The Baal Theory of Christianity - Expanded

The Ba’al
Theory of
Christianity
by
Glenn Young,
Enthusiastic Amateur
Religious Historian
A Blending of Political and
Cultural History with
Religious History
 How The Rivalry Between The
Cult Of Yahweh and The
Worshipers of Ba’al Helped To
Create Christianity
And ….
 Religious Intolerance In The

Western World.
What is This PowerPoint About?
 This document is an attempt to
reduce the findings of two long and
complex books of into a relatively
short review of thousands of years.
 This is a very difficult task and much
of the details of the arguments are
not included in this presentation.
 However, the basic concepts are
presented –I encourage you to look to
the books for the fuller arguments
and documentations in support of
these findings.
Rivals Ba’al and Yahweh
This is not a religious presentation but
a presentation on the history of
religious development – the mundane
and not the sacred.
 This is a story not much told or much
understood in the modern world.

 This is the story of the rivalry of Ba,al
and Yahweh, (brothers actually) and

 How in fact Ba’al really won out over
Yahweh ..
 Not Ba’al as the Devil but Ba’al as the
beloved god
Rivals – Ba’al and Yahweh
 We in the Christian dominated West know
little about this rivalry except what we read
in the Bible …
• which is obviously very pro Yahweh.
 In the Bible … worship of Ba’al is portrayed

as the greatest of evils
• Most of the other ancient sources praising

Ba’al have been destroyed – a great deal
by the Christians.
Unfortunately -- to understand the real nature
of the rivalry - we need to
• Cover thousands of years of history in

bullet point approach
• Present a history very different than what

is popularly understood; and
• Fight the current beliefs of entrenched

religions who demand that their beliefs
are based in “history” (that mostly really
didn’t happen)
 None of which is easy

We also need to understand how and why
cultures change.
 Societies and the religions of cultures don’t

change much without internal crisis; …
Caused by
• External factors - invasions … lost wars, etc.

• Environmental Changes – droughts, change in
rivers courses, etc
• Internal Crisis – plagues, crop failures, etc.
• Population balance – over and under “appropriate
levels”
• Or combination of all of the above
Again showing all of this not an easy task in this

format
 To understand how:
• The Hebrews became the Israelites

and Judeans and then became Jews,
or
• The Roman Empire rose and fell, or
• How the Ba’alist religion became a
major element of Christianity
 We need to understand the crises that

led to these changes in the societies
Facts Based on Facts
All the statements in this presentation
that deal with history and wars and
events and – everything else except
Christian dogma
 Are facts supported by a wide range

of verifiable sources --
• All the statements on the rise and fall of

empires and mass slaughters by the
Christians are not disputed history
This confirmable history is not well known
because it often conflicts with the “Christian
view” of themselves.
 What the Christian West wants everyone to

think is that:
• Only the Bible and the Bible stories are important
• Everything that went before was false and evil …
and of little consequence –
• They alone were persecuted for their beliefs, and
• What is in the Bible is TRUTH
 And for a seventeen hundred years the

Christian churches threatened torture and
death to any who challenged “Biblical Truth”
To get beyond “Christian truth” -To begin
with – We need to real know about Ba’al.
What we now know from sources other than
the Bible … is
 That for thousands of years of history, in

most developed areas of the West …
 despite what the Christians would have us

believe
• It was Ba’al that was the well known and

loved god and
• Yahweh was of little importance if not
unknown
Ba’al Again And Again
 And if it was not Ba’al himself who was
loved – it was Ba’al in other forms …. In
other names
• Including the Greek Zeus and Roman

Jupiter …
 The Ba’al-like gods dominated religious life

in much of the Mediterranean basin, and
continued to do so for thousands of years …
• And in a time crisis … the most popular of

Bel to Ba’al
But the Phoenician Pantheon was not new
 Ba’al was a remake of far more ancient god
• Bel of the Babylonians and Bel came from

far more ancient stories
 The Akkadians and before them

Sumerians - and before the that …
• All these stories moved from the “East to

the West” and morphed over time. - at
least 6,000, perhaps 12,00 years before
the time of Christ
The Babylonian Bel Killing
Dragons
The Bel stories
5000 years later
pass on to
Christian myth as
St George …
so the English
still venerate Bel
… as St George
.. To re-frame Shakespeare “for Harry, England and

Bel?
Despite what the Christians would have
us believe -
 For most of two thousand years from
Abraham to Christ there was not much of a
rivalry between Ba’al and Yahweh, except
for the preaching of a few “prophets”
• For most of history … real history … Ba’al was the

dominate god of the area, if not much of the West.
 The followers of Yahweh were simple bit

players in history
Despite what the Christians would have
us believe, for thousand of years
 It was Ba’al who was the god of many
prosperous and successful cities and whole
regions of the Ancient world
 It was the followers of Ba’al who created

the first great “empire” in the West
stretching from the mountains of Lebanon to
the Atlantic Ocean, and
 It was the Ba’alist who created the

foundation of all the great ancient cultures
that followed.
Rivalry Between Ba’al and
Yahweh
Despite what the Christians
would have us believe:
 It was Ba’alism that was the
foundation of all the Greek

and Roman Gods
 And as we will see … it was
another remake of Ba’al that

was the foundation of
Christianity
And what the Christians don’t want us to
know is -
 In fact it was Ba’al, in that name, who was

the first choice of the Roman emperors to be
the one and true god of the Empire … some
150 years before Yahweh and Christ gained
that status
 The fight for a “One God – One Emperor”

system was started long before Constantine
• There were at least three alternatives tried before
Yahweh and Jesus
Rivals - Ba’al and Yahweh
 And while this glory was happening to
the followers of Ba’al, the followers of
Yahweh were:
• Confined to two small, weak and

unimportant little kingdoms (if in fact the
kingdoms were really followers of
Yahweh)
• Who were all but erased from history
• And seemed at the time to have added
very little new to culture of the time.
Monotheism seemed very odd at the time

and also was not even considered as an
original concept of the Yahweh cult.
 But with the triumph of Christianity in
the West and its adoption of the Old
Testament, in more recent times
Yahweh seems to have won out and
• We (through Christian intimidation and

brainwashing) have accepted the Bible
stories as being true.
 And we have mostly forgotten the

success of the followers of Ba’al …
• For Ba’al – “the Evil that one does
lives after them …” etc.
Many Faces of Ba’al
With the triumph of Christianity, as expected –
Ba’al , the old arch rival of Yahweh
 Became the prototype representation of the

Devil
 The rituals associated with Ba’al became the

model of Hell
• Burning in Hell fire was based in large

part on Ba’alist ritual of human sacrifice
• Or as stated in the Bible - The passing of

children through the fire
Ba’al The Popular
What the Christians don’t want
us to know is that
 In his time … Ba’al was the most

popular of the gods
 And he was such for thousands
of years
• He was the dominate god far longer
then Christianity has been dominate
Old Time Religion
To understand this evolution – this
morphing … of Ba’al to both the Devil
and Christ we need to understand that
 Popular religions don’t really fade

away but just change names and
stories a little bit.
• The Jesus story is clearly part of an

ancient tradition associated with Ba’al
and Ba’alism … and Osiris, Mithra and a
dozen other gods and goddesses
Learning Our True History
Therefore -To understand this concept
of Jesus as Ba’al
 We need to know what the Christians

have tried to keep us from knowing –
• We need to unlearn what we commonly

hold as true
• We need to learn what is now known to
be fact … outside of “Biblical Truth”
• We need to look beyond the Christian
telling of the story and control of the
“facts.”
I Am By Far Not The First
The effort to end the gripe of Christian control
on history is not new
 Thousands of famous persons, over many
centuries have made efforts to debunk the
Bible and also the rituals of Christianity
• Most of our founding fathers were “deist”

• Revolutionary France even outlawed the
religion
• Christianity was greatly ridiculed in Pre
World War One England
 Thomas Paine – went from being one of the

top three “founding fathers” to being
written out of American history for his book
The Age of Reason which showed the
“contradictions” of Biblical writings
 Today most of Europe is only
“technically Christian” – with less
then 10% church attendance in many
countries
• The fastest growing “religious group” in

the world today is non-believers
 But over time the efforts fade in face

of religious counter-revolutions
 I am also by far not the first to link the
Christian rituals and beliefs to those of the
traditional religions of the Ancient world.
• See the Golden Bough and many other works in

this area
 However, I am not even the first to link

Christ with human sacrifice …
 But I seem to be the first to put much more

emphasis on the role of Ba’al in this process.
So after centuries of Christian controlled of
history -- And constant effort to defeat the
“rationalist” and their challenges to
Christianity
 The Christian view of history still holds --- at

least in the West --
 This view of history
• this denial of other peoples history that

goes back so much father then the West’s
 so limits our abilities in the world today ---

but that is a totally different presentation
Looking at History Free of the Bible
Much of what we think is fact is not -

and many facts we have no
knowledge of --- for example today
we mainly
 Accept the kingdom of David despite
of the lack of supporting
documentation outside of the Bible,
and
 Deny the extent and success of the
great rival of Yahweh - followers of
Ba’al, despite extensive evidence
undisputed documentary showing the
success of the followers of Ba’al
A Kingdom That May Never Have Existed
David’s Kingdom – almost no proof of its

existence
An Empire Supported By Fact
Verses a Well Documented Empire
Clarification Of Ba’al
We know that the term Ba’al refers to many
things, including
 a particular God with a particular tradition –

mainly the chief storm god of the
Phoenician/Canaanite culture, or
 The collective beliefs of the Phoenician (or

Ba’alism … such as the term Hinduism or
 Ba’al as the term simply means god or more

precisely “Lord” (as a human noble or
divine entity)
To avoid details about the particular gods and goddess

--- I will use the term mainly as the “collective”
religious beliefs of the Phoenicians, except when
referring to Ba’al the Storm God
Clarification Of Ba’al
 Therefore, the title of Jesus as “lord”
is literally translated in the language
of the area as “Jesus is Ba’al”
• Or “my lord and savior” … is the same as

“my Ba’al and savior”
 And saying Ba’al as the lord (both

human lord and divine lord) – was
used for thousands of years
• But there is much more involved then this

simple coloration to the idea that Jesus is
Ba’al .. Far more then the similarity in
titles
 To understand how Jesus is Ba’al we need
to know a lot of history – and the crises that
changes the world --- from outside of the
Bible … In fact
• We need to understand that little in Bible

about the development Israelites is
“historically correct” and
• The Chronicles and Kings, while more

supported by facts … were written to
support a minority religious sect …
Yahwehist
Political History Created Sacred
History
We also need to know how -
 Through political and social crises

• One god could become another … and
another and another
 And this was something quite
traditional in the religions of the world
 We need to understand that it was often the

Profane that created the Sacred and not the
Sacred that shaped the profane.
• Sacred writings often were trying to
explain the “politics on the ground …” of
the moment
Be Careful What You Ask For
-Archeology Changed So Much
To start with we need to know how the

findings of Archeology has changed so much
of our understanding
 The hopes of the founders of the school of

Biblical Archeology (in the 1870’s) was to
use the “new” science to prove the truth of
the Bible.
 In fact, Archeology has shown almost all the

particulars of the Bible are in fact untrue.
• Initial findings that tended to confirm Bible stories
have all proven false hopes as science proved the
timelines wrong.
Rivals- Ba’al and Yahweh
 The examples are so many but to just
name a few (beside the kingdom of
David)
• While there is proof of Jericho and AI as great
“Canaanite” cities, however the Bible time frame
for their destruction is 300 years after what the
research shows.
• There has never been any physical of literary

evidence of the Hebrew Exodus or great plague on
Egypt, and
• If the day went dark when Jesus was

crucified, no one in the rest of the world
recorded seeing that manifestation.
But Archeology has given us great new insight
into real history and especially the success
of the followers of Ba’al
 The ancient cities of Lebanon and many

other places have been unearthed and the
writings found and translated … With much
new information
• That has helps us to move away from
relying only on the one sided stories of
the Bible for our understanding of the
Ancient world.
Key Findings
 One of the most important
findings in all of history is
that of -
•Ugarit --- in Syria
•A 18th BC major city of
great design and beauty
New Discoveries Change
Part of the Answer is in New Findings
Contributions – Foundation of
Writing Only One of the Many Things
The new findings show
 The people of Ugarit were the
Canaanites – what we in the West
came to call Phoenicians.
• They were smart and advanced people who

added many things to culture and
development of culture.
 They were perhaps the first to

recognize that human speech consists
of only a finite number of atomic
sounds and all that was really needed
was a symbol for each.
Contributions – Foundation of
Writing Only One of the Many Things
 They devised 30 symbols from which

the alphabets of all phonetic
languages are derived (yes all:
Hebrew, Latin, Sanskrit, Aramaic,
Arabic, Greek, etc.).
• The names of most letters in the

Greek/Phoenician alphabets are clearly
related – alpha/aleph (ox), beta/bet
(house), gamma/gimel (camel),
delta/dalet (door), etc.
Roots of our Culture
The Phoenicians, a Greek term referring to
the purple clothe trade good, are usually
described to us today as the people from
only the areas of present day Lebanon.
 In fact – all of what is considered Canaan, -

• and so much more of the “Near East” from
the time of Abraham to David, and its
famed cities of Jericho, and Sodom and
Gomorrah
 Were in fact “Phoenician” in language,

culture and religion.
One in the Same
 The Phoenicians were the Canaanites
and the Canaanites the Phoenicians,
 We know this from their own writings
• In the part of the writings we have

recovered (the Amarna tablets from the
14th Century BC,) the people we call the
Phoenicians called themselves Kenaani or
Kinaani (Canaanites).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenicia
Source on Culture Other Than
the Bible
 As found through the libraries of
Ugarit - These people were the source
of many of the things found in the
Bible, copied from this far more
ancient culture.
• Many psalms of the Bible where found

almost precisely in earlier writings at
Ugarit
• Festivals similar to Passover and related

holidays were celebrated in Canaanite
cities as a harvest festival long before the
“exodus”
Source on Culture Other Then
the Bible
In addition in the libraries of Ugarit were
found the religious text of the Canaanites
 The Ba’al cycle was found almost complete

by the archeologist
• - and many stories of the bible including

stories similar to stories about Jesus –
 are found in this epic poem –
• in different form and with different names

– but the stories are similar
A Very Important People
 The Canaanites, contrary to the Bible’s view of them
– were a very important people of the Ancient world
• Even as the Bible shows – they had major cities

through out the “land of Abraham”
• The became the greatest naval power of the

perhaps the world and knew many key principles
of navigation.
 They traded with the cities of the
Mediterranean, Mesopotamia, Aegean Sea,

Egypt and Asia Minor.
http://www.shunya.net/Pictures/Syria/ugarit/Ugarit.htm
Naval Power and Money
 Phoenician gold
coin showing
their ships
taking to sea
The World Was Not as We Thought
 What we see the from actual historic
findings in archeological digs throughout the
Mediterranean world is that – about 1200 BC
• Canaanites where the urban elites and
• Hebrews one of many groups of

“Pagans”- or simple rural peoples as the
term was originally used --
 if in fact there were a group of Hebrews

at all at this time
Compared to Today
 We can think of the Canaanites of then
much like the modern Americans
• Supporters of trade and “capitalism”
• Acceptance of extensive diversity
• Urbanist who took great pleasure in
urban life.
 We can see the followers of “Yahweh” if at

this time they did in fact follow “Yahweh”
much like the fundamental Christians of
today, …
• Far less engaged in “modern life”
• Intolerant of other beliefs, and
• Seeing the modern pleasures as evil,
punishable by God
It Was the Phoenicians Who
Were The Roots of Our Culture
While the Bible’s writers and later Christians
tried to wipe out the importance of
Yahweh’s rival … the ancients knew of it
well.
 Upon the Tsurian sea the people live

Who style themselves
Phoenicians...These were the first
great founders of the world
--Founders of cities and of mighty
states -- Who showed a path through
seas before unknown. .
• Dyonysius of Susiana, 3 AD
Roots of Our Culture
 Therefore … it is more true, based on real
history, that the Canaanites,
• and not the Hebrews,
 with at least 2000 years of actual verifiable
history,
• Are the foundations upon which Western Culture

was developed.
 This can be clearly seem in every area,

including religion …
 Again all this history was repressed by

Christians
Foundations of Our Culture
 What can truly be said is that the West is
more based on a
• Ba’alist/Christian Tradition Than
• A Jewish/Christian Tradition (a late 19th

century term)
 As we will see … what is one of the founding

principles of Christianity was in fact
• A theme in complete conformity to

Ba’alism; and
• a complete anathema to the Jews.

We Have Almost No Understanding
of The Real History of Religion
 Why do we know so little of this history ? -
 We in the West … after centuries of forced

conformity and indoctrination into the
Christian world view have almost no
understanding of the origins of what we
hold sacred.
• The Christians tried to repress all

knowledge that came before them … and
tried to destroy any options for source of
knowledge other then the Bible - See
Closing of the Western Mind – for more
background on this process
What Is Old Is New Again
What we think was new and unique
about the dominate religion of our
region is in fact neither new nor
unique
 Archeologist found the ancient

writings to show the old traditions
 Carl Jung did much to show the

archetypes
 Joseph Campbell did much to show us

the shared symbols of all our ancient
and modern religions
 For centuries … to question the
dogma of the Church was to open one
self up to torture and death
• Today to question fundamental Christian

and Muslim beliefs is to open one self up
to ridicule and isolation … and still far to
often to attacks and murder.
• We are living at a time when the freedom

of the enlightenment is going out.
Key Fact to Understand
 Christianity is such a late comer to religious history

with less then 1800 years of importance.
• (But they took many things from the past and

changed it to say it was theirs alone)
 Judaism is also a late comer with no more than 4000

years of history, and even based on Biblical stories
only 3000 years of it being more then a cult of the
family of Abraham.
• For much of its history – there was little to

distinguish the practice of worship of Yahweh
from that of Ba’al
 What we know as modern Judaism is less than 400

year older then Christianity
Yahweh of Samaria & His
Asherah
Yahweh of Samaria & His Asherah

"Kuntillet`Ajrud,Sinai Caravansarai, ca. first half of 8th
centry BC. Drawing of Yahweh of Samaria and his Asherah
on a pottery shard (Pithos A). Inscription in Hebrew reads:
• "Thus says...Say to Yehalle[lel], Yo`asa and...I

bless you (herewith- or: have blessed you)
to/before Yahweh of Samaria and his asherah."
 Note the portion of bridled horse to the left of the figures (pp.225-6, "Baal, El, Yahweh,
and 'His Asherah'," Othmar Keel and Christoph Uehlinger. Gods, Goddesses, and Images
of God in Ancient Israel. Minneapolis. Fortress Press. 1998. ISBN 0-8006-2789-X ).
Asherah – the Consort of
Yahweh or of El
 Yahweh’s
wife
Website for this image

 Greek and Roman religions are not much
older then the Hebrew religion but was more
wide spread earlier.
• Even the Greeks and Romans admitted that their

religion was bases the Gods of the Phoenician
and Egypt
• In Greek tradition - the very name Europe comes

from a Phoenician princess – Europa
 Even the Gods of the Middle East and Egypt

which are twice as old as the Greeks and
Romans are only some six or seven
thousand years old – and are built on far
more ancient stories
No Understanding of The Real
History of Religion
 Therefore what we have found in all
of the Jewish and Christian Sacred
writings are just
• Copies of the older stories
• Most of the stories come from the Ancient

religions of the Near East, Egypt and
Canaan – and older.
• With names and times changed but little

else.
New Findings Change Our
Understanding of Religious Origins
 Discovered in 2006 - Gobekli Tepe in Turkey near the
Syrian boarder. Is being called the oldest temple in
the world – dating back to roughly 9800 BCE … or
some 12,000 years ago. Some 4000-5000 years older
then any previously found temples
• The finding is forcing a reconsideration on the theories

on the development of civilization ….
 One of the finds shows what could be the oldest

known “Crucifix” --- with a cross and a lion on it.
• The lion was the sign of the “astrological age of the time
of Gobekli Tepe – the Age of Leo
 See http://www.smithsonianmag.com/multimedia/photos/?c=y&articleID
=30706129&page=6
History of Religion
The examples are so many … but just for a few
 The flood story is found in Gilgamesh, 3000

years before the Bible is written.
 The first “great king” Sargon was placed in a

boat as an infant and found in the reeds and
raised by a princess, a 1000 years before Moses
 Hammurabi received the laws directly from God

700 years before Moses
 Hercules was the son of god who died and rose

to heaven to sit at the right hand of his father
(along with so many others gods and heroes).
Model for Moses
 Hammurabi
receiving
the laws from God
They were in great

detail … as was the
actual amount of
law given to Moses
by God
according to Jewish
tradition and the
Old Testament …
not just 10 commandments
But a whole code of
worship and living
Just like Hammurabi’s code

History of Religion
The early Christians were ridiculed by Greek,
Roman and Jewish sources on the
similarities of their story to so many other
religions
 They had to acknowledge how similar their

teachings about Jesus were to so many
other god stories .. Their explanation …
• All previous religions were a trick of the Devil

hoping to confuse people when the real Christ
came …
 This is still officially the “line” of most

Christian Churches …
History of Religion
The real historical “truth” is
 For millennia, religions have not changed …

they have “morphed”
• New groups modifying the old stories

• Give new names and places to traditional events
 And many proclaim the beginning of new

eras (for based on gods and kings,
revolutions revelations and astrological
signs)
• Year one of the new era has come so

many times
Symbols Morph Too
Not a Christian symbol
but an Carthaginian
representation of the
Queen of Heaven Tanit
based on Egyptian symbols
and so on back in time
… see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanit
 All groups proclaiming a new contract
with god, or a new god or gods - bring
a new good news are wrong.
• Their stories have all been retelling of

very ancient tales.
 There was little new about the “good

news”
 And as we will see – the same is true

of the Christ story
Stories Retold
 Gilgamesh
killing the Bull
Of Heaven
from stories
popular in
Sumerian culture
6000 years ago
Stories transformed
 Theseus
killing the
Minotaur
popular in the
Greek world
from about
3500 years
ago –till
repressed by
Christians
Stories Made Sacred
 Mithras killing
the sacred
bull - from
Persian
world about
1700
years ago
One of the chief
rivals of
Christianity
From about 150 AD
till 400 AD
Major Influences on Christianity
 In fact the three major influences on
early Christianity were not the Jewish
religion at all … they were
 The Persian dualism

 The Greek Mystery cults, and
 Ba’al
• See addendum for a little background on
Persian and Classical concepts
We Need to Know Real History Not
Tales of the Bible
Again … as we move forward … we need to
remember
 The Christians focus on the absolute truth of

the Bible has created in our culture a false
set of historical facts … often these “facts”
are only stated in the Bible and supported
by no other historical means.
 Therefore. most of what we think we know

about history is false, and much of what we
think we know about religious history is
completely unsupported.
Real Timeline Of Politics and
Religion
To begin with -- How old is
Religion?
 We find evidence in a belief in
an after life from grave sites

some 50,000 years old.
• We see worship of the spirit of

all living things from around
that time (thanking a deer for
letting itself be killed)
Religion
And to the amazement of most
historians
 We can now see with the findings
at Gobekli Tepe that there was a

well organized religious facility
in place and functioning … with
extensive use of images from the
“natural world” at least 12,000
years ago
Religion
Religion
 We know that what appears to
be the first “organized religion”
based on a concept of a higher
god … comes at least 20,000
years ago and some argue much
older. But its not the god of
today
• … she’s female
16,000 year old Mother Goddess
Worshiped From a Very Early
Time
 Mother Goddess from oldest cities –
around 10,000 years old
We Need to Know Real History Not
Tales of the Bible
 At least from 15,000 BC and lasting in many
places till about 1500 BC organized
religions is based in worship of the great
Earth Mother – alone (or almost alone)
• In these places there is little evidence, of the
concept of a Sky God, or in fact any many male
deity.
 The dominance of the Mother Goddess
began to erode as early as 6,000 BC, and
almost ended in the West by 1,200 -
 However - nothing in religion really goes

away
• Today, Mary veneration in the West keeps the
mother goddess traditions alive.
Religion –
 6000 BC to 2500 BC … Phoenician
religion, among others, evolves out of
the Mother Goddess religion to
incorporate the general religious views
of Mesopotamia and Egypt
• Their religion becomes greatly influenced by

the Sky God concepts of the Indo Europeans
and Semites
 It was the Phoenicians who took the Sky

God to most of Europe
Religion –
The Sky God religion has -

• The Male dominated pantheon of gods
with specialized deities – god of war, god
of love … etc
 with the great mother still worshiped by in a
secondary role.
• The key deities are the Sun and the

weather (storm gods – Ba’al).
 Much of the religious stories are based on
astrological (movement of the sun moon and
stars) and weather observations (the cycle
need for crop growth)
Religious Conflicts During Time
Frame
 Sky God View – Multiple Gods – The Gods
are responsible for all acts
• (Gods at first looked like animals – then became
like men)
 Sacrifices needed for many occasions
• To gain support of Gods (for war or new ventures
• To placate an angry or disinterested God – (bring
back the rains, stop our enemies)
• To seal a deal between the state and the god or
between individuals. (A covenant)
 All forms accepted, including human
sacrifice
• At times the first born sacrifice seems standard
• Other human sacrifice used in time of crisis or
major contracts
Religion –
 3000 BC -250 BC … the religion of Phoenicia
is a major influence in the Southern
Mediterranean Basin, dominating North
Africa, the major islands of the Western
Mediterranean, and half of what is now
Spain
• The influence spreads to mainland Europe and to

what is now England, and even possibly the
Americas.
• The Druids of Britain as well as other Celtic

religions are all based on Ba’al
• Human sacrifice is common – often by burning –
“wicker man” tradition
 These areas were Ba’alist far longer then

they have been Christian
First of Many Crises - Phoenicia
Survived What Others Didn’t
The Eastern Mediterranean world faced many political
crises.
 1600 -1200 BC The invasion of the “Hyksos” and

then later the “Sea People” and other nomadic
peoples devastated the Eastern Mediterranean areas.
 While the Hittites and Mycenae Greece and Minoan

cultures fell - And parts of Egypt was ruled by the
Hyksos for 400 years –
 Phoenicia was able to defend themselves against the

invaders - and actually became stronger
• Perhaps they lost control of a small area of

Canaan to the “Hebrews.” – history is not clear on
that point
Ba’alism Dominates
 Phoenicia survives the Sea People and
becomes more independent and more
dominant in the Mediterranean area.
• Credited with the success in the crisis,

and great expansion of the culture was
the gods of the Phoenicia - Ba’alism
 Therefore, in real history –
• From about 2000 BC to 700 BC the

dominate “world religion of all the
Mediterranean is in fact the Religion of
the Phoenicians, or Canaanites – that of
Pantheon with Ba’al as the “storm god.”
 Or adopted and modified by the Greeks - Zeus
Egyptian Relief Showing Sea
People Invasion
Yahweh in Right Perspective
Historic Fact … those who where to became
Jews at this time of Ba’alist expansion were
an unimportant isolated group
 Fact – Around 1100 -1000 BC, -- and

perhaps only around 900 BC
• In the highlands of what is now the “Holy

Lands”, a small and unimportant area of
Phoenician influence,
 the cult of Yahweh, modeled greatly on

Phoenician religion, developed
A Minor People
Even the Bible says that Abraham –
• In his time (estimated at roughly anywhere from

1900 BC – 1600 BC … but no evidence of this at
all)
 worshiped his god as EL …
• Which as shown in the Ugarit writings - was the

chief god of the Canaanites.
• according to tradition Yahweh gains his name only

with Moses at Mount Sinai …(or about 12- 1400
BC)
 The Yahweh cult in this time is seen as a minor

religion variation of a minor people.
Yahweh in Right Perspective
 We now know from the translations of

the Phoenician texts that --- before
the time of the Bible
• Yahweh was a brother of Ba’al – a lesser

god of the Phoenician pantheon. – one of
70 brothers of Ba’al.
 Somehow over time, this more

isolated group of people adopted
Yahweh as the chief god over another
brother … known as Ba’al
“Jewish” States in Perspective
What modern archeological has shown is that
the Yahweh followers
 Late in the 9th Century BC, created two small

very disunited states split over religion
issues.
• Again - there was in fact never a great

united David and Solomon State
 Little of the stories told in the Bible of the

conquests of the holy land by the followers
of Yahweh can be validated by research
• In fact most findings are in strong

contradiction to the stories of the Bible.
What we can prove?
 Far more evidence
to support the
stories of Achilles
than David or
Solomon
Ruins of Mycenae
and Troy found -
No evidence of
The first temple or
David’s
Kingdom ever found
And again despite what the Christians
(and in this case Jews) would have us
believe
 A false folk history (the first five books of
the Bible) was developed to justify Yahweh
followers’ their claim to power and
domination of a land that was for centuries
Canaanite and Ba’alist
• As with most religions - Most of the

foundation stories (Bible stories of
Abraham – Joshua) were taken from other
peoples with a few name changes – and
based on many religious and political
traditions – already very ancient.
 The focus of the stories - the critical
story – once the story line brought
them into the Canaanite lands was
• The rivalry between – Yahweh and

Ba’al and
 On how evil the followers of Ba’al

were and how wrong they were in
the worship and beliefs.
 Throughout the stories – (the Old
Testament) “the jealous god” - Yahweh
demands the killing all the followers of
Ba’al
• Joshua is commanded to do so over and over

again
• Prophets assail the Ba’alist mostly to no avail …
except once … where Elijah defeats the priest of
Ba’al and the priest are slaughtered (but he is
driven into exile for doing so)
 Much later – the Christians use this directive

for murder against “the others” on a world
wide scale -
God Vs Ba’al
 Elijah defeat
of the Ba’alist Priest
… modern
fantasy of what
it looked like
Elijah victory
forced him to
flee for his life
Creation of the Hebrew States
 Between 900 and 650 BC, in the region of
the “Holy Land,” struggles develop between
followers of the Yahweh cultist and broader
Ba’alist religion. (Both within and between
the small states established in the area.)
 In addition, there are internal fights within

the Yahweh cult over the real role of
Yahweh; was he
• Their god,
• Chief of all the gods, or
• The sole and only sole god,
Creation of the Hebrew States
 The disputes also involved internal fights
within the cult over
• The proper ways to offer prays and

sacrifice to Yahweh and
• if and how to offer sacrifice to other gods.
 A clear reading of the Bible shows (as stated

in Kings and Chronicles –
• that many of the kings worshiped Ba’al

and other “foreign Gods”
 that proponents of Yahweh are almost

always in an inferior political position
throughout this period.
The Main Conflict Between Ba’al
and Yahweh
Within the disputes between
Ba’alist and Yahwehist, for a long
time –
 The key questions do not seem to
be in ritual, but who to worship
• The religions were very similar in

type of worship including sacrifice
to god(s) through burnt offering.
and Yahweh
 However, late in the “two Yahweh kingdom
period” there developed a real controversy
on the rituals of religion as well …
• While there seems to be conflict over “temple
prostitution” and a few other issues
 The main conflict seems to be the issue of

human sacrifice –
 At that time – in the kingdoms period right

up to their destruction ---
• Ba’alist seem to practice it regularly

• Most of the Yahwehist kings and most people
seem to practice it as well
• Only (mostly out of power) Yahwehist prophets
denounce the practice.
and Yahweh
The prophet dominated writings of the
Bible – show
 Most of the “Jewish” kings did evil
unto the lord ---
• Worshiping foreign gods and

• Passing their children “through the fire”
 Passing children through the fire –

was the ritual of human sacrifice
Modern Fantasy of Ba’al Rituals
Origins of Jewish and Christian
Conflict – Human Sacrifice
 We have been told for so long that the root
conflict between Jews and Christians was
non-acceptance of Jesus as the messiah –
• This is a partly true premise – And very pro

Christian in its view.
 A key conflict between Christian and Jews –

at the time of the development of
Christianity grows out of this conflict
between the Yahwehist and Ba’alist over the
issue of human sacrifice.
• This story is not told much since it appears to put

the Christians in the Ba’alist camp of accepting the
need for human sacrifice to please God. - which
they are.
Human Sacrifice as Part of the
Culture
To understand this conflict over human
sacrifice we need to understand
 For the long and vast history of religion

human sacrifice was common and wide
spread … And continued in non-Christian
Europe well past 1000 AD
• And was widely practiced in the New World until

the European conquest
 And for thousands of years - It was

considered the highest and most important
sacrifice to gods and used for the most
important of events.
Human Sacrifice Masked
 Many cultures, as they developed and
ended the practice created “cover
stories” for the ancient practices
• Romulus and Remus
• Dido of Carthage
• Abraham and Isaac
Others continued the practice under
“morphed” forms
• Roman gladiator games
• China’s terra cotta warriors
Human Sacrifice
 The key uses of human sacrifice were
for:
• Founding a city or culture (new covenant
with a god) – Like Abraham did … and
Isaac – was required
• Securing an agreement between nations
• Assuring the continuation of the natural
rotation of life (sun coming up, rains
falling)
• Appeasing god or gods to gain results in
war or
• Appeasing god or gods in a time of crisis
Human Sacrifice
 We see human sacrifice in several writings
of the ancient world … as normal and
needed including
• Homer - with a sacrifice of a young girl to

allow the Greek fleet to sail off to Troy
• And several times in the Bible

 where a “judge” pledges to sacrifice a
human for victory (turns out to be his

daughter)
 David sacrifices men to end a draught
 Moabite king sacrificing his son in front
of Israelite army
The Daughter of Agamemnon
being led to her sacrifice
Few Moderns Approach the
Subject
From Flaubert’s Salammbô - 1862
novel on the results of the first Punic
war.
 Describing the sacrifice of children in
the time of crisis –
• “Every time that a child was placed in

them the priests of Moloch spread out
their hands upon him to burden him with
the crimes of the people …”
David and Bathsheba
Reconsidered
We can read in the Bible the story of
David and Bathsheba and how
 The first son of the union --- after
eight days died
• And David (much to the confusion of the
“prophets” held a feast … then
• The second child (Solomon) became the
king
 Taken from very ancient view point -

this was normal procedure –
• The first royal child is sacrificed to the
gods … and so it appears that this
interpretation fits the “facts” presented in
the Bible
Human Sacrifice
 Human Sacrifice was central to the Ba’alist
religious practices - this world wide religion
• There is debates about how often and the process

… but few deny it was a core practice
• This core practice was used through the

Phoenician world … for thousands of years
 And from the writings in the Bible … when

the kings did evil in the sight of God … the
evil that was done was … human sacrifice
We Really Don’t Know How
Modern fantasy
depicting human
sacrifice in
Carthage
One of Few Actual Depictions
 Etruscan mural showing human
sacrifice
from 7th
Century BC
Notice
the angel
type
person
Human Sacrifice
 And for a long time – in the religion of the
Yahwahist … Human Sacrifice seemed to be
acceptable and often required
• God demands all the first fruits – including from

people – later verse modifies this to allow for
redemption of human children –
• The term used in the Bible for the highest from of

sacrifice is Olah … which was translated into
Greek as Holocaust … and was seen in its time as
referring to a human sacrifice … for god … and
god alone (so completely burnt. )
 And we see it as the source of Abraham’s

willingness to sacrifice Isaac
Was Isaac Sacrificed?
The sacrifice of Isaac has been one of
the more confusing issues in the Bible
based on modern thinking
 Why would a man willingly sacrifice

his child ?
• (although according to the time line of the
Bible Isaac would have been about thirty
– the same age as Jesus?
• What type of god would demand such a

thing?
An Old Tradition Transformed
 One of many artistic rendition of the
Sacrifice of Isaac see
http://judaica-art.com/art-prints-on-canvas/-6-biblical-themes/isaac-39-s-sacrifice-2/prod_
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Human Sacrifice
 To the minds of the ancients, seen from
their point of view, based on thousands of
years of tradition and religion God’s request
of Abraham to sacrifice his son ---
• would have been standard and

not just acceptable- but a
predictable event
 Abraham and God were sealing the deal for

the new covenant made with his god (for all
the lands promised him) with the sacrifice
of his first born son
Was Isaac Sacrificed?
To the minds of the Ancients this would
standard operating procedure for Abraham’s
time and for thousands of years before and
thousand more to come.
 In all likelihood in the original stories
• Isaac was sacrificed
 And --- as a good god – to replace Isaac -

Abraham had five more sons --- (still in the
Bible but not talked about much)
On-going Practice
And it is clear that it was not only standard
practice in the time of Abraham, but right up
to the time of Jesus and beyond
 Some 1500 years and more after the time of

Abraham
• Rome offer human sacrifices when Hannibal was

at the gate, and(212 BC)
• The defenders of Carthage were offering human

sacrifices as Roman besieged them (150 BC)
• A Roman Emperor conducted human sacrifices to

Ba’al 150 years after the death of Jesus.
Nothing New
 Therefore … at the time of Jesus …the
idea of sacrificing children to God was
not knew or different …
• Even if the idea of god having his own son

sacrificed was not new or different
 It was ancient and standard practice

for the time.
• What was different was the Jews … and

how they got to be important
History as Shaper of Religion
To understand how the conflict over sacrifice
of humans is perhaps the core conflict
between Christians and Jews, we need to
know the real social and political history of
the time …
• something not taught in a Christian dominated

culture.
 Once again, we need to know the real

history… and how that history helped to
“morph” existing religions.
• We need to understand how the many crises of the

time impacted both the followers of Ba’al and
Yahweh
Back to the Real Provable Timeline
The New Wave of Invaders
 Three hundred years after the Sea
People, came a new wave of invaders
to the Eastern Mediterranean
• 900 – 650 BC – Assyrian and Neo-

Babylonian domination of Eastern
Mediterranean.
 This was a great political, but not so

much religious, shock to the whole
area
The Response to Crisis
 Phoenicia is attacked often, with
major defeats, but manages to stave
off completed domination of new
powers.
• Survives 13 year siege of cities by

Babylonians
 Phoenicia response –
• She creates more support for it’s Western

Mediterranean colonies (such as
Carthage) as a means for preserving their
culture and maintaining support for the
“mother land.”
Israelites and Judean Response
to Crisis
 The landlocked Yahwehist have no
means of resistance nor escape …
Over time and several wars ---
• The minor and relatively unimportant

semi-Yahwehist kingdoms (Israel and
Judah) are both destroyed with relatively
minimal effort of the super powers, and
the rich and powerful of people exiled.
• The poor are mostly left on the land, and

as in the fashion of the day … alien
settlers are brought in to occupy the land
New Style of War
 Assyrian war
machine
creates
crisis in the
land of the
Phoenician
and Israelites
The Yahwehist Response to Crisis
620-550 BC Yahwehist are in exile in Babylon
Free from kings and competitors the minority
“prophet sect” gains upper hand and creates
a relatively new religion
• With Yahweh as sole god

• The wrath of Yahweh destroyed the
kingdoms --- invaders unwilling tools of
God
 And a host of daily living and worship

activities that if not followed precisely were
punishable by death.
 The belief was if not all people conformed all

the people were at risk for a new wrath of
god
The Yahwehist Response to Crisis
Most importantly
 The prophet faction gives an answer to

“Why Yahweh let his nations be destroyed
his temple flattened
 The prophet faction declared
• It was all Yahweh’s doing as punishment

for failure to comply with Yahweh’s laws
and mandates.
 The chief violation that most angered God

was following Ba’al and practicing human
sacrifice.
From Yahweh Cult to Jews
 It was here in exile in Babylon, that the followers of
Yahweh became “Jews”
• The holy books (the Old Testament) were rewritten with

a clear anti-human sacrifice vent and codified.
 It was here where the “Jews” saw human sacrifice as the

source of the past and potentially future wrath of God.
• Not all the text was cleaned up (God saying all that first
came out the matrix was his) … but the Abraham story
was changed to keep Isaac from being sacrificed.
 Human sacrifice or anything akin to it

became anathema of the “new Jews.”
The Most Evil of Kings
 The signet ring
of king Manasseh
who’s 50 year
reign was
“cause” of the
destruction of
Judea for his
use of human
sacrifice
No Such Crisis for Ba’al - Yet
 While the new invaders did obtain control
over Phoenicia, unlike the followers of
Yahweh, most of the major cities of Ba’al
survived the wars.
• And as the East was invaded, the followers of

Ba’al expanded their influence in the Central and
Western parts of the Mediterranean
 So for the followers of Ba’al, unlike those of

Yahweh, there were problems but no major
crisis of faith.
Jews “Return”
550 – 325 BC Persia dominate Eastern

Mediterranean, with Phoenicia as a
major ally, and the Phoenician navies
playing a major role in the wars with
Greeks.
 Cyrus the Great (called the Messiah

in the Hebrew Bible) allows all
peoples to return and rebuild their
temples – including the Judeans
Major Persian Influence
What can’t be told in detail here is the great influence
on religion that came from the Persian
• The whole concepts of dualism, of heaven and hell

(existence of the Devil), of resurrection of all the
dead, and many other new ideas which influence all
the religions of the area, including the Jews are
mainly Persian in origin or redesign.
 As “just and mild” rulers, the views of the

Persians were widely accepted by many peoples.
Once again … Christian history blocks us from

knowing real facts.
So Much Imported From Persia –
So Much Forgotten
 Persian
imagery that
seems a
precursor of
the Christian
trinity
The human
teacher
and the god
of all that is good
At least 600 year
Before Christ
“Jews” Return
 Persians allow Yahwehist cult to return to
“Judea” to rebuild their temple and to
establish a colony of believers.
• Less then 10% of Jews” return to Judea.
 Life in Babylon was considered safe and free

and – the center of the world
• During its history the colony is mostly

small and a failure with harsh
enforcement of the new rules. (The rules
of Ezra)
Division within the “Jews”
 Four major division of “Jews” at this
time … (about 450 BC)
• The Returnees, with the new religion

• Those who stayed in Babylon, with the
new religion, but far more wealthy and
cosmopolitan then the returnees
• Those who had fled to Egypt at the time of
conquest, mostly keeping the old religion,
but influenced by the new religion
• Those who had remained in Judea at the
time of conquest mostly keeping the old
religion
 This fourth group gave the “New Jews” a lot of
trouble when they showed up in the old land of
Canaan
Ba’al Still Growing
 During this time (600- 450 BC) the
followers of Ba’al continue to be relatively
successful in the world of super powers.
• Phoenicia becomes a valued vassal of Persia

Empire and greatly prospers.
• Carthage reaches its height of power – defeating

the Greeks in Sicily
 After some 1500 years the Mediterranean

was still is mostly a Ba’alist lake – with
rising Greek competition
• But in what must have seemed like a flash the

Ba’alist world finally collapsed before an invader.
The Ba’alist Crisis
 325- 150 BC - Hellenistic (Greek,
Roman) conquers the Eastern
Mediterranean and starts cultural
domination of area.
• Phoenicia suffers great defeats and loses
trading control to Greeks;
 Her “homeland” cities destroyed and
repopulated with Greeks
• Phoenician remnants (including Carthage)
put far greater efforts in Western
Mediterranean, including Spain, but
 Phoenicia/Carthage loses Punic
Wars with Rome, - end of an era
• Phoenicia is “Hellenized,”
• Carthage destroyed,
• Spain and other areas of Phoenician
influence occupied by Rome.
 2-3000 plus years of domination by
Phoenician/Canaanites end in almost
total destruction.
Yet Another New Kind of War
 Alexander’s
army did in
8 months what
the Babylonians
could not do
in 13 years -
Take and sack
Tyre
 Now too the Ba’alist believers
face a crisis of faith.
• Why have after so long had their
homeland and colonies been
destroyed
• What was it that they had failed to
do to please their gods, why were
they now slaves in this new world
order?
• Had they sacrificed too little or too
much … or the wrong thing?
Finding Friends in the
Destruction
 In the region of the Sea of
Galilee
• The Ba’alist survivors and the
remnant of the poor “Jews” not
taken into exile and not really part
of the Jewish reforms of Babylon
live together.
• It is from this area that the first
concepts of Christianity came …
Finding Friends in the Destruction
 Both groups – The Ba’alist and the

“Old Jews” – in a state of flux and
religious confusion were influenced
by other groups
• The Greeks and later the Romans,

and the Persians and the “New
Jews” returning for exile.
 But both groups looked for means of

maintaining their core beliefs
Finding Friends in the Destruction
 This area was the “melting pot” of the “new” and

“old” religions of the East and West
 To these people – the “new Jews” were new

oppressors … only being conquered and then forced
converted to Judaism about 100 years before Christ
 Out Galilee came yet another retelling of the old

stories -
• Taking elements from all of the old and new

religions
• With a major focus on a key rite of Ba’alism
 And the retelling became what is known as

Christianity
Sacrifice and Non-Sacrifice
 The Ba’alist concept of religion
required sacrificing of the first born in
time of crisis
• The old “Hebrew” accepted that concept

to some degree …
 Now the New Jews completely

rejected that view as the cause for
god’s wrath –(leading to the
destruction of the first temple)
Sacrifice and Non-Sacrifice
 The religion that grew out of the
Galilee based on the survivors of the
Ba’alist crisis and the old Hebrews …
was focused on the Messiah based in
• God sacrificing his only son in to save

human kind
 This was clearly the Ba’alist tradition

going back 4000 years at this time.
and not a “new Jewish” concepts
See the Traditions In their
Writings
 As the new religion is formed - it took many
elements from Ancients, Greek and Persian
traditions and melded them into a single
concept
• It proclaimed the son of God came and died for all

sins … for the protection of all … as a new concept
 In fact was very ancient and very

Phoenician
• The death and rising god was standard in almost

all of the religions of the Ancient world - but few
had the Phoenician literal practice of killing of the
first born son for the needs of the gods
From Wikipedia site on the
Archetype of this type of God
 A life-death-rebirth deity, also known as a
dying-and-rising or resurrection deity, is a
god
• who is born,
• suffers death or a death-like experience,
• passes through a phase in the underworld
among the dead,
• is subsequently reborn, in either a literal
or symbolic sense.
From Wikipedia site on the
Archetype of this type of God
 Male examples include Asclepius, Orphesus,
Mithras, Osiris, Tammuz, Zalmoxi Dionysus,
Odin and … Jesus
• We can see the sky god example morphing out of

the far more ancient goddess traditions
 Female examples are Inanna, also known as

Ishtar whose cult dates to 4000 BCE, and
Persephone, the central figure of the
Eleusinian Mysteries, whose cult may date
to 1700 BCE as the unnamed goddess
worshiped in Crete.
 See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-death-rebirth_deity
The Christian Version
We see the ancient story retold in often called
the core of Christianity
John 3:16-18 – we see the concept laid out
 For God so loved the world, that he gave his

only Son (ton huion ton monogenee), that
whoever believes in him should not perish
but have eternal life. For God did not send
his Son into the world to condemn the
world, but in order that the world might be
saved through him. Whoever believes in him
is not condemned, but whoever does not
believe is condemned already, because he
has not believed in the name of the only Son
of God (tou monogenous tou huio tou
theou).”
Phoenician Story
From the 12 Century BC reporting about
events in 4000 BC – we read almost the
whole Christ story - very old and very
Ba’alist
Euseb. Præp. Evan. lib. I. c. 10.—lib. IV.

o For Cronus, whom the Phœnicians call Il,
and who after his death was deified and

instated in the planet which bears his name,
when king, had by a nymph of the country
called Anobret an only son, who on that
account is styled Ieoud, for so the
Phœnicians still call an only son: and when
great dangers from war beset the land he
adorned the altar, and invested this son with
the emblems of royalty, and sacrificed him.
Phoenician Story
Or in other words –
o God – (For Cronus, whom the Phœnicians
call Il, and who after his death was deified_

o Impregnated a young girl -, had by a nymph
of the country called Anobret

o Had one son - (who on that account is
styled Ieoud, for so the Phœnicians still call

an only son:
o And in in time of danger, declared the son
the king, (and when great dangers from war

beset the land he adorned the altar, and
invested this son with the emblems of
royalty)
o And then he for salvation was killed - and
sacrificed him.
The concept of the sacrifice of God, or
the son of God, is core to Christianity,
but was in fact, anathema to Judaism
(or at least the Judaism of the
dominate Returnee Jews.)
To the Jews of the time, the idea of

human sacrifice, was the root cause
of God’s anger at the Jewish people
(and the destruction of their
Kingdoms and their exile to Babylon. )
Influences on Early Christianity
Missing influence – Phoenician – Key Factor –
In time of crisis, God sacrificed his only

begotten son” … Where did the idea come
from?
• It was contrary to Jewish concepts (post

exile) – cause of God’s Wrath
• It was not found in Egypt
• It was not found in death and dying cults
(they may have died and reborn - but the
gods were not sacrificed)
• It was not found in Persian concepts
 It is only seen in Phoenician cultural beliefs

- the rites of Ba’alism
Jesus as Ba’al
 Indeed the story the Christians rolled
out was ancient and the details well
known to the people of Phoenicia and
all the lands the influenced ..
 As found in the newly found and

translated writing of the Phoenicians
… the details of the Christ story were
part of the Ba’al epic
Jesus as Ba’al
In a 1921 edition of the Journal of the Royal
Asiatic Society, a scholar named H. Zimmern
… described …"stage-directions for a sort
of miracle-play" performed at the temple of
Bel-Marduk (i.e., Ba’al) annually. In this
play,
 Ba’al was … "bound and brought before the

tribunal which awaits mankind on the bank
of the river of death."
 He was scourged, condemned to death, and

then led away to a prison-house.
Jesus As Ba’al
 Another "malefactor was led also away to
execution," while a second one was
released.
 Once Ba’al was put in prison,

• "the city was plunged in confusion" and his
clothes were stripped from his dead body.
• A goddess then washed away blood that had
flowed from a "wound in the side" of Ba’al;
 and eventually he rose from the dead after

his followers lamented.
 See www.tektonics.org/copycat/baal01.html
Ba’al Recreated
 The ancient story of the Phoenicians was
simple retold in a new setting with a new
name
• Lord is Ba’al and Ba’al is Lord and Jesus is

Ba’al, Ba’al is Jesus.
 It was a familiar story to all peoples in the

area and familiar enough to all the religions
of the Western World at the time …
 But the story was too close to human

sacrifice for the New Jews
• The Sacrifice of the “son of man” was the cause of

Yahweh God’s wrath in the past.
Jews in Power
As we have seen
 325 – 150 BC Hellenistic (Greek) conquests Eastern

– bring the Greek culture - that challenged the view
of both Ba’alist and Yahwahist
• While the Phoenicians had faired far better than

the Yahwahist in the previous 1,000 years of
invasions - this time the got the worst
 Alexander destroyed Phoenicia --- Phoenicia

had been a major ally in the Persian
 Alexander wanted revenge for the burning of
Athens by the Persians
• However – the Jewish “colony” offered no

resistance to Alexander and he had no get
distaste for them
Jews in Power
For the next 150 years or so …
 The Jewish colony is passed
between rival successors of

Alexander
• Mainly left alone – the colony

prospers and the populations grows
• Many Jews like the new lifestyle
and start to “become Greek”
 But soon a new challenge is

created
Jews in Power
The Syrian based Greek king tries to make everyone
“Hellenized” -
 Requiring Jews to abandon rituals and engage in

sacrifices to Greek Gods and the living King
• Some Jews seem willing to accept (or feel they

have not choice)
• Others start a revolt - and much to the surprise of

all - They win.
 In a long hard series of wars of the Maccabean

revolt,
• … the Jews establish a truly independent kingdom

(some 350 years after the fall of the first state)
Jews in Power
Critical fact we need to know - Between 140
BC – 140 AD there were a least four major
rebellions , and perhaps dozens of other
revolts against Greek and Roman rule and
culture by the Jews.
 Being a “new Jew” was an important

rallying point that sustained the first revolt
– and all the other future revolts
• These Jewish wars of resistance against

Classical domination (Greek then Roman)
changed both the nature of Judaism and
how the new rulers of the “world” viewed
the people and the religion
First Success
“The Second Jewish Commonwealth” under
strong new Jewish “orthodox religious”
control …
 Expanded to include most of what is now
Israel, Jordan, and parts of Syria and

Lebanon
as the new nation expanded –
 It force converted peoples of the new areas
(including Galilee and Southern Phoenicia to

the New Jewish Religion
• These areas were only “new Jewish” for
about 100 years at the time of Christ
• The repression was brutal and focused on
all out of favor practices – including the
“old” Jewish” and Ba’alist concept of the
need for human sacrifice
New Jewish Rule Fails
Starting about 65 BC –the second
Commonwealth falls apart in dynastic
infighting
 Roman slowly absorbs the state
-From ally – to client - to colony

• The Jews are once again faced with
a crisis as Romans Hellenistic
culture competes and then fights
against the “new Jews” religion
Loss of Power
 The areas that were forced converted
and held as Jewish for 100 years slip
away from central control …
• The land becomes one of both political

and religious revolt
• The old faiths are revised under new
acceptable formats
 Wrapped in new Jewish traditions –

the Ba’alist traditions of the need for
human sacrifice is revived
Rejection of Christians
 The traditional answer for the Jewish
rejection of Jesus is that he failed
• as a physical messiah to liberate the

country from the Romans
 But the cornerstone to the issue of

the rejection was the story line
developed by the Christians for the
need for human sacrifice to god ---
Rejection of Christians
Early Christians even saw Christ as the
continuation of the Isaac story – only this
time the sacrifice was completed
 Christians have stated over the centuries

that the failure of Abraham to sacrifice Isaac
was the root cause of God’s displeasure with
the Jews
 Christ “sacrifice” competed the deal for a

new covenant
• Something right out the Ba’alist concepts
Jewish Rejection
 In that time … with the history of the
Jews and the explanation for the
destruction of the first temple being
the practice of human sacrifice
• No wonder the Jews could not accept the

new Christian story
• It was to them a revival of the practice of

passing the children through the fire … in
a new story line.
Response to Political and
Religious Crises
In response to crises such as culture conflicts
as the Classical/Jewish wars we find some
universal responses ..
 1) Accepters – those who went “Greek”
 2) Resisters (active and passive) –

Maccabees, the Essences
 3) Mergers, Philo of Alexandria
 4) Morphers – those who attempted to

maintain the old ways, by masking them
with “the new terms.”
Response to Crises
What happened to each of the groups
among the Jews ---
 1) Accepters – Merged into new world

order - became part of the new Classical
culture - and later the Christian world
 2) Resisters – destroyed in series of wars

(mainly ending in the Bar Kochba revolt –
2/3 of Jews in the empire killed)
 3) Mergers, - concept failed and was

mainly rejected by both sides
 4) Morphers – That is the question … was

Christianity the “morphed” version of the
Ancients world view
Jewish Destruction
And as history played out …
 With the return of the concept of human

sacrifice needed to appease god into the
area (through the Christians) in fact
• From about 60 AD to 145 AD - As

Christianity became more wide spread
 The Jewish State, the second temple and

almost all the Jews were destroyed
Judaism Almost Eliminate
The end of the resisters –
 From 66AD – 135 AD Rome crushed a

series of three major and a number of
minor Jewish revolts and destroyed
Judea, the Second Temple,) and
nearly exterminates the Jews in much
of the Eastern Mediterranean world
 In 135 AD Jews were barred from the

“holy land” and the city Jerusalem
was renamed after a Roman god.
Proof of Initial Success of
Revolts
 Coins of the First
Revolt (apx 66 AD)
 Coins from the

Third Great Revolt
apx 135 AD
Notice temple in first

No temple in second
Judaism Almost Eliminated
 Through the centuries of revolts … in
the Roman world
• Jews went from being a curious accepted

group (which soon gain followers that
were as much as 10% of the whole
Empire’s population)
• To the most hated group in the Empire (at

least by the rulers of the Empire.)
 The great coliseum in Rome was actually paid

for by the spoils of the conquest of the Jews,
and built primarily by Jews slaves who survived
the wars (after the crushing of the 66-70
revolt)
From the Arch of Titus in Rome
 The wealth of Jerusalem is displayed
Christians Sit Out Revolts
 The early Christian movement
(although not called such yet) “sat
out” the great revolt of 66-70 – one of
the few Jewish Groups to do so
 In part the early rejection of the

“Christians” by the Jews can be found
in those politics …
• When all were needed to fight the Romans

– the followers of Jesus refused to help.
Why the Anti-Jewish Vent in Gospels
And as the first revolt failed and more revolts
developed –
 The defeat of the Jews, the non-

participation of the Christians and the anti-
Jewish policies of the Empire can be seen
reflected in the Gospels
• The earliest written (before the great revolt

(66-70 AD – or just after) was less clear on the
“guilt of the Jews” in the death of Christ
• The later Gospels … written after the wars …

blamed the Jews and held the Romans harmless.
 The Gospels reflected the political realities

of the times.
New Religions Arises in the
Roman World
 As Rome expanded, many religions
(old and new) become popular with
the Roman people. – Christianity had
many competitors.
• From Egypt - Isis

• From Persia - Mythra
• And before the revolts - the Jewish god
And also in many forms –

From the old Phoenicia and Syria - Ba’al
Three Thousand Years Before
Jesus
 Isis and Horus
as the model
for Jesus and
Mary
New Religions Arises in the
Roman World
 These were the really popular gods
for --- hundreds of years of the
Roman Empire – after the beginning
of Christianity
• And once again contrary to the Christian

history of the world - Christianity was at
first very slow to prosper and was not
widely embraced by the Roman world for
centuries (if at all)
Roman Crisis
 To try and compete to be more popular – the
Christians morphed by taking elements from
other popular religions
• From Isis - Mary worship

• From Mithra – the Christmas Holiday
(Birthday of Mithra – 25th of December)
• From Hercules (and Ba’al) – the suffering
of Christ –defeating death and much more
• From many gods of history – death and
rising
 And from Ba’al – the concept of sacrificing of

one’s son for the needs of the world
Conflict Within Christianity
Despite some strong objections on
part of some “fathers,” the Church
eventually incorporated the “Old
Testament” as part of the Christian
Religion
But – There are extensive denouncing

in the New Jew’s “Old Testament” of
the use of Human Sacrifice – and
worship of Ba’al (the Lord).
Answering Conflicts
When the Church was developing –
human sacrifice was still used – it
was not a rite of the deep past
• The Roman Emperor Elegabalus was

sacrificing the children of senators in
220 AD (as part of his worship of Ba’al
as the one true god)
 Both Jews and others saw the Christ

story as one of a human sacrifice to
a demanding God
Answering Conflicts
 To defend the new Church from the linking
to the rite of human sacrifice
• Despite multiple references in the New

Testament to Christ being a sacrifice (and
completing the non-sacrifice of Isaac,
 The early Church fathers solved this

apparent problem by saying
• Christ could not be a human sacrifice

because … He was not human.
Answering Conflicts
To defend the new Church for being so similar
to so many of the older religions (a charge
frequently set on the new religion)
The early Church did not deny the similarities

they simple said –
 it was the Devil’s work
• The Church claimed all similarities were

based on the trick of the Devil. The Devil
had planted these religions among men
from earliest time to trick people from
accepting Jesus when he did come.
Answering Conflicts
 To try and avoid completely alienating the
“pagans” the Church did not deny the
existence of the traditional gods
• They claimed they were in fact not gods

but demons
 These three explanations
• No human sacrifice cause Jesus was not

human
• Similarities to other religions was the
trick of the devil and
• Old gods were really demons
 Is still the official doctrine of the Catholic

Church today …
Precursor for the Western Model
of what Jesus looked like
 The Emperor
Hadrian so loved
his male companion
Antinous
that when he died(130 AD)
he had him deified
and his image was
placed through the
Empire … some
speculate that the
image was popular
that the Christians
took it as the Westernized
version of the new
man/god
Jesus
Roman Crisis
 Christianity only grew as the Empire fell
apart – with one crisis after another
• As “this” world failed, people became far more

interested in the “next world.”
 Slow death of Roman Empire (200-476 AD)
• Crisis of the Third Century – military dictatorships

• Plagues
• Invasions
 Later emperors made efforts at stability by

becoming absolute monarchs - based on the
Persian style.
Roman Crisis
As the Emperors move towards absolutism
 They needed a theoretic justification
• Monotheism - seemed the solution
 Earth should reflect Heaven

 One God in Heaven – one Emperor on
Earth
 This movement towards Roman monotheism

was started by the Emperors around 200 –
• It at first had nothing to do with

Same on Earth as it is in Heaven
 Justinian’s
court
imitating
their image
of Heaven
Roman Response to Crisis
 But Which God?
• First effort Ba’al (220’s)
• Then Mithras and later
• Sol and also Sol Invictus
 It was Sol Invictus that was the
god of Constantine – Not Jesus.
 Finally about 350-400
Christianity won out
They All Started to Look Alike
Sol
Invictus
Not
Jesus
From the time
Of Constantine
They All Started to Look Alike
 Jesus as
the good
Shepherd –
Directly copied
From the Greek
Hermes
And Persian
Mithras art of
centuries
before
How Christians Won
 The Christians say they won the internal religions
war because of the truth of their story
 However they won because
• In a very dangerous world – where violent death

became common –
• They put far more emphasis on afterlife, and fate
of souls then any other previous religion,
 They also opened the “joys” of the afterworld

to everyone … not just heroes
• And they willing supported the Emperor’s claim to

absolutism on earth .. To match God’s absolutism
in heaven. – they did so after extensive bribes
Answering Conflicts
 Church attacked challenger by calling all

who do not accept teachings as “heretics”
 Eventual the religion becomes the “cult

religion” of the Emperors (fourth effort at
One Emperor, One God)
 The Emperors start to demand conformity
• Non-Belief (in the power of the Emperor on earth

and God in heaven) becomes a capital crime
Christians in Power
 Once power is obtained, Christians
strongly repress “Classicalist” with
extensive killings, “burning of books”
and other overt acts to repress the
concepts of the Classical world
 Perhaps 100 times more people were

killed in Christian efforts to repress
the remaining believers in other
religions then Christians killed by
Rome during the efforts to repress
Christianity . (300,000 vs. 3,000)
Roman Crisis
 Solution didn’t work in the West
• After great resistance to the imposition of
Christianity in the West … it did little to
help the Empire survive (Last of a long
line of weak emperors in 476 CE)
 Christian in fighting created chaos

and much loss in the East
• Religions conflicts in the East over the
nature of Christ and much more … lost the
Empire all of the Middle East and Africa ---
 The people accepted Persian and Muslim rule
rather then the tyranny of the central church in
Constantinople
Success of Christianity Leads to
End of Classical Learning in the
West
 Extensive internally fighting among
Christians continued concerning the
rites and rituals of the new religion,
leading to extensive division
 Arian Christianity and many other

“heresies” repressed with increasing
violence
• East and West church final split about

1000 AD
West in Shambles – Thought
Repressed
500 – 1492 Reduced Western Christian world is mostly
devoid of importance and knowledge
 For hundreds of years, they focus on fending off

Muslims, Vikings, Mongols and a host of other
peoples, and
• Seeing each of these invaders as the “Wrath of

God” the Christians create efforts at conformity
and not allowing for any thought not represented
as good in the Bible.
 When on the offensive against Muslim world and

Eastern Church and heretics Western Christians
destroy all that does not conform – and murder
millions –
• Based on God Wills it

Outcomes of Christianity in the
West
From the Old Testament - the Church adopts Jewish
fears concerning wrath of God
 Each new invasion, plague or earthquake – became

“evidence” of God’s wrath for failure to live by “his
rules”
They took the requirements of the Second Jewish

Commonwealth of the responsibility of every single
one to conform of God with punish all
 To protect the whole Christian world from God’s

Wrath --- The Church supported
• Forced conversion
• Religious terror (Inquisition)
• Wholesale killings of “non-believers”
Outcomes
In Europe
 All thought not in the Bible is condemned as

being heretical
 The traditional image of Ba’al evolves into

the model for the Devil
 And all reference to the Phoenician

contribution to the world is suppressed and
 Jews become “the untouchables”

Religious Terror to State Terror
The rational and techniques to enforce religious
conformity were eventually adopted by “States” of
20th Century to enforce national conformity
 The justification of mass killings of “citizens” of

states by their own rulers is found in the concepts of
the small Jewish colony and then expanded by the
Christians – toward of God’s Wrath or in modern
terms
• To protect the Revolution

• To secure the nation from minorities, radicals …
“the other”
• To keep racial or religious purity
 The great mega deaths of the 20th century are all

based in the justification of the Church to kill non-
believers --- to protect the “good”
Morphing Recognized
 Modern religious historians and
researchers all recognized the
“evolution” of religions.
• They see the transitions from spirit

worship to goddess worship to sky gods
worship to modern versions of all the old
stories
• They see the influence of Persian religions

taken into the West and retold
• They see how rites basically stay the

same with variations in story line and
meanings
Same as Before
 If an ancient person from Egypt or Phoenicia
came back today and went to a Roman
Catholic Mass –
 Perhaps 80% or more would seem

recognizable from their religious rite
• Some acts would be symbolic rather then actual

• They would clearly see the Christ figure as a
telling of a human sacrifice – right out of their
traditions
 But the stories would be the same – with

names changed
Morphing Not Explored - in
SPAIN
While the “morphing of religion is generally accepted –
few historians include the issues of human
sacrifice…. But it clearly there … for example
 In 1500 BC till at lease 150 BC or so … in what is now

Spain
• Every so often there be a big public holiday –

which ended with the burning of people in the
name of their gods
 In 1500 AD till about 1870 AD or so --- in what is

now Spain
• Every so often there be a big public holiday –

which ended with the burning of people in the
name of their god (actually Three gods in one)
In Spain
 The first burning of people was done in the
name of Ba’al or equivalent Gods (and lasted
in Spain from perhaps as early as 2000 BC to
about 150 BC – (When Rome took over)
 The second burning of people was done in

the name of Jesus (and lasted until about
1870’s)
• The estimates of the actual numbers of persons

burned in “the Auto de Fe” of the Spanish
Inquisition range from a few thousand to
hundreds of thousands – but there is no dispute
that ceremonies took place
Art Shows the Auto De Fe
A painting
of a 1476
Auto De Fe
See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto_de_fé
Ba’al Rituals Continued -
Morphed
 The rituals of Ba’al were morphed
• The rational and justification of the rituals
were changed to meet “Christian
concepts” but …
• The burnings of the Inquisition are the

same rites and purposes of the burnings
of the children of the
Phoenicians/Carthaginians
Not only was Jesus Ba’al – but the rites of

Ba’al became the rites of Jesus.
In Europe Under the Christians
 In 800 years of Christian domination in Europe –
(1000 AD to 1800 AD)
• Between the Inquisitions and witch hunts and

Pogroms against Jews
 A conservative figure of 500,000 people were

publicly burned to death in ceremonies similar to
only one other religious group - that of Ba’alism
• These burnings took place in the areas where the

Ba’alist and their allies/off shoots - the Celts
were dominant for centuries … therefore the
burning of people had been common for centuries
-- these were
 Religious rites continued in a morphed form

Burning of People Became
“Common”
 In the late middle
Ages witch burnings
became “common”
in Europe with
estimates ranging
from a some 30,000
to 5 million burned
Jesus Is Ba’al’s Rituals Morphed
We have shown ---
 That to the Jews, (the new Jews) the
idea of human sacrifice was what

caused the most wrath of God –
 That to the Phoenicians - and many
other ancient religions …(including

the old Jews) human sacrifice was the
highest form of all rituals - an act
loved by the Gods
Jesus Is Ba’al Rituals Morphed
We have shown
 The efforts to repress the rituals of the Old

Jews and the Phoenicians resulted in the
religions –morphing the stories and rituals
• The destruction of the Jews and the openness of

the Romans allowed for this morphing to take
shape in which the central part of the “ancient”
religions are made symbolic
 The Christ Sacrifice is the final human

sacrifice needed
We have shown
 The symbolic ritual was changes into the
actual revival of the Ba’alist ritual of burning

people to appease the gods or god.
• In the name of Christ hundreds of thousands of

people, if not millions of people were killed in
public burnings
And please not this is not counting the millions of

others killed in religious based wars … this
number is only those publicly burned for being
“the other” … to appease or protect us from the
Wrath of God.
And we have shown
 That the ideas of Christianity was not based

in Jewish thought or rituals but in Ba’alist
thought and rituals
• The Jews abhorred human sacrifice

• The Christians saw the human sacrifice as the
center of their religion – as did the Ba’alist
 Therefore we must conclude that

Christianity was Ba’al revitalized – morphed
into another retelling of ancient stories
• Christ was and is Ba’al retold –

 And in the end …
 Through the success of

Christianity the rivalry of
Ba’alism and Yahwahism was
won by Ba’alism
Addendums
 Various World Views of the Major
Religious Groups of the “Ancient
World”
Frame
 “Persian View” – A world of
constant conflict between good and
evil – Two separate deities
(dualism)
 Sacrifices as far less important –
Good deeds and right living are far
more valued
 The rule of evil prevails now – but
soon good will come to rule-
 There will be a time of final
judgment and the dead will be
resurrected and judged, this world
of evil will end.
Religious Conflicts During Time Frame
 Pre-Exile Jewish View

• Jewish view on human sacrifice unclear.
 All the first opens the Matrix is mine
 Hero sacrifices daughter
 Whole cities are slaughter to please God
 David hangs seven men (to God) to end drought
• Isaac story classic foundation myth with the

human sacrifice to solidify contract between
man and god.
 Was Isaac sacrifice?
• Reforms of Josiah – In kingdom of Judah – Do

not hold
 When was the book of Deuteronomy written?

 Ancients and Classical “Death

and Rising Gods”
• Most often associated with the cycle
of the crops – God dies in winter,
revived in spring – etc. Multiple
examples, including the Ba’al cycle
found in ancient Phoenician text.
 Jewish concepts of
“monotheism” and ten
commandments, etc.
Frame
 “Jewish View – Post Babylonian Exile -
One God – All rulers of the world operate
as his agent
• Sacrifices needed for many occasions – for
same issues – as Ancients
• Human Sacrifice seen as cause for God’s wrath
– and destruction of previous states
 Role of everyone to enforce all of the
rules of God – not just priest, or kings,
but all people –
 Allowing for non-conformity of anyone
threatens the return of God’s wrath and
the destruction of all.
 Persian – dual conflicts between good

and evil – the existence of the devil,
coming resolution … resurrection of
the dead. (All element of
Zoroastrianism, especial the sect
called Zurvanism)
 Mystery Cults of Egypt and Greece –

much of the elements of the “mass”
are found in the practices of the cults
Knew this concept, and understood
the concept of God’s sacrificing his
only son in time of Crisis and saw this
concept to be one the most ancient of
their stories - going back to the very
foundation stories of their
(Phoenician) culture –
But this concept was completely

opposite of the Jewish world view of
the time.

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The Ba’al

 Religious Intolerance In The

understood in the modern world.

and Yahweh, (brothers actually) and

• which is obviously very pro Yahweh.

 In the Bible … worship of Ba’al is portrayed

• Most of the other ancient sources praising

• Cover thousands of years of history in

• Present a history very different than what

• Fight the current beliefs of entrenched

 None of which is easy

 Societies and the religions of cultures don’t

• External factors - invasions … lost wars, etc.

Again showing all of this not an easy task in this

• The Hebrews became the Israelites

 We need to understand the crises that

 Are facts supported by a wide range

• All the statements on the rise and fall of

 What the Christian West wants everyone to

 And for a seventeen hundred years the

 That for thousands of years of history, in

 despite what the Christians would have us

• It was Ba’al that was the well known and

• Including the Greek Zeus and Roman

 The Ba’al-like gods dominated religious life

• And in a time crisis … the most popular of

 Ba’al was a remake of far more ancient god

• Bel of the Babylonians and Bel came from

 The Akkadians and before them

• All these stories moved from the “East to

.. To re-frame Shakespeare “for Harry, England and

• For most of history … real history … Ba’al was the

 The followers of Yahweh were simple bit

 It was the followers of Ba’al who created

 It was the Ba’alist who created the

foundation of all the Greek

another remake of Ba’al that

 In fact it was Ba’al, in that name, who was

 The fight for a “One God – One Emperor”

• Confined to two small, weak and

Monotheism seemed very odd at the time

• We (through Christian intimidation and

 And we have mostly forgotten the

 Became the prototype representation of the

 The rituals associated with Ba’al became the

• Burning in Hell fire was based in large

• Or as stated in the Bible - The passing of

 In his time … Ba’al was the most

 Popular religions don’t really fade

• The Jesus story is clearly part of an

 We need to know what the Christians

• We need to unlearn what we commonly

• Most of our founding fathers were “deist”

 Thomas Paine – went from being one of the

• The fastest growing “religious group” in

 But over time the efforts fade in face

• See the Golden Bough and many other works in

 However, I am not even the first to link

 But I seem to be the first to put much more

 The Christian view of history still holds --- at

 This view of history

• this denial of other peoples history that

 so limits our abilities in the world today ---

Much of what we think is fact is not -