Beelzebub, the lord of the flies was identified by Jews and Christians with Satan...From בַּעַל (baʿal, "lord, master") + זְבוּב (zvuv, "fly"), appearing in the Hebrew Scriptures as the purported name of a deity worshipped by the Philistines in Ekron...
Wiktionary says this about Beelzebub:
"It's likely this was not the god's actual name and instead was a polemic against the deity, a derogatory term used by Hebrews for an enemy god, possibly by associating the figure with defecation (hence flies)"...
I will in this article like to argue that this was indeed not a name of the Philistine deity, but the deity's attribute...I will also argue that even though we don't know what Philistines called this deity themselves, we know who that deity was: Nergal, the destructive sun...I talked abut him in my post "Winged superhuman hero"...
Nergal was not just "The destructive sun of the late summer early autumn (Jul/Aug)", he was also the god of plague. As the God of Pestilence, Nergal set loose the plague among the peoples. Not a Biblical one...A regular, annual one...
One of his symbols was the fly, the insect that brings pestilence to whole populations...And in Mesopotamia, like everywhere else, the annual peak in the fly population causes the annual peak of infectious diseases that they spread...
And that peak falls in Jul/Aug, in Leo, the seat of Nergal, The Lion Man, the Destructive Sun of the drought season at the end of summer beginning of autumn, the god of death and disease, The Lord of Flies...
Here are some stats for you:
Blow fly and house fly numbers in Mesopotamia peak in Jul/Aug/Sep.
These flies transmit at least 65 diseases to humans, including typhoid fever, dysentery, cholera, poliomyelitis, tularemia...
Typhoid fever in Iraq is a seasonal disease, with the majority of cases occurring starting from Jul...
Dysentery and cholera outbreaks typically follow seasonal increase in water contamination starting from Jul with the peak in Sep...
The reason why these diseases peak in Jul/Aug, Leo, is because this is the time of the year of maximum heat and minimum precipitation...The time of the year when Nergal, The Lion Man, The Destructive Sun, causes droughts and dries up the wells and causes water contamination...
Polio season starts in May, peaks in Jul, Aug, Sep...
Tularemia appears to have a clear seasonal pattern, with most cases occurring in the summer and early autumn months, Jul, Aug, Sep...
All of these diseases spread by ordinary flies...But, don't forget Sandflies.
Sandfly numbers peak in Jul/Aug...In Iraq, a bite from an infected sand fly transmits Leishmania infantum, the parasite that causes Sandfly fever. Symptoms include fever, rash, diffuse muscle pain, headache, loss of appetite, nausea and vomiting...
Malaria Transmission is confined almost exclusively to the northern region of Iraq. The season running from May to October, with the peak in July and August...
And so...Back to our friend Beelzebub, The Lord of Flies of the Philistines...I Levant, the climate is very much the same as in Mesopotamia...And the lifecycle of the flies is the same too...Meaning the sick season in Levant is also Jul/Aug...The time of droughts...
That Beelzebub is indeed the nickname of the Destructive Sun God, who is also the god of plague, diseases, can be seen from the fact that there is an Ugaritic text which depicts Ba'al expelling flies, which are the cause of a person's sickness...
Ba'al being the Rain god, the enemy of the God of Death, Mot, who btw was equated to the sun...So, rain comes, the well water gets clean and safe for drinking again, the sickness season ends...
I talked Baal (Rain) - Mot (Sun) in my articles "The oldest Arabic poem" and "Anat"
BTW, if you are wondering why would people anywhere worship a god of death...Millennia of hardship, suffering, wars, deceases, droughts, deaths, destruction...
Ethnographer interviewing an old peasant woman, Serbia first half of 20th century.
Gran, do you believe in god?
Of course I do my son. Who wouldn't believe in god?
And are you afraid of god, gran?
Of course I am my son. Who wouldn't be afraid of an evil force?
The same hottest, "driest time of the year = fly population peak = disease peak" correlation exists in Greece...Where we find Apollo, The Sun God, tho was also the God of Plague...And who was, possibly 🙂 derived from Nergal...Check my article "Palil" out for more details...
Greeks tell us that it is the rising of the Dog Star that brings sickness:
Sirius rises late in the dark, liquid sky
On summer nights, star of stars,
Orion's Dog they call it, brightest
Of all, but an evil portent, bringing heat
And fevers to suffering humanity.
This is the excerpt from Homer's Iliad. When this poem was written, Sirius, the Dog Star, used to rise in Leo, Jul/Aug, during Dog Days, the time of the year ruled by the Destructive Sun, Nergal...Apollo...
Why dog star? Why dog days?
Cause when our mythologies were made out of animal calendar markers, Sirius, the Dog Star rose with the sun in Jul/Aug, the time when mating season of the old primitive dog breeds began...Mythologised dog calendar markers:
Egypt: "Dog days", Mesopotamia: "Tishtrya", India: "The bitch of the gods"
Why Leo?
Cause when our mythologies were made out of animal calendar markers, Asiatic lions mating season started in Jul/Aug and spanned the whole of Autumn (Aug/Sep/Oct)...Which is why autumn starts in Leo (Jul/Aug). I talked about this in my post "Angra Mainyu"...
Basically, dog and lion are equivalent animal calendar markers, both marking Jul/Aug...The seat of Nergal, the god of death...Who was associated with dogs 🙂 But I will talk about this in one of my future articles...I think this is quite enough for today...
To read more about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, start here…then check the rest of the blog posts related to animal calendar markers I still didn't add to this page, and finally check my twitter threads I still didn't convert to blog post...I am 9 months behind now...
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