Isaiah’s “Lucifer” & The King of Babylon
Eric Miller,
April, 2015
The oldest copy of the Book of Isaiah, prior to the
discovery of the Dead Sea
Scrolls in 1947, was circa 150 A.D. With discovery of what is now called The Great Book of Isaiah (the parchment
scroll itself)--found in desert-buried
urns, among books of an early Christian community, (the Essenes, the Quran) we now have a copy of The Book of Isaiah 350
years older than the
oldest previously known Hebrew copy). The question is, is it old enough to give us a truer picture of the
meaning of that famous passage of Isaiah
concerning “Lucifer” and his/her alleged fall into the pits of Hell.
At the outset we
must ask ourselves: does the old canard, in the world of historical researches,
hold in this, our present case—that is to say: Does it apply to an examination
of religious documents considered “sacred” to Jews and Christians and Moslems
alike, the old canard that "the older
the source the more authentic the document"?
Well, not quite,
it would seem. The Jewish guardians of the Hebrew version of the Holy
Scriptures, as might be expected, hold (in their estimation) undisputed
priority regarding the scholarship of the subject of what their Bible means or
does not mean. But what happens when they, the experts, from whatever religion,
those “in charge” disagree? When it comes to “sacred” texts, can the
“authorities” just change their minds—as a result of new research or new information,
or even, perhaps, just to accomplish the shedding of an interpretive “scheme”
that can’t be gotten away with any longer?
As the renowned Biblical
scholar, H.W.F. Saggs warns us, we should not
think that the Prophets don’t lie. And, no doubt, there is good reason to
question the veracity of the “Prophets” (of which there were some
600,000 in “Biblical days”!) when it comes to their dealing honestly, objectively, and
analytically—“scientifically” it is now said, with religious documents.
As with most all
religions, their “literary-center” is their collection of "sacred
books" or Bibles (be it in characters, words, pictographs, hieroglyphics,
whatever). The official "scribes" of various religions throughout the
world determine what is "in" what is "out"--as regards all
matters concerning the meaning and interpretation of their "holy
text." One thing is certain, and that is "official religion" is
now, and apparently always has been, a very political religio-socio-economic
paradigm—from which the subject of which texts are “sacred” and which are not,
or which are “more sacred” than others—and upon what basis such consideration
are made, is, one may say, extraordinarily
a political matter. And it is a major issue of scholarly integrity and
propagandistic corruption.
“For most of us,”
Dr. Saggs observes, “our first impression of ancient Near Eastern religion
comes from the Bible. We therefore need to be aware that what is said there on
the subject is prejudicial; the Israelite prophets, those fearsome men of God,
were capable of definitely misleading . . . a case in point is the picture of
their Mesopotamian view of their gods which we get from the prophet we call
Deutero-Isaiah (responsible for Chapters 40-55 of the Book of Isaiah.)” And the author, Dr. Saggs, then quotes from
Isaiah 46: 6-7:
Those who lavish gold from the purse,
and
weigh out silver in the scales,
hired
a goldsmith, and he makes it into a god;
then
they fall down and worship.
They
lift it upon their shoulders, they carry it,
they
set it in its place, and it stand there,
it
cannot move from its place.
And Dr. Saggs
goes on to explicate the double-fold mendacity and “character assassination”
(or should we say “religious assassination”) practiced by Isaiah in his remarks
above.
“Here there are
two implications about Mesopotamian religion. One is that the Mesopotamians
thought of the god as being no more than an image, and the other is that
worshippers made such gods just as it took their fancy. Both implications are
false.”
“Images of the
gods there certainly were, but they were recognized as being images and not the
ultimate divine reality. Certainly the gods could be approached through the
image, but so could the Israelites Yaweh be approached through the Ark. The
divine image of an ancient Mesopotamian was no more the essence of his god than
the Ark was the essence of Yaweh, or than a crucifix, to the Catholic who
reveres it, is Christ”
And he goes on to
quote, as proof of his view, that “The ancient theologians were quite explicit
about this. One text says of Marduk, supreme god of Babylon though worshiped
also in Assyria:
The underworld is your
washbasin, the highest
heaven your censer bowl
And Saggs adds,
“A god of such cosmic vastness could not be confined within an image. Moreover,
far from the great gods being identified with their images, they were often
represented and revered not as an image at all but as a symbol. Thus we see on
one sculpture a worshipper kneeling before an altar on which is a sword. . .”
and he quotes from an ancient document showing an oath being taken “before the
dagger of the god Ashur.” (p. 201)
The Might That Was Assyria, by H.W.F. Saggs, 1984,
St. Martin’s
Press, New York, 1990, p. 200
(Head of the
Department of Semitic Languages and
Biblical Studies
at University College Cardiff)
OF Isa. 14: 12-3
1.
The
Correct Translation into English Of the
Hebrew noun Helel is “Shining” [“Shiny One”]/but only in the
realm of “clear” or seeing. In the
realm of “sound” the correct translation is “Howl” (N. “Howler”)
2.
The King of Babylon’s God, Marduk, is named
the “Shining One”, [9th name in the list of the 50 God Names given Marduk
at birth]; Marduk’s consort is also named “Shining”, indeed, the Assyrian God
Assur, also mentioned by Isaiah in related passages, is “Shining”; El, the old Hebrew
word for God, is “Shining” and the Eloheim are the “Shining Ones” or “Sons of
God”, or El—that is to say his “stars” or his “angels” or his “hosts” or
“soldiers”—either by direct inference or explicit etymology.
3.
The etymological root of the word Phäeton,
the subject of the Greek myth of Phaeton’s fall is also “Shining”. But the
Greek version of “Phäeton’s fall” is apparently but a retelling of the much
earlier Babylonian story (see Hebrew
Myths, Patai/Graves, 1983) – more to come. . .
4.
Isaiah, was particularly clever in his choice
of the only usage in the entire Hebrew Scriptures of the Hebrew word for
“Shining One,” which combines, in its etymological roots, both the “glorious”
and the “inglorious” – Heylel. Likewise
he was clever to make him “howl” like a hacked down animal, he (the King of
Babylon) who exalted himself above God, and Defeated All The Nations.
5.
Isaiah uses the Hebrew name Heylel as a
powerful, mocking, double entendre—because
“Heylel is one of those words which can also mean it’s opposite. (as indicated
in its most ancient etymological Hebrew pictographic form—give examples, see
pix).
Indeed,
we deal with a triple entendre because
we must also include the fact, that
the literal meaning of Heylel (as pointed out by Jerome in a note to the
passage at issue) is HOWL.
6.
The reason for this, was, doubtless, immediately
apparent to Isaiah’s audience—but not, apparently to the meticulous
transcribers over a thousand year period, the Masoretes—that the very word Heylel
has a powerful double entendre and
more. Using the very name of the God
of the King of Babylon [#1 supra] Isaiah delivers his “mock” against the King
Of Babylon (whose conquering powers has made the whole earth to quake!).
We have in the authoritative pre-exilic
lexicon of classical Hebrew, as well as in Strong’s Concordance, the fact of
the matter. At the explication of the root of “shine” we find the positive and the negative meaning of “Shine”. Among the negatives are:
Shining;
A shining through ones actions or words. May be in a positive (praise)
or negative (folly) sense [freq. 57
B) JJ +
(H-LL) – Shine co:? ab: ?: To cause a shining of one by praising or giving thanks to another or to one’s
self.
V)
JJ . . .To shine through one’s actions or
words. [freq. 165] . . . praise, glory, boast, mad,
shine, foolish, commended, rage, celebrate
--Madness:
As one shining in a negative sense. [freq. 1] [kjv]; madness,
Virtually all the
sins of the King of Babylon are “called out” by Isaiah in his “taunt” by use of
a “parable” and as a metaphor for the King’s soon-to-come being chopped down, cut
down from heaven into the bottom of the pit of the dark underworld.
Really, it needs
be said that Isaiah’s genocidal mania—ready, willing, able, and calling for the
smashing of the all babies of Israel’s enemies to complete annihilation of
their entire race. That’s Isaiah for you, one of Velikovsky’s favorites. All in the same context as the Isa:14:
. .
. more on this to come
Preamble:
1.
That the
word "Lucifer" used in the KJV and other Christian versions of the
"Bible" (Old and New Testaments), appearing in the Vulgate of St.
Jerome (circa: 400 AD?] had no
provable connection to the "Devil" as is the case in the Christian
demonological aspects of the interpretation the original Hebrew. Indeed, Jerome
made a note exactly at this place in the biblical text (Isa. 14-12-3) that “the
literal meaning” of heylel (trans. by
him as “Lucifer”) was “howler”. We shall
return to this point, which has gone virtually unnoticed and/or unknown by
modern commentators. For in Jerome’s note, it is only noted that “howl” is the
“literal meaning” of the Hebrew Helel.
2.
Also, we
have another use of “howl” to begin another verse, by Isaiah, in the same verse, verse 14, where he
poetically cries out for the very “gate” of the city to “Howl” and for the city
to “cry”!
3.
Howl,H3213 O gate; cry, O city; thou,
whole Palestina, [art] dissolved: for there shall come from the north a smoke, and none [shall be]
alone in his appointed times.
|
2. The
"original Hebrew" (as noted at the very beginning, supra), as to an evidentiary matter, is
from circa 150 A.D. This "original Hebrew" was the work of Masoretes
(religious scribes) who, it is claimed, maintained meticulous records of the
Hebrew Bible for 1,000 years previously, such that scholars of highest rank do
not question the authority of the Masoretic texts--in the main. "In the
main", is, of course, the whole subject here. Are there no cases of
questionable interpretation of the Masoretes or a corruption or editing
"in" or "out" certain words or phrases--is there no trace
of that at all?
And how would be
know if the originals are missing. Unfortunately, we are told when the
Masoretes made a careful correction of this or that--then destroyed the
original they worked from. So, we must take on faith, or not, what we are told.
The fact is, as noted by Graves/Patai, the ancient Hebrew record has been so
corrupted by intentional destruction of original works, records, alterations of
what had been written, and on and on, that fundamentalists would be horrified
by the truth and what really came from “God” and what came from the various
religious out of which the Israelites, a small tribe of cow-hearders,
fabricated their own “God-Myth”—putting themselves, like everybody else, at the
head of God’s List of Preferred Customers.
But here we are
concerned with contemporary efforts to “tailor the text” to fit the suit.
Modern Examples of Biblical
Text Manipulations
3. The 1917-1955
Masoretic Text published by the JBS has at Isa: 14-12 "day-star"
[1965, edition?]
4. The 1985
Tanakh has for same, "Shining"
5. The pre-1985
Tanakh had "Lucifer" --
the Jewish bible was translating Christian
demonology into Isa" 14:12-3, etc, published by Jewish Publications Society
6. The Hebrew word for "Shining" is Heylel -- that is the Hebrew word we are dealing with.
Is it "Lucifer"?
Well we find in
Psalms, as revealed by Dahood, that God in the Psalms is also referred to as
"The Luminous One" – with the
etymological root, the same as “Shining”, and
that the term itself was etymological rooted in Canaanite language.
The
Solution Interpretation :
It needs be
noted that Isaiah was a professional “prophet”—it was he who claimed God told
him that God wanted his people to murder over and over and over again—whoever
did not recognize his religion and his “God-Election”--and don’t forget all the
babies!
In Isaiah’s
famous “taunt” against the “King of Babylon”, he was giving a public performance,
a “whistling in the dark” as the Hebrews, all in all, were not that important
to the great civilization of Assyria/Babylonia! The point is, this is a “blood
and guts” and “God told me so” type of speech, wagging his little finger at a
great power. His language throughout is gruesome, so we need not shy away, at
all, from our view that by opening his “taunt” against the King of Babylon with
a great primal howl, as he is hacked to death—that’s the prophecy! Isaiah’s
Fatwa.
Note in the verse below that we have another case of Isaiah with the
theme of “howling” “the noise of terror”, with the “fall into the pit” indeed,
as he says in both cases “in the midst of the pit” is an apparent recurring
theme with Isaiah.
In Isaiah 25: 18:
”And it shall come to pass
that he who fleeth from the noise
of the terror
shall fall into the pit;
And he that cometh up out of the midst of the pit shall be taken in the
trap. [italic added]
Seen in light of Isa: 14:
12-3: (CLV)/MASORITE
How you have fallen from the heavens!
Howl[er], son-of-Dawn. You are hacked down
to the earth, Defeater of Nations!
[You said] . . . I will ascend above the
heights of
the clouds;
I will be like the Most High [i.e., “God]”
Yet thou shalt be brought down
To the nether-world
To the uttermost parts of the pit.
[In the above, the first three
lines are from the Concordance Literal Version (CLV) and after “Defeater of
Nations” the text is used from the Masoretic Text.]
**********
Notes Below For
Comments To Come/Comments by Saggs
“The ultimate origin of the god Beli is uncertain, but if we
identify the British Belin or Beli with Belus the father of Danaë (as Nemus
does), then we can further identify him with Bel, the Babylonian Earth-god, one
of a male trinity, who succeeded to the titles of a far more ancient
Mesopotamian deity, the mother of Danaë as opposed to the father of Danäus
[i.e., matriarchy vs patriarchy, ed.]. This was Belili, the Sumerian White
Goddess, Ishtar’s predecessor, who was a goddess of trees as well as a
Moon-goddess, Love-goddess, and Underworld-goddess. . . From her name derives
the familiar Biblical expression ‘Sons of Belial’—the Jews having
characteristically altered the non-Semitic name Belili into the Semitic Beliy
ya’al (‘from which one comes not up again’, i.e., the Underworld)—meaning ‘Sons
of Destruction.’ The Slavonic word beli
meaning ‘white’ and the Latin bellus
meaning ‘beautiful’ are also ultimately connected with her name. Originally
every tree was hers. . . Above all she was a Willow goddess and goddess of
wells and springs. . . The willow was of great importance in the worship of
Jehovah at Jerusalem.. . The White
Goddess, Robert Graves, p. 58-59
** These linguistic and etymological associations and
relationships are virtually universal—with “beauty” “luminosity”, and “light”
“war” “white” “shining” etc. applicable to the sun, the moon, Venus, and other
stars.
Saggs makes a similar point as to early Babylonian beliefs
by merely observing:
“But the ordinary Assyrian would probably not be aware that
theologically Ashur had absorbed many features both of the gold Sumerian god
Enlil, one of the supreme triad, and of Marduk, god of Babylon. Alongside Ashur
was the goddess Ishtar, never far from mind because of her association on the
one hand with sexual activities and on the other with war. Ishtar manifested
herself in various forms –as Istar of Mineveh, Ishtar of Erbil, and Ishtar of
Bit-Kitmuri, for example—and some Assyrians certainly thought of these as
distinct deities. . . However. . . quite a few other god names occur as
elements in personal names, and this might imply the widespread worship of
those deities, for which other evidence is lacking. .” (p. 202-3, The Might That Was Assyria)
From
The Nostratic Macrofamily: A Study in
Distant Linguistic Relationship, Allan R. Bomhard, John C. Kerns (1994):
B: Proto-Afroasiatic *hal-l*hel - 'to
light up., to beam forth, to shine, to brighten up, to radiate': Proto-Semitic
*hal-al- "to light up, to beam forth, to shine, to brighten up, to
radiate' . . . Hebrew halal 'to shine', helel (appellation)
'shining one' (epithet of the king of Babylon); Arabic halla ‘to appear, to come up, to show (new moon); to shout with
joy, to rejoice, to exult, to jubilate; to shine; to gleam, to glow, to be
radiant; to beam with joy’. ..” , (pg. 586)
- From
the glorious appearance and effects of the irradiation of light in the
material world, many words which in their primary sense are descriptive of
light and its operations, do in all languages denote glory,
praise, or the like, and thus in Heb.as a N. Fem. ___ praise, glory. pg.115
Below
from A Hebrew and English lexicon without points: in which the Hebrew and Chaldee words of the Old Testament are
explained in their leading and derived senses, ... To this work are prefixed, a Hebrew and a Chaldee
grammar, without points (Google eBook), by John Parkhurst, 1829
On Helel, Lucifer & Howl [the ___
below indicates the Hebrew word for “Helel” or “Howl” –being the same word
lll. To irradiate brisky, shine brightly.
It occurs not in this sense as a
verb in the reduplicate form, but hence as a N. ____ the bright irradiator,
a title given to, and perhaps assumed by, the king of Babylon. By being
joined with _____ son of morning, it seems in its primary sense to
denote the planet Venus, as we call it, while tending from its lower to
its upper conjunction with the sun, when consequently it appears to the
westward of him in the Zodiac, and so is visible in the morning before
the sun-rise, and ushers in the day.
So LXXX,
qui mame oriebaris, Lucifer, who didst arise in the morning. ___
then is generally thought to denote the morning star, from its vivid
splendour; and this interpretation is in some measure confirmed by ver. 13.
Michaelis, however, Supplem ad Lex. Heb. p. 539, disapproved of it.
1.
Because none of the eastern nations
take the name Venus from the root ___though the Arabs do that of the moon.
2.
____ is in its form more like to the V.
____ howl, than to a N. and accordingly the Syriac translations render
it ____ howl, and even Jerome on the place observes, that it literally means
howl.
3.
Venus, the morning-star, who on account of
her beauty was by most nations reckoned feminine, should rather have
been called ___ daughter, than
___, son, of the morning.
4.
If the morning-star had been meant,
it would have been more proper to say thou hast grown pale as the stars
do on the approach of the sun, and last of all the morning star; but by no
means, thou hast fallen from heaven, since that star is never so much
elevated above the horizon, that it has far to fall.
5.
"Therefore," says Michaelis,
"I translate “howl, son of the morning, i.e., thou star of the
first magnitude." But compare Rev. xxii. 16, and Vitringa in Isa. ccc. Isa
xiv. 12"
Continuing
Research Nets Results: SHAKAR, THE MOON MOTHER!
“The first great
civilization of the Euphrates and Tigris valley was the work of the Sumerians
who were not Semites and worshipped a vast and complicated pantheon of gods.
The Acadians, who invaded and took over the Sumerian civilization, perhaps
about 3000 B.C. were Semites, speaking a wholly different language, coming from
namely the Moon, Venus, and the Sun. They were obliged, however, when they
became civilized to change the sex of the Sun and Venus, for among them the Sun
had been a mother-goddess and Athtar, the planet Venus was male. The Moon
remained masculine, but lost its Semitic name of Shahar and was called by the Sumerian
name of Sin. To suit the Sumerian liturgy Shamash the Sun, became masculine,
and Ishtar, the evening star, became the goddess of love and war. Thus she
retained a double nature; in the morning she was goddess of war, and was called
the Male Ishtar, but in the evening she became the goddess of love, and was called
the Female Ishtar.” – p. 152,
Babylonian Myths and Omens’,
Rupert
Gleadow, The Origins of the Zodiac, Castle Books,
NY., 1968
As we can see
Gleadow, the renowned classical scholar and astrology expert, gives us, a pause
of amazement. What, Shahar was the Moon
Goddess, before being called Sin!
Moreover, we see
below, that “SAKAR” is a “technical term for the crescent moon”—as well.
Have the researchers
not done their jobs? Could it be that Isaiah, by referring to Helel as the “son
of Dawn” he was speaking of not the morning but the “night”?
Sin /ˈsiːn/ (Akkadian: Su'en, Sîn) or Nanna (Sumerian: DŠEŠ.KI, DNANNA) was the god of the moon in theMesopotamian mythology of Akkad, Assyria and Babylonia. Nanna is a Sumerian deity, the son of Enlil andNinlil, and became identified with Semitic Sin. The two chief seats of
Nanna's/Sin's worship were Ur in the south of Mesopotamia
and Harran in the north.
The original meaning of the name Nanna is
unknown. The earliest spelling found in Ur and Uruk is DLAK-32.NA (where NA is to be understood as a phonetic complement). The name of Ur, spelled LAK-32.UNUGKI=URIM2KI, is itself derived from the theonym, and means
"the abode (UNUG) of Nanna (LAK-32)".
The pre-classical sign LAK-32 later collapses with ŠEŠ (the
ideogram for "brother"), and the classical Sumerian spelling is DŠEŠ.KI, with the phonetic reading na-an-na.
The technical term for the crescent moon could also refer to the deity, DU4.SAKAR. Later, the name is spelled
logographically as DNANNA.
The Semitic moon god Su'en/Sin is in origin a
separate deity from Sumerian Nanna, but from the Akkadian Empire period the two undergo syncretization and
are identified. The occasional Assyrian spelling of DNANNA-ar DSu'en-e is due to association with Akkadian na-an-na-ru "illuminator,
lamp", an epitheton of the moon god. The name of the Assyrian moon god
Su'en/Sîn is usually spelled as DEN.ZU, or simply with the numeral 30,DXXX.[1]
To be continued
Sources:
Link for Ancient Hebrew Lexicon:
Notes
“The insatiable appetite of Death was proverbial in both
Ugaritic and Hebrew literatures. Gaster, Thepis,
1961, p. 206, gathers the relevant texts, e.g.
Isa v 14; Hab ii 5; . . . [and he also cites, among other references, Jer.
Xviii 21, . . . “Give their [non-Jewish] children to the Hungry One.”
Elsewhere in this piece I quote other such “death-hungry”
pronouncements from Isaiah himself, of course claiming they came from God
himself.
[Above cited in The
Anchor Bible, Psalms I (1-50), Introduction, Translation and Notes, by
Dahood, S.J., p. 117
Who is Athar”? - from Wikipedia
Attar (Aramaic); Athtar (South
Arabia); Astar (Abyssinia); Ashtar (Moab); Ashtar(t) (Canaan); Ishtar(Assyro-Babylonian)[1] is the god of the morning star in
western Semitic mythology. In Canaanite legend, he attempts to usurp the throne
of the dead god Baal
Hadad but proves
inadequate. In semi-arid regions of western Asia he was sometimes worshipped as a rain
god. His female counterpart is the Phoenician Astarte. In more southerly regions he is probably known
as Dhu-Samani.
In Dahood’s translation of the Psalms, to explicate a
passage in Psalm 18, he remarks, “The theme concerning the vastness of the
nether world makes early appearance in UT, 49: i:33-37” and he quotes from the
text. Below:
“And Athtar the terrible replied: ‘I cannot rule in the heart
of Zaphon.’ Athtar the terrible came down from the throne of Baal, and became
king in the vast underworld, all of it. Scholars have invariably taken bars il kih to refer to the earth, but this interpretation
overlooks the consideration that this was Baal’s dolman. Being unable to fill
Baal’s throne, Athtar was obviously unfit to supplant Baal as the ruler of the
visible earth and had to be content with governing the dead. The phraseology of
Job xxxviii 18 points to the same motif. . . .”Have you comprehended the vast
reaches of the nether world?? Speak out if you are familiar with all of it.”
[Above cited in The
Anchor Bible, Psalms I (1-50), Introduction, Translation and Notes, by
Dahood, S.J., p. 111
It is to be noted that in Epithet 89, in Divine Epithets in the Ugaritic alphabetic
Texts, p. 263, it is spoken of the “decent” of Attaru (same as Ashtar,
Athatar, etc. “ and that fact that “He descends from the throne of Ba’lu the
mighty one.” Gingsberg, ANET, 140 and numerous other places indicates that
Athtar is often referred to as “the Terrible”. Interestingly, Gray proposed
“the Luminous” based on Arab. Arisa “to
flash” (of lightning). [see, p. 263]
Divine Epithets in the Ugaritic
Alphabetic Texts
By Aïcha Rahmouni
Notes to Myself:
see: Craigie, P.S.
1973 “Helel, Athtar and Phaethon (Jes 14:12-15.” ZAW85
(See printout. . . The Mythological Provenance Of Isa. 14: A
Reconsideration of the Ugaritic Material, by Michael S. Heiser, Madison, Wi. I
have it. )
An Antiquarian Note:
The renowned classical antiquarian, Humbolt, expressed his
view that “some connection existed between Ethiopia and the elevated plain of
Central Asia.” And Donnelley continues, These were invasions which marched from
the shores of Arabia into China. “An Arabian sovereign, Schamar-Iarasch (Abou
Karib) is described by Hamza, Nuwayri, and others as a powerful ruler and conqueror,
who carried his arms successfully far into Central Asia; he occupied Samareand
and invaded China. He erected an edifice at Samareand, bearing an inscription,
in Himyarite or Cushite characters. ‘In the name of God, Schamar-Iarasch has
erected this edifice to the sun, his Lord.” (Baldwin’s “Prehistoric Nations,”
p. 110). These invasions must have been prior to 1518 B.C.”). These invasions
must have been prior to 1518 B.C.)
(p. 427, Atlantis. By
Ignatius Donnelley, Harper and Row, 1883)
ילל
yelêl
yel-ale'
H3213
ילל
yâlal
yaw-lal'
A primitive root; to howl (with a wailing tone) or yell (with a boisterous one):
- (make to) {howl} be howling.
Strong’s Numbers
Additional Notes:
Also to be noted. . .
“Now Astarte, the
divine mistress of Adonis, was identified with the planet Venus, and her
changes from a morning to an evening star were carefully noted by the
Babylonian astronomers, who drew omens from her alternate appearance and
disappearance. Here we may conjecture
that the festival of Adonis was regularly timed to coincide with the appearance
of Venus as the Morning or Evening Star. But the star which to people of
Antioch saluted at the festival was seen in the East; therefore, if it was
indeed Venus, it can only have been the Morning Star. At Aphaca in Syria, where
there was a famous temple of Astarte, the signal for the celebration of the
rites was apparently given by the flashing of a meteor, which on a certain day
fell like a star from the top of Mount Lebanon into the river Adonis. The
meteor was thought to be Astarte herself, and its flight through the air might
naturally be interpreted as the descent of the amorous goddess to the arms of
her lover.” P. 402-3 (Golden Bough)
It is further to be noted that just prior to this passage,
Frazer discussed that there was a great tumult of noise. “the voices of a great
multitude who cried that the star of Salvation
had dawned upon them in the East. This may doubles have been no more
than a fulsome compliment. . . But it is also possible that the rising of a
bright star regularly gave the signal for the festival. . . or the emperor may
have been mistaken for a greeting to himself the shouts which were addressed to
the star.” (p.402)
The “shouts” or “howls” of elation and delight addressed to
the star . . .
