pynchon-l-digest V2 #1706

[Doug Millison]

See the Old Testament for the gut-wrenching story of how Israel 
wavered in its devotions, cycling between periods of worshipping God 
and worshipping this goddess and various Baal's.  Each time they went 
astray, God let one or another of the local strongmen/kings subjugate 
Israel, until they had learned their lesson and a new champion arose 
(Deborah is one of the more interesting in the book of Judges where 
we first read this saga of Israel's troubles after the deaths of 
Moses and his successor Joshua) to lead them back to God. See Jack 
Miles' book _God:  A Biography_ for a stimulating reading of the Old 
Testament God as an evolving literary character, and as a deity that 
evolved to incorporate aspects of  other deities that were worshipped 
in that region at that time. The Old Testament would seem to make it 
clear that the Israelites spent much if not most of their history 
worshipping gods other than God, in waves of rebellion against God, 
misery under cruel leaders, and sweet surrender to God.

"David Morris" sez
>King Solomon, married to foreign wives, "went after Ashtoreth the goddess of
>the Sidonians" (I Kings 11:5). Later the cult places to Ashtoreth were
>destroyed by Josiah. Astarte/Ashtoreth is the Queen of Heaven to whom the
>Canaanites had burned incense and poured libations (Jeremiah 44).
>
>Astarte, goddess of war and sexual love, shared so many qualities with her
>sister, Anath, that they may originally have been seen as a single 
>deity. Their
>names together are the basis for the Aramaic goddess Atargatis.
-- 
d  o  u  g    m  i  l  l  i  s  o  n  <http://www.online-journalist.com>