven and did she really dip eggs in the blood of infants? Jeremiah 7 in Context

(Pictured, Ishtar as the evening star/patron goddess of love, war, and sexuality with her customary lion emblems as well as the owls who denote her position as patroness of prostitutes)

It has come to my attention that some folks are thinking that I am not aware that Ishtar is a pagan goddess. I reread my blog and I am seriously struggling to imagine why anyone would think that I am believing she is real. This is a Biblical context study and I am teaching the ANE (Ancient Near Eastern) context of who this Ishtar was who was being worshiped alongside God in His Temple. Please read it, and if you have any questions – check out the rest of my blog or give me the respect to ask me about it. I even mentioned Messiah in my blog. I don’t know how more clear I can be.

I am writing this as a follow up to my blog on Tammuz, and again, I post a plea for civility. I wrote a book that included the phrase “Ishtar Sunday” without doing my homework. Over 70,000 words of carefully researched Biblical references and I blew it simply repeating something that “everyone” knew. So many people who I respected as teachers and leaders over the last ten years had said it that I took its veracity for granted. The information I am presenting comes at a loss of face to myself, but only after a great amount of research into the archaeological and historical evidence we have on Ishtar and her worship in the fourth through mid-first millennium BCE. We have at our disposal epics and cult rituals in cuneiform tablets, carvings, steles, seals, contemporary descriptions of her cult from those during her time period, temples excavated – in truth we might have more information on Ishtar than any other Mesopotamian deity. We even know the minute details of her temple administration. She was the most beloved and powerful goddess in the Mesopotamian pantheon for thousands of years – even reaching into the Hebrew sphere at the height of Babylon’s Power in the mid-first millennium. We know who worshiped her and why, we know her spouses–men, gods, and even various animals. We know how her cult was celebrated, and how her priests were attired. We know more about her sex life than I wish we did. We know her cult symbols, and we have evidence of her cult throughout four separate millennia. I present this evidence as a mea culpa, admitting my complicity in perpetuating something I had not studied out myself. This presentation will be brief and will only cover the highlights–I could write a book on her but will refrain from doing so.

What I present might make you angry but I will give all of my sources, and if after going through them all you disagree with me then I can’t do anything about that, but I caution you not to react angrily to my honest findings. This is not presented against any ministry (except maybe my own), but in the pursuit of truth–which we must always search for and never settle for anything less or we are no better than any religion that we claim to be set apart from. Please remember that I am your sister, and not someone to be lashed out at. What I am going to present is as odds with Alexander Hislop’s The Two Babylons in every respect (see the Tammuz blog for more information on Reverend Hislop), in fact, I have found not even a shred of evidence of the claims that many ministries are making about her supposed connection to Easter rituals. If there was any truth in Hislop’s claims in the 19th century, then by now someone would have found something. His book was debunked in the 1920s and yet remains a favorite among those who want evidence against things that are associated with the Catholic Church. For the record, I have no love for the Catholic Church as they tossed my grandmother out on her ear after her husband abandoned and divorced her with three kids in the 1950’s–but I don’t hate them enough to not set the record straight. So, here is a brief summary of my findings followed by an extensive bibliography.

Ishtar (Akkadian) and Inanna (Sumerian) were different names of the same Mesopotamian goddess–she was the undisputed Queen of Heaven, no other goddess in any culture even came close to matching her prowess. She was originally the goddess of the storehouse and the fertility associated with it, became the goddess in charge of giving kings their authority, and in later days was the goddess of war, passion, and prostitutes. She was–as Inanna, portrayed as the virginal daughter and eager young bride, then as Ishtar, characterized by her long list of disastrous relationships (as detailed in the Gilgamesh epic where he lists her multiple paramours who came to bad ends). Her famous marriage to Dumuzi (Tammuz) under the name Inanna is sometimes portrayed in kind tones, as when he is killed by brigands who club him over the head while stealing his livestock, and sometimes in brutal tones, as when she contracts demons to steal him away to the Underworld in order to take her place after unsuccessfully trying to steal the Underworld throne from her sister! She either helps his sister, the goddess of vines, and mother search for her own murdered husband, or is the cause of his mother and sister searching for him.

Strangely, in a world where goddesses are routinely portrayed as mothers – she is not. Ishtar is the virginal bride, or the passionate lover or in later times the patroness of prostitutes or–of transvestites! Here (to the left) we see her alongside the other gods of the Gilgamesh Epic.

Ishtar worship took various forms–she instituted wailing, perhaps on behalf of her husband Tammuz, as well as the ritual of sacred marriage when Mesopotamian kings would enact their royal marriage to Ishtar as a way to solidify their claim to the throne. In latter days, her priests would cross-dress and behave as transvestites during her very strange festivals–festivals that involved the playing of children’s games, and general age, status, and gender confusion. There was no impregnating of virgins, and Babylonian religion did not involve a human sacrifice in any accounts that I can come up with–despite having a wealth of information. And even if, at one point, it had included human sacrifice–Crassus outlawed it in the 90’s BCE throughout the Roman Empire and noted that it was only done before then rarely and in connection with the magic arts, not in the regular worship of gods or goddesses (Pliny the Elder, Natural History XXX). Human sacrifice was considered to be barbaric and “un-Roman,” the same attitude they had towards the practice of abortion. The Carthaginian worship of Cronos in Africa seems to be a notable exception within the Empire, and the Romans slandered them much for it.

Animal sacrifice was common in Ishtar worship–but then it was common in all forms of worship in the Ancient Near East and First Century. Gods and goddesses had temples for one primary reason–for their human servants to care for their physical needs while they performed their cosmic functions. Ishtar had to protect the King, she was the overseer of the storehouse, preventing starvation–if Ishtar had to spend time gathering food and drink for herself then she might become distracted and chaos would ensue. This was the ancient view of all of the worship of gods–to care for them. At the top of their ziggurat was a little home and inside there were rooms. The idol that provided access to the essence of the god was woken up in the morning, bathed and dressed in finery, fed the choicest portions, worshiped, and then put back to bed at night. As they cared for Ishtar, she was free to do her important job of caring for her functions in the universe. Animal sacrifice was simply a way to provide her with the food she needed to survive. She had no link to Sunday worship or festivals celebrated on that day–like all gods and goddesses, she was worshiped and cared for every single day. She did have two festivals that were celebrated at the rising and setting of the planet Venus in the winter and summer, eight months apart–being that she was also known as the morning and evening star.

Ishtar’s symbols were the lion and the six or eight-pointed star within a circle (which did not look like the star of David but more like a spiny starfish) and sometimes the eight-pointed star (the image to the left is not the best example, sadly, the British Museum has an excellent cylinder seal imprint but it is unavailable online). She is often pictured either standing on or riding a lion, or with a two-headed lion mace and a hooked sword called a harpe. She is never pictured with rabbits or eggs (which were not fertility symbols in the ancient Near Eastern world) nor do any of her rituals or legends make mention of them. She is often pictured in the nude, as the goddess of love and passion, or wearing a strange pointed hat (kinda like the 80’s band Devo) along with the weapons of war as the Lady of Battle. By the time of Messiah, Ishtar worship was pretty much nonexistent.

She is also never mentioned in reference to Semiramis, the 12th century Mesopotamian Queen who lived shortly before King David but who was not married to Nimrod, nor did she have a son named Tammuz – but that’s for a later blog.

Just for information sake – I do not use Herodotus as a reliable source for anything outside of Greek culture, as he was notorious for simply writing every second-hand story he heard. His writings on Egypt, for instance, have not only gone unsubstantiated but have been largely disproven.

I realize this is short, but Ishtar is far too complex to be covered adequately in a blog and it would be inappropriate to go into great detail anyway. You have my resources, listed below – pretty sure I put them all in but my library is quite the mess at the moment.

Bibliography

(these are all the books and articles I read, in addition to those related to Tammuz because all of the stories about him are also about her – be sure to hit every reference to Inanna, Ishtar (or Istar), Dumuzi and Tammuz. But let the reader be warned, Ishtar literature is often egregiously sexual in nature)

The Treasures of Darkness: A History of Mesopotamian Religion, Thorkild Jacobsen (Ph.D. Assyriology, the guy even taught at Harvard, during his lifetime and even now he is considered one of the foremost experts in the Ancient Near East)

The Babylonian World, Gwendolyn Leick, Ed – Chapters 7, and 22-24 were especially helpful.

A Dictionary of Ancient near Eastern Mythology, Gwendolyn Leick, (Ph.D. Assyriology)

The Ancient Near East: An Anthology of Texts and Pictures, James B Pritchard, Ed (all of Pritchard’s books have impressive pedigrees and this one is no different – being the work of seventeen serious ANE scholars)

The IVP Bible Background Commentary, John Walton et al. commentary on Ezekiel 8

Myths from Mesopotamia, Stephanie Dalley

Handbook of Life in Ancient Mesopotamia, Stephen Bertman

Interpreting the Past: Near Eastern Seals, Dominique Collon

The Ishtar Temple at Ninevah, Julian Reade, Iraq, Vol 67, No 1, Ninevah. Papers of the 49th Recontre Assyriologique Internationale, Part Two (Spring 2005) pp 347-390

Ishtar, the Lady of Battle, Nanette B Rodney, Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin (this can be found online if you search under title and author but as I have not seen any other serious articles or accounts equating Ishtar with Ashtoreth, let the reader beware on that one point)

Inanna-Ishtar as Paradox and a Coincidence of Opposites, Rivkah Harris, History of Religions, Vol 30, No 3 (Feb 1991), PP 261-278 (very good article, but rather shocking, details some of her riske festivals)

A New Ishtar Epithet in the Bible, Joseph Reider, Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Vol 8, No 2 (Apr 1949) pp 104-107

On the Entymology of Ishtar, George A Barton, Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol 31, No 4 (1911) pp 355-358 (I include it because I read it but it is really only interesting if you are into linguistics)

The White Obelisk and the Problem of Historical Narrative Art of Assyria, Holly Pittman, The Art Bulletin, Vol 78, No 2 (Jun 1996), pp. 334-355 (only brushes on Ishtar, but if you are interested in Assyrian obelisks and first/second Millenium Assyrian archaeology, this is fascinating)

Toward the Image of Tammuz, Thorkild Jacobsen History of Religions, Vol. 1, No. 2 (Winter, 1962), pp. 189-213 (available on JSTOR.org)

Tammuz and the Bible (this one was great), Edwin Yamauchi, Journal of Biblical Literature Vol. 84, No. 3 (Sep., 1965), pp. 283-290 (also available on JSTOR.org)