Prophets, sex & archeology

t is probably one of the greatest finds of all time and, by the bizarre rules of biblical archeology, it’s also one of the least reported. Basically, in 1967, in Deir Alla, Jordan, Dutch archeologists discovered some kind of pagan house of worship or seminary. On its walls, there was a 2,800-year-old inscription in black ink. Key phrases are highlighted in red ink and the whole writing is framed in red. First of all, this is the oldest Aramaic inscription every found. But if that’s not enough to make it a world-headline, the inscription is 600-800 years older than the Dead-Sea Scrolls. And if that’s not enough to merit international attention, the inscription mentions a prophet, or “seer”, named “Balaam son of Beor”. This is the exact name mentioned in the Torah/Bible (Numbers 22:2–24:25). This is the only instance where a specific individual mentioned in the story of the biblical Exodus can be pointed to in archeology. So who is Balaam, and where is this inscription now?

Balaam is the bad guy of the Torah. He is the Darth Vader of the biblical Exodus. According to the Talmud, Balaam had the potential to be Moses, but he turned to the dark side (Av. Zar. 4a–b; Sanh. 105b; Avot 5:19). In a famous incident, as the Israelites are about to enter the promised land, Balak King of Moab asks Balaam to curse the children of Israel. Balaam is unable to do so. The Talmud explains that he looked at the Israelite tents and saw an amazing thing. The tents were rotated so that people could not see into each other’s bedrooms, so to speak. At that point, Balaam realized that the only way to weaken Israel was to corrupt them through sex.

According to the biblical narrative, Balaam was in charge of sex priestesses made up of Moabite and Midianite women. These women successfully seduced the Israelites in an orgy of sex and idolatry (Numbers 31:8, 16). 24,000 Israelite men were punished by God with death. At one point, the Israelite prince, Zimri son of Salu, publically fornicated with a Midianite princess named Cozbi, daughter of Zur, in the name of some kind of fertility rite. Apparently, these rituals were drawing big crowds until Phinehas son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the High Priest (brother of Moses), picked up a spear and killed Zimri and Cozbi with one thrust while they were, so to speak, thrusting. This act ended Balaam’s attempt to subvert Israel through pagan sex (Numbers 25; 6-15). According to the book of Joshua, Joshua took revenge by killing Balaam during the Israelite conquest of Canaan (Joshua, 13:22).

So… back to the Deir Alla inscription. The amazing thing is that it is found on the border of ancient Israel, exactly where you would expect to find it given the biblical narrative. The people writing it are Balaam’s people. Meaning, for them he’s a hero, not a villain. So we’re getting the opposition point of view. They refer to him, just as in the Torah, as “Balaam Son of Beor”. Meaning, there is a letter-perfect synchronicity between the archeology and the Bible. But it gets better. According to the Torah, Balaam does have prophetic powers. According to the inscription, he is a prophet. According to the Torah, he gets his visions at night. According to the inscription, he gets his visions at night. According to the Torah, he worships false gods, but also dialogues with the God of Israel. According to the Deir Alla inscription, Balaam speaks to the “gods” and to “El” i.e., the God of Israel. But more than this, Balaam seems to be devoted to a goddess of fertility. Lest anyone think that the orgy episode in the Torah is exaggerated, the Deir Alla inscription refers to a “girl” or priestess who is “used” for the purpose of making one “saturated with love” (Combination 2, ii 4). It talks about God himself being “satisfied” with love making (Combination 2, ii 6).

So here you have a perfect synchronicity between the story in the Bible and the story that archeologists have discovered in a pagan temple in Jordan. But except for a few scholars, very few people have even heard of this discovery. More than this, the inscription has been removed from Deir Alla and put in drawers – I’m not kidding, drawers – in the Archeological Museum of Amman, capital of Jordan. Meaning, you could be standing right next to the greatest archeological match to the Bible and not know it.

The ultimate irony: in the Archeological Museum of Amman, they have a fragment of the Dead-Sea Scrolls. It is a quote from the Bible – the story of Balaam! So the amazing thing is that about 20 feet from each other are the Deir Alla inscription and the Dead-Sea Scroll, both quoting the exact same story – and both matching the Bible perfectly.

Isn’t it incredible? You don’t have to go into the realm of “DaVinci Code” style fiction to discover biblical cover-ups. They’re happening as I write – and it’s not fiction, it’s all too real.

http://www.varchive.org/ce/concepts.htm

I already understood that Ogyges was the Biblical Agog, the king of the Amalekites, mentioned in the blessing of Israel by Balaam in the days of the conquest by Joshuah.

http://www.varchive.org/ce/newev.htm

An interesting bit of supporting evidence for the identification of the Hyksos with the Amalekites was offered by one of the students of my course “The Changing View of the Universe and of Man’s Past” at the New School for Social Research in New York in the fall term of 1964.

In the pronouncement of Balaam in which he referred to the Amalekites as “first among the nations” and to Agag their king, (Numbers 24: 7, 20) there is also a reference to the Israelites, or their king, destroying, sometime in the future, the Moabites and the “children of Seth” (24:17). There is no clear opinion among the commentators as to the identity of the “children of Seth,” but it is agreed that Seth is the same as Seth, son of Adam, and therefore the Biblical concordances have: ‘an unknown king or, race’ or ‘a tribe of unknown origin.’

The Hyksos worshipped the god Seth and also introduced him into the Egyptian pantheon. The term “Children of Seth” signifies worshippers of Seth, or Hyksos. Thus the references to the Amalekites and to the children of Seth by Balaam reveal the identity of these two designations.

For those who (like me) remember Balaam the son of Beor because of his donkey, this is the same talking donkey passage of the Bible, the only talking animal other than the serpent that I can think of. The biblical summary in the article seems accurate:

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Numbers+22&version=NKJV

Numbers 22:3 And Moab was exceedingly afraid of the people because they were many, and Moab was sick with dread because of the children of Israel.
4 So Moab said to the elders of Midian, “Now this company will lick up everything around us, as an ox licks up the grass of the field.” And Balak the son of Zippor was king of the Moabites at that time.
5 Then he sent messengers to Balaam the son of Beor at Pethor, which is near the River in the land of the sons of his people, to call him, saying: “Look, a people has come from Egypt. See, they cover the face of the earth, and are settling next to me!
6 Therefore please come at once, curse this people for me, for they are too mighty for me. Perhaps I shall be able to defeat them and drive them out of the land, for I know that he whom you bless is blessed, and he whom you curse is cursed.”

. . .

22 Then God’s anger was aroused because he went, and the Angel of the Lord took His stand in the way as an adversary against him. And he was riding on his donkey, and his two servants were with him.
23 Now the donkey saw the Angel of the Lord standing in the way with His drawn sword in His hand, and the donkey turned aside out of the way and went into the field. So Balaam struck the donkey to turn her back onto the road.
24 Then the Angel of the Lord stood in a narrow path between the vineyards, with a wall on this side and a wall on that side.
25 And when the donkey saw the Angel of the Lord, she pushed herself against the wall and crushed Balaam’s foot against the wall; so he struck her again.
26 Then the Angel of the Lord went further, and stood in a narrow place where there was no way to turn either to the right hand or to the left.
27 And when the donkey saw the Angel of the Lord, she lay down under Balaam; so Balaam’s anger was aroused, and he struck the donkey with his staff.
28 Then the Lord opened the mouth of the donkey, and she said to Balaam, “What have I done to you, that you have struck me these three times?”
29 And Balaam said to the donkey, “Because you have abused me. I wish there were a sword in my hand, for now I would kill you!”
30 So the donkey said to Balaam, “Am I not your donkey on which you have ridden, ever since I became yours, to this day? Was I ever disposed to do this to you?”
And he said, “No.”
31 Then the Lord opened Balaam’s eyes, and he saw the Angel of the Lord standing in the way with His drawn sword in His hand; and he bowed his head and fell flat on his face.
32 And the Angel of the Lord said to him, “Why have you struck your donkey these three times? Behold, I have come out to stand against you, because your way is perverse before Me.
33 The donkey saw Me and turned aside from Me these three times. If she had not turned aside from Me, surely I would also have killed you by now, and let her live.”
34 And Balaam said to the Angel of the Lord, “I have sinned, for I did not know You stood in the way against me. Now therefore, if it displeases You, I will turn back.”

. . .

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Numbers+25&version=NKJV

Numbers 25:6-15
6 And indeed, one of the children of Israel came and presented to his brethren a Midianite woman in the sight of Moses and in the sight of all the congregation of the children of Israel, who were weeping at the door of the tabernacle of meeting.
7 Now when Phinehas the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose from among the congregation and took a javelin in his hand;
8 and he went after the man of Israel into the tent and thrust both of them through, the man of Israel, and the woman through her body. So the plague was stopped among the children of Israel.
9 And those who died in the plague were twenty-four thousand.

10 Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying:
11 “Phinehas the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, has turned back My wrath from the children of Israel, because he was zealous with My zeal among them, so that I did not consume the children of Israel in My zeal.
12 Therefore say, ‘Behold, I give to him My covenant of peace;
13 and it shall be to him and his descendants after him a covenant of an everlasting priesthood, because he was zealous for his God, and made atonement for the children of Israel.’”

14 Now the name of the Israelite who was killed, who was killed with the Midianite woman, was Zimri the son of Salu, a leader of a father’s house among the Simeonites.
15 And the name of the Midianite woman who was killed was Cozbi the daughter of Zur; he was head of the people of a father’s house in Midian.

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