And he brought me into the inner court of the LORD'S house, and, behold, at the door of the temple of the LORD, between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of the LORD, and their faces toward the east; and they worshipped the sun toward the east. Ezekiel 8:16
"----...the Chinese Sun God, Taiyang Xingjun (太阳星
君). Incidentally, “taiyang” is the Chinese word for sun; the “yang” (阳) part of it is the same as the well known “yin and yang,” and “tai” (太) means “supreme.”
Deng Ming-Dao writes: “The Sun God […] can be greeted at dawn with incense and ceremony wherever one happens to be, but a grand ceremony is also held on this day in his temple” HeathenChinese
"----of the Maya....
The great Temple of Kukulcan at Chichen Itza is an embodiment of
the secular calendar (the Haab) of 365 days but is also very specifically designed to make the god known as the Plumed Serpent back to earth twice a year.
At the two equinoxes, each year, people still gather for this event. The steps of the Temple of Kukulcan (also known as El Castillo) run steeply down from the temple at the summit of the pyramid to stone serpent heads at the base of the stairs.
On the twin equinoxes each year, the sun casts the shadow of a serpent which moves slowly down the stairs from the temple to the stone heads and creates the image of a serpent descending to the earth."
AncientHistory
"Sun-worship is declared to be “the oldest, the most widespread, and the most enduring of all the forms of idolatry known to man.”
In the Old Testament Student of January, 1886, under the heading “Sun Images and the Sun of Righteousness,” Dr. Talbot W. Chambers, of New York, presented the following comprehensive statement concerning the antiquity and universality of sunworship:
“The universality of this form of idolatry is something remarkable.
The chief object of worship
---among the Syrians was Baal, the sun, considered as the giver of light and life, the most active agent in all the operations of nature. But as he sometimes revealed himself as a destroyer, drying up the earth with summer heats and turning gardens into deserts, he was in that view regarded with terror, and appeased with human sacrifices....
----In Egypt the sun was the kernel of the State religion. In various
forms he stood at the head of each hierarchy.
At Memphis he was worshipped as Phtah; at Heliopolis as Tum; at Thebes as Amun Ra. Personified by Osiris, he became the foundation of the Egyptian Metempsychosis.
----In Babylon the same thing is observed as in Egypt. Men were struck by the various stages of the daily and yearly course of the sun, in which they saw the most imposing manifestation of Deity.
But they soon came to confound the creature with the Creator, and the host of heaven became objects of worship, with the sun as chief....
----In Persia the worship of Mithra, or the sun, is known to have
been common from an early period. No idols were made, but the inscriptions show ever-recurring symbolic representations, usually a disk or orb with out-stretched wings, with the addition sometimes of a human figure. The leading feature of the Magian rites derived from ancient Media was the worship of fire, performed on altars erected on high mountains, where a perpetual flame, supposed to have been originally kindled from heaven, was constantly watched, and where solemn service was daily rendered.
The remnant of the ancient Persians who escaped subjugation by Islam, now known as Parsees, unite with their reverence for the holy fire equal reverence for the sun as the emblem of Ormuzd.”
E.J.Waggoner
"Inti,
----also called Apu-punchau, in Inca religion, the sun god; he was
believed to be the ancestor of the Incas.
Inti was at the head of the state cult, and his worship was imposed throughout the Inca empire. He was usually represented in human form, his face portrayed as a gold disk from which rays and flames extended."
Britanica
"----Surya (also known as Aditya) is the Hindu god of the Sun.
He is considered the creator of the universe and the source of all life.
Each day he travels across the sky in his golden chariot pulled by seven horses and driven by red Aruna, a personification of Dawn. The god’s most famous temple is at Konarak in Orissa, north-east India but he was worshipped across the Indian subcontinent."
AncientHistory
"----...the Sun personified in Norse mythology....
Sol (Old Norse Sól, “Sun”) and Mani (Old Norse Máni, “Moon”),
are, as their names suggest, the divinities of the sun and the moon, respectively.
Sol is female, and Mani male.
Sol and Mani form a sister and brother pair.
When they first emerged as the cosmos was being created, they didn’t know what their powers were or what their role was in the new world. Then the gods met together and created the different parts of the day and year and the phases of the moon so that Sol and Mani would know where they fit into the great scheme of things.
They ride through the sky on horse-drawn chariots. The horses who pull Mani’s chariot are never named, but Sol’s horses are apparently named Árvakr (“Early Riser”) and Alsviðr (“Swift”). They ride “swiftly” because they’re pursued through the sky by the wolves Skoll (“Mockery”) and Hati (“Hate”), who will overtake them when the cosmos descends back into chaos during Ragnarok."
NorseMythologyForSmartPeople
"----Liza is a deity of the Fon people who live in West Africa. Liza is associated with the Sun, which is regarded by African people as fierce and harsh. Liza is depicted as male and inseparable from his
partner, Mawu, who is associated with the Moon.
Mawu and Liza were also regarded as twins. Their unity represented the order of the universe. Liza is said to dwell in the East, and Mawu in the West. Mawu and Liza were born from Nana Buluku, who created the world.
In a different legend, Mawu and Liza were the creators. They used their son, Gu, to shape the world. Gu, the divine tool, was in the shape of an iron sword. He taught the people the art of ironworking, so they could make their own tools and shelter. Unfortunately, Gu did not know humans would use their knowledge to make weapons. With the help of the cosmic serpent, Da, their ideas came to life." WindowsToTheUniverse
"Who was the Aztec sun god?
----In Aztec religion there were 5 ages, or "5 suns".
Each of these ages had a different Aztec sun god, and each age ended in disaster.
Tezcatlipoca (smoking mirror) was the first god to be a sun. The god of the night, Tezcatlipoca was an enemy of Quetzalcoatl. Quetzalcoatl knocked Tezcatlipoca from the sky, and in revenge Tezcatlipoca took the form of a jaguar and destroyed the world.
The natural replacement was Quetzalcoatl (feathered serpent), who became the next sun. But the rivalry continued, and the paw of the jaguar knocked him from the sky. So the reign of the second sun god came to an end. A great wind arose and there was great destruction on the earth.
The gods next chose Tlaloc, a god of rain, to be the sun. But Quetzalcoatl wasn't happy, and made the fire rain down, causing destruction on the earth and the end of the age.
Next came the Aztec sun goddess - Tlaloc's sister, Chalchiuhtlicue (lady of the jade skirts), was chosen by Quetzacoatl to next rule the sky. Chalchiuhtlicue was the goddess of water - lakes and streams. But once again the fighting of the gods caused the destruction of
the world, which was again destroyed by floods.
No other god wanted the job of being the sun. A council was formed, and the gods decided that the last sun would have to offer his life, so that the world and its people would survive.
Two gods were chosen: Tecciztecatl was the first, a wealthy and powerful god.
The second was Nanauatl (or Nanauatzin), the humble god. His name means full of sores.
A great fire was kindled, and the one who would be the sun god would have to leap into the fire. Tecciztecatl, proud and desiring immortality, tried to jump in, but was afraid because of the intense heat of the flames. After four attempts, he still could not bring himself to jump.
Finally, Nanauatl was asked to jump - and he did. His pride wounded, Tecciztecatl leapt in after him!
So now we've had six sun gods, and two suns at the same time!
The gods wouldn't stand for this, so they threw a rabbit into the face of Tecciztecatl to dim his brightness. And so he became the moon, doomed to chase the sun forever, but never to shine as bright.
And so Nanauatl was to be the Aztec sun god. He was given the name Tonatuih. It is Tonatuih's face that many believe to be on the Aztec calendar stone.
But the Aztecs had another sun god - Huitzilopochtli.
Huitzilopochtli (hummingbird of the south) was a god of war.
Huitzilopochtli was a fierce god who used the “serpent of fire” (the sun’s rays), to destroy his enemy siblings, the moon and stars. So as the battles of day and night continued, the Mexica (Aztec people) recognized his victories over darkness with each new sunrise. However, to keep this warring god appeased in their behalf, they had to continually feed his insatiable appetite for the hearts of human sacrifices."
AztecHistory
"----Helios, (Greek: “Sun”) in Greek religion, the sun god,
sometimes called a Titan. He drove a chariot daily from east to west across the sky and sailed around the northerly stream of Ocean each night in a huge cup.
Helios was especially worshipped in Rhodes, where from at least the early 5th century B.C. he was regarded as the chief god, to whom the island belonged. His worship spread as he became increasingly identified with other deities, often under Eastern influence.
From the 5th century B.C., Apollo, originally a deity of radiant purity, was more and more interpreted as a sun god. Under the Roman Empire the sun itself came to be worshipped as the Unconquered Sun."
Britanica
"----The Celts had many deities with solar attributes and celebrations marking the significant times of the Sun cycle. At the Beltane Festival (Beltane means “bright fire”, referring to the Sun) the return of the summer.... Great bonfires, sometimes with sweet
smelling Juniper, are built to achieve purification and rejuvenation. The Beltane festival is said to have been related with Belenus, called the “Fair Shining One” (or “The Shining God”), who was one of the most ancient and most widely worshiped Celtic deities. He is associated with the horse and rides across the sky in a wild, horse-drawn chariot. Incidentally, he was also the patron deity of the Italian city of Aquileia.
Another well-known sun god of the Celts is Lugh, whose name means “shining one” or “flashing light”. His name is the origin of the Pagan festival “Lughnasadh” (which is also the Irish Gaelic name for the month of August). He was the patron god of Lugdunum (currently Lyon, France) and was associated with multiple skills and industries including arts and crafts, commerce, history, healing, war and blacksmiths. Among his symbols were ravens and specifically a white stag in Wales."
NewAcropolis
"----The Cherokee revere the Great Spirit. She is called Unelanuhi, the sun goddess.
She presided over all things when the earth was created, and was said to have made the earth to provide for her children."
wiki
"----In Japanese mythology, Amaterasu, the goddess of the sun, is the sister of Susanoo, the god of storms and the sea, and of Tsukuyomi, the god of the moon.
It was written that Amaterasu had painted the landscape with her siblings while she created ancient Japan."
wiki
Q: What of Sol Invictus of Rome?
"Elagabalus or Heliogabalus c. 204 – 11 March 222, was Roman emperor from 218 to 222.
Elagabalus's family held hereditary rights to the priesthood of the sun god Elagabal, of whom Elagabalus was the high priest at Emesa in Roman Syria.
The deity Elagabalus was initially venerated at Emesa.
The cult of the deity spread to other parts of the Roman Empire in the 2nd century; a dedication has been found as far away as Woerden (Netherlands), near the Roman limes.
The god was later imported and assimilated with the Roman sun god known as Sol Indiges and as Sol Invictus during the second and third centuries A.D.
In Greek the sun god is Helios, hence "Heliogabalus", a hybrid conjunction of "Helios" and "Elagabalus".wiki
----The Sun Worship of Papal Rome leads the world into old fashioned pagan sun worship [mark of the beast as a counterfeit Sabbath on the day of the venerable sun--Sunday, the 1st day of the week] --- but it will be packaged for the sophisticated modern man....
Pope Francis says---"On Sunday, our participation in the Eucharist has special importance. Sunday, like the Jewish Sabbath, is meant to be a day which heals our relationships with God, with ourselves, with others and with the world. Sunday is the day of the Resurrection, the “first day” of the new creation, whose first fruits are the Lord’s risen humanity, the pledge of the final transfiguration of all created reality. It also proclaims “man’s eternal rest in God”. In this way, Christian spirituality incorporates the value of relaxation and festivity. We tend to demean contemplative rest as something unproductive and unnecessary, but this is to do away with the very thing which is most important about work: its meaning. We are called to include in our work a dimension of receptivity and gratuity, which is quite different from mere inactivity." Laudato Si
----God says--
But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work,....For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.
Exodus 20:10,11
"----...the Chinese Sun God, Taiyang Xingjun (太阳星
Deng Ming-Dao writes: “The Sun God […] can be greeted at dawn with incense and ceremony wherever one happens to be, but a grand ceremony is also held on this day in his temple” HeathenChinese
"----of the Maya....
The great Temple of Kukulcan at Chichen Itza is an embodiment of
At the two equinoxes, each year, people still gather for this event. The steps of the Temple of Kukulcan (also known as El Castillo) run steeply down from the temple at the summit of the pyramid to stone serpent heads at the base of the stairs.
On the twin equinoxes each year, the sun casts the shadow of a serpent which moves slowly down the stairs from the temple to the stone heads and creates the image of a serpent descending to the earth."
AncientHistory
"Sun-worship is declared to be “the oldest, the most widespread, and the most enduring of all the forms of idolatry known to man.”
In the Old Testament Student of January, 1886, under the heading “Sun Images and the Sun of Righteousness,” Dr. Talbot W. Chambers, of New York, presented the following comprehensive statement concerning the antiquity and universality of sunworship:
“The universality of this form of idolatry is something remarkable.
It seems to have prevailed everywhere.
The chief object of worship
----In Egypt the sun was the kernel of the State religion. In various
At Memphis he was worshipped as Phtah; at Heliopolis as Tum; at Thebes as Amun Ra. Personified by Osiris, he became the foundation of the Egyptian Metempsychosis.
----In Babylon the same thing is observed as in Egypt. Men were struck by the various stages of the daily and yearly course of the sun, in which they saw the most imposing manifestation of Deity.
But they soon came to confound the creature with the Creator, and the host of heaven became objects of worship, with the sun as chief....
----In Persia the worship of Mithra, or the sun, is known to have
The remnant of the ancient Persians who escaped subjugation by Islam, now known as Parsees, unite with their reverence for the holy fire equal reverence for the sun as the emblem of Ormuzd.”
E.J.Waggoner
"Inti,
----also called Apu-punchau, in Inca religion, the sun god; he was
Inti was at the head of the state cult, and his worship was imposed throughout the Inca empire. He was usually represented in human form, his face portrayed as a gold disk from which rays and flames extended."
Britanica
"----Surya (also known as Aditya) is the Hindu god of the Sun.
He is considered the creator of the universe and the source of all life.
Each day he travels across the sky in his golden chariot pulled by seven horses and driven by red Aruna, a personification of Dawn. The god’s most famous temple is at Konarak in Orissa, north-east India but he was worshipped across the Indian subcontinent."
AncientHistory
"----...the Sun personified in Norse mythology....
Sol (Old Norse Sól, “Sun”) and Mani (Old Norse Máni, “Moon”),
Sol is female, and Mani male.
Sol and Mani form a sister and brother pair.
When they first emerged as the cosmos was being created, they didn’t know what their powers were or what their role was in the new world. Then the gods met together and created the different parts of the day and year and the phases of the moon so that Sol and Mani would know where they fit into the great scheme of things.
They ride through the sky on horse-drawn chariots. The horses who pull Mani’s chariot are never named, but Sol’s horses are apparently named Árvakr (“Early Riser”) and Alsviðr (“Swift”). They ride “swiftly” because they’re pursued through the sky by the wolves Skoll (“Mockery”) and Hati (“Hate”), who will overtake them when the cosmos descends back into chaos during Ragnarok."
NorseMythologyForSmartPeople
"----Liza is a deity of the Fon people who live in West Africa. Liza is associated with the Sun, which is regarded by African people as fierce and harsh. Liza is depicted as male and inseparable from his
Mawu and Liza were also regarded as twins. Their unity represented the order of the universe. Liza is said to dwell in the East, and Mawu in the West. Mawu and Liza were born from Nana Buluku, who created the world.
In a different legend, Mawu and Liza were the creators. They used their son, Gu, to shape the world. Gu, the divine tool, was in the shape of an iron sword. He taught the people the art of ironworking, so they could make their own tools and shelter. Unfortunately, Gu did not know humans would use their knowledge to make weapons. With the help of the cosmic serpent, Da, their ideas came to life." WindowsToTheUniverse
"Who was the Aztec sun god?
----In Aztec religion there were 5 ages, or "5 suns".
Each of these ages had a different Aztec sun god, and each age ended in disaster.
Tezcatlipoca (smoking mirror) was the first god to be a sun. The god of the night, Tezcatlipoca was an enemy of Quetzalcoatl. Quetzalcoatl knocked Tezcatlipoca from the sky, and in revenge Tezcatlipoca took the form of a jaguar and destroyed the world.
The natural replacement was Quetzalcoatl (feathered serpent), who became the next sun. But the rivalry continued, and the paw of the jaguar knocked him from the sky. So the reign of the second sun god came to an end. A great wind arose and there was great destruction on the earth.
The gods next chose Tlaloc, a god of rain, to be the sun. But Quetzalcoatl wasn't happy, and made the fire rain down, causing destruction on the earth and the end of the age.
Next came the Aztec sun goddess - Tlaloc's sister, Chalchiuhtlicue (lady of the jade skirts), was chosen by Quetzacoatl to next rule the sky. Chalchiuhtlicue was the goddess of water - lakes and streams. But once again the fighting of the gods caused the destruction of
No other god wanted the job of being the sun. A council was formed, and the gods decided that the last sun would have to offer his life, so that the world and its people would survive.
Two gods were chosen: Tecciztecatl was the first, a wealthy and powerful god.
The second was Nanauatl (or Nanauatzin), the humble god. His name means full of sores.
A great fire was kindled, and the one who would be the sun god would have to leap into the fire. Tecciztecatl, proud and desiring immortality, tried to jump in, but was afraid because of the intense heat of the flames. After four attempts, he still could not bring himself to jump.
Finally, Nanauatl was asked to jump - and he did. His pride wounded, Tecciztecatl leapt in after him!
So now we've had six sun gods, and two suns at the same time!
The gods wouldn't stand for this, so they threw a rabbit into the face of Tecciztecatl to dim his brightness. And so he became the moon, doomed to chase the sun forever, but never to shine as bright.
And so Nanauatl was to be the Aztec sun god. He was given the name Tonatuih. It is Tonatuih's face that many believe to be on the Aztec calendar stone.
But the Aztecs had another sun god - Huitzilopochtli.
Huitzilopochtli (hummingbird of the south) was a god of war.
Huitzilopochtli was a fierce god who used the “serpent of fire” (the sun’s rays), to destroy his enemy siblings, the moon and stars. So as the battles of day and night continued, the Mexica (Aztec people) recognized his victories over darkness with each new sunrise. However, to keep this warring god appeased in their behalf, they had to continually feed his insatiable appetite for the hearts of human sacrifices."
AztecHistory
"----Helios, (Greek: “Sun”) in Greek religion, the sun god,
Helios was especially worshipped in Rhodes, where from at least the early 5th century B.C. he was regarded as the chief god, to whom the island belonged. His worship spread as he became increasingly identified with other deities, often under Eastern influence.
From the 5th century B.C., Apollo, originally a deity of radiant purity, was more and more interpreted as a sun god. Under the Roman Empire the sun itself came to be worshipped as the Unconquered Sun."
Britanica
"----The Celts had many deities with solar attributes and celebrations marking the significant times of the Sun cycle. At the Beltane Festival (Beltane means “bright fire”, referring to the Sun) the return of the summer.... Great bonfires, sometimes with sweet
Another well-known sun god of the Celts is Lugh, whose name means “shining one” or “flashing light”. His name is the origin of the Pagan festival “Lughnasadh” (which is also the Irish Gaelic name for the month of August). He was the patron god of Lugdunum (currently Lyon, France) and was associated with multiple skills and industries including arts and crafts, commerce, history, healing, war and blacksmiths. Among his symbols were ravens and specifically a white stag in Wales."
"----The Cherokee revere the Great Spirit. She is called Unelanuhi, the sun goddess.
She presided over all things when the earth was created, and was said to have made the earth to provide for her children."
wiki
"----In Japanese mythology, Amaterasu, the goddess of the sun, is the sister of Susanoo, the god of storms and the sea, and of Tsukuyomi, the god of the moon. It was written that Amaterasu had painted the landscape with her siblings while she created ancient Japan."
wiki
Q: What of Sol Invictus of Rome?
"Elagabalus or Heliogabalus c. 204 – 11 March 222, was Roman emperor from 218 to 222.
Elagabalus's family held hereditary rights to the priesthood of the sun god Elagabal, of whom Elagabalus was the high priest at Emesa in Roman Syria.
The deity Elagabalus was initially venerated at Emesa.
The cult of the deity spread to other parts of the Roman Empire in the 2nd century; a dedication has been found as far away as Woerden (Netherlands), near the Roman limes.
The god was later imported and assimilated with the Roman sun god known as Sol Indiges and as Sol Invictus during the second and third centuries A.D.
In Greek the sun god is Helios, hence "Heliogabalus", a hybrid conjunction of "Helios" and "Elagabalus".wiki
----The Sun Worship of Papal Rome leads the world into old fashioned pagan sun worship [mark of the beast as a counterfeit Sabbath on the day of the venerable sun--Sunday, the 1st day of the week] --- but it will be packaged for the sophisticated modern man....
Pope Francis says---"On Sunday, our participation in the Eucharist has special importance. Sunday, like the Jewish Sabbath, is meant to be a day which heals our relationships with God, with ourselves, with others and with the world. Sunday is the day of the Resurrection, the “first day” of the new creation, whose first fruits are the Lord’s risen humanity, the pledge of the final transfiguration of all created reality. It also proclaims “man’s eternal rest in God”. In this way, Christian spirituality incorporates the value of relaxation and festivity. We tend to demean contemplative rest as something unproductive and unnecessary, but this is to do away with the very thing which is most important about work: its meaning. We are called to include in our work a dimension of receptivity and gratuity, which is quite different from mere inactivity." Laudato Si----God says--
But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work,....For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.
Exodus 20:10,11