Dagon

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For other uses, see Dagon (disambiguation).

Deities of theancient Near East
Levantine (Canaanite)[hide] Adonis Anat Asherah Ashima Astarte Atargatis Baal Berith Chemosh Dagon El Elyon Eshmun Hadad Kothar-wa-Khasis Melqart Moloch Mot Qetesh Resheph Shahar Shalim Shapash Yahweh Yam Yarikh
Mesopotamian [hide] Abzu/Apsu Adad Amurru An/Anu Anshar Ashur Enki/Ea Enlil Ereshkigal Inanna/Ishtar Kingu Kishar Lahmu/Lahamu Marduk Mummu Nabu Nammu Nanna/Sin Nergal Ningishzida Ninhursag Ninlil Tiamat Utu/Shamash
Egyptian [hide] Amun Apis Atum Buchis Geb Horus Isis Montu Nephthys Nut Osiris Ptah Ra Set Shu Tefnut Thoth
Greek [hide] Ares Aphrodite Apollo Athena Artemis Hades Hera Hermes Hephaestus Demeter Poseidon Zeus
Religions of the ancient Near East
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A conjectured colored engraving of Dagon, the "fish-god."

Dagon was originally an East Semitic Mesopotamian (Akkadian, Assyrian,Babylonian) fertility god who evolved into a major Northwest Semitic god, reportedly of grain (as symbol of fertility) and fish and/or fishing (as symbol of multiplying). He was worshipped by the early Amorites and by the inhabitants of the cities of Ebla (modern Tell Mardikh, Syria) and Ugarit (modern Ras Shamra, Syria). He was also a major member, or perhaps head, of the pantheon of thePhilistines.

His name appears in Hebrew as ???? (in modern transcription Dagon, Tiberian Hebrew D??ôn), in Ugaritic as dgn (probably vocalized asDagnu), and in Akkadian as Dagana, Dagunausually rendered in English translations asDagan.

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Etymology[edit]

In Ugaritic, the root dgn also means grain: in Hebrew ???d?g?n, Samaritan d?gan, is an archaic word for grain.

The Phoenician author Sanchuniathon also says Dagonmeans siton, that being the Greek word for grain. Sanchuniathon further explains: "And Dagon, after he discovered grain and the plough, was called Zeus Arotrios." The word arotrios means "ploughman", "pertaining to agriculture" (confer ?ροτρον "plow").

It is perhaps related to the Middle Hebrew and JewishAramaic word dgn? 'be cut open' or to Arabic dagn (???) 'rain-(cloud)'.

The theory relating the name to Hebrew d?g/dâg, 'fish', based solely upon a reading of 1 Samuel 5:2–7 is discussed in Fish-god tradition below. According to this etymology: Middle English Dagon < Late Latin (Ec.) Dagon < Late Greek (Ec.) Δ?γων < Heb ??? d?g?n, "grain (hence the god of agriculture), corn."

Non-biblical sources[edit]

The god Dagon first appears in extant records about 2500 BC in the Mari texts and in personal Amorite names in which the Mesopotamian gods Ilu (?l), Dagan, and Adad are especially common.

At Ebla (Tell Mardikh), from at least 2300 BC, Dagan was the head of the city pantheoncomprising some 200 deities and bore the titles BE-DINGIR-DINGIR, "Lord of the gods" andBekalam, "Lord of the land". His consort was known only as Belatu, "Lady". Both were worshipped in a large temple complex called E-Mul, "House of the Star". One entire quarter of Ebla and one of its gates were named after Dagan. Dagan is called ti-lu ma-tim, "dew of the land" and Be-ka-na-na, possibly "Lord of Canaan". He was called lord of many cities: ofTuttul, Irim, Ma-Ne, Zarad, Uguash, Siwad, and Sipishu.

An interesting early reference to Dagan occurs in a letter to King Zimri-Lim of Mari, 18th century BC, written by Itur-Asduu an official in the court of Mari and governor of Nahur (the Biblical city of Nahor) (ANET, p. 623). It relates a dream of a "man from Shaka" in which Dagan appeared. In the dream, Dagan blamed Zimri-Lim's failure to subdue the King of the Yaminites upon Zimri-Lim's failure to bring a report of his deeds to Dagan in Terqa. Dagan promises that when Zimri-Lim has done so: "I will have the kings of the Yaminites [coo]kedon a fisherman's spit, and I will lay them before you."

In Ugarit around 1300 BC, Dagon had a large temple and was listed third in the pantheon following a father-god and ?l, and preceding Ba?l ?ap?n (that is the god Haddu orHadad/Adad). Joseph Fontenrose first demonstrated that, whatever their deep origins, at Ugarit Dagon was identified with El,^[1] explaining why Dagan, who had an important temple at Ugarit is so neglected in the Ras Shamra mythological texts, where Dagon is mentioned solely in passing as the father of the god Hadad, but Anat, El's daughter, is Baal's sister, and why no temple of El has appeared at Ugarit.

There are differences between the Ugaritic pantheon and that of Phoenicia centuries later: according to the third-hand Greek and Christian reports of Sanchuniathon, the Phoenician mythographer would have Dagon the brother of ?l/Cronus and like him son of Sky/Uranusand Earth, but not truly Hadad's father. Hadad^[2] was begotten by "Sky" on a concubine before Sky was castrated by his son ?l, whereupon the pregnant concubine was given to Dagon. Accordingly, Dagon in this version is Hadad's half-brother and stepfather. The Byzantine Etymologicon Magnum says that Dagon was Cronus in Phoenicia.^[3] Otherwise, with the disappearance of Phoenician literary texts, Dagon has practically no surviving mythology.

Dagan is mentioned occasionally in early Sumerian texts but becomes prominent only in laterAssyro-Babylonian inscriptions as a powerful and warlike protector, sometimes equated withEnlil. Dagan's wife was in some sources the goddess Shala (also named as wife of Adad and sometimes identified with Ninlil). In other texts, his wife is Ishara. In the preface to his famouslaw code, King Hammurabi, the founder of the Babylonian empire, calls himself "the subduer of the settlements along the Euphrates with the help of Dagan, his creator". An inscription about an expedition of Naram-Sin to the Cedar Mountain relates (ANET, p. 268): "Naram-Sinslew Arman and Ibla with the 'weapon' of the god Dagan who aggrandizes his kingdom." Thestele of the 9th century BC Assyrian emperor Ashurnasirpal II (ANET, p. 558) refers to Ashurnasirpal as the favorite of Anu and of Dagan. In an Assyrian poem, Dagan appears beside Nergal and Misharu as a judge of the dead. A late Babylonian text makes him theunderworld prison warder of the seven children of the god Emmesharra.

The Phoenician inscription on the sarcophagus of King Eshmun?azar of Sidon (5th centuryBC) relates (ANET, p. 662): "Furthermore, the Lord of Kings gave us Dor and Joppa, the mighty lands of Dagon, which are in the Plain of Sharon, in accordance with the important deeds which I did."

Dagan was sometimes used in Mesopotamian royal names. Two kings of the pre-Babylonian Dynasty of Isin were Iddin-Dagan (c. 1974–1954 BC) and Ishme-Dagan (c. 1953–1935 BC). The latter name was later used by two Assyrian kings: Ishme-Dagan I (c. 1782–1742 BC) andIshme-Dagan II (c. 1610–1594 BC).

In biblical texts and commentaries[edit]

Depiction of the destruction of Dagon by Philip James de Loutherbourg, 1793.

In the Tanakh (also referred to as the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible), Dagon is particularly the god of the Philistines with temples at Beth-dagon in the tribe of Asher (Joshua 19.27), inGaza (Judges 16.23, which tells soon after how the temple is destroyed by Samson as his last act). Another temple, in Ashdod was mentioned in1 Samuel 5.2–7 and again as late as 1 Maccabees 10.83;11.4. King Saul's head was displayed in a temple of Dagon.^[4] There was also a second place known as Beth-Dagon in Judah(Joshua 15.41). Josephus (Antiquities 12.8.1;War 1.2.3) mentions a place named Dagon above Jericho. Jerome mentions Caferdago between Diospolis and Jamnia. There is also a modern Beit Dejan south-east of Nablus. Some of these toponyms may have to do with grain rather than the god.

The account in 1 Samuel 5.2–7 relates how the Ark of the Covenant was captured by the Philistines and taken to Dagon's temple in Ashdod. The following morning they found the image of Dagon lying prostrate before the ark. They set the image upright, but again on the morning of the following day they found it prostrate before the ark, but this time with head and hands severed, lying on the mipt?n translated as "threshold" or "podium". The account continues with the puzzling words raq d?gôn niš?ar ??l?yw, which means literally "only Dagon was left to him." (The Septuagint, Peshitta, and Targums render "Dagon" here as "trunk of Dagon" or "body of Dagon", presumably referring to the lower part of his image.) Thereafter we are told that neither the priests or anyone ever steps on the mipt?n of Dagon in Ashdod "unto this day". This story is depicted on the frescoes of the Dura-Europos synagogue as the opposite to a depiction of the High Priest Aaron and the Temple of Solomon.

Marnas[edit]

The vita of Porphyry of Gaza, mentions the great god of Gaza, known as Marnas (AramaicMarn? the "Lord"), who was regarded as the god of rain and grain and invoked against famine. Marna of Gaza appears on coinage of the time of Hadrian.^[5] He was identified at Gaza with Cretan Zeus, Zeus Kr?tagen?s. It is likely that Marnas was the Hellenistic expression of Dagon. His temple, the Marneion—the last surviving great cult center of paganism—was burned by order of the Roman emperor in 402. Treading upon the sanctuary's paving-stones had been forbidden. Christians later used these same to pave the public marketplace.

Fish-god tradition[edit]

A colored engraved conjecture of Dagon as a merman from a bas-relief at the Louvre.

In the 11th century, Jewish Bible commentator Rashiwrites of a biblical tradition that the name D?gôn is related to Hebrew d?g/dâg 'fish' and that Dagon was imagined in the shape of a fish: compare the Babylonian fish-god Oannes. In the 13th centuryDavid Kimhi interpreted the odd sentence in 1 Samuel 5.2–7 that "only Dagon was left to him" to mean "only the form of a fish was left", adding: "It is said that Dagon, from his navel down, had the form of a fish (whence his name, Dagon), and from his navel up, the form of a man, as it is said, his two hands were cut off." The Septuagint text of 1 Samuel 5.2–7 says that both the hands and the head of the image of Dagon were broken off.^[6]

H. Schmökel asserted in 1928^[7] that Dagon was never originally a fish-god, but once he became an important god of those maritime Canaanites, the Phoenicians, the folk-etymological connection with dâg would have ineluctably affected his iconography.^[8]

The fish form may be considered as a phallic symbol as seen in the story of the Egyptian grain god Osiris, whose penis was eaten by (conflated with) fish in the Nile after he was attacked by the Typhonic beast Set. Likewise, in the tale depicting the origin of the constellation Capricornus, the Greek god of nature Pan became a fish from the waist down when he jumped into the same river after being attacked by Typhon.

Various 19th century scholars, such as Julius Wellhausen and William Robertson Smith, believed the tradition to have been validated from the occasional occurrence of a mermanmotif found in Assyrian and Phoenician art, including coins from Ashdod and Arvad.

John Milton uses the tradition in his Paradise Lost Book 1:

... Next came one

Who mourned in earnest, when the captive ark
Maimed his brute image, head and hands lopt off,
In his own temple, on the grunsel-edge,
Where he fell flat and shamed his worshippers:
Dagon his name, sea-monster, upward man
And downward fish; yet had his temple high
Reared in Azotus, dreaded through the coast
Of Palestine, in Gath and Ascalon,
And Accaron and Gaza's frontier bounds.

Notes[edit]

Jump up^ Joseph Fontenrose, "Dagon and El" Oriens 10.2 (December 1957), pp. 277-279.
Jump up^ Called Demarus in the report.
Jump up^ Fontenrose 1957:277.
Jump up^ (1 Chronicles 10:8-10)
Jump up^ R.A. Stewart Macalister, The Philistines (London) 1914, p. 112 (illus.).
Jump up^ Noticed by Schmökel 1928, noted in Fontenrose 1957:278.
Jump up^ H. Schmökel, Der Gott Dagan (Borna-Leipzig) 1928.
Jump up^ Fontenrose 1957:278, who suggests that Berossos' Odakon, part man and part fish, who rose from the Erythraean Sea, was possibly a garbled version of Dagon.

References[edit]

ANET = Ancient Near Eastern Texts, 3rd ed. with Supplement (1969). Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-03503-2.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
"Dagon" in Etana: Encyclopædia Biblica Volume I A–D: Dabarah–David (PDF).
Feliu, Lluis (2003). The God Dagan in Bronze Age Syria, trans. Wilfred G. E. Watson. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN 90-04-13158-2.
Fleming, D. (1993). "Baal and Dagan in Ancient Syria", Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und Vorderasiatische Archäologie 83, pp. 88–98.
Matthiae, Paolo (1977). Ebla: An Empire Rediscovered. London: Hodder & Stoughton.ISBN 0-340-22974-8.
Pettinato, Giovanni (1981). The Archives of Ebla. New York: Doubleday. ISBN 0-385-13152-6.
Singer, I. (1992). "Towards an Image of Dagan, the God of the Philistines." Syria 69: 431-450.

External links[edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Dagon.

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Pagan Goddess of the Sibyl and Cybele Oracle

by
MaatRaAh

The priestesses of The Great Pagan Goddess Cybele (Kybele - cave dweller) would, through a transformation by the Greeks, be confused with and eventually known as the Sibyls. The Great Goddess of Asia Minor is the oldest true Goddess known, predating the Goddesses of the Sumerian and Egyptians by at least 5,000 years. While there have been Goddess figurines found which date to 30,000 years ago, they come to us without knowledge of their origin or character of the Goddess they represent. A figurine found at Çatal Hüyük, dating to 8,000 year ago, depicts the Mother Goddess squatting in the process of giving birth while flanked by two leopards. In later centuries, the leopards would be changed to lions--the metamorphosed Atalanta and Hippomenes, though leopards were considered to be female lions by the ancients. Her worship was originally combined with that of the Bull of Heaven, which is also prominently displayed at Çatal Hüyük.

A transformation of sounds, which may well have been Sybele that early in history, appears two thousand years later in Sumer as Siburi, the Divine Barmaid who held the keys to descent into the underworld. She was in fact the earthly Priestess of the Sumerian Goddess Inanna, holding the keys "Me" of the Holy Tavern and Cult Harlotry--though a Harlot was actually a priestess of the Egyptian Goddess Hathor. Inanna arose at the time of the death of Gugalanna, The Bull of Heaven, and husband to Ereshkigal, Goddess of the Sumerian underworld. This Bull of Heaven was not Taurus, as the some imagine, but rather the Bull of the Northern Pole, (replaced by the Bear) and Gugalanna was moved out of his place, and died, about 6,000 years ago which is when the constellation now know as Taurus was created.

Before the Akkadian conquest of Sumer by Sargon the Great, (c. 4200 years ago) Siburi had already been relegated to the near underworld, whose gates were at Eridu, [Eridanus of the Greeks], but her Priestesses continued as Siburu [belonging or pertaining to Siburi] and spread their Holy Tavern Harlotry to the north and west in the Akkadian Empire. When Hammurabi conquered Sumer-Akkad, (c. 3700 years ago) the name of Inanna was changed to Ishtar. The cuneiform characters, for Inanna and Ishtar are the same but are pronounced differently. In the new language Siburu became known as Si-bel-u (bel being lord) in the new language, while Her heavenly aspect became Subulutu, the "celestial virgin", which is a priestess who never married but was sexually promiscuous.

The Hittites, who had first arrived in northwest Asia-Minor (modern Turkey) about 3900 years ago, began their rise to power about the time of Hammurabi, but were held in check for the next one hundred and fifty years, when Babylonia become a weakened nation. Six generations later, the Egyptians under Tuthmosis III, conquered much of the former Babylonian territory. It was during this period that the Holy Taverns and the Sibelu spread north to the place of its origin in Asia Minor and as far as the Caucasus Mountains. By the time Assyria rose to power, [300 years after Hammurabi--c. 1400 BCE] the Sibelu had spread throughout Asia Minor, beyond the Black Sea and into Europe. In Thrace their Holy Taverns were established as temples of Sibyl, as the Sumerian "u" was dropped from the name.

Under Pharaoh Seti (c. 1300 BCE) the Egyptians established the colony of Colchis on the eastern tip of the Black Sea. Colchis was bordered by the Black Sea on the west, the Caucasus Mountains on the north and east, and the Hittites on the south - that portion of the Hittite Empire would later become Armenia. The center for Cybele worship was in the area that would later become Phrygia. Phrygia was located in the mountains of what is now western Turkey (in Asia Minor). Troy and the plains of Ilium were to the west. And though Troy was considered to be the capital of Phrygia by the Greeks, the true capitol was in the mountains to the east. But there had been a drastic change in worship prior to the return of the Sibelu, and sometime after Troy, Cybele became the Phrygian name for the Titan earth Goddess, Rhea, daughter of Gaea and Cronus.

Medea, the Colchis princess whom the Greeks say was the first wife of Jason, was a Sibyllae; but as stated, the Colchis were Egyptians (though the Greeks attempted to make them Arcadians) as was the Falcon Goddess, Circe, [Kurce--Medea's Aunt] who gave Odysseus instruction on how to descend and return from the underworld. Likewise the Greeks would made Aeetes, the father of Medea and brother of Circe and Pasiphae, an Arcadian king who had migrated north, but there is no doubt that he was Egyptian. Ignorant Christians have assumed that because Medea and Circe made concoctions, decoctions and mixtures of herbs and beers, that they were witches, but witches are a purely christian creation, and the word witch does not exist in the Greek language.

As the worship of Dionysus spread the wine cult throughout the world, the Bacchae of the Goat-like Bacchus (from Buccus - buck--male goat) joined the Sibyls of Thrace who were known as Sabazius. Sabazius was a Cretan demigod from which the Greeks got the name Zeus. Prior to the Greeks, however, Sabazius appears to have been a title for priestesses, and not the god it was later said to be. These were the first to replace beer with wine and incorporate the Bacchic rituals in their Holy Taverns. Flavius Claudius Julianus, the last Pagan Emperor of Rome, put beer in its proper perspective:

"Can this be Dionysus? How the deuce!
Now, by the very Bacchus, in this guise
We do not recognize
The son of Zeus.
How came this goat-reek? Wine is nectar-scented.
The Celt from barley-tops, so We suppose,
For want of grapes and nose,
This brew invented.
Beer is no scion of the God ethereal,
No son of Semele to the lightning born,
But plain John Barley-corn."
In fact, a Cereal.

The cult of Dionysus was probably the first missionary religion in history. Semele [the daughter of Cadmus - founder of Thebes] was the mother of Dionysus. His father was Zeus, thus, "to the lightning born". It was from Thrace [in Europe] that the Phrygian priestesses brought their cult back across the Hellesport and the Bosphorus into Asia Minor where it combined with the Mother Goddess as Cybele, about 150 years before Troy. However, the function of the Sibyl was always the same as Siburi, [and much like that of the Shaman] to give comfort to the Spirit of the dead as they made their journey to the underworld; and to instruct the living on how to prepare for the journey into darkness. Siburi did this for Gilgamesh, and Medea led Jason and the Argonauts to the realm of the living and the dead; Circe instructed Odysseus on the way to the house of the dead; and, it is said that Deiphobe, the Sibyl at Cumae went even further by personally leading Aeneas [the son of the Trojan Prince Anchises] to the underworld and back. Deiphobe was the daughter of the sea-demigod, Glaucus, in the Aeneid.

Cybele thus became the Goddess of Asia Minor while, Sibyl or Sybil, which means "Cavern-dweller" became the title for the Priestesses who would be distantly related and known as the Sibyllae in Greece. There are some who believe that Cybele was derived from the mountains, Kybela, but it is more likely that the mountains were named after Cybele. In Classical times the Sibyllae of Italy were purely Etruscan, [being barely distinguishable from their Great Mother in Phrygia near Troy] and although the Sibyls were later associated with Apollo, that was more a case of the Greeks adopting the name as a title, as the Sibyls were never truly Apollonian.

The Pythoness at Delphi was known as a Sibyl, but not until classical times, when the name become a generic term for all oracles. Prior to the founding of Rome (AUC) the Priestesses had been chosen for service when they were 10-12 years old, and like the priestesses of Hathor in Egypt, they performed sexual rituals as part of their oracular duties. This did not fit into Apollonian theology of "moderation in all things" and divine homosexuality and about 200 AUC (c. 550 BCE) the priests of Apollo at Delphi changed the Order of the Pythoness. Under this new Order, the Pythoness was chosen only after she had become too old for marrying [age 50] and too old to be sexually attractive, "thus insuring that oracle would be inspired by Apollo and not by a woman's love." But there was more to this change than the age of the Priestess. It had to do with sex itself and the authority of the male priest over the priestesses.

Justification for the supremacy of male the priests of Apollo had begun in the earliest days of the Hellas, when the poet Thamyris fell in love with Hyacinthus. Thamyris was the first "man to love another man" for Hyacinthus was a beautiful young boy. In what was to become the Greek way, Apollo vied for the same love. Thamyris, however, made the mistake of challenging the Nine Muses to a contest of their skills. Thamyris proposed a wager, if he should win, he would have sex with each of the Muses. The Muses agreed, but put the condition that if he lost he would be made blind and lose his memory of harp playing. Thamyris lost and Apollo was left to enjoy the fruits of divine homosexuality, until Zephyr, the West Wind, also took a liking to Hyacinthus.

One day while Apollo and Hyacinthus were hurling a discus, Zephyr caught the discus and in a jealous rage hurled it against Hyacinthus's skull. Apollo's cradled his dying lover in his arms and from the boy's death's blood which fell to the ground, sprang the hyacinth flower. This is somewhere between legend and myth, as it has little to do with the cosmos, but rather it is used as historical justification for homosexuality among the Greeks. There is no question that homosexuality (or rather male bi-sexuality) was very much a part of the early religious practices. But those were sacred homosexual rituals. By making the sex of Hyacinthus and Apollo, "love" between a mortal and a god, Greek men were justified in emulating their god.

When the Priestesses of Daphoene were taken over by the male priests of Apollo, the priests vied for both oracle and the sexual rituals of the Priestesses, as Apollo sanctioned both fellatio and anal sex. However, the people rejected any change from Priestesses as oracles, when the oracular priests failed - which was immediate. So to take control from the young sexually promiscuous Pythonesses, the priestesses were deprived of their sexual rituals and replaced with older women. It was through these older women that Apollo gave His oracle. This led to the legend of the Sibyl.

To promote the male priest [legend and myth merge here] Apollo fell in love with Daphne [the daughter of the Theban prophet, Teiresias], and when Daphne was taken to Delphi she became, Sibyl. Because of his love for her, Apollo granted her the gift of prophecy. This gift of prophesy had been given by Inanna and Isis more than 2,000 years before Apollo was born; and Daphne already possessed the gift of prophesy from her father, who had received his gift from the Egyptian Order of blind harp players - just as the blind Homer would receive his vision of the past from a similar Order. And where Teiresias had been granted long life, said to have been seven generations, Apollo granted Daphne her wish for a life of as many years as she had grains of dust in her hand (said to have been 1,000). Daphne spurned Apollo's love and because she had failed to ask for perpetual youth, Apollo refused to grant her that additional gift. Daphne grew old, rather than love Apollo, and as the Sybil of Cumae, [in Italy] she withered away more each year until there was little left of her. She was finally hung upside down in a bottle, saying only that she wished to die. Hence all the Sibyls of Greece were old women.

Deiphobe, if she were in fact Daphne-Sibyl, was the most famous of the Sibyl, and was said to be 700 years old when Aeneas came to her at Cumae, to ask her to lead him to the underworld.Cumae is just west of Puzzuoli (NW of Napoli) and was the first Greek colony in Italy; hence the Italian birth place of the Etruscans. This age is of course impossible, for even though Daphne was born to Teiresias during the seven year period in which he had been a woman, she nevertheless was quite young when Thebes fell, which was no more than two generations before the Trojan war. Aeneas was supposed to have come to Italy within a few years of Troy. Rome was founded 430 years after the fall of Troy, and tradition has it that Thebes fell 500 years before the founding of Rome. This would make her less than one hundred years old.

Marcus Terentius Varro, the Roman scholar and director of Caesar's library said there were eleven Sibyls, one each residing in the great centers of the world.

In Persia she was Sibylla Persica, and was depicted as carrying a lantern and had a serpent under her feet;

in Libya, Sibylla Libyea held a lighted torch;

at Delphi, the Sibylla Delphica wore a crown of thorns;

at Cumae, Sibylla Cumana had an stone manger;

at Samos, Sibylla Cania bore a reed and a candle;

the Sibylla Cimmeria carried a cross;

Sibylla Erythreia held a white rose;

on the Tibur, Sibylla Tibertina was dressed in animal skins and carried the fascista bundle of rods;

at Marpessa, Sibylla Europa carried sword;

on the Hellesport, Sibylla Hellespontina carried a flowering branch;

Sibylla Phrygia carried a banner and prophesied resurrection.

But it would appear that only the Sibyls of Cumae, Marpessa and Phrygia where true Cybelea. Though the Phrygian Sibyl was in fact a Priestess of Dionysus, and it was the resurrection he offered which she prophesied.

It was the Great Mother, Cybele, as the Greeks and Roman's knew Her, who was originally worshiped in the mountains of Phrygia where she was called the Mountain Mother. It appears, however, that her original seat of power was in Colchis to the north, which was the home of the Medea [the Eponymous Mother of the Medes]. Her temples and shrines were always in mountains or caves and her guardians were lions (or leopards) as Her priestesses had a close affinity with nature. These were actual lions, not mythical creatures. Lions make excellent (though dirty) pets. Sabrina and I kept a pride of 5 lions for many years. They lived in a specially built room in our house and romped in our living room [our furniture only lasted about 3-5 months before having to be replaced]. All of the Cybela rituals had an orgiastic nature. It is in Phrygia that we again find the dispute between Apollo's male Priests and the Priestesses of The Goddess.

Midas, king of Phrygia, was at the music contest between Pan, the pipe playing God [who resembled Dionysus] and the harp playing Apollo. The judge of the contest, Timolus, awarded the contest to Apollo, but Midas said that Pan was superior. For this Apollo changed Midas' ears into to those of a donkey. This is more than a cute story, as it shows the rivalry between the Greeks and Phrygians.

Apollo was a God of restraint, sexual moderation and homosexuality [or bisexuality]. Pan was a God of wine, open sexuality, and enjoyment, as were the women of Phrygia and Lydia, a nation which sprang up after the Trojan war. By the time of Herodotus, the cultures of Greece and Lydia were indistinguishable, except that the Lydian woman all prostituted themselves to earn dowries, and Lydian men judged their potential wives, not by how much money they had earned, but by how man different men with whom they had sex.

Originally only priestesses officiated before Cybele. However, when Crete was overthrown, the Cretan priests of Zeus, the Curates, migrated to Phrygia. There they joined the Corybantes and became the Galli, or priests of the Great Mother. The Corybantes were the half human sons of Cronus who danced wildly and banged their shields and weapons together to prevent Cronus from hearing the cries of the infant Zeus, whom Cronus would have killed. The priests, like the Galla before them, were complete eunuchs. They had long hair, perfumed with fragrances and ointments and wore women's garb--as did Dionysus. These complete eunuchs were not just castrated as most eunuch, but also had their entire penis removed, leaving an opening which was used as a vagina for sex. The Galli were introduced at the same time as the cult of Attis came into existence. The Galla of Sumer and later Akkad and Babylon may well be the priests from which the later Aryans derived the name Gall or Gaul, who settled in France and Germany. The cult of Attis can only be mentioning as it relates to the Great Goddess worship and Apollo, as Attis never existed independent of the Great Goddess. In Sumerian-Akkadian myth the Galla were daemons of the underworld, who disposed of the corpse of the dead. Literally they were the servants of Ereshkigal, Goddess of the Underworld. When Inanna's father, Enki, heard that Inanna had descended to the underworld and did not return, He took dirt from under his fingernail and from this made Kurgarra and Galatur [that which repels Galla] and sent them to the underworld where Inanna's corpse was given to them.

"The Kurgarra sprinkled the food of life on the corpse.
The Galatur sprinkled the water of life on the corpse.
Inanna arose..."

But when,

"Inanna was about to ascend from the underworld
When the Annaua, the judges of the underworld
seized her. They said:
`No one ascends from the underworld unmarked.
If Inanna wishes to return from the underworld,
She must provide someone in her place.'"

Inanna agrees and the large Galla and the small Galla follow her to the world above where she sends her unfaithful husband, Dumuzi, to take her place.

"The Galla were demons who know no food who know no drink,
Who eat no offerings, who drink no libations,
Who accept no gifts.
They enjoy no lovemaking.
They have no sweet children to kiss.
They tear the wife from the husband's arms,
They tear the child from the father's knees,
They steal the bride from her marriage home."

In other words, they were the daemons of death, and it appears that the castrated Galli-priests of Attis performed much the same ritual of sending the castrated Adonis-Attis-Dumuzi to the underworld. But the term daemons is not to be taken as devils, and there is far more to the Galla's roll of psychopomp who guided Inanna's return from the dead.

There are several versions of Attis. And though he was obviously associated with the late coming, Adonis of Palestine, there were some slight difference. Attis was mythically born of the hermaphrodite creature, Nana [a virgin] who conceived by a ripe pomegranate [some say an almond] which had grown from the severed penis and testicles of a man-monster, Agdistis. Some say that Agdistis was both male and female and impregnated herself-himself and that Agdistis was Attis' mother. The pomegranate, of course, is associated with Dionysus, as it was from his blood that the plant sprang, making him older than Kore who ate 9 pomegranate seeds while being held by Hades in the underworld. Attis died either after emasculating himself [cut off his penis and testicles] under a pine tree [violets grew from his blood], or he was emasculated by a boar. ((The former version is, of course, In keeping with the myth of the psychopomp who castrated himself as Galla in order to deceive Ereshkigal and obtain the soul of Inanna so he could return her to the world of the living.) Nana or Agdistis, or both, prevailed upon Zeus to grant that the body of Attis would never decay [thus assuring the immortality of the body], and then his body, symbolized by a pine tree [which would later be adopted by Christians as the christmas tree] was taken to Her cave where the two lamented his death.

Attis is a very new addition to the Inanna-Ishtar theme, and occurred at the era of the Calydonian Boar hunt [though not at the hunt] when the Greeks, killed the Heaven sent Boar, which had been a constellation in the heavens. Which tells us that Attis died when the constellation of the Heavenly Boar was killed and cast down from the sky. That is when the constellation of the Boar was replaced by one of the labors of Heracles. This was the same time that the Greeks attempted to impose the worship of Apollo on Cybele. The Phrygian goddess, like those of Greece, spurned Apollo's love [and his worship] and the male attendants of Cybele showed their disgust for Apollo by castrating themselves. This rejection of Apollo is further evidenced when Nana-Agdistis and the Great Mother asked Zeus--and not Apollo, the god of medicine--to keep Attis' body from decay.

The castration, which is the autumn equinox, when the boar rose in the heavens, would have dated back to the time of the overthrow of the Akkadian (Agagian) Empire by the Babylonians. It was then that Siburi was forced to migrate from Summer-Akkad to the west, where the priestesses of Akkad (Agag) became Agdistis, a god-created monster which was not originally a part of the religion. In order for the Akkadian male priests to be part of the religion of The Great Mother, they had to become like women, which meant the complete removal of sex organs. This was at least 500 years before Troy.

It is quite likely that the Etruscans brought the worship of Cybele with them when they invaded Italy. Her shrine at Cumae was one of the oldest in the land, and we find her castrated priest, Chloreus, dressed as a woman, fighting at the side of Camilla against Aeneas:

"Chloreus, as it chanced,
Sacred to Cybele, and erewhile her priest,
In Phrygian arms shone glorious from afar,
Urging his foamy steed, its saddle-cloth
A fell with brass scales feathered, clasp with gold.
In foreign purple darkly dight he rode,
Launching Gortynian shafts from Lycian bow;
Gold hung the bow from shoulder, gold the casque
On the diviner's head; a saffron scarf
Rustling with gauzy waves he had bound up
Into a knot with tawny gold, and wore
Needle-wrought tunic and barbaric hose.
Him how the maid, or fain to fix on shrine
Arms Trojan, or on flaunt in captive gold,
From all the melee, singling, huntress-like,
Chased blindly, and through the ranks all reckless burned
With women's love of booty and of spoil." Aeneid XI, 767-93.

The Romans also called Cybele, Ops from which we get the modern expression, oops. When you upset something by mistake, oops. Although the Sibyls could give their oracle in frenzied speech, the practice at Cumae was to write her prophetic words (characters and names) on leaves which she place on the floor of her cave. When the door of the cave was opened by the inquirant, the wind would stir the leaves and rearrange the letters and words. Oops. Once the winds had scattered the leaves they could not be restored to "their places, or fit line to line" and were of no value.Virgil The Aeneid III, 441-452 states:

"Here landed, when to Cumae's town thou comest,
The holy lakes, Avernus' echoing groves,
Thou shalt the frenzied prophetess behold,
Who in a rock's deep hollow chants the Fates,
To leaves committing characters and names.
All prophecies upon the leaves impressed
The maid in order ranges, left to lie
Shut up within the cavern: they remain
Unmoved in place, nor from their order stir,
But none the less, when with the turning hinge
A draught of air strikes, and the open door
Unsettles the light leaves, ner'er heeds she then
To catch them, as they flutter round the cave,
Restor their places, or fit line to line:
Men go their ways uncounselled,
and detest the Sibyl's seat."

Avernus (also Averno) was the lake in which a cave was the entrance to the underworld. The Sibyl will not help anyone catch the leaves, nor will she replace them in order. If there is no wind the inquirers can read the prophesy which Destiny or the Gods had intended for the inquirers.
Legend has it that some time after the founding of Rome, the Sibyl at Cumae offered nine of her prophetic books for sale to Tarquinius Superbus, the Seventh (and last) legendary King of Rome. Tarquinius refused to pay what was demanded, so the Sibyl burned three of the books. When he still refused to pay the price, the Sibyl burned another three, and Tarquinius finally paid as much for the three as she had demanded for the original nine. The books were kept in three Temples, those of Jupiter, Juno and Minerva on the Capitoline Hill. Thereafter, the Sibylline Books could only be consulted by an act of the Senate.

When Hannibal threatened Rome in 543 AUC (210 BCE), the Senate ordered consultation of the Sibylline books and found the promise that whenever an enemy from abroad should make war on Italy they would be expelled and conquered if the Idaean Mother were to be brought to Rome. Rome immediately began building a temple for the Great Mother of the Gods [Mater Deum Magna] on the Palatine. The Palatine was one of the Seven Hills on Rome's left bank, the others being Capitoline, Quirinal, Viminal, Esquiline, Caelian and Aventine. There are actually 10 hills, the 3 on the right bank being, Vatican, Monte Mario, Monte Gianicolo (Janiculum), but in pre-christian times, those three were inhabited only by riff-raft and mosquitos. But it was six years (549 AUC) before Her silver statue and her sacred symbol [a small black stone which fell from the heavens] was able to be brought to Rome. The Goddess was quickly accepted as the Great Mother [Magna Mater], even though the Romans were appalled by the rituals of the Galla Priests. Within 200 years of its official acceptance by the Romans, worship of The Great Mother had become one of the three important cults of Rome, though it had few priests. The other two cults were those of Isis and Mithra. The festival of the Great Mother was originally held in Rome on April 4, followed on April 5 by the Megalesia Games, which were instituted when Her cult was introduced by command of the Roman Senate. Under the Etruscan Emperor, Claudius, the Megalesia was extended from April 4 to 10. Even later the festivals were changed to run from March 15 to 27 so as to coincide with the Spring Equinox.

When the Capitoline was burned in 670 AUC (83 BCE), a new collection of Sibylline Books was compiled and were last ordered consulted by Julian [called the Apostate by Christians] in 1116 AUC. The books were destroyed in 1156 AUC (403 C.E.) by Flavious Stilicho, the Vandal chieftain who served as commander in chief of the Roman Army under the christian Emperor Theodosius.

Both the Jews and christians created, forged, Sibylline books of their own to give credence to their own claims of prophesy. These Jewish and christian Sibylline Books are often referred to as the originals by Christians and Jews, but they originated after the destruction of the first Sibylline Books in 670 AUC (53 BCE). For the most part they are pure garbage, and like the Book of Daniel, were written as prophesy after the events had occurred. However, because of the symbolism of the eleven Sibyls (supra), carrying a lantern with serpent under her feet, the crown of thorns, the stone manger, the cross, and the banner, which prophesied resurrection, Christians believed the Sibyls foretold the coming of Jesus. In a way they did. They foretold that a man would be born whose followers would destroy knowledge, an oracle that was all too true.

http://www.sacred-texts.com/ane/mba/mba08.htm

JESUS the FISH GOD?

by Avram Yehoshua

(Endnotes in red. Click on the number to go to endnote. Click the BACK button on your browser to return to the article)

In our day we have seen a revival of another ancient symbol of the Church, the fish. I remember first reading about it years ago and was quite impressed. Some early Gentile Christians who were persecuted had a secret sign among them. They would make a semi arc with their foot in the dirt, and if the other person opposite them did the same thing, they would know that they were Christians. The two arcs, intersecting at the front and the back, would form a sort of simple fish design.

The Greek word for fish is ichthys. Each letter would be taken and used as an acronym to stand for; Jesus Christ Son of God Savior.1 I thought that was pretty neat. Unger's Bible Dictionary states that,

'in Christian symbolism, the fish is of great significance. It is among the earliest art forms'; 'generally thought to be the symbol for Christ.'2

Unger comments that water baptism was in the mind of those who made the fish to be a symbol for Christ.3

One day though, I had some thoughts that puzzled me:

'Where is the biblical connection between Jesus and something that would associate Him as a fish?' 'And how does water baptism make Jesus into a fish?'

I realized that Yeshua (the Hebrew Name for Jesus), had fed many Jewish people with just a few fish and some bread.4 He was called the Bread of Life. And He also said to Peter and Andrew that if they followed Him, He would make them fishers of men,5 but could either of these be a reason why He would come to be called or equated with a fish?6 It seemed a little strange to me. I know too that there are many fish in places where baptism is practiced but how would that relate to Yeshua?

Then one day I realized that in the Bible there was a god that was represented as a fish, actually, half fish and half man. It was the god of the Philistines, the enemies of Israel. His name was Dagon7 which means 'fish' in Hebrew.8 James Freeman in Manners and Customs of the Bible writes:

'Dagon is the diminutive of dag, and signifies 'little fish;' not so much, however, in reference to size, as to the affection entertained for it; so that some would render it, 'dear little fish.' The Babylonians believed that a being, part man and part fish, emerged from the Erythraean Sea, and appeared in Babylonia in the early days of its history, and taught the people various arts necessary for their well-being. Representations of this fish-god have been found among the sculptures of Nineveh. The Philistine Dagon was of a similar character.'9

Babylon and Nineveh. They certainly pre-date the birth of Yeshua. Would Yeshua have us to use symbols and titles that belong to pagan gods?

Dagon means the 'Fish-god'.10 When the Ark of the Covenant was captured by the Philistines, at first they placed it in their temple to Dagon as symbolic of the booty captured and their victory over Israel and her God. But the next day they found Dagon fallen on his face. They propped him up but he had trouble staying up. The following day they found him again face down but this time with his hands and head cut off (1st Sam. 5:1-4). It seems that Dagon didn't do too well with his rival, Yahveh, the God of Israel, that accompanied the Ark. This happened in Ashdod, one of the five major cities of the Philistines along the Mediterranean coast of present day Israel.11

That Dagon was not confined to just one location is also seen from the fact that in Ugarit, a great city that flourished before Moses took Israel out of Egypt, two temples, 'dedicated to the god Baal and his father Dagon'12 have been found. The people that inhabited Ugarit were Canaanites. Ugarit was situated in what is presently Ras Shamra, Syria, about half a mile (0.8 kilometers), from the Mediterranean Sea, parallel with Cyprus.

Ugarit was a cosmopolitan city that did trade with much of the nations around it. It's been shown that they knew, 'seven different languages'.13 That speaks much for their ability to trade with other peoples. One of their main products for export was cosmetics. Fennel grew in the region. It's 'a fragrant flower whose seeds are used for making aromatic ointments.'14 They were also known for their purple dye.'15 Their history covers about 800 years with 1550-1200 being their 'golden age'.16 Unfortunately, as knowledgeable and sophisticated as they were, they were also deeply involved in their fertility cult. Bestiality was practiced among their gods17 and most likely in the temples by the people. James Packer in Illustrated Manners and Customs of the Bible tells us that,

'Fertility religions such as Ugarit's place great emphasis on the reproduction of the land, in crops and in the womb. This emphasis helps explain their stress on sexual unions.' 'At Ugarit' 'homosexual priests and priestesses' 'acted as prostitutes.'18

Dagon was not just the god of the Philistines. If Ugarit was any indication of how Dagon was worshipped, we can see that the people were totally debased. Why would someone who loves Yeshua want to take a pagan symbol and suggest that it represents Yeshua? I can think of no good biblical reason. If you see someone wearing a police uniform, you naturally tend to think they're a cop. If they are not, they are an impostor. If we take upon ourselves a symbol of paganism, which essentially comes from Satan, how can this serve our desire to reflect Yeshua?

Both the Philistine and Ugarit locations, next to the sea, lend themselves to the worship of a fish god. The fish was worshipped for its ability to procreate rapidly. Abundance was a sign of blessing.

Dagon was represented as either half fish and half man, where the upper part of his body would be fully human19 or, 'the head of the fish formed a Outfit,Mitre above that of the man, while its scaly, fan-like tail fell as a cloak behind, leaving the human limbs and feet exposed.'20 The priests of Dagon wore a Outfit,Mitre on their head that resembled the head and jaws of a fish.21 Is it a coincidence that the Pope wears an identical Outfit,Mitre?22

There is some question as to if the Dagon of the Philistines was actually a fish god or a god of grain. This is because the Hebrew word can also mean grain. Benjamin Davidson in The Analytical Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon tells us that the word is used for both:

'dagon means, a '(large fish),' properly the 'name of an idol of the Philistines worshipped at Ashdod.' He also says that dah-gahn means, 'grain.'23

Some have found that Dagon in some places was actually a grain god.24 Whether this is the case for the Philistine Dagon we cannot fully determine. But there is no question about the Greek word for fish (Ichthys). It was the title for many gods in the ancient world and therefore, a symbol of a fish would serve them. Also we know that fish gods were in a number of places such as Babylon and Nineveh as Freeman told us above. Johannes Botterweck writes,

'The role the fish plays in the cult is most varied. Apparently there have been fish cults among' 'people from time immemorial.'25 'In the provincial capital of Latopolis' (Egypt) 'the Nile perch (latos) had its own cult. It was connected with Neith, who at the creation of the world momentarily assumed the form of a latos in the primeval waters'.26

Alexander Hislop tells us more about latos (the Egyptian fish god) and shows us that many gods whom we might not have associated with being a 'fish-god' were indeed known by that title:

'The name 'lat,' or the hidden one, had evidently been given, as well as Saturn, to the great Babylonian god. This is evident from the name of the fish Latus, which was worshipped along with the Egyptian Minerva, in the city of Latopolis in Egypt, now Esneh (WILKINSON), that fish Latus evidently just being another name for the fish-god Dagon. We have seen that Ichthys, or the Fish, was one of the names of Bacchus; and the Assyrian goddess Atergatis, with her son Ichthys is said to have been cast into the lake of Ascalon.' 'That the sun-god Apollo had been known under the name of Lat, may be inferred from the Greek name of his mother-wife Leto, or in Doric, Lato, which is just the feminine of Lat'27

Apollo, Bacchus and Saturn known as fish gods? That was news to me. This thing seemed to be more widespread then I had first imagined. I hadn't known that pagan gods were symbolized as fish.

Ringgren writes that if Dagon was the fish god of the Philistines, it would make him 'comparable with the goddess Derketo and the Babylonian fish-man Oannes.28 Here we come to the original or the prototype with Oannes. Babylon was the place where paganism and rebellion to Yahveh fermented and Oannes is the first of all the fish gods. It seems that this fish god taught Man many things and that it was the water or sea that originally transformed him from just a man to the fish god. In other words, the man was transformed into another being by the waters.

In Babylon, the fish god came out of the 'Red Sea or Persian Gulf, half man and half fish' and 'civilized the Babylonians, taught them arts and sciences, and instructed them in politics and religion.29 His name was Oannes whom Hislop presents as another name for Dagon,30 Bacchus, Tammuz and Nimrod.31 From The Two Babylons we read that the great rebel Nimrod is the archetype for the fish god:

'BEROSUS, BUNSEN'S Egypt, vol. 1, p. 707. To identify Nimrod with Oannes, mentioned by Berosus as appearing out of the sea, it will be remembered that Nimrod has been proved to be Bacchus. Then, for proof that Nimrod or Bacchus, on being overcome by his enemies, was fabled to have taken refuge in the sea, see chapter 4, section i. When, therefore, he was represented as reappearing, it was natural that he should reappear in the very character of Oannes, as a Fish-god. Now, Jerome calls Dagon, the well known Fish-god Piscem moeroris (BRYANT), 'the fish of sorrow,' which goes far to identify that Fish-god with Bacchus, the 'Lamented one'; and the identification is complete when Hesychius tells us that some called Bacchus, Ichthys, or 'The Fish.'32

Using the symbol of a fish to represent Jesus doesn't appear to be a good idea. It seems that the whole pagan world used the term to represent their fish god. Even with the Greek letters inside it 'to identify it' as Yeshua, we find ourselves enshrouding Him in a pagan symbol. Why would we want to use something that represents a pagan god, to portray Yeshua?

Just as we know that the Earth was once flooded in the days of Noah, so too did the pagan peoples understand this.3 There are similar legends among the Mexicans, the Druids, the Greeks, in India, Egypt and Africa, etc.34 In India, the 'lost Vedas' or sacred books were recovered by a 'great god, under the form of a fish.35 Could this be where the association of water baptism and Yeshua as a fish came from? Did you notice that Bacchus took refuge in the sea and when he came out, he was 'another man', Oannes? This is where baptismal regeneration comes from. The waters transformed him. It's called magic.

Baptismal regeneration sounds biblical but is a pagan doctrine. It's a deception. It states that one can be sprinkled or immersed in water and that this atones for sins, or purifies the person, and that the person is saved. This is found in the Catholic Church and some other churches. They call it 'holy water.'

This is a far cry from the waters of biblical baptism which pictures the person asking for forgiveness of their sins in the Name of Yeshua. The immersion pictures the death of the person and the subsequent coming up from the water symbolizes new life in Messiah. It's not the water that purifies the soul or the water that saves, but the Blood of Yeshua and His Spirit on a heart that submits to Him and His Ways.

The pagans used the story of Noah emerging from the Flood but gave it their own little twist. Dagon or Oannes was said to originally have been Noah.36 Noah was said to be transformed or reincarnated as he passed through the flood waters. He was symbolized as a fish god,37 to lead Man in the 'right way.' And you thought the fish symbol was just some innocent design?

By identifying Nimrod with Noah, it would be seen that Noah had been reincarnated,

'as Dagon, that he might bring mankind back again to the blessings they had lost when Nimrod was slain.'38

Ancient history tells us that Nimrod set up worship of fire in place of the One True God.39 It was he who, following in the wicked footsteps of his father, Cush (Gen. 10:8), turned men away from the worship of Yahveh. Men began to worship fire, and be 'purified' by it. The ultimate form of this worship was infant sacrifice. After that, and alongside it, water would become a purifier, hence the Flood as the purifier of Bacchus. With this began the teaching of baptismal regeneration, as Noah passed through the waters of the Flood.40 Using something that was true (Noah and the Flood), Satan perverted it for his own use (Oannes, the Fish god, etc.).

Revelation 12:15 pictures a Woman being overwhelmed by a flood of water from the Serpent. The Woman represents believers in Messiah Yeshua:

'And the Serpent cast out of his mouth a flood of water after the Woman that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood.'

This Serpent is also know as the Dragon or the Devil (Rev. 12:9; 20:2). Hislop unfolds the mystery of the Woman, the Dragon and the flood of waters for us when he writes:

'The symbol here is certainly very remarkable. If this was the dragon of fire, it might have been expected that it would have been represented, according to popular myth, as vomiting fire after the woman. But it is not so. It was a flood of water that he cast out of his mouth. What could this be? As the water came out of the mouth of the dragon, that must mean doctrine, and of course, false doctrine. But is there nothing more specific than this? A single glance at the old Babylonian type will show that the water cast out of the mouth of the serpent must be the water of baptismal regeneration. Now, it was precisely at this time, when the old Paganism was suppressed, that the doctrine of regenerating men by baptism, which had been working in the Christian Church before, threatened to spread like a deluge over the face of the Roman empire. It was then precisely that our Lord Jesus Christ began to be popularly called Ichthys that is, 'the Fish,'41 manifestly to identify him with Dagon. At the end of the fourth century, and from that time forward it was taught, that he who had been washed in the baptismal font was thereby born again, and made pure as the virgin snow.'42

It seems like Unger's was right when it stated earlier that water baptism was in the mind of those who made the fish to be a symbol for Christ. Unfortunately, pagan water baptism or baptismal regeneration has no basis in the Word of God. It's magic. Also, the flood of water is not limited to just baptismal regeneration, although the symbolism is very apt. Within the Roman Catholic Church there are many false and pagan ceremonies, theologies and practices that originated in Babylon and not the Word of God. The Catholic Church was flooded with these pagan ways and symbols.43 Hislop states that it was,

'From about AD 360, to the time of the Emperor Justinian, about 550, we have evidence both of the promulgation of this doctrine, and also of the deep hold it came at last to take of professing Christians.'44

He also goes on to say that it was the design of the Roman Catholic Church to bring paganism into Christianity. A goal that they excelled in. Can we take the rites and symbols of Bacchus and Apollo and make them Christian? The first question that comes to mind is, 'Why would we even want to?' The second is, 'If it's not in the Bible, how could we 'attach' it to Yeshua without usurping God's authority to direct our lives?' If I place upon Yeshua something that is not biblically ordained, but comes from paganism, I am drawing Yeshua into the pagan realm, not elevating or transforming a pagan symbol into a Christian one. The Bible is our authority for what we believe, and therefore, what we should practice. Resting our belief on anything else places us on dangerous ground.

There isn't any biblical justification to label Yeshua as 'the Fish' or to use a fish symbol for Him. Now, there are times when Satan the thief just steals titles, symbols or concepts from the Lord Yeshua, as in Tammuz being called the Savior of the world, 'who died for the good of mankind.45 At this point it is a matter of who is the Real Savior. But Yeshua being represented by a 'fish' has no biblical basis in either the Old or the New Testaments.

So, what of the fish symbol that is re-immerging among Christians today? From what we've seen, paganism had an exclusive market on it. No where do we see Yeshua being portrayed as a fish. But our God does give us a warning about using the fish symbol:

The 'prohibition of graven images in Dt. 4:9-28 is defined more specifically by detailed prohibitions against making 'the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth' (v. 18), etc. This excludes fish emblems or representations of fish gods according to the heathen custom.'46

It would seem that Yeshua wouldn't appreciate being represented by a fish. After all, are we to mold Him over into our image or are we to find out Who He is?

'Yeshua the Messiah is the same yesterday and today and forever. Do not be carried away by varied and strange teachings'. (Heb. 13:8-9a)

Let us not be carried away by all the hoopla that attends the fish symbol. Many people are ignorant of its origin and true meaning. But obviously, it is a 'strange teaching' that should have no place in the life of a follower of Yeshua. This is true for the fish symbol as it stands alone, or with the Greek letters in it, supposedly representing Yeshua.

It is also true of the so-called 'Messianic Seal', which has the fish symbol, the so-called Star of David, the Seven Branched Menorah (Lampstand, Ex. 25:31-35), and sometimes the (pagan) cross on it. This Seal is gaining momentum among many believers. There's nothing Messianic about it except for the Menorah. But the placing of a biblical symbol in the midst of two or three pagan symbols does not give it validity to be used as a symbol for Yeshua.

It is to our shame that Satan can so easily deceive so many of us. Even so, come soon Lord Yeshua!

ENDNOTES:

Merrill F. Unger, Unger's Bible Dictionary (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 25th printing, 1976), p. 369.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Matthew 14:17ff, 15:34ff, Mark 6:38ff; 8:7ff, Luke 9:16, John 6:9.
Matthew 4:18-19.
Some might suggest that Yeshua, who miraculously multiplied fish and bread for them, was called the Bread of Life (see John 6:35, 48 where Yeshua refers to Himself as such). And so why not call Him the Fish of Life too? But nowhere does He refer to Himself as the Fish of Life or anything equivalent to that. In the Tanach (the Hebrew Bible, a.k.a. the Old Testament), there is ample foundation for Yeshua to call Himself the Bread of Life. The Manna in the Wilderness which sustained Israel was part of the national history. When Yeshua comes on the scene, He is not making anything up by calling Himself the Bread of Life but referring to something that everyone understood as part of their Jewish history. He uses this picture of Manna in the Wilderness, to relate to Himself in the same section of John (6:31-51), as the True Bread that comes down from Heaven (6:41), a reference to the Real Manna coming from God.
Judges 16:23; 1st Samuel 5:2-7; 1st Chronicles 10:10.
Actually, the word for fish is dag, or the first three letters of Dagon). Adding the diminutive 'on' to the Hebrew word for fish gives us the name of the Philistine god, Dagon (pronounced, dah-gon). The adding of the diminutive changes the meaning from 'fish' to 'dear little fish' or 'beloved fish.'
Rev. James M. Freeman, Manners and Customs of the Bible (Plainfield, New Jersey: Logos International, 1972; originally written about 1874), p. 126, #236.
The Reverend Alexander Hislop, The Two Babylons, 2nd American edition. (Neptune, New Jersey: Loizeaux Brothers, 1959; originally written in 1862), p. 114. No less of a pillar of the Christian Church than Jerome calls Dagon 'the well known Fish-god.'
We also read in Judges 16:21-31 that Dagon was worshipped in the Philistine city of Gaza.
J. I. Packer and M. C. Tenney, Editors, Illustrated Manners and Customs of the Bible (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1980), p. 140.
Ibid.
Ibid. p. 139.
Ibid. p. 142.
Ibid. pp. 140-141.
Ibid. p. 144.
Ibid. p. 146.
Hislop, The Two Babylons, p. 215.
Ibid. This quote was originally taken from Layard's Babylon and Nineveh, p. 343.
Ibid.
Ibid. p. 215f.
Benjamin Davidson, The Analytical Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1979), p. 146.
G. Johannes Botterweck and Helmer Ringgren, Editors; John Willis, Translator, Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, volume 3 (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1997), p. 140.
Ibid. p. 133.
Ibid.
Hislop, The Two Babylons, p. 270, footnote.
Botterweck, Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, volume 3, p. 141.
Hislop, The Two Babylons, p. 243.
Ibid.
Ibid. p. 114. Another well known name that was seen as an expression of Dagon or Oannes was Bacchus. He is called the fish god also. Hislop states that Oannes was originally Tammuz or Nimrod.
Hislop, The Two Babylons, p. 114, footnote.
Ibid. p. 242-243.
Ibid.
Ibid. p. 243.
Ibid. p. 244.
Ibid. p. 214-215.
Ibid. p. 244.
Remember the burning bush? Satan was not going to allow God to corner the market on fire. Someone might ask, 'Well, does that mean we can't use fire?' Only if you worship it.
Hislop, The Two Babylons, p. 244.
Ibid. Hislop cites 'Augustine, De Civitate, lib. xviii. cap. 23, vol. ix. p. 665.'
Ibid.
For a complete understanding of this, please read Hislop's, The Two Babylons. The extent of paganism in the Catholic Church is overwhelming. And some of it has flowed into the Protestant churches.
Hislop, The Two Babylons, p. 247.
Ibid. p. 246.
Botterweck, Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, volume 3, p. 137.

http://www.seedofabraham.net/fish.html

Dagon Was the Chief God of the Philistines

By Judd Burton

Excavating a low-relief carving of the Fish god Dagon, Nineveh, 1853. Artist: N Chevalier - Print Collector / Contributor/ Hulton Archive/ Getty Images

Excavating a low-relief carving of the Fish god Dagon, Nineveh, 1853. Between 1845 and 1851 British archaeologist Austen Henry Layard (1817-1894) excavated the remains of the ancient Assyrian capitals of Nimrud and Nineveh and revealed the reliefs that decorated the royal palaces. These and other objects recovered from Mesopotamia astonished Europe and Layard's account of his discoveries became a best-seller. In 1851 he retired from excavation to take up a life in politics. From Discoveries in the Ruins of Ninevah and Babylon by Austen Layard. (London, 1853). Print Collector / Contributor/ Hulton Archive/ Getty Images

Dagon: Chief God of the Philistines

Dagon was the principal deity of the Philistines, whose ancestors migrated to Palestinian shores from Crete. He was the god of fertility and crops. Dagon also figured prominently in the Philistine concepts of death and the afterlife. In addition to his role in the religion of the Philistines, Dagon was worshiped in the more general society of Canaanite peoples.

Some years after the arrival of the Minoan forefathers of the Philistines, the immigrants adopted elements of Canaanite religion. Eventually the primary religious focus shifted. The worship of the Great Mother, the original religion of the Philistines, was traded for the paying of homage to the Canaanite deity, Dagon.

Within the Canaanite pantheon, Dagon seems to have been second only to El in power. He was one of four sons born to Anu. Dagon was also the father of Baal. Among the Canaanites, Baal eventually assumed the position of god of fertility, which Dagon had previously occupied. Dagon was sometimes associated with the half fish female deity Derceto (which may account for the theory of Dagon being portrayed as half fish). Little else is known of Dagon's place in the Canaanite pantheon, but his role in Philistine religion as primary deity is quite evident. It is known, however, that the Canaanites imported Dagon from Babylonia.

The image of Dagon is a debated issue. The notion that Dagon was a god whose upper body was that of a man and the lower body that of a fish has been prevalent for decades. This idea may stem from a linguistic error in translating a derivative of the Semitic 'dag.' The word 'dagan' actually means 'corn' or 'cereal'. The name 'Dagon' itself dates back to at least 2500 BCE, and is most probably a derivative of a word from a dialect of the Semitic tongue. This notion that Dagon was represented in iconography and statuary as part fish in Philistia proper is not supported entirely by coins found in Phoenician and Philistine cities. In fact, there is no evidence in the archaeological record to support the theory that Dagon was thusly represented. Whatever the image, a varying perception of Dagon developed around the Mediterranean.

The worship of Dagon is quite evident in ancient Palestine. He was, of course, the foremost deity in the cities of Azotus, Gaza, and Ashkelon. The Philistines depended on Dagon for success in war and they offered various sacrifices for his favor. As previously mentioned, Dagon was also worshipped outside the confederacy of Philistine city-states, as in the case of the Phoenician city of Arvad. The religion of Dagon continued to at least the second century BCE, when the temple at Azotus was destroyed by Jonathan Macabeas.

Two textual sources that mention Dagon, and rulers and towns bearing his name merit note. The Bible and the Tel-el-Amarna letters made such mention. During the course of the establishment of the Israelite monarchy (ca 1000 BCE), the Philistine nation became the primary enemy of Israel. Due to this situation, Dagon is mentioned in passages such as Judges 16:23-24, I Samuel 5, and I Chronicles 10:10. Beth Dagon was a town in the land captured by the Israelites mentioned in Joshua 15:41 and 19:27, thus preserving the namesake of the deity. The Tel-el-Amarna letters (1480-1450 BCE) also mention the namesake of Dagon. In these letters, two rulers of Ashkelon, Yamir Dagan and Dagan Takala, were entered.

Despite any debate over the subject, it is apparent that Dagon was at the apex of the Philistine pantheon. He commanded religious reverence from both the Philistines and the broader Canaanite society. Dagon was indeed crucial to the cosmology of the Philistines and a vital force in their individual lives.

Sources:

_{The Bible (NIV Translation). Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1991.}
_{DeVries, Lamoine. Cities of the Biblical World. Peabody, Massachussetts: 1997.}
_{Keller, Werner. The Bible as History. New York: Bantam, 1980.}
_{Knight, Kevin. 'Dagon', The Catholic Encyclopedia 4 (1999): www.newadvent.org, pg. 1-2.}
_{The Revell Concise Bible Dictionary. Tarrytown, New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1984.}

http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/godsmyth/a/Dagon.htm

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Dagon

Contents

Etymology[edit]

Non-biblical sources[edit]

In biblical texts and commentaries[edit]

Marnas[edit]

Fish-god tradition[edit]

See also[edit]

Notes[edit]

References[edit]

External links[edit]

Pagan Goddess of the Sibyl and Cybele Oracle

JESUS the FISH GOD?

by Avram Yehoshua

Dagon Was the Chief God of the Philistines

Dagon

Contents

Etymology[edit]

Non-biblical sources[edit]

In biblical texts and commentaries[edit]

Marnas[edit]

Fish-god tradition[edit]

See also[edit]

Notes[edit]

References[edit]

External links[edit]

Pagan Goddess of the Sibyl and Cybele Oracle

JESUS the FISH GOD?

by Avram Yehoshua

Dagon Was the Chief God of the Philistines

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