Canaan & the Israelites: How Ancient Canaanite Religion Influenced the Bible | Astral Worship PT. 3

[00:00:00]So, this is part three of Asha worship in the ancient world. We do finally have a new mic, so hopefully the audio is much better for y'all. And today, we're going to be continuing on with Canaan and Canaan's theology. Last week, we talked about the song of Deborah. If you did not catch that video, I will link that up for you there. So, then the question begs, what was Canaan? Because when most people imagine Canaan, especially if you grew up in Christianity, you imagine it simply as a land that Israel conquered. But historically, Canaan was much more complex than that. It stretched across modern Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Western Jordan, and parts of Syria. But more importantly, it was a civilization, one connected by language, trade, religion, and mythologies. The people were not one united kingdom. They were city states. Each ruled by kings, each had local temples, and each had their patron gods and deities that some of which did reflect the stars, but not as much as Babylon or other cultures.

[00:00:54]places like Jericho, Tyrie, Sedan, and Yuguret. And by the late Bronze Age, they were among the wealthiest trading centers in the ancient world. Today, many archaeologists and historians believe that some of the earliest Israelites emerged from within the population of Canaan rather than arriving as a completely separate civilization. And that begs the question, why? Well, because nearly everything about early Israel looks like Canaanite. And this is actually one of my favorite things and one of the most fascinating things about Canaan when you actually study the history and then you study ancient Israel is their language was actually a Canaanite language. So Hebrew, what you know of Hebrew today, if you study Hebrew, it does come from Phoenician Canaanite, which comes from the land of Canaan, which is uh kind of cool. And so that really does beg the question, if their language comes from the land, what else comes from the land?

[00:01:45]Their pottery, architecture, farming practices in village layouts very much closely resemble those of the surrounding Canaanite culture. And even many of their earliest personal names very much reflect the seatic traditions of that region. And the Bible itself hints very much at the shared world. And if you've been following along, you probably will have remember me mentioning the pantheon of the Canaanite religion with the head god L, which we are going to be diving more in depth into just a little bit here on this episode. Abraham journeys through Canaan. Jacob settles in Canaan and the tribes live among the Canaanite people for generations. So this was not just a, oh, we're passing through. Look at the big apple, New York City, continue on our way kind of thing. No, these people were very much interwoven into the culture and they very much emerged within the culture. Okay? Rather than appearing in isolation, Israel develops within an already established cultural landscape and therefore their religion, their language, their culture, their traditions very much also develop within this region. And now I want to talk about the discovery that changed biblical studies because for centuries scholars knew almost nothing about the Canaanite religion. But then everything changed in 1928. A farmer accidentally uncovers an ancient city buried beneath the sands of northern Siberia. And that city was Yugurret. And inside the archaeologist discovered thousands of clay tablets and written in a language almost identical to biblical Hebrew. And we actually are also finding other tablets here in America. if you like to study old rock formations and whatnot that have the Phoenician Canaanite language which is almost kind of extinct. Not many people notice it or understand it unless you study languages. And that very much then begs the question, how did these tablets get into the Grand Canyon? How did these tablets appear in the West Virginia mountains and so on in the world that we're evolving in? Like who brought those tablets over here? Those are questions that I like to ask when I talk to other friends who love studying history. But to stay on topic, these texts became one of the greatest discoveries in biblical archaeology because suddenly we could read the stories that Israel's neighbors told.

[00:03:44]Stories much older than the New Testament, and they sounded remarkably familiar. Just like we saw with the Assyrians and the Babylonians and the Acadians and the Sumerianss and all of those cultures. They too have stories much older than the stories found in this pretty little Bible that sound very much remarkably similar of change the name change the homework a little bit referring to the epic of Gilgamesh to the story of knowing the ark getting the tablets from a god and then Moses gets the tablets from God and so on and the Canaanite pantheon was not simply a collection of gods that is what we're going to see here today it was a way of organizing the cosmos and also organizing aspects of nature and like the Mesopotamians the Canaanites associated their deities with the heaven heavens, natural forces, kingship and the rhythms of life. Some planetary associations are very much clear as day in their texts like the sun and the moon are very much associated with a deity where others very much kind of associate with the natural law and orders of arch types and things found in nature, life, death, storms and so on that you also very much do see in the ancient Eastern world. And one of the most important ideas of the Canaanite religion is that they had a divine council. There was not a singular god of monotheism just as the Israelites did not worship a monotheistic faith as in Judaism, Christianity or Islam until much later.

[00:05:02]Okay? They had a pantheon with el presiding over them. It was an entire structure where the gods met together and each deity govern a realm of creation. And the Hebrew Bible very much does retain this courtroom imagery while progressively emphasizing Yahweh, their chosen deity of worship, unique sovereignty over the heavenly hosts. And you see this showing up very much in Psalms 82, Job 1-2, and First Kings 22.

[00:05:25]And as we're also have seen in recent years of finding other archaeological evidence is that they also did have their Ashera, the divine masculine, Yahweh and the divine feminine Asher, which did come from the Canaanite worship because Asher was the consort to L, as we're going to see here shortly.

[00:05:41]And then over time because Yahweh is a very much jealous kind of narcissistic god when you study the stories and the the mythologies it became very much solo monotheistic reigning above all which again is very much Persian ideology and their kind of theology of things and how they viewed religion which we're going to actually talk about in next week's episode in the Persians and how their religion very much did influence the writings that we have in this pretty little book. So with the divine council in the eugaritic text it describes l seated among the divine assembly and then psalms 82 opens with the remarkable words and elohhim stands the divine assembly or elohim stands among the elohim and elohim is the proper title for a singular deity known as l. But it also can in the Hebrew refer to plural deities. It is important to make note of that just as also in the beginning god created the heavens and the earth. In the Hebrew, it says, "In the beginning, Elohim created the heavens and the earth." Now, you might be saying, "Well, yeah, obviously there's one true God."

[00:06:40]But then when you read down, it says, "And let us make man in our image. Let us." Well, who is us? Christian theology likes to say, "Oh, that's father, son, holy spirit." But when you actually understand the origins of these stories, you start to have a little bit of a different perspective on that, as in there were multiple deities in the creation process. you have masculine and feminine because you cannot create unless both are in equilibrium and harmony. And so Job describes the sons of God presenting themselves before Elohim. And then in Micaiah in first Kings 22, he sees the heavens assembled around God's throne. These things reflect a very much shared ancient eastern image of the heavenly courts because again divine council was very much a thing in the ancient world. And the difference is though the theology because in Canaanite religion multiple gods exercise authority. But then in the Hebrew Bible especially with the theological development of the writers who wrote their texts you very much see heavenly beings are ultimately subordinate to Yahweh which again became their chosen deity and patron who represent them. But the imagery though does however remain even though the meaning does change because again ancient cultures very much shared myths, gods and arch types and stories. Okay, we just like here in America, we're a melting pot of immigrants. We share all of these different traditions and cultures and stories and ways to make food. Okay, we share it all. That's exactly the same in the ancient world, okay? There was no this, this is you, this is me. It was, oh, that's a great story. These are arch types. I'm going to recreate it in my own way. You even see that again if you've been following along with the Babylonians. They took Anana and turned her to Ishtar because that is what we do. There is nothing new under the sun. We just keep recreating the same mythologies over and over and over in our modern-day language and understanding just like even the modern-day storytell.

[00:08:28]And so the first deity that I want to do talk about is a goddess and that is Shapash and she reflects and represents the sun and she was the primary solar deity in the Canaanite world. But unlike the Egyptian sun god Raw, Shapash is portrayed less as a supreme ruler and more like an impartial witness to everything. She sees everything and nothing escapes her light. Every day she crosses the heavens and every night she descends into the underworld before rising again. She very much represents and reflects the dying and rising arch type that we see throughout history as the hidden 13th or the mystic's path also known as a nana which is very much comes from Mesopotamia. You see it also very much with the many deities and gods and arch types that take on the wounded healer or the serpent bearer. You know, we have our most modern one in the Christian religion known as Jesus Christ. You also have Krishna. You have Methus. You have all of these dying and rising arch types because A, they reflect the sun because as above so below. And B, they also reflect the soul's journey of going into the unconscious to then become conscious.

[00:09:29]And if you're interested in learning more about the hidden zodiac or the hidden mystic's path, you can check it out over on our inner circle. For the price of one Starbucks coffee a month, you support me and the work that I do.

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[00:09:45]Either way, continuing on topic, because she travels between the world of the living and the dead, she also acted as a divine mediator in their stories. In the bow cycle, she helps resolve conflict among the gods and guides events between the realms of life and death. And this daily cycle made the sun a powerful symbol of judgment, justice, and renewal. And you do see that arch type of the justice, the judge, and the renewal very much showing up in the Egyptian mythologies and the Greek mythologies and even in the modernday mythologies that we hold here in this pretty little book. And you also see the biblical echoes of her very much in Malachi, Psalms 84, and Judges 5 if you would like to check those out in your personal time. Next up, we have Yarik, which is the moon. in his influence reached beyond the night sky. In the Canaanite religion, the moon determined months, agricultural cycles, religious festivals, tides, fertility, and the timing of rituals. And something I find fascinating about the Canaanite religion is that they very much have the divine feminine kind of being like the sun, which I mean makes sense in from certain esoteric perspectives because the divine wisdom very much sees all and knows all.

[00:10:51]You see that very much showing up in like let's say like the story of Job. of the divine feminine. His wife is the only thing that stays after everything is stripped from him. You see that very much showing up then with Mary Magdalene next to Jesus. She is the one that stays and is there and is present. And then again they have the masculine being the moon. And why I find that interesting is because usually in esoteric principles and traditions not always as we're seeing is that the moon usually is the feminine. It's usually associated with the divine feminine with the unconscious realms of things. You see that very much with say like with tarot cards like let's say the high priestess and her moon symbolism. And then the sun is very much usually a more masculine L soul.

[00:11:29]You know the sun it's usually associated with L um with masculine kind of terminology in languages that still very much hold the masculine and feminine terminology unlike the English language which is very cool when you study languages you know Spanish and Italian all of these languages have their masculine feminine principles. And so the Hebrew word um for yak month [snorts] very much shares the same roots as yarik okay the moon illustrating how deeply lunar cycles very much shaped everyday life and that's also something to make note when you understand the lunar cycles in the Jewish calendar and even just like with the book of Enoch and then also when I like to debate people who are Sabbathke keepers on questioning if they even have the right Sabbath day because it's really quick and easy to kind of have the drama argument of, oh, it's Saturday, the days don't change until you actually get back to the oldest traditions found in the ancient world because there's actually two different streams of ideologies on what day to actually start counting from. Now, the more modern idea is very much the first day and then the seventh day of the week is Saturday, which might make sense on your calendar here in America, but in other cultures, the first day of the week is Monday, not Sunday. And so that means the seventh day would then be Sunday. El soul, the worship of the sun, the son of God. The second also thing that you have to understand is that we've cut out a month out of the year and we've also shortened and changed the numbers of days on the calendars as we switched from the lunar cycles of the ancient world into a 247 patriarchal solar calendar. The third thing that you also need to think about with that is in the book of Enoch and then also with like the book of Jubilees, you see very much it's showing that it's on the fourth day of creation that the stars are created as signs and tellings and times of seasons. And therefore, they believe that you should start counting from the fourth day of creation, not the first day. And so then people are quick to question, well then what day should we have the Sabbath on if we're going to have a Sabbath? And they start freaking out. And I would say the easiest way is to look at when the start of the new year happens with the moon and the sun on that kind of calendar, the astrology calendar, which means as of 2026, your Sabbath would be on a Thursday. Either way, we need to stop worrying about that. As even Paul says in the New Testament, let's just choose for a day for yourself to have that day of rest because your body and esoteric terminology should always be at rest. Your nervous system should not be in survival mode. Okay? Okay. And so this whole lawkeeping, Torah keeping that you see very much with the Seventh Day Adventists or with the Yahooa movements which make the Seventh Day Adventists look like amateurs in their Torah keeping, it is dead. Okay. The letter kills but the spirit gives life.

[00:14:05]I just wanted to talk about that cuz it's pretty cool. And [snorts] so the lunar calendar very much did remain central in ancient Israel and they very much do have their 13 months because as you know with Pisces you have two fish.

[00:14:16]And also when you look at the back of a turtle shell, it very much shows the 13 months because nature very much reflects the proper cycles of things and with the months beginning for them at the sighting of the new moon. Also, a side little note, not to get off topic again, for those of you that are very much into astrology and understanding and realizing that the planets very much do influence because everything's made of energy and energy influences us. The new moon coming up in August is one of the most important new moons of this year, especially for bringing in things that you want in your personal life. Just thought I'd throw that out there to have a little reminder for you. And if you don't know about astrology and the study of planets and the worship and the influence they had and the respect the ancient world had for them, well, congratulations. Welcome to this page.

[00:14:57]Either [laughter] way, we're going to continue on. The next god, which is the high god of the pantheon, is the god L.

[00:15:04]And L is meaning god, the mighty one, or the most high. And it was the patriarchal head deity of the Canaanite pantheon. And one of the things to note with L is he is not primarily a storm god or a warrior god. He is the creator.

[00:15:19]He is the father, the king, and he rules from the cosmic mountain surrounded by the divine counsel. And I find that very interesting. Then when you look at parallel stories of how God usually meets the Israelites up on a mountain, mountains are higher places of consciousness. In the Ugaritic text, he is described as the ancient of days, father of years, creator of creatures in the bull L symbolizing strength and fertility. And he rarely fights. L is the instead seen as a governor, a decider, and a blesser. Okay? He blesses, he governs, he decides. So, the best way to think about L is as a cosmic judge. And you definitely see L's influences again in this pretty little Bible that we have in the Old Testament when you see L. Now, Christians are very quick to jump onto, oh, L just means God. It's talking about Yahweh. And it's like, yes, but no. [laughter] Yes, L does mean God, but no. the old text that we have about God in the Old Testament before they transitioned into Yahweh, you know, and they had that kind of transitioning of going down and then Moses says, "Oh, we have a new God now."

[00:16:23]That very much resembles very much the Eastern world that L in the Canaanite pantheon was a part of in the way that their tribal treaties were very much written. Okay? Because when you understand the theological development of this book, you also very much then do see the parallels of the development between the nations that they were a part of and the influences those nations had on the writings. And then also something else that we need to remember with this Bible is it is not written Genesis to Revelation. I think sometimes, especially if you grew up in Christianity, at least I know I had the misconception growing up until I pursued higher education and understanding this at a deeper level, is you kind of think, oh, Genesis was written first and Revelation was written last and then it was all put together, Genesis to Revelation. But that is not accurate.

[00:17:09]And so if you've ever actually gotten one of those Bibles where they kind of like layer it out based on when like the writings were written, it's actually really cool, but it also is very eye opening and kind of perplexing of like, oh my god, because you're jumping around based on how every chapter and part and piece was then put together and written over time. So that's what you have to understand is these theological developments in the worlds in the religions that very much shaped and influenced the writings of whoever decided to write those books. Okay? So he very much was a cosmic judge. He is not primarily associated with Saturn in the old Canaanite religion because again they very much for their planetary kind of systems. They had the sun and the moon. But then after that it's very gray and they very much more reflected aspects of nature rather than the planets themselves. But it is much more in like second temple Judaism and then forward especially in the Roman world when the Romans very much saw the similarities in the arch types and they saw the type of aspects of the gods that the Israelites and that these Jews are very much worshiping and a part of and representing and that's where then the idea and imagery very much comes on scene of L represents Saturn because Saturn is very much that kind of cosmic ruler and that judge and so many scholars very much do see him representing highest heaven rather than one visible um kind of wandering planet as you see very much in let's say Babylon they had certain deities attached to certain planets but again in later west sematic and Phoenician traditions his role very much then overlaps with like the Greek figure as Kronos and that identification is very much later um and that also then goes to where it represents Saturn okay so we do want to separate that but in esoteric traditions his arch type and his energy very much does play with the planet Saturn Saturn's energy. And that's why in my personal writings, I do say like Al represents Saturn because of the archetypes and energies when you do cross it. But I did want to make that clarification because again in the Canaanite religion, they did not attach their pantheon of gods to specific planets. The only like planetary kind of cosmic things that they definitely had set were their sun and moon. And you see the biblical echoes of L very much showing up in Genesis 14, Numbers 23.

[00:19:23]Psalms 82 and Deuteronomy 32. And the Hebrew word L does mean God, but it has shared titles that reflected the cosmic judge of the Canaanites, not titles and names for Yahweh. Just as you might call me Des or Destiny or Finn or Phineas or Finnick or all the other nicknames people like to give me, you would not, however, call me Madison or Morgan or Sarah or Kelly or any of those other names. Okay? So, when we see names showing up in the Old Testament that were specifically reserved as titles for the cosmic judge in the Canaanite pantheon, you need to pause and question and actually say, "Huh, that's not a name associated with a southern war tribe deity known as Yahweh." Those are different names which means they're titles for a different deity. And that then makes us have integrity with the text to realize that the Israelites very much did worship other deities. And that's also you see that and you know that due to the prophetic reformation where they're constantly getting after the Israelites of stop worshiping those deities. And you wouldn't constantly tell somebody to stop doing something if they weren't doing it. The next god in the pantheon I do want to talk about is Bal. We talked about him last week but we're going to go over him again. Bao means lord originally in a title but eventually he became a storm god. His responsibilities were rain, storms, lightning, kingship, agriculture, victory because without rain everybody died. And so you do you see very much this cosmic battle happening with the bow cycle and they need bal to win because again without rain everything's going to perish. A famine happens. You see that also very much in the retelling of the stories with Elijah. You know there hasn't been rain for years. And so then what Yahweh tells Elijah, "Go up to the mountain and I will bring rain, but this is what you need to do." So then he does, he goes up there and then he is he's facing off with the bow priest and he's like, "Hey, where's your God?" And he starts taunting them because they had to write their stories in a way that reflected the victory of their patron deity. Okay, you see that very much showing up in the text even with the Israelites in Egypt. And then you also have the Egyptian version which is very much 180 from the tellings of the version that we have here in this pretty little book. And that is where I've heard before from a professor is it's history as in it's his story. Okay, this is not factual history. This is his story as in Yahweh's history. Okay, this is his story on how he is the greatest deity for their chosen patron and for their religion and for their deities.

[00:21:44]You're not going to write yourself as a loser and you're not going to write your god god as a weak god. Okay? You're going to write your tribe, your people as chosen. You're going to write your god as the one true god. You're going to write yourself as victorious and whoever holds the pen holds the pen to write them the history. And that's where we need to have integrity and realize this is not factual evidential storytelling.

[00:22:04]These are very much mythologies encasing astrology and astronomy. And that's why I like to say that the Bible is a myth, a map and a mirror. It is mythologies.

[00:22:12]It's astrology and it's psychology.

[00:22:15]Either way, just to have some integrity with the text with that its symbols for the bell is very much the bull, the club, lightning, clouds, and then mount Zon and then we see very much the changing to then mount Cyani and then Mount Zion. So Bal is primarily a storm deity, not a planet because again in the Canaanite religion originally they did not associate their deities with planets. However, in the first millennium of BC, Phoenician and neighboring traditions, storm gods became closely associated with Jupiter.

[00:22:43]And you also see that showing up then with Zeus. Zeus in the Roman pantheon is associated with Jupiter. And the largest and most kingly of the visible planets.

[00:22:52]This association is supported very much stronger in later evidence very much than in the Bronze Age with the ugeritic texts because Jupiter was and is a king planet, a protector, a bringer of abundance visible for much of the year and the brightest wandering star after Venus that they saw in they documented in the ancient world. Now, biblical references of Bale very much do include Psalms 29, Psalm 68, Isaiah 14, Hosea, Judges, and Kings. And over time, Bal's titles did in fact become Yahweh's titles. And we did see that again in last week's video, but I do want to talk about them again in case you haven't seen it. One of the clearest examples of this comes from the title, The Rider on the Clouds. In the B cycle, this title very much clearly belongs to Bale, their deity. But and then in Psalm 68, it gives us this exact royal title, however, in reference to Yahweh. And the biblical writers are not simply repeating Canaanite theology. They're making a theological claim that the true Lord of the storm is not Baal, but rather their God, Yahweh. Okay? And this is sometimes called pmical adaption.

[00:23:59]Taking familiar religious language and then redirecting it towards a different theological message. You take things that you would have understood that your people would have understood and you redirect it in a way that they would understand. Okay, that also then gets into your cataphatic and apratic kind of teachings when you study theology and you study Bible history and all the evolutions with that. But also in the vow cycle, I do want to talk about Leviathan and Lotan. Bal defeats Lotan, which is a twisting serpent of the sea.

[00:24:26]In the Hebrew Bible, it describes Leviathan in nearly identical language.

[00:24:30]The twisting serpent, the fleeing serpent, the sea monster subdued by God, the imagery is familiar, but the language again is slightly different.

[00:24:39]Because where Canaanite myths celebrate Belle's kingship, biblical texts very much do present Yahweh as the one alone who defeats cosmic chaos and is a part of that cycle. And then with the sacred mountains, every culture has a place where heaven and earth meet. For the Canaanites, this was Mount Zeon, the dwelling of Bale. But in the Israelites tradition, cyani becomes the mountain of divine revelation and Zion becomes God's holy mountain. The concept remains recognizable, but the focus again shifts. Next, I want to talk about Asher, the great mother, who is also the consort to L. You have the divine masculine, the divine feminine, and she is the mother, the queen, the great goddess, and she gives birth to the 70 sons of L in the Ugaritic text. And she nourishes life because she is fertility itself. And some of her symbols very much do include trees, sacred poles, the sea, womb, milk, and lions. And biblical echoes of her very much do include Ashraoles, First Kings, 2 Kings, Jeremiah, and Judges. And it's also worth noting that we did find surviving archaeological evidence and material forensics of Yahweh and his Asher.

[00:25:46]Because when they removed from this Canaanite pantheon religion into their singular kind of more Yahweh idea of a storm tribe coming from the they did take the divine feminine with it, which was Asher. And I even have a picture here to show you of Yahweh in his Asher. But then over time again, it went to purely monotheistic. There can only be one god and Yahweh is a very jealous god. And so Asher was solely subdued, especially with patriarchal evolution. And then that goes into a totally different topic for a different time. The next I want to talk about is Ashtar. And this is where Venus actually does enter a lot more clearly because like unlike Ashra, Ashtar is war, sexuality, fertility, power, the morning star in the evening star. And she is the Canaanite counterpart to the Mesatania Ashtar in many respects. And Ashtar is actually one of the strongest and clearest planetary associations in the Canaanite pantheon besides the sun and the moon. And she is very much represented with Venus, the morning star, the evening star. And you do have biblical references of her in First Kings 11, Judges 2, and in Jeremiah. The next deity is Anat, which is Belle's sister. She is a war goddess, violence personified. She slaughters armies, walks through rivers of blood, and then restores order. Her symbols do include a sword, a shield, a bow, the lion, or a virgin warrior. I also would like to make note that virgin warrior is also seen with the Greek mythologies. You very much have Artemis. She takes on virgin girls who want to serve as warriors and then when they die they become constellations in the sky and some of the mythologies in no planetary assignment is given to her in the surviving text that we do have. Next you have Yam which is the sea not simply water but chaos itself in their text. It was the prennormal abyss and bal defeats yam in the bal cycle if you remember because the victory creates order. Okay, you have to take a chaos and you have to put it into order. You even see that showing up in the safer yatsura when you have chaos and order depending on how you create with the 231 gates. And if you don't know what the safer yet is and they're kind of more mystic Jewish traditions, I will link that video up there for you to go check out. The next god, if you remember, in the bell cycle that was defeated that we're going to talk about is Mott, which is death. The underworld, drought, stertility, silence, and even Bal also dies before Mott in the bell cycles when you actually read the stories because every seed buried in the ground reflects the mythic pattern of death preceding new life. It is the rising and dying archype cycle because there have been many. Then you have Kthar, which was very much an inventor, a divine engineer, a blacksmith. He builds bells, palaces, and create divine weapons. You see that very much showing up in the Greek mythology with Hephesus. And his symbols are very much the hammer, the forge, craftsmith, and wisdom. Next, you have Rishev, which is the god of plagues, disease, war, fire, and his arrows spread pestilence. Yet, he could also protect from the very diseases he governed based on whether or not you found favor with him. And now I want to talk briefly on Yahweh purely for the argument within the history world on whether or not Yahweh was originally part of the Canaanite pantheon because this is very much debated with historians and archaeologists and even scholars on whether or not he was originally a part of the Canaanite um pantheon which is not seen or if it was later more of an adaption from the Edonites came from the south because that's what we have very much in our Bible. Modern scholarship indicates that Yahweh was originally an independent deity from the southern regions of Canaan more again with Edom or Midian who was then assimilated into the Canaanite pantheon with later traditions. Yahweh was initially worshiped as a storm or warrior god and he eventually as you have seen with the theological evolution of the Bible was merged with L the chief Canaanite deity and then became the national god of ancient Israel and Judah. Because again, we need to realize that before they were monotheistic, they very much did worship multiple deities. And then the monotheistic um evolution of theology very much came within Babylon and Persian influence. And the Israelites lived in a world of worshiping multiple deities. You see that time and time again with the prophets constantly rebuking them. And then also even with the evidence that we have today of Yahweh and his Asher and then you also see in the book of Kings them burning Asher poles. and archaeologists have even found astral molds and so on.

[00:30:08]William Denver, a professor at the University of Arizona, has investigated archaeology of the ancient worlds for more than 30 years and has authored almost as nearly as many books on the subject. And he writes, "From the beginning of what we call biblical archaeology perhaps 150 years ago, scholars, mostly Western scholars, have attempted to use archaeological data to prove the Bible. And for a long time, it was thought to work. But William Faxwell Abbert, the great father of our discipline, often spoke of archaeological revolution. While the revolution has come, but not in a way that he thought. The truth of the matter today is that archaeology raises more questions about the history of the Hebrew Bible and even the New Testament than it provides answers. And that is very disturbing to some people. The Bible is very much literature. It wants to teach, not just to describe. And when we try to make the Bible something that it is not, we are doing injustice to the biblical writers. But sadly because of theology that is what we have often done with this pretty little book is we have made it something that it's not. We have taken theological developments of centuries and centuries and centuries and that could just continually build on top of each other and we say this is how it's meant to be read and people therefore have misunderstood it. But if a thousand men agree upon a subject on which they know nothing about and their theology is wrong then it needs to go.

[00:31:19]That is the only way we are going to actually have integrity with this text of realizing, hey, just because these were great people of the reformation.

[00:31:26]Just because these were early church fathers of Orthodox Christianity doesn't make them right. It just makes them the winner of the political movement when Rome backed them as a statebacked religion and therefore squashed out all the other voices of the other sects of Christianity because that was very much a real thing in the first through sixth centuries. And between the fourth through sixth century, every other movement was pretty much eliminated and squashed. And then even afterwards when they would find other movements of like Thomas Christians and so on even like let's say in India they persecuted them.

[00:31:55]And that's something we also don't really want to talk about is a lot of times it's real easy to say in Christianity of oh Christians are persecuted for their faith blah blah blah. And I'm not denying that people have not been killed for their faith.

[00:32:07]What I am saying though is that is actually a much more detailed look at history than people care to admit. It's not just abroad. Oh, they were Christian. Because a lot of times the Christians that were being murdered were being murdered because of the Catholics or the Protestants were murdering the Catholics. And you even see that with St. Patrick's Day in Ireland. Okay. So, religion and politics have very much been merged throughout history. And so, we need to have integrity and within realizing that Christianity is not necessarily the persecuted religion that it claims to be, but rather it has done a lot of the persecuting throughout history that it just kind of wants to sweep under the rug and say, "Oh, no, we didn't." When in actually it did. So, as you may have already guessed and seen, polytheism is very much the norm instead of the monotheistic form that then the later writers kind of started to write these texts with. And it is a very real threat as far as those who wrote and translated the Bible and were concerned because today archaeology has very much illuminated what we call folk religion in an astonishing manner and the so-called folk religion even penetrated the temple in Judaism and throughout history. In 1968, Denver discovered an inscription on the cemetery west of Hbron in the hill of the country in a description of 8th century B.C.E. and it gives the name of the deceased. And it says, "Blessed may he be he by Yahweh."

[00:33:19]And that's the good biblical Hebrew name. And then it says, "By Yahweh and his Asher." Asher is the name again of the old Canaanite mother goddess. So why would a Hebrew inscription be mentioning Yahweh in connection to a Canaanite mother goddess? Well, because in popular religion, they were very much a pair in the ancient world. Now, as we do see in the pretty little Bible that we do have, we see the monotheistic kind of evolution in their influence in their theological writings. And the Israelite prophets and reformers do denounce the mother goddess and all other gods and goddesses of Canaan. You even see that in 2 Kings chapter 23, which describes the reform of King Josiah in the late 7th century, and he talks about purging the temple of anything that has to do with Asher. In the 1970s, we also had Israeli archaeologists digging in the kundalent adrid in cyani and found a desert fort of the same period. And lo and behold, they also found Yahweh and his ashra all over the place in Hebrew inscriptions. So what we have been taught in modern Christianity and modern religion of how things in the time of ancient were is not always accurate and true and not the case for the ancients in the traditions that they held in the ancient world out in the Middle East.

[00:34:27]And now I want to talk about constellations because although the Ugaritic texts very much do contain far fewer things than Mesopotamian sources, the Canaanites almost certainly recognize many of the same prominent constellations used across the ancient Eastern world. And this included the Plleades, the Great Bear, Scorpius, Oruron, and so on. And you see the same constellations appearing in the Hebrew Bible with the book of Job, Job 9:9, Job 38, 31-32, Amos 58. And the biblical authors very much clearly expected their audience to recognize the constellations in the stars as well. And so then that begs the question, did the Canaanites practice astrology? And the answer to that is almost certainly. Although the ancient world, especially with Babylon, did very much develop a more sophisticated astrological system.

[00:35:14]Canaan very much participated in the same broader cultural world and the traditions of the surrounding cultures.

[00:35:19]Royal courts very much observed eclipses. They tracked planetary movements. They watched unusual celestial events and these observations were very much understood as signs from the divine realm especially for kings and nations. But it is important to note unlike modern-day kind of horoscope astrology very much which is more centered on an individual birth chart.

[00:35:40]Bronze Age celestial interpretation very much focus more on omens affecting kingships, harvest, warfare and rulers.

[00:35:47]And so even the Bible does not reject the existence of the heavens and of the celestial heavens of hosts and beings.

[00:35:52]and all of this terminology and language that was very much used within these religious worlds and within these different cultures. It does however with the theological evolution very much reject worshiping them. And it wouldn't be bringing it up rebuking people for worshiping them unless they were doing it because we see over and over the prophets insist do not worship the sun, do not worship the moon, do not worship the stars. And that is because in their view the celestial bodies are a part of the creation but they are not the creator and they were not gods.

[00:36:21]especially as they continually evolved into more of a monotheistic viewpoint.

[00:36:26]And that is where also that's where you see passages like Deuteronomy 4:19 that warn Israel not to be drawn away to bow before the heavenly hosts because you did you had heavenly hosts. You had the sons of L, the 70 sons of L. You also see that very much ideology showing up in books like Enoch in the Sons of God.

[00:36:46]You very much have the pantheon of gods.

[00:36:48]The Elohim sits among the Elohim, as in the god L sits among the Canaanite pantheon showing up. So the Israelites were very much a part of this world that had different celestial beings and that had beings that represented different aspects of nature, whether it was war or famine or fertility and so on. And the prophets were constantly rebuking them, saying, "Hey, don't worship the symbols." Because that's another thing that is something that we have done time and a time again and that they're even doing today here in America with modern day Christianity is that people have forgotten what the symbols mean in this Bible and therefore they started worshiping the symbols. Jesus never asked to be worshiped and Jesus was never meant to be worshiped. In fact, Jesus said go and do greater things than I. But religion says that there's nobody greater than Jesus. And that is where religion has completely skewed and taken a gentile heresy of reading this through a western lens rather than understanding the cases of mythology that very much encode these stories and also tell of the sun's path through the sky and also tell of something happening in you. And so the concern with the prophets was not that these people were inventing practices out of nowhere. It is that celestial worship was very much deeply embedded in the ancient world and in the religious environment surrounding the Israelites. And understanding Canaanite celestial worship changes the way that also again many biblical passages are read just like understanding the Babylonians and understanding the Samrians and the Acadians and even the Persians that we're going to see next week and then understanding the Egyptians and so on. All of these cultures very much influence the Bible and that is why it's sometimes joke that it's the Holy Babel as in the confusing of languages because it is. It's like a mixed bag of nuts. You have peacons and you have almonds and you have peanuts and then you have cashews and you have all these different nuts and all these different cultures and all of their influence and their stories and their gods and their terminologies put into this pretty little Bible. And so now what you have to do is be able to separate them and understand what cultures influence what and to realize that when they created their own religion and their own pantheon and their own theology and their own deity, they did. They took bits and pieces out of every culture and everything unholy got put into this holy Bible. We need to have integrity to realize that this religion is just a newer adaption of times of old. Okay? Just like Christianity is one of the newest adaptions of the ancient story that has been told because with Jesus, okay, this arch type character that was based off a man named Yeshua, you also have Apollynis which was known as the pagan Christ or the antichrist. It was very much a hostile thing against the Christ cult of Orthodox Christianity. And they didn't like that man. Okay? And so they did. They burned a lot of the text, but the surviving texts we do have show him performing just as many miracles if not more than Jesus. You have Eskeipius, you have Methus, you have Krishna, you have Buddha, you have Horus, you have Osiris, you have the bell cycle, you have Anana and Ishar and all of these other deities, all of these other rising and dying arch types playing out. And so the question is what do those symbols represent? And what does that mean for us? And what does that mean for the heavens? Is it the sun maybe passing through the zodiac? and what it means for us of going into the underworld going into our unconscious shadowy realms and then as Carl Young might say integrating our shadow and bringing into wholeness and completion in our human psyche because they did they studied the stars they understood the stars and then people started worshiping the stars and you were never supposed to worship a god or deity outside of yourself okay external transaction system is exoteric principles that is the outer temple that is religion and religion is built on certainty it's built on rules it's built on structure it says believe this do this obey this and then you're good to go. But that's never been the spiritual walk. The spiritual walk is very uncertain at times. It very much is a testing and seeing. It very much is cycles. And the cycles often do reflect and represent the nature of heavens.

[00:40:24]Okay? But you're not supposed to worship the heavens and identify with the symbols. You're supposed to understand what the symbols mean and what that means for you. Because the moral of the story is that the Israelite religion did not emerge in isolation. As I even said in the beginning, the Israelite language, modern-day Hebrew, very much developed and came from PaleoHebrew, which is also known as Phoenician Canaanite. So, if their language came from the land of Canaan, what else emerged from Canaan and what else did they take from Canaan? What other influences did they have from the Canaanite world and culture? And then what does that mean for this group of nomadic people? Because their religion very much grew up within the world of Canaan. And it very much was reshaped within Babylonian influence. And they also encountered Persian religious ideas. And with that they were they were arguing the texts, redefining them and reentering them around their understanding of Yahweh and their chosen deity and patron that they had representing them in their tribe. And you even see that that Israel was given to Yahweh. And understanding these cultural contexts doesn't diminish the Bible. For many historians like myself, it actually makes the text much richer because it reveals scripture as a living collection of writings produced by real people responding to the intellectual, political, and religious worlds around them. And that then invites us to be able to read the Bible not as a book dropped into history, but as a collection of books that very much participated in history and were very much influenced by history.

[00:41:47]And if you like this video, please give it a likes up and hit subscribe as it supports me and the works that I do. And thank you so much for watching and listening to this week's episode of The Godcore