THE TIME: somewhat more than a hundred years after the Flood. THE PLACE: somewhere in Mesopotamia. A large crowd of people stand, as it were, at the threshold of a vast unpopulated earth. A marvelous opportunity is open before them. Their forefathers, under the leadership of Noah, who is still with them, had been brought by Jehovah God safely through the destruction of a “world of ungodly people” into a cleansed earth. All false worship had been destroyed. True, clean worship had been reestablished by Noah and the other seven Flood survivors as they offered up sacrifices of thanksgiving to Jehovah for his marvelous deliverance.—Gen. 8:20, 21; 9:28.
Chief among this now-expanded population are seventy family heads who have enjoyed the opportunity of living and growing up under the direction of God’s servant and prophet Noah. They have had the opportunity of becoming well acquainted with the righteous God-ordained laws and precedents that Noah has established to govern human society and with the outcome of the disobedience of the pre-Flood world. They are equipped to maintain clean worship in the earth.
Now Noah informs them it is time to carry out an important command of God. They are not to stay in the one vicinity, but must spread out over the earth, people it with righteous worshipers of Jehovah God and establish his worship earthwide. If these seventy family heads act in obedience, they can establish strongholds of true worship all over the earth. Such must serve as centers for the dispensing of knowledge of God and of the requirements of true religion to all the yet-unborn nations. What a fine legacy for their children! These strongholds must stand firm against Satan the Devil, who would, if possible, reintroduce false religion. How wisely Jehovah provided for their protection from the repetition of the pre-Flood condition in which a world was enslaved in false religion and ignorance of the great Creator and Life-giver!—Gen. 4:26; 6:5, 13.
Persons familiar with the Bible account know that the majority of these seventy family heads and leaders lacked faith in God. They did not have God’s name and worship uppermost in their hearts. They did not have in mind the welfare of the children of future generations. They let fear and selfishness lead to opposition to God and to a defeat of the carrying out of their commission. Instead, they had to be forcibly scattered, by a language change, to many parts of the earth. There they established strongholds of false religion through which the nations of earth have been directed away from the true God, bringing great sorrow and distress to mankind.
BABYLON THE CENTRAL STRONGHOLD
As we examine the Bible account, the evidence reveals the adversary of God, the Great Serpent, Satan the Devil, lurking unseen for a chance to instill his spirit into mankind as he had done with Adam and Eve originally. He knew that if he could control this concentrated nucleus of the human race at this point by bringing in false religion he would go far in his effort to control later generations earthwide. He played upon their fear and reluctance to go as pioneers for God’s worship into the vast unpopulated areas of the earth. Moreover, he appealed to their selfishness, inducing in them a desire to make a name for themselves. Nimrod had just the right spirit to be used as Satan’s tool to encourage them in this direction. Under him as self-constituted king they began to make great boasts in their opposition to God and his faithful servants Noah and Shem. They were led to believe that one great stronghold, the city of Babel with its tower, would empower them to break the restraints imposed on their selfish activities by God’s laws and free them from his judgments. They thought that they could, by this united effort, blot out true worship from the earth, along with those who stood for God’s worship.—Gen. 11:2-4; 10:8-10.
Did God command Noah and Shem to engage in warfare and destroy their tower and city? No. As God said, the builders would have been able to do what they had in mind to do, unless he himself took action. Jehovah himself, by confusing their languages, forcibly scattered them in various directions. The language of Noah and Shem, who stood firm for true worship of Jehovah, was not confused and their households were not scattered. Shem’s descendants, for the most part, settled in the general area of Mesopotamia, but the sons of Japheth and Ham moved into other parts of the earth.—Gen. 11:5-9.
Consequently, we find that true religion was practiced by Shem and a faithful line of descendants such as Abraham in the Mesopotamian area, despite much opposition from the Babylonians and others who settled in that vicinity, while false religion was spread to all parts of the earth. So these scattered ones, instead of going out and establishing strongholds of true religion in the earth, from which their descendants would have had great blessings, carried with them the false religion of Babylon (Babel). Although they expressed their thoughts in different languages, they had the same Babylonish ideas, thereby establishing strongholds of false religion wherever they settled. This was the beginning of the worldwide empire of false religion. And while later on it developed variations, yet it was actually one religion in opposition to Jehovah God and under the control of his adversary Satan the Devil.—Gen. 10:32.
As evidence of this spread of false religion into a worldwide empire, exercising tremendous influence on every phase of the lives of the people under it, we quote from The Americana Annual 1962:
The noted Assyriologist, Prof. Samuel N. Kramer of the University of Pennsylvania, suggests that the Indus River civilization of 2500 to 1500 B.C. originated from a more ancient Mesopotamian (pre-Sumerian) civilization which had fled to the Indus Valley when the Sumerians went to Mesopotamia in strength. He suspects that the Indus civilizations were established by the people sometimes referred to as Ubaidians, after Al Ubaid, a site in southern Mesopotamia (Iraq) to which their culture has been traced.
In India, government archaeologists have been excavating the 3d millennium B.C. seaport city of Lothai, on the west coast north of Bombay. . . . Moreover, ties with distant Assyria and Egypt are shown, . . . The city, which was built on brick platforms, reveals an advanced sense of town planning and sanitation.—Under “Archaeology,” page 44, paragraphs 24.
NIMROD MADE A GOD AND FALSE “SEED”
Nimrod remained the first king of Babylon. He would be held in high regard as the great hunter and king in opposition to Jehovah and organizer of the old original Babylonian Empire. Having refused to recognize Jehovah as the true God, the Babylonians would be inclined to worship Nimrod. When he died, they would deify him, making him a god, the guardian god of the city of Babylon.—Gen. 10:9.
More than 1500 years later, when Babylon reached its greatest glory in the days of King Nebuchadnezzar II, who is mentioned in the Holy Bible, the chief god of the imperial city was Marduk. His temple there was called E-sagila (meaning “Lofty House”), the tower of which was called E-teme-nanki (meaning “House of the Foundation of Heaven and Earth”). In connection with the god Marduk, who is called Merodach in the Bible (Jer. 50:1, 2), it is interesting to read the following comments:
Nimrod has been identified with Merodach, the god of Babylon . . . He has been identified with Gilgamesh, the hero of the epic which contains the Babylonian Deluge story . . . with various historical kings of Babylonia, . . . The Encyclopaedia Britannica,Volume 19, edition of 1911, page 703.
Two theories are now held in regard to Nimrod’s identity: . . . Those who identify Nimrod with Marduk, however, [say] that . . . the [cuneiform] signs which constitute the name of Marduk, who also is represented as a hunter, are read phonetically “Amar Ud”; and ideographically they may be read “Namr Ud”—in Hebrew “Nimrod.”—The Jewish Encyclopedia, Volume 9, page 309.
Alexander Hislop, author of The Two Babylons, although deriving the name Nimrod from Nimr, a “leopard,” and rada or rad, “to subdue,” does identify Nimrod as the god Merodach. “There is no doubt,” says he, “that Nimrod was a rebel, and that his rebellion was celebrated in ancient myths; but his name in that character was not Nimrod, but Merodach, or, as among the Romans, Mars, ‘the rebel;’ or among the Oscans of Italy, Mamers . . . , ‘The causer of rebellion.’”—Page 44, footnote, of The Two Babylons.
In man’s original garden of Eden God made a promise. This promise is found at Genesis 3:15, where God sentenced to death the Great Serpent, Satan the Devil, for inducing the perfect human couple, Adam and Eve, to join him in rebellion against their Creator. He said: “I shall put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed. He will bruise you in the head and you will bruise him in the heel.” Unlike men of today who claim that the garden of Eden account is only a myth, men back there in the days of Nimrod were well acquainted with this event of history and knew full well that God did make that promise. Therefore, rather than saying that no such promise was ever made, they had to twist the meaning of the promise and apply it to themselves wrongfully. When Nimrod became “a mighty one in the earth,” displaying himself as a mighty hunter and setting himself up as the first king of Babylon, it became easy for the Babylonians to seize upon this circumstance to run ahead of the Edenic prophecy’s actual fulfillment. In harmony with their selfish desire to make a name for themselves, it became patriotic, yes, nationalistic, for them to apply the prophecy concerning the woman’s seed to Nimrod. Such a view would naturally be encouraged by Nimrod, because it would bind the people more firmly to him and his successors in office. Noah’s blessing had shown that the seed would come through the line of Shem and not through the line of Ham, the grandfather of Nimrod. So the application of the prophecy at Genesis 3:15 by the Babylonians to Nimrod would be saying, falsely, that the woman’s seed would be Hamitic, a Cushite. Also, if legends are correct about Nimrod’s meeting a violent death, this would be explained by the Babylonians as the foretold act of the Great Serpent in bruising the heel of the woman’s seed.—Gen. 9:18, 24-27.
“MOTHER AND SON” WORSHIP ORIGINATES
It would follow that Nimrod’s mother would be looked upon as the “woman,” the mother of the seed that was to bruise the Great Serpent in the head, though the Bible does not even mention her. She would thereby share the glory of her son, Nimrod. Almost certainly she would be revered and possibly exalted to a goddess. This would lead to the worship of the mother and son. It may be for this reason that Cush’s wife came to be called Semiramis, or Z’emir-amit. The name means “The Branch Bearer.” The symbolic branch would be Nimrod as the one to bring peace and to make the world calamity pass away.
In regard to this, The Two Babylons,pages 20, 21, says:
The Babylonians, in their popular religion, supremely worshipped a Goddess Mother and a Son, who was represented in pictures and in images as an infant or child in his mother’s arms . . . From Babylon, this worship of the Mother and the Child spread to the ends of the earth. In Egypt, the Mother and the Child were worshipped under the names of Isis and Osiris. In India, even to this day, as Isi and Iswara; in Asia as Cybele and Deōius; in Pagan Rome, as Fortuna and Jupiter-puer, or Jupiter, the boy; in Greece, as Ceres, the Great Mother, with the babe at her breast, or as Irene, the goddess of Peace, with the boy Plutus in her arms; and even in Thibet, in China, and Japan, the Jesuit missionaries were astonished to find the counterpart of Madonna and her child as devoutly worshipped as in Papal Rome itself; Shing Moo, the Holy Mother in China, being represented with a child in her arms, and a glory around her, exactly as if a Roman Catholic artist had been employed to set her up.
The original of that mother, so widely worshipped, there is reason to believe, was Semiramis, already referred to, who, it is well known, was worshipped by the Babylonians, and other eastern nations, and that under the name of Rhea, the great Goddess “Mother.”
Nimrod’s mother, being the wife of Cush, was a granddaughter of Noah’s wife, who survived the great flood, the same as the fishes. Note how the Babylonish pagan religion made use of this fact in deifying Semiramis:
Of this we already have evidence in [the ancient Greek historian] Herodotus, who ascribes to her the banks that confined the Euphrates (i. 184) and knows her name as borne by a gate of Babylon (iii. 155). . . . according to the legends, in her birth as well as in her disappearance from earth, Semiramis appears as a goddess, the daughter of the fish-goddess Atargatis, and herself connected with the doves of Ishtar or Astarte.—The Encyclopœdia Britannica,Volume 24, edition of 1911, page 617.
It is easy to see how false religion further developed and built upon the original Babylonish ideas doctrines that are found in all the religions of the world today. We find an outstanding example of this in the doctrine of the trinity, later made a pillar of the false-religious stronghold of Christendom. Nimrod, as the first mortal man after the Flood to be deified, would become “the father of the gods” in the Babylonian system of false worship. Likewise, the so-called Semiramis would become “the mother of god,” or “the mother of the gods.” So, in the religion of Cush and his wife and Nimrod, more glory and prominence would be given to the son Nimrod, just as in the trinity doctrine of “God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost,” Christendom gives more attention to the Son than to the Father. But in some sections of Christendom more honor and adoration are given to the Virgin Mother than to the Son or the Father; and it is taught that the Mother is the one who will actually bruise the Great Serpent in the head, and she is exalted as the Mother of God.—Gen. 3:15, Douay.
What a bad start was given to the nations! Instead of an inheritance of truth from strongholds of true worship, they inherited falsehood and ungodly practices from false-religious centers, due to the selfish, faithless disobedience of their forefathers. Did this outcome of events thwart Jehovah God in his purpose? Would there be a way by which Jehovah would cope with these false-religious strongholds and eventually deliver righteously disposed persons from their grip? Would he carry out his purpose as originally stated to have his name made great and his worship established throughout the earth without a rival? Listen to what he says: “For just as the pouring rain descends, and the snow, from the heavens and does not return to that place, unless it actually saturates the earth and makes it produce and sprout, and seed is actually given to the sower and bread to the eater, so my word that goes forth from my mouth will prove to be. It will not return to me without results, but it will certainly do that in which I have delighted, and it will have certain success in that for which I have sent it.”—Isa. 55:10, 11.
It is most important, since all nations have been greatly affected, to see what steps God has taken to break the power of these strongholds of false religion and to liberate people right out of the midst of them. We shall observe, in succeeding issues of this magazine, the progress of his purposes side by side with the development of false religion.
[Map on page 345]
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Plan of BABYLON
SUMMER PALACE OF NEBUCHADNEZZAR II
OUTER WALL OF NEBUCHADNEZZAR
Euphrates River
KUTHA CANAL
OUTER CITY WALL
Caesar Augustus, more commonly referred to as Constantine the Great, in A.D. 321-325, legislated his new updated version of the early Roman solar calendar, first introduced by Julius Caesar in 46 B.C. This calendar was to be the first step in developing the worship rhythm for His new “Christian” religion. It was unapologetically crafted outside the boundaries of Scriptural constraints. Constantine caused it to appear he was honoring the story of the crucifixion and resurrection of our Messiah but instead altered its time-centric appointed layout to elevate his own ego. But let’s digress for a moment to establish the roots of this momentous calendar replacement.
Julius Caesar Removed the Moon from Measuring Time
“In the mid-1st century B.C., Julius Cæsar [Roman Emperor] invited Sosigenes, an Alexandrian [Egypt] astronomer, to advise him about the reform of the calendar, and Sosigenes decided that the only practical step was to abandon the lunar calendar altogether.Months must be arranged on a seasonal basis, and a tropical [solar] year used, as in the Egyptian calendar.” Encyclopedia Britannica, The Julian Calendar, Paragraph 1. https://www.britannica.com/science/calendar/The-Western-calendar-and-calendar-reforms
From that year forward, Julius Caesar, following the advice of the Egyptian astronomer Sosigenes, eliminated the lunar phases from all time-measuring. To this day, the Roman Empire has maintained this TOTAL DIVORCEMENT OF THE MOON from their time-measuring except when locating Easter Sunday. This was to ensure it never fell on the same day as the Jewish “Wave Sheaf Offering, as recorded in the Torah Law of Scripture. Never again would the Romans or their calendar utilize its lunar phases for demarcating the start of MONTHS, the count of DAYS, the count of WEEKS, or the start of YEARS. To all appearances, they were now free to do as they pleased. Moreover, they wanted nothing to do with the Yahudim (Jews), whom they hated, or their lunar calendar ordained by the Most High.
Council of Nicaea in A.D. 321-325
Fast-forward nearly 400 years. From the black and white marble halls of Roman power, an entirely new Religion was fashioned and realized at the five-year summit meeting of the notorious Council of Nicaea. Upon this premise, the original astro-luni-solar calendar of Scripture, as previously kept by the obedient Hebrews, was taken captive. Utilizing only a solar planetary calendar, it was designed to replace all things within the Hebrew TORAH. Together, the solar planetary calendar and the introduction of His new god “Jesus Christ,” became Rome’s ready replacements of Yahusha HaMashiach (the true Messiah), along with His preordained lunar appointed worship rhythm ordained as the time-centric Plan of Salvation, as revealed throughout Scripture.
A myriad of other doctrines was spawned at that council, including the Trinitarian doctrine as well as “Good Friday and Easter. These were crafted as replacements for the lunar date stamped Passover (Pasch) on the 14th day counted from the New Moon and the authentic day of the resurrection. Each harbored a new replacement theology of the Roman pagan kind. All that was left to do was to sell it to the empire and beyond. And for those who weren’t buying, he utilized force under the penalty of death.
Thus, the planetary week with its unending cycle, was designed and legislated to replace the Scriptural week, originally marked by quarter lunar phases, as set forth at creation, which was proclaimed and counted from one full New Moon to another. Here is the evidence for this.
In 321 A.D., Constantine, emperor of Rome . . . by civil enactments made “the venerable day of the Sun,” which day was then “notable for its veneration,” the weekly rest day of the empire . . . The enforcement of the weekly observance of Sunday gave official recognition to the [NEW] week of seven days and resulted in the introduction of it into the official civil calendar of Rome. The Romans passed that calendar down to us, and in it we have still the ancient planetary titles of the days of the week. Odom, op. cit., p. 243-244, emphasis supplied.
Council of Laodicea, Forty Years Later
Forty years later, in A.D. 363-364, under the ruler-ship of Julian, the last Constantinian Emperor, the Council of Laodicea convened.
Central to Sabbatarian doctrine is the popularized version of Canon 29 from the Council of Laodicea. Unrecognized by most, this Canon has been FALSELYtranslated, perpetuating “Sunday sacredness” and “Saturday” as the seventh day of the Biblical week sequence:
“Christians shall not Judaize and be idle on Saturday, but shall work on that day; but the Lord’s Day [Sunday] they shall especially honor, and, as being Christians,shall, if possible, do no work on that day. If however, they are found Judaizing, they shall be shut out from Christ.” Council of Laodicea, Canon 29
Two important points can be drawn from this ancient quote from the Council of Laodicea.
- Sunday, of the new Roman solar calendar is here introduced as “The Lord’s Day.” This connection is never made in Scripture or prior to A.D. 321 for two reasons: 1) The earliest Roman cycling planetary week was eight days in length. 2) Later, whenthe eight-day cycling week was first modified prior to Constantine and A.D. 321, the order of its days were different. But until then Saturday was the first day of the week and Sunday was the second, as shown below. It was only after that date that Sunday became day one and Saturday day seven.
- There is a translation error as highlighted in red above. It has been consistently ignored by translators and Theologians alike for nearly 1,700 years. Whether intentional or unintentional, it has served as a convenient lie, helping cement Sunday as the first day of their continuous weekly cycle invention, and Saturday as the seventh day of that same week. Then when the Jews, under pressure from the Romans ultimately adopted Saturdayas their seventh-day Sabbath, the deception was complete. Now all the world perceive that the Roman solar calendar is one and the same as the one ordained at creation and recorded in Scripture. Yet, to the decerning, it is all smoke and mirrors.
The Evidence of a Falsified Narrative
The following expose` may come as a shock to many who have trusted the English translation of Canon 29. But according to Karl J. von Hefele, a Catholic Bishop and scholar, in his book, History of the Councils of the Church from the Original Documents, reveals that the word “Saturday” (dies Saturni) DOES NOT EXIST either in this Greek or Latin text. Instead, the word “Saturday” was supplied in the English translation as a replacement for the word Sabbato, which is descriptive of the “ancient Hebrew lunar Sabbath.” Please do not believe me, but do your due diligence and check this out for yourself. Here is the original Latin text:
“Quod non oportet Christianos Judaizere et otiare in Sabbato, sed operari in eodem die. Preferentes autem in veneratione Dominicum Diem si vacre voluerint, ut Christiani hoc faciat; quod si reperti fuerint Judaizere Anathema sint a Christo.” Council of Laodicea, Canon 29
At the time the Julian calendar was being enforced upon the early believers for religious purposes, absolutely no one confused the word “dies Saturni”with “Sabbato.” Everyone at that time recognized these two terms as unique names for two separate days, as found on two distinctly different time-measuring calendar models.
It is only as this evidence from history has been forgotten and overwritten during the translation with the pretext of Saturday being changed to Sunday that Saturday has been assumed to be the seventh-day Sabbath of Scripture. This is due in part because the planetary week was soon after adopted (A.D. 358) by the Yahudim (Jews) in conformity to the demands of their Roman Constantinian captors. Coupled with this, the promotion of the entire Roman calendar model throughout the land shows why all the world has now followed the Beast into a fraudulent pagan worship rhythm, wholly unaware of its origin. How crafty was this?
“These . . . eventually led Jewish rabbis to call Saturn “Shabbti,”“the star of the Sabbath.” It was not until the first century [4th century correction] of our era, when the planetary week had become an established institution, that the Jewish Sabbath seems always to have corresponded to Saturn’s Day [Saturday].” Rest Days, p.244 by Hutton Webster
“This planetary week was paganism’s counterfeit of the true, Biblical week instituted by the Creator in the beginning of earth’s history. In the counterfeit week employed in ancient paganism “the venerable day of the Sun” was esteemed by the heathen above the other six days because it was regarded as sacred to the Sun, the chief of the planetary deities . . . Just as the true Sabbath is inseparably linked with the Biblical week, so the false Sabbath of pagan origin needed a weekly cycle. Thus we have found that the planetary week of paganism is Sunday’s twin sister, and that the two counterfeit institutions were linked together …” Odom, op. cit., p. 243-244, emphasis supplied.
Constantine applied Deis Solis (Sunday) to the Resurrection of our Messiah as His contribution to replacing the Scriptural calendar, which had been utilized previously by the Yahudim (Jews). The monumental outcome was to the untrained eye, ignorant of history’s past that the Scriptural seventh day (Sabbath) must be “Saturday” of the Roman calendar.This was accomplished simply by ensuring that every year, Easter occurs on Sunday, the first day of the new Roman planetary week cycle. Yet, by extension, it caused Saturday (Deis Saturnis) of the same week cycle, to appear to be the seventh day, which had never been so, according to Scripture.
“The long-term effect was that ‘Easter Sunday’ entered [established the new] the Christian paradigm as ‘The Day of Christ’s Resurrection.’ The corollary to this realignment of time calculation was that the day preceding Easter Sunday, Saturday, became forever after the [perceived] ‘True [seventh-day] Bible Sabbath.’ This is the true significance of Constantine’s ‘Sunday law’ and it laid the foundation for the modern assumption that a continuous weekly cycle has always existed.” eLaine Vornholt & Laura Lee Vorholt-Jones, Calendar Fraud, “Biblical Calendar Outlawed.”
Neither Saturday nor Sunday
When the historical and time-centric facts of the Julian (and later Gregorian) calendar are comprehended, it becomes apparent that Sunday is not the only false worship day established upon paganism. For Saturday, dies Saturni, as the Sabbath of Scripture, is also an outright lie. The mere fact that it is the seventh day of the man-made Roman continuous weekly cycle sets it in opposition to the original and authentic lunar appointed seventh-day Sabbath of Torah Scripture, as ordained to be portrayed by counting from the New Moon.
NEWS FLASH! Neither Saturday nor Sunday is mentioned even one time in Scripture. By default, neither is nor can be the true Sabbath, as they are both fruits of the same fraudulent Roman calendar system built upon the premise of only two kinds of days that cycle without end, regardless of the New Moon Day.
The mere fact that the New Moon day exists as a third kind of day, which is neither a Sabbath nor a workday (Ezekiel 46:1-3), automatically breaks the cycle of seven-day weeks every 29-30 days. Because each kind of day is counted from the same New Moon measuring line, there is never an overlapping of days. Add to this the 30th day that occurs in approximately six lunar months each astro-luni-solar year, and you have four kinds of days that make it impossible for the seven-day week to cycle without end.
As a result, neither Deis Saturnis (Saturday) nor Deis Solis (Sunday)was implemented by our Creator in the beginning. Both terms are linked by the same fraudulent planetary week, introduced by Emperor Constantine for the sole purpose of destroying all things Hebrew (Jewish). This hatred of the Jews and all things in the Old Testament Torah Law is fully supported by the Creed of Constantine. Neither the term Saturday nor Sunday are found in Scripture nor their systematic continuous seven-day cycle. For Yahuah Alahim ordained His LIGHTS in the shamayim (heavens) to beacon, SIGNS (Sabbaths), APPOINTED TIMES (months/mo’edim), DAYS, and YEARS (Genesis 1:14).
Constantinian Creed
Creed of Constantinople Church
“I renounce all customs, rites, legalisms, unleavened breads and sacrifices of lambs of the Hebrews, and all the other feasts of the Hebrews, sacrifices, prayers, aspirations, purifications, sanctifications, and propitiations, and fasts and New Moons, and Sabbaths, and superstitions, and hymns and chants, and observances, and synagogues.
Absolutely everything Jewish, every Law, rite and custom and if afterwards I shall wish to deny and return to Jewish superstition, or shall be found eating with Jews, or feasting with them, or secretly conversing and condemning the Christian religion instead of openly confuting them and condemning their vain faith, then let the trembling of Cain and the leprosy of Gehazi cleave to me, as well as the legal punishments to which I acknowledge myself liable. And may I be an anathema in the world to come, and may my soul be set down with Satan and the devils.” Stefano Assemani, Acta Sanctorium Martyrum Orientalium at Occidentalium, Vol. 1, Rome 1748, page 105.
What the Roman Constantinian Creed overtly identifies is that the foundation of their new Christian religion was proactively designed to have NO CONNECTION to anything taught in the Torah (Law) or entire Old Testament Scriptures. This creed is evidence that neither Saturday nor Sunday was ever designed by Rome to accurately align with the original calendar model of the first week of Creation or anything after that. But instead, with the creation of their new sacred EASTER HOLIDAY, they combined it with their newly ordered Sunday, causing it to appear that Rome’s continuous weekly cycle meets the Scriptural standard, with Sunday as the first day and Saturday as the seventh.
So the question is, was the sacredness of the authentic and original seventh-day Sabbath, as ordained by our Creator, ever changed from Saturday to Sunday? NO! NO! A THOUSAND TIMES, NO!
What the Constantinian Emperors achieved in the fourth century A.D. was to eliminate the Torah (Law) and all things Jewish from their new Christian religion and create their calendar standard based upon the sun rather than on the trinity of sun, moon, and stars. This afforded them the freedom to craft their own spurious sacred day on an entirely different time-measuring calendar model wholly divorced from the New Moon and lunar phases. It was this stunning impostor calendar model that has been proactively proclaimed to ALL THE WORLD by the mother Roman Catholic Church and her daughter Protestant Christians alike.
Two Unique Week Models
The planetary week legislated by Constantine that remains divorced from the lunar cycles can NEVER be the ambassador for the FATHER OF LIGHTS (James 1:17) or the first week of Creation, as all His units of TIME are beaconed by the LIGHTS or counted from them. Read more on Three Kinds of Days. Click to enlarge the illustration.
Who are the Victims of Roman Propaganda?
All these years later, we have ALL been naïve victims of the deep-seated Roman propaganda from the moment of our birth. And the prophetic WORD identifies that “ALL the world would follow after the Beast” (Revelation 13:3). And there are almost no exceptions among the nations and organized religions. Only now can we see how this does not exclude the Worldwide Church of God, the Seventh-day Adventists, the Jews, or any other Sabbatarian group, as Saturday simply CAN NOT be either the Creator’s authentic seventh-day Sabbath or the antidote to receiving the MARK OF THE BEAST!
Strikingly, Saturday is Sunday’s twin sister, and together as a GPS, they pinpoint the Roman Beast calendar and its stylized week as the very SIGN that causes ALL, both small and great, rich and poor, to receive its Mark. How? Because it symbolizes rebellion against the Creator Yahuah Alahim the MOST HIGH, while it signifies honor to Satan, who receives worship according to this pagan system.
The Real Antidote to Receiving the Mark of the Beast
If worshiping on Saturday is NOT the antidote to receiving the MARK OF THE BEAST, as some contend, then what is??? This is answered thoroughly in the following articles:
The Mark of the Beast or the Seal of Yahuah Alahim?
Weighed in the Balances and Found Wanting
Once presented with the other half of the story, we are able to see the full picture and make an informed decision. We can either remain captives of the Beast Power via this witty calendar invention that includes ALL the “Christian” daughter churches or use the keys of the Creator’s astro-luni-solar calendar to unlock our prison bars and escape to freedom. Only one choice will grant you admittance through the East Gate (Ezekiel 46:1-3) into His Eternal Kingdom.
“It should be noted that the oldest dated Christian [Roman Catholic] inscription to employ a planetary designation belongs to the year 269 A.D.” Inscriptiones Christianae urbis Romae, ed. De Rossi, 1861, i, No. 1.
There is simply NO RECORD of the Hebrew people maintaining an unbroken continuous weekly cycle, utterly removed from the trinity of LIGHTS in the shamayim (heavens) when they were obedient to Yahuah. Not only is there no record, but like a G.P.S. unit, the layout of all the lunar appointed Feast Days was intrinsically tied to two things simultaneously. First to their count from the New Moon Day, and second as they were tied in proximity to the lunar seventh-day Sabbaths. Thus we have two witnesses in Leviticus that Years, Months, Weeks, Sabbaths, and Days are all designated by the moon and her lunar phases.
Each time Israel went into captivity, they lost the oracles of truth given to them for safekeeping, which included their unique calendar. This is evidenced when in Egypt, Babylon, and later Rome. As a result, we have all been sold a bill of goods that has turned out to be fabricated. And although there are ties that bind each person to this false rhythm of worship, each has a choice to make. Will we follow the sure word of Torah (OT) and Brit Hadasha (NT) Scripture as honored by Moses, David, Daniel, Isaiah, and Yahusha, our Messiah? Or, on the flip side, will we allow the modern voices of Popes, presumed Prophets, Pastors, and denominational organizations to keep us on a perpetual detour by way of a falsified calendar and erroneous week cycle?
Evolution of the Week Days
The image below illustrates the evolution of the seven-day week. Prior to the current order of weekdays on our modern Roman calendar, it once followed this order. Saturday, represented by the planet Saturn was the first day of the weekly cycle, while Friday, represented by the planet Venus, held the position as the seventh day. 
Here is another image illustrating the evolution of the order of the planetary days of the Roman pagan week cycle, which is different from the one above.
Today, we choose whether to continue to cling to a pagan “Saturday” Sabbath theory that has followed an evolutionary order over the years. And although it highlights a purported week that cycles without end since creation, it cannot be supported by Scripture either by name or by its rhythm. There is no evidence that it has any ties to the Creator of Heaven and Earth. Yet there is much evidence to the contrary.
Likewise, folks can remain content with the tradition of “Sunday sacredness,” but according to the facts of Scripture, history, and astronomy, both Saturday and Sunday are sibling daughters of pagan sun worship that, from its core of calendar fraud, it stands in mutiny to the Creator Himself. It turns out to be the wide paved pathway leading ALL THE WORLD to receive the Mark of the Beast. For as Scripture is the revealer of the lunar Sabbath truth,both astronomy and history validate it.
This subject is worthy of prayerful and diligent consideration, as it may be that the calendar you choose will determine your eternal destiny. Those who honor their Creator and Savior aim to align the rhythm of their soul temples with His principles of TRUTH alone
SHE has fallen! Babylon has fallen, and all the graven images of her gods he has broken to the earth!” What kind of city was the Babylon about which Isaiah prophesied? That is a vital clue in our understanding the significance of modern Babylon the Great.—Isaiah 21:9.
Ancient Babylon was noted for its worship of heathen gods and goddesses. In his book Babylonian and Assyrian Religion, Professor S. H. Hooke states: “Babylon was the city where Marduk held the chief place among the other gods who were worshiped there. . . . There were in Babylon in the time of Nebuchadnezzar II no less than fifty-eight temples belonging to designated gods, to say nothing of many other temples not so assigned. Hence it can be seen how large a part the priestly caste must have played in the life of a great city.” It is said that Marduk’s temple in Babylon had 55 side chapels. How reminiscent of many temples, churches, and cathedrals today that have side chapels for lesser gods, saints, and Madonnas!
Babylon was a center of idolatry in the cult of the gods. One account states that the priests and the faithful “used to lavish attention upon their sacred images, considering the statues as intermediaries with the gods. The statues were covered with expensive vestments, adorned with necklaces, bracelets, and rings; they rested on sumptuous beds and were taken out in procession over land and water on foot, in carriages and private boats.”a How similar to the worship rendered to gods, saints, and Madonnas in modern Hinduism, Buddhism, and Catholicism, in which they likewise parade their images through streets and on rivers and the sea!
As a further example of the parallel between ancient Babylon and modern religion, consider the following description taken from the same encyclopedia: “Her faithful believers call her by the sweetest names: She is not only goddess and lady but also merciful mother, she who listens to prayers, she who intercedes . . . she who has given life to the universe and to humanity.” Compare that to the following prayer from El Santo Rosario(The Holy Rosary): “We give you thanks, Sovereign Princess, for the favors we receive every day from your beneficent hand; be so kind, Lady, as to have us now and forever under your protection and shelter.”
Who is the subject of this description and the prayer? Many will immediately conclude, “The Virgin Mary.” That answer is only half right. The prayer is offered to Mary. However, as Las Grandes Religiones Ilustradas informs us, the first quotation is a description of Ishtar, the “Lady of Love,” the Babylonian goddess of fertility, love, and war. Sometimes she is presented in images “as a mother suckling her baby boy.”b Yet another example of how modern religion is not such a far cry from ancient Babylon!
We could also draw a comparison between ancient Babylon with its concepts of the human soul and its triads of gods and, today, the similar concepts of the immortal soul and the triads of modern religion. The evidence reinforces our understanding that “Babylon the Great” is an appropriate symbol of Satan’s world empire of false religion.
Babylon—Arrogant Enemy of True Worship
Babylon was also the arrogant enemy of Jehovah’s ancient people, Israel, and a despiser of their true worship. Babylon destroyed the temple in Jerusalem in 607 B.C.E., carried away all the valuable utensils of Jehovah’s worship, and desecrated these vessels at Belshazzar’s feast.—Daniel 5:3, 4.
Likewise, in modern times Babylon the Great has been a relentless opposer of true worship. In most instances where Jehovah’s Witnesses have been persecuted, the clergy have promoted it, often through their alliances with political rulers.
One clear example of clergy-inspired opposition goes as far back as 1917, and this pattern has been repeated time and again. In that year the International Bible Students, as the Witnesses were then known, published the book The Finished Mystery. A few pages of this book were construed as subversive by the Canadian and U.S. clergy, whose countries were embroiled in World War I. They hastened to inform their political paramours of this publication. The result? According to Professor Martin Marty, in his book Modern American Religion—The Irony of It All: “The clergy turned against the Russellites [Witnesses] and cheered to hear that twenty-year sentences [for alleged sedition] were to be imposed upon convicted Jehovah’s Witnesses leaders.”
But what was the clergy reaction a few months later when those leaders were exonerated of the charges? “There were no cheers by the orthodox church members.” The Witnesses stood alone for Bible principles “to the point that they antagonized the federal government over their religion.” The Witnesses were not and never have been willing to be the obsequious consorts of political rulers, not even under Nazi rule in Germany or under Fascist rule in Italy, Spain, and Portugal.
Babylon Denounced and Shamed
How appropriate, then, when Revelation states that Babylon the Great is “drunk with the blood of the holy ones and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus” and “in her was found the blood of prophets and of holy ones and of all those who have been slaughtered on the earth.” World religion’s bloodguilt for actively participating in or passively condoning wars and persecution of true Christians can be traced down through the centuries.—Revelation 17:6; 18:24.
Babylon the Great, the world empire of false religion, has enjoyed luxury and power throughout history. But an angel warned John that the great harlot’s day would come. The account tells us: “And he cried out with a strong voice, saying: ‘She has fallen! Babylon the Great has fallen, and she has become a dwelling place of demons and a lurking place of every unclean exhalation and a lurking place of every unclean and hated bird!’”—Revelation 18:2.
When will Babylon fall? Or has she fallen already? In what way does she suffer a fall? And how does that affect you? These and related questions will be answered in our next issue of The Watchtower.
[Footnotes]
a Las Grandes Religiones Ilustradas(The Great Religions Illustrated): Asirio-Babilónica, Volume 20, Mateu-Rizzoli, Barcelona, Spain, 1963, page 53.
b Volume 19, pages 19, 20.
[Picture on page 8, 9]
Babylon the Great has her roots in ancient Babylonish religion.
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