THE BABYLON CONNECTION?
128 pages | 60 illustrations | 400 footnotes | Price: $8
THE BABYLON CONNECTION? shows that claims about Babylonian origins often lack connection, takes a closer look at the oft-quoted THE TWO BABYLONS by Alexander Hislop, and provides some much needed clarification on this subject. In a scholarly and understandable style, this book explains why Woodrow removed his very popular book BABYLON MYSTERY RELIGION from publication.
According to the teaching made popular by Alexander Hislop, if we went back to the days of ancient Babylon, we would find people attending mass, partaking of a little round wafer, worshipping a cross, going to confession, being baptized with water for the remission of sins, burning wax candles, and bowing before a divine Mother and Child. We would notice that places of worship featured a tower. Priests, wearing a circular tonsure, dressed in black garments, would give those who died the last rites. With monks and nuns in abundance, the Babylonians would be practicing essentially all the rites that are known today in the Roman Catholic Church!
According to Hislop, it all started with Nimrod and his wife Semiramis, thus the subtitle of THE TWO BABYLONS: “The Papal Worship Proved to Be the Worship of Nimrod and His Wife.” But, any historical information about Nimrod and Semiramis is sketchy, at best. One can check the articles on “Nimrod” and “Semiramis” in recognized reference works. Not one says anything about Nimrod and Semiramis being husband and wife! They did not even live in the same century!
THE BABYLON CONNECTION? shows that claims about Babylonian origins often lack connection. Was Nimrod a deformed, ugly black man, and Semiramis a beautiful white woman with blue eyes and blond hair? Was She the originator of soprano singing and priestly celibacy? Was she the mother of Tammuz? Is the cross a symbol of Tammuz, the initial letter of his name? Are round communion wafers sun-symbols? Are candles, black clergy garments, the letters I.H.S., the fish symbol, halos, and church steeples of pagan origin? Does the Pope wear a crown with 666 on it? Was the papal mitre copied from the fish head of Dagon?
Message from Ralph Woodrow regarding the former book, BABYLON MYSTERY RELIGION.
Here is a list of the some of the unsubstantiated claims that are made about the religion of ancient Babylon: (Notice how many of these are the exact same lies Bob Thiel currently is spreading)
• The Babylonians went to a confessional and confessed sins to priests who wore black clergy garments.
• Their king, Nimrod, was born on December 25. Round decorations on Christmas trees and round communion wafers honored him as the Sun-god.
• Sun-worshippers went to their temples weekly, on Sunday, to worship the Sun-god.
• Nimrod’s wife was Semiramis, who claimed to be the Virgin Queen of Heaven, and was the mother of Tammuz.
• Tammuz was killed by a wild boar when he was age 40; so 40 days of Lent were set aside to honor his death.
• The Babylonians wept for him on “Good Friday.” They worshipped a cross-the initial letter of his name.
It is amazing how unsubstantiated teachings like these circulate—and are believed. One can go to any library, check any history book about ancient Babylon, none of these things will be found. They are not historically accurate, but are based on an arbitrary piecing together of bits and pieces of mythology.
Hislop, for example, taught that mythological persons like Adonis, Apollo, Bacchus, Cupid, Dagon, Hercules, Janus, Mars, Mithra, Moloch, Orion, Osiris, Pluto, Saturn, Vulcan, Zoraster, and many more, were all Nimrod! He then formed his own “history” of Nimrod! He did the same thing with Nimrod’s wife. So, according to his theory, Nimrod was a big, ugly, deformed black man. His wife, Semiramis—also known as Easter, he says—was a most beautiful white woman with blond hair and blue eyes, a backslider, inventor of soprano singing, the originator of priestly celibacy, the first to whom the unbloody mass was offered! This is not factual history—it is more in the category of tabloid sensationalism.
Some claim that round objects, such as round communion wafers, are symbols of the Sun-god. But they fail to mention that the very manna given by God was round! (Exod. 16:14). Some are ready to condemn all pillars and historical monuments as pagan. But they fail to take into account that the Lord himself appeared as a pillar of fire; and, in front of his temple, there were two large pillars (Exod. 13:21,22; 2 Chron. 3:17).
Because Babylon had a tower (Gen. 11:4), some suppose this must be why there are church buildings with towers or steeples: they are copying Babylon! A newspaper reporter in Columbus, Ohio, wrote to me about this. In that city, and numerous other places, this claim has been made. Let me say it quite clearly: No church ever included a steeple or tower on their house of worship to copy the tower of Babel! Why discredit thousands of born-again Christians by promoting ideas that have no connection? If a tower in itself is pagan, God would be pagan, for David described him as “my high tower” (2 Sam. 22:3; cf. Prov. 18:10).
No Christian who puts a bumper sticker with a fish symbol on the back of his car has ever done so to honor the fish-god Dagon. No congregation has ever put a cross on a church building for the purpose of honoring Tammuz. No Christian has ever gone to an Easter sunrise service to worship Baal. No Christian has ever worshipped a Christmas tree as an idol. Claims that imply “all these things started in Babylon,” are not only divisive and fruitless, they are untrue.
The concern about not wanting anything pagan in our lives can be likened to a ship crossing a vast ocean. This concern has taken us in the right direction, but as we come to a better understanding as to what is actually pagan and what is not, a correction of the course is necessary in our journey. This is not a going back, but a correction of the course as we follow “the shining light, that shines more and more unto the perfect day” (Prov. 4:18).
