by Brian Godawa
Soon, she was caught up into a delirious stream of rapture. She completely lost herself in his hands.
She was in complete abandon.
And that was when she felt him unite with her.
She came back to earth in a moment of pain. But she knew it was only because of her virginal innocence. She had learned that much from her sister-in-law.
And as he looked into her eyes the pain withered away and was replaced by his firm and assuring security. It was all right. Everything was all right.
And then she saw in his eyes his own enraptured release.
And the two were one.
They shared bodies. They shared souls.
They shared God.
Chapter 23
Abram and Sarai walked and played and enjoyed the Garden of Eden for three days straight.
They never got dressed.
They never left their room.
And they kept some family members awake at night.
But certain other married family members were inspired and rekindled their dried out passion, learning a lesson or two from the inexperienced virginal lovers.
Chapter 24
The Jordan Valley was a resource rich river valley that traversed the land of Canaan from the foot of Mount Hermon in the north through the Salt Sea to the Red Sea in the south. The hills and mountains on the east and west side of the valley rose as high as three thousand feet and enclosed the winding river in a year round temperate climate that made it among the most desirable locations in the land.
There were thick forests in the north and some desert in the south, but nothing like Sumer and Akkad. Whereas Mesopotamia was a desert civilization that thrived on the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates, Canaan was a land of diverse conditions that relied upon rain from the heavens to bring it to life. It was hemmed in by the Mediterranean Sea on its west coast and the Arabian desert on its eastern edge. It was a different world, a different cosmos.
Along the Jordan’s western plateau was the King’s Highway, a main travel route for trading caravans and military expeditions between Egypt in the south and the Syrian Euphrates River region in the north. Whoever controlled access to the King’s Highway would be a formidable influence on commercial and political interests for Mesopotamia as well as Egypt and Syria. It was the lifeline and spine of Canaan.
In the southern region of the valley was the Salt Sea, later called, “the Dead Sea,” a vast lake so rich in mineral salts that no life could survive it. There were five great cities in this region that were around the southern shores of the sea. Each one sat along a freshwater tributary that poured into the sea. Their names were Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboiim, and Zoar. These cities had become a mighty center of wealth and power in the land of Canaan because they were situated in an area of rich natural resources that they exploited with great success.
They were called the “cities of the plain” because they surrounded the Valley of Siddim, a vast flat plain of bitumen pits that became a mining resource of asphalt and pitch for the inhabitants. The five cities united in controlling the area for its bitumen extraction as well as salt exports from the sea, and copper mining just south of the plains.
It was an aggregation of natural resources with massive economic wealth that was fast degenerating into poverty because the coalition of five cities had become a pentapolis of wickedness.
A generation ago, the area had been secured by the goddess Ashtart with the approval of the local deities under Mastema’s influence. Most of Canaan was loose tribes and confederations of clans with a few towns and villages, but few cities like Jericho. Ashtart would craft her new urban landscape by raising up puppet rulers that she could manipulate. If you wanted to control a people, it could only happen through cities. People who lived in rural areas were too independent and family reliant to be indoctrinated into one way of thinking and therefore would be difficult to be centrally controlled. A city could breed and fester that singular mentality with the replacement of family and community reliance with government reliance. The closer and tighter a population in its living and working existence, the more hive-like it became, and therefore controllable by a queen bee — in this case, Ashtart.
But herein lay her problem: She needed wealth to build her pentapolis of power, but the profit incentive required to build that wealth was diametrically opposed to the hegemony of power needed to control the populace. So she crafted a new advanced version of a strategy she had attempted before the Deluge.
First, she advised the kings to build mining businesses for the copper, bitumen, and salt rich resources in their area and place them in the hands of owners. This allowed the owners and workers to make a profit for themselves, which inspired hard work, innovation, and rapid expansion of the business and the riches of the entire city. Everyone benefited. Those who were leaders and took risk were rewarded, and in return they were able to hire more of the poor, which elevated everyone’s status.
The unfortunate result of wealth creation on the workers and owners was a spirit of independence and a love of freedom. This would not do for Ashtart. So she had the kings enforce laws that abolished the carrying of all weapons within the city limits. Only the government soldiers could carry them. And they conditioned the people to accept this outrageous infringement through a propaganda campaign labeling the pentapolis as the “Cities of Love.” This slogan would come in handy later for her ultimate goal, but it served the moment to label those with weapons as violent haters. The populace had no idea its actual intent was to keep them indefensible against the tyranny of the city-state rulers and their god.
Once the area built up a vast amount of wealth, the cities grew exponentially in population, and Ashtart had what she needed for her plan. Next, she had the kings continue to increase taxes on the citizens in the name of public services provided by the royal palace and holy temple. She found she could tax the wealthy business owners at higher percentage rates than others if the kings would tell the commoners that it was only fair since the rich had more money. And it worked. Nobody saw the obvious unfairness of such a scheme because of their personal greed and envy of those above them. The genius of feeding self-righteous hatred of “external oppressors” was its ability to take the eyes off the individual’s own vices, which set the stage for unprecedented domination. Ashtart knew human nature well and how to exploit its essential selfish character.
Of course the royal government rulers were not part of this “wealthy elite,” they were the exception; since someone had to rule and it required a lot of money to do so.
Once, the taxes got as high as ninety percent of the income of the businesses, it was a simple act to justify the city-state taking over the mining operations in the interest of “the people,” which amounted to the interest of Ashtart. After all, the mining operations were brutal on the workers and they were also ruining the sea, the plains and the beauty of the Valley of Siddim. The kings promised that they would redistribute all the wealth from the businesses to the workers who deserved it. Then everyone would be equal.
What actually happened was that the royal confiscation of wealth flowed into the government coffers and funded an ever-increasing government the size of Leviathan with a royal government security force to match. Everyone was indeed equal – equally dependent on the city-state for every aspect of their lives, while the rulers were more equal than others because as Ashtart would often say, “Someone had to engage in the difficult task of administrative bureaucracy and protection of the people from themselves.”
The five kings then pooled their armed resources to control the King’s Highway just to the east of the plains. This allowed them extra wealth from trade import and export taxes. Since the Highway was the dominant trade route from north to south, their wealth grew even stronger.
Unfortunately, thirteen years earlier, Nimrod had sent King Chedorlaomer of Elam to conquer the region and extract his own taxes from the pentapolis as well as a cut of their natural resources of bitumen, salt, and co
pper. Ashtart stayed out of it. She knew better than to defy this earthly potentate, because it might bring the entire pantheon down on her head if she did. She figured that she would allow the emperor his due as long as it did not interfere with the second phase of her own diabolical scheme.
That second phase was to fill the land with giants — the Nephilim. She had brought Canaan ben Ham, the cursed son of Noah whose blood had been altered to carry the Nephilim genes essential for her infiltration. Canaan’s seedline would be the quintessential enemy of the blessed seedline that was even now being nurtured somewhere on the earth.
But this time, it would be more inconspicuous. Breeding would not be achieved through angelic copulation with humans and it would not be done all over the earth, because that approach brought the Deluge last time. This time, she would use artificial selection to breed giants through the bloodline of Canaan and spread their offspring throughout the land. She found several women with the blood of Nephilim in them to sire Canaan’s growing clans. Within the first generation, he had already given birth to the fledgling clans of Girgashites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, Arkites, Sinites, and Jebusites. But he was also interbreeding with the Hittites and Amorites. Their territories reached from Sidon and Mount Hermon in the north all the way down to Gaza and the Valley of Siddim in the south.
Ashtart was no upstart strategist. She knew that it was not enough to breed clans of giants. She had to propagate a religious belief system that would drive them to hate their Creator. Her goal was to violate all boundaries of distinction because this was the natural order of Elohim’s creation.
First, she had the kings pass laws abolishing all distinctions as oppressive and illegal. There was to be no rich and poor, for all were equal; no male and female for all were human; no human and animal for we were all one chain of being; no moral right and wrong, for all was freedom.
Next, she returned to the slogan of the pentapolis, “Cities of Love,” which used to mean a culture of compassion and equality. But language was permeable, and language was also a means of controlling the minds of the populace. So “Cities of Love” was changed to mean sexual freedom, the ability to copulate with anyone and anything that one could imagine without moral condemnation.
Rather than abolish marriage, which could cause too much a stir in their small minds, Ashtart made the king pass laws that legalized marriage between any two or more beings in love. First was polygamy, for those who loved many women; then there was marriage between consenting men or consenting women, since there was no difference between the sexes; then came incestuous marriage between consenting family members who loved each other; then logically between consenting adults and children; and finally, marriage between consenting humans and animals in love.
Of course marriage was not a necessity, in fact, it was discouraged and fornication between all objects and things was encouraged as a pastime of amusement. Some temple prostitutes would have contests between themselves over how many patrons they could copulate with in a twenty-four hour period. They would strap themselves into the sacred marriage altar and men and women would line up for blocks just to participate in a sequential orgy of fornication. There was even a holy partition of the temple with small holes dug into the ground so that some could have sex with the earth to display their love of the mother earth goddess.
Ashtart’s secondary purpose was to debase the image of Elohim in mankind through carnal intercourse with everything unnatural or inhuman. It would bring humanity down from its lofty heights of dominion over creation and suck them into the muck and slime. She so hated the Creator and wanted to spit in his face, that she inspired the hatred of all that was good and beautiful in the human in the name of “love.” The delicious irony was that she had created cities of hate masquerading as “Cities of Love.”
At the apex of all this sexual freedom was the ultimate goal of Ashtart: Sexual congregation with the gods. Eliminate all separation between gods and men. She invited select gods of Canaan – Molech, Dagon, and Asherah – to join her in the covert activity of breeding with the daughters of men. But they were unwilling, out of fear for reprise from Elohim. The Deluge judgment was still too vivid in their memories. So Ashtart cursed them and pursued her agenda alone, as she felt she always had to.
She would impregnate the women as a holy honor of the gods, and when her giant progeny was born, she would send them to tribes around Canaan to rise as mighty warriors and rulers. It would take many generations for Ashtart’s plan to bear the fruit she wanted, but she was patient. She had learned much about patience through the failure of her past exploits: The Gigantomachy, the Titanomachy, and the other wars of the antediluvian age were all consummate failures because the pantheon overreached and were too aggressive in their goals.
This time, she would be the fulfillment of the prophecy instead of its judgment. This time, she would breed the Seed of Nachash that was prophesied to war with the Seed of Eve, and she would do so subtley, without drawing attention through fanfare and flaunting. Elohim had allowed too much freedom in his creation, and he would one day regret it as he regretted making man the first time. But this time, he could not flood the earth to wipe away his mistakes, because he had made a promise, and he could not break his promises.
And all this, Ashtart had accomplished in a mere fifty years. She imagined what she could accomplish in five hundred.
Chapter 25
The arrival of Nimrod to his vassal city of Ur was greeted with great fanfare. The king met him at the gate with a marching band of musicians and a chorus of dancing temple virgins, many of whom would lose their virginity to the king that evening, and probably their lives as well, since Mardon accompanied the king’s retinue.
They travelled the Processional Way amidst the crowd of cheering Urukeans, and took up residence in the royal palace in the temple precinct.
Abram and Sarai did not join the rest of the family at the triumphal entry. Lot was allowed to stay behind with them. He was endearing to Abram. He thought Lot had much potential because of his ambition. But he also had a weakness in that ambition. His passionate yearning for a life of adventure and experience came from a desire to be free from the constraints of his life. The institutions of society — his family, his community, norms of propriety — all made him feel constricted. He felt that boundaries were meant to control him, to keep him from happiness, rather than to protect him by keeping him within the safe parameters of the Creator’s intent for his life.
Lot also had a fascination with darkness that seemed unhealthy to Abram. The music he enjoyed was the erotic deliberately off-key music played at brothel precincts of the city. Abram had the distinct sense that Lot was not innocent. That he had too much of a familiarity with the temple prostitutes, who seemed to wink and wave at him whenever he passed by, as if they knew him well. During the time Abram had stayed with the family, he had to pull Lot out of one of the theaters that was performing bizarre orgiastic plays that had little to do with drama and moral character.
Abram was alone in his room praying over how he might be an example of godliness for Lot when the thought occurred to him that his father would be returning soon from the triumphal entry to prepare for the arrival feast with the king.
He thought, I had better get ready.
Terah prepared to meet the king that night during the feast. It was to be a celebration at the ziggurat and an announcement of the next Akitu Festival in Babylon, a month away. Terah genuflected before his family teraphim in the shrine room and performed ritual incantations in honor of their zodiacal involvement.
Terah suddenly noticed Abram watching him from the shadows.
“Abram?” he called out.
Abram stepped out of the darkness.
“Leaving no stone unturned?” quipped Abram. “One idol for each month. Twelve months in the year.”
“Twelve days in the Akitu Festival,” added Terah.
“Of course, the exaltation of that blowhard Marduk,” said Abram.
“Watch your mouth,” said Terah. “I expect you to leave quietly without King Nimrod’s knowledge. You will at least grant me that respect.”
Abram looked sadly into Terah’s eyes. “Father, it is so hard to respect you when you have sold your soul into spiritual slavery.”
Terah was angry. “I should never have given you to Noah ben Lamech. He turned you into an intolerant hateful zealot of this El Shaddai deity.”
But a tear slid down Abram’s cheek. His heart was breaking.
“I have my gods, and you have yours,” said Terah. “Please just leave me alone, Abram. Go.”
Abram left the room and Terah returned to his worship.
After Terah left for the royal feast, Abram went to Eliana and Sarai and asked them to take a kid from the flock and make a savory meat dish for him. He wanted to put an offering before the gods of the household so that he might become more acceptable to them.
Sarai stared at him with shock. What did he think he was doing? Had he compromised his god because of his desire to be loved by his father? Had she been wrong in her judge of his character?
They prepared the kid and gave Abram the meal. He then divided it up into twelve plates, one for each of the gods and sat before them waiting.
After an hour, Sarai came to him. “Abram, my love, what are you doing?”
Abram turned to her and said, “Proving a point.”
“What point is that?” she inquired.
“That these idols of stone and wood have mouths that cannot speak, eyes that cannot see, ears that cannot hear, hands that cannot feel, and legs which cannot move.”
“Have we not believed as much?” she said.
Abram stood up from his seated position, and she could see a strong axe in his hand.
“Abram, what are you going to do?” she said.