Clearly the bible is showing that God (El) is represented by an upright rock, and even is animated since this rock-god had the ability to hear. Is it just coincidence that this erect rock had the same name as that other Canaanite deity El, whose symbol was a phallic rock? Not if you consider that the primitive Israelites were indigenous to Canaan and were phallic rock worshipers! But, to the more stubborn, fundamentalists among you (who may be sputtering about looking for explanations), before you slam your bibles shut, sign off the Net and turn on your televisions, take a look at 2 Samuel 22:23 where you will find the bible likening God to a rock: "For who is God, save Yahweh? and who is a rock, save our God?" Now notice Psalms 18:2: "The Lord [Yahweh] is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower." Now turn to Psalms 92:15 "To shew that the Lord [Yahweh] is upright: he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him." Here's one more: Psalms 95:1 "O come, let us sing unto the Lord [Yehouah]: let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation." Okay. There it is! Yahweh, Jehovah, the Lord, or whatever you chose to call him, is a rock just like all the other Semitic gods of the region (Yah and El), and moreover, is likened to a "high tower" of salvation. How inconvenient for Christians that these revelations mirror the pre-Israelite Sumerian/Babylonian habit of glorifying their elohim with their ziggurats.
Let's get real here. We have seen from history, archeology and the bible itself that the ancient Israelites were phallic worshipers until their faith was rewritten in the seventh century BC by King Josiah and his priests. (See this author's study of the Old Testament for the details of that subterfuge.) This was partially accomplished by the newly-written books of prophecy, which thundered against pagan cult practices, such as phallic worship. Ezekiel 8:5 provides an example of this, wherein we find the seventh century BC priests railing against phallic worship in the Temple, which they identify as an "image of jealousy". This scripture is discussed on page 847 of Scofield Reference Bible which notes that the Hebrew word "Matzebah" is translated "image" and is correctly understood as meaning a "standing image" or an obelisk. (Also see I Kings 14:23, II Kings 18:4, 23:14, Jeremiah 43:13, Micah 5:13.) Ezekiel 16:17-23 provides another example: "You also took the fine jewelry I gave you, the jewelry made of my gold and silver, and you made for yourself male idols and engaged in prostitution with them ... Was your prostitution not enough? You slaughtered my children and sacrificed them to the idols ... Woe! Woe to you, declares the Sovereign Lord ..." In other words, the Israelites made phallic idols, declared them god, and then copulated with them—and they did this in the Temple itself! Into Deuteronomy 12:2-3 Josiah's priests wrote the Lord's recipe for their vision of Judaism: "Destroy completely all the places on the high mountains and on the hills and under every spreading tree where the nations you are dispossessing worship their gods. 3 Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and burn their Asherah poles in the fire; cut down the idols of their gods and wipe out their names from those places." (NIV)
Even though "the Lord" was a bit selective in his criticism of who did and who did not worship phallic stones, poles and the like (that's a jab at Abe and his boys), it's certainly worthy to note that he didn't have a problem with phallic images when it came to his own dwelling. What I mean is that within the Lord's own Jerusalem dwelling his good servant Solomon (with the 700 wives and 300 assorted female sex slaves) installed two prominent penises right at the front door!
It has always been something of a sticking point with religionists that right in the doorway of Solomon's Temple, there were two giant bronze phalli. This is especially so since these penises were named Jachin and Boaz (1 Kings 7:21; 2 Kings 11:14; 23:3) and stood some 27 feet in height mounted by capitals of carved lilies measuring about 7½ feet. To make sure that the bible boys weren't just writing about support columns here, we first note expert opinions that Jachin & Boaz were free standing phallic erections (the names are roughly translated "Strength" and "God makes him firm")9. Second, the presence of carved lilies on the capital stones reveals that the fertility symbol of the supreme Semitic mother goddess was mounted on the top of this bronze erection.10 And third, the fact that old Sol had his pagan phallic-worshiping friend, King Hiram, over in Tyre, to make these things completes the evidence. In their article "Temple of Solomon" the writers for the old Jewish Encyclopedia give us some revealing insight into all this:
"The Biblical text makes it clear that Solomon received from Hiram, King of Tyre, much aid in constructing his buildings. As the Hebrews were an agricultural people, this aid probably involved not only material (cedar-wood, etc.), but architectural direction and skilled craftsmen.... Among the details which were probably copied from Tyre were the two pillars Jachin and Boaz. Herodotus (ii. 44) says that the [pagan] temple at Tyre contained two such, one of emerald and the other of fine gold. In the same way the ornamentation of palm-trees and cherubim were probably derived from Tyre, for Ezekiel (xxviii. 13, 14) represents the King of Tyre, who was high priest also, as being in the "garden of God." Probably both at Tyre and at Jerusalem the cherubim and palm-tree ornaments were survivals of an earlier conception—that the abode of God was a "garden of Eden." The Tyrians, therefore, in their temple imitated to some extent the primitive garden, and Solomon borrowed these features. Similarly, the bronze altar was a Phenician innovation; and probably the same is true of the bronze implements which were ornamented with palm-trees and cherubim. The Orthodox Israelitish altar was of earth or unhewn stone. The Decalogue of Ex. xx. (Elohist) prohibited the making of graven images, while that of Ex. xxxiv. (Jahvist) prohibited the making of molten gods; and the Deuteronomic expansions prohibited the making of any likeness whatever. All these are, to be sure, later than Solomon's time; but there is no reason to believe that before that time the Hebrews had either the skill or the wealth necessary to produce ornamentation of this kind."11
The above makes one wonder if religionists ever bother to read their own scholarship! They admit that King Hiram, a pagan high priest, copied the features of his pagan temple and imported these for Yahweh's new home in Jerusalem. I don't think you need a doctorate in theology here to see the sordid implications for God's holy temple. Indeed, this explains why the ancient Jews were used to copulating with "images of jealousy" in the Temple! They were merely doing what they had done from the beginning, which mirrored the religions of their neighbors. And their "holy temple" was nothing more than a copy of the other, more famous phallic temples of their neighbors. For instance in Hierapolis, Egypt two huge phalluses (over 180 feet high) were found standing before the Temple of Aphrodite. In another Hieropolis temple, an inscription was found attached to two giant phalluses that read: "I, Dionysus, dedicated these phalli to Hera, my stepmother."(See footnote 3.)
Just like his Egyptian counterparts the king of Tyre was a phallic-worshiping pagan, and it was he who supplied the two giant phalli for Solomon's Temple. He also supplied the palm trees, which were another well-known ancient phallic symbol (particularly with the sun god Horus in Egypt), the cherubim and the twelve brazen bulls (symbols of numerous pagan sun-savior-gods). Going strictly by the biblical account, none of this is in dispute. But when God expressly forbids the production of graven images, it does leave a giant credibility gap in the whole of the Old Testament/Tanach: (Deuteronomy 5:8 expressly commands that "Thou shalt not make thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the waters beneath the earth.")
Okay, we have seen that the ancients—Sumerian, Babylonians, Egyptians, Assyrians, both Israelites and their Canaanite cousins, etc.—were heavily into to penis worship. How, you may be wondering, did that come down to your neighborhood church and its steeple? Fair enough. But before getting into that, let's first make a much-needed point about the pre-Christian ancestors of the British, Irish, French, Italians, Germans, Spanish, Slavs, et al.
Something else that you will never hear mentioned in church is the fact that when the first Christian missionaries arrived in the British Isles and Europe, they found both phallic stones mounted in clearings atop hills, and crosses—which is another story altogether, since virtually all the pagan cultures in the Middle East featured a virgin-born savior sun-god connected to a phallic cross millennia before the world ever heard of Jesus Christ! Dr. Alexander Wilder, in discussing phallicism, writes: "The erect pillar was common over all the East ... [and the] round Towers of Ireland, the great stones found in the principal point cities in England, the stones of memorial in all parts of the British Isles ... pertain to the same cults."12 The reason that these vestiges of the ancient Babylonian mystery religion can be found in Europe and the British Isles is because the ancient Irish can be traced via the Milesians into Spain and from thence into Phoenicia. A similar situation exists with the Scots and other tribes of Britain, whose ancestors were the ancient Scythians who played a vital role at the downfall of the Assyrian Empire along with their allies, the Medes and Babylonians. (Branches of the Scythian people migrated to India, where they conquered and introduced a type of the Babylonian mystery religion into that country—thus accounting for the astonishing similarities between the religions of India and those of ancient Europe with the prototype of Mesopotamia.) We could carry this to the Teutonic peoples who had a strong connection to phallic worshiping ancient Assyria, as did the Slavs, but that is a story that needs telling elsewhere. (This author has produced a 500-page study on the ancient histories of the Anglo-Saxons, which includes documentation for the above outline. To help illustrate the point, the photo of the phallic stone reproduced here dates to 1600 BC and is the eight meter-high Rudston Monolith, which stands erect in a high place, but is now a Christian churchyard in East Yorkshire, England.)
With this brief bit of history, now we're ready to leave ancient penis worshipers to those interested parties who want to know more. Once again we fast forward in time to the fourth century AD, wherein Christianity (as we now know it) was actually born. The place is the Roman Empire, which is perhaps the most phallic worshiping society ever known to human history!
Constantine the Great
Those familiar with church history will know that Constantine the Great (ca. 285-337 AD) was the first so-called Christian emperor of Rome. Like so much that came from the pens of Christian church fathers, this concept is another gross deception. Constantine was born a pagan, lived a pagan, and died a pagan (if we don't count the minor detail that on his deathbed—perhaps in a simi-comatose state—he was sprinkled by holy water and pronounced baptized in Christ). In his famous work The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Edward Gibbon writes of Constantine: "The devotion of Constantine was more peculiarly directed to the genius of the sun, the Apollo of Greek and Roman mythology; and he was pleased to be represented with the symbols of the god of light and poetry... The altars of Apollo were crowned with the votive offerings of Constantine; and the credulous multitude were taught to believe that the emperor was permitted to behold with mortal eyes the visible majesty of their tutelar deity; ... The sun was universally celebrated as the invincible guide and protector of Constantine."13
So now you know: old Connie was a bonafide, dye-in-the-wool, penis worshiping pagan. But with God all things are possible, as the Christian-hating Saul discovered when he was struck down on the road to Damascus. According to Christian chroniclers, a "miracle" was to occur that not only forever changed the pagan sun-worshiping Constantine, but changed Christianity for the next seventeen hundred years. It was before the battle of Milvian Bridge on October 28, 312 that Constantine supposedly saw a great vision in the heavens. Again going by the account of the Christian Church fathers (who are remembered for taking the art of lying to new levels of ingenuity) Constantine saw a flaming cross in the heavens with the words "in this sign, conquer". Being assured that this was a message from the Lord Jesus, old Connie placed a cross on his standard and rushed into battle where he successfully hacked to pieces his foes. Blood and gore worked the same kind of magic on Emperor Connie as it had done on our bible heros of old (David and his ilk): Jesus Christ and his church on earth had a new champion!
There's only one tiny flaw in the above tale: Being on intimate terms with Rome's diverse pagan god population, the superstitious Constantine was a bit vision prone. So even after some Christian had convinced the emperor that he had received a direct communique from Christ, all he did was add Jesus to his catalogue of revered gods. Indeed, after his Christly vision, Constantine didn't adopt the familiar Christian cross as his standard as Christian art now depicts, but simply adapted the pagan Labarum, or the symbol of Mithra—one of Constantine's most beloved sun gods whose symbol was widely venerated in the Roman Empire!14
But when we get down to brass tacks none of this matters since Mithra was the Roman version of the virgin-born Babylonian crucified savior god, who was known to and worshiped by the ancient Israelites as the virgin-born Tammuz (they even named a month for him, which is still part of the Jewish calender), and the whole kit-n-caboodle had been woven into the legends of Jesus Christ over the 300 years between 33 AD and the time of Constantine's vision. So what if Constantine adopted the cross of Mithra, or the cross of Tammuz, or the Christian cross, since all represent crucified savior gods who predate Christianity by thousands of years? Historian Barbara Walker comments: "Christians struggling to christianize this sign claimed it was formed of the letters chi and rho, for Christos. However, a series of holy signs from Philae show that the Labarum evolved from the Egyptian ankh [cross]."15
Whether or not Jesus's various legends had been borrowed from his pagan virgin-born predecessors had little bearing on Constantine's life. We know this because old Connie continued on his merry way paying homage to Rome's diverse god population.16. In fact, on March 7, 321 AD—one year after his "miraculous conversion"—our Christian emperor honored the sun god Mithra by enacting a law that command all work to cease on "the venerable day of the Sun", that day being Sunday and therefore holy to the sun god Mithra. A second law, enacted a few months later, confirms Constantine's devotion to his sun god by commanding that "the day celebrated by the veneration of the Sun" should not be occupied by legal proceedings.17
Well okay, so what if Connie did infuse a few pagan customs, like phallic symbolism, into the worship of Christ? Christian historians have argued that at least Rome had its first Christian emperor and Christians were at last free to worship in the open! In fact, things were going so well that by 313 Constantine had granted Christians full religious freedom in something called the Edict of Milan. All was right with the world, except for the little bitty detail that with their new-found freedom, the many different Christian sects were soon at each other's doctrinal throats.18 Certainly this detail will come as no surprise to anyone who has ever dealt with church doctrinal committees, or even a church bake sale. Gossip, infighting, backstabbing, lying and all the fringe benefits that come with these virtues have been and always will be the staples of church organization. Fortunately for the fourth century Christian Church, their newest convert and champion, Constantine, was one of history's great organizers and set his talents to work to straighten out the mess that had become Christianity.
Since Constantine's favorite god was the "Unconquered Sun," his first contribution to church reorganization was portraying Christ as a manifestation of the sun. From thence it was a short step to declare the sun to be the symbol of the Heavenly Power whom the Christians worshiped, which he commemorated by striking coins in AD 320 with the inscription "to the Unconquered Sun" and "to the Sun, the companion of our Augustus." The pagan connotation was obvious to everyone, but the Christian bishops, with whom Constantine frequently conversed and who were growing fat and rich from his generosity, did not dispute this point.
