\o/ !HALALU Yah!
\o/
Greetings in the Matchless Name of
YahShua !!
Doggone it ...
harmless euphemism?
This is the 'Christian' substitution for
'G-ddamn it' ... isn't that nice?
Oh, by the way, 'doggone' is virtually the
Hebrew pronunciation for the Philistine fish-god 'Dagon'.
How 'bout that?
Ahava b'
YahShua
(Love in The SAVIOUR)
Baruch YHVH,
Chris
Barr, an underShepherd
little children of Jesus Christ
89 Homeplace Trail
Pocahontas, AR 72455
(870) 892-7843
----- Original Message -----
Sent: 02/22/2003 8:11 PM
Subject: [TruthTalk] Origin Of The Fish
Symbol <><
An interesting
excerpt.
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Truth On The Web
NEWS CLIPZ
Issue Date: 02/22/03
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Origin Of The Fish Symbol
<><
The modern churches of the world will tell you that
the initial letters of the Greek phrase "Iesous Chreistos Theou Uios Soter"
[Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior], as an acronym, form the Greek word
ICHTHUS, which means "fish." One source even purports that the symbol
was used by believers in the early days of persecution as a secret sign of
their shared faith. Allegedly, one person would draw an arc in the sand, and
the other would complete the sign to show his "brotherhood in Christ."
(Source: Symbols in Christian Art and Architecture)
This symbol is used, Christians are told, because we
are called to be "fishers of men." But as often happens when something smells
fishy, the truth of the origins go further back in history than the time of
Christ. Lets spend a few moments reviewing the birth of the fish into
professing Christianity.
"The fish first appear in an early myth, pushing a giant
egg out of the waters of the river Euphrates. From the egg emerged the love -
goddess Atagartis (Venus). Both she and her son-lover, Ichthys (Cupid), took
the form of fishes and in all her temples there were sacred fish
ponds." ["Star Myths, Tales of the
Constellations". Marianne McDonald 1996 Friedman Group.]. (Isaiah 19:10 And they shall be broken in the
purposes thereof, all that make sluices and ponds for fish.) The Greek astronomer Ertosthenes (born 27 BCE) tells
us that the origin of the fish symbolism is Derke a Syrian goddess who was
half-fish, half-woman. The Greeks used a derivation of a word from Adir and
Dag (Great and Fish) it was drawn with a woman's head upon a huge fish's body
and such was connected with the Syrian Dagon and the Jewish Dagalin, their
title for the Two Fishes. Fishes were sacred to the Greeks and Romans, being
connected with the worship of Aphrodite (Venus). An interesting survival of
pagan ritualism is found in the custom of eating fish on Friday. Freya,
in whose honor the day was named, was the Scandinavian Venus, and this day was
sacred among many nations to the goddess of beauty and
fecundity.
This analogy further links the fish with the
procreative 'mystery'. The fish outline figure was chosen by several ancient
cults of goddess worship as a symbol of the goddess due to the fact if you
turn it on end, it looks like the female sex organ. Please realize that many
pagan ancient cultures were totally immersed in religious sytems that
glorified and held in great esteem the cycles of nature, fertility of the
earth and people; and sexual activity was even used IN their ritualized
religious temple services. B. G. Walker's book, "The Woman's
Encyclopaedia of Myths and Secrets" says: "The fish symbol has been used for millennia worldwide as a
religious symbol associated with the Pagan Great Mother Goddess. It is the
outline of her vulva. The first symbol was often drawn by overlapping two
very thin crescent moons. One represented the crescent shortly before the new
moon; the other shortly after, when the moon is just visible. The Moon is the
heavenly body that has long been associated with the Goddess, just as the sun
is a symbol of the God. The link between the Goddess and fish was found in
various areas of the ancient world. In China, Great Mother Kwan-yin often
portrayed in the shape of a fish. In India, the Goddess Kali was called the
"fish-eyed one". In Egypt, Isis was called the Great Fish of the Abyss. In
Greece the Greek word 'delphos' meant both fish and womb. The word is derived
from the location of the ancient Oracle at Delphi who worshipped the original
fish goddess, Themis. The later fish Goddess, Aphrodite Salacia, was
worshipped by her followers on her sacred day, Friday. They ate fish and
engaging in orgies. From her name comes the English word "salacious" which
means lustful or obscene. Also from her name comes the name of our fourth
month, April. In later centuries, the Christian church adsorbed this tradition
by requiring the faithful to eat fish on Friday - a tradition that was only
recently abandoned."[B. G. Walker, "The Woman's
Encyclopaedia of Myths and Secrets", Harper & Row, San Francisco CA, 1983,
Pg 313-314]
In Rev. Alexander Hislop's
book The Two Babylons, pp. 252 and 270, we read, "that Icthus, or the Fish, was one of the names of
Bacchus." Bacchus was just another name for
Tammuz, the Sun-deity who as Horus in Egypt had been a fish from time
immemorial, and when the equinox entered the sign of Pisces, Horus, was
portrayed as Ichthys with the fish sign of over his head. The fish, as a pair
of fishes or pisces, is part of the Chaldean (Babylonian) zodiac, as one of
the signs of astral worship with the Sun at the center of the zodiac. It
therefore formed part of, and was a sign of Sun-worship. The son of the
Syrian goddess Atargatis was also known as Ichthus. Another Fish-deity was the
Babylonian Ea, who became known amongst the Greeks as Oannes, similar to the
Fish-deity of the Philistines called Dagon, halfman and half fish. The
Fish is also associated with the sun..."the god of the sun...as a fish," also being an Egyptian phallic emblem, as well as a sign
of fecundity for their many eggs, or the female generative organ, or of female
goddesses.
The early Catholic church adopted many elements of pagan
worship [syncretism] by "Christianizing" pagan practices, emblems and even
pagan deities with stories that masked their pagan origin into something that
looked more "christian.". Paganism was mixed with the Apostolic Beliefs and
the association of the fish with Jesus was another attempt at religious
snycretism. "The fish symbol of the
yonic Goddess was so revered throughout the Roman empire that Christian
authorities insisted on taking it over, with extensive revision of myths to
deny its earlier female-genital meanings." ["The Women's Encyclopedia
of Myths and Secrets, by Barbara G. Walker]
Augustine, the Catholic Church Father, weakly
explained, "If you combine the initial letters of
the five Greek words, which are Iesous Chreistos Theou Uios Soter, Jesus
Christ the Son of God the Saviour, they make the word ichthus, meaning fish,
and the mystic meaning of this noun is Christ, because He had power to exist
alive, that is, without sin, in the bottomless pit of our mortal life, as in
the depths of the sea." A testimony from an
early "church father", a man named Faustus, wrote to Augustine, stating:
"You have substituted your love-feasts for the
sacrifices of the Pagans; for their idols your martyrs, whom you serve with
the very same honours. You appease the shades of the dead with wine and
feasts; you celebrate the solemn festivals of the Gentiles, their calends, and
their solstices; and as to their manners, those you have retained without any
alteration. Nothing distinguises you from the Pagans, except that you hold
your assemblies apart from them." [Quoted by Draper, Science and Religion, p.
48.] In The Two Babylons Hislop
states that Jesus "began to be popularly called ICHTHYS (or ICHTHUS), that is
'the Fish', manifestly to identify Him with Dagon." Dagon was the Fish-deity
of the Phillistines.
The Catholic church was so fond of this pagan
association that the Popes miter took the shape of the fish-head of Dagonish
priests. The fish symbol was easily associated to the female Catholic devotees
called "Nuns". The word 'nun' means both 'fish' and 'growth' and originated
with the Old Egyptian Deity "Nun-Naunet". Among early
paganized-Christians three interlocking fishes were used to symbolize the
Trinity, and the fish is also one of the eight sacred symbols of the
Buddha.
We have learned that the symbol of the fish being
associated with Christ was a product of religious syncretism which painted the
pagan symbol with a veneer of 'christianity.' The fish symbol is pagan
... then again ... any symbols used in worship of God would be pagan.
Regardless of the fish outline symbols origin, it is clear that symbols should
not be used in Christian worship.
The adoration or veneration of the
fish emblem (or any image) is clearly and emphatically forbidden in Deut.
4:15-19. "Take ye therefore good heed unto
yourselves; for ye saw no manner of similitude on the day that the LORD spake
unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire: Lest ye corrupt
yourselves, and make you a graven image, the similitude of any
figure, the likeness of male or female, The likeness of any beast that is
on the earth, the likeness of any winged fowl that flieth in the air, The
likeness of any thing that creepeth on the ground, the likeness of any fish
that is in the waters beneath the earth: And lest thou lift up thine
eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars,
even all the host of heaven, shouldest be driven to worship them, and serve
them, which the LORD thy God hath divided unto all nations under the whole
heaven." (KJV)
John 4:24 God is a
Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in
truth.
1 John 5:21 Little children, keep yourselves from idols.
Amen.
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