Overlooked Priestess – Non-Fiction

Feature Writers: Hoku Lani

Feature Title: Overlooked Priestess

Link: MEWE / 06.01.2021 / Overlooked Priestess

 

OVERLOOKED PRIESTESS

1 KINGS 16:31 – 33
“He took as wife Jezebel daughter of King Ethbaal of the Phoenicians, and he went and served Baal and worshiped him. He erected an altar to Baal in the temple of Baal which he built in Samaria. Ahab also made a ‘sacred post’”.

Each culture had a concept of the Dark Goddess and used different names, with each slightly varying their view of her, according to their culture. The most common names used today are Hecate and Lilith. At the time of Queen Jezebel, Lilith was known as Asherah, Astarte, or Aseroth.

JEZEBEL, PRIESTESS OF LILITH (ASTARTE)

According to the Books of Kings, Princess Jezebel is brought into the kingdom of Israel to wed King Arab. Her father was the Phoenician King, Ethbaal of Tyre.

Phoenicia consisted of a loose confederation of city-states, including the sophisticated maritime trade centers of Tyre and Sidon, both on the Mediterranean coast. The Bible writer’s hatred stems from Jezebel’s religion. The Phoenicians worshiped a swarm of gods and goddesses, chief among them Baal, the general term for “lord” given to the head fertility and agricultural god of the Canaanites. As king of Phoenicia, it is likely that Ethbaal was also a High Priest. Additionally he served as a Priest for Astarte, the primary Phoenician goddess. Jezebel, as the king’s daughter, may have served as a priestess as she was growing up. In any case, she was certainly raised to honor the deities of her native land.

When Queen Jezebel went to Israel, she brought her foreign gods and goddesses, especially Baal and his consort Asherah (Canaanite Astarte, often translated in the Bible as “sacred post”)with her. This seems to have an immediate effect on her new husband, for just as soon as the queen is introduced, we are told that King Ahab builds a sanctuary for Baal in the very heart of Israel, within his capital city of Samaria.

Queen Jezebel remained loyal to her religious upbringing and was determined to maintain her cultural identity. However the writer of this book of the Bible, Queen Jezebel is a bold and impious interloper who has to be stopped.

Queen Jezebel was driven to eliminate Israel’s faithful servants of Yahweh as reported in 1 Kings 18:4, and the Bible’s second mention of her name: “Jezebel was killing off the prophets of the Lord.”

Her dedication to Baal and Astarte was evident in the number of priest at 450, and priestesses at 400, totaling 850.

Additionally, Baal may be linked to Lucifer by Jesus himself. In Matthew 12:27, Jesus called Satan “Beelzebub,” linking the devil to Baal-Zebub.

HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE

Before Abraham, who appeared to lived some 4,000 years ago, and his male God Yahweh, the Goddess Astarte was almost universally recognized as the principal deity around most of the Mediterranean and even further. Contrary to the harmful image of woman that was to be attached to Eve, Astarte was revered as creator, law-maker, healer, wise counselor, and prophet. She also was equated with sexual love and war. Correspondingly, societies having Astarte as the principal deity tended to be matrilineal and matriarchal, meaning property and inheritance ran through women, as did the management of affairs of home and state.

Wherever excavations of Stone Age historical sites have found evidence of religion, it has usually been accompanied by idols of full-breasted goddesses, often surviving emplaced in wall niches. The oldest Sumerian tablets tell of a principal Goddess, mother of all other gods, and this repeats in cuneiform records of early antiquity. Those and other writings, particularly in ancient Egypt and by later classical Greek and Roman historians, testify in addition to widespread matrilinealism and matriarchy in those times.

CONCLUSION

It appears to me that more I research the intent of the writers of the Bible, the more it reflects hatred of women and demonizes any woman that demonstrated power or knowledge. I am confident as I digest more of the Bible, I will discover more passages linking oppression of women, to the first oppressed woman, Lilith. I am very grateful to share my belief that Priestess Jezebel successfully converted many of Yahweh’s children to the knowledge and blessings of Mother Lilith and Father Lucifer.

RESPONSE FROM HOKU LANI (VIA MEWE)