The Arch of Ba'al

The Arch of Ba'al - J.L. Robb - http://www.omegaletter.com/articles/articles.asp?ArticleID=8311

 

Ba'al was a bad boy in the false-god department 3600 years ago, maybe longer. His wife Ashteroth was not much better. They were both fertility deities and their world consisted of temple prostitution and human sacrifice as well as orgies and other forms of sexual decadence.

 

Ba'al was worshiped during the ancient Canaanite and Phoenician timeline. This important deity was considered the "giver of life" to mankind and mankind's flocks. The land of Canaan and its population were totally dedicated to Ba'al, who they considered the most important deity of the day with the exception of El, his father.

 

Canaan was the grandson of Noah and the land of Canaan was later given to the children of Israel by God, the real God. The Canaanites, in their zeal for Ba'al and the sex worship that came with it, may or may not be as evil as history has painted; but there is plenty of evidence. The Canaanites, in order to appease Ba'al, would kill their children and bury them in the foundations of their homes at the time of construction.

 

At that time Joshua pronounced this solemn oath: "Cursed before the Lord is the one who undertakes to rebuild this city, Jericho:

 

"At the cost of his firstborn son he will lay its foundations; at the cost of his youngest he will set up its gates." Joshua 6:26 NIV

 

Starting in 1929, archaeological digs uncovered clay tablets in northern Syria and provided an education into the personality and purpose of Ba'al.

 

So what is the Arch of Ba'al?

 

There used to be an arch that stood before the temple of Ba'al in Palmyra, Syria, at least until ISIS came along recently and destroyed it in their obsession to blot out and rewrite history. An INFOWARS article explains that some believe this arch was actually a portal to the world of Ba'al, who some refer to as Satan. I suppose that would make it the Gate of Hell.

 

According to a CBN news article, the Institute of Digital Archaeology has announced the construction of a 48-foot-tall replica of the Victory Arch that once stood in front of the Temple of Ba'al.

 

Isn't that lovely?

 

Unless you have been in a cave the past week, most people know about the three terrorist attacks in New York City and New Jersey. These attacks were perpetrated on the citizens of the United States by none other than the descendants of Canaan, Islamic militants.

 

Now wouldn't you think, after the World Trade Center bombing of 1993 and the World Trade Center destruction of 2001, the continuing attempts to attack New York City and the successful attempts this past week, that the people of New York City would put a little more thought into building a replica of the Portal of Hell in Times Square? They think it is art, but it is idolatry.

 

This past week I was considering what I would write about and suddenly an article about the rebuilding of the Arch of Ba'al in Times Square came along. I knew little of this Arch, only the destruction of many historical and geological artifacts in Palmyra at the hands of Islamic extremists. Then a facebook friend sent me a history. His name is Bruce Tilson and his history of the Arch follows:

 

This is the history of the Arch. On Monday, September 19th, a reconstructed version of Palmyra's Arch Of Triumph (also known as the Monumental Arch) will be erected in New York City. Specifically, it will be located in City Hall Park in Manhattan. The organization behind this project is known as the Institute for Digital Archaeology, and they have confirmed the location and the date on their official website...

 

This arch was originally constructed in Palmyra, Syria by the Roman Emperor Septimius Severus in the 3rd century A.D., and it stood there until it was destroyed by ISIS in 2015. The following comes from the Wikipedia article about this arch...

 

The Monumental Arch, also called the Arch of Triumph or the Arch of Septimius Severus, was a Roman ornamental archway in Palmyra, Syria. It was built in the 3rd century during the reign of emperor Septimius Severus. Its ruins later became one of the main attractions of Palmyra, until it was destroyed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in October 2015. Most of its stonework still survives and there are plans to rebuild it using anastylosis...

 

Those that are familiar with ancient Middle Eastern deities already know that "Bel" and the "Baal" that we find in the Bible were one and the same. Here is more from Wikipedia...

 

Bel (/ˈbeɪl/; from Akkadian bēlu), signifying "lord" or "master", is a title rather than a genuine name, applied to various gods in the Mesopotamian religion of Akkad, Assyria and Babylonia. The feminine form is Belit 'Lady, Mistress'. Bel is represented in Greekas Belos and in Latin as Belus. Linguistically Bel is an East Semitic form cognate with Northwest Semitic Baal with the same meaning.

 

Back in April, the arch that stood directly in front of the Temple of Baal was supposed to be put up in Times Square, but fortunately that project was ultimately canceled. A reproduction of the Arch of Triumph (the arch discussed in this article) was put up in Trafalgar Square in London at that time, and there were rumblings that a reproduction of the Arch of Triumph would also come to New York at a later date.

 

Unfortunately, that has now become a reality.

 

So why are people getting so upset about some ancient arch that may be connected to an ancient god that nobody seems to worship anymore?

 

Well, the truth is that "Baal" is mentioned in the Bible more than 100 times. A very high percentage of current world religions can be traced directly back to this ancient deity and to ancient Babylon, and the practices involved in ancient Baal worship are "eerily similar" to things that go on in society today. The following comes from an excellent article by Matt Barber...

 

Ritualistic Baal worship, in sum, looked a little like this: Adults would gather around the altar of Baal. Infants would then be burned alive as a sacrificial offering to the deity. Amid horrific screams and the stench of charred human flesh, congregants - men and women alike - would engage in bisexual orgies. The ritual of convenience was intended to produce economic prosperity by prompting Baal to bring rain for the fertility of "mother earth."

 

The natural consequences of such behavior - pregnancy and childbirth - and the associated financial burdens of "unplanned parenthood" were easily offset. One could either choose to engage in homosexual conduct or - with child sacrifice available on demand - could simply take part in another fertility ceremony to "terminate" the unwanted child.

 

Modern liberalism deviates little from its ancient predecessor. While its macabre rituals have been sanitized with flowery and euphemistic terms of art, its core tenets and practices remain eerily similar.

 

We tend to think that we are vastly more "advanced" than the pagan idol worshippers of the ancient world, but is that really the case?

 

They killed their babies by the thousands, but we have killed our babies by the millions.

 

They had "free love" around the altars of Baal, but we have turned it into a permanent lifestyle.

 

Multitudes would gather around the altars of Baal to watch the bisexual orgies, but we have turned watching others having sex into a multi-billion dollar industry.

 

Just like ancient Israel, our society has turned away from following the God that created all things, and instead we are embracing the ways of the ancient pagan world. Unfortunately, there are very serious consequences for doing this. Just consider what Jonathan Cahn recently told George Noory during an interview on Coast to Coast...

 

"Western Civilization was once totally pagan and then in a sense it got cleaned up," Cahn said. "But what [one of these mysteries is] saying is, if it turns back away from God and turns to evil and immorality, it's going to be seven times worse than it was before. And how that translates is, before you had the Gospel you had Nero, you had Caligula. But when you have a post-Christian civilization, it's much more dangerous than a pre-Christian one. But that's when you produce Hitler's, you produce Stalin's, you produce ultimately the Antichrist. That's end-time prophecy. We are witnessing that as well."

 

I believe that it is quite appropriate that an arch that once served as a gateway to the Temple of Baal is going up in New York City on Monday, because we are going down the exact same path that ancient Israel once did.

 

Sadly, if we keep doing the same things that they once did, our ultimate fate will end up being very similar as well.

 

Sadly, it seems that is what the world population does. That is why we keep repeating history.