The Ancient Tradition

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Music

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You’re listening to The Ancient Tradition.  A Wonk Media Production.  Music provided by Joseph McDade.  He is your host, Dr. Jack Logan.

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Welcome to The Ancient Tradition.  I’m your host,  Jack Logan. Great to have you listening in today. Today’s episode is super long. I thought about splitting it into two, but since I’ve been gone for so long with the end of the semester grading, I thought I’d just leave it, make it kind of a bonus episode. There’s a lot in here, so you may not want to listen to it all in one sitting. You may want to split it up, but it’s of course up to you.

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If you’re a new listener, just want to let you know that the podcast has a companion website, theancienttradition.com, where you can find important resources linked to today’s episodes. Just click on show notes  and you’ll find this episode. With that, let’s jump in. One of the really interesting things that I noticed when I began studying religious traditions around the world  and something that was quite honestly  surprising was

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that the high god, especially the high gods in deep antiquity, be they Mesopotamian, Egyptian or Canaanite, and even the early Hebrews didn’t reign alone. The high god was married. He reigned over the cosmos as a king with his spouse, the queen of heaven, and together they reigned over the heavens as a divine royal couple.  It’s one of those details that’s quite striking considering

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You know, how many today envision God as a solitary, aloof, invisible, immaterial, transcendent entity? A notion that we learned in our last episode was largely shaped by Plato’s philosophical ideas. As Dr. Stavro Kapulu writes, quite poignantly on page 415 of her book, God and Anatomy, that the God that’s found in the Hebrew Bible is very, very different from the God envisioned

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by Plato and many modern day believers. She writes, quote, the modern God of the West and the ancient God of the Bible are very different beings. Prominent Western intellectuals have not only rendered the biblical God lifeless, but reduced him to a mere phantom. The modern deity is a post biblical hybrid being,  a disembodied science free artificial intelligence.

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assembled over the course of 2,000 years from selected scraps  of Greek philosophy. Dr. Stavros Kapoulou says it in kind of a charged way, but she makes a really important point.  And that’s that there is a divide between what Plato taught about the nature of God and what the peoples of the ancient world taught about the nature of God. So who are we to believe?  Which of these two are attesting to the true nature of God?

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Plato and Western intellectuals or the ancients? Well, on this podcast, we believe the ancients  and that’s because the ancients themselves tell us they attest that in the very beginning when the earth was still in heaven’s embrace, God reigned on earth  and that during that time, God walked and talked with human beings.  They’re often referred to as the ancestors.

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and he revealed to them the truth about who he is, his true nature. For example, among the ancient Egyptians, this time was actually referred to as the reign of Re. The reign of Re. Re here being the high god, Atum Re.  The time when the high god Atum Re reigned on earth as a divine king. And we’re actually gonna talk about this very, very soon.

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Believe it or not, we’re only an episode or two away from diving into those accounts, finally. So you don’t have to wait much longer. And it’s something to look forward to because there’s some pretty, pretty great stuff. When we dive into what the ancients teach about the nature of God, like we’re going to do in this episode, we absolutely see contrary to what Plato and Western intellectuals taught that God has a material body made of immortal

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flesh and bone, a body which the ancients tell us emits a glorious radiant light, which they likened under fire. If you’re new to the program and you’d like to learn more about the textual evidence for these claims, be sure and give episode number 29, who is God, a glorious being of ineffable light, and episode number 44, who is God, a corporeal being, a lesson, because we cover the textual evidence.

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for these claims in detail. All right, in our last episode, we learned that the ancients also attested that God’s body is sexed, male or female, which speaks to a very important theological point. It indicates that God contains within himself only half of the reproductive anatomy necessary for divine procreation, which

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clearly implies that God is only whole with a reproductive partner of the opposite sex. Now, theologically, this is very intriguing because this indicates  just like the ancients taught about the cosmic law known among the ancients as Ma’at, Tzedek, Asha, Rita, the Tao, that God is not  omnipotent. He doesn’t contain within himself  all

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power in the sense that many today believe. Rather, we learned in episode number 28, who was God,  Lord of Maat, King of Zedek, that the ancients taught that God is bound  by a cosmic law, which  demands truth, righteousness, and justice. They just taught that God didn’t have the power to circumvent or alter or change this law.

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In fact, we learned that it was only by abiding by this law that one could become a God in the first place. The ancients taught that this law was permanently embedded in the fabric of the cosmos itself. If God did not conform to this law, he would cease to be God, which of course means  as  unsettling as this may sound to a lot of people today, that while God’s power is immense, the ancients taught that it was not

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absolute. They taught that it was constrained by his submission to the cosmic law. When the ancients tell us that God is a sexed being, we get a similar theological picture. If God contains within himself only one half  of the reproductive anatomy necessary for divine procreation, then God would not be able to divinely procreate without a reproductive partner

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of the opposite sex. He would not be able to produce offspring by himself. He would be constrained by the limitations of his sexual anatomy.  This is  theologically profound, because this means that God’s immense power is, again, limited. It’s not absolute. His divine procreative powers are relationally dependent. Theologically, again,

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This is incredibly significant because it suggests that the full capacity of Godship, the full power of Godship can only be realized by a divine couple, which is exactly what the ancients attest in the ancient record. Across the ancient world, the ancients taught that God,  most notably the high God,  reigned in the heavens  or on the peak of the holy mountain,

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with his wife as a married couple, not as a solitary being. This divine couple reigned together as the king and queen of the cosmos. I don’t know that I’ve heard a  single theologian talk about the prevalence of this stubborn bit in the ancient world, especially not in an academic, theologically rigorous way, but it is prevalent indeed, which I’m gonna demonstrate.

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Like always, we’re gonna start by jumping into the ancient texts to see what the ancients themselves have to say about God’s marital status. We’re gonna be looking primarily at what the texts have to say about the high God’s marital status.  Texts also mention the marital status of other gods, so we’ll consider a few of those, but our primary focus today will be on the marital status of the high God. We’re gonna start

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with the earliest known civilization in the world, the region known as Sumer, which was located in southern Mesopotamia between the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers in what is now modern-day Iraq. Scholars believe Sumer was first settled sometime between 5500 and 3300 BC. The early dynastic period dates to 2900 BC and the first dynasty

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It’s known as the dynasty of Lagash. It’s well attested to in the historical record. It’s dated to about 2500 BC. And I mentioned this just so you get a picture of the timeframe that we’re talking about. In ancient Mesopotamia, the high god, the king of the gods was known among the Sumerians as  An,  A-N. Among the Akkadians, the same high god was known as Anu, A-N-U.

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We’ve discussed the High Sumerian God, several times on the podcast, so you long-time listeners should have a really good feel for who I’m talking about.  On is widely mentioned in the Mesopotamian literature. For example, he’s mentioned in the text known as Atrahasis. In tablet one, we learned that he reigned as the king of the gods over the assembly of the gods made up of his divine children, which he divinely procreated.

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In the Epic of Gilgamesh in the beginning of tablet one, in the Maureen Kovacs translation, we learned that the high god Anu granted Gilgamesh, quote, the totality of knowledge of all.  Or in the text known as Adapa, we learned that the high god Anu sends  for the man Adapa and instructs him to ascend to heaven. The tablet reads,

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And this is the high God Anu speaking, quote, send for him Adapa to be brought here. And here is Anu’s throne in the heavens. Then Ea, Ea is a God and he is one of Anu’s divine sons, tells Adapa, quote, Adapa, you are to go before King Anu, you will go up to heaven. And when you go up to heaven, when you reach the gate of Anu,

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Demusie and Gezida will be standing in the gate of Anu. We’ll see you, we’ll keep asking you questions. We’ll talk about this text a whole lot more when we talk about the Judeo-Christian first man Adam in a couple of months, but for today’s purposes, I wanna point out that this text indicates that the king of the gods, Anu, is described here as residing in heaven in a sacred area that’s guarded by a gate.

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and gatekeepers.  And one of the gatekeepers mentioned here is the god Demusie. I point this out because we’re gonna talk about Demusie in a couple of minutes. In this text, the god Ea tells Adapa that when he gets to the gate to the high god Anu’s throne, he’ll be expected to answer some questions. Ea says to Adapa, quote, when you approach the gate of Anu, Demusie and Gazeta will be standing in the gate of Anu

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They will see you and will keep asking you questions. Keep all of this in your back pocket kids. It’s going to be very, very important as the podcast progresses, especially when we get into ritual. All right. Those are just a few examples of what we know about the high Mesopotamian God  On from the Mesopotamian literature. In terms  of the high God On’s marital status, we know he was married because

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multiple ancient texts,  lists of gods known as god lists, and inscriptions explicitly identify his spouse. Sometimes you’ll hear scholars refer to Ann’s spouse as a consort. The word consort is generally  used to refer to a husband or wife  of a reigning monarch, which is important because it speaks to Ann’s status as the king of heaven.

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in his wife’s status as the Queen of Heaven. In one of the God lists that I just mentioned, on a tablet known as the Great God List, or sometimes it’s referred to as  An equals Anum,  or  An is the equivalent of Anu. This tablet is dated by scholars to between 1300  and 1100 BC. But it’s on it that we find an explicit reference to the high god An’s wife.

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Some scholars have given the tablet the name On equals Onum because the tablet’s divided into two columns. And on line one, on the left-hand column, is written  On, which like I mentioned is the Sumerian name for the high god.  And on the right-hand column is written Onum, which is the Akkadian name for the same high god. So you get the title  On is equivalent to Onum or On equals Onum. It’s on line

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three of this tablet that we find mention of Ahn’s wife. In the left-hand column is written Ahn period Ki, A-N period Ki, which is the same thing as saying  Ahn  and Ki. So here we learn that Ahn’s wife is Ki. In the right-hand column in Akkadian it reads Ahnum, Yu, Antum, which means Ahnum and

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Atum which are their Akkadian names and sometimes they drop the M at the end So with this would be on to or on tomb  is the Akkadian name for on’s wife on to or on tomb If you’d like to see a scholar’s depiction of this you can find it on the web page for this episode It’s really important to point out that the on equals on you great. God list is not just a list

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of the Sumerian gods and then their Akkadian equivalents.  The chief purpose the ancient compilers of Anikles Anu had was to chart the family tree of the Sumerian gods so that Mesopotamians could grasp the family relationships between gods.  So each entry in this god list included the gods’ titles, the name of their spouse, the name of their divine children, and then any known attendance.

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So the text  An equals Anum is not a list  of solitary gods. It’s a detailed portrayal of An’s celestial family. Or as Dr. Stavrikapulu calls it, his heavenly household and its divine members. It’s a family document. Or in scholar speak, it’s known as a theogony,  a genealogy of the gods.

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And as I mentioned earlier, it’s in this document that we find that the Sumerian high god An was married and his wife’s name was Khi.  And as we’ve already discussed on this program, their royal offspring in the Mesopotamian literature are called the Anunnaki, which literally means the princely offspring of  An and Khi. An and Khi reign together as the king and queen of heaven from their royal palace temple on high.

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If you’d like to see the layout of the High God An’s family tree, you can find it on the webpage for this episode. Now, the High God Anu was not the only member of the Mesopotamian pantheon who was married. The Sumerian literature frequently describes the gods  as having consorts. For example,  Enlil, he was one of the High God An and his wife, Kees’ divine sons, is married to Ninlil.

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and sins consort is Ningal. Their union is celebrated in a lot of Sumerian love poetry. Enki’s wife was Damkina, Utu’s wife was Sharita, Ninurta’s wife was Gula, also known as Bao, the goddess Irishkigal, now we’ve talked about her, her husband was Gugulana. And do you remember Demusi? He was also known as the shepherd god.

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the god who we just learned in the Mesopotamian text of Dappa stands as a gatekeeper outside the gate to Anu’s throne in the heavens. Well, he was married to, he was married to the goddess Inanna and their marriage was incredibly important  in the ancient world. The story of D’amuzi and Inanna’s courtship and marriage is captured in a text scholars have given the name, Inanna prefers the farmer.

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I love how the scholars give these texts very interesting names, but sometimes it deters from the serious nature of the content that it has. In this text, which we’re gonna discuss in detail when we get to ritual, reveals that  Demusie and Inanna’s marriage was so important that it was ritually performed. And you’re never gonna guess when. It was celebrated as the culminating rite  in the Mesopotamian

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New Year celebration, the New Year celebration known as the Akitu Festival. Do you remember what the Mesopotamians celebrated when they celebrated the New Year? If you don’t, they celebrated  the creation of the world. This was when they recited the Anuma Elish, the Babylonian epic of creation, when Marduk conquered the terrible sea serpent Tiamat. As part of the festival, they actually

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ritually enacted the combat between Marduk and Tiamat. They create these wooden effigies  of Tiamat or the enemy, and then they’d ritually destroy them in a symbolic battle, which of course we know Marduk victoriously won. So when this battle was performed during the New Year rite, it reaffirmed Marduk’s divine ordering power, his power and authority to establish order in the cosmos.

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as well as his right to rule as a celestial king. Right after this, the earthly Mesopotamian king would take Marduk’s hand in a binding ritual, which reaffirmed the king’s oath or contract or covenant with Marduk. This hand ritual, of course, legitimized and affirmed the earthly Mesopotamian king’s right to rule.

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It’s right after this that scholars believe the reenactment of Demusie’s marriage to the goddess Inanna was performed ritually. It’s known among scholars as the Hiros Gamos. Hiros being the Greek word for  sacred or holy and gamos being the Greek word for marriage or wedding. So the Hiros Gamos means the sacred marriage. Scholars like Stephen Langdon,  Samuel

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and David Thomas argue that the sacred marriage was the  central element of the New Year festival. During the Akitu festival, the marriage was seen as a reenactment of the primordial marital union of the gods. It was believed to regenerate the cosmos  and to ensure fertility and prosperity in the land. And we’re going to talk a lot more about this when we get to ritual, but I mention it here to demonstrate

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that the marriage of the gods wasn’t just an ancillary belief. It was directly tied to all of the other stubborn bits we’ve talked about on this program, like slaying the dragon, the right to rule as a heavenly king, the creation of the world,  and the legitimation of earthly kingship. The god’s marriage was seen as the culminating right that would ensure the fertility and the prosperity of the kingdom.

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Okay, let’s move to ancient Egypt now. If you’re a long time listener to the program, you know that the high god among the ancient Egyptians is the god Atum, A-T-U-M. Sometimes it’s spelled A-T-E-M, Atem,  as mentioned in Pyramid Text 600. Over time, Atum and the ancient Egyptian gods like Rae and Ra were merged together into kind of composite deities. So they were referred to as Atumra or Rae-Atum.

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and various religious texts use their names interchangeably. And this is important because functionally they represent the same High Creator God. I just don’t want you to get confused by this. In Pyramid Text 527, we see the beginning of the ancient Egyptian theogony or genealogy of the gods. In this text, the High God Atum is described as giving birth to two divine children, Shu and Tefnut.

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And the text tells us that he does this by his own hand. So we kind of get the impression that the High God Atum produced these children without a reproductive partner, that he was a self-sufficient deity. But there’s actually more here than meets the eye. See, the ancient Egyptian word for hand is gerit, which is grammatically feminine  and was understood

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by the ancient Egyptians to be the symbolic personification  of  Atum’s consort. In several ancient Egyptian sources, God’s wife is given the formal titulari,  Jaret  Netur, which means God’s hand. Dr. Alward and Blackman notes on page 10 of his article,

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on the position of women in the ancient Egyptian hierarchy. It’s found in volume seven of the Journal of Egyptian Archaeology that quote, the God’s hand is identical with the God’s wife. Dr. Mina Salah notes on pages three and four of her 2009 book, God’s Wife, that the title God’s Hand quote, seems to emphasize its bearer’s sexual role

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in relation to the creator God. When a God is first mentioned as having a wife, it is the Ithophallic God, Min. I mention this because in Egyptian creation myths, particularly those involving the high god, Atum, Atum’s hand is understood to be the feminine entity that assists him in the act of creation, his wife. In the ancient Egyptian texts that spanned at least

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three millennia. Atum’s wife varied depending on the region of the period, but he was invariably depicted  as having a wife. One of the earliest and most prominent female counterparts of Atum, described as his consort in Heliopelitan theology, is a really important goddess who I bet  most of you have never heard of before. And her name was Eusas, or sometimes it’s pronounced, Eusaset.

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Richard H. Wilkinson says this  of the goddess, Yousas on page 150 of his book, The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt, quote, Yousas was a Heliopelitan goddess whose name seems to mean she comes who is great and who functioned as a feminine counterpart of the male  solar creator, Atum. The earliest known reference to Atum’s wife,

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you saw us,  is found in the Old Kingdom Pyramid Text. So it’s very, very old, which we’ve noted several times on the program, or dated to around 2400 BC.  In utterance 519, which reads, and this English translation is found in Dr. Edward P. Butler’s book,  Theological Encyclopedia of the Goddesses and Gods of the Ancient Egyptians. Quote,  I.

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and I here is the deceased Egyptian king.  I am the son of Kepri. Now, Kepri is the god who represents the rising sun. Born in Hethapet. Hethapet’s important here, because according to French Egyptologist Jacques Vandier, Hethapet refers to the female  vulva, as well as a religious site near Heliopolis.

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Under the Tresses. Tresses here refer to hair. Sometimes it’s translated as under the curls of the goddess of Usaustown. The goddess of Usaustown, of course, refers to some town that’s associated with the goddess Usaust. Atum’s wife,  north of On. If you recall, On is the Greek name for Heliopolis. So Usaustown existed

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just north of Heliopolis, who, and who here refers to, you saw us, ascended from the vertex of Geb. A vertex is where three points come together, like the tip of a triangle or the tip of a pyramid. And Geb is the god of the earth. So the vertex of Geb here refers to the primordial mound that rose out of the primordial waters and became the earth.

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Butler agrees with this interpretation, which I’ll get to in just a second. All right, so what is this text telling us? Well, here the deceased King of Egypt is telling us that he was born from under the goddess, you saw us as hair, which Butler argues refers to the pubic hair of her vulva. He writes, quote, while the tresses in question may be hanging down from the head, they may also be an anatomical reference

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in accord with the reading of Hethapet as  vulva. So the first half of the utterance could read, quote,  I am the son of the high God born from the vulva under the pubic hair of the goddess, you saw us. So the deceased king is telling us that he is the son of divine parents.

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In the second half of the utterance, the deceased Pharaoh tells us that when you saw us gave birth to him, it took place just north of Heliopolis. Now, Heliopolis is very, very important here, kids. If you’ll recall, Heliopolis was one of the most  sacred, if not the most sacred site in the entire ancient world.  And that’s because the ancient Egyptians believed that the very first particle of earth to emerge out of the primordial waters of chaotic matter happened right there.

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The ancient Egyptians believed that Heliopolis was the literal location where the creation of the earth began. The place, and this is important, where the high god Atum himself appeared above the waters and rose up out of the waters on the sacred hill that emerged out of the waters. The primordial hillock, as stated in Pyramid Text 600, which

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We dedicated an entire episode to. So if you haven’t given it a listen, you may want to do that. And of which every ancient Egyptian pyramid perched atop the Sahara desert  is a stylized version of. So when the deceased Egyptian king tells us in the second part of utterance 519 that  Atum’s wife, the goddess you saw us, gave birth to him near Heliopolis,

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and that she was the goddess who, quote, ascended from the vertex of Gab, we get this really amazing image that she too, like Atum, rose. The text says, ascended the vertex, the primordial mound in the beginning,  just like Atum. This is an absolutely amazing  pyramid text, because when we couple pyramid text 600,

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which talks about Atum rising atop the primordial mound. With Pyramid Text 519, which talks about Atum’s wife, you saw us ascending the primordial mound. We get the picture of a divine  royal couple  rising together on the first day of creation upon the primordial hillock, the first earth to emerge  out of the primordial waters.

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It’s quite astounding. So Pyramid Text 519 could be translated, quote,  I am the son of the high god, Ray. So he’s acknowledging his divine father, the rising sun, born from the vulva under the pubic hair of the goddess, you saw us,  north of Heliopolis. You saw us who ascended

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on the primordial hill of the earth. So he’s acknowledging his divine mother as well. So he’s giving us right here, his divine parentage. Now all of this gets even more interesting.  Listen to Butler describe what was kept in Usaus town. Usaus’  sacred location just north of Heliopolis. Butler writes, quote, the tresses in question

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may also be those of a sacred tree associated with you saw us for we find occasional references to an acacia. Now an acacia is a type of tree  sacred to you saw us in coffin text spell 660 which mentions quote the acacia of you saw us town  north of souls of on. So  what are the coffin texts?

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dated 2100 BC, Telus was kept in Eusaus’ sacred location just north of Heliopolis. A tree,  a sacred acacia tree. And from Marie-Louise Bull, former head of the Department of Classical and Near Eastern Antiquities at the National Museum of Denmark, the goddess Eusaus, the wife of Atum, is the earliest known tree goddess in ancient Egypt.

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even earlier than Hathor. Bull says this of the sacred Eusaus acacia tree on page 86 of her article, the goddesses of the Egyptian tree cult found in volume six of the journal of Near Eastern studies. Quote, in the neighborhood of Heliopolis, there was a shrine for the female counterpart of the sun god, Atun. She was Seiosus. Now, Seiosus is the Greek rendering of Eusaus.

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who was a personification of the God Atum’s hand. In this place, Atum’s children, Shu and Tefnet were born, and here the sacred Acacia was worshiped. I’ve got to stop right here, because here Bull tells us,  in this place, in the place where the earth was first created, the  center of the earth and the cosmos, the most sacred place on earth, God’s temple,

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in the place where stood a sacred acacia tree intimately linked to Atum’s wife, Usaas, quote, Atum’s children, Shu and Tefnet were born. And what did the deceased Egyptian king just tell us in Pyramid Text 519? The exact same thing. He just told us that he too was born to Usaas right there.

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in the location where stood her sacred acacia tree. Now keep all of this in your back pocket that children are born from or near this tree because this is going to be really important when we get into some Native American accounts in a couple of episodes. I have a ton I want to say about this, but I’m going to save it for the episode on the creation of human beings. For now, I want you to hold on to all of this, especially the link between God’s wife,  the sacred tree and the

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birth of offspring, because it’s all gonna come together in a couple weeks. If you have time to ponder it a bit before we get there, think about how the sacred tree and the primordial mound are connected. So here’s a little clue. Butler writes, quote, the reading which would see here a sacred tree would accord well with the reference to ascending from the vertex of Geb,

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to be understood therefore  as a hill or mound. The two readings are in any event not mutually exclusive. And no, no they are not. In fact, the tree in the Primordial Hill, often referred to as the sacred mountain, were used across the ancient world as  microcosmic symbols of the macrocosm.  Ponder that a bit. If you can’t figure out how both

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Symbolize the macrocosm. Don’t worry too much. I’ll explain it in much greater detail in the episodes that are coming up. But pondering the symbols before those episodes is a really great way to sharpen your symbolism literacy. Before we move on, let’s listen to what else Bull has to say about Atum’s wife and the shrine that housed the acacia tree associated with her. On page 86 Bull continues, quote,

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An execration text. Now, if you’re not familiar with execution texts, these are texts that list  all of the names of the Pharaoh’s enemies. From the late period contains the following passage in connection with the god Seth. Okay, do you remember who the ancient Egyptian god Seth was?

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If you don’t, Seth is the god of chaos. He’s the awful monster who brings nothing but disorder, destruction, degradation, desolation, and decay. He’s the awful enemy who must be conquered. So the text Bull is about to quote is about him. It’s also important to note that this text dates to a time rather late, to sometime between 600 and 300 BC, though the content itself is probably based off of much, much older material.

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but still the same, it’s important to note that. The exe-creation text reads, quote, he,  and he here is Seth, has approached the wonderful hall, the shrine or temple of Se-o-sis with the acacia tree in which life and death are contained. Now, this is interesting. Here we have an ancient Egyptian text that tells us that God’s enemy, Seth,

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entered the shrine or temple near Heliopolis where the earth was first created and where stood  Euseas’s acacia tree. Note how this text refers to Euseas, the high god Atum’s wife’s tree as, quote, the acacia tree in which life  and death are contained. So  note how Euseas’s tree is associated with the dualism of life and death.

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This is a pretty important aspect of her tree. And the African acacia tree is actually a really, really great symbol of this, because acacia trees have the ability to thrive in harsh, arid conditions. And they’re also evergreens. So this makes them a great symbol for life. But on the flip side, some acacia species, especially those that are native to Africa produce

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synogenic compounds in their leaves. And they do this to thwart the herbivores like giraffes who love to eat them. And those compounds can release  cyanide when the leaves are damaged, which of course makes them toxic to the animals that try to eat them. And it sometimes even kills them, which makes the acacia tree a  fitting symbol for death too.

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We learned earlier that it was near this tree of life and death that the dead Egyptian king was born, brought to life from the goddess, Yusas’s vulva. And like I mentioned, this text is likely based on much, much older material. For example, in the pyramid texts, which are dated 2000 years earlier than this text, in pyramid text 470, it says that the deceased king will be taken to

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quote, the high places of Seth to that high sycamore, which is a sacred tree of the Eastern sky. Are any of you seeing a connection here to the Judeo-Christian Garden of Eden story? Because you should, which speaks to the power of the ancient tradition. So both of these accounts take place in the same setting, in the sacred  center of the earth.

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in a sacred temple. To learn more about the Garden of Eden as a sacred temple, give episode number four a listen, if you haven’t. They both contain a sacred tree. In the ancient Egyptian execration text, this tree is referred to in dualistic terms as the quote, tree in which life and death are contained.  And in the Judeo-Christian account, a dualistic tree is referred to in Genesis chapter two, verse nine.

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as the quote, tree of knowledge of good and evil. And I don’t have time to fully develop this here. We will down the line, but note here how in ancient Egypt, God’s wife, you saw us, is associated with a sacred dualistic acacia tree, the tree of life and death,  birth into this life, this mortal existence and death, the exit out of this life, this mortal existence. And in the Judeo-Christian tradition,

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The dualistic tree is associated with the ability to gain  knowledge  of the difference between what is good and what is evil, what is  sacred and what is profane. When the two trees, the tree in ancient Egypt and the tree in the Judeo-Christian accounts  are theologically considered, the tree seems to suggest that by being born into this life, mortality,

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One can gain knowledge of what is good and what is evil. Theologically, this is quite profound, because it suggests that we human beings are born into this mortal existence for a distinct purpose, to learn, to gain  knowledge about what is good and what is evil.  Many, many people have wondered what the purpose of this whole earthly experience is.

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And here we see the ancients telling us that one of the major purposes for why we’re here on earth is to gain this knowledge.  In Genesis chapter three, verse five, the serpent tells Eve, and this is the King James version, quote, for God does know that in the day ye eat thereof, so eating the fruit of the tree, then your eyes shall be opened and ye shall be as gods knowing good and evil.

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Man, theologically, this is an amazing verse because here the snake tells Eve that if she’ll partake of the fruit of the tree, now fruit here is important because fruit is something that is produced by the tree. It comes by way of the tree. It can’t be separated from the tree itself. Of the knowledge of good and evil, she’ll be able to acquire the knowledge that she needs to quote,

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be as the gods.  I posit that partaking of the fruit here refers to Eve’s choice to be born.  Born through God’s wife into a mortal world like the Egyptian king who was born from her vulva. Because remember, before Eve partook of the fruit, there was no death or decay. The earth was still in heaven’s embrace.

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The snake is basically telling her that it’s only by partaking of the fruit, by choosing to be born into this mortal world, that she can gain the knowledge that’s necessary to become like the gods. Now,  Eve tells the snake that she doesn’t wanna do this because she  knows if she does, she knows she’s going to die. She knows she’ll be born into a mortal, corruptible world where she’ll ultimately die.

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Note here though, how Eve has the option to choose to eat the fruit of the tree or not to eat the fruit of the tree. It’s her choice.  Nobody’s making her eat the fruit. I bring this up because this is theologically significant. It indicates that agency is an important part of our existence,  both before and after we got here. So if you’re wondering how you got on planet Earth, it may just be that you yourself

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like Eve, partook of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and chose to be born into this world. Now, this is not just my thinking. In a couple of episodes, we’re gonna get into some really interesting myths that tell us about how  when the earth was in heaven’s embrace, the people there were really agitated because their situation couldn’t improve until heaven and earth split.

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which in the Judeo-Christian tradition is when the earth fell, fell far, far from heaven and death and decay, mortality was introduced into the world. All right, back to Genesis chapter three, verse five. The serpent tells Eve that if she partakes of the fruit, she shall quote, be as the gods, knowing good and evil.  Note that gods here is plural.

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It’s Elohim in the Hebrew text, indicating that there is  more than one God in the heavens. Other English translations like the  New International Version, New Living Translation,  and the New American Standard Bible sanitize the text by translating Elohim as God,  making it singular. So it complies with later Bonotheism.

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But the original Hebrew text clearly states Elohim, the gods. This verse is telling us that in order to become like the gods, note how this implies that we human beings can become like the gods, deification, we must first acquire knowledge. Where we can, as the verse says, know, K-N-O-W, the difference between good and evil.

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Knowledge that Adam and Eve at this point in the account did not have so they couldn’t become like the gods Unless they chose to partake of the tree unless they chose to be born into this mortal world Which indicates that this earthly existence is a critical part a necessary part of the process to become like the gods We’ll talk about this a lot more down the line, but I wanted to point it out here because  all of this is tied

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to the sacred tree that the ancients associated with God’s wife. For the purposes of this episode, just as the sacred acacia tree in ancient Egypt is associated with God’s wife, you saw us. I posit that the tree of good and evil in the Judeo-Christian tradition is a symbol of God’s wife.  Why?

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Because as we’re gonna see more in depth in a couple of episodes, it’s through her, through the tree, that human beings are born into this world and through whom human beings can have an earthly experience where they can learn the difference between good and evil.  This would mean that when Eve chose to partake of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, that what she was really doing was choosing to be born through the tree.

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through God’s wife, the queen of heaven into this mortal world so that she could learn the difference  between good and evil. Listen to what verse six of Genesis chapter three says. It reads, quote, and when the woman, this is talking about Eve, saw that the tree was good for food and that it was pleasant to the eyes and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof and did eat,

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and gave also to her husband with her, and he did eat.” We can clearly see in this text that  one of the primary reasons Eve particular fruit of the tree was because it would make her, quote,  wise. The Hebrew word that’s translated as wise here is sakal,  S-A-K-A-L. The topical lexicon  on Bible Hub says this of the word sakal.

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The concept of Sakal is integral to the biblical understanding  of wisdom, emphasizing  not only intellectual acumen, but also moral and spiritual insight. It underscores the importance of aligning  one’s actions with divine principles to achieve success and understanding.

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We’re going to talk a whole lot more about the acquisition of wisdom as we get into ritual, but for the purposes of today’s episode, I want you to note how God’s wife  is associated with the acquisition of wisdom. The spiritual knowledge that apparently can  only be gained when we choose to be born on earth and journey through this moral experience. You’re going to see down the line that the connection between wisdom

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and a sacred tree is found  all over the world. Believe it or not, the choice to be born on earth is a widespread theme among those who have had near death experiences.  Many of them recount how during their near death experience, they were shown their personal choice to leave their heavenly home and come to earth. Many even say that they chose along with the help of a guide,

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the trials and challenges that they would endure here so that they could develop more God-like attributes. Listen to Dr. Christine Dolehan recount what she was shown about her choice to be born into this world.  As I was walking or floating down this path, I also perceived someone or something else next to me  that I perceived as my mentor.  It was a being that was so much more

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evolved and had so much more wisdom than I did.  It felt like maybe he was in a similar space  or a similar place that I had been at that moment beforehand, but he had had the choice  of  sort of stepping into the next role of mentoring souls  and what to do next. So I can only say that  he was a mentor. He was sort of larger and taller  on my right side. I perceived him as male.

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This  being on my right was internally loving. mean, everything was incredibly loving over on this other side. Very loving, very non-judgmental. I was also discussing with my mentor at the time that  this knife time that I had chosen and why it come  and or why I was going into this new lifetime. And then also kind of voicing a bit of reluctancy because I really, I knew that I had to come. I knew that there was something really important and that I had chosen to do this.

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But I didn’t really want to go. And I want to make this clear because in past interviews,  got  feedback like, well, great, here we are. being made to come down to Earth. I want to make clear this was a free will decision.  I did come here free will.  We’re not slaves. We’re not made to go down there. This is a free will decision. And all of us make it  in a free will way because we know it’s good for us to come.

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One last thing that I want to say about Genesis chapter three is that after  Eve and Adam chose to partake of the tree of knowledge of good and evil,  verse seven says, quote, and the eyes of them, so Adam and Eve, were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons. Several  Jewish commentaries and rabbinic sources

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speculate that the tree of knowledge of good and evil was a fig tree. In the Talmud, Barakot 40a, for example, reads,  Rabbi Nehemiah says it was a fig tree. They must have taken the leaves from the tree closest at hand the tree of knowledge.

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Of course,  the tree itself is symbolic. So is the notion that the tree was a fig tree. But the fact that the original author of Genesis in the Hebrew tradition associated the leaves that Adam and Eve used to cover their reproductive loins with a fig tree is not trivial. See, in the ancient world, the fig tree and the fig fruit itself, its plump shape and the abundance of seeds,

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were strongly associated with fertility. So note that in both of these accounts, the ancient Egyptian and the Judeo-Christian, that the sacred tree is strongly associated with the power to produce offspring. Be it the high God, you saw us as power to give birth to the gods or to give birth to the earthly kings or the tree of knowledge of good and evil in its  strong association with Adam and Eve’s reproductive organs, which they covered.

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with fig leaves in which rabbinic sources argue came directly from the tree. A late Kabbalistic work written by Moses de Leon around 1290 AD tells a really interesting  Jewish legend  of a tree that was found in paradise from which  all  souls were born. The legend reads, Rabbi Yosei taught

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There were three prominent rabbi Yosses who lived during the Tanah Aytik period between the first and second centuries AD. It’s unclear which of these three Yosses the text is referring to, but it does at least attribute the legend to a much, much earlier date. Quote, God has a tree of flowering souls in paradise. This tree is surrounded by the four winds of the world.

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Now the four winds is interesting here. If we know what the four winds are, they’re assigned to the cardinal points, then this marks the tree is being located in the sacred center. From the branches of this tree sprout forth  all  souls. For they grow upon this tree as is written,  I am a cypress tree in bloom, your fruit issues forth from me. And that’s found in Hosea chapter 14 verse nine.

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Note here how one of the meanings of the fruit of the tree is offspring. That’s a widespread ancient Near Eastern symbol. And from the roots of this tree sprout the souls of  all the righteous ones whose names are inscribed there. Now that’s super interesting because if you remember many, many episodes ago, we talked about how the ancient Egyptian god Thoth inscribed the Egyptian king’s royal name, the name written in the cartouche.

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on the leaves of the sacred persiatry. From this we learn that  all souls are the fruit of the Holy One, blessed be he. This legend is found in Howard Schwartz’s  aptly named book  on Jewish mythology, Tree of Souls.  I haven’t read it all, I’m working on it, it’s a thick book. So  in both cases,

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the symbolism of the tree points heavily to the importance of procreative powers, the ability to produce offspring. If in fact the Judeo-Christian sacred tree found in the garden temple, the tree of knowledge of good and evil symbolizes at least in part God’s wife. And I’m purposely trying to avoid being overly dogmatic here, because I know enough about symbols to know that they were used by the ancients and probably by the high God himself.

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precisely because they can and they do have the ability to contain multiple layers of meaning within a single symbol,  not just one. Yet still the same, think that the textual evidence found in the ancient world is more than abundant to make the claim that one of the primary meanings of the sacred tree  is that it was meant to represent God’s wife, the Queen of Heaven. It’s also highly significant that Adam and Eve clothed

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their reproductive organs in leaves  from her tree, the reproductive organs that they would use to fulfill the commandment by God to multiply and replenish the earth, which would continue the queen of heaven’s great work of giving birth so that we could each have a mortal experience where we could acquire that knowledge of good and evil necessary to become like the gods. Now,

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At this point, if you’re a long time listener, you might be thinking, hey, now wait a minute. Didn’t you say earlier in the podcast that the sacred tree symbolized God? And now you’re saying it symbolizes God’s wife? Well, yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. In the ancient world, the sacred tree is actually not an exclusively male or female symbol. It was actually used primarily to represent deity.

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and the role the deity played in connecting heaven and earth together. It was also used to represent earthly kings or a king who was a representation of  deity on earth  and who also played a vital role in connecting heaven and earth together. And this is one of the reasons why ancient Egyptian kings emphasized the point that they were born through God’s wife, which we pointed out was symbolized by the acacia tree.

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This  divine parentage  legitimized his right to rule as a king over the whole earth. This is gonna be really important in a couple of months when we talk about the first man Adam. So keep that in mind. In Pyramid Text 294, we see this clearly stated when the Egyptian king exclaims, quote,  I am Horus. Horus is the heavenly king

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the living King represented, who came from  the acacia, who came from the acacia. Note how the earthly King states his divine parentage here twice. He’s really trying to drive home the point that the acacia tree, the queen of heaven is his mother. He is her royal son. He is the heir because she is his mother. So  note how closely the sacred tree

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and God’s wife are tied to kingship and the legitimation of that kingship. Again, the theology of the ancient tradition is a theology all about kingship and queenship. In the ancient world, there are many examples of the sacred tree representing both male and female deities or kings. I’m gonna give you a couple examples of this. In Pyramid Text 572, we learn of a God by the name of Sopdu.

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who the text tells us bears the epitaph, he who is under his trees, or in other texts, it’s singular, he who is under his tree. So we see here, obviously, a male connotation to the tree. In the Hebrew Bible, in Daniel chapter four, verses 10 to 27, we see a similar thing. And I’m gonna read some of the text so you can get a feel for it. In this text, King Nebuchadnezzar is having a really difficult time understanding a dream that he had.

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and this dream was of a great tree. So he appeals to the prophet Daniel to help him interpret the symbols. Starting in verse 10, the King James Version reads, and this is King Nebuchadnezzar speaking, quote,

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and the sight thereof to the end of all the earth. The leaves thereof were fair, and the fruit thereof much, and in it was meat for all.” Then in verse 18, the prophet Daniel tells King Nebuchadnezzar that he was given the privilege of seeing the king’s dream too. And in verses 20 through 22, he interprets what was meant by the symbol of the tree. The text reads,

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And this is the prophet Daniel speaking now.

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So when King Nebuchadnezzar asks Daniel what the great tree in his dream symbolizes, Daniel tells him it represents him. It is thou, O King, Daniel tells him. This is classic ancient Near Eastern tree symbolism. We’re gonna come back to this text and dissect it in detail when we discuss the world tree in a couple of episodes. There’s a lot here.

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For our purposes today, it illustrates the fact that the sacred tree in the ancient world was used to symbolize  royal divine status, regardless of sex. In terms of heavenly kingship and queenship theology, this is important to recognize because in Psalm 92, it’s a Psalm attributed to King David, David exclaims the following, starting in verse 10.

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Speaking of Yahweh’s power, quote, but my horn. Remember that a horn was used in the ancient world as a symbol of power. So David’s talking about his power. But my horn, shalt  thou exalt like the horn of a unicorn. The Hebrew here is kiram, which actually means  wild bull.

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Remember, in the ancient world, the bull was widely used as a symbol for God, because bulls were powerful, especially their horns, as well as for their remarkable virility, the power to father countless offspring. It’s basically saying that Yahweh would exalt him like a God. And this becomes even more clear and is directly linked to the theology of heavenly kingship in the rest of the verse when King David says, quote,

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I shall be anointed with fresh  oil. If you’re a long time listener to the program, then you know that the anointing is a kingship rite. It’s the ritual that takes place when God exalts one to the station of heavenly king. Let’s read the whole verse again so you can hear it. Again, this is David speaking, quote, but my horn shalt thou exalt like the horn of an wild bull.  I shall be anointed

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with fresh oil. If you don’t think the ancient Israelites believed in deification or heavenly kingship,  then we need to really think again, because it’s right there  in incredibly plain language when you understand the language of the ancients. But there’s more. We’ve got to keep reading. In verse 12, King David continues, quote, the righteous shall. Now,

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Just guess what the Hebrew word is that is translated as righteous here. You long time listeners should know. Yeah, it’s tzedek, the cosmic law. We spent a whole episode on this on episode number 28, which you have to listen to if you haven’t, if you wanna grasp the full magnitude of what David is saying here. King David is saying that anyone, including you and me who keep the cosmic law,

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shall, well, shall what? Well, that’s where it gets amazing. The verse continues, quote, the righteous shall flourish  like the palm tree. He shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon.

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What did King David just say?  He just said that those who keep the cosmic law of righteousness  will become a tree, a palm tree or cedar tree, both of which were used in the ancient world to symbolize the sacred tree. King David is teaching that those who uphold the cosmic law will become a sacred tree, which in the ancient world, as I just mentioned, represents divine royal status.

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heavenly kingship and queenship. When you think about this, when Adam and Eve sewed together fig leaves and wore them, leaves which the rabbi Nehemiah argued came from the sacred tree of knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden, it was likely that they did so in part to claim their royal status like the ancient Egyptian king did when he exclaimed his status as the offspring of the tree. As well as a

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a symbol of their divine potential, like David says here, to become a sacred tree themselves. What’s clear from the ancient world is that the sacred tree represented God, his wife, and royalty, all of which must be considered when one interprets the symbolism of the fig tree aprons Adam and Eve made in war.  I argue that they must be understood as  royal regalia.

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Wow, I’m way over time, but I have to make one more comment about what David says here before I close out this episode. If you’ll recall in tablet five of the Epic of Gilgamesh, King Gilgamesh and Enkidu make an arduous journey to an incredible forest of cedar trees, which the text tells us is the quote,  dwelling place of the gods. The tablet reads, and this is the Marine Kovacs translation, quote,

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They, this is talking about Gilgamesh and Enkidu, stood at the forest’s  edge, gazing at the top of the cedar tree, gazing at the entrance to the forest. They saw the cedar mountain, the dwelling of the gods, the throne, dais  of Emini. Emini here is actually not a god. It actually means sacred location or sanctuary. The woods were a thicket.

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among the cedars. So this isn’t any old regular forest of trees. These are cedar trees, sacred trees that are found in a sacred location where there’s a sanctuary and royalty. There’s a throne there and it’s where the gods dwell. I hope you’re honing your symbolism literacy and can see here that the quote cedar forest Gilgamesh and Enkidu entered is a forest of righteous

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exalted people, gods, people who have become, like David said, trees. The same thing is actually said in the Hebrew Bible in Genesis chapter two of the Garden of Eden. In verses eight and nine it reads, quote, and the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden and there he put the man whom he had formed.

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and out of the ground made the Lord God to grow  every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life also in the midst of the garden and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Note in this verse how the sanctuary God built eastward in Eden was  loaded with trees. The text says the garden was full of quote,  every tree

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that is pleasant to the sight. This is a reference to the garden being full of divine royal beings. Remember the trees the text is referring to here is being used symbolically. That’s super clear as we’ve seen with the tree of knowledge of good and evil. I think most casual readers of this account miss that there are loads and loads of trees in the garden and that those trees too

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were being used symbolically to refer to, as King David tells us, the righteous, kings and queens of Zedek, upholders of the cosmic law. God’s garden was loaded with these people. This interpretation is what Near Eastern  symbolism demands. I mentioned this very early in the podcast. I think it was  around episode number eight or something.

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when I talked about the architecture in Westminster’s Abbey. But just as a reminder, this symbolism of the trees is captured in the world’s greatest cathedrals. My favorite cathedral in the United States is National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. If you look at the interior, and I’ll post some pictures of it on the webpage for this episode, you’ll notice that the massive pillars that line the nave

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are meant to represent sturdy trees whose branches join with the branches of the other pillar trees to form this beautiful Edenic garden canopy over the congregants. The whole objective of this architecture is to recreate the Garden of Eden sanctuary on earth. That’s what the cathedrals are meant to represent. And each one of these pillars is a tree. The garden, as you can see, is full

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of tree pillars, human beings, King David tells us, who upheld Tzedek and were exalted like a wild bull and who were anointed  and whom now flourish like a sacred cedar. Think on that symbolism the next time you enter a cathedral. Wow,  this episode didn’t quite go in the direction I anticipated, but still the same, it’s all relevant because it’s directly connected to

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the ancient accounts that attest that the high god was married and that his wife, who was symbolized by a sacred tree, gave birth to gods and kings. Since we were originally talking in this section about the ancient Egyptian god, Atum, and his wife, you saw us. I’ll close out by mentioning that, like we see in ancient Mesopotamia, in ancient Egypt,  the theology was a family business.

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and the high god, along with several of his divine children, were married. For example, Shu was married to Tefnut. Geb was married to Nut. The creator god, Patah, was married to Sekhmet.  Ra was married to Hathor. Amun was married to Mut. And most famously, Osiris was married to Isis. And there are a lot, lot more than I’ve mentioned.

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And remember too, this is also replicated by earthly kings.  You can see some of the pyramids, you have the large pyramid, then you’ll have two or three smaller pyramids, which was the king or the Pharaoh’s  wives as above, so below. As we’ve seen in this episode, in ancient Mesopotamia and in ancient Egypt, the high God was married and he reigned with his wife, be it key or you saw us and together they produced a line of royal progeny.

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be it divine  and or human. The theology of the ancient tradition is a family theology. That’s it for me, I’ve got to leave it there. We’ll pick it up right here in our next episode. With that, I’ll leave you with the words of William Shakespeare. Knowledge  is the wing wherewith  we fly to heaven.  I’m Jack Logan.

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You’ve been listening to the Ancient Tradition.  A Wonk Media Production.