From: João Simões Lopes Filho
Message: 3876
Date: 2000-09-19
----- Original Message -----
From: John Croft <jdcroft@...>
To: <cybalist@egroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, September 19, 2000 6:41 AM
Subject: [tied] Re: Religion
>
> In reply to my post
>
> > 1. John: "Baal was never a 'God of the Underworld'"
>
> Glen writes
> > Wrong. According to Ugaritic mythology, there are the two stories
> dating to
> > at least 1400 BCE linking Baal firmly to the Underworld - The
> Battle
> of Yam
> > "The Sea" and The Battle of Mot. Yam is associated with Leviathan,
> a
> > serpent, and lives in a palace UNDER THE SEA (!!). Mot is
> inarguably
> an
> > UNDERWORLD (!!) god of the dead.
> >
> > The battle of Baal versus Yam is parallel to the story of Marduk
> and
> Tiamat
> > as well as the IE story of Above-Man (supposedly *Tritos) slaying
> the
> > Three-Headed Serpent with the help of the magic of the war god
> *PexwrGnnos.
> > Although Baal's palace was on Mount Zephon (and therefore in the
> sky)
> > according to Canaanites, the two stories serve to show that he is
> the MASTER
> > OF THE UNDERWORLD and is therefore surely without question an
> underworld god
> > in act, from most ancient times.
> >
> > Since you clearly state, John, that the story of a battle between
> Yam & Baal
> > "came originally from Sumeria during the Ubaid and later
> > spread of Sumerian myths northwards into Syria", you are supporting
> the
> > ancient prehistoric connection that Baal had with the Underworld.
> Thank you
> > for agreeing with me :)
>
> Glen, next you will be stating because Zeus confined the Titans to
> Tartarus he was god of the underword, or becuase he fought and slew
> Typhon, who lived under the sea he was god of the underword. Baal
> was
> not asserting his control of the underword in his struggles with Yam
> and Mot - instead he was asserting his primacy as head of the
> Pantheon, in the same way that Zeus asserted himself as Chief God of
> the Olympians (also ruling from a mountain).
>
> These "ancient" connections go back to the post Mycenaean age, when
> late bronze age Ugarit and Iron-Age Phoenician conceptions of a
> tripartite world (the heavens = weather God Baal, the oceans = water
> God Yam, and the underworld = God of the Dead, Mot), came to
> influence
> Hesiodic theogony of Zeus, Poseidon and Hades.
>
> > The following article may be of interest. It links Mars with
> destructive
> > forces and attempts, as I do, to put forth the likelihood that the
> deities
> > we are talking about on this list have been founded on cosmology at
> an early
> > date.
> >
> > http://netropic.speakeasy.org/strand/3/apollo.html
>
> Good site Glen. One that clearly derives Apollo from Ugaritic (i.e.
> late Bronze Age) "Reseph". It is interesting that Appollo is not
> found in Mycenaean names, suggesting that he came in the post
> Mycenaean period. As your site says, Glen "Several scholars, in fact,
> have suggested that Reseph originally split off from Nergal, rashpu
> being one of the latter's epithets."
>
> Thus we have
>
> Apollo of Greece, derived from
> Apollo of Asian Minor, derived from
> Reseph of Ugarit, derived from
> "rashpu" of Nergal - OF SUMERIA Glen!
>
> Come on why don't you read your own sites properly!
>
> > 2. Arkugal's claim that Venus-Mars links only go back to the
> "Hellenic
> > Period"...
> >
> > Sorry Arkey dude, the Ugaritic myths go back to at least 1400 BCE.
> The myths
> > include Athtar, Venus, son of Ashera (aka Astarte). The Battle of
> Mot
> > provides a link between Athtar and Baal. This is already at the
> very
> start
> > of any Hellenic period.
> >
> > In Canaanite tradition, Athirat is generally married to El except
> in
> Qatra
> > where she is married to Baal-Hadad (!). She frequents the ocean
> shores
> > (WATER and UNDERWORLD!). Again, Athirat sends her son Athtar
> (associated
> > with the planet VENUS again!) to be ruler of the UNDERWORLD when
> she
> > discovers that Baal has supposedly died IN THE UNDERWORLD. On a
> side
> note,
> > the battle of Mot is related to the stories of a dying son,
> Tammuzi,
> "child
> > of the Abyss", raccounting the origin of the seasons. There appears
> to also
> > be Athtart, a consort of Baal(!!!), a goddess of FERTILITY as well
> as WAR
> > and chase. Aka: Inanna's Descent. Question: Why does Inanna (Venus)
> set her
> > heart on ruling the underworld? The dying god story and thus the
> connection
> > between Venus and Mars goes back as far as the 4th millenium in
> Mesopotamia.
>
> Where do you get the etymology of Tammuz as "child of the Abyss". It
> comes from Sumerian Dummuzi.
>
> > Plus, since John has already stated that these myths are based on
> even
> > earlier Sumerian ones whose tradition had only been taken over by
> Akkadians
> > from as early as 2000 BCE, all I can do is just sit back on this
> one
> and
> > gloat knowing that Arkugal is wrong, wrong, wrong. :)
>
> To the point
> > 3. Cosmology originates with the Sumerians.
>
> Glen writes
> > What a load of BS! How can we possibly assert this claim with proof
> or
> > logic? Is there a specific historical date at which the Sumerians
> discovered
> > the planets? If not, we can't be so bold to presume that the
> Sumerians
> > invented everything, especially when they have been prehistorically
> > influenced by the Ubaid culture from the north, derived from the
> Halaf
> > culture which John associates with the spread of agriculture in the
> > MiddleEast. If agriculture truely did originate in Eastern Anatolia
> starting
> > at around 9000 BCE, then we should expect that the real and
> mythological
> > importance placed on the sky and its objects is also from this date
> and
> > location.
>
> Glen try reading Samuel Noah Kramer's "History Begins in Sumer", or
> his work on "The Sumerians" before you start shooting of "expletive
> deleated's" all over the list.
> >
> > 4. John: "Glen, see my point about the late insertion of Nergal as
> divinity
> > of the underworld in post Sumerian times"
> >
> > And so what was he in Sumerian times then? A god of hot air? :P
>
> No Nergal, as I have said before was the god of plague, of
> pestilence,
> and originally had this limited domain. It was only when the
> Babylonians started replacing female Goddesses with male Gods, (eg
> Ereshkigal with Nergal, and Ishtar as war Goddes with Ninurta), that
> he became God of the Underworld.
>
> > 5. Nergal was never a fire god.
> >
> > Why does this site disagree with you?
> >
> > http://sunsite.org.uk/packages/Project-Gutenberg/etext00/7rbaa10.txt
> >
> > It states: "It is in consequence of this side of [Nergal's]
> character that
> > he appears also as god of fire, the destroying element,[...]"
>
> Glen, the reference you quote is of PINCHES, THEO. G. Babylonian
> and Assyrian Cylinder-Seals and Signets in the Possession of Sir
> Henry
> Peek, Bart. Frontispiece + ii + 17 + 10, 4to. London, Harrison, 1870.
>
> Not only is this of 1870 (surely you could have found something a
> little more up to date than something 130 years old), but it is also
> crawling with errors (Niffur). Enlil is called Bel (an association
> which only began after the Aramean invasions at the end of the Bronze
> Age. It is like saying something written about Victorian Britain
> applies to the Pre-Roman Celts, Glen. At least try to get your
> sources into some kind of propper chronology.
>
> > John:
> > >Interesting Glen, Baal was a storm god, not a mountain or underword
> > >god as you assert.
> >
> > Oh John, get real. The very fact that Baal is a storm god means
> that
> he is
> > linked with Chaos, the Chaos of the Underworld as shown by his
> association
> > with Mot and Yam. These are stories to demonstrate that Baal in the
> end is
> > the ruler of his underworld domain.
>
> Glen, how many times do I have to keep saying, in Canaanite belief
> Baal was God of All Domains, just like Zeus was. But this does not
> make him the Underworld God, or even a Underworld God (Just as Zeus
> was not God of the Underworld).
>
> > >Mot was god of the underword, a dark and gloomy place, not a place
> of
> > >fire and red. Nergal's colour was black (read the site you
> > >quoted again Glen) not red.
> >
> > Right, black like in Steppe mythology in connection with the earth
> because
> > they both share a bipartitive worldview where the sky is bright and
> the
> > EARTH is dark without a concept of Underworld like in
> SemitoEuropoid
> belief.
> > Nergal would partly have been confused with the local tradition of
> this more
> > ancient colour symbolism. A quote from
> >
> (http://sunsite.org.uk/packages/Project-Gutenberg/etext00/7rbaa10.txt)
> > yields:
> >
> > "The identity [of Nergal] with the Greek Aries and the
> > Roman Mars is proved by the fact that his planet was
> > /Mustabarru-mutanu/, 'the death spreader,' which is
> > probably the name of Mars in Semitic Babylonian."
>
> Theophilus G. Pinches again Glen. See my comments about this source
> above.
>
> > John goes on a rant:
> > >Old Europe monotheistic! Surely you jest. Even Gambutas makes no
> > >such claim. There is a huge gap between henotheism and monotheism.
> > >There is no examples of monotheism anywhere in the world until the
> > >closure of the Oecumene in the Axial Age of Karl Jaspers (post 700
> > >BCE).
> >
> > What should we be looking for as a characteristic of "monotheism"
> then?
>
> Mono = One
> Theos = God
>
> Hope this helps.
>
> I continued
> > >As Zaehner shows, it was Zarathushtra who developed the first
> > >monotheism, [...]
> >
> > An emotional plea and an unverifiable assumption, typical of your
> > input thus far.
>
> Glen, read Zaehner. "Dawn and Twilight of Zorastrianism" the leading
> work on the subject in English, and a world authority. Read Karl
> Jaspers on the Axial Age, and then you will be able to see how
> unverified they are. And please do some more research.
>
> Monotheistic beliefs are fairly recent, certainly post Bronze Age.
> Even Akhenaten's Atenism is being re-evaluated as not strictly
> monotheistic.
>
> Regards
>
> John
>
>
>
>