The world is coming to an end. God help us all, I am busy reading Near Eastern History (Axial Age, mostly, 800-200BC) right now, and it's messing with my head. But, it did bring up some pretty big questions about Canon History, and how well it's really going to accurately reflect history.
Mostly it comes down to asking some questions, and picking out some precident. Here they are in a nutshell.
1. Uriel
Psalm 82 states:
God presides in the great assembly; he gives judgment among the "gods":
"How long will you defend the unjust and show partiality to the wicked?
Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the
poor and oppressed
Rescue the weak and needed; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.
"They know nothing, they understand nothing. They walk about in
darkness;
all the foundations of the earth are shaken.
"I said, 'You are 'GODS': you are all sons of the Most High.'
But you will die like mere men; you will Fall like every other ruler."
Rise up, O God, judge the earth, for all the nations are your
inheritance.
** Side note, the last line is so out of place and stereotypically Egyptian it's not even funny.
The Council of the Gods is refered to as "El Eloyim", I believe, the Council of El Shaddai, who was the primitative major God of the Canaanites of the time. The Psalm refers to the fact that Yahweh was being worshipped side by side with the other Canaanite gods of the time - Baal, Anat, Asereth, etc. Yahweh, our conventional God, shows up at one of their meetings, and tells them they fulfill nothing their worshippers need. So he tells them to get going or he's going to kill them. I believe this was written about 700BC, when the followers of "God" were having fights with the conventional pagans, so it does reflect a timely mindset.
So this got me thinking. We have a little precident for what Uriel actually did, going into the Marches and cleaning out the Canaanite Gods in a bloody war (which did in fact happen on the West Bank) in the name of promoting everyone's favorite tribal war God. Along with, unfortunately, everything else.
God didn't like the competition. He created Uriel and the Malakim to wipe them out. Before this time, God was just a real good cheerleader, telling the Isrealites they were His Chosen People, and everything would be keen. But God needed some more concrete proof. With his crusade of the time, God was rather successful, and those evil nasty gods like Ba'al and Asereth were removed from his temples. Heck, God had even WARNED the other Gods, clear out or else, because you're useless.
So the guy got out of hand. Uriel wiped out the Canaanite Gods, the Kings of the time ordered the temples destroyed and the priests killed, and God cleared the path for his One Son. So when did it get out of control?
Follow the Marches after this, I suppose. God would have no problem at all of wiping out Egyptian Gods (80 AD), or Greek Gods, or Roman Gods, or Celtic Gods.... Uriel wiped out everything in Yahweh's path, although he didn't go anywhere on the Indian Subcontinent. All this was good and fine, God was not going to stop him even if people screamed. And when Islam started to arose, well... God was fighting God. That's no good. Uriel had to go away.
Islam was created by Yves to stop this and protect the other half of the world. And it worked.
This is my theory.
2. Andrealphus
***I got to thinking when I read yesterday that Deuteronomy MIGHT possibly have been written by a woman, or at least with some help. Talk about bizarre, I can drag up references for this if anyone wants them.
The more I read, the less I believe Andre Fell with the rest of them during the fighting. The way I can follow some of the older beliefs during the time of Babylon, the less I see that Lust/Desire was originally a Bad Thing. While their were female Goddesses, the status of Women, and Sex, was much different then it is today. The temples of Ishtar had religiously sanctioned brothels and whore houses, women owned land in the Middle East, and were as forceful and brash as men. There was even a time when, in the Temple of Jerusalam, Aserath (contemporary of Ishtar) was worshipped side to side with Yahweh as his Consort. The gods and goddesses of Love/Sex/Lust stood side to side with the God of the Isrealites, and they cooperated well.
So when did it start going to hell? As much as the Western Philosophers have tried to change it, Yahweh is still predominantly a very male God, and as his dominance spread, he gave way to a predominiately male society. Sexuality was changed from something which was taken as a part of culture and ritual to something that was hidden under heavy robes and hidden in the back room.
The old temples to the Goddesses were destroyed, the priestess were dragged out and killed, and the statues were mashed to pieces. Welcome to Uriel's people.
When sex became bad and women of the temples became Whores, women were told to hide their hair, and that was when the Archangel of Lust fell. Going from Side by Side with the best, the most powerful, to being forced to snivel to Lucifer for vengence, for survival, for any form of sexuality to survive, even perverted far beyond the originally benevolent Word.
To make things worse, to add insult to injury, his twin brother, his most beloved, the Archangel of Creation, for some inexplicable reason, got to STAY. Why does Lust and Desire have to be cast out while Creation, who is just as bad and permissive of other views, gets to stay in Grace. It just wasn't... fair.
Historically, he waxed and waned. It's just in the current with the advent of Nybbas that his Temples have returned. On the Net, on TV, in Print, people are worshipping heightened hemlines and sexuality like has never been seen since the time of the Old Gods.
So, I see him sitting down in his Principality, a Prince wronged by the Crusades of the Past, seeing his slow revenge, as the temples return, people only give lip music to the God they so-called Worship, and they go back to the brothels and the whorehouses. Angry, Wronged, Brooding, and taking it out on Servitors, he's going to get his revenge one way or another. And now there is no Uriel.
3. Ba'al.
I'm not sure what to say about him. He was a Babylonian God, then in the time of Abraham on through to the Birth of Christ he was a Storm God of Canaanite Myth. So I assume Ba'al, in whatever form he is in, has been around since Creation and just hanging on since. He also strikes me as one who was right with Lucifer when he Fell, because Baal was a thorn in the side of Yahweh for a small but significant chunk of history.
There's a scene, in Isaiah, I believe, where the Prophet challenged the Priests of Baal to call down their God. So there were bulls and firepits and fire, and alot of priests who got chopped up into kibble. This, I would say, would be a turning point in anyone's religion.
He's small now, just a demon prince who is beholden to that upstart ingrate, Lucifer, and he cannot escape without a final confrontation. I can see him angry, bitter, and just waiting. The Apocalypse will be his chance to wipe all the followers of Yahweh off the face of the Earth, and rebuild his Temples to bring himself to greatness, just like before Abraham settled on the West Bank.
******************
These are just some thoughts, really. I was looking at some historical accuracy. I think as I read more, I'll learn more, and I'll post more. It's not canon, it's just thoughts. I like the motivations of the Demon Princes.
- Em, Demon of Playing IN Backwards
Back to the INC Mainpage.
Back to the Adventures page.
Elizabeth McCoy <arcangel@prismnet.com>
Archangel of Archives