MOSES, ROD, SERPENT

The Bible & Ancient Myths

I'm comparing ancient myths' symbolism with Biblical statements via Searches at https://www.catastrophism.com/intro/search.cgi?zoom_query

See also https://cataclysmicearthhistory.substack.com/p/myths-about-cataclysms and https://cataclysmicearthhistory.substack.com/archive

See also Metaphysical Bible Interpretations at https://www.truthunity.net/mbi/exod.-1

MOSES' ROD/SNAKE TRICK

Old Testament Tales – Part IV & V, Moses as Magus 'A' [SIS Review]

_(Incorporating C&C Workshop 2004:4) by David Salkeld.

_[An angel] teaches Moses ([Ex.] 4:2-9) how to switch a rod into a serpent (another Har Karkom motif) and produce and cure instant leprosy' – conjuring tricks, not divine miracles. Moses teaches the signs to Aaron, who uses them to persuade the Israelites Moses is God's prophet ([Ex.] 4:30). But Moses knew that Egyptian magicians performed the rod to serpent trick, so he gets Aaron to do it at court ([Ex.] 7:10-12). The court is unimpressed, so the leprosy trick is kept for use later.

MOSES' ELECTRICAL HEALING STAFF

__The Charisma of Moses [de Grazia book]

_We should also remind ourselves of Moses' Brazen Serpent, probably his final perfected instrument of the type of the rod. Used in conjunction with the Ark, it found a place therein, and was exhibited for a long period as a healing caduceus on its own account until it was destroyed. The contraption could by itself act as an electrical sparker, and it is conceivable that it was used both for charismatic (psychosomatic) therapy and for electroshock therapy.

__KA [Book]

_To use a staff, probably to detect variations in electrical conditions, including the state of rocky ground resulting from piezo-electric effects. The sceptre could also be used, through magnetism, to move and look like a snake and to impress viewers. A contest between Moses and the Egyptian magicians Jannes and Jambres is mentioned in Old Testament, Exodus VII:10, and in New Testament, 2 Timothy III:8, and de Grazia has suggested that the brazen serpent [a staff] could have been a device for the electrical treatment of the sick.

__The Legends of the Jews: Volume III [Book]

_Adam died because he has been seduced by the serpent, whereas Moses fashioned a serpent out of brass at sight of which everyone that had been bitten by a snake recovered.

__The Celestial Ship of North Vol. I [Book]

_The Rod of Moses was fabled to have been a shoot from the Tree of Life.

MOSES & THE MOUNTAIN OF GOD

__Old Testament Tales, Part II - - Moses and History 'A' [SIS Review]

_Workshop 2004:3 (August 2004) David Salkeld. Why did Moses, who at Exodus 33 details the post-Exodus wanderings, give such a vague description of where the mountain of God lay? Moses had good reasons, as will be shown. (All subsequent references are to the Book of Exodus). After they had crossed the Sea of Passage, the Israelites started along the way of Shur (Ex. 15:22), heading for Canaan; but subsequent verses say they turned south for water. Yet they encountered, fought with and beat the Amelekites (Ex. 17) who lived in the hill country of southern Edom and would have been expected to be found in northern Sinai. Moreover, they then encamped at the mount of God – where Jethro met them (Ex. 18:5), strongly suggesting that Horeb was near Midian in NE Sinai. Because Moses mentions Rephidim in the Amalek story, Mount Sinai is usually identified with Jebel Musa near Rephidim in the SE Negev: St. Catherine's monastery was built at its foot in Byzantine times. But no traces of any pre-Byzantine occupation [have] been found in this entire area, adding to scholarly scepticism over the Exodus account. In 1983, after 29 years of archaeological work in the Sinai and Negev deserts, Professor Emmanuel Anati recognised that Har Karkom ('Saffron Mountain') in the NE Negev has all the hallmarks of the biblical Mt. Sinai. It had been a cultic and sacral mountain from Stone Age times. Anati likened it to a kind of pre-historic Mecca to whose foothills large groups of people came to worship. It lies adjacent to the way of Shur, where Amelekites coming west from their NE Negev mountain homeland would have met Israelites going east. The plateau is covered with cult and worship sites in which are over 40,000 rock art figures: some depict the rod and serpent motif ([Ex.] 7:9), tablets with ten divisions ([Ex.] 32:15) and people praying to an indefinable, abstract form. Fire used in the worship suggests the Zoroastrian cult of the Magi: was Moses a Magus? In surrounding valleys are remains of numerous late Stone Age and Bronze Age villages. Anati found twelve pillars or standing stones facing a stone platform at the foot of Har Karkom ([Ex.] 24:4).

SACRED RODS AS WORLD AXES, SERPENTS AS COMETS

__Night of the Gods: Axis Myths [Book]

_If the rod, pole, and pillar were identical emblems of the Universe-Axis, it would account for the Romans worshipping peeled posts as gods,3 and would throw a flood of light on Jacob's peeling white strikes in rods of fresh storax, almond, and plant trees (Geli. xxx, 3y). The rod of Aaron (mountain) that grew bloomed, and fruited, must clearly be connected with the marvelous Tree, the Mountain, and the Axis. The middle-age writers on the Occult4 put the divining-rod in the same category with the rod of Moses, with which he struck the rock and brought forth water; with the golden sceptre of Ahasuerus, of which Esther no sooner touched the tip than she obtained all her desires; and even with the line in Psalm xxiii thy rod and staff, they comfort me."

__The Celestial Ship of North Vol II [Books]

_The rod is that of Mercury, and sometimes is turned into the head of a serpent. The Uraeus worn on the heads of the Egyptian gods was their rod and staff of power. Taht, when keeping record of good and evil, as the recorder and reckoner of the earth, uses a sort of tally-stick, or staff. "Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me," is written in the Shepherd Psalm, and Mercury was a shepherd of the Stars. The rod of Hermes (Mercury) is a serpent symbol. The rod of Moses turned into a serpent. Taht (Mercury) wore upon his head the Ibis, and by means of the Ibis Moses saved his army from the serpents. ... In a fresco of the Second or Third Century there is a picture of Elijah ascending in his fiery chariot and the figure of Mercury (Taht) appears in the picture, "He that cometh" was a name of the Ibis of Taht (Ibis is the stork).

__The Uranians [de Grazia book]

_"Yahweh will send forth the sceptre of thy strength out of Zion" (Ps. 110: 2). Moloch and Typhon signify Lords and have sceptres too. Prehistoric stone age cultures have rods, "batons", carved with animals and occasionally with phallic shapes or as snakes, ultimately achieving the storied fame of the brazen serpent's rod of Moses [43]. Snakes appear everywhere in early human symbolism [44]. Like the rod, the cometary analogy - the writhing form slithering through the sky - is too obvious to be missed. The earliest Chinese Dragon was serpent-like but with feet.

JACOB'S COMET

__Plagues and Comets [de Grazia book]

_A star with a rod is a cometary image. So we understand Balaam the Prophet when he says: "A star shall advance from Jacob, and a staff shall rise from Israel" that will destroy Moab, Suthites, Edom and Seir [9]. Commenting upon this verse, B. Gemser explains why the word "staff" or "rod" here should actually be read as "comet." The Hebrew word [for staff] is shevet and for comet is shavit. Jacob is Israel, and "father" of the tribes of Israel out of Egypt [10]. A variety of cometary shapes with the names given them, such as "horn-star," "goats," "daggers," "serpents" etc. is offered by Pliny. He reports also "a shining comet (called Zeus' comet) whose silvery tresses glow so brightly that it is scarcely possible to look at it, and which displays within it a shape in the likeness of a man's countenance."[11] Since Yahweh watched out for them as Israel passed out of Egypt, "on this same night ... all the Israelites must keep a vigil for the Lord throughout their generations."[12] There was a physical presence in the sky, else they would have nothing to watch for. With the retirement of the original body, the anniversary merged with and strengthened the rites of spring, for the time was near the Spring equinox.