“Do they provoke Me … ?” (Jer. 7:19, NKJV)
While we are looking at idolatrous worship of Baal as typology in the life of the New Testament believer who is establishing their high calling, it is important to briefly look at one of the important holidays on the Christian calendar – Easter. (In the teaching of Days 267-271 we already looked at the pagan origins of Christmas.)
Our previous teaching concluded by noting that the remnant of the antique Baal cult can be discerned in our contemporary faith fads. Within an overarching context Baal worship is a syncretistic, polytheistic religion, or in simpler terms: there were various gods who were integrated with one another, or existed together. Any mixing of the Christian faith with pagan practices can also be seen as Baal worship.
In linking to the previous teaching, specifically the fourth point of Baal worship, it is indeed true that it was often practices involving the celebration of certain feasts of festivals, to commemorate certain changes in nature, and the concomitant human actions involved (like harvests).
In 1 Kings 11:1-6 it is explained how the mixing of Israel’s monotheistic religion and and pagan gods of their neighbours was greatly enhanced: “But King Solomon loved many foreign women, as well as the daughter of Pharaoh: women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians, and Hittites— from the nations of whom the Lord had said to the children of Israel, ‘You shall not intermarry with them, nor they with you. Surely they will turn away your hearts after their gods.’ Solomon clung to these in love. And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines; and his wives turned away his heart. For it was so, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned his heart after other gods; and his heart was not loyal to the Lord his God, as was the heart of his father David. For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. Solomon did evil in the sight of the Lord, and did not fully follow the Lord, as did his father David.”
Asthtoreth, the goddess of the Sidonians, is described as follows in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: “Ashtoreth was a goddess of sex and fertility whose worship involved licentious rites and worship of the stars. She was a vile goddess (cf. 2Kings 23:13).” It’s important to realise that Solomon, who had the revelation of Christ, could still fall by mixing his faith with that of the pagan gods.
Asthoreth is presented by various sources, like the highly regarded Canaanite myths and legends by Gibson and Driver, as the mother of Baal. The word is also translated as Ashtar and Ishtar, as well as Easter. Thus Hislop states in his classic The Two Babylons: “Easter is nothing else than Astarte …” (p. 101).
From the teaching of Day 270 we know that in 316 AC Constantine was already mixing the Christian faith with the pagan religions of his time. Astarte and Baal are transposed to Maria and Jesus. Roman Catholic believers still today refer to Maria as “the queen of heaven” (Dictionary of Mary, pp. 283-284). In the Old Testament the honorary title Astarte was that of “the queen of heaven” (Jer.7:18 and 44:17-25).
If a faith group whose foundation is centred around the death and resurrection of Jesus, the Son of God, it is very easy to fall into the celebration of what is freely referred to as Easter. Clearly we may not, and would not want to, celebrate ‘Easter’ (the mother of Baal), although even the King James translates the Jewish feast day Pesach (see the teaching of Day 382) as “Easter” in Acts 12:4. This is however an inaccurate translation, as the other translations clearly show.
Socrates, in his Historia Ecclesiastica (Church History) of around the fifth century, summarises these arguments as follows: “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.” (p. 91).
Interestingly enough history involved various twists and turns before finally reaching Astarte. [The following historical section is largely, with great gratitude, freely reworked from
http://www.nuwelied.info, but within the context of the following sources: Raphael Patai’s The Hebrew Goddess, Van der Toorn, Becking & Van der Horst’s Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, Jeffrey Burton Russell’s The Devil: Perceptions of Evil from Antiquity to Primitive Christianity, the Jewish Encyclopedia, specifically the section concerning ‘Astarte worship among the Hebrews’ and John Day’s Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan.]
In brief the history can be summarised in the following manner: Noah’s grandson, Nimrod, like his father Cush, strayed from the ways of God. Nimrod built various cities, including the city of Babel (Gen. 10:10-12), as well as the tower of Babel (Gen. 11:1-9). Nimrod and his followers rebelled against Yahweh, and instated their own government and religious rituals. In Gen. 10:8 (ABP) it is said that “This one began to be a giant upon the earth.” (This gives a new perspective on what the Scripture might mean by its use of “giants”).
After the death of Nimrod his wife Semiramis took over as spiritual leader. She elevated Nimrod in mythological terms to the godly status of sun god. The son of Semiramis, Tammuz, with whom Semiramis apparently became pregnant after the death of Nimrod, in a supernatural manner, was presented as the reincarnation of Nimrod. She claimed that Tammuz was the saviour of the world, thus its creator. According to lore he would die whilst bull hunting, but arise from the dead after three days.
Both Tammuz and Semiramis were worshiped – she as moon goddess, the goddess of heaven and the god of fertility, later also known as Astarte (1 Kings 11;5; 33; 2 King 23:13; Judges 2:11 & 13) or also called Ishtar or Ashtoreth. This was the beginning of the mother-child cult. In this way astrology and its accompanying mystical religious rituals were practised, the sun, moon and stars were worshipped, and even human sacrifices were brought. Festivals celebrating Tammuz and Semiramis were held during the March equinox (21 to 25 March) and the December solstice (17 to 25 December).
After God had caused confusion in Babel (Gen. 11:1-9), people moved away and spread all over the earth. As the people moved, they took the Babylonian religion of worshipping the sun and moon, as well as the practises and rituals, with them. Over time the names of the feasts and the gods changed and became a characteristic of a particular culture or group of people.
Thus it happens that the name Semiramis changed to Ishtar, Eoster, Astarte (1 Kings 11:5 and 33; 2 Kings 23:13), Ostera, Venus, etc. In all these cultures she was worshiped as the god of fertility and the mother of nature, the heavenly goddess or the goddess of spring. Part of how she was worshiped was through sexual practices like orgies and temple prostitution.
Over time the name Tammuz changed to Adonis, Osiris, Apollo, Attis, Baal, Hercules, Molech and many more, depending on the acculturation and mythologisation in various parts of the world. In these cultures he was worshiped as a son god and as a god-man, as well as the saviour of the world.
“From Babylon this mystery-religion spread to all the surrounding nations. Everywhere the symbols were the same, and everywhere the cult of the mother and the child became the popular system; their worship was celebrated with the most disgusting and immoral practices. The image of the queen of heaven with the babe in her arms was seen everywhere, though the names might differ as languages differed. It became the mystery-religion of Phoenicia, and by the Phoenicians was carried to the ends of the earth. Ashtoreth and Tammuz, the mother and child of these hardy adventurers, became Isis and Horus in Egypt; Aphrodite and Eros in Greece; Venus and Cupid in Italy; and bore many other names in more distant places. Within 1,000 years Babylonianism had become the religion of the world, which had rejected the Divine revelation. In 316 AD, it became Mary and Jesus.” (http://www.biblelineministries.org/).
For Tammuz the egg was a holy symbol that represented the wonder of his resurrection from the dead, and from this we have the tradition of easter eggs during Easter. Likewise he chose the evergreen tree, chopped down, as a symbol of his birth, and this led to its central role when celebrating his birthday, from there the tradition of the Christmas tree. Tammuz also considered the sign of the cross as holy, as it symbolised the principle of life. It also represented the first letter of his name. These symbols thus did not originate from Christendom, but were appropriated by Christians.
In Jer. 7:18-19 we understand where the practice of eating hot cross buns during Easter celebrations originates from: “’The children gather wood, the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead dough, to make cakes for the queen of heaven; and they pour out drink offerings to other gods, that they may provoke Me to anger. Do they provoke Me to anger?’ says the Lord. ‘Do they not provoke themselves, to the shame of their own faces?’”
Interestingly enough these heathen practices of the mystical religions were exactly what our patriarch of the faith, Abraham, had to turn his back on when God called him (Gen. 12:1).
Since then Israel has been in constant conflict with the strong demonic claim that this cult has established within our religious practices. Under the leadership of Jezebel, a daughter of a priest of this cult, the entire Israel were brought into captivity, and Judah too was greatly contaminated in the process (Judah here a typological marker of the church and the Bride). But from everything we’ve discussed it is clear that the Babylonian cult of Baal worship is absolutely woven into our contemporary Christian traditions.
Obviously nothing is going to happen to you if you eat hot cross buns or Easter eggs – just be aware of how much of our inherited church practices are based on heathen traditions, and realise that this provokes God, as the opening Scripture makes clear. Jer. 9:14: “they have walked according to the dictates of their own hearts and after the Baals, which their fathers taught them …” Hardness of heart brings about no longer hearing the voice of God, and this makes it impossible to walk within your calling.
- Selah: Speak to God about the infiltration of idolatrous practices in our daily faith practices.
- Read: Mark 14; Matt. 26; Luke 22; John 13-17.
- Memorise: John 17:15.
