In the earliest cases for “beginnings” of gods, demons, etc. one demon god comes to mind simply because of his primacy, simpleness and relatableness to many ‘next generation’ shamanistic and quasi religious practices that sprung from the primal ‘dung heap’ as him. His name is many but one of his earliest names is “ Beelzebub, the Chief of Demons”. The earliest name for Satan was the root word “SHT”
which literally means, “shit”
The richness and thickness of the primary belief in this dung god is that he is a myth housed in the simpleness and ‘ordinariness’ of life by which a “primitive” might have believed.
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Proto Uralic Saksa – filthy; unclean/ SIT – to bind/ SITTA – (slang) shit/ SIJTE – Grove – offering place (garden)/ SIB (as in the Philistine “FLY” – Lord of the Flies) ‘to cast a spell”
Sumerian —-Shesh’ (all Sumerian words received from the P.Uralic and arer represented here for 1) filthy 2) bind 3) (slang) ‘shit’ 4) Grove/ Garden/’offering place 5) ‘fly’ (as pestilence) are cognates to the Proto Uralic, Ugric, and Finnic (Finnish) — i.e., Sumerian matches the P.U., Ugric, and Finnish — even nearing in spelling (Grimm’s equivalents)
Ugric Shosh (same meaning as above)
Finnish tade, tadeh (same as above)
*In each case, the morphology of Saksa and Sit do fit the original meaning for “shit” as ‘unclean, Hebrew “corban”, “dung”, “filthy”, etc.
The Arabic borrowed this later meaning, Shaytan or Satan, and once again, loaned it into the later medieval Hebrew language – which reinforced it as a Word of Assimilation into the Hebrew Culture. Yes, the Hebrew translators could have used “SHT” for a more contextually fitting “SHT” – i.e., “satan” – versus our modern ‘rogue actor of evil’. This is, for sure is a result of the Babylonian influence on the Hebrew Pharisees in Babylon which ‘borrowed’ this word and I believe has caused our modern Church to be ‘dualistic’ and corrupt.
It is my contention that the Aramaic from the Peshito in Christ’s words must be brought in concerning Be’elzebub. In Matthew 12 of the Peshito (Aramaic Gospel Text) Jesus employs the word “bab’el-zebub” for Ba’alzebub or Ba’alzebul. I have read numerous references to the name. The most simple is “Ba’al’s Dwelling”. In the pagan Roman world during Christ’s days on earth, many pagan idol worshipers “housed” their gods. Interestingly, as a tabla player, I have played Indian music at several concerts called “Bhajeons” which loosely mean, “a music flow jam session for the gods” or god, deity, etc. of focus in that particular house. Further, I know of some very wealthy Indians who buy homes for their deity or deities. This is not too far off from Greek and Roman idol worship in their housings or temples. Nor is it too far off from Catholic images or icons such as Mary or any of the apostles taking ‘sainted’ status. I tread on dangerous ground in that I am not Catholic, Hindu worshiper. Yet, I find some “kind” of merit in these icons by what they do for those who use them to ‘shoot past’ the dead thing to an alive idea. This kind of worship seems to attract the tactile senses by which we primitively seek. Oddly, I find myself seeking this kind of primacy through words hoping to find a ‘tactileness’ to the weightiness of their meanings and unions with a grander Theology. The Medieval Latin word
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I use “primitive” in the jocund, rather my view is that “primitive” should mean ‘a holy approach, whole approach, pure, without mixture, without double vision, etc.”. Therefore, “primitive” means ‘in the genius of the minds of that time long forgotten’ and not as a derogatory nor ‘backwards’ definition.
Furthermore, such ‘primitives’ would have, with simple clarity, associated such abstract notions as unitive or singular. Their collective and multidimensional (as we see the world now) world was without the fatigue of one important fallacy: the ‘knowledge’ of *good and evil*.
As in the story of Adam and Eve after they took of the ‘forbidden fruit’ they had their ‘eyes opened’ and could see good *and* evil. They were both under judgment and did judge. They became ‘as gods’ as The Satan said they would. This double vision wasn’t always so and neither was the view of the ‘dung god’ which was naturally born in the mind of earlier man. If something would take flies away from your village you would reckon it to a force that worked in that way. You would regard it with value and over time venerate it.
THE DUNG GOD’S EARLY REPRESENTATIONS
The “dung god” or “fly god”, Beelzebub, seems to be first built upon its sound and then the word-representation of such a sound via onomatopoeia. In the Kartvelian 3 , Georgian, and Sumerian 4 (all dating to at least 4,000 B.C.E.) we have the onomatopoeic “bzz, blzz, v’v, etc. which was used in such ancient kingdoms to represent a pestilent bug, especially that of the fly.
Words beginning with natural representations such as bird, river, tree, rock, bug, etc. also carried ‘associative name sounds’ or abstract meanings by which they move, act, ‘are as’, etc. Such words can become, over a process of time, assumed social memes. Furthermore, these social memes can be culturally integrated into the fantastic. I use the word ‘fantastic’ in the Tolkien sense here to explain such examples of fables and superstitious associations. Both Tolkien’s view of ‘temporary suspension of disbelief of the ordinary mundane world fused with Owen Barfield’s “collective representation” we can find an early world by which pestilence is related to the sound and name is of the ‘name-sound-thing’ called “Baal-zebub”. Such acts were
not view as efforts but rather as assimilation into a self-referencing tribal colony.
Therefore, ‘name-sound-thing’, in many early cultures, is one and the same. These societal associations can be hard to detach. Such associations become what we call endonyms, or insular socially based names. These can represent particulars which are a part of insular social structures.
From there, linguists can study cultures of focus for their semiotic usages such as signs and symbols by which they once upon a time were interpreted within their mythology/ideology/ theology/ sociology, etc. These phenomena do take ‘body’ or ‘social anima’ wherewith a particular culture can participate in its daily activities.
Such representations are found in 2 Kings 1:2 where the King of Israel, Ahaziah, fell through a roof injuring himself. Ahaziah, the King of Israel – knowing YHWH, calls on the god of the flies instead of YHWH. This god of Ekron called Be’el-zebub (god of flies) was an interesting social
4 Simo Parpola’s Sumerian etymologies; volume 3
3 Klimov’s Kartvelian etymologies
god that allows for us to view Ancient Near East primitive beliefs that many others believed in at that time, both Israelites and Philistines. It is interesting that the ‘type’ of injury was somehow addressed by Ahaziah as an injury that Beelzebub could fix. We see that Ahaziah’s belief was in Beelzebub’s ability to ‘take away’ an injury.
The boar is considered a ‘cthonic’ taxi into hell. Dr. Marija Gimbutas and Ted Hughes do quite an extensive treatment on the boar as the taxi which ‘takes away’ and ‘puts into hell’ some-thing. This belief can be read in William Golding’s, “Lord of the Flies”. Such a demon and god are interchangeable with Beelzebub, Lord of the Flies, the dung god, and reaching back to Biblical stories – the god of Ekron.
As Ahaziah, the King of Israel, believed that Beelzeb could “take away” his injury we can see this same belief predating the Bible in ancient Canaan and post dating Jesus’ scenario concerning powers of bind and loosing and attributions to Beelzebub 5 . Again, we see a rich verbal imagery in the Lord of the Flies represented as the Boar’s head who could take the flies ‘away’ from the camp and give ‘power’ to the leader of the group who was maddened with a “faux primacy”. Brilliant was William Golding to bring this out within his story for we have no recourse but chaos when our eyes are blinded to order. So, in the antimony of *God as Satan* we can see that we come to a seeming crux that is eliminated by Narrative such as in Job. The story begins with ‘representations’ of ‘evil’ as a rogue or roving Satan nearly ending Job’s existence to the end of the book of Job where it was GOD-YHWH all along Who did this destruction to Job *unto* Job’s betterment and rectification with God.
I find this so interesting when reading the Bible in Isaiah 45: 7, Romans 13:1-ff, and Colosians 1:16-17 that ALL THINGS ‘good and evil (both representing to us)’ are from, by, made for, made of, fulfilled in, determined by the LORD. Where is there dichotomy? Where is there room for dualism? Who can oppose the Prime Mover, the Only Mover, The Verb of all things?
Literary mechanisms for indefinable comprehensions
JESUS AS A BEELZEBUB
5 Grimm’s “Teutonic Mythology; volume 3; pages 998 and 99 we see the ‘shape’ of the devil as a fly. In the LXX, Jacob Grimm quotes 2 Kings 1, 2 as Baal-zeebub to be called in the Greek Baial muia, i.e. the fly god. In the ancient religion of Zoroastrianism (possibly dating back as far as 2,000 B.C.) we see the defiant spirit against Ahura Mazda known as the ‘devil’ named Ahriman. Ahriman is seen in the shape of a fly. In Lithuania, there is a myth of mussu birbiks – fly god. Such a god is usually found buzzing and blowing. Fairytales from Germany hold that diabolic spirits can be held in glass or “phials” (vials) as “flies”. Loki turned into a fly or ‘fluga’ when defrauding Freyja. A Lombard myth found in Paul Diac. 6:6 of the ‘malignus spiritus’ who settles on the window as a fly and gets a leg chopped off. Loki as a fly can get through keyholes (Norske folktales). Grimm’s “Teutonic Mythology; volume 4; pages 1604 and 1605 give us Belsebuc in the fragments of Madelghis. Referenced as “a fly such as a spirit shut up in a glass”. Hence, the myth “there’s a devil in the glass”.
Jesus was reproached as prophetically found ca 750 years prior Jesus’ stay on this earth in Isaiah 53. As we read from Isaiah 53 in paraphrase: “we esteemed HIM not as HE was stricken but that we knew HE was God’s anointed”. Isaiah tells us that we loved to cast our evils on Him — likened to Ahaziah’s view of Beelzebub . In Potts’ “Bible Proper Names” he says that Baalzebub was a “God of wandering” (vagationis, vel muscarum) as flies ‘wander’. Going “to and fro”, “roving”; the raven’s eye that scans back and forth. Josephus says in his Antiquities 9,2,1 says that King Ahaziah sent his ‘sickness’ (as a thing) to THE FLY’ <- that is, the god of Ekron was the ‘caster’, ‘carrier’, ‘exorcist’ and ‘receiver’. So, the god Baalzebub was viewed as the god of healing to Ahaziah. So, Beelzebub represented a ‘healing aspect’ to Ahaziah while reigning as king under the God of Israel which was YHWH.
Likened to Ahaziah’s beliefs, the Pharisees shared somewhat a muddled view of Jesus and blamed Jesus as the Lord of the Flies for Jesus could ‘take’ the disease from and (I assume) take the disease upon Himself ——making Him both a healer and an unclean thing (according to the Pharisees’ accusations).
COMPLEXITY ABOVE REASON TO THE PHARISEES
The complexity lies in the fulfillment of the One who would ‘loose’ or ‘release’ the ‘binding’ by which mankind has been ‘bound’ in prison to, i.e., sin. The exorcisms Jesus did were an ‘outward manifestation’ of the power that He held and could consistently do. The intriguing tie in between the word ‘cast out’ in Greek ( *ekballo* ek {out} + ballo {cast}) and exorcise gets close to the primitive view of Beelzebub. The Pharisees were relegating Jesus’ works to Beelzebub because many fallen men of Israel such as Israel’s king, Ahaziah, actually believed that Beelzebub could ‘exorcise’ or ‘cast out’ or ‘take away’ an evil spirit.
Already we are dealing with the Pharisees misunderstanding that “evil (Ra’ah – ‘destruction’) ” is ordained by God and that in their misunderstanding of the total Sovereignty of God, they fall into dualism making the world a good and evil place by which They can judge.
The Reason that Jesus brings is brilliant in Matthew 12:24. Jesus takes Sovereign Reason to the Pharisees. He shows the difference between “casting” and “loosing”. Again, ‘casting’ was believed to be an attribute of Beelzebub and to many Shamans throughout time. Whether they be smoke and ladders or ‘real’, Jesus showed His ‘casting’ to be consistent as (1) The Power of God (2) In respect by which most Jewish exorcist thought was the proper procedure.
Point number two was made by Jesus in order that He not stick out of the crowd as being anything more than a Jewish exorcist. But, it was the fulfillment of loosing that only Jesus had to release what His Father in Heaven had bound. In this, Jesus would *show* not only His title as exorcist but as Healer and fulfiller of Joel’s prophecy as the forerunner to the Holy Ghost Who would continue the work of God until the Kingdom of God be complete on this earth.
Jesus addresses the Pharisees’ blindness of the Kingdom of Heaven that the Pharisees claimed to be, i.e., the kingdom of heaven. It takes a complete understanding of the distinction between ‘casting’ and ‘exorcising’ to understand the ignorant judgments made by the Pharisees concerning Jesus ‘casting out’ as using Beelzebub’s spirit to exorcise when in totality, Jesus was ‘loosing’ spiritually and prophetically, though ‘casting out’ physically.
Here is my paraphrased attempt at Jesus’ famous words to the Pharisees based on Matthew 12:24 and following. I attempted to put in historical, social, prophetical and linguistic interpolations to bring a modern coherency for my understanding. My paraphrastic attempt here is ONLY for my inability to read rough-shod over these verses and ‘get it’.
“ Oh, you wretched Pharisees! How can an unclean thing cast out an unclean thing? How can Satan cast out Satan lest his house collapse? If I am Satan WHY am I casting out Satan lest I fall? What do you think I am doing then? Can you not see the incoherency in your Idle words? If I cast out devils being a devil then who’s authority (shem) do your children (disciples) cast out devils by? Am I not a Jew? Therefore, what ‘standard’ is held to the Jews to be an exorcist? Am I not exorcising before you? Do you not optically see the healing of this demoniac? Is there more to me than just me being a Jewish exorcist? What draws you to me, a Jewish Exorcist who is actually doing his job correctly and by the book? Am I not doing legitimate exorcisms?Do you
not see the miracles I do in the physical world before you? Do your eyes betray you? In contrast, are other Jews displaying this power? Are there other Jews in the name of the law and not the prophets that are doing the same things as I? In contrast, are there successful exorcists using My Name who are completing these same miracles? Yes, there are! Would you argue that they are not? Are they working or not?
I say that there is not only the physical miracle that your eyes see before you here and now but the fulfillment of the Kingdom of God which was prophesied to come. I am that fulfillment of prophecy. It is now which the prophets spoke of. I justify not only my acts of exorcism, but the fulfillment of binding and loosing by which you claim to understand. I am releasing – loosing that which was put into binding by My Father in order to show prophecy’s fulfillment. It is Me and My Kingdom, my Children of My Authority, that are fulfilling not only All Righteousness but the
grasping for hope in a failing pagan’s idea of just who Beelzebub was supposed to be for them. Just and true is judgment and fulfillment of prophecy here and now. I am the Judgment. I am the answer for the Prophets of the Jews and the fallen pagans of this world who were bound to find a ‘representation’ of a savior type.
Until your time and your children’s *time* has come, your children shall be without knowledge feigning your judgment. They shall be your exorcists feigning you to be exorcised or exorcising someone that is not needing such an exorcism. You feign loosing and binding yet have no understanding of this time at hand to fulfill such prophecies that Joel spoke of. It is I which is in agreement with what My Father and the Holy Spirit do.
Yet, for now, you define whatever ‘evil and good’ means to you and you teach it to your followers. But as to your followers, students and future Pharisees who watch and hear me teach the Gospel and then listen and watch you incessantly contradict yourselves, they will remember my Words to see if your words and your actions hold up. They will see which is evil and good – i.e., that which builds up and that which breaks down upon itself. To those who are two fold the children of blindness that you teach, they will either judge you by my words, wittingly or unwittingly, or they will judge you by what you call devilish and judge you by the confusion which you have taught them. Loosing and binding is Joel’s prophecy concerning now. I AM the fulfillment of God’s Will that by the Holy Ghost I shall cast out that which is bound by God. You condemn the very Spirit by which I cast out. If I cast out by the Spirit of God then the Kingdom of God has come upon you and you are already judged. Again, you call yourselves the Kingdom of God, yet ironically enough, you are already in Judgement since I AM the Judgement. All is exorcised now and judgment is already done for I AM the Judgement. Therefore, If I come “casting out devils” then I am here to cast you out. Yet, this is not what I am doing. I am releasing the bindings by which my Father established in order that I might show the Power of the Kingdom of God is here and now with me. You are either with me or not. You either gather or scatter. But don’t you dare mock the Holy Spirit which releases those who are captive in this world with many sins too grievous to bear. I am here for my little ones who will follow in My Shem – My authority! You can mock me as a man but you will not be forgiven in this life nor the next if you mock the Holy Spirit which works in me. Nonetheless, you are vipers. Nothing good comes out of your muddled hearts, minds, mouths… you lay in wait to strike, injure, maim, kill. For whatever your heart is, your words will reflect your heart. For your words will either justify you or condemn you”.
THE SUFFERANCE AND GENTLENESS OF JESUS AS EXORCIST
There’s a hint that I get in the Gospels where Jesus heals but is fulfilling the act for what man has staged. This may be way out of line at this juncture but I wouldn’t oppose this hypothesis right now since the “Logia or Memra” brings us to this juncture: *of all the ‘powers that be’ – (Greek:‘exousia’) they are indeed of God…so, how could God be casting His own works out? Jesus makes this clear to the Pharisees. Why would He loose and bind at random? He wouldn’t. Jesus told the Pharisees that they make laws and break them —all which make life unbearable
to the sons and daughters of the Pharisees- spiritually speaking. Why shouldn’t there be binding of HIS own accord? Wouldn’t this fit the schemata for all of the Old Testament Evil Spirits or Satans? That is, the demons, evil spirits, Satans, etc. were nothing more than Secretaries, Agents, “The Hands”, “The Eyes”, etc. of the LORD. Wouldn’t exorcism, therefore, be the loosing of the necessary binding that God put on mankind for a while? A binding to make those who were most bound most thankful? I couldn’t argue against this in the field of Sovereign thought. Could it be, in my final thoughts, that Jesus was gentle with the mysticisms of HIS day and that HE did not ‘break the traditions of men by doing something different according to the formulas for exorcisms but rather had the REAL POWER to exorcise?
Also, Christianity had not begun as we call Christianity. Jesus was a Jew preaching the “euhados” or the “well way”. So, the Pharisees would have to mete out with their judgment with the same scrupulosity that they gave Jesus. If the other Jewish exorcists weren’t casting out or loosing the demons how much more judgment should they meet out! Than Jesus? If they didn’t then the inequity of their judgment would proclaim their hypocrisy and Jesus’ Godhood. Concerning not only the potency of Jesus’ exorcism power His ‘style’ would have shamed the snakes and ladders show with His meekness.
I say that Jesus gently respected and implemented the idea of ‘formulae’ for exorcisms as understood by 1st century Chrestoi and Jews. Jesus did the formulae revealing His sufferance to the incompleteness of such mysticisms within exorcisms. This earmarks the title of Son of Man where He took on all of the fallacies of man while His title “Son of God” is His authority over Heaven and earth. ///// Yet, by His true healing hand did He fulfill and reveal His role and the role of the Holy Spirit in the prophecy of Joel 2:25 – 32. This passage is somewhat shroudedin apocalyptic verbiage but is fulfilled soon after Jesus’ resurrection in Acts 1:11.
The Holy Spirit is doing His work now on earth to confirm the power of healing, exorcisms, preaching the Gospel through the Martyrs of the first century Church with signs and wonders. The Holy Spirit’s power at that time (ca. 35 A.D. to 100 A.D.) was expressed in Palestine and in foreign lands. They continued Jesus’ work by casting out or ‘loosing’ those who were ‘bound’ to a littany of sin. They experienced hearing the Gospel in foreign languages that are intelligible and understood.
Therefore, Jesus’ binding the ‘demon possessed’ would be ‘loosed’ by the First Church Martyrs. It was therefore, by Jesus’ “NAME” or “Shem” that his exorcising power would continue with Jesus’s Disciples through the Holy Spirit which is the Seal of God upon these precious Martyrs.
THE NATURAL MAN
The Natural man is only condemnable when left to his accord. He is not, however, left to his accord for God is working through ‘all things’ to bring an ‘apokatakalleo’ – or ‘return to wholeness in perfect harmony’ as we see in Colossians 1:17-ff:
Colossians 1:17-ff – “He is before all things and in Him all things hold together. {18} And He is the head of the body, the church; He is the beginning and firstborn from among the dead, so that in all things He may have preeminence. {19} For God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him, {20} and through Him to *reconcile {Apocatakalleo – ‘restore and bring back to harmony) to Himself *all (panta – ‘every’; ‘not one thing missing; all) things, whether things on earth or things in Heaven, by making peace through the blood of His cross.
Therefore, not only must the natural man have a supernatural reckoning with Christ it is obvious in Colossians 1:17-ff he will! Colossians 1:21 continues with addressing our ‘once upon a time natural man’ that was hostile (by *nature*) to God but that we are now (all) reconciled to God in our continuance (not our works but of God’s) of our new man which is reconciled. In God’s working through us we will continue, we will establish, we will not be moved from the hope of the Gospel ! Why? Phillippians 1:6 “Being confident of this, that HE Who began a good work in you WILL carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus”.
Ephesians 2 makes it clear that we were at one time “naturally damned”. What does this mean? We’re damned for good? No. It means that our ‘state’ was, is, will be damned ‘in that state of fleshly being’. That is, the ‘state of the flesh’ is already damned. The NEW you is not. And it i this Hope that eliminates the illusory battles of ‘good vs. evil’. It is the NATURE of man that will be used mathematically by God until at each increment that lesson of Natural damnability is no longer needed. We are no longer ‘our flesh’. When the lesson that we can’t get it together in the Natural state is learned we’ll be moving on to higher ground. The Will with its stories to tell along
the way will be used as a witness concerning Sovereignty. We will preach to the world of our being saved from the impotency of the flesh.
It is under the umbrella of being human that we are all bound to the flesh and the fallacies that go with it. We are bound to it until we are ‘scored’ with the tattoo of God slowly but inevitably. We are marked for Life. This is binding and loosing, this is the exorcism of the flesh out of us – a supernatural act, and a direction not chosen by man but God UNTO salvation.
