ARTEMIS AS PALM TREE:
Posted by Yes-and-no [GLamotta] on April 04, 1999 at 11:37:11 {th2VaRoznYMSSTtTA17sboLUiPtahc}:
In Reply to: Cygnus & WW: Sun-God myths posted by jimmyjames on April 03, 1999 at 01:19:03:
Hi Jimmy,
Thanks for that post reference. I think it was a bit biased of course.
All I'd say is that we must be careful when cross-applying what one culture does with a common-origin concept compared to another.
Everything began in the garden of Eden and then all that was crystallized by Noah. Thus some of the basic beliefs about the coming of a Messiah and a great war between a serpent and Jesus, etc. who is also depicted as the sun in the Bible, and even being married to the moon and having a bride etc. is quite ancient and quite Biblical.
So I'd say the sun-god subtleties in the Bible have a natural and ancient origin earlier and more fundamentally than the distortion of that original concept by "pagan" nations. It's like saying that it was the Babylonian's flood legend that influenced the Jews to have a flood legend. When in fact, if there was a flood, this was a common main event for all mankind and each group developed their own mythological or literal take on that event.
On the other hand, it is clear that some definitive pagan influence has infiltrated some Christian beliefs, such as "Easter" based upon Ishtar and pagan fertility cult (rabits, Easter eggs, spring renewal,etc.).
So one must probably take a case-by-case belief and see if there was an ancient common origin in that belief, especially if it is Biblical, such as Jesus being typified as the sun and the 144,000 as his wife being the Moon, or something direct like the trinity doctrine or Easter eggs as part of a pseudo-Christian cult.
Of note, for trivia, with respect to Jesus being the "sun god" in the "7th Volume" of Studies in the Scriptures and previous publications, I found it interesting that a key date they used to focus on was the date of the "The Annunciation to Mary, December 25th, 3 B.C.E."
So the birth of the "sun" in cosmology might just have been coordinated with the natural order of things to typify Jesus' representation as the sun, the Moon being his second wife, the Moon, and the stars being the angelic host.
Of note, his original wife would have been the beautiful angel currently known as "Satan" who is called the "woman" when receiving sentence in the garden of Eden.
So a natural cosmology in the background of Christian beliefs is not entirely non-Biblical and if present, would not have necessarily originated with any pagan cult, but is a natural implication and extrapolation from a fundamental concept of these things from the very beginning.
Even things such as the "tree of life" versus the "tree of knowledge of good and evil" were representative of the two original primary angels, Jesus and Satan respectively, with Jesus representing the tree of life and Satan, from the tree from whence the Eve was tempted, being represented as the "tree of knowledge."
Likewise, even the four living creatures beneath the throne in heaven are balanced between these two conceptual angels. These two angels are the two angels depicted above the ark of the covenant, and are the "covering cherubs." On the curtains in the sanctuary, they are depicted as a man and a palm tree. The palm tree represented the womanly angel, originally Satan, and the man represented Jesus who is also Michael, the archangel. As you know, Satan is called the angel who is "covering." There are only two "covering" cherubs.
But when expressed in two identities, it seems the palm-tree womanly angel carries the identities of the EAGLE which represents wisdom, and the LION which represents justice, two intellectually based concepts that fall under the category of the "tree of knowledge of good and bad" which includes wisdom and judgment.
But the other angel, the "man" representing Jesus who is often called the "son of man" typifies the other two living creatures which is the BULL which represents power and authority, as well as, most importantly, the "man" which represents LOVE, God's chief reflective quality. Thus these two sacred angels represent god's collective qualities.
Of note, Satan, after rebelling inspired much of the cultic pagan worship designed to worship himself and thus many of the gods and goddesses directly are related to Satan's own original identity and position in heaven. Thus the "queen of Heaven" is really what Satan was. And her original symbol was the "palm tree" which is depicted on the temple curtains. Yet in pagan culture, Artemis is likewise depicted sometimes asa palm tree to reflect this.
So again, even corrupted pagan
cultic concepts have been based upon the original reality of Satan himself and his/her depiction in the many gods and goddesses that have been inspired by him/her. Of critical note is the incredibly beautiful goddesses such as Venus whose
beauty is startling.
This merely addresses the incredibly startling beauty of the original angel we now call "Satan" which the Bible says was incredibly beautiful. But in human terms, "beauty" is a womanly quality and thus many of the
idolatrous representations of Satan himself are of an incredibly beautiful woman such as Venus.
Below is a cultic representation of Artemis as a "palm tree" which Song of Solomon describes. (See below).
So some of these things are of natural origin and some of cultic origin. Sometimes it is easy to see which is which and sometimes it is not.
ARTEMIS AS PALM TREE: