Jesus the Child

Jesus was once a child. The Bible is a bit sparse on this period of Jesus's life. However, there are many other historic documents that fill in the gaps. Father Roten and Father Janssen of the University of Dayton have compiled some of those sources for curious readers on the University website. From the Fathers' research:

"Again on Sabbath , Jesus and some boys made fish ponds. The son of Hanan became angry at their working the Sabbath... Hanan kicked the pond of Jesus and the water spilled away. But Jesus told him that as the water vanished away so shall his life. (Arabic Infancy Gospel, 46)

"One of the children moved with envy about the passages for water and overthrew what Jesus had built up. Jesus caused him to die. (Ps Matthew 26)

"Jesus, playing outside his home made pools of water, but another child of Annas came and broke up the pools. Jesus complained, “You shall not go on your way, and you shall dry up like a stick”… The father came and complained to Joseph about his dead child. (Infancy Gospel of Thomas)

"The son of Annas came and destroyed the work of Jesus…And Jesus said: “May you be as a little branch that falls before its fruit.” The boy collapsed like a withered twig. (Irish Versified narrative, 1-10)

Jesus the Child original painting, prints, and merch available in shop or through RedBubble or Fine Art America.

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Asherah

An inscription from Khirbet El-Qôm (near Jerusalem) dated to the 700s BCE and translated by archaeologist Judith Hadley reads, "Uriyahu the Rich wrote it. Blessed be Uriyahu by Yahweh for from his enemies by his Asherah he has saved him by Oniyahu by his Asherah and by his A[she]rah.” ( Source ) Asherah was the Great Goddess of the Ancient Near East. From this inscription and other evidence, it is surmised that Yahweh, the God of the Jews, once had a wife - Asherah. Asherah was also sometimes known as Astarte and was associated with lions and the planet Venus, like her relative, Ishtar/Inanna. Asherah's symbol was the tree of life, and her worship involved sacred groves and asherah poles. Asherah original painting available through Saatchi Art . Stickers, prints, and other merch available in shop or through RedBubble or Fine Art America. All of the Asherahs in my painting are based on figurines housed in the Isra...

Al-Lat

Al-Lat was the Great Mother Goddess of pre-Islamic Arabia. She was worshipped at the Kaaba in Mecca until the city was conquered in 630 AD by Muhammed. ( source ) Yes...that Kaaba, where Allah is now worshipped. She was rewritten as a daughter of Allah and a djinn, but was also considered to be Allah's wife, consort, or feminine aspect. Or...is she the root from which Allah evolved? In the Quran, Allah is not referred to by gendered pronouns. Is Allah a Great Mother Goddess? insert shrug emoji here. Al-Lat original painting based on a bas relief from Palmyra. Original painting, prints, and merch available in shop or through RedBubble or Fine Art America . J ohanna-Hypatia Cybeleia offers the following evidence. "Although the word ka‘bah itself means 'cube', it is very close to the word ku‘b meaning 'woman's breast' which is derived from the same three-letter root. This turns out to be an appropriate metaphor, as the Ka‘bah nu...

The Loftus "Princess"

In Northumbria, in the U.K., near the North Sea coastline, is an archaeological site near the town of Loftus. It contains a circular enclosure of post holes surrounding a raised center, dated to 2200 BCE. It is thought to have been a ritual site. Other structures at the site include the "Oldest House", which predates Stonehenge. In addition the Neolithic ceremonial site, the area was also the site of an Iron Age settlement. Superimposed, cutting through the Iron Age houses, 109 early medieval graves have been found. "Each was dug carefully into the ground to allow enough room for a body to be laid in the foetal position on its side....Beads, scraps of metal, parts of eroded weapons all suggested that these burials were not Iron Age, but more recent....more excitingly still, they seemed to date from a period when this part of the north of England was undergoing an ideological revolution. They dated from when Christianity was putting i...

Sophia and the Apocryphon of John

In 1945, thirteen leather-bound papyrus codices buried in a sealed jar were found by an Egyptian farmer near the town of Nag Hammadi, Egypt. These early Christian texts date from the 3rd century CE, and include writings attributed to John the Baptist. The writings of John became known as the Secret Book of John, or the Apocryphon of John. A translation by Frederik Wisse can be read online . In the Apocryphon, there is a female counterpart to the Father - the holy Mother, Barbelo. "She is the forethought of the All - her light shines like his light - the perfect power... The first power, the glory of Barbelo, the perfect glory in the aeons, the glory of the revelation... she became the womb of everything, for it is she who is prior to them all, the Mother-Father." I became aware of the Apocryphon of John after reading a graphic novel by Marisa Acocella, The Big She-Bang, The Herstory of the Universe According to God the Mother (highly recommended, by ...

Malakas and Maganda

Malakas and Maganda are a mythical couple from the Philippines. In the beginning, there was nothing but sea, sky, and a kite bird. The kite bird tired, so she stirred up the sea and sky into a furious battle. The sky threw down boulders, creating islands. The land breeze and the sea breeze had a child, bamboo. Bamboo struck the kite bird accidentally, so the kite attacked the bamboo, pecking until it split open, revealing the first woman and the first man. Maganda, meaning beautiful, and Malakas, meaning strong. Malakas and Maganda original painting, prints, and merch available via shop link above, or through RedBubble or Fine Art America . Sources: http://bakitwhy.com/articles/ancient-philippine-creation-myth-malakas-and-maganda https://pantheon.org/articles/m/malakas.html

Bucranium = Uterus

A bucranium is a bull's head and horns. Bucrania have been found in shrines at Catalhoyuk, one the oldest cities ever to be excavated. Dorothy Cameron interpreted the bucrania at Catalhoyuk as a "symbol of life and regeneration--essentially a female symbol, representing the divine power of the female reproductive system." Bucranium = Uterus original painting, prints, and merch available in shop or through RedBubble or Fine Art America . Layout of bucrania based on a drawing of a reconstruction of Shrine E VI at the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in a 2007 article by Joan Relke (below). Source Marija Gimbutas writes, "the key to understanding Neolithic renditions of the bull's head and horns (bucranium in archaeological literature) comes through their resemblance to the female uterus and fallopian tubes." Besides the bucrania from Shine E VI, other images at Catalhoyuk show female torsos with bucranium in the position of the uterus an...

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