The Old Testament Revisited from a Pagan Perspective, as suggested by Merlin Stone, in When God was a Woman The Kingdom of Ebla, capital of the Cannanite Empire, 2400-2250 B.C. The Lord is my rock. In my distress I called upon the Lord, and cried unto my God: he heard my voice out of his temple, then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations also of the hills moved and were shaken, because he was wroth. There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth devoured: coals were kindled by it. He bowed the heavens also, and came down: and darkness was under his feet. At the brightness that was before him his thick clouds passed, hail stones and coals of fire. The Lord also thundered in the heavens, and the Highest gave his voice; hail stones and coals of fire. Then the channels of waters were seen, and the foundations of the world were discovered at thy rebuke, O Lord, at the blast of the breath of thy nostrils. (Psalm 18, pre 2000 B.C.) The Lord reigneth; clouds and darkness are round about him: a fire goeth before him, and burneth up his enemies round about. His lightnings enlightened the world: the earth saw, and trembled. The hills melted like wax at the presence of the Lord. (Psalm 97, pre 2000 B.C.) And it came to pass on the third day in the morning, that there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people that were in the camp trembled. And Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet with God; and they stood at the nether part of the mount. And mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire: and the mount quaked greatly. And Moses went up into the mount, and a cloud covered the mount. And the sight of the glory of the Lord was like devouring fire on top of the mount in the eyes of the children of Israel. (Exodus 19,24, c1300 B.C.) The Israelite Conquest, 1225 B.C. Now therefore hearken, O Israel, unto the statutes and unto the judgements, which I teach you, for to do them, that ye may live, and go in and possess the land which the Lord God of your fathers giveth you. Your eyes have seen what the Lord did because of Baalpeor: for all the men that followed Baalpeor, the Lord thy God hath destroyed them from among you. But ye that did cleave unto the Lord your God are alive every one of you this day. Only take heed to thyself, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen, specially the day that thou stoodest before the Lord thy God in Horeb, when the Lord said unto me, gather me the people together, and I will make them hear my words, that they may learn to fear me all the days that they shall live upon the earth, and that they may teach their children. And ye came near and stood under the mountain; and the mountain burned with fire unto the midst of heaven, with darkness, clouds, and thick darkness. Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves; for ye saw no manner of similitude on the day that the Lord spake unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire: lest ye corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image, the similitude of any figure, the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any beast that is on the earth. And I took your sin, the calf which ye had made, and burnt it with fire, and stamped, and ground it very small, even until it was as small as dust: and I cast the dust thereof into the brook that descended out of the mount. (Deuteronomy 4,9) These are the statutes and judgements, which ye shall observe. Ye shall utterly destroy all the places, wherein the nations which ye shall possess served their gods, upon the high mountains, and upon the hills, and under every green tree. And ye shall overthrow their altars, and break their pillars, and burn their groves with fire; and ye shall hew down the graven images of their gods, and destroy the names of them out of that place. So shalt thou put the evil away from the midst of thee. If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou nor thy fathers; namely, of the gods of the people which are found about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth; thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die. Certain men, the children of Belial, are gone out from among you, and have withdrawn the inhabitants of their city, saying, let us go and serve other gods, which ye have not known: thou shalt surely smite the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, destroying it utterly, and all that is therein, and the cattle thereof, with the edge of the sword. (Deuteronomy 12,13) And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and served Baalim. And they forsook the Lord God of their fathers, which brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods, of the gods of the people that were round about them, and bowed themselves unto them, and provoked the Lord to anger. And they forsook the Lord, and served Baal and Ashtaroth. And the children of Israel dwelt among the Canaanites, Hittites, and Amorites, and Perizzites, and Hivites, and Jebusites, and they took their daughters to be their wives, and gave their daughters to their sons, and served their gods. And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and forgat the Lord their God, and served Baalim and the groves. (Judges 2,3) And Samuel spake unto all the house of Israel, saying, if ye do return unto the Lord with all your hearts, then put away the strange gods and Ashtaroth from among you, and prepare you hearts unto the Lord, and serve him only: and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines. Then the children of Israel did put away Baalim and Ashtaroth, and served the Lord only. (I. Samuel 7, c1050 B.C.) King Soloman and the Separation of Israel and Judah, 920 B.C. And Asa did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord, as did David his father. And he took away the Sodomites out of the land, and removed all the idols that his fathers had made. And also Maachah his mother, even her he removed from being Queen, because she had made an idol in a grove; and Asa destroyed her idol, and burnt it by the Brook Kidron. (I. Kings 15, c910 B.C.) King Ahab and Queen Jezebel, 869 B.C. And Jehu gathered all the people together, and said unto them, Ahab served Baal a little; but Jehu shall serve him much. Now therefore call unto me all the prophets of Baal, all his servants, and all his priests: let none be wanting: for I have a great sacrifice to do to Baal: whosoever shall be wanting, he shall not live. But Jehu did it in subtilty, to the intent that he might destroy the worshippers of Baal. And Jehu said, proclaim a solemn assembly for Baal. And they proclaimed it. And they came into the house of Baal; and the house of Baal was full from one end to another. And when they went in to offer sacrifices and burnt offerings, Jehu appointed fourscore men without, and said , if any of the men whom I have brought into your hands escape, he that letteth him go, his life shall be for the life of him. As soon as he had made an end of offering the burnt offering, Jehu said to the guard and to the captains, go in, and slay them; let none come forth. Thus Jehu destroyed Baal out of Israel. (II. Kings 10) The Fall of Israel to the Assyrians, 720 B.C. And the children of Israel did secretly those things that were not right against the Lord their God, and they built them high places in all their cities, from the tower of the watchmen to the fenced city. And they set them up images and groves in every high hill, and under every green tree; and their they burnt incense in all the high places, as did the heathen whom the Lord carried away before them. And they left all the commandments of the Lord their God, and made them molten images, even two calves, and made a grove, and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served Baal. And they caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire, and used divination and enchantments, and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord. (II. Kings 17) And the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest to bring forth out of the temple of the Lord all the vessels that were made for Baal, and for the grove, and for all the host of heaven: and he burned them without Jerusalem. And he put down the idolatrous priests, whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense unto Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the planets, and to all the host of heaven. And he brought out the grove from the house of the Lord, without Jerusalem, and burned it. And he brake down the houses of the Sodomites, where the women wove hangings for the grove. And he took away the horses that the kings of Judah had given to the sun, and burned the chariots of the sun with fire. And the high places that were before Jerusalem, which Solomon the king of Israel had builded for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Zidonians, and for Chemosh the abomination of the Moabites, and for Milcom the abomination of the children of Ammon, did the king defile. And he brake in pieces the images, and cut down the groves, and filled their places with the bones of men. (II. Kings 23, c630 B.C.) (And Jeremiah said) Behold, thou hast spoken and done evil things as thou couldest. The Lord said also unto me hast thou seen that which backsliding Israel hath done? She is gone up upon every high mountain and under every green tree, and their hath played the harlot. And I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also. And it came to pass through the lightness of her whoredom, that she defiled the land, and committed adultery with stones and with stocks. (Jeremiah 3, c622 B.C.) Then all the men which knew that their wives had burned incense unto other gods, and all the women that stood by, a great multitude, even all the people that dwelt in the land of Egypt, in Pathros, answered Jeremiah, saying, as for the word that thou hast spoken unto us in the name of the Lord, we will not hearken unto thee. But we will certainly do whatsoever thing goeth forth out of our own mouth, to burn incense unto the Queen of Heaven, and to put out drink offering unto her, as we have done, we, and our fathers, our kings, and our princes, in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem: for then had we plenty of victuals, and were well, and saw no evil. But since we left off to burn incense to the Queen of Heaven, and to put out drink offerings unto her, we have wanted all things, and have been consumed by the sword and by the famine. 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? (Jeremiah 44, c600 B.C.) (And God said,) plead with your mother: let her put away her whoredoms. For she said, I will go after my lovers, that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, mine oil and my drink. Therefore, behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and make a wall, that she shall not find her paths. I will also cause all her mirth to cease, her feast days, her new moons, and her sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts. And I will destroy her vines and her fig trees, whereof she hath said, these are my rewards that my lovers have given me: and I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field shall eat them. And I will visit upon her the days of Baalim, wherein she burned incense to them, and she decked herself with her earrings and her jewels, and she went after her lovers, and forgat me. (Hosea 2) The Fall of Judah to the Babylonians, 586 B.C.
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