Sighted Moon News Letter 5843-057
13th day of the 13th Month 5843 after Creation

March 22, 2008

Shabbat Shalom Brethren and Family,

One of the things that kept coming up during my speaking tour, was how do we keep the Sabbath and how do we keep the Passover. It came up each and every night, which surprised me. Not just once or twice. Along with it came questions as to why Easter and Passover were a month apart.
So many come to learn the truth and want to bring the baggage and wrong teachings they currently or previously held, with them. Others jump from pagan Christianity to some form of Jewish teachings. Others jump from Jewish teachings to pagan Christianity. Every one needs to drop or forget all previously taught religious ideas and go directly to the Bible itself.

On the speaking tour I taught that the only Holy Days of Yahweh were found in Leviticus 23. If they are keeping a holy day that is not found here, I ask them why they are doing it. I then went to show them that the sign of Yahweh is His Sabbaths. Plural. This is His mark on us. On our Hand , the way we live, or on our forehead, the way we think. They include the Weekly Sabbath on Saturday and the Holy Days as written in Leviticus 23. We are marked by Yahweh by keeping them at the appointed time.

I also taught them that the mark of Satan is also on the hand or forehead. The mark of Satan then was any other holy day not found in Leviticus 23. Satan is trying to impersonate Yahweh. So Satan also has holy times that he institutes to hide the truth of Yahweh. Yahweh’s truth is revealed in each and every Holy Day as found in Leviticus 23. Satan’s sacred days reveal nothing, and hide the truth, which is the salvation plan of Yahweh. Satan’s holy days are added to the word and cannot be found in it.

Deuteronomy 4:2 You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you.
Deuteronomy 5:22 “These words the LORD spoke to all your assembly, in the mountain from the midst of the fire, the cloud, and the thick darkness, with a loud voice; and He added no more. And He wrote them on two tablets of stone and gave them to me.
Deuteronomy 12:32 “Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it; you shall not add to it nor take away from it.
Proverbs 30:6 Do not add to His words, Lest He rebuke you, and you be found a liar.
Ecclesiastes 3:14 I know that whatever God does, It shall be forever. Nothing can be added to it, And nothing taken from it. God does it, that men should fear before Him.
Revelation 22:18 For I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book;

Having said this I now find that I must show where Easter and Lent come from. I would rather just teach on the Holy Days. But I must show this false teaching and it’s source. So many cling to it and do not realize just how wrong it is. I have shown some of the origins of Easter in the teachings on Noah’s Ark found at http://localhost/sightedmoon.com/what-exactly-is-gopher-wood/
With this News Letter I will teach those who are willing, the true meaning of Easter. But some of you are looking for a deeper level of understanding. There are so many on this News letter who are in need of the basic teachings. Others are saying that the things I am teaching here are at a college level. Well this week I have both a basic level teaching on Easter and a University level teaching on the deeper meaning on the name of Yahweh.

Craig Peters the author of this article has some very deep and meaningful studies on his site. You can go direct to the article here, http://www.yahuyahweh.org/iah/pdf/SSS_HaMisparim_LaDebarim_Prophet_Mosheh_and_Name_of_YHWH.pdf

Or you can read his introduction here;
For those few who have indicated blessings were received from articles previously posted to the IAH web site ( http://www.yahuyahweh.org/iah ), this short note is to make you aware a new article has been recently placed there. It is offered to YHWH for your blessings and edification.
The title of the new study is: “The Prophet Mosheh and the Name of YHWH”

To download this article go to the main menu “Studies in Hebrew,” and then go to the submenu for the series “Ha Misparim La Debarim: The Numbers of the Words.” This study is part of the continuing series. In case you will be interested, or if you are led to send this announcement to others, here is a brief overview of the article: While many believe the Scripture in Daniel (about knowledge being increased) applies to man’s modern advances in technology, I believe the text applies to YHWH more greatly revealing the true knowledge of Himself just before He judges and destroys the kingdoms of this world. Daniel 12:4, Psalm 46:6, Isaiah 2:10-21, Revelation 16:17-21 We continue to be overwhelmed by the loving kindness of YHWH in revealing His greatness to His people: “The Prophet Mosheh and the Name of YHWH” is an article which clearly proves the Name of YHWH has always been, and always will be, relevant and important.

This manuscript is a work which proves many things from the Hebrew Scriptures:

1. The stunning relationship between the Name of YHWH and the prophet Mosheh, the man called to more greatly reveal the Name.

2. 2. Exodus 6:3 is a question! We have been deeply disturbed for many years at the theorizing theologians who continue to put forth the false view that the text of Exodus 6:3 is a statement. Their erroneous deduction from this false premise: the Name of YHWH was not known before being revealed to Mosheh at the burning bush in Midian. Nothing could be farther from the truth, and this study gives ample evidence to support the facts of the matter. We pray our efforts will contribute toward putting an end to the incessant, misleading claim that Exodus 6:3 was a statement.

3. 3. The amazing relationship between the Name of YHWH and the title “El Shaddai.”

4. 4. The prophetic relationship between the way Mosheh proclaimed the Name of YHWH and the way his Successor, the Messiah, proclaimed/proclaims the Name of YHWH. If Mosheh proclaimed the Name of YHWH, then his Successor did likewise, yet even more so!

If you know of believers who are still reluctant to give YHWH the honor due His Name, pray with us that the Spirit might use this study to contribute towards sparking within them the faith to take a very important step in moving forward toward His Kingdom. We also pray this study will help to convince the Yahudim (Jews) that their Messiah has already come.

Again because many have asked and are seeking the truth, I am going to list some helpful sites you can go to and study from on many subjects that I may not have covered. Others are listed in my links area.

Because we have so little time left, I strongly urge you to stop watching Oprah and Dr. Phil and begin to study earnestly from your own bible. In the months to come I will show you in detail just how little time is left. This was the message I spoke about on the Speaking tour.
For more advanced studies go to http://www.yahuyahweh.org/iah/

For more basic teaching on the Holy Days and the Sabbath I recommend http://www.ucg.org/ Do keep in mind that they go by a conjuncture moon.
Another good site I have found is http://www.truthontheweb.org/ which does use the Sighted Moon and the Barley being Aviv.

This next site has a free magazine which can be sent by e-mail or snail mail. I highly recommend you get it. http://www.thetrumpet.com/ The sections on prophecy are the most on the mark I know of. But the other things that they teach I do get upset with such as the promotion of Mr Armstrong to almost sainthood.

You must learn to discern, and having said that I have no problem recommending any of these sites. You need to study.

Rev. Alexander Hislop
The Two Babylons
http://www.piney.com/HislopTOC1.html

Chapter III Section II Easter
http://www.piney.com/His32.html

Then look at Easter. What means the term Easter itself? It is not a Christian name.
It bears its Chaldean origin on its very forehead.

Easter is nothing else than Astarte, one of the titles of Beltis, the queen of heaven, whose name, as pronounced by the people Nineveh, was evidently identical with that now in common use in this country. That name, as found by Layard on the Assyrian monuments, is Ishtar.

The worship of Bel and Astarte was very early introduced into Britain, along with the Druids, “the priests of the groves.” Some have imagined that the Druidical worship was first introduced by the Phoenicians, who, centuries before the Christian era, traded to the tin-mines of Cornwall. But the unequivocal traces of that worship are found in regions of the British islands where the Phoenicians never penetrated, and it has everywhere left indelible marks of the strong hold which it must have had on the early British mind.

From Bel, the 1st of May is still called Beltane in the Almanac; and we have customs still lingering at this day among us, which prove how exactly the worship of Bel or Moloch (for both titles belonged to the same god) had been observed even in the northern parts of this island. “The late Lady Baird, of Fern Tower, in Perthshire,” says a writer in “Notes and Queries,” thoroughly versed in British antiquities, “told me, that every year, at Beltane (or the 1st of May), a number of men and women assemble at an ancient Druidical circle of stones on her property near Crieff. They light a fire in the center, each person puts a bit of oat-cake in a shepherd’s bonnet; they all sit down, and draw blindfold a piece from the bonnet.

One piece has been previously blackened, and whoever gets that piece has to jump through the fire in the center of the circle, and pay a forfeit.
This is, in fact, a part of the ancient worship of Baal, and the person on whom the lot fell was previously burnt as a sacrifice. Now, the passing through the fire represents that, and the payment of the forfeit redeems the victim.”

If Baal was thus worshipped in Britain, it will not be difficult to believe that his consort Astarte was also adored by our ancestors, and that from Astarte, whose name in Nineveh was Ishtar, the religious solemnities of April, as now practiced, are called by the name of Easter–that month, among our Pagan ancestors, having been called Easter-month.

The festival, of which we read in Church history, under the name of Easter, in the third or fourth centuries, was quite a different festival from that now observed in the Romish Church, and at that time was not known by any such name as Easter.

It was called Pasch, or the Passover, and though not of Apostolic institution, * was very early observed by many professing Christians, in commemoration of the death and resurrection of Christ.

* Socrates, the ancient ecclesiastical historian, after a lengthened account of the different ways in which Easter was observed in different countries in his time–i.e., the fifth century–sums up in these words: “Thus much already laid down may seem a sufficient treatise to prove that the celebration of the feast of Easter began everywhere more of custom than by any commandment either of Christ or any Apostle.” (Hist. Ecclesiast.) Every one knows that the name “Easter,” used in our translation of Acts 12:4, refers not to any Christian festival, but to the Jewish Passover. This is one of the few places in our version where the translators show an undue bias.

That festival agreed originally with the time of the Jewish Passover, when Christ was crucified, a period which, in the days of Tertullian, at the end of the second century, was believed to have been the 23rd of March. That festival was not idolatrous, and it was preceded by no Lent. “It ought to be known,” said Cassianus, the monk of Marseilles, writing in the fifth century, and contrasting the primitive Church with the Church in his day,
“that the observance of the forty days had no existence, so long as the perfection of that primitive Church remained inviolate.”

Whence, then, came this observance? The forty days’ abstinence of Lent was directly borrowed from the worshippers of the Babylonian goddess.
Such a Lent of forty days, “in the spring of the year,” is still observed by the Yezidis or Pagan Devil-worshippers of Koordistan, who have inherited it from their early masters, the Babylonians.

Read the Sorry Story from Layard and see where the pagan priesthood, fire worship, sun worship and musical instrumenets came from. http://www.piney.com/Layard8.html

See also Hislop on Wax Candles and the confession that Catholics borrowed from pagans.
Such a Lent of forty days was held in spring by the Pagan Mexicans, for thus we read in Humboldt, where he gives account of Mexican observances: “Three days after the vernal equinox, began a solemn fast of forty days in honour of the sun.”

Such a Lent of forty days was observed in Egypt, as may be seen on consulting Wilkinson’s Egyptians. This Egyptian Lent of forty days, we are informed by Landseer, in his Sabean Researches, was held expressly in commemoration of Adonis or Osiris, the great mediatorial god.
At the same time, the rape of Proserpine seems to have been commemorated, and in a similar manner; for Julius Firmicus informs us that, for “forty nights” the “wailing for Proserpine” continued; and from Arnobius we learn that the fast which the Pagans observed, called “Castus” or the “sacred” fast, was, by the Christians in his time, believed to have been primarily in imitation of the long fast of Ceres, when for many days she determinedly refused to eat on account of her “excess of sorrow,” that is, on account of the loss of her daughter Proserpine, when carried away by Pluto, the god of hell.
As the stories of Bacchus, or Adonis and Proserpine, though originally distinct, were made to join on and fit in to one another, so that Bacchus was called Liber, and his wife Ariadne, Libera (which was one of the names of Proserpine), it is highly probable that the forty days’ fast of Lent was made in later times to have reference to both.

Among the Pagans this Lent seems to have been an indispensable preliminary to the great annual festival in commemoration of the death and resurrection of Tammuz, which was celebrated by alternate weeping and rejoicing, and which, in many countries, was considerably later than the Christian festival, being observed in Palestine and Assyria in June, therefore called the “month of Tammuz”; in Egypt, about the middle of May, and in Britain, some time in April.

Here are the Hebrens bowing to the “starry host of heaven” which was what God sentenced them to at Mount Sinai when they restored their old Musical Idolatry.

Music, Ishtar or Astarte and Tammuz http://www.piney.com/MuTammuz.html Lamenting for Tammuz in Ezekiel 8
To conciliate the Pagans to nominal Christianity, Rome, pursuing its usual policy, took measures to get the Christian and Pagan festivals amalgamated, and, by a complicated but skilful adjustment of the calendar, it was found no difficult matter, in general, to get Paganism and Christianity–now far sunk in idolatry–in this as in so many other things, to shake hands.

This is identical to the urge for a Seeker-Center to suck in numbers and hopefully more paying members but fewer and fewer “insiders” until you have a Catholic form of religion. It is complete with the worship of the Spirit as a separated “person” and then she has a second incarnation as ZOE. Lucifer was bisexual and therefore it is hard to tell who is who.

However, an all of the ancient records it is a Lucifer type person who teaches mankind how to form mixed-sex choirs, drink wine and form instrumental bands to seduce the holy people off God’s “mountain” or away from the authority of the Living Word. In the Sophia-ZOE story little ignoring “jehovah” is taken in hand by Zoe as beast and “female instructing principle.” The first thing she forces “jehovah” to do was to form a musical worship ministry. Guess who was worshiped: why ZOE and Zophia or now, Mary the mother of the gods. However, it was the Apollo, Apollyon or Abbadon creature whose Seeker-Center has been recorded in history. He used musical teachers, effeminate priests, used music to seduce, had a theater with columns like those above, had a swimming pool, a gymnasium and everything required to strip people of the Truth and of their money.

The instrument in accomplishing this amalgamation was the abbot Dionysius the Little, to whom also we owe it, as modern chronologies have demonstrated, that the date of the Christian era, or of the birth of Christ Himself, was moved FOUR YEARS from the true time. Whether this was done through ignorance or design may be matter of question; but there seems to be no doubt of the fact, that the birth of the Lord Jesus was made full four years later than the truth. This change of the calendar in regard to Easter was attended with momentous consequences. It brought into the Church the grossest corruption and the rankest superstition in connection with the abstinence of Lent.

Let any one only read the atrocities that were commemorated during the “sacred fast” or Pagan Lent, as described by Arnobius and Clemens Alexandrinus, and surely he must blush for the Christianity of those who, with the full knowledge of all these abominations, “went down to Egypt for help” to stir up the languid devotion of the degenerate Church, and who could find no more excellent way to “revive” it, than by borrowing from so polluted a source; the absurdities and abominations connected with which the early Christian writers had held up to scorn.
That Christians should ever think of introducing the Pagan abstinence of Lent was a sign of evil; it showed how low they had sunk, and it was also a cause of evil; it inevitably led to deeper degradation.

Originally, even in Rome, Lent, with the preceding revelries of the Carnival, was entirely unknown; and even when fasting before the Christian Pasch was held to be necessary, it was by slow steps that, in this respect, it came to conform with the ritual of Paganism.

In the Apollo Seeker Center he actually “Navigated the Winds” to kidnap priests for the numerous ministries in his seeker center. Music was connected to this navigating.

What may have been the period of fasting in the Roman Church before sitting of the Nicene Council does not very clearly appear, but for a considerable period after that Council, we have distinct evidence that it did not exceed three weeks. *

* GIESELER, speaking of the Eastern Church in the second century, in regard to Paschal observances, says: “In it [the Paschal festival in commemoration of the death of Christ] they [the Eastern Christians] eat unleavened bread, probably like the Jews, eight days throughout…There is no trace of a yearly festival of a resurrection among them, for this was kept every Sunday” (Catholic Church). In regard to the Western Church, at a somewhat later period–the age of Constantine–fifteen days seems to have been observed to religious exercises in connection with the Christian Paschal feast, as appears from the following extracts from Bingham, kindly furnished to me by a friend, although the period of fasting is not stated. Bingham (Origin) says: “The solemnities of Pasch [are] the week before and the week after Easter Sunday–one week of the Cross, the other of the resurrection. The ancients speak of the Passion and Resurrection Pasch as a fifteen days’ solemnity. Fifteen days was enforced by law by the Empire, and commanded to the universal Church…Scaliger mentions a law of Constantine, ordering two weeks for Easter, and a vacation of all legal processes.”

The words of Socrates, writing on this very subject, about AD 450, are these: “Those who inhabit the princely city of Rome fast together before Easter three weeks, excepting the Saturday and Lord’s-day.”

But at last, when the worship of Astarte was rising into the ascendant, steps were taken to get the whole Chaldean Lent of six weeks, or forty days, made imperative on all within the Roman empire of the West.

The way was prepared for this by a Council held at Aurelia in the time of Hormisdas, Bishop of Rome, about the year 519, which decreed that Lent should be solemnly kept before Easter. It was with the view, no doubt, of carrying out this decree that the calendar was, a few days after, readjusted by Dionysius. This decree could not be carried out all at once.

About the end of the sixth century, the first decisive attempt was made to enforce the observance of the new calendar. It was in Britain that the first attempt was made in this way; and here the attempt met with vigorous resistance. The difference, in point of time, betwixt the Christian Pasch, as observed in Britain by the native Christians, and the Pagan Easter enforced by Rome, at the time of its enforcement, was a whole month; * and it was only by violence and bloodshed, at last, that the Festival of the Anglo-Saxon or Chaldean goddess came to supersede that which had been held in honour of Christ.

* CUMMIANUS, quoted by Archbishop USSHER, Sylloge Those who have been brought up in the observance of Christmas and Easter, and who yet abhor from their hearts all Papal and Pagan idolatry alike, may perhaps feel as if there were something “untoward” in the revelations given above in regard to the origin of these festivals. But a moment’s reflection will suffice entirely to banish such a feeling. They will see, that if the account I have given be true, it is of no use to ignore it.

A few of the facts stated in these pages are already known to Infidel and Socinian writers of no mean mark, both in this country and on the Continent, and these are using them in such a way as to undermine the faith of the young and uninformed in regard to the very vitals of the Christian faith. Surely, then, it must be of the last consequence, that the truth should be set forth in its own native light, even though it may somewhat run counter to preconceived opinions, especially when that truth, justly considered, tends so much at once to strengthen the rising youth against the seductions of Popery, and to confirm them in the faith once delivered to the Saints. If a heathen could say, “Socrates I love, and Plato I love, but I love truth more,” surely a truly Christian mind will not display less magnanimity.

Is there not much, even in the aspect of the times, that ought to prompt the earnest inquiry, if the occasion has not arisen, when efforts, and strenuous efforts, should be made to purge out of the National Establishment in the south those observances, and everything else that has flowed in upon it from Babylon’s golden cup? There are men of noble minds in the Church of Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley, who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity, who have felt the power of His blood, and known the comfort of His Spirit. Let them, in their closets, and on their knees, ask the question, at their God and at their own consciences, if they ought not to bestir themselves in right earnest, and labour with all their might till such a consummation be effected.
Then, indeed, would England’s Church be the grand bulwark of the Reformation–then would her sons speak with her enemies in the gate–then would she appear in the face of all Christendom, “clear as the sun, fair as the moon, and terrible as an army with banners.” If, however, nothing effectual shall be done to stay the plague that is spreading in her, the result must be disastrous, not only to herself, but to the whole empire.

Such is the history of Easter. The popular observances that still attend the period of its celebration amply confirm the testimony of history as to its Babylonian character. The hot cross buns of Good Friday, and the dyed eggs of Pasch or Easter Sunday, figured in the Chaldean rites just as they do now.
The “buns,” known too by that identical name, were used in the worship of the queen of heaven, the goddess Easter, as early as the days of Cecrops, the founder of Athens–that is, 1500 years before the Christian era. “One species of sacred bread,” says Bryant, “which used to be offered to the gods, was of great antiquity, and called Boun.” Diogenes Laertius, speaking of this offering being made by Empedocles, describes the chief ingredients of which it was composed, saying, “He offered one of the sacred cakes called Boun, which was made of fine flour and honey.”

The prophet Jeremiah takes notice of this kind of offering when he says, “The children gather wood, the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven.” *

* Jeremiah 7:18. It is from the very word here used by the prophet that the word “bun” seems to be derived. The Hebrew word, with the points, was pronounced Khavan, which in Greek became sometimes Kapan-os (PHOTIUS, Lexicon Syttoge); and, at other times, Khabon (NEANDER, in KITTO’S Biblical Cyclopoedia). The first shows how Khvan, pronounced as one syllable, would pass into the Latin panis, “bread,” and the second how, in like manner, Khvon would become Bon or Bun. It is not to be overlooked that our common English word Loa has passed through a similar process of formation. In Anglo-Saxon it was Hlaf.

Ishtar: the Queen of Heaven (Eve, Sophia, ZOE, Mary)

The Original bread of life.( http://jblstatue.com/pages/asherah.html) Hebrew and Canaanite women molded loaves of this figure which were blessed and ritually eaten, the precursor of the communion wafer (sun god image). Her idols were found under every green tree, were carved from living trees, or erected as poles or pillars beside roadside altars. Crude clay images (or cakes) of her as tree of life later evolved into the more refined Syrian Artemis. Ancient sexual rites (dismissed to this day by male scholars as cult prostitution) associated with worship of Asherah insured that matrilineal descent patterns, with their partnership rather than dominator values, would continue. Hebrew priestly iconoclasts finally uprooted Asherah, supplanting matrifocal culture with patriarchy.

When the queen of heaven (Zoe, Mary, Astarte) are worshiped it is always led by paganized women.
And the motive is always the same: we are losing our fertility. Our kids won’t cut out paper dolls anymore, our attendance is shrinking, we cannot pay off the mortgage:

But since we left off to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, we have wanted all things, and have been consumed by the sword and by the famine. Jer 44:18

And when we burned incense to the queen of heaven, and poured out drink offerings unto her, did we make her cakes to worship her, and pour out drink offerings unto her, without our men? Je.44:19
The cakes were pillars made in the image of Astarte:

Kuwn (h3559) koon; a prim. root; prop. to be erect (i. e. stand perpendicular); hence (causat.) to set up, in a great variety of applications, whether lit. (establish, fix, prepare, apply), or fig. (appoint, render sure, proper or prosperous): – certain (-ty), confirm, direct, faithfulness, fashion, fasten, firm, be fitted, be fixed, frame, be meet, ordain, order, perfect, (make) preparation, prepare (self), provide, make provision, (be, make) ready, right, set (aright, fast, forth), be stable, (e-) stablish, stand, tarry, * very deed.

I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies. Amos 5:21
Though ye offer me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them: neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts. Amos 5:22
……….. Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols. Amos 5:23
But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream. Amos 5:24

Have ye offered unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel? Amos 5:25
But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves. Amos 5:26
Kiyyuwn (h3594) kee-yoon’; from 3559; prop. a statue, i. e. idol; but used (by euphemism) for some heathen deity (perh. corresp. to Priapus or Baal-peor): – Chiun

The hot cross buns are not now offered, but eaten, on the festival of Astarte; but this leaves no doubt as to whence they have been derived. The origin of the Pasch eggs is just as clear. The ancient Druids bore an egg, as the sacred emblem of their order. In the Dionysiaca, or mysteries of Bacchus, as celebrated in Athens, one part of the nocturnal ceremony consisted in the consecration of an egg. The Hindoo fables celebrate their mundane egg as of a golden colour. The people of Japan make their sacred egg to have been brazen. In China, at this hour, dyed or painted eggs are used on sacred festivals, even as in this country. In ancient times eggs were used in the religious rites of the Egyptians and the Greeks, and were hung up for mystic purposes in their temples.

From Egypt these sacred eggs can be distinctly traced to the banks of the Euphrates. The classic poets are full of the fable of the mystic egg of the Babylonians; and thus its tale is told by Hyginus, the Egyptian, the learned keeper of the Palatine library at Rome, in the time of Augustus, who was skilled in all the wisdom of his native country:

“An egg of wondrous size is said to have fallen from heaven into the river Euphrates. The fishes rolled it to the bank, where the doves having settled upon it, and hatched it, out came Venus (Lucifer), who afterwards was called the Syrian Goddess”–that is, Astarte.

From Hislop also: In Berosus, the deluge is represented as coming after the time of Alorus, or the “god of fire,” that is, Nimrod, which shows that there, too, this deluge was symbolical. Now, out of this deluge emerged Dagon, the fish-god, or god of the sea.

Beings in fish suits tend a Pillar of Light–Tree of LIfe According to Babylonian legends, this aquatic deity would come on land during the day to teach the people, and would dive back at night into the Persian Gulf, where he lived in an underwater palace called the Apsu. Was Oannes the original Nommo? Or Dogon.

Hence the egg became one of the symbols of Astarte or Easter; and accordingly, in Cyprus, one of the chosen seats of the worship of Venus, or Astarte, the egg of wondrous size was represented on a grand scale.

The occult meaning of this mystic egg of Astarte, in one of its aspects (for it had a twofold significance), had reference to the ark during the time of the flood, in which the whole human race were shut up, as the chick is enclosed in the egg before it is hatched. If any be inclined to ask, how could it ever enter the minds of men to employ such an extraordinary symbol for such a purpose, the answer is, first, The sacred egg of Paganism, as already indicated, is well known as the “mundane egg,” that is, the egg in which the world was shut up.

Now the world has two distinct meanings–it means either the material earth, or the inhabitants of the earth. The latter meaning of the term is seen in Genesis 11:1, “The whole earth was of one language and of one speech,” where the meaning is that the whole people of the world were so. If then the world is seen shut up in an egg, and floating on the waters, it may not be difficult to believe, however the idea of the egg may have come, that the egg thus floating on the wide universal sea might be Noah’s family that contained the whole world in its bosom.

Then the application of the word egg to the ark comes thus: The Hebrew name for an egg is Baitz, or in the feminine (for there are both genders), Baitza. This, in Chaldees and Phoenician, becomes Baith or Baitha, which in these languages is also the usual way in which the name of a house is pronounced. *Beycah (h1000) bay-tsaw’; from the same as 948; an egg (from its whiteness): – egg.

And my hand hath found as a nest the riches of the people: and as one gathereth eggs that are left, have I gathered all the earth; and there was none that moved the wing, or opened the mouth, or peeped. Isa 10:14
Biyrah (h1002) bee-raw’; of for. or.; a castle or palace: – palace.
Bayith (h1004) bah’-yith; prob. from 1129 abbrev.; a house (in the greatest var. of applications, espec. family, etc.): – court, daughter, door, / dungeon, family, / forth of, * great as would contain, hangings, home[born], [winter]house (-hold), inside (-ward), palace, place, / prison, / steward, / tablet, temple, web, / within (-out).

* The common word “Beth,” “house,” in the Bible without the points, is “Baith,” as may be seen in the name of Bethel, as given in Genesis 35:1, of the Greek Septuagint, where it is “Baith-el.”

HEAR this word, ye kine of Bashan, that are in the mountain of Samaria, which oppress the poor, which crush the needy, which say to their masters, Bring, and let us drink. Amos 4:1

The Lord God hath sworn by his holiness, that, lo, the days shall come upon you, that he will take you away with hooks, and your posterity with fishhooks. Amos 4:2

And ye shall go out at the breaches, every cow at that which is before her; and ye shall cast them into the palace, saith the Lord. Amos 4:3
Come to Beth-el, and transgress; at Gilgal multiply transgression; and bring your sacrifices every morning, and your tithes after three years: Amos 4:4
And offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving with leaven, and proclaim and publish the free offerings: for this liketh you, O ye children of Israel, saith the Lord God. Amos 4:5

For thus saith the Lord unto the house of Israel, Seek ye me, and ye shall live: Amos 5:4
But seek not Beth-el, nor enter into Gilgal, and pass not to Beer-sheba: for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Beth-el shall come to nought. Amos 5:5

Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols. Amos 5:23
The egg floating on the waters that contained the world, was the house floating on the waters of the deluge, with the elements of the new world in its bosom. The coming of the egg from heaven evidently refers to the preparation of the ark by express appointment of God; and the same thing seems clearly implied in the Egyptian story of the mundane egg which was said to have come out of the mouth of the great god.

The doves resting on the egg need no explanation. This, then, was the meaning of the mystic egg in one aspect. As, however, everything that was good or beneficial to mankind was represented in the Chaldean mysteries, as in some way connected with the Babylonian goddess, so the greatest blessing to the human race, which the ark contained in its bosom, was held to be Astarte, who was the great civiliser and benefactor of the world.
Though the deified queen, whom Astarte represented, had no actual existence till some centuries after the flood, yet through the doctrine of metempsychosis, which was firmly established in Babylon, it was easy for her worshippers to be made to believe that, in a previous incarnation, she had lived in the Antediluvian world, and passed in safety through the waters of the flood.

Now the Romish Church adopted this mystic egg of Astarte, and consecrated it as a symbol of Christ’s resurrection. A form of prayer was even appointed to be used in connection with it, Pope Paul V teaching his superstitious votaries thus to pray at Easter: “Bless, O Lord, we beseech thee, this thy creature of eggs, that it may become a wholesome sustenance unto thy servants, eating it in remembrance of our Lord Jesus Christ, &c;” (Scottish Guardian, April, 1844).

Besides the mystic egg, there was also another emblem of Easter, the goddess queen of Babylon, and that was the Rimmon or “pomegranate.” (see illustration below) With the Rimmon or “pomegranate” in her hand, she is frequently represented in ancient medals, and the house of Rimmon, in which the King of Damascus, the Master of Naaman, the Syrian, worshipped, was in all likelihood a temple of Astarte, where that goddess with the Rimmon was publicly adored.

The pomegranate is a fruit that is full of seeds; and on that account it has been supposed that it was employed as an emblem of that vessel in which the germs of the new creation were preserved, wherewith the world was to be sown anew with man and with beast, when the desolation of the deluge had passed away. But upon more searching inquiry, it turns out that the Rimmon or “pomegranate” had reference to an entirely different thing. Astarte, or Cybele, was called also Idaia Mater, and the sacred mount in Phrygia, most famed for the celebration of her mysteries, was named Mount Ida–that is, in Chaldee, the sacred language of these mysteries, the Mount of Knowledge. “Idaia Mater,” then, signifies “the Mother of Knowledge”–in other words, our Mother Eve, who first coveted the “knowledge of good and evil,” and actually purchased it at so dire a price to herself and to all her children.
ZOE in its modern form is Mary, the mother of god. Therefore, the acceptance of the young Catholic Trinity accepts Father, Mother (Sophia-Zoe) and baby son.

See the Gifts which Inanna (Ishtar) stole from Ea (the patron god of music) after getting him drunk.
Astarte, as can be abundantly shown, was worshipped not only as an incarnation of the Spirit of God, but also of the mother of mankind. When, therefore, the mother of the gods, and the mother of knowledge, was represented with the fruit of the pomegranate in her extended hand,
The Dove was the proof that Semiramis or other goddes was the Daughter of the God. On the other hand, the dove resting on Jesus was the prove that the Father bestows His Spirit on the “son”. http://www.piney.com/HsLikeADove.html

inviting those who ascended the sacred mount to initiation in her mysteries, can there be a doubt what that fruit was intended to signify? Evidently, it must accord with her assumed character; it must be the fruit of the “Tree of Knowledge”–the fruit of that very
“Tree, whose mortal taste.

Brought death into the world, and all our woe.”
See Partridge in a Pear Tree Paganism

See the Mother of the Gods and Clanging Music http://www.piney.com/MuClangGong.html
The knowledge to which the votaries of the Idaean goddess were admitted, was precisely of the same kind as that which Eve derived from the eating of the forbidden fruit, the practical knowledge of all that was morally evil and base.

Yet to Astarte, in this character, men were taught to look at their grand benefactress, as gaining for them knowledge, and blessings connected with that knowledge, which otherwise they might in vain have sought from Him, who is the Father of lights, from whom cometh down every good and perfect gift.
Popery inspires the same feeling in regard to the Romish queen of heaven, and leads its devotees to view the sin of Eve in much the same light as that in which Paganism regarded it.

In the Canon of the Mass, the most solemn service in the Romish Missal, the following expression occurs, where the sin of our first parent is apostrophised:

“Oh blessed fault, which didst procure such a Redeemer!”
The idea contained in these words is purely Pagan.

They just amount to this: “Thanks be to Eve, to whose sin we are indebted for the glorious Saviour.”
It is true the idea contained in them is found in the same words in the writings of Augustine; but it is an idea utterly opposed to the spirit of the Gospel, which only makes sin the more exceeding sinful, from the consideration that it needed such a ransom to deliver from its awful curse. Augustine had imbibed many Pagan sentiments, and never got entirely delivered from them.

As Rome cherishes the same feelings as Paganism did, so it has adopted also the very same symbols, so far as it has the opportunity. In this country, and most of the countries of Europe, no pomegranates grow; and yet, even here, the superstition of the Rimmon must, as far as possible, be kept up.
Instead of the pomegranate, therefore, the orange is employed; and so the Papists of Scotland join oranges with their eggs at Easter; and so also, when Bishop Gillis of Edinburgh went through the vain-glorious ceremony of washing the feet of twelve ragged Irishmen a few years ago at Easter, he concluded by presenting each of them with two eggs and an orange.

Now, this use of the orange as the representative of the fruit of Eden’s “dread probationary tree,” be it observed, is no modern invention; it goes back to the distant times of classic antiquity. The gardens of the Hesperides in the West, are admitted by all who have studied the subject, just to have been the counterpart of the paradise of Eden in the East.

The description of the sacred gardens, as situated in the Isles of the Atlantic, over against the coast of Africa, shows that their legendary site exactly agrees with the Cape Verd or Canary Isles, or some of that group; and, of course, that the “golden fruit” on the sacred tree, so jealously guarded, was none other than the orange. Now, let the reader mark well: According to the classic Pagan story, there was no serpent in that garden of delight in the “islands of the blest,” to TEMPT mankind to violate their duty to their great benefactor, by eating of the sacred tree which he had reserved as the test of their allegiance.

No; on the contrary, it was the Serpent, the symbol of the Devil, the Principle of evil, the Enemy of man, that prohibited them from eating the precious fruit–that strictly watched it–that would not allow it to be touched.

Hercules, one form of the Pagan Messiah–not the primitive, but the Grecian Hercules–pitying man’s unhappy state, slew or subdued the serpent, the envious being that grudged mankind the use of that which was so necessary to make them at once perfectly happy and wise, and bestowed upon them what otherwise would have been hopelessly beyond their reach. Here, then, God and the devil are exactly made to change places.
Jehovah, who prohibited man from eating of the tree of knowledge, is symbolized by the serpent, and held up as an ungenerous and malignant being, while he who emancipated man from Jehovah’s yoke, and gave him of the fruit of the forbidden tree–in other words, Satan under the name of Hercules–is celebrated as the good and gracious Deliverer of the human race. What a mystery of iniquity is here! Now all this is wrapped up in the sacred orange of Easter.

ZOE-SOPHIA-EVE-MARY MOTHER AND TEACHER OF GOD: From Sophia from The Book of Wonders by David Jors, 16th century. Goddesses and Todays Culture. http://www.webcom.com/gnosis/goddesses.htm Note pomegranate.

“To revive gods and goddesses is no small task. Above all, it is not a task that reason or personal motives can accomplish or even assist in. One cannot construct archetypes on the basis of recognitions reached by the personal complex of mind and emotions. David L. Miller rightly observes: ‘The Gods and Goddesses are not cute allegories and analogies, figures of speech for evangelizing and moralistic orators, just as they are neither psychological nor social roles. Rather, they are worlds of our existence; the deepest structures of reality. If we conjure up the presence of such structures of reality primarily or even partly because we would like to advance our own purposes, we commit sacrilege and invite the cruel retribution of the Olympians. Our watchword in these matters must never be “I want,” but rather “do as Thou wilt.” Ideologies, politics, “isms” of all kinds, as well as personal hurt and anger, must be left behind in the outer court. They must not be smuggled into the sanctuary where the deities reside. Of course, much of the contemporary “paganizing” and “Goddess talk” will not pass muster by these stringent yet essential standards.

“The discovery and assimilation of early heterodox Christian scriptures (such as the Nag Hammadi library) will also facilitate the revival of goddess figures within a new Gnostic Christian mythos. Goddesses such as Barbelo and Sophia, demigoddesses like Eve-Zoe and Norea, and heroines such as Mary Magdalene are emerging from exile and are awaiting reincorporation into Christian scriptures and liturgy. Things have never looked so good for a recovery of our polytheistic heritage and of our beautiful and mighty goddesses of old. One even feels that Christ, the incarnate paradigm of the Fullness, who assured us that in his Father’s house there are many divinities [John 10:43.] would be pleased by the coming of a new polytheism.
See the most ancient records of Sophia http://www.piney.com/Docorigin.html (Serpent) and Zoe (beast) had to teach little “jehovah” and therefore ZOE is “the female instructing principle.” Since paganized or feminists women have taken control of the early teaching program we have both an effeminate and a paganized church.

Shalom
Joseph F Dumond
www.sightedmoon.com
admin@sightedmoon.com