The Origin
Of
Our Belief In God
by Erik Langkjer
Part II: The Sun Hero
5. The Birth of the Child
In the poem by Nonnos (VII,22ff.), the old god, Aion, is begging Zeus that another, a young son, may "receive the rudder of life ever renewed". While bending over Zeus, his mighty long hair floats out on the knees of the god. E.Will [1] has compared this with a small relief found in Tyre.
American Univers. Beiruth, inv. no. 4721.
A divine child is suckled by a hind by the foot at the burning tree with the snake. A woman is present, lying on a couch, and an eagle seems to supervise the scene. The child must be identified with Melqart born by Astarte. In Shiitic-Iranian gnosticism the heroic epos becomes a mystical epos. Here we read about the mystical castle of Kaug Dez in the utmost north or east, beyond the "heavenly pole", in the heart, or at the top of the cosmic mount (or psyco-cosmic mount, the expression is taken from H.Corbin[2].) To reach it you must pass through medio mundi. Here the Simorgh bird is nesting in the Tuba-tree, and you will come to the place when you have traversed all valleys and mountains of the earth and reach the border of the world. It is a symbol of absolute existence. Here the child of light is born in the winter. It grows up in the desert, and is fed by a gazelle under the supervision of the Tuba-tree, and the Simorgh-bird protects it with its wings. The cosmic mountain is also called the emerald rock.
This is all old Oriental myth. Ptolemaios, son of Lagos, was put out in the wilderness, where an eagle protected him, acc to Suidas (ad. Lagos). Something similar is told about the birth of Gilgamesh by Claudius Aelianus (de natura Animalium 12,21.200 A.C.):
When Seuechorus was king of Babylon the Chaldeans foretold that the son born to his daughter would wrest the kingdom from his grandfather. This made him afraid and (if I may be allowed the small jest) he played Acrisius to his daughter: he put the strictest of watches upon her. For all that, since fate was cleverer than the king of Babylon, the girl became a mother, being pregnant by som obscure man. So the guards from fear of the king hurled the infant from the citadel, for that was where the aforesaid girl was imprisoned. Now an Eagle which saw with its piercing eye the child while still falling, before it was dashed to the earth, flew beneath it, flung its back under it, and conveyed it to some garden and set it down with the utmost care.[3]
J.H.Tigay[4] calls attention to the phrase "some obscure man", the Greek term literally meaning "invisible": "In similar classical legends, the father´s not being seen is due to his being a god who succeeds in impregnating the mother because he is able to enter invisibly".
That the Greek Heracles really is the Oriental Melqart is seen from Pausanias IX,31,2: on Mt Helicon is seen a picture of Telephos, the son of Heracles, being suckled by a hind in the presence of an ox and the shepherd god, Priapos. It is the divine child, the young calf, born among shepherds, or seeking shelter from the chaotic god in the element belonging to the god of life fluids, the cattle, the water, or marshes. Carvings in ivory show the pictures of a calf being suckled by a cow in the thicket. It is the exact parallel to Horus, the divine child, being suckled in the thicket[5]. But the motifs, tree of life, stag, bull, calf being suckled by cow, lion, lion killing bull, are numerous among ivory carvings. Badische Landesmuseum, Karlsruhe, has bought a collection of carved ivory exhibited for the first time in Jerusalem 1965, and published the book Phönizische Elfenbeine, 1973. The motives are the same as by similar findings in Nimrod and Arslan Tash. They are not mere decoration, but religious motives showing us the most important themes of the folk religion.
Coins from Palmyra and Damascus show that it is the old highgod, the bull, that is reborn as the divine child suckled by a goat or a hind. (du Mesnil du Buisson, Tess. fig. 315,H.Ingholt,RTP,no.214.) The light ball and the beams in the hair of the child show that it is the birth of the young sun or sun hero. It is important that the divine child is always surrounded by a bucolic milieu. He is a shepherd Mic 5,3-5, and by the help of his 7 other shepherds he will guard his flock against Nimrod, gather them like sheep in the pen 2,12,clear a way out of the gate of Hades for them, 2,13. Is 7,14f can be compared with other promises with a similar wording:
"Lo, the young women is pregnant and shall give birth to a son / she shall name him Immanuel / Sour milk and wild honey shall be his food (food of shepherds)"
"Lo, you shall be pregnant and give birth to a son / and you shall give him the name of Jesus/…he shall be king over the house of Jacob forever"(Luke 1,31ff.)
G.Widengren[6] has shown, by comparing with Judg 13,3-5, the birth of Samson ("Lo you are pregnant and shall give birth to a son"), and a text from the temple of Amun-Re, where the sun god promises the birth of his son that there are everywhere the same "elements of stile":
a) The conception is foretold
b) The name of the child is given
c) The achievements of the child are foretold.
The name of Samson is from Hebrew shamsh (= sun) with the ending -on. It is the birth of the sunhero, cf that the above mentioned son of Heracles is called Telephos = "He who shines through to the end/goal". Also in Is 9,1 the birth of the child is like a great light, and he is called "Father of Eternity" and "Great Hero". He is the old highgod reborn as the sun´s hero.
[1] Berytos 10,1950-51.
[2] "De l´épopée heroique a l´épopée mystique", Eranos Jahrbuch 35, 1966.
[3] Transl.by A.F. Scholfield, On the Characteristics of Animals,1-3,1958-9
[4] The Evolution of the Gilgamesh Epic,1982,pp.252-5
[5] Mallowan, Nimrud, no. 514f.
[6] "Kraft från den Högste skall överskygge dig", in: Kungar,Profeter och Harlekiner,1961, p.72.
Disclaimer:
Some material presented will contain links, quotes, ideologies, etc., the contents of which should be understood to first, in their whole, reflect the views or opinions of their editors, and second, are used in my personal research as "fair use" sources only, and not espousement one way or the other. Researching for 'truth' leads one all over the place...a piece here, a piece there. As a researcher, I hunt, gather and disassemble resources, trying to put all the pieces into a coherent and logical whole. I encourage you to do the same. And please remember, these pages are only my effort to collect all the pieces I can find and see if they properly fit into the 'reality aggregate'.
Personal Position:
I've come to realize that 'truth' boils down to what we 'believe' the facts we've gathered point to. We only 'know' what we've 'experienced' firsthand. Everything else - what we read, what we watch, what we hear - is what someone else's gathered facts point to and 'they' 'believe' is 'truth', so that 'truth' seems to change in direct proportion to newly gathered facts divided by applied plausibility. Though I believe there is 'truth', until someone representing the celestial realm visibly appears and presents the heavenly records of Facts And Lies In The Order They Happened, I can't know for sure exactly what "the whole truth' on any given subject is, and what applies to me applies to everyone. Until then I'll continue to ask, "what does The Urantia Book say on the subject?"
~Gail Bird Allen
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Urantia Book, 44:0.11 - The Celestial Artisans
Never in your long ascendancy will you lose the power to recognize your associates of former existences. Always, as you ascend inward in the scale of life, will you retain the ability to recognize and fraternize with the fellow beings of your previous and lower levels of experience. Each new translation or resurrection will add one more group of spirit beings to your vision range without in the least depriving you of the ability to recognize your friends and fellows of former estates.
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Princess Bride 1987 Wallace Shawn (Vizzini) and Mandy Patinkin (Inigo Montoya)
Vizzini: HE DIDN'T FALL? INCONCEIVABLE.
Inigo Montoya: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. -
Urantia Book, 117:4.14 - The Finite God
And here is mystery: The more closely man approaches God through love, the greater the reality -- actuality -- of that man. The more man withdraws from God, the more nearly he approaches nonreality -- cessation of existence. When man consecrates his will to the doing of the Father's will, when man gives God all that he has, then does God make that man more than he is.
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Urantia Book, 167:7.4 - The Talk About Angels
"And do you not remember that I said to you once before that, if you had your spiritual eyes anointed, you would then see the heavens opened and behold the angels of God ascending and descending? It is by the ministry of the angels that one world may be kept in touch with other worlds, for have I not repeatedly told you that I have other sheep not of this fold?"
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Urantia Book, Foreword - 0:12.12 - The Trinities
But we know that there dwells within the human mind a fragment of God, and that there sojourns with the human soul the Spirit of Truth; and we further know that these spirit forces conspire to enable material man to grasp the reality of spiritual values and to comprehend the philosophy of universe meanings. But even more certainly we know that these spirits of the Divine Presence are able to assist man in the spiritual appropriation of all truth contributory to the enhancement of the ever-progressing reality of personal religious experience—God-consciousness.
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Urantia Book, 1:4.3 - The Mystery Of God
When you are through down here, when your course has been run in temporary form on earth, when your trial trip in the flesh is finished, when the dust that composes the mortal tabernacle "returns to the earth whence it came"; then, it is revealed, the indwelling "Spirit shall return to God who gave it." There sojourns within each moral being of this planet a fragment of God, a part and parcel of divinity. It is not yet yours by right of possession, but it is designedly intended to be one with you if you survive the mortal existence.
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Urantia Book, 1:4.1 - The Mystery Of God
And the greatest of all the unfathomable mysteries of God is the phenomenon of the divine indwelling of mortal minds. The manner in which the Universal Father sojourns with the creatures of time is the most profound of all universe mysteries; the divine presence in the mind of man is the mystery of mysteries.
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Urantia Book, 1:4.6 - The Mystery Of God
To every spirit being and to every mortal creature in every sphere and on every world of the universe of universes, the Universal Father reveals all of his gracious and divine self that can be discerned or comprehended by such spirit beings and by such mortal creatures. God is no respecter of persons, either spiritual or material. The divine presence which any child of the universe enjoys at any given moment is limited only by the capacity of such a creature to receive and to discern the spirit actualities of the supermaterial world.
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Urantia Book, 11:0.1 - The Eternal Isle Of Paradise
Paradise is the eternal center of the universe of universes and the abiding place of the Universal Father, the Eternal Son, the Infinite Spirit, and their divine co-ordinates and associates. This central Isle is the most gigantic organized body of cosmic reality in all the master universe. Paradise is a material sphere as well as a spiritual abode. All of the intelligent creation of the Universal Father is domiciled on material abodes; hence must the absolute controlling center also be material, literal. And again it should be reiterated that spirit things and spiritual beings are real.
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Urantia Book, 50:6.4 - Planetary Culture
Culture presupposes quality of mind; culture cannot be enhanced unless mind is elevated. Superior intellect will seek a noble culture and find some way to attain such a goal. Inferior minds will spurn the highest culture even when presented to them ready-made.
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Urantia Book, 54:1.6 - True And False Liberty
True liberty is the associate of genuine self-respect; false liberty is the consort of self-admiration. True liberty is the fruit of self-control; false liberty, the assumption of self-assertion. Self-control leads to altruistic service; self-admiration tends towards the exploitation of others for the selfish aggrandizement of such a mistaken individual as is willing to sacrifice righteous attainment for the sake of possessing unjust power over his fellow beings.
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Urantia Book, 54:1.9 - True And False Liberty
How dare the self-willed creature encroach upon the rights of his fellows in the name of personal liberty when the Supreme Rulers of the universe stand back in merciful respect for these prerogatives of will and potentials of personality! No being, in the exercise of his supposed personal liberty, has a right to deprive any other being of those privileges of existence conferred by the Creators and duly respected by all their loyal associates, subordinates, and subjects.
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Urantia Book, 54:1.8 - True And False Liberty
There is no error greater than that species of self-deception which leads intelligent beings to crave the exercise of power over other beings for the purpose of depriving these persons of their natural liberties. The golden rule of human fairness cries out against all such fraud, unfairness, selfishness, and unrighteousness.