DEAD SEA SCROLLS: - Dr Norman Golb is a top scholar who makes a plea for the de-politicization of the Dead Sea Scrolls. His plea is not related to the current argument that Palestine will own or control the Scrolls but to the Generals and politicians who piecemeal and with apparent deceit are doling out access to these important documents for the examination of scholars. The original involvement of the Catholic scholars and the Scrolls being housed in a Museum named for the Rockefellers is of more concern to me. The management of the life of Jesus and his brother James ('the Righteous) who led the group at Qumran that some are calling Essenes is why the concern exists for myself and others who know the ways of the Christologists. They have blamed the Jews for 'killing our Saviour'.

The documents discovered at Dag (or Nag) Hammadi in the same decade were fully translated by 1971 and they are of equal if not greater insight. The life of Jesus as a 'Therapeutae' or Gnostic with a 'Source' of learning in a large family of adepts is contrary to all sorts of proselytes and his involvement of an equal partner and wife puts a lie to a lot of 'only begotten' or other Divine appellations sought by the Popes who have claimed to be the only representatives of the Lord on Earth. This 'Source' is described correctly by Barrett as the very Grail that the Dag Hammadi scrolls represent from the verbal tradition or Qabala. If you consider that there was no name or actual Christians at the time of Jesus we will be starting at a fair beginning. The Copper Scrolls that made coded references to the site of Solomon's treasure were found here as well. That is of import to our continuing effort to know what trade and designs exist (ed) in the Templar to Benjaminite or Merovingian lineage. It is more important to start with this 'Source' as many Biblical scholars are calling it. They call it this rather than a pagan tradition of Bardic and nature worshippers or Phoenicians, as the Father of Biblical Archaeology assures us that even the Bible itself should be seen as being. We are of the opinion that all documents and related things that reflect on the life of Christ are part and parcel of the 'Holy Grail'; and the churchians were crusading and killing to get them and control the truth that might upset their marketing and other plans. Thus we should provide a little proof of the actual religions and politics of the time that Jesus was alive upon this earth.

"The Bible imagines the religion of ancient Israel as purely monotheistic. And doubtless there were Israelites, particularly those associated with the Jerusalem Temple, who were strict monotheists. But the archaeological evidence (and the Bible, too, if you read it closely enough) suggests that the monotheism of many Israelites was far from pure. For them, Yahweh (the name of the Israelite god) was not the only divinity. Some Israelites believed that Yahweh had a female consort. And many Israelite invoked the divinity with the help of images {Remember Onias' Temple in Egypt and the archaeology of the sacrificing of Ibises practiced by Moses and later Jews.}, particularly figurines. I call this Israelite religion pagan Yahwism.

The archaeological evidence we will look at comes mostly from Judah in what is known in archaeological terms as the Assyrian period, the span from 721 B.C.E., when the Assyrians destroyed the northern kingdom of Israel, until 586 B.C.E., when the Babylonians conquered Jerusalem, destroyed the Temple and brought an end to the Davidic dynasty in Judah. This period, to put it into perspective, is several centuries after King Solomon built the Jerusalem Temple {Actually done by an architect Mason from Tyre named Hiram but not the King of that name and time.} in about 950 B.C.E. So the archaeological evidence we are about to discuss documents a level of Israelite paganism long after Solomon built an exclusive home for Israel's god. {The Incas and other used such techniques of social management rather than garrison armies in occupied territories.}

While Yahweh was the god of the Israelites, other nations had their own national gods. The chief god of the Phoenicians was Ba'al. For the Philistines, the chief god was at first Dagon {As noted earlier we suggested a Berber/Phoenician connection to Philistine. This Dagon is almost the same as the Dogon of West Africa who are early observers of Sirius the Dog Star. This is a Berber influence to be sure.} and later also Ba'al {He could mention Bel in Mesopotamia is the same as Ba'al but he is just developing the extensive similarity of the actual worship of people with different names within a gradually degrading or devolving 'Brotherhood'. We can't expect all of these things to be integrated all at once, can we?}(Judges 16:23; 2 Kings 1:2). For the Ammonites it was Milkom. For the Moabites {In Deuteronomy 23 you will see prejudice and hatred excluding them from the 'House of the Lord', 'Yes, even unto the tenth generation' along with 'bastards' and 'he who is wounded in the stones'.}, Chemosh. For the Edomites, Qos. And for the Israelites and Judahites -- Yahweh. Except for the Edomite god Qos, who appears only in the archaeological record, all of these gods are mentioned in the Bible (1 Kings 11:5, 7, 33).

Interestingly, while each nation's chief god had a distinctive name, his consort, the chief female deity, had the same name in all these cultures: Asherah or its variants Ashtoreth or Astarte. (As we shall see, this was even true of Yahweh's consort.)

Not only was the female consort the same, the various nations used the same cult objects, the same types if incense altars made of stone and clay, the same bronze and clay censers, cult stands and incense burners, the same chalices and goblets and the same bronze and ivory rods adorned with pomegranates. It was easy to take cult vessels of one deity and place them in the service of another one--and this was commonly done. For example, in the ninth-century B.C.E., stela erected by Mesha, the king of Moab, he describes himself as the 'son of Chemosh,' and tells how he defeated the Israelites (see also 2 Kings 3:4-27). He then brags,'(I) took t(he ves)sels of Yahweh, and I hauled them before the face of Chemosh.'

We sometimes get the impression that after Solomon built the Temple in Jerusalem, Yahweh had no other sanctuary in ancient Israel -- but this is not the case." (1)

It is possible that the prevalence of the 'one god' was actually a one goddess as we see in the fact they all worshipped one similarly named(identical really)goddess. The reality as we see it was almost the same for Ba'al in this period as well. He goes on to show these multiple and pantheistic practices seem to disappear when the exiles are returned from Persia, so maybe Cyrus and Zoroaster were able to convince them of the error of their ways and we might see what many have pondered in regards to the magi of Zoroaster being a major influence on Christianity in the original foundations and not the more ritualistic Moses. At Qumran many scholars note the people called themselves 'Covenanters of the Law'. Most of them note this law was Mosaic but my perception is different and I believe it was a syncretism akin to Gnosticism and with many adept understandings such as the healing practices of the Therapeutae. Golb makes it clear he is on the side of the Qumran library having been a collection of all the factions of religion and practices in a large area even beyond Judaea. The Roman practice of destroying all literature and writing new ones around old beliefs which were in line with their approaches was the reason for this, and all tribes, zealots or cults knew it.

The henges of the Emerald Isles which were once wood as some are seeing today, are in the Negev and Sinai deserts as well. The 'Bedouin' ('tent dweller') fiction is not the root as we showed from the scholars of the excellent book Carthage. The article following the one just quoted from Biblical Archaeology Review says this:

"Take even a one- or two-day trip through the Sinai or Negev deserts and you'll come across scores of them--standing stones erected in a variety of combinations. These stone installations may help us understand the very origins of Israelite religion." (2)

Last year the word about pre-hieroglyphic alphabets in the Sahara were accompanied by more on the agricultural savannah people who had henges too. This is where the Berbers were from and the connection if no simple chance occurrence. The article goes on to discuss 'fertility triads' and whenever you see triad or troad (Greek) you are looking at the central laws of the philosophic Kelts. These parables of process and moral or spiritual concepts are a wealth of insight to this very day. The Triune Nature of Man that was plagiarized into the 'Holy Trinity' and raised to a deity took more of man's self awareness and divinity away from humanity than any of us can imagine. A central theme in the Dead Sea Scrolls is said to be very Zoroastrian in nature (and the Mani attempt to join Christianity and it in one ecumenical religion that Augustine was a promoter of until bought out by the Catholics); - it is simply this: 'There are two spirits 'truth and error'. We surely see the real original sin of the Gnostics who saved the Dag Hammadi Scrolls and gave their lives protecting the Library of Alexandria in this. These people who were with the Cathars a millennium later say 'The original sin that separates us from God - is IGNORANCE!'

Another culture that really worshipped this goddess at one time is the Greek or Hellenic culture of Dionysius and Aphrodite as we see a practice that was at work while Yahweh became the one and sole male god Jehovah and that development was not mentioned in BAR.

"In Cyprus it appears that before marriage all women were formerly obliged by custom to prostitute themselves to strangers at the sanctuary of the goddess, whether she went by the name of Aphrodite, Astarte, or what not. Similar customs prevailed in many parts of Western Asia." (3)

Casting aspersions on great thinkers like Augustine is easy and I don't want any readers to think I'm saying these things without basis in fact. We have his own book to work with in that regard. Here is a little from Augustine's autobiography called Confessions.

"As literature, the Scriptures compared poorly with the polished prose of Cicero and he thought them fit only for the simple minded." That was when he was a Manichean before "the mercy of God had saved him from this evil." (4)

Author and activist for ecumenicism and Brotherhood