The Ancient Tradition

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Music

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Listening to the Ancient Tradition.  A Wonk Media Production.  Music provided by Joseph McDade.  Here’s your host, Dr. Jack Logan.

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Welcome to the Ancient Tradition.  I’m your host, Jack Logan.

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Great to have everybody listening in today. Today’s episode is titled, Who is God, a Sexed Being? I know that the title sounds a little bit provocative, but it’s not meant to be. See, the question, is God a sexed being? Does God have a sex? Has unimaginably profound theological implications. We’ve got to get this question right from the very start.

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or else we’re going to get the entire theology of celestial kingship wrong. A sexless God leads to a very, very, very different theology than a sexed God, which makes God’s sex or sexlessness an absolutely critical piece of the theological puzzle. And what makes this program different is that we dive into the world’s oldest written records for the answers to these questions. We let the ancients teach us

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who God is. And the reason that we do this is because the ancients tell us that God revealed a pure religious tradition in the very beginning, a tradition which we refer to on this program as the ancient tradition. So today we’re going to dive into the ancient texts and see what the ancients taught about the sext or sexless  nature of God. Before I do that though, I want to let our new listeners know about our sister podcast.

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the ancient tradition audio writ, which you can find anywhere that you get your podcasts. On that podcast, you’re going to find full audio recordings of a lot of the different ancient texts that we talk about on the program. And this includes things like the book of the holy secrets of Enoch, the ancient Egyptian Shabaka stone and the Mesopotamian epic of Gilgamesh. I want to let our longtime listeners know that

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A little over a week ago, we released a complete audio recording of the Mesopotamian Ark tablet, which we talked about not too long ago in episode number 51, the Holy Barge and the Water Bolt. That tablet features the account of Atra-Hossus, the Mesopotamian Noah, who received instructions from the god Enki, the son of the high god An in the temple of Enki.

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which you long time listeners will remember was called the Eopsu  or the house or temple that was built  on the primordial waters. In this temple, the god Enki appears to Atrahasis  and instructs him to build a circle shaped arc so that he and his family can escape the destructive flood waters. I also want to let our new listeners know that this podcast has a companion website.

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the ancienttradition.com. In the menu bar, you can click on about  and you’ll learn all about the premise of the podcast. Under podcast, you can find links to all of the past episodes. Under audio writ, you can find links to the full audio recordings that I just mentioned. And under scholars, you can find a list of the most important  and influential scholars in the field.

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along with some of the books that they’ve written that we think are very important on this program. It’s a treasure trove for anyone that wants to learn more. One of the most powerful things on the website is found on the menu under show notes. In the pull down, you’ll find a link to a webpage dedicated to every single episode. And you can find the full audio transcript for that episode. You can find links to resources to learn more,  and you can find pictures.

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pictures of the symbols, texts, artifacts, locations, and iconography, anything that we talk about in that episode. So for example, in our last episode number 53, the  compass and the firmament, we talked about how the ancients built walls around the old cities, like the wall the ancient Mesopotamians built around the city of Uruk, or the wall the ancient Egyptians built around the ancient city of Heliopolis, or the wall that the ancient Canaanites built around the city of Jericho.

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replicate the cosmic wall that the ancients taught surrounds and protects God’s sacred creations in the cosmos. On the webpage dedicated to episode number 53, you can find actual pictures of these walls  for Jericho and Uruk and Heliopolis or an archaeological representation of them. And I always like looking at the pictures because I find that looking at the actual symbols or artifacts or architecture really

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kind of brings home the theology, brings it to life. The pictures too, just for your information, are posted chronologically. They’re posted in the order in which they’re discussed in that episode. Sometimes I even put together a visual that I think will be helpful to illustrate or to clarify something that we’ve talked about on the program, which is what I did for our last episode, number 53. Because in that episode, I argued that Genesis chapter one verses seven to eight needed to be interpreted

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first and foremost in reference to ancient Near Eastern cosmology, in reference to how the ancients themselves attested the cosmos were structured, not in reference to what we think that they’re saying or in reference to what we hope they’re saying, but into what they’re actually saying. In post-production, when I listened to episode number 53, I thought that the explanation that I gave of ancient Near Eastern cosmology in Genesis chapter one was a little bit wanting and I think actually could have been a little bit confusing.

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So I put together a couple of visuals to try and clarify the theological points I was trying to make. So if you were a bit confused in episode number 53, be sure and check out the visuals that you can find for that episode. think that they will help. If you’re busy and you don’t have time to check out the visuals that I created for episode number 53,

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Let me do something that I probably should have done. Let me take a couple of seconds here and go through something which I should have done, which is to substitute the symbolic word waters in Genesis chapter one, verses six and seven with the ancient Near Eastern meaning of waters, which is materia prima  or preexisting eternal, unordered and unformed matter. A scholar by the name of David Nieman.

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wrote on page 247 of his article titled, The Supersalient Sea, published in volume 28, number four of the Journal of Near Eastern Studies, this of the ancient Near Eastern conception of the primordial waters. Quote, in Babylonian, in Hebrew, and in Canaanite, this primeval sea represents chaos, the disordered illogical

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uncontrolled agglomeration of elements, matter, making up the physical universe.

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The Roman poet Ovid, I don’t know if you’ve heard of Ovid, many have, he was born in 43 BC and he said the same thing in his famous work, The Metamorphoses, written around the eighth century AD.  Ovid says this of the primordial waters, quote, before the ocean was or earth or heaven, nature was all alike, a shapelessness, chaos, so-called  all rude and lumpy,

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matter, nothing but bulk, inert in whose confusion discordant atoms  ward.” Ovid calls the Primordial Waters, quote, rude, lumpy matter  or discordant atoms. So  in light of what we learn the waters mean to the ancients, Genesis chapter one verses six and seven could be translated, quote, and God said,

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Let there be a firm divider placed in the midst of the disordered matter, and let it divide the disordered matter from the disordered matter. And God made the firm divider and divided the disordered matter, which was under the firm divider, from the disordered matter, which was above the firm divider, and it was  so.” We know from Job chapter 26 verse  10 that

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this firm divider was  circle shaped. So when we consider this, the firmament or the firm divider, because this is disordered matter above it and then disordered matter below it, creates a three dimensional  spherical protective cavity or enclosure in the midst of the disordered matter, kind of like a bubble. Where cosmicized sanctified matter is inside the firm enclosure and it’s protected,

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and then outside is the disordered profane matter. The firm enclosure creates a spherical vault or a ceiling or a roof around the entirety of God’s creations, His kingdom. I hope that clarifies a little bit better what I was arguing in the previous episode. If not, I tried, be sure and check out the illustrations on the webpage for episode number 53. On page 248, Neiman concludes with this.

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quote, for the universe to come into being, that is for creation to take place, there must be an imposition of order, the crushing of unbridled chaos and the limitation of its elemental power. Chaos is not destroyed. It must be bridled, restrained and modified. Its elements or parts must be used to create the ordered universe. For without it,

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the universe cannot come into being. I think that’s a really great summary of what the peoples of the ancient Near East have been teaching us all along. All right, with that, let’s jump into today’s topic. If we’re to understand the theology  of what happened during what the ancients referred to as the first time, the time right after the earth was created, the time when the earth was quote,

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in heaven’s embrace when the earth resided very, very, very close to heaven, we’ve got to have a more complete understanding of who God is. If we don’t, we won’t understand what’s happening during the first time and we won’t understand the theology and the importance of that theology.  Up to this point in the program, the ancients have taught us a lot of things about who God is.

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And I’d like to briefly summarize these here to set the stage for today’s episode. So first and foremost, the ancients taught us that God is a Lord of Maat or a King of Setek. God is one who perfectly upholds the cosmic law of righteousness, the law that governs every single thing in the cosmos. And the second thing that we’ve learned from them is that they taught us that God, because he fully upholds the cosmic law,

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that there isn’t a drop  of profanity or darkness in him. He’s perfectly holy. He is a perfectly  sanctified being. We haven’t gotten into this too much in the program yet, but the ancients taught that the more sanctified one became, the greater and greater light that that person would take on. So God, cause he upholds ma’at perfectly, is thereby an

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unimaginably glorious being of light, which is why the ancients always symbolized him with the sun. The third thing that they teach us is that God has a form, that he is corporeal. He’s a corporeal being. He has a body with arms and legs and hands and feet. That he has a face with eyes and ears and a mouth. And the ancients teach us that we human beings are

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Theomorphic. Theo means God and morphic means form. So by the ancients teaching us that we are theomorphic, they’re teaching us that we human beings are created to look like God. And the fourth thing that the ancients have taught us  is that God as a corporeal being of light reigns on a throne  as the chief civil authority over his cosmic kingdom as a king.

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If you’re new to the program and this is the first time that you’ve ever heard about these characteristics of God, or if you’ve heard about these characteristics of God, but they happen to differ markedly from what you’ve been taught about who God is, I invite you to listen to episodes number 28, 29, 44, and 45, which make up the Who is God series. Cause those episodes are loaded with textual and iconographic evidence for these claims.

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evidence which comes from the world’s  oldest written records and iconography. Those records attest that God is a Lord of Maat, He’s a being of glorious light, a being who has a body, and a being who reigns as a king over His heavenly kingdom. But don’t take  our word for it here on the podcast. Just go and study the ancient documents and the iconography for yourself.  There’s literally so much evidence that you don’t

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actually have to read that much  before you start to see it. It’s just everywhere. But if you’re like, hey, I don’t have time to go read those ancient documents or to study all this stuff,  but I do have time to read one book, I’d recommend that you read E.T. Mullen’s book, The Divine Council in Canaanite and Early Hebrew Literature. It’s published by Brill. I know it’s a hairy title, but it’s fabulous.

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And it’s an excellent example of the copious evidence that there is for these claims in the Canaanite and the early Hebrew literature. On this program, we cover a whole lot more literature than just the Ugaritic literature, but it’ll give you an excellent example of the evidence that’s out there. You can find info on ET Mullen and this book on our companion website, theancienttradition.com, under Scholars.

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And just for the record, I don’t get any kickbacks for recommending this book. I don’t know Mullen and I don’t have any ties to Brill Publishing. I just love the book.  Mullen wrote it for his dissertation while he was studying at Harvard.

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Because it’s critical to what happens in the first time, we’re going to continue our examination of who the ancients tell us God is and ask the question, is God a sexed being? Did the ancients teach that God has a sex, male or female? Now the answer to the question is yes.  Yes, they absolutely did. The ancients

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unabashedly proclaimed in their texts and in their iconography, their statues and sculptures, bas-reliefs, engravings and frescoes and mosaics and even jewelry  that God is a sexed being. In the ancient world, nearly all deities are presented with either male reproductive anatomy symbolizing a god or female reproductive anatomy symbolizing a goddess.

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This is a very, very curious fact because sex is a characteristic of a physical body. One is male because one has the physical reproductive organs, the chromosomes and androgens of a male. And one’s female because one has the physical reproductive organs and chromosomes and hormones of a female.

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the entire ancient world, the ancients attest that God has a sex. It’s one of the strongest distinguishing features we find in the ancient world of God. It’s another incredibly strong stubborn bit. So  why would God need  this reproductive capacity? Why would God need a sex?

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To answer that question, the first thing that we’re going to do is we’re going to dive into the ancient texts and we’re going to take a look at the evidence, see what the ancients have to say about God’s sex. And once we’ve done that, we’re going to consider the theological implications, which you’re going to see are quite profound  and  indisputably part and parcel to the theology of celestial kingship. So let’s start in ancient Mesopotamia.

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Before I jump into the ancient text, I want to read to you what Wikipedia says about the gods in ancient Mesopotamia and listen closely to how it aligns with the Who is God series and what we’ve been arguing about who God is. Quote, deities in ancient Mesopotamia were almost exclusively anthropomorphic. Anthro here means human and morphic means form. So the ancient Mesopotamians taught that God had a body.

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that was shaped like human beings. They were thought to possess extraordinary powers. The deities typically wore  melum,  M-E-L-A-M, an ambiguous substance which covered them in quote, terrifying  splendor. This is that glorious light that we’re talking about.

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With that in mind, let’s take a look at what the ancient Mesopotamians have to say about God as a sexed being. If you’re a long time listener, you’ll remember that the Mesopotamian assembly of the gods was made of the high god On’s children. The cuneiform tablets that speak of these gods make unambiguous familial and linguistic references that indicate that a particular god was understood to be male or female. For example, when we examine what is written about On,

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the king of the Mesopotamian gods. The texts tell us that he is the quote, father of the gods, which indicates male paternity. The texts also tell us that he is the quote, king of the gods. The word for king in Sumerian is lugal,  L-U-G-A-L. Loo is the word for man,  gal is the word for great or big. So when you put them together,

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You get Lugol, which literally means big man or great man. In the ancient Mesopotamian texts, Lugol is exclusively  used to refer to male leaders. In an 18th century BC text known as the Old Babylonian version of Atrahasis, and we talked about this earlier, Atrahasis is the Mesopotamian Noah, the Mesopotamians tell us this about the high god On.

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in tablet one lines five to seven. This is the Stephanie Dalley translation. Quote, the great Anunnaki. Now you remember the Anunnaki are the children of An and Ki. Made the Igigi. The Igigi are actually the younger children of An and his wife Ki. Carry the workload sevenfold.  Anu, their father,  was king.

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Later in tablet three, it reads, quote, what was Anu’s intention as decision maker? It was his command that the gods, his sons  obeyed. So these two texts clearly describe the high god Anu as male. The text describes him as a father, the father of the gods, whom the text describes  as his sons, also a male descriptor.

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What we glean is that sex is a salient characteristic of those who inhabit the heavens. We also learn from this text a little bit later that the heavens are not entirely inhabited by males. Some of the gods are described as female. For example, in the Old Babylonian version, the text refers to Belet-Ili, a female god who’s charged with creating human beings.

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The text reads,  Bellat Illy, the womb goddess is present. Let the womb goddess create offspring. They called up the goddess, asked the midwife of the gods, why is Mammy? Now Mammy here is Bellat Illy. You are the womb goddess to be the creator of mankind. Create primeval man.

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This text is amazing. This passage not only reveals that the heavens are inhabited by females, but it also tells us that a female god in heaven was entrusted with the sacred task of creating the first humans to inhabit this earth. Or as the text says it, to quote, create primeval man. Now the word create could be interpreted in a number of different ways, but the text itself guides us

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towards one specific interpretation when it says, let the womb goddess create offspring. The text emphasizes Bella Ille’s womb  and her womb’s ability to produce offspring, which are progeny or children. This text is remarkable because it attests that we human beings are the literal offspring of a female god who resides in heaven.

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Bellat-Illi is also known in some cuneiform tablets as Nintu, which literally means lady of birth. You can clearly see how this text refers to her as a female god, a womb goddess, a womb goddess, whom the text tells us has the ability to begat children, human beings, you and me. Take note how incredibly theologically significant this is.

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and how critical Bellat Illy’s sex as a female god is in the divine procreative process.

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What I’ve done here with the text known as Atrahasis can be done with any of the ancient Mesopotamian texts that speak of the gods, because all these texts speak of the gods as sexed beings. I haven’t come across a single Mesopotamian text that doesn’t either  explicitly refer to the gods’ sex  or contextually or linguistically imply a particular god’s sex. If we look at the texts that speak of the major Mesopotamian gods, they tell us that

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The god Enlil is male, the son of the high god An and his wife Ki. If we look at the god Enki, the text tells us that he’s male, also the son of the high god An and his wife Ki. They tell us that Marduk is male,  Ashur male, Nabu male, Nana male, Utu male, Ninurta male, and I could go on and on.  And they tell us that Enana is female, Ninhursag female,

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Erishkigal female, Gula female, Baal female, of the 25 major Mesopotamian deities that are listed in Black and Green’s Dictionary of the Gods in Ancient Mesopotamia, published by the British Museum Press, all 25 gods are identified as having a sex, either male or female. The ancient Mesopotamian texts are loaded with references to the gods as gods or goddesses, kings or queens, fathers,

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or mothers, sons or daughters, brothers and sisters. When we look at the iconography, like statues or cylinder cells,  we see the same thing. Enlil, Enki, Marju, Kanitu are all depicted with beards. They’re kind of fancy beards. And they got these really muscular upper arms. But the goddesses like Iana, Gula, Oreshkigal and Bao, they’re depicted beardless.

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and they are often depicted with these really pretty feminine locks and wearing layered dresses and sometimes like Arishkigal without clothing which reveal her female breasts. If you’d like to see pictures of these Mesopotamian gods you can find them on the web page for this episode and if you do be sure to check out the clay relief panel of Arishkigal. It’s dated to between the 19th and 18th century BC

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but it is theologically astounding. You’re never gonna believe what the Mesopotamian goddess, Oreshkigal, is holding in her hands. And not in just one hand, but in both hands. And what is she, a female god, holding? The rope and the ring. Again, in each hand. Now, think on that.  Really ponder that. Unfortunately for you new listeners, we just don’t have time in this episode to spell out the

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profound theological significance of what’s being conveyed in this relief. So you’re just going to have to go back and listen to some of the past episodes and really ponder on it to grasp the full significance. But know that this relief is astounding, primarily because Arishgagal is female. A female god holding the ring and the rod. It’s astounding. When I first saw this relief, my jaw did literally drop.

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And why? Because of what the theology conveyed in this relief tells me  personally  about my potential as a female. It’s powerful. In this relief, Arishkigal is also depicted wearing a four-horned crown. In the ancient world, horns symbolized power. So the image literally depicts Arishkigal  as an incredibly powerful being.

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and the crown signifies her royalty. Interestingly, this relief is known as the Queen of the Night, the Queen. If you’d like to see this relief in person, it’s housed in the British Museum.

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All right, let’s move to ancient Egypt. In ancient Egypt, we find the same thing. All of the major gods in ancient Egypt are sexed beings. When we dive into the texts, like the ancient Egyptian pyramid text dated to as early as 2400 BC, we see that the gods are identified in sexed terms. For example, in pyramid text 213 to 217, we’ve talked about this a little bit before on the program, the deceased King Unus is told that

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he’s not dead but that he’s to climb to heaven where he’ll embrace his father Atum after which he’ll reign on Osiris’s throne as a heavenly king in a glorified body that looks like his father Atum’s body. The texts read speaking to the deceased King Unus and this is the James P Allen translation quote climb to the place where your father is

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Note that the high god Atum is referred to here in sext terms as a male, as King Unus’s father. So we’re getting that male paternity. Ho Unus, your envoys have gone, your heralds have run to your father to Atum. We’re told here that an envoy has already gone to heaven to find Atum, Unus’s heavenly father, so that Atum will be ready to greet King Unus with an embrace when he gets to heaven.

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Ho, Eunice, your envoys have gone, your heralds have run to your father, to Atum, to say to you,  Atum, bring me up to you, encircle me inside your arms. We see that one of the primary things that’s going to happen when Eunice ascends to heaven is that he’s going to be embraced by his father. This is known as the sacred embrace, which obviously requires a body to do. Eunice ascends to heaven and the text reads,

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quote,  sun, atum, sun here is S-U-N. Here atum is associated with the sun, which is symbolic of atum’s glorious nature.  This unis has come to you. Your son has come to you. This unis has come to you.  Note here how unis is referred to as the high god atum’s son. In this passage, the son, the deceased king unis, is a human being.

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who upon his death ascends to heaven where he’s going to be greeted by his celestial father, the god Atum. So  note here how we’re reading about a family-based theology. King Unus is the son of the high god, which is very similar to the theology that we just saw in ancient Mesopotamia where human beings are the sons and daughters of the goddess Belet-Ili. I continue, quote, he, King Unus,

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has become Auk. Auk here refers to the process of being transformed to getting a resurrected, glorified body of light.

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I continue, he, King Unus, has become Auk,  inside the arms of his father, inside the arms of Atum. Note how the  Akification process, the process of being transformed into a resurrected, glorified being, happens when Atum embraces his son. Donald Redford in his book, The Ancient Gods Speak,

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published by Oxford University Press, notes on pages seven and eight, quote, In virtually all of the periods of ancient Egypt’s religion and secular texts, the concept of Akh operated in a reciprocal relationship between God and King, between father and son. In the pyramid texts, the king as Horus became Akh through his father Osiris.  Just as Osiris became Akh,

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through his son. In the Book of the Dead, each embraces the other that he might be an awk thereby. Theologically, this sacred embrace is pretty fascinating because what Redford is telling us is that not only is it through Atum, the father, that the son, in this case King Unus, is occupied, it also indicates that the father himself gains greater glory when one of his sons is occupied. And as you’re going to see right now,

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is made a heavenly king. That son  adds  greater glory to his father. It’s a quote, reciprocal relationship. You should also note that this occultification process is family based. It’s the father that occupies the son. And don’t miss the fact that the son that’s being occupied, which is akin to deification,  is

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human being, a human being who lived here on earth, the deceased King Unus. Note how the father and the son in this text are clearly distinct individuals.  One is the high god Atum and the other is his earthly son King Unus. King Unus and Atum are bound to each other by virtue of their family relationship. This is a family-based theology.

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After King Unus embraces his father and the occification process takes place, the text tells us that King Unus is given the right to reign as a heavenly king on Osiris’ throne in an occupied, resurrected, glorified body that’s just like his father Atum’s body, with eyes and ears and hands and feet. Listen to the text. Quote, Ho, Unus, you have not gone away dead.

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You have gone away alive.  Sit on Osiris’s chair, which is Osiris’s throne. So he’s being invited to sit on a heavenly throne with your baton in your arm and govern the living with your lotus scepter in your arm and govern those of the remote places. Your lower arms are of Atum. Your upper arms are of Atum. Your belly of Atum. Your back of Atum. Your rear of Atum.

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your legs of Atum. So you’re getting this full picture here of this glorified being that resembles his father,  Atum.

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Pyramid Text 217 ends with this amazing line. Listen to how it is Atum’s body, Atum’s male body that ties this entire theology together. The text reads, quote,  son Atum, so son again here is S-U-N, your son has come to you. This unis has come to you. Elevate him to you and circle him within your arms. He is your bodily son.

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This entire text is remarkable, but the last line is really remarkable. Speaking of the god Atum, the text states,  he, speaking of King Unus,  is your bodily son forever. In the clearest fashion possible, the text is telling us that Unus is Atum’s, quote,  bodily son. The theology in this text is remarkable.

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because it’s telling us that Atum is the literal father of King Unus’s physical body. What this means theologically is that Atum’s maleness, Atum’s male body, Atum’s male sex organs are anything but inconsequential. They’re absolutely imperative to the theology, because what the ancient Egyptians are teaching us here is that the theology of celestial kingship is again a family-based theology.

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I’m getting a bit ahead of myself here, but what this text attests to is that God is  genetically the literal father of our physical bodies and that we’re literally, not figuratively, but literally physically God’s children.  And because God reigns as a heavenly king, this literally means that royal DNA makes up every single cell of our physical body. We’re literally

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princes and princesses incarnate because the high god, the king of the gods is our father. Which is what every single princess movie teaches that inside every little girl is a princess. No wonder those films resonate so much with audiences. It’s like we already know this, like we already know this deep down inside.

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What this text implies is that God had to have fathered the first man and woman who inhabited this planet. Which if you’re a long time listener, you’ll recall  is what it says in the ancient Egyptian text known as the instruction for Merikari, where we’re told that human beings came from God’s flesh.

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This theology also demands  the existence of and the  indispensable involvement of a female god because as we know procreation requires both a male and a female. And since as the ancients have taught us, God has a sex, then we can safely presume that no god can independently produce children on his or her own. I too must have

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a female partner for King Unus to be his quote, bodily son. One of the things that rings true to me about this theology is that not only does it make logical sense, I mean, this would explain why there are two sexes  on the earth  and why we’re organized and arranged into families here on earth. But it just makes sense to me that our strongest, most loving bonds

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would be patterned after loving parents and a loving family in heaven. The whole  as above, so below idea.  One of the things that I find most compelling about this theology is that it completely validates the value, necessity, and potential of every single woman on planet Earth. And not only that, that we need each other. You there’s no going it alone.

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This is a family theology. What I’m trying to illustrate by walking you through the theology that was taught in Pyramid Text 213 to 217 is that God’s sex, his male body, is intimately tied to every single aspect of the theology. What the ancient Egyptians are teaching us is that the God of heaven, by way of his male sex, fathered children, children that now inhabit this earth,

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children that the instruction for Merakari refers to as the sacred herd, who through a process the ancient Egyptians called aquification, which is akin to sanctification, can after this life obtain resurrected glorified bodies and reign themselves. That’s the theology. That’s what all of the ancient pyramid texts attest to.

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It’s a family theology in all of it. Every single bit of it is dependent on God having male sex organs. And every single bit of it is dependent on God having a partner with female sex organs. It’s a bit indelicate to talk about God’s reproductive organs, but we aren’t being true to the theology if we don’t.

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Such a theology not only validates the importance of the family, it also validates the deeply religious importance of sex, the procreative act, as well as validates maleness and femaleness. And note how all of this is tied to kingship, to the kingship theology. And if this theology is true,  this would demand that there is no God

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without a goddess, no heavenly king without a heavenly queen, because without the two, there is no family unit. There is no family, no children, there’s no sacred herd. Now, you might be thinking to yourself, God is God, God can make whatever God wants to make. God doesn’t need to have a partner to make as many people as God wants to. God doesn’t need to be male and God doesn’t need a female God to do any of it.

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A bodiless, sexless God can create whatever it wants. That’s definitely a view that many people have. But what I’m trying to illustrate on this podcast is that the entire ancient world refutes the description of God as formless and sexless. The entire ancient world attests that God has a body  and that that body is sexed  and that that body is very, very important.

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If the ancients are correct, what this means on a deep theological level is that sex, male and female, is built  right into the structure, right into the fabric of the cosmos itself and how it operates, which would suggest that sex  is an eternal feature of who God is and subsequently of who we are.

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This would also mean that no so-called God or divine being could be fully realized by him or herself. God’s sex would paradoxically place limits  on his or her abilities. Alone, he or she would not have the power to produce children.  But simultaneously, God’s sexed nature would give him or her the power to forge deep physical bonds.

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through the procreative act, and the power to forge lasting bonds through the formation of a family. Both of these things tie people together in deep, meaningful, lasting ways, and in ways which a bodiless god could never do. All right, back to Egypt. All of the major deities in ancient Egypt are depicted in the text and in the iconography as male or female. Amun is male.

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Otten male, Atum male, Horus male, Osiris male, Ptah male, Thoth male, and could go on and on. And Hathor? Female.  Isis? Female. Nephtys? Female. Newt? Female. Bastet? Female. In fact, the Egyptologist Richard A. Wilkinson, who we’ve quoted several times on the podcast, even titled his encyclopedic tome on the deities in ancient Egypt, The Complete Gods.

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and goddesses of ancient Egypt, which clearly indicates that sex was one of the most important distinguishing features of the gods. Archaeologists have found a  really beautiful, elegant diorite statue of the goddess Hathor. You can find a picture of it on the webpage for this episode. She was a goddess in ancient Egypt known to be the consort of Ra. And she was directly connected to kingship as the mother of the pharaohs.

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And on the statues, she’s depicted wearing a form-fitting dress. She looks beautiful.  And on top of her head, she wears a headdress, and that headdress hangs on each side of her face,  and her face has these really delicate features, and it hangs down just above her breasts. And then perched atop her headdress, she’s wearing a sun disc that’s set between some cow horns. And those point to her zoomorphic form as a cow.

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which the ancient Egyptians used to symbolize her role as the consort of Ra, the bull, and her ability to give suck and nourishment to her offspring. Again, it’s emphasizing the offspring.  So all of these features speak to her female sex.

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If we turn to Canaan and we open up E.T. Mullen’s book, The Divine Council in Canaanite and early Hebrew literature, which I mentioned earlier, which is loaded with ancient Ugaritic texts, we see the same thing. In these texts, the high god El, the king of the gods who reigns over his children, is clearly identified in the text as male. For example, in Canaanian foreign tablet 4.4, lines 23 to 26,

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We read of a goddess who enters El’s temple. It’s referred to in the text as a domed tent. She finds him in the tabernacle and when she finds him, she falls to the ground and she worships him. The text reads, quote, she, this is the goddess, opened the dome tent of El and entered the tabernacle of King, father of years. Note how El is referred to as both a father and a king.

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both male designations like we see  all over the ancient world. She bowed and fell at the feet of L. Note how L has feet here.

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did obeisance and honored him.” This text clearly speaks to both male and female gods inhabiting heaven. In another text, Ugaritic 5.2.2, lines 6 to 8, we see just like we saw in ancient Egypt that El’s reign  is a family affair. And take note in this text how El is called Malku Olami, which means the eternal king.

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So L isn’t just a king, which is a male designation, but he’s a king that reigns eternally. The text reads,  let Rappapoo, and that refers to L, the eternal king, rule by his might. Let the eternal king judge in his strength, yea, let him rule his offspring in his grace. This text clearly states that L reigns as a king.

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He doesn’t reign over just anyone. He reigns as a king over his family, his offspring, his children. In fact, one of El’s chief epitaphs in the Ugaritic literature is toru, T-O-R-U, which means the bull, which is very similar to toro in Spanish, which means bull. Mullen writes, quote, the epitaph toru, bull,

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which is applied only to the god El in the three passages which display El as the father of Baal.  Bull El is in parallel with King El, connecting the epitaphs of Malku, king, and Toru, bull. The most dominant imagery invoked by the title Toru is that of the creator god, since the bull was employed as the common image of fertility in Near Eastern mythology.

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In the Ugaritic text, the procreative aspects of the epitaph bull are easily seen in two common formulaic variants of the title bull,  El your father and bull your father El. They depict El as the fertile bull who fathered the various gods. I want to make a couple of points about what Mullen says here in terms of El’s male sex. The first is

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Note how the Ugaritic texts directly connect El’s eternal kingship to his procreative powers as a bull. See,  if El didn’t have offspring, he would not be, quote, an eternal king. Why? Because without offspring, El wouldn’t have anyone over whom to reign. And you can’t have offspring if you don’t have reproductive organs.

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Do you see how El’s male procreative powers are completely tied up in the notion of kingship itself and eternal kingship? The only way El can reign as a king is over his own children. So if he doesn’t have any children, he isn’t an eternal king and he doesn’t have an eternal kingdom. Do you see how this entire theology is dependent  on El as a bull, on El’s reproductive capacity as a male, his ability to father?

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That’s what these texts are telling us. And the second thing is that El only contains within himself half of the reproductive capacity to produce offspring. So we surmise that he must have a female consort, a queen. And that’s exactly what the Ugaritic texts tell us. In Ugaritic text 5.2.1.2, we read the following, quote,

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El is enthroned with a tart. This is an absolutely amazing text. Here we’re told that El has a throne and he sits on that throne with someone named a tart. Well, who is a tart? Well, a tart is a female god, a goddess, who we presume because she sits enthroned with El, who is the king of the gods, that she is the queen of the gods.

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In Canaaniform tablet 4.4 around lines 32 and 33, it tells us this about Attart. Quote, why have you come, old lady, Adirot of the sea? And Adirot here is Attart. Why have you come here,  oh, progenitress of the gods? We see that Attart is the quote progenitress of the gods. She reigns with El on a throne.

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as an eternal queen, precisely because she is the female progenitor or mother of the gods. See, this entire theology is dependent on Etart’s reproductive capacity as a female too, not just El’s.  Neither can reign as an eternal king or queen without each other, else there would be no children and thereby no one to reign over and their titles

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King and Queen would be absolutely meaningless. The line that’s above this is actually really interesting. The line that says, Atart is called Adorot of the sea. Adorot again is the name for Atart. In much of the Ugaritic literature, El’s principal consort is known to be  Asherah. And you’re never gonna guess what Asherah’s principal epitaph is. It’s quote,  she who walks on the sea.

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And I find this epitaph way interesting, especially considering all of the insights we’ve gained on this program about the symbolic nature of the sea and the act of symbolically walking on the sea or on the water or the subjugating of the sea beneath one’s feet. To me, Asherah’s epitaph has the same symbolic connotation as the iconographic depiction of the Mesopotamian Arishkigal holding a rope and a rod in each hand. If you’re a longtime listener,

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and you can’t see the connection between the two, ponder it a little bit because you’ll see it. If you’d like to see an engraving of Asherah found near Ugarit, dated to between 1330 and 1500 BC, you can find it on the webpage for this episode. The female form of her body is unmistakable. The artifact is currently housed in the Louvre.

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And I don’t know if this is what the artist intended, but on this engraving, Asherah actually looks like she’s walking on water. No matter how you slice it, to say that Asherah had the ability to quote, walk on the sea,  is a striking testament to her power and authority. I’ve only barely scratched the surface here, but take note in the Ugaritic literature how

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Again, the entire theology is dependent on El’s capacity to father children. As I mentioned earlier, Ugaritic 5.2.2.8 says, speaking of El, quote, yea, let him rule his offspring in his grace. This passage makes it pretty clear that El only reigns over his offspring. Mullen says this of this passage, quote,

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This passage makes it clear that El sits at the head of the pantheon  ruling over his offspring. I hope you can see how El’s male sex and a tart or Asherah’s female sex is directly tied to the concepts of kingship and queenship  and subsequently to cosmic kingdom building. Again, the theology that we’re seeing here is a family-based theology.

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where fatherhood and motherhood is  absolutely essential. Remember in El’s Cosmic Kingdom, he sits enthroned with a tart. Together they reign as king and queen over their offspring.

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That’s the theology.

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Unfortunately, I’ve got to leave it there. There’s plenty to chew on here in our next episode. We’ll pick it up right here. 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.