![]() ![]() Baal, the solar deity in Canaan which after the 12 tribes of Israel conquered Canaan, they started to worship the Baals, Ashtoreth, and all the idols of those peoples. The worshipping of the Sun, dates back from the begining of History of Humankind, as testified in The Bible. Peter’s in Rome, no less-portrayed as the sun god Helios. Lest you think that all this is confined to Judaism, let me close with a picture of Jesus-under St. The ancient sculptor of the Beth Shearim sarcophagus has caught the couple in flagrante delicto! He holds her helpless breast upon his breast. The Irish poet William Butler Yeats captured the moment in a sonnet:Ī sudden blow: the great wings beating stillĪbove the staggering girl, her thighs caressedīy the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill, ![]() In Greek mythology the swan is the form that Zeus took so that he might seduce (or rape) the king’s daughter, the beautiful Leda. It also has an imposing engraved sarcophagus featuring Leda and the Swan. The catacombs are filled with Jewish symbols. Beth Shearim is famous for its underground cemetery that’s where Jews wanted to be buried when Jerusalem was no longer available. That’s where Rabbi Judah haNasi, the compiler of the Mishnah, the first comprehensive Jewish law book, lived. Beth Shearim is where the Sanhedrin, the rabbinic high court, moved after the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 C.E. ![]() Hershel ShanksĪs long as we’re on the subject, let’s go to the imposing Jewish catacombs at Beth Shearim. Sarcophagus featuring Leda and the Swan in Beth Shearim catacombs. In any event, there she is, carved in stone, plain as day. Maybe that’s why Chorazin’s congregants put her in their synagogue, as a protection against evil. ![]() Thereafter portraits of Medusa would be a talisman that protected from evil. Looking at her would turn you into stone. Medusa was a mythological female monster with snakes for hair. In another ancient synagogue (at Chorazin), it was Medusa. a It’s almost as if the congregation was feeling a little guilty about having a picture of the sun god on the synagogue floor and alleviated their guilt somewhat by picturing only the sun itself driving its chariot instead of the face of the Greek god.Įvery attempt to limit our subject has failed. In one ancient synagogue excavated in 2000 in Sepphoris, Helios is transformed instead of his image there is only a sun disk-driving the quadriga. Helios is shown in one ancient synagogue excavated in Sepphoris. Interested in mosaics and synagogue imagery? Learn more for free in the Bible History Daily posts “Jewish Worship, Pagan Symbols: Zodiac mosaics in ancient synagogues” by Walter Zanger and “A Samson Mosaic from Huqoq: An Inside Look at Discovering Ancient Synagogues with Jodi Magness.” And if you try to limit things geographically, I’ll call your attention to a text-only zodiac in the mosaic floor of the ancient synagogue at Ein Gedi on the shore of the Dead Sea. Mosaics with Helios in his quadriga were featured in half a dozen synagogues in Late Antiquity (fourth–seventh centuries C.E.) sprinkled around upper Judea. Below the Helios mosaic was an inscription thanking the good Jews who founded or contributed money to the synagogue.īut that was just the beginning. It wasn’t only that there was Helios, the Greek sun god, riding his four-horse chariot ( quadriga) right there in the middle of the zodiac, but it was featured in the center of the floor right behind a mosaic of the Torah ark that was flanked by two large menorahs. I, of course, had been thinking of the mosaic pavement of the Hammath Tiberias synagogue on the Sea of Galilee. The mosaic pavement from the Beth Alpha synagogue in Israel. ![]()
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