The Book of Isaiah

Chapter 1 V.1 Part 3.3 Asherah 4

(Bear in mind…I’m still digging under the reference of Isaiah 1:1 at this time, and what is following is the result of that search, but fair warning…it’s a vast amount of information and is quite complex. Also bear in mind that the deities presented here are only presented to give clarity to the identity of the same false goddess and to demonstrate the origins of that theology and the various cultures, forms and names of this false deity under this theology.)

We find Asherah again in several other places and cultures. (I’m going to have to split this part into at least two posts.) She’s known as:

Tiamat in Sumerian mythology; Ishtar (Inanna), and Ninsun in Mesopotamia; Asherah in Canaan; `Ashtart in Syria; and Aphrodite in Greece; the Irish goddess Anu, sometimes known as Danu. Amongst the Germanic tribes a female goddess was probably worshipped in the Nordic Bronze Age religion, which was later known as the Nerthus of Germanic mythology, and possibly living on in the Norse mythology worship of Freya, after whom Friday is named. Her counterpart in Scandinavia was the male deity Njord. Other goddesses in different pantheons also may be considered mother goddesses.

(Please note what looks familiar in the pictures and stories to what you know of in other religions today (ie: the disk of light behind the images which may be indicative of the status of being a god of either the sun or the moon depending on the form of the disk depicted, and the snake).

In Roman mythology, Diana was the goddess of the hunt, in literature she was the equivalent of the Greek goddess Artemis, though in cult she was Italic in origin. Artemis was born with her twin brother Apollo on the island of Delos, daughter of Zeus and Leto. Diana, on the other hand, was the daughter of Jupiter and Latona.

Diana was the hunting goddess, associated with wild animals and woodlands. She also later became a moon goddess, supplanting Luna, and was an emblem of chastity. Oak groves were especially sacred to her. She was praised in poetry for her strength, athletic grace, distinct beauty and hunting skill. In practice she made up a trinity with two other Roman deities: Egeria the water nymph, her servant and assistant midwife; and Virbius, the woodland god. In her etymology, “Diana” is simply :”the Goddess”, with a Greek parallel in the name — though not the cult practice — of Dione at Dodona. She was goddess of fertility and quick to anger. Diana worship is mentioned in the book of Acts in the Bible (Chapter 19, verses 21-41).

Diana

 Diana huntress, by Houdon.

Diana was regarded with great reverence by lower-class citizens and slaves; slaves could receive asylum in her temples.

Though some Roman patrons ordered marble replicas of the specifically Anatolian “Diana” of Ephesus, where the Temple of Artemis stood, Diana was usually depicted for educated Romans in her Greek guise.

Both the Romanian word for “fairy”, zânǎ[6] and the Asturian word for “water nymph”, xana, seem to come from the name of Diana. Today there is a branch of Wicca named for her, which is characterized by an exclusive focus on the feminine aspect of the Divine.

Amaterasu Omikami: Sun Goddess

In the Aegean, Anatolian, and ancient Near Eastern culture zones, a mother goddess was worshipped in the forms of Cybele (revered in Rome as Magna Mater, the ‘Great Mother’), of Gaia, and of Rhea.

 Kuan Yin, “Hearer of the Cries of the World,” and the Bodhisattva of Compassion.

The Olympian goddesses of classical Greece had many characters with mother goddess attributes, including Hera and Demeter. Aphrodite’s counterpart in Roman mythology, Venus, eventually was adopted as a Mother Goddess figure. Magna Dea could be applied to a goddess at the head of a pantheon, such as Juno or Minerva, or a goddess worshipped monotheistically.

Aphrodite

The term “Great Goddess” itself can refer to a mother goddess in contemporary Neopagan and Wiccan religions. Umai, also known as Ymai or Mai, is the mother goddess of the Turkic Siberians. She is depicted as having sixty golden tresses that resemble the rays of the sun. She is thought to have once been identical with Ot of the Mongols.

Shiva

It is interesting to note that Shiva’s consort is called Parvati and also Uma. And in India the mother worship also is called Devi Maa or Maya. The Rigveda calls the divine female power, Mahimata (R.V. 1.164.33), a term which literally means Mother Earth.

Kali

At places, the Vedic literature alludes to her as Viraj, the universal mother, as Aditi, the mother of gods, and as Ambhrini, the one born of the Primeval Ocean. Durga represents the empowering and protective nature of motherhood. An incarnation of Durga is Kali, who came from her forehead during war (as a means of defeating Durga’s enemy, Mahishasura). Durga and her incarnations are particularly worshipped in Bengal.

Durga

Today, Devi is seen in manifold forms, all representing the creative force in the world, as Maya and prakriti, the force that galvanizes the divine ground of existence into self-projection as the cosmos. She is not merely the Earth, although even this perspective is covered by Parvati (Durga’s previous incarnation). The feminine energy, Shakti, is considered to be the motive force behind all action and existence in the phenomenal cosmos in Hinduism.

Again…all of these false deities were all the offspring of the original Egyptian pantheon of false gods, which have infiltrated all these various cultures over the centuries and our culture as well. The others I found will be continued in the next post, so that you will recognize them whenever you may encounter them and their theologies. I will also get to where this originated from…eventually. The worship of these gods started in Egypt, but the origin of this plan of the enemy…began much earlier than that.