Table Of ContentThe Origin of Our Belief in God http://langkjer.dk/origin/
E R I K L A N G K J E R
T H E O R I G I N O F O U R
B E L I E F I N G O D
FROM INNER ANATOLIA 7000 B.C.
TO MT. SINAI AND ZION
1 of 2 4/13/20, 2:05 PM
Table of Contents http://langkjer.dk/origin/toc.htm
Contents
Front cover
Preface
Introduction
Abbreviations
Part 1: El and Baal, the Shepherd and the
Hunter
1. From a town existing 6000 B.C.
2. South Arabian fairytales
3. The snake, the egg and the sun-bird
4. The Bull of Heaven
5. An Egyptian tale about "the two brothers"
6. The Nabataean Tammuz
7. The pantherskin & Lycourgos
8. Early Indo-Iranian cults
9. The Gilgamesh epos
10. Man into animal
11. Serving the dark side
12. Sandan
13. A common prehistoric religion
14. The same prehistoric religion in Egypt
15. Ugarit: Baal as hunter
Baal coming to Rome
16. Tell Halaf: a North Syrian temple
17. Further aspects of the cult of the hunter: carnival,
chaos-time, bonfire
18. Mabbug/Hierapolis
The Uraeus-snake
19. Gaza & Hippolyt
20. Eshmun and the snake-symbol
21. Byblos: The marzeah
Resheph. The god with a lions face
Eros and Pothos
Born by incest
An old holy weapon carried by El Cronos of
Byblos
Other Woodcutters and the axe of Resheph
Lebanon as the Garden of God & the
1 of 3 4/13/20, 2:07 PM
Table of Contents http://langkjer.dk/origin/toc.htm
Woodcutter
22. Harran: the god of the left hand
23. Adonis
24. Song of Songs
25. Christian mysticism
26. Summary
27. The vision of ultimate reality
28. God the Highest and God the King
29. The God of Life
30. The coiling (Leviathan)
Part 2: The sun hero
1. Tyre
Melqart
The Hanno expedition
2. Moses and Mt.Sinai
The shepherd and the seven sisters
The shepherd and the three girls
The child exposed to the river or the
wilderness
3. Petra and the two tablets inscribed with the world
order
4. Circling around
5. The birth of the Child
6. Abraham
7. Baalbek-Heliopolis
8. The Europa-Sara-motif
Ruth
Phoinicica
Xenophon: Efesiaca
Apollonios of Tyre
The woman liberated from a demon
The woman liberated from herself or a tower
The struggles of the blessed in
Estrangement
9. �To the victorious�
10. Jerusalem
The visions of Zechariah
Conclusions
Jakin & Boaz
11. The primordial twins
12. The old God and the young Hero
13. God as old as time
14. The Syrian cavalier god
15. Palmyra
16. Dura Europos
17. Running in the circle of the sun
2 of 3 4/13/20, 2:07 PM
Table of Contents http://langkjer.dk/origin/toc.htm
18. Riding the bull
19. Odysseus and Telemachos
The first to sail the sea
20. Alexander the Great
21. The Cherubim
22. The Great Year
23. The Kingship of heaven
Abraham, four kings, five kings and king
Sedeq
24. Summary
25. Later developments
Gnosticism
26. Roman mythology
27. Nordic mythology
A Nordic Yoga master
An interpretation of the Golden Horns
28. The Harappa culture
Indian myth. Indra
Visnu
Rudra
29. A Near Eastern parallel to the atman-brahman
motif
30. The bringer of the water of life
Epilogue
Back cover
3 of 3 4/13/20, 2:07 PM
PREFACE http://langkjer.dk/origin/Preface.htm
PREFACE
DURING MY STUDIES FOR PRIESTHOOD I WAS FASCINATED
BY THE WORKS OF THE SWEDISH SCHOLAR GEO
WIDENGREN ESPECIALLY HIS THEORIES ABOUT THE
BELIEF IN A “HIGHGOD” AS BEI NG THE CORE OF ALL
RELIGION ( RELIGIONS-PHÄNOMENOLOGIE .1969). THIS
HIGHGOD WAS MORE OR LESS IDENTICAL WITH THE
VISIBLE SKY, THE DARK SKY OF THE NIGHT WITH THE
MOON AS ITS SHINING CENTRE AS WE LL AS THE BRIGHT
SKY OF DAYLIGHT. HE IS OFTEN CALLED “HEAVEN”. AS A
MATTER OF FACT THE OLD INDO-EURO PAEAN WORD FOR
GOD (LATIN: DEUS , LATVIAN: DIEUS , VEDIC: DEVA, IRISH:
DIA , LITHUANIAN: DIEWAS ) AS WELL AS THE WORD FOR
DAY (LATIN: DIES, HITTITE: SHIWATT OF* DYEU+ATT-) AND
THE PERSONAL NAMES OF SOME GODS (ZEUS/DIO,
JUPPITER OF * DIOU -“FATHER” [1], SANSKRIT: DYAUH PITA;
IN HITTITE *DYEU REPLACES * DEIWO AS AN APPELATIVE
FOR “GOD”) MUST BE SEEN AS A NA ME FOR THE CLEAR
SHINING SKY OF DAYTIME. THI S HIGHGOD WAS ALSO
PRIMEVAL TOTALITY SEEN AS MACRO-ANTHROPOS , IN
INDIA MAHA PURUSHA , IN IRAN GAYOMART OR ZURWAN
(TOTALITY BOTH IN TIME AND SPACE) OR THE PRIMEVAL
OX.
In the early sixties James Mellaart published the results of his diggings in Catal
Hüyük. In the great mound it seems that he was lucky to hit the temple section of what
must have been the oldest city of the world. The latest attempt at dating the lowest layers
(early pre-XII levels with no pottery) by radiocarbon gives a date around 7500 B.C. Today
a team has reopened the diggings and on the Internet they provide the scientific world
with constant information about their findings: www.catal.arch.cam.ac.uk (And a group of
women worshipping the Great Goddess has even planned a pilgrimage to the site).
It would be interesting to check Widengren´s ideas about the “Origin of Religion” (this
is the title of one of his books: Religionens Ürsprung, 2.ed.1963) with the wealth of
material brought to light by Mellaart from the earliest temple rooms ever found.
They revealed a religion centred around the old god riding the bull, a young boy riding
the leopard, and a leopard goddess. They revealed a wild hunt on the divine bull by men
wearing leopard’s skins (like the old Egyptian priests when they are in office).
How could these leopard-hunters be compared with the wolf-warriors and the wild
hunt of the Indo-Europaean men´s societies described by Widengren? (Cf. Der
Feudalismus im alten Iran, Männerbund - Gefolgswesen - Feudalismus in der iranischen
Gesellshaft im Hinblick auf die indogermanische Verhältnisse, 1969.)
I was also fascinated by Widengren’s proof that some ritual patterns and religious
motifs could survive almost unchanged for thousands of years. Perhaps the roots of the
biblical belief in God could also be very old as suggested by the Bible itself (Gen 1-12).
But one of the roots of the biblical faith in God is also experience. My second grand
guru as a young student was Hugo Odeberg (3 Enoch or the Hebrew Book of Enoch,
1928. “Om judisk och nytestamentlig mystik”, SEÅ 37-8,1972-3,pp.62-87) in his stubborn
insistence on Jewish Merkabah mysticism as a key to the understanding of the New
1 of 3 4/13/20, 2:06 PM
PREFACE http://langkjer.dk/origin/Preface.htm
Testament. Time has proved him right, not only the works of Gershom Scholem (Jewish
Gnosticism, Merkabah Mysticism, and Talmudic Tradition,1965); but also some articles of
Wayne A.Meeks (“The Image of the Androgyne: Some Uses of a Symbol in Earliest
Christianity”, HR 1974, pp.165-208, and “In one Body: The Unity of Humankind in
Colossians and Ephesians” in: God´s Christ and His People, Studies in Honour of Nils
Alstrup Dahl, 1977, pp.209-221) where it is proved that typical symbols of mysticism such
as the macr´anthropos and the androgynous unity are found in the New Testament. I
tried myself (Dåben & Himmelrejsen, 1982) to find the symbols of mysticism in the
baptismal service in the early church: in baptism man puts on the white alba of likeness to
Christ and was incorporated into the mystical body of Christ as macr´anthropos, and he
saw the Glory (Hebrew: kabod) of God[2].
A third great inspiration to me was the Finnish scholar Lars-Ivar Ringbom. His book
Graltempel und Paradies (1951) about the myth of the holy Grail and its temple in the
centre of the world, fascinated me almost beyond understanding. The same goes for his
second book Paradisus Terrestris (1958) and for the article of Otto Huth about the shining
“Amber Mountain”, the “Mountain of Glass” (Symbolon 2,1961) a prehistoric religious
motif surviving in the fairytales. The religious search for ultimate reality, for the “Centre”,
was not only seen as an ascension to heaven, but also a pilgrimage towards the holy
mountain, the centre and source of everything. The final draft of my manuscript was
actually done in the Negev desert perhaps not so far from the mountain of God.
I also have to give thanks to the works of Erwin Goodenough. His insistence on the
mystic gospel of light and unity (By Light Light, 1935) linked to the entrance into the Holy
of Holies, the Inner Chamber of the temple, of the High priest totally clothed in white, and
his insistence on giving a religious interpretation to the art and symbols of late antiquity
(Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period, I-XII,1953-65), and not to see anything as
mere decoration, has taught me to seek for a religious and mystic meaning of the many
motifs seen on cylinder seals, stamps, coins, gems and tessera.
I also have to give warm thanks to my friend, the Sanskrit scholar Moti Lal Pandit,
(Towards Transcendence 1991, and many other works) for introducing me to the Indian
Tantric tradition and for many interesting discussions about religion. Out of respect for the
religious traditions of his country he has taken a much more positive view on Tantra than
Benjamin Walker (Tantrism, 1982), but part of the explanation is that Walker is mostly
dealing with the left hand tradition. The secret libertinism of many Gnostic sects in Europe
and the Middle East (B.Walker, Gnosticism, 1983) shows, in my opinion, that the left-hand
tradition is neither late nor a secondary degeneration. It is an old practice with the
purpose to seek magic POWER from the dark chaotic side. And the evil one seems to be
able to display power where God, the true creator, only shows himself in great humility as
the gentle blowing of the wind. See Pandit’s “Preface” to Identity in Conflict. Essays in
Honour of Johannes Aagaard[3].
The dying god of vegetation has been the object of many interpretations and
investigations. One of the latest and best is Carsten Colpe: “Zur mythologischen Struktur
der Adonis-, Attis- und Osiris-Uberlieferungen”[4]. Tryggve N.D.Mettinger has just
completed a fine work on the “Dying and Rising Gods”: The Riddle of Resurrection, 2001.
But what is the origin of this Near Eastern myth of the dying Dionysos, Attis, Osiris,
Tammuz, Baal, Adonis? In fact this is not so difficult to detect. In the oldest agricultural
civilization in Inner Anatolia, we find a ritual hunt for the divine bull, the symbol of the
power of vegetation. Going back to this origin, we will be able to solve a lot of problems
connected to what is often called the Near Eastern pattern.
The religious symbols found in some of the oldest high cultures descending from the
prehistoric center of Inner Anatolia will also give us the key to a very special complex of
ideas and symbols: the golden egg, the coiling (double)snake, the mystical flower, and the
2 of 3 4/13/20, 2:06 PM
PREFACE http://langkjer.dk/origin/Preface.htm
bird of ecstasy, the winged sun-disc, the bird of many shining colors, the Phoenix, the
peacock.
This going back to the gods of the oldest agricultural religion also provides us with a
clue to important Scandinavian myths: Odin as the leader of the wild hunt, and Balder as
the dying god.
I would like to thank prof. Ludmila Sereda, head of the department of Germanic &
Romanic Languages at the Yanka Kupala University of Grodno for inviting me to lecture
at her institute and thereby giving me the opportunity to work out the following manuscript;
prof. Mikalai Biaspamjatnik for housing me and my wife, and lecturer Svetlana Ioska for
organizing the visit. After the dark ages of materialism my Whiterussian listeners seemed
eager to rediscover the spiritual world. I also want to thank docent Per Beskow at the
University of Lund. With his question about a possible Semitic background for the
Kabbalistic macr'anthropos, Adam Kadmon, as world pillar & tree of life, he put me on the
track of the similarity with Juppiter from Baalbek. His passion for the history of early
Christian mysticism was an inspiration to me.
Most of all I have to thank prof. dr.theol. Per Bilde, who, during his chairmanship in the
“Hellenism”-project, took a kind interest in my studies, and gave me much advice. His
short description of the parallels between the macrocosmic dimension of salvation
(salvation as the restoration/healing of macr'anthropos) in both Ephesians and the early
Gnostic “Gospel of Truth” and the Jewish Kabbalah[5] is a genius stroke of intuition and
needs to be worked out in detail.
[1] The name “Father” is also typical. Acc to Hesychius a god Dei-pátyros was honored in Epirus, acc to
Herodot (IV,59) the Scythians honored Zeus Papaios. The Bithynians called on Zeus Pápas, where Papas,
=”Daddy”, is “Koseform”, L.v Schroeder, Arische Religion,I, 1923,pp.312f.
[2] A good bibliography on early Jewish Mysticism is found at http://faculty.biu.ac.il/~barilm/bibmyshk.html.
See also Jarl E.Fossum, The Image of the Invisible God, Essays on theInfluence of Jewish Mysticism on
Early Christianity, 1995. A site exploring the Jewish roots of early Christian mysticism is
www.marquette.edu/maqom.
[3] Ed. M.Lal Pandit,1998, pp.XVf., see also the beautiful art. “Mission in Christ’ s Way” by Johannes
Nissen in the same book, pp.41-51.
[4]lisan mithurti, Festschrift für W. von Soden, 1969
[5]Article in Danish: “Paul as a mystic”, in: Mystik - Den indreVej, ed. P.Bilde & A.W. Geertz, 1990.
3 of 3 4/13/20, 2:06 PM
Introduction http://langkjer.dk/origin/Introduction.htm
Introduction
How did religion originate? At the end of the 19th century different theories about this
subject were put forward.
The animistic theory: at some stage of his development man came to the conclusion
that he has a soul (Latin: animus) and began to honor the souls of the deceased.
(E.B.Tylor, Primitive culture, 1871).
The pre-animistic theory: Primitive man thinks that life is full of impersonal holy power.
Certain places and strange objects are full of this impersonal power, which the
scholars called by the Melanesian word mana. This was the beginning of religion
(R.Marett, The threshold of religion, 1909). However mana is not an impersonal power,
but the power of the gods and chiefs and spirits.
Andrew Lang, The making of religion, 1898, took his material from the aboriginals in
Australia. He proved that they do not honor spirits and souls, but they all have a notion of
a highest being who is in heaven and watches man’s keeping the moral commandments.
Pater Wilhelm Schmidt in Vienna Der Ursprung der Gottesidee, 1912-55: This belief in
the highest being can be traced in all primitive cultures. It must be the earliest form of
religion. The belief in many gods (polytheism) is a secondary development like weed
overgrowing and covering the field with good seed.
Schmidt studied the pygmies in Africa and found a monotheism with clearly ethical
features connected to the Supreme Being and the offering of first-fruits, the old sacrifice
also mentioned in Gen 4 as the sacrifice of Cain and Abel, the first sacrifice in history. By
comparing Red Indian belief in the GREAT SPIRIT (from North America) with Tierra del
Fuego religion, and with negrito-religion in Asia and the religion of aboriginals in Australia,
he proved that what he believed were the oldest layers of human culture had a
monotheistic belief in a god who was good, benevolent, omnipotent, creator, ethical,
eternal, omniscient, living in heaven with no relatives, no wife, no parents. The control
which this Supreme Being exercises over morality in this life by punishment and rewards
carries over, acc. to all ancient cultures, also in the next life. Here we must place the
belief that the souls of the good deceased go to heaven after death where God now
dwells.
“The time that the Supreme Being spent on earth living intimately with man shortly
after He, the Boundless Good had filled His creation with goodness until it overflowed was
considered to be the best of all times on this earth, according to the beliefs common to
this oldest era. People looked back to this time as to a lost island of bliss with painful
longing, a longing they thought was now satisfied by the existence the souls of the good
experience in heaven. This reestablishes this golden age, however in heaven this time
and no longer on this earth. We find glowing descriptions of this new heavenly paradise.
The Supreme Being, according to His nature and in all his activity, is not only
completely free of all moral evil, He also possesses all of the moral virtues in the highest
degree. He is not content merely to be man’s model. Immediately after He created man,
He took it upon Himself to educate man and teach him how to practice this morality. He
reinforces this teaching by threatening and punishing those who do not follow His law,
while promising reward to those who willingly follow His commands. He does not abandon
the wicked, however, if they repent and try to improve, a point which is made by a number
of early groups. Once this time of testing, is over, however, He does not hesitate to
reward those who were morally good with a corresponding happy existence and the
morally wicked with the kind of punishment which they have coming to them.
In all of this the Supreme Being not only manifests His supreme goodness which
1 of 5 4/13/20, 2:07 PM
Introduction http://langkjer.dk/origin/Introduction.htm
leads men to pinnacles of purity, strength and bliss, but also reveals His zeal to realize
moral justice and beauty. In this way the Supreme Being decorates Himself with new
moral virtues” (Volume VI,468-73).
An English summary of pater Wilhelm Schmidt's works is Ernest Brandewie, Wilhelm
Schmidt and the Origin of the Idea of God,1983.
Literature and sources:
“One of the strangest discoveries of modern science of religion is the one initiated by the
Scottish folklorist Andrew Lang, the discovery of the high gods”, says the great German
scholar Friedrich Heiler (Erscheinungsformen und Wesen der Religion, 1961, p.456) and
he mentions a lot of titles developing Lang's theory:
Konrad T. Preuss, Glaube und Mystik im Schatten des höchsten Wesens, 1926.
Archbishop Nathan Söderblom, Das Werden des Gottesglaubens, 1926 & The living God.
Basal forms of personal religion. Gifford Lectures, 1933.
Leopold v. Schröder, Arische Religion I: Der altarische Himmelsgott, das höchste gute
Wesen,1923.
Raffaele Pettazzoni, Der allwissende Gott. Zur Geschichte der Gottesidee, 1960.
[1]
Geo Widengren, Der Hochgottglaube im alten Iran,1938.
Polytheism, the belief in many gods, arises where different functions are split off from
the high god. We meet this process in the Bible when it speaks about God, his word
(Greek: Logos), his wisdom (Sofia), his Spirit, his messenger (Angelos), his Son.
Acc. to G.Dumézil, the Indo-European pantheon is split up into 3 functions: the ruling
function, the war-function, the fertility-function, Les dieux Indo-Européens, 1952.
In Iran, Ahura Mazda is surrounded by his 7 Amesha Spentas. They are, as proved by
Dumézil, the spiritualized substitute for the old Indo Iranian functional gods. Acc. to
Widengren this is a typical example of the high god surrounded by minor gods who are
different aspects of his being. Together they make up the fullness of his nature. Die
Religionen Irans 1965 (pp.11f).
Important works on the Near Eastern seals are:
P.Amiet, La Glyptique mésopotamienne Archaïque, 1980.
ibd, “Glyptique susienne archaïque”, RA LI,1957 pp.121-9.
ibd, “Le Symbolisme cosmique du Répertoire animalier en Mesopotamie”, RA L,1956
(about the bull man as Atlas/world pillar).
A,Audin, “Les Peliers Jumeaux”, AO XVI,1948,265ff, XXI,1953,430ff.
le Breton, “A propos de cachets archaïches susiens” 1, RA L, 1956, pp.135-9.
H.Frankfort, Cylinder Seals,1939.
L.Heuzey, “Le Sceau de Goudéa”, RA V,1902, pp.129ff. (“Gilgamesh” setting up the two
pillars of Hercules).
A,Moortgat, Tammuz. Der Unsterblichkeitsglaube in der altorientalischen Bildkunst, 1949.
Excavations:
M.Dunand, Fouilles de Byblos I-II, 1939,1954-8.
M.Mallowan, Nimrud and its Remains 1-2,1966.
J Mellaart’s reports on excavations at Catal Hüyük in AnSt 12-14,1962-4.
P.Montet, Byblos et l´Egypt,1927.
Max von Oppenheim, Tell Halaf I-III,1943.
2 of 5 4/13/20, 2:07 PM
Introduction http://langkjer.dk/origin/Introduction.htm
E.A.Speiser, Excavations at Tepe Gawra I,1935.
A.J.Tobler, Excavations at Tepe Gawra II,1950.
The Ugarit texts:
J.Gibson, Canaanite Myths and Legends,1978.
J.C.de Moor, An Anthology of Religious Texts from Ugarit, 1987 (underlines the
importance of “spiritualistic sessions”, where the spirits of the forefathers were
summoned).
Hellenistic sources:
Philo of Byblos has written a History of the Phoenicians on the basis of material from a
certain Sachunjaton, living before the Trojan war and serving as priest for the god Jeu.
Sa. is said to have taken his information from very old inscriptions on the “sun-pillars”
in the temples, i.e. the twin-pillars representing the gate of the sun and carrying the world-
order inscribed (see below). Only fragments of his work have survived in long quotations
by the Christian historian Eusebios, Præperatio Evang. I, ed. by K.Mras,1956. Many
scholars have dealt with Philo´s Phoenician cosmogony, theogony and sociogony, the
latest (as far as I know) being I.Schiffmann, Phönizisch-Punische Mythologie und
geschichtliche Überlieferung,1986,pp.10-72.
Nonnos from Panopolis (in Egypt) in his great epos, Dionysiaca, gives important
information about Cadmos and the fight against the double snake of primordial totality,
Typhon, Actaeon, the hunter torn by his own dogs, the god Aion, as old as the world itself,
and sister to Beroe (Beiruth) 7,22ff & 41,143f. But most important is his description of the
visit Dionysos pays Melqart in his old temple in Tyre, at the altar where the holy Phoenix
is renewed in fire, and where also can be seen the strange flaming tree with a snake
coiling around it and a bowl of the drink of immortality at the top. Here also the first
attempt to sail the sea was undertaken at the command of Melqart, 40,1ff.
Lucian, De Syria Dea, a short description of the cult of Adonis in Byblos, a long
description of the temple in Mabbug (Lucian: The Syrian Goddess by Attridge and Oden,
1976). In Macrobios Saturnalia I,17,66f. is an important description of an Apollo-statue
in Mabbug.
Diodor of Sicily: Important information about the North African Dionysos (Baal) and
the fragments of Ktesias about Semiramis and Sardanapal, and fragments of
Megastenes´s description of the military campaign undertaken by Dionysos (Baal) to
India (cf. Arrian, Indica 9)
Apuleius Metamorphoses VIII book has a description of Syrian ecstatics dressed as
women, but also the important description of an nightly initiation into the mysteries of Isis:
by following the nightly path of the sun through all elements the initiate is led through the
underworld to dawn where he is standing upright on a platform as the living picture of the
sun god and greeted as a god. (Apotheosis by following the path of the sun to eternal
standing.) In this work we also find the beautiful fairy tale of Amor and Psyche and the
love-story of Charite and Tlepolemos.
The Hellenistic Novels are built over the old patterns: The goddess seeking her lost
lover or the goddess abducted and brought back and the journeys & struggles of the sun
hero.
Achilles Tatius´s novel starts with a visit in the temple of Astarte, where a great
painting of Europa on the bull is admired. II,14 there is a new description of the
marvellous tree in Tyre surrounded by fire.
Only fragments are preserved of the oldest novel about the love between Semiramis
and Ninos.
3 of 5 4/13/20, 2:07 PM
