I hate to paint a negative picture, dylan, but, um…, it seems that many ancient cults used sexual acts in their religious rites. I guess that would be like watching porn at Sunday school.
mrcrow, English has changed in the 400 yrs from King James, some words even reversing meaning. “To let” used to mean ‘to hinder,’ now it means ‘to allow.’ “Shambles” means ’ a meat market.’ "You must not suffer a witch to live, " = “Niether should there be found in you a practicer of magic.”
So, Hebrew and Aramaic from 2500 to 3500 yrs ago has probably changed, too.
thank you
i can see this in a lot of the amplified bible translations which although are paraphrased dont seem to keep the translations of teh KJ especially in psalms.
Some of the most beautiful passages ever written in English are from the Psalms of the King James Version. Psalms 7, 23, & 63 for example. Though new translations may be inherently more accurate, there is still something about that AV [sigh]. (not for teaching or research, tho. just for pleasure)
Hmm, this was discussed in a class of mine this semester.
It seems that many people who study the ancient near east think the best term is “temple employee”, as it is very unclear as to what their function is. Elaborate laws governing the marriage and child-bearing rules of temple employees, or priestesses, or prostitutes can be found in the Code of Hammurabi.
My teacher suggested that the transition from temple employee to prostitute came from the fact that one of the possible duties for these women was midwifery. This became associated (rightly) with fertility, which, in the process of the villification of Canaanite religion, prostitution.
Also, I haven’t, as of yet, seen any solid evidence to NoClueBoy’s claim that sex was used in the religious practices in the ancient near east, although I’d love to see a cite.
OK, LaurAnge, it most definitely is a debatable subject, not set in stone. But, I am not the one who first offered this explanation. I simply read alot. I mean alot.
Also, see M’Clintock and Strong’s “Cyclopædia” and the New Catholic Encyclopeadia under those scriptures or the topics “Canaanites” “Babylon” “Egyptian Dieties” “Baal” and others. If you want to get a deeply religious view, look in Insight on the Scriptures by the WBTS. (You don’t have to be a JW to get one, but you will have to talk to one…)
Unger’s Bible Dictionary, page 912, observes: “Canaanite religion with its orgiastic nature worship, the cult of fertility in the form of serpent symbols, sensuous nudity and gross mythology are revealed in their stark reality in these texts [the ones discovered at Ras Shamra discussed in the thesis cited above]. No longer can critics accuse the God of Israel of injustice in ordering the extermination of these debilitating cults.”
Sure, it’s VERY open for debate, and I did not mean to dogmatically state any of this. I realise that in religous studies, anybody with an axe to grind can find many things that seem to support them. But, I don’t think this is an issue that has been settled yet, and so it does stand as one possible answer to the OP.
Sorry if I misled anyone, I usually save that for GD threads.
Whoa whoa whoa… I’ll agree with you, NoClueBoy, that it is possible such practices occurred in Mesopotamia or Canaan and it was just the definitive statement that you made that I had objections to. I personally believe that much of the “sexual immorality” involved in these religions comes from the purposely negative spin they were given in the monotheistic tradition.
But sexual practices in Egyptian worship? Nuh uh. Don’t think so.
Point well taken, LaurAnge. But, I looked back at my post and I did say “seems to.” FTR
You would be surprised what some people (ok, mostly fundies) think about ancient Egypt. But, iirc, it stems from cross origin research (as a phallic symbol?) and not sex worship per se.
Just another of my endless threads of reading anything put before me. Oh, the humanity!
i think you should…
i would be interested to see what other connotations qahdesh, qadesh, kadesh, kudos, and kudus have and the urdu roots?
have you read test of time and legend by david rohl?
both books are archaeological alignments to biblical narrative
a test of time re sets the egyptian chronology and synchronises events between egypt the levant and syria
legend covers the garden of eden and the flood stories and establishes the ancient stories of mesopotamia, the migration of the boat people, and the nimrod saga.
there is a lot more than that…they are by david rohl and are fairly well contested by the egyptian scholars of the old school. david rohl
there are other sites
i dont think the books are not available in the usa
