Moses, Hermes, and Io
by
John R.
Salverda
Background:
John R. Salverda shows how certain
aspects of Greek Mythology owed their inspiration to Hebrew prototypes. This is
of value in itself for we may sometimes glean hints of historical realities from
these stories. The heroine Io for instance (as shown below) was identified by
the Greeks themselves of a later age with the People of Phoenicia and with the
Jews. The wanderings of Io may in fact refer to the peregrinations of the Lost
Ten Tribes whose identify was transposed by the Greeks to the People of Judah
and Phoenicia since these were the closest thing still in the neighborhood to
what the Ten Tribes had once been.
The most ancient of all the Greek city-states that we have any history from is
that of the city of Argos and it's surrounding state called Argolis. The Greek
city of Mycenae, after which the Mycenaean civilization itself was named, is
considered to be but an offshoot from the city-state of Argolis, these preceded
the Ionians of Athens, the Boeotians, the Corinthians, and the Dorians of
Sparta, by several generations. Accordingly the myths about the founding of
Argos represent the oldest of all Greek mythology. The founder and first king of
Argos was called Inachus, and the first narrative myth with any kind of
storyline from the founding of Argos, involved his daughter Io. This myth was
often referred to as the story of Hermes 'Argiophontes,' so called after the
hero of the tale, Hermes the 'Argus killer.' Now, Io was identified with Isis
among the Egyptians and the Syrian city of Antioch, formerly called Iopolis, had
claimed to be her burial place, while Hermes, was identified with the Egyptian
Thoth, the Babylonian Nebo, had a planet (Mercury) and a day of the week
(Wednesday) named after him. It is a severe stretch of the imagination to
believe that international characters such as Io and Hermes are the invention of
the aboriginal pre-civilized Greeks without any outside influence, and became
incorporated, fully formed by them, into the foundation myths of their first
city-state Argolis. Therefore you must realize that this, earliest of
civilizations known to the ancient Greeks, did not originate in Greece itself
but obviously came as a colony from elsewhere, bringing with them a developed
mythology, to settle there in Argolis. But from where'
It was the opinion of some of the ancient historians that the Argolian royal
family had come up out of the land of Egypt. Perhaps these Argolian colonists
from Egypt knew about the story of Moses, this would certainly go a long way
toward explaining why Hermes is so much like Moses. Moses, like Hermes, was the
messenger of God, and both were sent by God to free, each their own, chosen ones
from their respective captivities. As the 'Psychopompus' Hermes is divinely
commissioned as 'leader of the souls' to the promised land, an attribute that is
easily derived from the job of Moses. Furthermore Hermes is famed as the god of
travelers just as Moses is the leader of those who wandered. According to the
Scriptures, Moses and his followers had a lot of trouble with poisonous
serpents, people were sick and dying of snakebite, and so God had bestowed upon
Moses a copper serpent that was to be attached to a stick and used for curative
purposes, while the mythical Greek character Hermes carried a serpent stick
called the 'Caduceus' which was also divinely bestowed upon him and became the
worldwide symbol of the medical profession. Some will argue that although the
Caduceus did eventually become the symbol of the medical profession, to Hermes
himself it was merely the badge of his office as the messenger of god, but of
course, it is also true that Moses had another 'serpent stick' which he carried
on his missions to bring God's messages to the Pharaoh. We are told by Jewish
sources such as the writer Eupolemus, who wrote about 150 BC, that the alphabet
was invented by Moses, while according to Greek sources the same alphabet was
invented by Hermes. The Egyptian Hermes, whom they called 'Thoth,' is credited
with inventing hieroglyphic writing, while the Babylonian Hermes, whom they
called 'Nebo,' is credited with inventing cuneiform writing. Nebo, a word that
means, the 'Prophet,' was a common nickname for Moses, and when Moses died he
was buried upon Mount Pisgah which is also called, no doubt in memory of Moses,
Mount Nebo. Needless to say Moses was a prolific writer of sacred texts, in this
regard Hermes was apparently no slouch either. So-called Hermetic books dealing
with the religion of Egypt were mentioned by Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian,
Porphyry, and Jamblichus. Clement even says that the books of Hermes were
carried by the Egyptians in religious processions, one wonders indeed if they
were kept in an ark like the law of Moses during the religious processions of
the Israelites. However well known these Hermetic writings were in ancient
times, it wasn't until the middle of the 15th century that some of these
previously lost Hermetic texts had supposedly been found in the libraries of the
Byzantine Empire. Suspect though they are, these books are accredited to the
semi-mythical figure named Hermes Trismegistus (thrice greatest) whom the
Gnostics insist, while not being Moses himself, was a contemporary of his.
The preceding has been a list of several obvious parallels between Moses and
Hermes, however there are quite a few similarities that are not so obvious but
become so with only a bit of explanation, for instance; An ever present
characteristic of any image of Hermes is his petasos, that cap which featured a
wide circular brim. The fact that this petasos looks, even to the casual
observer, remarkably like the halo of a Christian saint, may be a clue to it's
origin. For the corona of Moses, which is Scripturally attested to at Exodus
34:30, (And when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the
skin of his face shone; and they were afraid to come near him.) probably was
represented pictorially as a circle around his head and therefore it could have
served as the origin of the petasos of Hermes. Hermes also had another form of
headgear that was intended to hide him, it was known as the cap of darkness, or
the helmet of invisibility, we know this because, according to Hyginus from his
'Astronomica,' (2.12) he once loaned it to Perseus, 'Perseus ... received from
Hermes, ... petasos, and, in addition, a helmet which kept its wearer from being
seen ... the helmet of Hades (the Unseen One), ...' Moses also had a headdress
that he wore for the purpose of hiding, for his corona was frightening to people
so he used a veil to conceal it, as explained in the book of Exodus at 34:33,
(And until Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil over his face.)
Hermes is often depicted as wearing the winged sandals, but the Greeks would
certainly know enough not to take this literally, even as Moses was sent to
deliver the Israelites upon eagles wings as at Exodus 19:4, (You have seen what
I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles' wings, and brought you
unto myself.) so the Greeks would understand that traveling upon wings was
merely symbolic and meant nothing more than going swiftly. Among the Greeks,
Hermes was considered to be the inventor of casting lots as a method of
divination, but Moses also instructed the Hebrews, at a very early date, in the
use of lots to divine the will of God. The iconoclastic Moses taught that no
images should be made, accordingly there is some evidence that Hermes too was at
first an iconoclast. The name of Hermes originated in the Greek word 'herma'
meaning a 'stone heap.' Probably from the custom of erecting a 'herm' consisting
of an upright stone surrounded at its base by a heap of smaller stones. These
unpretentious monuments were often used as landmarks for travelers or to mark
territorial boundaries. A mythical origin for these stone heaps may also be
surmised, for to quote from the 'Etymologicum Magnum,' 'When Hermes killed
Argos, he was brought to trial by the gods. They acquitted him, and in doing so
each threw his voting-pebble at his feet. Thus a heap of stones grew up around
him.' The point here being that, the many more recent images of Hermes result
from apostasies of his earliest teachings, and that the original icon of Hermes,
namely, the modest stone heap, was indeed one that would have been acceptable to
even Israel himself. Genesis 31:45-46 (And Jacob took a stone, and set it up for
a pillar. And Jacob said unto his brethren, Gather stones; and they took stones,
and made an heap.) Moses taught that one out of every seven days, the Sabbath,
was to be revered as holy, while Hermes also took one day out of the seven, it
was Wednesday, and it was named after him.
I was not the first one to identify Moses with Hermes, in fact this was noticed
thousands of years ago, at least as early as the second (some think that he
could possibly have lived in the third) century BC by the Egyptian (some think
that he may possibly have been Jewish) priest Artapanus. Eusebius (ix. 27)
quoted from a lost book that was written by Artapanus and was called 'Concerning
the Jews' it said of Moses 'he was beloved by the Egyptians, who called him
Hermes.' The Greeks themselves seem to corroborate Artapanus by admitting that
the Ibis headed Egyptian god Thoth was just another version of their god Hermes.
The Greeks even tell a story of how Hermes had come up out of the land of Egypt,
where he once had lived disguised as an Ibis. Like it is in the Hebrew
Scriptures, the followers of Moses in the story told by Artapanus, were plagued
by poisonous serpents, however the Moses of Artapanus (instead of the copper
serpent,) employed the Ibis to attack the snakes. This was the reason, Artapanus
says, for which Moses/Hermes revered the Ibis so.
There are quite a few ancient historians who have written chronologies
representing Moses as living at the same time as Inachus, the father of Io. The
native Egyptian priest and historian, Ptolemy of Mendes as quoted by Africanus
tells us; 'in the time of Apis son of Phoroneus (Phoroneus was the son of
Inachus, and the brother of Io) a part of the Egyptian army was expelled (or
simply took their 'leave' from the Greek word 'exepesen' ) from Egypt, who took
up their abode not far from Arabia in the part of Syria called Palestine,' And
Apion, in his book 'Against the Jews,' and in his 'Histories' Book four, says
that, 'in the time of Inachus king of Argos, ... the Jews revolted, with Moses
as their leader.' And Clement (44) quotes Ctesias as saying. 'the movement of
Moses out of Egypt took place in the time ... of Inachus king of Argos.'
If Hermes was Moses, as per Artapanus, and Moses was a younger contemporary to
Inachus, the father of Io, as per the ancient chronologists here cited, then it
is very conceivable that the Hermes in the story of Io's wanderings, is a mythic
Greek version of Moses in the Hebrew story about the wandering Jews.
We are fortunate to have preserved for us the writings of Aeschylus, who wrote
his 'Prometheus bound,' about the year 470 BC. for in this work, the story of Io
is linked to the story of Prometheus. The story of Io was, almost certainly an
Egyptian and/or Phoenician tale which was brought to Greece by the likes of the
Danaus the Egyptian, and by Cadmus the Phoenician, who were both descendants of
Io. However, the story of Prometheus, with his father Iapetus, (the eponym of
Cappadocia, from a Persian version of the name that was similar to the Latin
form, 'Gepetto,') and the Caucasus, would direct us toward the Southeastern end
of the Black Sea. Although these two myths seem to come from diverse and distant
locations, Aeschylus has connected them as parts of the same story, therefore he
must have known of, or at least suspected, that this connection existed,
otherwise his readers would not accept it as logical. As Aeschylus relates to
us, it was soon after Prometheus was sentenced and fixed to his lofty place of
suffering, that Io, in the course of her wanderings, approached his mountain and
talked with him. Keeping in mind what we know about the story of the Exodus, the
story of how Io got to this place, can tell us much about the figure whom the
Greeks called Prometheus.
The earthly wife of god was in bondage, so god sent his serpent stick carrying
messenger, on eagle's wings, to lead her out of her captivity. The messenger of
god smote the head of her captor and delivered the Earthly wife of god. Did he
lead her directly home' No, this is when she went on her famous wanderings,
known to the Greeks as, the wanderings of Io. There was a mystifying cloud
cover, a gadfly plague, and a miraculous water crossing. She gave birth to the
"Egyptian" calf god, "Epaphus." (Apis) But, most telling of all, she approached
the special mountain where the creator of mankind was bound, and talked to him.
Prometheus told Io that she could expect the savior to be born to her, as one of
her descendants, thirteen generations hence. After all this she finally returned
to her homeland, Phoronea.
Now, if this story sounds intriguingly familiar it should, for the "myth" of
Io's deliverance, and the story of the Exodus share an origin. Let us prove this
theory by examining the eleven motifs of the myth, as I have laid them out,
point by point: First of all is the statement; 'The earthly wife of god was in
bondage' That the nation of Israel itself was symbolically pictured as God's
wife is evident from several passages of the Scriptures, notably at Isaiah 54:5
and Hosea 2:1-23 but especially at Jeremiah 31:32, where God's wife is
specifically said to have been delivered up out of Egypt; '... I took ... them
out of the land of Egypt; ... I was an husband unto them, ...' In accordance
with the Greek myth of Io, the chief Greek god Zeus, (the Roman Jove, as
Jehovah'), had two wives, one was his heavenly wife Hera and the other was his
Earthly one Io. He had given Io to Hera who placed her in bondage, that's right,
Io was the bondwoman (or bondmaid) of Hera. (Genesis 16:6 But Abram said unto
Sarai, Behold, your maid is in your hand; do to her as it pleases you. And when
Sarai dealt harshly with her, she fled from her face.) Thus Hera and Io were to
Zeus, as Sarah and Hagar were to Abraham, the wife and her bondmaid, and
consequently in accordance with Galatians 4:22-26, also just as God's Earthly
wife and God's Heavenly wife were to Him. (For it is written, that Abraham had
two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman. ... Which things are
an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai,
which brings forth children to bondage, which is Hagar. For this Hagar is mount
Sinai in Arabia, and answers to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with
her children. But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us
all.) Here we can see that, as the book of Galatians confirms, the Earthly wife
of God was indeed pictured as being in bondage, just as the Greek story of Io
portrays. ...In light of the foregoing it seems conceivable that the very name
'Io,' is a mere transliteration of the word 'Jew,' and it's use in the Greek
myth, is one of the earliest known employments of this term to denote a Hebrew.
The Greeks themselves often referred to the inhabitants of Canaan (also known as
Israel) as the descendants of Io, an example of one such early reference is in
Bacchylides, who lived at the beginning of the fifth century BC, and wrote an
ode about Io, so saying that, "she gave to light, man's greatest line, the roots
of Cadmus, Agenor's son, ..." thereby of course, referring to the Phoenicians,
or rather, as I hope the reader will come to understand by the fact that they
both occupied the same land of Canaan, the Hebrews. (Bacchylides, 19.)
The second statement is; 'so god sent his serpent stick carrying messenger, on
eagle's wings, to lead her out of her captivity.' Hermes, as we have said
previously, parallels Moses, their two serpent sticks, the eagle's wings, and
their particular commissions as divine messengers, have all been covered
previously, thus it would be redundant to reexamine these apparently identical
characters, however let us here consider the underlying parallel plot, of their
respective rescue missions. In the myth of Io, it was Zeus himself who, by
deceiving her captor, was responsible for the fact that Io was gripped in
bondage. He had lied to Hera in allowing her to keep Io captive. He regretted
this and it was his will that she should be freed from her captivity, but he did
not personally demand it, instead he appointed an intermediary, Hermes, to
deliver her. Neither Argus, the champion of Hera and guard of Io, nor Hera
herself, knew the true will of god in this matter. In other words, Zeus had
acted to free Io from a captivity which he himself was also responsible for
orchestrating. God, in the Scriptural story of the Exodus, was also on both
sides of the issue, for on the one hand, He kept, as He put it, 'hardening the
heart' of the Pharaoh, thereby claiming responsibility for the fact that the
Jews were remaining in bondage, while on the other hand, He heard the cries of
His poor Earthly wife and, having pity on her in her captivity, it was His will
that she should be freed. God did not openly appear to Pharaoh and command him
to soften his heart and release the Jews, which He could no doubt have done, as
easily as He had caused the Pharaoh to harden it, instead he appointed an
intermediary, Moses, to deliver her. One last point on this topic is the
interesting detail of the divine excuse. Whether in the Scriptural or the
mythological version of the story, the duplicity of God/god is so obvious that
the writer finds the need to offer a reason to rationalize it. The Greeks
explain that the deceit of Zeus in this regard, demonstrates that it is
perfectly permissible to violate a lovers vow, and that it would be completely
forgiven by the gods, if one were to do so. While the Scriptural excuse runs
thusly; Exodus 10:1-2 And Yahweh said to Moses, Go to Pharaoh: for I have
hardened his heart, and the heart of his servants, that I might show these my
signs before him: And that you might tell in the ears of your son, and of your
son's son, what things I have wrought in Egypt, and my signs which I have done
among them; that you may know how that I am Yahweh.
Third we have; 'The messenger of god smote the head of her captor and delivered
the Earthly wife of god.' Argus, surnamed, 'Panoptes,' the 'all-seeing,' or
'many-eyed,' was set as Io's keeper. The Egyptians were especially fond of
representing their gods as an eye, Horus was considered to be the eye of Ra, so
was Hathor Ra's eye, Ra himself was an eye, and even Osiris was an eye, To quote
Plutarch; 'Thus, their great king and lord Osiris is represented by the
hieroglyphics for an eye and a scepter, the name itself signifying "many-eyed,"
as we are told by some who would derive it from the words os, "many," and iri,
an "eye," which have this meaning in the Egyptian language.' If the Greeks did
trace the origin of the name Osiris to the term 'many-eyed' then Argus Panoptes
is a likely figurative version of the famous Egyptian god. After all, to the
Egyptians, their Pharaoh represented Osiris, and this must have been especially
true of a Pharaoh who had been killed. On the other hand I suspect a more
esoteric meaning behind the character of Argus, for Osiris symbolizes more than
just the Pharaoh of Egypt he was a symbol of Egypt's entire religious system.
The many eyes mean the many gods, and the famous killing of Argus by Hermes is a
symbolic reference to the death of Polytheism and the famous institution of
monotheism by Moses. (This will become more evident after a comparison of this
story to the story of Perseus who also performs a famous beheading.) As if to
bolster this argument, more than one Biblical commentary has represented the ten
plagues, culminating with the death of the Pharaoh at the Red Sea, as each
targeting, one after another, the different false gods of Egypt, in order to
show their combined ineffectiveness against the one true God of Moses.
As the forth item we have; 'Did he lead her directly home' No, this is when she
went on her famous wanderings, known to the Greeks as, the wanderings of Io.'
While it is true that the most common tale has Io wandering all over the world,
at the end of this trek, she had another more familiar journey. We learn from
Robert Graves, 'The Greek Myths,' (56) that there was a strong tradition
claiming that the wanderings of Io ended at Mount Silpium in Syria where she was
said to have died of grief. This tradition was backed up by the fact that a
city, once called Iopolis but later and better known as Antioch, was founded in
her honor, and there was a ceremony held there that the residents performed
annually in her memory. The following we learn from Apollodorus; Io gave birth
to Epaphus in Egypt, but the Curetes kidnapped him, and so Io set out to search
for the child. She roamed all over Syria, and found Epaphus, the Queen of Byblos
was nursing him. The Egyptians called Io by the name of Isis. You can verify it
by reading his work, 'Library and Epitome' (2.1.3) Many mythic women, have
wandering as one of their attributes, unfortunately, the scope of this work,
does not include tracing the origins of all myths to the stories of the Hebrews,
only the Greek ones. If you accept the identification of Io with Isis as given
by Apollodorus then, Plutarch confirms the route of her wanderings, that is from
Egypt to the land of Canaan (Byblos) in his story of Isis. The Jews after making
the calf-god, like Io after the birth of Epaphus, were famous for wandering from
Egypt to Canaan. But also like Io, the Jews went through an extensive period of
sojourning prior to the calf-god incident, Therefore the Greek myth of Io with
her more extensive wanderings could be referring to a story of the Jews that
covers the whole period of time from Abraham down through the Exodus. A
Scriptural verse that actually talks about this time period can be found at
Genesis 15:13 '... your seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs,
... four hundred years.' Furthermore the phrase 'your seed' here cited could be
referring to more than Abraham's descendants through Sarah, for let us not
forget that Hagar, who was a wife's bondmaid like Io, began her period of
wandering already in the days of Abraham.
Now, we know that Israel wasn't in Egypt for 430 years, but, on the other hand
they were said to have been first in Mesopotamia, then in Canaan, and then in
Egypt, before returning to Canaan, for about that length of time. And so, after
a closer examination, it does seem possible that the Greek version of Io's
wanderings could have originated, like the rest of her story, from the same
source as the Hebrew version of a story about the wandering Jews. Incidentally,
since this story was brought, it would seem, by the Jews from Canaan to Argolis,
we can adduce this migration as the final leg of their wanderings.
The fifth point is; 'There was a mystifying cloud cover,' In each case the
God/god raised up a cloud in order to hide his Earthly wife from her subjugator.
See Exodus 14:19 where it says; 'And the pillar of the cloud went from before
their face, and stood behind them: And it came between the camp of the Egyptians
and the camp of Israel; and it was a cloud and darkness to them, but it gave
light by night to these: so that the one came not near the other all the night.'
In the Greek myth Zeus also raises up a mystifying bank of clouds to hide his
Earthly wife Io from her subjugator Hera.
Featured sixth is; 'a gadfly plague,' While at first glance this would seem to
make an intriguing match, I'm afraid that I can't really defend this
identification. Io was indeed 'plagued' by a gadfly, but the word which is often
translated from the Greek and Latin originals is a verb, and could just as
easily have been rendered as 'harassed,' 'attacked' or 'stung.' The scriptural
term is a noun and could perhaps be more properly interpreted by the word
'blow,' or 'strike.' Even the term, 'gadfly' is in doubt, a few, by no means
all, Scriptural translations, such as, the New World, the Jerusalem Bible, and
the Emphasized Bible, have rendered the word representing the agent of the
fourth plague as 'gadfly,' however, we are more certain that Io's pest was a
gadfly than we are that this Biblical 'swarm' was of gadflies. Never-the-less, I
did feel obligated to include this topic anyway, for the sake of those who are
familiar with both the Hebrew story and the Greek myth, for these would
naturally wonder about it. After all, the first two things that come to mind
when you hear the phrase, 'gadfly plague,' would be, of course, first the Exodus
and then the myth of Io. Let the reader dismiss this motif as he sees fit, you
can take it or leave it.
As motif number seven we have; 'and a miraculous water crossing.' Having
identified the wandering Io, with the wandering Jew, the obvious intent here is
to equate the miraculous Scriptural Red Sea crossing, with the also miraculous
water crossing of the Bosphorus, by the divine heifer in the Greek myth.
Although the name "Bosphorus" is usually reserved as the title for the straits
between the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara, there are other narrow water
crossings between land masses, that are also called by that name. Apollodorus
tells us in his, 'Library and Epitome' (2.1.3) "Io ... crossed what was then
called the Thracian Straits but is now called after her the Bosphorus. (Here,
Apollodorus is not referring to the usual Bosphorus, but to the Cimmerian
Straits of Phosphorus, a tongue of water that leads from the Black Sea northward
into the Sea of Azov now-a-days called the Kerch Strait. It separates the
Crimean Peninsula from the Kuban region in the west.) And having gone away to
Scythia and the Cimmerian land she wandered over great tracts of land and swam
wide stretches of sea both in Europe and Asia until at last she came to Egypt."
There was also what was called the Indian Bosphorus that was, amazingly enough,
across the Red Sea, at Bab-El-Mandeb, so says Robert Graves in his book, 'The
Greek Myths,' (56) Now, the fact that there are these other water crossings that
are also called Bosphorus is very suspicious, especially when you suppose that
the origin of this word comes from the Greek myth. Could the mere fairy tale of
Io swimming across the straits of Bosphorus have been so influential as to name
straits all over Europe and Asia' Wasn't there another water crossing, that was
of much greater import, and was a more likely origin to these multiple uses of
the term Bosphorus' As we have intimated earlier, the term Bosphorus is the
Thracian form of Phosphoros ('Prometheus Bound & the Fragments of Prometheus
Loosed' by N. Wecklein) meaning, "Light bearing." Probably the word "Bosphorus,"
originated with the word "phosphorus." And this in turn probably came from the
word "Eosphoros" (related to other similar terms such as "Hesperus" and "Heosphoros")
or "dawn bearing." For "Io," is probably a form of the Greek "Eos," which means
the "dawn" and was, as we have seen, just another name for "Zion," (could this
be the ultimate origin of the English word "dawn'" We also have a goddess called
"Morgana" as "morning.")
The eighth part of the myth is; 'She gave birth to the "Egyptian" calf god, "Epaphus."
(Apis)' Showing that Epaphus, the son of Io, was meant by the Greeks to
represent the Egyptian calf-god Apis is elementary, the Greeks themselves, as
early as Herodotus about 450 BC, (Now Apis is the god whom the Greeks call
Epaphus. from 'Histories' Chapter 3) make it plain that this is so. Furthermore,
equating the golden calf, which was built and worshipped by the Hebrews during
their Exodus, with the Egyptian god Apis, is also largely done for me already,
by the majority of Scriptural commentaries. Therefore logic propels this
statement; If the Greek Epaphus was the Egyptian Apis, and the Egyptian Apis was
the Hebrew golden calf, then it logically follows that the Greek Epaphus was the
Hebrew golden calf. Of course it may be argued that the Jews did not give birth
to the golden calf, however, if we accept that Io was the Jews and that she gave
birth to Epaphus just before she wandered from Egypt to Canaan, and we are able
to equate that, with the Jews building their golden calf just before they
wandered to Canaan, then a strong case can be made that the 'building' of the
golden calf refers to the 'birthing' of Epaphus.
ninth; 'But, most telling of all, she approached the special mountain where the
creator of mankind was bound, and talked to him.' Associating Io with the Jews,
leads automatically to the identification between the two mountains that are
featured in each their own two stories. The identical characters identically
wandered, the Jew to Mount Sinai, and Io to Mount Caucasia, this would be enough
to link the two mountains, but the Greeks offer such details about Io's special
mountain as to make it's correlation obvious. Not only was there a special
mountain, but the creator of mankind was 'bound' to it. Now, please don't let
the common knee-jerk reaction, charging blasphemy, and decrying the
dissimilarities between the Promethean creation and that of God in the book of
Genesis, blind your eyes to the following comparison, no doubt the reader is
sufficiently inured by now. Prometheus, like the Scriptural Creator, created
Mankind out of clay. Also included in the story of Prometheus, is the tale of
how the first woman, therein called Pandora, introduced evil into the world
because she could not do as she was told. Prometheus not only gave a clear
warning that if heeded would have prevented this feminine mistake, his story
also included a Greek version of the 'Messianic' prophecy. Just like the Edenic
promise concerning the Seed of the enigmatic woman, so was the identity of she
who would one day give birth to the child, who was destined to overthrow Zeus,
equally mysterious. But where, you may ask, is the Garden of Eden in the story
of Prometheus' The answer is, that the same people who told the story of
Prometheus did have the story of that ancient garden, for Prometheus was the
brother of none other than Atlas, the ancient gardener himself. Practically
every motif from the Scriptural story of creation, can be found within the Greek
myth about the family of Prometheus and Atlas. And why not' For they were the
sons of Iapetus, the only character in all of Greek mythology whom, Biblical
scholars are willing to admit, may have had a Scriptural origin, Japheth the son
of Noah and the progenitor of the Caucasians.
The tenth particular point to be made in the myth of Io as I have laid it out
is; 'Prometheus told Io that she could expect the savior to be born to her, as
one of her descendants, thirteen generations hence.' This point, overlooked by
many, is exceptionally strong evidence for equating the Greek and Hebrew
traditions. A quote from 'Prometheus bound,' a play by Aeschylus, who wrote as
early as 500 BC, runs thus; 'PROMETHEUS: She (a future wife of Zeus) will bear
to him a child, And he shall be in might more excellent Than his progenitor. IO:
And he will find No way to fend off this strong stroke of fate' PROMETHEUS: None
save my own self when these bonds are loosed. IO: And who shall loose them if
Zeus wills not' PROMETHEUS: Of your own seed. IO: How says you' Shall a child of
mine release thee' PROMETHEUS: Son of yours, but son the thirteenth generation
shall beget. IO: A prophecy oracularly dark.' Is it not amazing how exactly,
down to the smallest details of theology, that the Greek and Hebrew traditions
match on this point' With the advent of this 'savior' Prometheus would no longer
be 'bound' to the mountain. How many stories do you know of where the creator of
mankind will be released from his binding contract through the fulfillment of a
prophecy predicting the future arrival of the son of god, and the seed of a
woman' (Well, the story of Atlas is also remarkably similar but, as I hope the
reader will come to realize, the two stories were intricately related.) The
entire genealogy of the Greek savior, all thirteen generations are known to this
day! (as if it were the thirteen generations from Abraham to David!) Can any
other "myths" claim to pay such attention to the details of lineage' Check it
out, Heracles was the son of, Amphitryon the son of, Alcaeus the son of, Perseus
the son of, Danae the daughter of, Acrisius the son of, Abas the son of,
Hypermnestra the daughter of, Danaus the son of, Belus the son of, Libya the
daughter of, Epaphus the son of, Io the daughter of Inachus. Why such meticulous
genealogical record keeping, for these fairy tales' The obvious answer is, that
they weren't fairy tales at first, they only became considered as such by later
generations after we had forgotten the true meanings of the symbolisms. Once
upon a time they were taken as seriously as Scripture.
Last, but not least, is the eleventh assertion which is as follows; 'After all
this she finally returned to her homeland, Phoronea.' By now it will have become
obvious to the reader, that none of these events actually took place in Greece
itself, the wandering was from Egypt to Canaan, the mountain was Sinai, and the
miraculous water crossing turns out to have been at the Red Sea, so it should
come as no surprise to find that Phoronea was not Argos in the Greek Argolis
either. Phoronea was Hebron, the giant who was known to the Greeks as Inachus,
and the sons of Inachus, (called the Inachids, in the Greek myths) were the
founding family of Phoronea, just as the giant who was known to the Hebrews as
Anak, and the sons of Anak, (called the Anakim, in the Bible) were the founding
family of Hebron. Thus the Greek giant Inachus is to be identified with the
Hebrew giant Anak. (in light of the foregoing, the parents of Inachus, Tethys
and Okeanus, represent plausibly, Heth and Canaan.) Inachus had at least two
children, a boy, Phoroneus, whom Phoronea was named after, and the girl, Io. The
name Phoroneus must be a shibboleth of the name Ephron, whom I assume Hebron to
be named after. A further clue for this identification lays in the fact that
Phoroneus was famous, in Greek myths for trying to get nomadic peoples to settle
down and live in towns, he was a well known 'civilizer.' The biblical Ephron
tried the same thing with the nomadic Abraham. When the Hebrew patriarch came to
Ephron, (the Hittite) at Hebron, looking for a family grave site, all he wanted
was a cave, but Ephron made Abraham buy an entire section of the city (Genesis,
Chapter 23). This sharing of ownership in a city, gave Abraham's family a kind
of royal status there, but no doubt, made them responsible for taxation as well.
While Ephron is said to have lived among the children of Heth, the Anakim are
not called Hittites in the Bible, but this is a logical assumption. The Bible
does say that the Israelites were largely of Hittite extraction, which leads us
back to the sister of Phoroneus, Io. The story of Io concerns the founding
families of Phoronea. The Greek myths say, that "Phoronea" was the name of the
place before it was changed, (at some unspecified date,) to Argos.
In propagating a new religion it often becomes necessary to denigrate the old
existing one. In this way the gods and heroes of the old tradition often become
the demons and villains of the new one. It is apparent that this is what
occurred in ancient Argolis. The Anakim, who were the original immigrants to
Argos from Hebron, brought with them the worship of Hera, the Queen of Heaven.
However, the newer arrivals, those who told the story of Io, apparently did not
share so fervently in that worship. To them, Hera and her champion Argus, were
the persecutors of Io. They preferred to worship a male deity and his messenger
Hermes. There are tantalizing mythological hints about the nature of the
previous religion where the Queen of Heaven was supreme. She had endowed Argus
with great strength and sent him to destroy a terrible enemy of mankind, the
monstrous Echidna. We are also told how previously, before Zeus had fallen in
love with her and Hera began treating her so badly, Io had served as a priestess
of Hera's. Now, we know from the Hebrew scriptures, that the new religion which
was propagated by Moses, also had To overcome the previously existing "pagan"
worship of the Queen of Heaven, who is Biblically referred to as "Ashtaroth." We
also know From the book of Jeremiah Chapter 44 Verses 17 through 25, that this
form of worship was a very popular alternative to the Hebrew religion. Back in
the days of the Canaanite conquest, when Caleb was routing the Anakim out of
Hebron, the Israelite leader Joshua, put it to the people to choose which
religion they would honor. (Joshua 24:15-16, And if it seem evil unto you to
serve Yahweh, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which
your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the
Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve
Yahweh. And the people answered and said, God forbid that we should forsake
Yahweh, to serve other gods.) Of course, the people were only giving Joshua lip
service, for we further read at Judges 2:13, And they forsook Yahweh, and served
Baal and Ashtaroth. This ultimatum to the people to choose between these two
forms of worship cannot but helped to remind us of the ancient Greek myth about
the founding of Argos. According to the myth, there was a contest between Hera
and Poseidon, (Apsu+Adon, "lord of the abyss" he was a very jealous god, who
often contested against the local, deity, a goddess usually, demanding the
exclusive devotion of it's inhabitants. The Athenians also, had to vote for
either Athena or Poseidon, who wouldn't share his adoration. He was the "Earth
shaker," the flood, and the drought, were his instruments. But, for all his
Yahweh like attributes, he was very Dagon like too. This mixture of attributes
was the result of a mixture between his main worshippers, the Danites and their
closely related neighbors, the Philistines.) over whom should be worshipped by
the People of Phoronea, it was either Inachus or, as some sources have it,
Phoroneus who chose the Queen of Heaven, and thus the place was named for her
son. Consequently, the wrathful Poseidon duly punished the people, with drought
and flood, for deciding against his worship. The summary of my theory is, that
Argolis in Greece was founded by the Anakim from Hebron, who were expelled by
Caleb, in the days of Joshua. The People of Argolis brought the stories of
Hebron with them as they went to it's colony in Greece, they called this colony
"Argos," after the son of Hera, Argus Panoptes. Much of the stories about the
city, especially while it was still called Phoronea, actually took place not in
Greece but back in Hebron, and the Argolians simply retained those memories as
their founding myths. Subsequent waves of Danite/Philistines, also from the land
of Canaan, later arrived in Argos, and adjusted the Argolian mythology a bit to
better suit their religious beliefs. we shall soon learn more about this Danite
wave of immigration, which is also the subject of Greek mythology and known to
them as the arrival of Danaus. Before I go on however, to outline the Hebrew
origins of the Greek myth about Danaus, I should like to add just a bit more
about the Greek mythological character whom we know as Prometheus.
The importance of the Promethean role in classical mythology is often
overlooked, but it is central to his theme, that it was he, after all, who with
his sage and counsel, was responsible for Zeus' gaining the kingdom of heaven
from Kronos. During the Gigantomachy, (This is the Greek name for the "war of
the giants,") it is said that Prometheus, at first offered to help the Giants,
but his help was little appreciated, and he turned to help his, even less
appreciative cousin, Zeus and his cohorts the Olympian gods. It was Prometheus
who insisted that Zeus enlist the aide of the previously banished masons of
antiquity, the cannibalistic, Cyclopes, a move which sealed the victory for the
gods. Prometheus surpassed all the gods in cunning and guile, he was very
capable of ridiculing them, which he sometimes did. Once when Mankind found
themselves in a dispute with the gods over which part of an animal sacrifice
should be kept by men, and which should be offered to the gods. It was decided
that Prometheus, would be the mediator between gods and man, and settle this
question of sacrifice once and for all. He did so by a fraud intended to favor
mankind; he divided a sacrificial bull into two halves, and wrapped the choice,
edible parts, in skin and guts, but the bones he covered with a convincing
amount of fat. He then had Zeus choose one of the piles. The king chose the fat,
as that looked best on the surface, and so was duped. That was the insult which
so outraged Zeus that he took fire, and all it's uses away from mankind and
determined to wipe out the race. Prometheus would not allow this to happen, so
he sneaked into heaven and stole a portion of fire from the lightning bolt of
Zeus, and he carried it, hidden in a fennel stalk, back down to mankind. He then
cautioned mankind to beware of Zeus, his rule, and all his ways. Because of this
indignation, Zeus was now fully enraged at the champion of mankind. He ordered
Hephaestos, (some say Hermes) to chain Prometheus to mount Caucasus, to hang,
exposed to the elements, where a vulture was commissioned to gnaw at his liver
daily, (the liver grew back each eve,) through a wound in his side. Now then,
Zeus would have left Prometheus in this predicament forever, except for the fact
that he had acquired a curse against himself, at the time that he usurped the
Kingdom of Heaven from Kronos, so saying that one of his sons would surpass him.
Zeus, more like and earthly king, (such as Nimrod, Pharaoh, or Herod,) than a
god, did not know who this son, or his mother, was going to be, but Prometheus
was a great prophet, he knew, and Zeus wanted to find out. Zeus promised to stop
the punishment if Prometheus would only reveal the name, but Prometheus was
silent in the face of his persecutor, choosing to suffer, (for the sake of man)
and would not tell the secret, thus insuring the successful downfall of Zeus.
For more articles by John R. Salverda on the Hebraic
Connections of Greek Mythology, see:
"Helleno-Yishurin. The Hebrew Origin of Greek Legends"
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