Herodotus and the Delphic Oracles

Polytheocracy vs Monotheocracy

This is the introduction from the upcoming 11-part article on

polytheism in the free commentary which you can download without
any costs at
http://sites.google.com/site/freecommentary
(paste this in the address bar)

THE DELPHIC ORACLES

INTRODUCTION

Bible Prophecy vs The Rest of the World

In my search for sacred writings on a level with the Bible, there are many which
do not actually prophesy anything testable (such as the Koran; the Egyptian texts;
Buddhist writings), or are otherwise 'false-prophecy' (Bhagavad Gita; Bahai
writings; Enoch) or are clearly inferior (Hammurabi's Law Code; The Prophet).

The test of false-prophecy is simple: the prediction does not come true:

Deu_18:21-22 And if thou say in thy heart, How shall we know the word
which Jehovah hath not spoken?
22 when a prophet speaketh in the name of Jehovah, if the thing follow
not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which Jehovah hath not spoken:
the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously, thou shalt not be afraid of
him.

So you don't need to respect or fear the imitation scriptures.

However, the ancient oracles of the pantheon of Egyptian/Greek/Roman gods

and demigods, heroes and heroines, come close to a fair comparison with Bible
prophecy.

The comparison is between Biblical prophecies which came true, and pagan
oracles which came true. This will surprise many of you, but that is where the fair
comparison lies; and until you look for and find the evidence for true oracles, you
cannot get close enough to the real spiritual powers behind the various claims on
being God.
I am looking for a contrast, not a similarity, between the two sets of predictions,
for it is the heart of the spirits which must show through in the end.
The onus is to detect the heart of the spirit of prophecy -- does it preach Christ?
Does it lead you away from the true God? This opens up a second test:

The test of a false-miracle is whether the associated teaching aligns with other
true and proven prophets in pointing people to the worship of Yahweh. If not,
is is a false-spirit at work.

The validity of predictions of other spirits is in the Bible as follows:

Deu_13:1-3 If there arise in the midst of thee a prophet, or a dreamer of

dreams, and he give thee a sign or a wonder,
2 and the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee,
saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve
them;
3 thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or unto that
dreamer of dreams:
for Jehovah your God proveth you, to know whether ye love Jehovah your
God with all your heart and with all your soul.

The historian Herodotus, circa 440BC, recorded many of the oracles, mostly from
Delphi, but from other oracles too.
I have used his history as a basis for what follows, and I refer to his records by
page number for my own reference, from a 594 page document translated by
George Rawlinson. The [square brackets] indicate my comments, and the
underlining is mine.
There is more about Herodotus in separate sub-sections, 'Herodotus' and 'Anti-
Semitism'.

The historical narrative of Herodotus would fall apart if it were deprived of the
spiritual background he puts into every story -- It is almost as if Herodotus is
acting like the Chronicler of Greek history equivalent to the books of Chronicles
for Israel; For in the Bible Chronicles, the history is traced through a continuous
fabric of miracles, dreams, visions, divinations, prophecies, sacrificial service and
priesthood. Herodotus does the same, and it forms a fair comparison therefore
(and for other reasons to come), to quote Herodotus alongside the Bible.

The simplicity of the historical upshot is:

One God: Big Bible; rich and living legacy

Many gods: poor record; scattered and lapsed legacy

A Lost World

The spiritual world has, in modern times, been replaced by the secular world.
That's good, because the world of spirits was one of constant warfare.
The whole known world, before Christianity, was in constant wars, guided by the
oracles (of many different gods and goddesses, who frequented temples and
sacred precincts), and guided by dreams purporting to be from one or another
god or demigod.
Many calamities were put down to not obeying the gods. Emperors were in fear of
their predictions. If the god ordered a siege, there was a siege; or if the god said
not to attack, they refrained. Campaigns were fought according to their words.
Whole parliaments were devoted to deciphering the meaning of the oracles, and
soothsayers and diviners were paid to decide on auspicious dates and so forth.
Temples multiplied, and so did vows to honour each god in each new place, in
perpetuity. In this 'pay honour to the gods' way, ever-increasing idolatry, and the
associated costs, was forced on the inquirers. Vast sums of gold, silver, bronze
and iron were dedicated in response to a true oracle. Ways were sought to get
around the wording of the prophecies, and cases of bribery were not unknown
even amongst the most trusted oracles (which brought all of them into constant
doubt). Longstanding international and internal feuding was the order of the day.
Most of the oracles concerned politics and wars, and revolved around payback in
this life, so that feuding was the only possible result.

Here is an example, from Herodotus, p451, which illustrates about oracles, that
what people were most interested in was warfare
and that oracles were written down by the hearers,
often without the question needing to be first asked
and further that oracles were often in the form of unclear wording, requiring
clever interpretation
and there was a game of 'Which oracle shall we listen to?':

When the Athenians [Greeks, threatened by

Persians], anxious to consult the oracle, sent their
messengers to Delphi, hardly had the envoys
completed the customary rites about the sacred
precinct, and taken their seats inside the
sanctuary of the god, when the Pythoness,
Aristonice by name, thus prophesied-
Wretches, why sit ye here? Fly, fly to the ends of
creation,
Quitting your homes, and the crags which your
city crowns with her circlet.
Neither the head, nor the body is firm in its
place, nor at bottom
 Firm the feet, nor the hands; nor resteth the
middle uninjur'd.
All- all ruined and lost. Since fire, and impetuous
Ares, [Mars, the god of War, the fiery-red
planet]
Speeding along in a Syrian chariot, hastes to
destroy her.
Not alone shalt thou suffer; full many the towers
he will level,
Many the shrines of the gods he will give to a
fiery destruction.
Even now they stand with dark sweat horribly
dripping,
Trembling and quaking for fear; and lo! from the
high roofs trickleth
Black blood, sign prophetic of hard distresses
impending.
Get ye away from the temple; and brood on the
ills that await ye!
When the Athenian messengers heard this reply,
they were filled with the deepest affliction:
whereupon Timon, the son of Androbulus, one of
the men of most mark among the Delphians,
seeing how utterly cast down they were at the
gloomy prophecy, advised them to take an olive-
branch, and entering the sanctuary again, consult
the oracle
as suppliants. The Athenians followed this advice,
and going in once more, said- "O king! we pray
thee reverence these boughs of supplication which
we bear in our hands, and deliver to us something
more comforting concerning our country. Else we
will not leave thy sanctuary, but will stay here till
we die." Upon this the priestess gave them a
second answer, which was the following:-
Pallas has not been able to soften the lord of
Olympus,
Though she has often prayed him, and urged
him with excellent counsel.
Yet once more I address thee in words than
adamant firmer.
When the foe shall have taken whatever the
limit of Cecrops
Holds within it, and all which divine Cithaeron,
shelters,
Then far-seeing Jove grants this to the prayers
of Athene;
Safe shall the wooden wall continue for thee and
thy children.
Wait not the tramp of the horse, nor the
footmen mightily moving
Over the land, but turn your back to the foe, and
retire ye.
Yet shall a day arrive when ye shall meet him in
battle.
Holy Salamis, thou shalt destroy the offspring of
women,
When men scatter the seed, or when they
gather the harvest.
This answer seemed, as indeed it was, gentler
than the former one; so the envoys wrote it down,
and went back with it to Athens. When, however,
upon their arrival, they produced it before the
people, and inquiry began to be made into its true
 meaning, many and various were the
interpretations which men put on it...

[The Persians did indeed burn Arhens and all their

sacred places;
And indeed there came a day when Athenians saw
a reversal of defeat into victory, at Salamis.]

First note that the supposed 'council of Olympian gods ands goddesses' (Pallas,
Olympus, Jove, Athene, Cithaeron) is in direct contradiction to Yahweh's version
of the unseen realms, and comes with far less proof, and was born only with their
national ballads rather than from any ancient source.
Now compare an equivalent Biblical oracle (one among hundreds), from Moses'
last words, in Deuteronomy, against polytheism in Israel:

Deu_32:16-26 They moved him to jealousy with strange gods;

With abominations provoked they him to anger.
17 They sacrificed unto demons, which were no God,
To gods that they knew not, To new gods that came up of late,
Which your fathers dreaded not.
18 Of the Rock that begat thee thou art unmindful,
And hast forgotten God that gave thee birth.
19 And Jehovah saw it, and abhorred them,
Because of the provocation of his sons and his daughters.
20 And he said, I will hide my face from them,
I will see what their end shall be:
For they are a very perverse generation,
Children in whom is no faithfulness.
21 They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God;
They have provoked me to anger with their vanities:
And I will move them to jealousy with those that are not a people;
I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation.
22 For a fire is kindled in mine anger,
And burneth unto the lowest Sheol,
And devoureth the earth with its increase,
And setteth on fire the foundations of the mountains.
23 I will heap evils upon them;
I will spend mine arrows upon them:
24 They shall be wasted with hunger,
and devoured with burning heat And bitter destruction;
And the teeth of beasts will I send upon them,
With the poison of crawling things of the dust.
25 Without shall the sword bereave,
And in the chambers terror;
 It shall destroy both young man and virgin,
The suckling with the man of gray hairs.
26 I said, I would scatter them afar,
I would make the remembrance of them to cease from among men;

Yet Yahweh adds a less harsh message of eventual redemption, as is usual for
Him:

Deu_32:36 For Jehovah will judge his people,

And [=Then He will] repent himself for his servants;
When he seeth that their power is gone,
And there is none remaining, shut up or left at large.
Deu 32:37 And he will say, Where are their gods,
The rock in which they took refuge;

A second example of a harsh message, repeated:

Jeremiah had risked his life, and -- while all the false-prophets had prophesied
'Peace!' -- had accurately predicted that the Babylonians would come and
conquer Jerusalem. He now tells the king to leave the city and surrender to the
enemy, which almost causes Jeremiah's death:

Jer_21:1-14 The word which came unto Jeremiah from Jehovah, when king
Zedekiah sent unto him Pashhur the son of Malchijah, and Zephaniah the son
of Maaseiah, the priest, saying,
2 Inquire, I pray thee, of Jehovah for us; for Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon
maketh war against us: peradventure Jehovah will deal with us according to
all his wondrous works, that he may go up from us.
3 Then said Jeremiah unto them, Thus shall ye say to Zedekiah:
4 Thus saith Jehovah, the God of Israel, Behold, I will turn back the weapons
of war that are in your hands, wherewith ye fight against the king of Babylon,
and against the Chaldeans that besiege you, without the walls; and I will
gather them into the midst of this city.
5 And I myself will fight against you with an outstretched hand and with a
strong arm, even in anger, and in wrath, and in great indignation.
6 And I will smite the inhabitants of this city, both man and beast: they shall
die of a great pestilence.
7 And afterward, saith Jehovah, I will deliver Zedekiah king of Judah, and his
servants, and the people, even such as are left in this city from the pestilence,
from the sword, and from the famine, into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king
of Babylon, and into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of those that
seek their life: and he shall smite them with the edge of the sword; he shall not
spare them, neither have pity, nor have mercy.
8 And unto this people thou shalt say, Thus saith Jehovah: Behold, I set
before you the way of life and the way of death.
9 He that abideth in this city shall die by the sword, and by the famine, and
by the pestilence; but he that goeth out, and passeth over to the Chaldeans
that besiege you, he shall live, and his life shall be unto him for a prey.
 10 For I have set my face upon this city for evil, and not for good, saith
Jehovah: it shall be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall
burn it with fire.
11 And touching the house of the king of Judah, hear ye the word of Jehovah:
12 O house of David, thus saith Jehovah, Execute justice in the morning, and
deliver him that is robbed out of the hand of the oppressor, lest my wrath go
forth like fire, and burn so that none can quench it, because of the evil of your
doings.
13 Behold, I am against thee, O inhabitant of the valley, and of the rock of the
plain, saith Jehovah; you that say, Who shall come down against us? or who
shall enter into our habitations?
14 And I will punish you according to the fruit of your doings, saith Jehovah;
and I will kindle a fire in her forest, and it shall devour all that is round about
her.

Yahweh refused to play the game, of changing His mind, when they refused to
repent. Jeremiah repeatedly sent back to the king the same message, risking his
neck every time:

Jer_37:6-10 Then came the word of Jehovah unto the prophet Jeremiah,
saying,
7 Thus saith Jehovah, the God of Israel, Thus shall ye say to the king of
Judah, that sent you unto me to inquire of me: Behold, Pharaoh's army, which
is come forth to help you, shall return to Egypt into their own land.
8 And the Chaldeans shall come again, and fight against this city; and they
shall take it, and burn it with fire.
9 Thus saith Jehovah, Deceive not yourselves, saying, The Chaldeans shall
surely depart from us; for they shall not depart.
10 For though ye had smitten the whole army of the Chaldeans that fight
against you, and there remained but wounded men among them, yea would
they rise up every man in his tent, and burn this city with fire.

Yet to a king who repented, grace was extended:

2Ki_22:13-20 Go ye, inquire of Jehovah for me, and for the people, and for
all Judah, concerning the words of this book that is found; for great is the
wrath of Jehovah that is kindled against us, because our fathers have not
hearkened unto the words of this book, to do according unto all that which is
written concerning us.
14 So Hilkiah the priest, and Ahikam, and Achbor, and Shaphan, and Asaiah,
went unto Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shallum the son of Tikvah, the
son of Harhas, keeper of the wardrobe (now she dwelt in Jerusalem in the
second quarter); and they communed with her.
15 And she said unto them, Thus saith Jehovah, the God of Israel: Tell ye the
man that sent you unto me,
16 Thus saith Jehovah, Behold, I will bring evil upon this place, and upon the
inhabitants thereof, even all the words of the book which the king of Judah
 hath read.
17 Because they have forsaken me, and have burned incense unto other gods,
that they might provoke me to anger with all the work of their hands,
therefore my wrath shall be kindled against this place, and it shall not be
quenched.
18 But unto the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire of Jehovah, thus shall
ye say to him, Thus saith Jehovah, the God of Israel: As touching the words
which thou hast heard,
19 because thy heart was tender, and thou didst humble thyself before
Jehovah, when thou heardest what I spake against this place, and against the
inhabitants thereof, that they should become a desolation and a curse, and
hast rent thy clothes, and wept before me; I also have heard thee, saith
Jehovah.
20 Therefore, behold, I will gather thee to thy fathers, and thou shalt be
gathered to thy grave in peace, neither shall thine eyes see all the evil which I
will bring upon this place. And they brought the king word again.

You knew where you stood, with Yahweh.

'Pytho' was the region of Delphi, where the Delphic Oracle, the 'pythoness'
prophesied, in the name of the god Apollo.

p378
"Greatly hast thou deceived me, Apollo, god of
prophecy, in saying that I should take Argos. I fear
me thy oracle has now got its accomplishment."
Paul cast out 'a spirit of pytho' from a woman in Macedonia...

Act_16:16 And it came to pass, as we were going to the place of prayer, that a
certain maid having a spirit of divination [pythona] met us, who brought her
masters much gain by soothsaying.
17 The same following after Paul and us cried out, saying,

These men are servants of the Most High God,

who proclaim unto you the way of salvation.

18 And this she did for many days. But Paul, being sore troubled, turned and
said to the spirit, I charge thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.
And it came out that very hour.

Note again that the Bible acknowledges the power and accuracy of this spirit, but
that the power of Christ counted it as an enemy, and overcame it.
 Pagan Oracles in the Bible
treated as true:

Act_17:27-28 that they should seek God, if haply they might feel after him
and find him,
though he is not far from each one of us:
28 for in him we live, and move, and have our being;
as certain even of your own poets have said,
For we are also his offspring.

[identified as Plautus (5, 4,14);

Aratus, "Phaenomena", v. 5;
Cleanthes' Hymn to Jupiter;
Homer;
and several other poets and philosophers, according to the commentators]

Can you say that Paul treats the following self-denying paradox as true or false?
Yes; both.

Tit_1:12-13 One of themselves, a prophet of their own, said,

Cretans are always liars,
evil beasts, idle gluttons.
13 This testimony is true.
For which cause reprove them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith,

[Paul turns the paradox against itself,

to declare that it proves them to be deceptive, tricky and unreliable,
and false in what they affirm]

Government by Oracle

p3 Oracles were trusted:

The Heraclides, descended from Hercules and the

slave-girl of Jardanus, having been entrusted by
these princes with the management of affairs,
obtained the kingdom by an oracle.
p 26 Oracles protected their own kind:

Farther, he purified the island of Delos, according

to the injunctions of an oracle, after the following
fashion. All the dead bodies which had been
 interred within sight of the temple he dug up, and
removed to another part of the isle.
p70 People-movements were to order:

..the Phocaeans, as Arganthonius was now dead,

made up their minds to sail to Cyrnus (Corsica),
where, twenty years before, following the direction
of an oracle, they had founded a city, which was
called Alalia.
p102: Wars orchestrated:

There is an oracle of Jupiter in the city, which

directs the warlike expeditions of the Ethiopians;
when it commands they go to war, and in whatever
direction it bids them march, thither straightway
they carry their arms.

p147: A king deposed by an oracle:

So he resolved not to do the deed suggested to

him, but rather to retire from Egypt, as the time
during which it was fated that he should hold the
country had now (he thought) expired. For before
he left Ethiopia he had been told by the oracles
which are venerated there, that he was to reign
fifty years over Egypt. The years were now fled,
and the dream had come to trouble him; he
therefore of his own accord withdrew from the
land.
p 292:

Here, in this lake, is an island called Phla, which it

is said the Lacedaemonians were to have
 colonised, according to an oracle.
p300:

The Persians now set out on their return home,

carrying with them the rest of the Barcaeans,
whom they had made their slaves. On their way
they came to Cyrene; and the Cyrenaeans, out of
regard for an oracle, let them pass through the
town.

What this describes is poly-theocracy (in contrast to Yahweh's mono-theocracy).

Israel, even while it was known as a theocracy, had judges, priests, prophets and
kings to lead the nation. In the same way, these nations listened to the oracles
with respect and fear, so making it a polytheistic 'empire', spiritually speaking,
even though it consisted of warring states. This sprawling poly-theocracy, run by
the same set of spirits, was a spiritual 'empire' set up in opposition to Yahweh's
theocracy.

The Estranged God of all Nations

I would like to make the point that the god or gods behind the oracles, omens,
dreams and wise counsel (for the polytheists), cannot all be equated with
'Yahweh God of all nations', whenever opposing sides have conflicting advice.

It is tempting to think that whoever they call 'chief god' or 'creator god' or
'supreme god' might actually be Yahweh God by another name (like 'Zeus' or
'Jove' or 'Apollo' or 'Jupiter'). But when both opposing sides both think that the
gods tell them that they will win, it is obvious that there is a good deal of
deception afoot.

To put it more strongly, these gods can not at all be equated with the God of the
Hebrews, at any time, at least when those invoking the gods are not serving the
One God; This is most obvious when Israel goes to war with invading neighbours,
who are polytheists, and wins, by miracles. The other side must have listened to
false-prophets with false-divinations and false-interpretations of the given false-
signs, calling their own gods 'God', but clearly opposing Israel's God.

In fact the invaders often claimed, sometimes truly, sometimes falsely, to be told
'by Yahweh', to fight:

The king of Assyria invoked the name 'Yahweh' but was soon defeated,
humiliated and killed (by Yahweh as it were, for Yahweh had predicted it all to
Israel):

Isa_36:10 And am I now come up without Jehovah against this land to

destroy it? Jehovah said unto me, Go up against this land, and destroy it
[Judah in Israel].

Pharaoh Neco was speaking the truth to king Josiah of Southern Israel, in the
name of 'God', but was soon defeated, being delayed by Josiah, who died as a
result:

2Ch_35:21-23 But he sent ambassadors to him, saying, What have I to do

with thee, thou king of Judah? I come not against thee this day, but against
the house wherewith I have war;
and God hath commanded me to make haste: forbear thee from meddling
with God, who is with me, that he destroy thee not.
22 Nevertheless Josiah would not turn his face from him, but disguised
himself, that he might fight with him, and hearkened not unto the words of
Neco from the mouth of God, and came to fight in the valley of Megiddo.
23 And the archers shot at king Josiah; and the king said to his servants,
Have me away; for I am sore wounded.

The outline of Ar-mageddo-n is to be found in this scene at Megiddo; and such a

dimension of deep prophecy is missing from the other oracles.

Anyway, whenever anyone says 'God', that opens a needed debate about whether
they are speaking truly or falsely. At that point, Yahweh's clear message against
false gods has to be given its full weight, against polytheism.

For instance, Croesus called the god of Delphi, 'the god of the Greeks'. Therefore
the whole Greek polytheism was under this god's watch, without a word of
objection. The chief god of the Greek pantheon therefore can be nothing like
Yahweh.

p40.

Croesus replied, "Oh! my lord, if thou wilt suffer

me to send these fetters to the god of the Greeks,
whom I once honoured above all other gods, and
ask him if it is his wont to deceive his benefactors-
that will be the highest favour thou canst confer on
me."
The polytheistic scene is one of real and powerful rebellious spirits, practising
real deception upon their followers, for there is room for one true God, and all the
rest must be pretenders, necessarily in the service of the Deceiver, refusing to
bow to Yahweh and His chosen Son-and-heir of all creation, who was well
prophesied.

The oracles were collected and remembered

p336.

They were also moved by certain prophecies,

which declared that many dire calamities should
befall them at the hands of the Athenians. Of
these in times past they had been ignorant; but
now they had become acquainted with them by
means of Cleomenes, who had brought them with
him to Sparta, having found them in the Athenian
citadel, where they had been left by the
Pisistratidae when they were driven from Athens:
they were in the temple, and Cleomenes having
discovered them, carried them off.
So when the Lacedaemonians obtained
possession of the prophecies, and saw that the
Athenians were growing in strength...

Consider this similar story from the Bible, already half-given above, but now
notice, that it is pitched against the use of other oracles, sacred precincts, images
and such:

2Ki_22:10-20 And Shaphan the scribe told the king, saying, Hilkiah the
priest hath delivered me a book. And Shaphan read it before the king.
11 And it came to pass, when the king had heard the words of the book of the
law, that he rent his clothes.
12 And the king commanded Hilkiah the priest, and Ahikam the son of
Shaphan, and Achbor the son of Micaiah, and Shaphan the scribe, and Asaiah
the king's servant, saying,
13 Go ye, inquire of Jehovah for me, and for the people, and for all Judah,
concerning the words of this book that is found;
for great is the wrath of Jehovah that is kindled against us, because our
fathers have not hearkened unto the words of this book, to do according unto
 all that which is written concerning us.
14 So Hilkiah the priest, and Ahikam, and Achbor, and Shaphan, and Asaiah,
went unto Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shallum the son of Tikvah, the
son of Harhas, keeper of the wardrobe (now she dwelt in Jerusalem in the
second quarter); and they communed with her.
15 And she said unto them, Thus saith Jehovah, the God of Israel: Tell ye the
man that sent you unto me,
16 Thus saith Jehovah, Behold, I will bring evil upon this place, and upon the
inhabitants thereof, even all the words of the book which the king of Judah
hath read.
17 Because they have forsaken me, and have burned incense unto other gods,
that they might provoke me to anger with all the work of their hands [molten
and engraven images], therefore my wrath shall be kindled against this place,
and it shall not be quenched.

p340 of Herodotus; Oracles were able to be studied:

When Sosicles, the deputy from Corinth, had thus

spoken, Hippias replied, and, invoking the same
gods, he said-
"Of a surety the Corinthians will, beyond all
others, regret the Pisistratidae, when the fated
days come for them to be distressed by the
Athenians."
Hippias spoke thus because he knew the
prophecies better than any man living.
Compare Ezra from the Bible:

Ezr_7:6 this Ezra went up from Babylon: and he was a ready scribe in the law
of Moses, which Jehovah, the God of Israel, had given; and the king granted
him all his request, according to the hand of Jehovah his God upon him.
Ezr_7:10 For Ezra had set his heart to seek the law of Jehovah, and to do it,
and to teach in Israel statutes and ordinances.

p369

They [Spartan kings] have the custody of all the

oracles which are pronounced; but the Pythians
must likewise have knowledge of them.
Israel had once rediscovered that long-neglected book of scripture mentioned
above:

2Ki_23:24 Moreover them that had familiar spirits, and the wizards, and the
teraphim, and the idols, and all the abominations that were seen in the land of
Judah and in Jerusalem,
did Josiah put away,
that he might confirm the words of the law which were written
in the book that Hilkiah the priest found in the house of Jehovah.

Yahweh's book insisted on His words, and His ways only, not their words and
their gods and their ways.

p405:

Onomacritus of Athens, an oracle-monger,

and the same who set forth the prophecies of
Musaeus in their order.
Compare Solomon:

Ecc_12:9-11 And further, because the Preacher was wise, he still taught the
people knowledge;
yea, he pondered, and sought out, and set in order many proverbs.
10 The Preacher sought to find out acceptable words, and that which was
written uprightly, even words of truth.
11 The words of the wise are as goads; and as nails well fastened are the
words of the masters of assemblies, which are given from one shepherd.

Pro_25:1 These also are proverbs of Solomon, which the men of Hezekiah
king of Judah copied out.

It depended on the hearers to write down the exact words

p 538:

Theban citizens- picked men whom the state had

appointed to take down whatever answer the god
might give. No sooner was he entered than the
prophet delivered him an oracle, but in a foreign
tongue; so that his Theban attendants were
 astonished, hearing a strange language when they
expected Greek, and did not know what to do.
Mys, however, the European, snatched from their
hands the tablet which they had brought with
them, and wrote down what the prophet uttered.
The reply, he told them, was in the Carian dialect.
After this, Mys departed and returned to Thessaly.
From this there is an immediate telling contrast with the Hebrew scriptures
written by prophets, or under their direct supervision:

Jeremiah:
Jer_36:1-4 And it came to pass in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of
Josiah, king of Judah, that this word came unto Jeremiah from Jehovah
[Yahweh], saying,
2 Take thee a roll of a book, and write therein all the words that I have spoken
unto thee against Israel, and against Judah, and against all the nations, from
the day I spake unto thee, from the days of Josiah, even unto this day.
3 It may be that the house of Judah will hear all the evil which I purpose to do
unto them; that they may return every man from his evil way; that I may
forgive their iniquity and their sin.
4 Then Jeremiah called Baruch the son of Neriah; and Baruch wrote from the
mouth of Jeremiah all the words of Jehovah, which he had spoken unto him,
upon a roll of a book.
[Repeated in Jer_36:18, Jer_36:27, Jer_36:32, Jer_45:1]

The reliability of having the prophet himself dictate the prophecy at writing
speed, and presumably have them read back to him for checking, is crucial to
trusting the words forever-after preserved.

The records of oracles were subject to corruption

Here are some examples:

p404:

..Onomacritus of Athens, an oracle-monger,

and the same who set forth the prophecies of
Musaeus in their order.
The Pisistratidae had previously been at enmity
with this man, but made up the quarrel before
 they removed to Susa. He was banished from
Athens by Hipparchus, the son of Pisistratus,
because he foisted into the writings of Musaeus a
prophecy
that the islands which lie off Lemnos would one
day disappear in the sea.
Lasus of Hermione caught him in the act of so
doing.
Compare:
Jer_8:8 How do ye say, We are wise, and the law [=counsel] of Jehovah
[Yahweh] is with us?
But, behold, the false pen of the scribes hath wrought falsely.
9 The wise men are put to shame, they are dismayed and taken:
lo, they have rejected the word of Jehovah; and what manner of wisdom is in
them?

It is unclear what falsity is afoot in Jeremiah's time, but the context is 'false-
prophets' in Israel, and it suggests the mixing of false-prophecies in amongst the
true prophecies of the true prophets.

p324:

These same men, if we may believe the

Athenians, during their stay at Delphi persuaded
the Pythoness by a bribe to tell the Spartans,
whenever any of them came to consult the oracle,
either on their own private affairs or on the
business of the state, that they must free Athens.
So the Lacedaemonians, when they found no
answer ever returned to them but this, sent at last
Anchimolius, the son of Aster- a man of note
among their citizens- at the head of an army
against Athens, with orders to drive out the
Pisistratidae, albeit they were bound to them by
the closest ties of friendship. For they esteemed
the things of heaven more highly than the things
 of men.
[They were routed, but a later attempt succeeded]

p336 continues, as if we may indeed 'believe the Athenians':

Such then was the origin of the feud which

existed between the Eginetans and the Athenians.
Hence, when the Thebans made their application
for succour, the Eginetans, calling to mind the
matter of images, gladly lent their aid to the
Boeotians. They ravaged all the sea-coast of
Attica; and the Athenians were about to attack
them in return, when they were stopped by the
oracle of Delphi, [presumably under bribery]

which bade them wait till thirty years had

passed from the time that the Eginetans did the
wrong, and in the thirty-first year, having first
set apart a precinct for Aeacus, then to begin
the war. "So should they succeed to their wish,"
the oracle said; "but if they went to war at once,
though they would still conquer the island in the
end, yet they must go through much suffering
and much exertion before taking it."

On receiving this warning the Athenians set apart

a precinct for Aeacus- the same which still remains
dedicated to him in their market-place- but they
could not hear with any patience of waiting thirty
years, after they had suffered such grievous wrong
at the hands of the Eginetans.
Accordingly they were making ready to take
their revenge when a fresh stir on the part of the
 Lacedaemonians hindered their projects. These
last had become aware of the truth- how that the
Alcmaeonidae had practised on the Pythoness, and
the Pythoness had schemed against themselves,
and against the Pisistratidae; and the discovery
was a double grief to them, for while they had
driven their own sworn friends into exile, they
found that they had not gained thereby a particle
of good will from Athens.
...
"Friends and brothers in arms, we are free to
confess that we did lately a thing which was not
right. Misled by counterfeit oracles, we drove from
their country those who were our sworn and true
friends...

p372: This incident was treated as serious corruption:

At last, as there came to be much strife concerning

this matter, the Spartans made a decree that the
Delphic oracle should be asked to say whether
Demaratus were Ariston's son or no. Cleomenes
set them upon this plan; and no sooner was the
decree passed than he made a friend of [by
bribery?] Cobon, the son of Aristophantus, a man
of the greatest weight among the Delphians; and
this Cobon prevailed upon [by bribery?] Perialla,
the prophetess, to give the answer which
Cleomenes wished.
Accordingly, when the sacred messengers came
and put their question, the Pythoness returned for
answer "that Demaratus was not Ariston's son."
Some time afterwards all this became known; and
 Cobon was forced to fly from Delphi; while Perialla
the prophetess was deprived of her office.
Compare Nehemiah, a prophet himself, discerning bribery:

Neh_6:10-14 And I went unto the house of Shemaiah [the prophet]

the son of Delaiah the son of Mehetabel, who was shut up; and he said,
Let us meet together in the house of God, within the temple,
and let us shut the doors of the temple:
for they will come to slay thee; yea, in the night will they come to slay thee.
11 And I said, Should such a man as I flee?
and who is there, that, being such as I, would go into the temple to save his
life? I will not go in.
12 And I discerned, and, lo, God had not sent him;
but he pronounced this prophecy against me:
and Tobiah and Sanballat had hired him.
13 For this cause was he hired, that I should be afraid, and do so, and sin,
and that they might have matter for an evil report, that they might reproach
me.
14 Remember, O my God, Tobiah and Sanballat according to these their
works,
and also the prophetess Noadiah,
and the rest of the prophets, that would have put me in fear.

p394

For these last did but exasperate the other

Pisistratidae by slaying Hipparchus, and were far
from doing anything towards putting down the
tyranny: whereas the Alcmaeonidae were
manifestly the actual deliverers of Athens,
if at least it be true that the Pythoness was
prevailed upon by them to bid the Lacedaemonians
set Athens free,
as I have already related.
In the Bible, prophets who prophesied warnings of disaster were almost always
opposed by false prophets. Several times these false-prophets had been bribed to
deny the warnings, and had been hired to prophesy peace instead. This is where
the 'testing of prophets' comes into its own -- the prophets who prophesied of
things which did happen have been included in the Bible, while those who did not
prophesy truly have been excluded. Prophecy is something which by its very
nature needs to be tested for truth. The Bible passes the test with flying colours,
setting a high standard; but other writings don't set out to distinguish truth. The
Bible specified a death-penalty for false-prophets, which is a good law from God,
but in man's hands it seems not to have been applied, except against unpopular
prophets (i.e. true warners).

Oracles were often Delivered in Hexameter Verse

Hexameter verse simply has 'six' feet or long sounds, in various combinations. It
is not unusual or difficult. An example is given below.
In English it can be rendered with accented syllables rather than lengthened
ones. These are indicated below.

p25 Riddles are ambiguous, but this one was correctly guessed:

Here a certain soothsayer, Amphilytus by name, an

Acarnanian, moved by a divine impulse, came into
the presence of Pisistratus, and approaching him
uttered this prophecy in the hexameter measure:-
Now has the cast been made, the net is out-
spread in the water,
Through the moon-shiny night the tunnies will
enter the meshes.
Such was the prophecy uttered under a divine
inspiration.
Pisistratus, apprehending its meaning, declared
that he accepted the oracle, and instantly led on
his army. The Athenians from the city had just
finished their midday meal, after which they had
betaken themselves, some to dice, others to sleep,
when Pisistratus with his troops fell upon them and
put them to the rout.
As for the hexameter verse, it was perhaps not all that it seems, although this
account does not agree with Herodotus' comments about some oracles being
delivered without delay:
From ISBE on Greek religion\ Oracles...

After preliminary sacrifices, the priestess purified herself and mounted the
tripod in the temple; the question was propounded to her by a temple official,
and it was his function also to put her wild ravings into hexameter verse for
the person consulting the oracle. A considerable number of these answers
remain to us, all, of course, somewhat vague, many of them containing shrewd
advice on the question that was brought to the oracle.

Note that the Bible itself is written in elegant style:

Firstly, Hebrew has rhythmic patterns, suitable for recitation.

The prophecies especially, are liable to be written in versified form which make
them stand out from the rest of the text.

More importantly, the Bible's style is often in chiasmatic verse, where ideas are
revisited in reverse order: In the following example, 'Adam and Eve', appears in
17 then again in 20; 'ground' matches 'dust'; 'it' with 'it'; days-until; weeds and
toils:

Gen_3:17 And unto Adam he said,

Because thou hast hearkened
unto the voice of thy wife,

and hast eaten of the tree,

of which I commanded thee,
[instructed thee] saying,
Thou shalt not eat of it:

cursed [unproductive]
is the ground for thy sake;
['because of you' cf 14]

in toil [pain] shalt thou eat of it

all the days of thy life;
18 thorns also and thistles
shall it bring forth to thee;
and thou shalt eat
the herb of the field;
19 in the sweat of thy face
shalt thou eat bread,
till thou return unto the ground;
for out of it wast thou taken:

for dust thou art,

and unto dust shalt thou return. [death=curse]
 20 And the man
called his wife's name
Eve [life-giver];
because she was the mother of all living.

For length and consistency over millennia, the Bible must be the best-ever
exponent of chiasmatic style. Its initial passages, quoting prophecies from way
back (as above), must predate most any other examples of chiasmatic verse.

The oracles were often in the form of a riddle

p27. The Lacedaemonians from the Peloponnese, better known by the name of
their city Sparta, indeed became the most famous of the Greek warriors:

Having been worsted in every engagement by their

enemy, they sent to Delphi, and inquired of the
oracle what god they must propitiate to prevail in
the war against the Tegeans. The answer of the
Pythoness was that before they could prevail, they
must remove to Sparta the bones of Orestes, the
son of Agamemnon. Unable to discover his
burial-place, they sent a second time, and asked
the god where the body of the hero had been laid.
The following was the answer they received:-
Level and smooth is the plain where Arcadian
Tegea standeth;
There two winds are ever, by strong necessity,
blowing,
Counter-stroke answers stroke, and evil lies
upon evil.
There all-teeming Earth doth harbour the son of
Atrides;
Bring thou him to thy city, and then be Tegea's
master.
After this reply, the Lacedaemonians were no
nearer discovering the burial-place than before,
though they continued to search for it diligently;
until at last a man named Lichas, one of the
Spartans called Agathoergi, found it.
...
he went to Tegea, and, happening to enter into the
workshop of a smith, he saw him forging some
iron. As he stood marvelling at what he beheld, he
was observed by the smith who, leaving off his
work, went up to him and said,
"Certainly, then, you Spartan stranger, you
would have been wonderfully surprised if you had
seen what I have, since you make a marvel even
of the working in iron. I wanted to make myself a
well in this room, and began to dig it, when what
think you? I came upon a coffin seven cubits long.
I had never believed that men were taller in the
olden times than they are now, so I opened the
coffin. The body inside was of the same length: I
measured it, and filled up the hole again."
Such was the man's account of what he had
seen. The other, on turning the matter over in his
mind, conjectured that this was the body of
Orestes, of which the oracle had spoken. He
guessed so, because he observed that the smithy
had two bellows, which he understood to be the
two winds, and the hammer and anvil would do
for the stroke and the counterstroke, and the iron
that was being wrought for the evil lying upon evil.
This he imagined might be so because iron had
been discovered to the hurt of man. Full of these
conjectures, he sped back to Sparta and laid the
 whole matter before his countrymen. Soon after,
by a concerted plan, they brought a charge
against him, and began a prosecution. Lichas
betook himself to Tegea, and on his arrival
acquainted the smith with his misfortune, and
proposed to rent his room of him. The smith
refused for some time; but at last Lichas
persuaded him, and took up his abode in it. Then
he opened the grave, and collecting the bones,
returned with them to
Sparta. From henceforth, whenever the Spartans
and the Tegeans made trial of each other's skill in
arms, the Spartans always had greatly the
advantage; and by the time to which we are now
come they were masters of most of the
Peloponnese.
Here is a Biblical parallel -- Samson's riddle

Jdg_14:5-14 Then went Samson down, and his father and his mother, to
Timnah, and came to the vineyards of Timnah:
and, behold, a young lion roared against him.
6 And the Spirit of Jehovah came mightily upon him,
and he rent him as he would have rent a kid; and he had nothing in his
hand:
but he told not his father or his mother what he had done.
7 And he went down, and talked with the woman, and she pleased Samson
well.
8 And after a while he returned to take her;
and he turned aside to see the carcass of the lion:
and, behold, there was a swarm of bees in the body of the lion, and honey.
9 And he took it into his hands, and went on, eating as he went;
and he came to his father and mother, and gave unto them, and they did eat:
but he told them not that he had taken the honey out of the body of the lion.
10 And his father went down unto the woman: and Samson made there a
feast; for so used the young men to do.
11 And it came to pass, when they saw him, that they brought thirty
companions to be with him.
12 And Samson said unto them,
Let me now put forth a riddle unto you:
 if ye can declare it unto me within the seven days of the feast, and find it
out,
then I will give you thirty linen garments and thirty changes of raiment;
13 but if ye cannot declare it unto me, then shall ye give me thirty linen
garments and thirty changes of raiment.
And they said unto him, Put forth thy riddle, that we may hear it. 14 And he
said unto them,
Out of the eater came forth food, And out of the strong came forth
sweetness.
And they could not in three days declare the riddle.
...
Jdg_14:18 And the men of the city said unto him on the seventh day before
the sun went down,
What is sweeter than honey?
and what is stronger than a lion?
And he said unto them,
If ye had not plowed with my heifer,
Ye had not found out my riddle.

Here is a Bible 'bones' story. It is shorter, but taller (in a good sense):

2Ki_13:21 And it came to pass, as they were burying a man, that, behold, they
spied a band; and they cast the man into the sepulchre of Elisha: and as soon
as the man touched the bones of Elisha, he revived, and stood up on his feet.

Here is an equivalent story from the Bible. The famine in the land was stopped
after reburying the bones:

2Sa_21:12-14 And David went and took the bones of Saul and the bones of
Jonathan his son from the men of Jabesh-gilead, who had stolen them from
the street of Beth-shan, where the Philistines had hanged them, in the day
that the Philistines slew Saul in Gilboa;
13 and he brought up from thence the bones of Saul and the bones of
Jonathan his son: and they gathered the bones of them that were hanged.
14 And they buried the bones of Saul and Jonathan his son in the country of
Benjamin in Zela, in the sepulchre of Kish his father:
and they performed all that the king commanded.
And after that God was entreated for the land.

The oracles were often unhelpful, sometimes deliberately

treacherous

An oracle or sooth-sayer is presenting the answer from many gods. Since these
many gods have differing powers and loyalties and authority, the inquirer will not
know whether the answer will be favourable, and could not know that it should be
according to a known agenda, or against a clear enemy. The gods themselves
don't seem to know what will happen next between themselves. The people didn't
know which one to call their loving Father.
The intention of pagan oracles was to tell of what would happen, without an
overriding regard to morality or faithfulness.
Yahweh however, makes His will clear, defines the enemies clearly, is there to
help His people when they are loyal to Him, and doesn't play one tribe off against
another. His predictions had a purpose of turning Israel from its evil ways, with
the intention of avoiding the calamity. He was bringing up His own children,
disciplining them, without trying to discipline the children of any other
households. His predictions are longer-term and reliable.

There are some engrossing examples of treacherous oracles in the subsection on

oracles. One is a sequel to Croesus testing the Delphic oracle (which is given
immediately below), but is too intricate to reprint in full here in the introduction.

Making trial of the Oracles before trusting them

[An example extracted from Herodotus, p18. It teaches us about oracles, that
they...
were tested by their users
were often delivered with mind-reading
often in hexameter verse
were written down by the people consulting them]:

p18.

At the end of this time the grief of Croesus was

interrupted by intelligence from abroad. He learnt
that Cyrus, the son of Cambyses, had destroyed
the empire of Astyages, the son of Cyaxares; and
that the Persians were becoming daily more
powerful. This led him to consider with himself
whether it were possible to check the growing
power of that people before it came to a head.
With this design he resolved to make instant trial
of the several oracles in Greece, and of the one in
Libya. So he sent his messengers in different
directions, some to Delphi, some to Abae in
Phocis, and some to Dodona; others to the oracle
of Amphiaraus; others to that of Trophonius;
 others, again, to Branchidae in Milesia. These were
the Greek oracles which he consulted. To Libya he
sent another embassy, to consult the oracle of
Ammon. These messengers were sent to test the
knowledge of the oracles, that, if they were found
really to return true answers, he might send a
second time, and inquire if he ought to attack the
Persians.
Different oracles could speak for different gods. The dynamics in the realm of the
gods allowed no certainty of the future. They would supposedly fight between
themselves, double-cross and outwit each other. Therefore one could not expect
consistency, even if all the oracles were true oracles.
By contrast, Yahweh, the One God, spoke through many different prophets and
prophetesses, but they individually gave a consistent message from a single God,
across centuries.
Which would you prefer to hold the reins of power over the future?

The messengers who were despatched to make

trial of the oracles
were given the following instructions: they were to
keep count of the days from the time of their
leaving Sardis, and, reckoning from that date, on
the hundredth day they were to consult the
oracles,
and to inquire of them what Croesus the son of
Alyattes, king of Lydia, was doing at that moment.
The answers given them were to be taken down in
writing, and brought back to him.
None of the replies remain on record except that of
the oracle at Delphi. There, the moment that the
Lydians entered the sanctuary, and before they put
their questions, the Pythoness thus answered
them in hexameter verse:-
I can count the sands, and I can measure the
 ocean;
I have ears for the silent, and know what the
dumb man meaneth;
Lo! on my sense there striketh the smell of a
shell-covered tortoise,
Boiling now on a fire, with the flesh of a lamb,
in a cauldron-
Brass is the vessel below, and brass the cover
above it.
These words the Lydians wrote down at the mouth
of the Pythoness as she prophesied, and then set
off on their return to Sardis. When all the
messengers had come back with the answers
which they had received, [king] Croesus undid the
rolls, and read what was written in each. Only one
approved itself to him, that of the Delphic oracle.
This he had no sooner heard than he instantly
made an act of adoration, and accepted it as true,
declaring that the Delphic was the only really
oracular shrine, the only one that had discovered
in what way he was in fact employed. For on the
departure of his messengers he had set himself to
think what was most impossible for any one to
conceive of his doing, and then, waiting till the day
agreed on came, he acted as he had determined.
He took a tortoise and a lamb, and cutting them in
pieces with his own hands, boiled them both
together in a brazen cauldron, covered over with a
lid which was also of brass.
Gideon made elaborate trial of the angel which appeared to him and of the spirit
which spoke to him:

Jdg_6:16-23 And Jehovah said unto him, Surely I will be with thee, and thou
shalt smite the Midianites as one man.
17 And he said unto him, If now I have found favor in thy sight, then show me
a sign that it is thou that talkest with me.
18 Depart not hence, I pray thee, until I come unto thee, and bring forth my
present, and lay it before thee. And he said, I will tarry until thou come again.
19 And Gideon went in, and made ready a kid, and unleavened cakes of an
ephah of meal: the flesh he put in a basket, and he put the broth in a pot, and
brought it out unto him under the oak, and presented it.
20 And the angel of God said unto him, Take the flesh and the unleavened
cakes, and lay them upon this rock, and pour out the broth. And he did so.
21 Then the angel of Jehovah put forth the end of the staff that was in his
hand, and touched the flesh and the unleavened cakes;
and there went up fire out of the rock, and consumed the flesh and the
unleavened cakes; and the angel of Jehovah departed out of his sight.
22 And Gideon saw that he was the angel of Jehovah; and Gideon said, Alas,
O Lord Jehovah! forasmuch as I have seen the angel of Jehovah face to face.
23 And Jehovah said unto him, Peace be unto thee; fear not: thou shalt not
die.
...
Jdg_6:34-40 But the Spirit of Jehovah came upon Gideon; and he blew a
trumpet; and Abiezer was gathered together after him.
35 And he sent messengers throughout all Manasseh; and they also were
gathered together after him: and he sent messengers unto Asher, and unto
Zebulun, and unto Naphtali; and they came up to meet them.
36 And Gideon said unto God, If thou wilt save Israel by my hand, as thou
hast spoken,
37 behold, I will put a fleece of wool on the threshing-floor; if there be dew on
the fleece only, and it be dry upon all the ground, then shall I know that thou
wilt save Israel by my hand, as thou hast spoken.
38 And it was so; for he rose up early on the morrow, and pressed the fleece
together, and wrung the dew out of the fleece, a bowlful of water.
39 And Gideon said unto God, Let not thine anger be kindled against me, and
I will speak but this once: let me make trial, I pray thee, but this once with the
fleece; let it now be dry only upon the fleece, and upon all the ground let there
be dew.
40 And God did so that night: for it was dry upon the fleece only, and there
was dew on all the ground.
...
Jdg_7:9-15 And it came to pass the same night, that Jehovah said unto him,
Arise, get thee down into the camp; for I have delivered it into thy hand.
10 But if thou fear to go down, go thou with Purah thy servant down to the
camp:
11 and thou shalt hear what they say; and afterward shall thy hands be
strengthened to go down into the camp. Then went he down with Purah his
servant unto the outermost part of the armed men that were in the camp.
12 And the Midianites and the Amalekites and all the children of the east lay
along in the valley like locusts for multitude; and their camels were without
 number, as the sand which is upon the sea-shore for multitude.
13 And when Gideon was come, behold, there was a man telling a dream unto
his fellow; and he said, Behold, I dreamed a dream; and, lo, a cake of barley
bread tumbled into the camp of Midian, and came unto the tent, and smote it
so that it fell, and turned it upside down, so that the tent lay flat.
14 And his fellow answered and said, This is nothing else save the sword of
Gideon the son of Joash, a man of Israel: into his hand God hath delivered
Midian, and all the host.
15 And it was so, when Gideon heard the telling of the dream, and the
interpretation thereof, that he worshipped; and he returned into the camp of
Israel, and said, Arise; for Jehovah hath delivered into your hand the host of
Midian.

Here is a pagan in the Bible, making trial of his interpreters, to see whether they
were telling the truth:

Dan_2:1-9 And in the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar,

Nebuchadnezzar dreamed dreams; and his spirit was troubled, and his sleep
went from him.
2 Then the king commanded to call the magicians, and the enchanters, and
the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans, to tell the king his dreams [i.e. explain
them]. So they came in and stood before the king.
3 And the king said unto them, I have dreamed a dream, and my spirit is
troubled to know the [meaning of the] dream.
4 Then spake the Chaldeans to the king in the Syrian language, O king, live
for ever: tell thy servants the dream, and we will show the interpretation.
5 The king answered and said to the Chaldeans, The thing [law] is gone
[forth] from me: if ye make not known unto me the dream and the
interpretation thereof, ye shall be cut in pieces, and your houses shall be made
a dunghill.
6 But if ye show the dream and the interpretation thereof, ye shall receive of
me gifts and rewards and great honor:
therefore show me the dream and the interpretation thereof.
7 They answered the second time and said, Let the king tell his servants the
dream, and we will show the interpretation.
8 The king answered and said, I know of a certainty that ye would gain time,
because ye see the thing is gone from me.
9 But if ye make not known unto me the dream, there is but one law for you;
for ye have prepared lying and corrupt words to speak before me, till the time
be changed:
therefore tell me the dream, and I shall know that ye can show me the
interpretation thereof.

Daniel saved the skins of the assembled pagan interpreters, and so put them to
shame, while the God of the Hebrews was exalted in their midst. That is a
recurring theme, of a public proof of Yahweh's sovereignty over these 'other
gods'.
Daniel outclassed the diviners and astrologers and wise counsellors of Babylon,
for which it was famous:

10 The Chaldeans answered before the king, and said, There is not a man
upon the earth that can show the king's matter, forasmuch as no king, lord, or
ruler, hath asked such a thing of any magician, or enchanter, or Chaldean.
11 And it is a rare thing that the king requireth, and there is no other that can
show it before the king, except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh.
12 For this cause the king was angry and very furious, and commanded to
destroy all the wise men of Babylon.
13 So the decree went forth, and the wise men were to be slain; and they
sought Daniel and his companions to be slain.
14 Then Daniel returned answer with counsel and prudence to Arioch the
captain of the king's guard, who was gone forth to slay the wise men of
Babylon;
15 he answered and said to Arioch the king's captain, Wherefore is the decree
so urgent from the king? Then Arioch made the thing known to Daniel.
16 And Daniel went in, and desired of the king that he would appoint him a
time, and he would show the king the interpretation.

A longer list of oracles recorded by Herodotus is in the separate sub-topic

'Oracles'.

Non-verbal Predictions

In addition to spoken and recorded oracles, there were many other like practices,
such as sacrificing animals as victims, in order to read their entrails for omens, or
interpreting unusual events as given by the gods.

Thus we can read (in Herodotus' 594 page history):...

p317

he found on sacrificing that the victims were not

favourable to an attack on Crotona.
Such is the account which each party gives of
these matters.
p391

So when the battle was set in array, and the

victims showed themselves favourable,
 instantly the Athenians, so soon as they were let
go, charged the barbarians at a run.
p547

A prodigy had caused him to bring his army home;

for while he was offering sacrifice to know if he
should march out against the Persian,
the sun was suddenly darkened in mid sky.
p583

The Greeks, as soon as the victims were

favourable,
put to sea, and sailed across from Delos to Samos.
The interest is not in what they did, or how, but in whether there was any truth at
all in what results they got.
Such omens from a sooth-sayer (truth-teller) are not words of prophecy written
down, but are of like kind to a prediction by a prophet.

These will be dealt with in a separate section, 'Divinations'.

Prophetic Dreams

These also house predictions, worthy of attention.

There is a longer catalogue in the separate sub-topic, 'Dreams, Apparitions and
Visions'.

Here is an example of a vision, recorded by Herodotus

p 393

There fell in this battle of Marathon, on the side of

the barbarians, about six thousand and four
hundred men; on that of the Athenians, one
hundred and ninety-two. Such was the number of
the slain on the one side and the other. A strange
prodigy likewise happened at this fight. Epizelus,
the son of Cuphagoras, an Athenian, was in the
 thick of the fray, and behaving himself as a brave
man should, when suddenly he was stricken with
blindness, without blow of sword or dart; and this
blindness continued thenceforth during the whole
of his after life. The following is the account which
he himself, as I have heard, gave of the matter:
he said that a gigantic warrior, with a huge beard,
which shaded all his shield, stood over against
him; but the ghostly semblance passed him by,
and slew the man at his side. Such, as I
understand, was the tale which Epizelus told.
I hope the comparisons with the Bible are an eye-opener for you.
For the Bible has not dissimilar stories of supernatural explanations and powers:

2Ki_6:8-20 Now the king of Syria was warring against Israel; and he took
counsel with his servants, saying, In such and such a place shall be my camp.
9 And the man of God sent unto the king of Israel, saying, Beware that thou
pass not such a place; for thither the Syrians are coming down.
10 And the king of Israel sent to the place which the man of God told him and
warned him of; and he saved himself there, not once nor twice.
11 And the heart of the king of Syria was sore troubled for this thing; and he
called his servants, and said unto them, Will ye not show me which of us is for
the king of Israel?
12 And one of his servants said, Nay, my lord, O king; but Elisha, the prophet
that is in Israel, telleth the king of Israel the words that thou speakest in thy
bedchamber.
13 And he said, Go and see where he is, that I may send and fetch him. And it
was told him, saying, Behold, he is in Dothan.
14 Therefore sent he thither horses, and chariots, and a great host: and they
came by night, and compassed the city about.
15 And when the servant of the man of God was risen early, and gone forth,
behold, a host with horses and chariots was round about the city.
And his servant said unto him, Alas, my master! how shall we do?
16 And he answered, Fear not; for they that are with us are more than they
that are with them.
17 And Elisha prayed, and said, Jehovah, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he
may see.
And Jehovah opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw:
and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about
Elisha.
18 And when they came down to him, Elisha prayed unto Jehovah, and said,
 Smite this people, I pray thee, with blindness.
And he smote them with blindness according to the word of Elisha.
19 And Elisha said unto them, This is not the way, neither is this the city:
follow me, and I will bring you to the man whom ye seek. And he led them to
Samaria.
20 And it came to pass, when they were come into Samaria, that Elisha said,
Jehovah, open the eyes of these men, that they may see.
And Jehovah opened their eyes, and they saw; and, behold, they were in the
midst of Samaria.

Notice that God's style is to show something clearly superior in nature to run-of-
the-mill miracles.

Notice the context -- of war. Yahweh expresses His plan for a future without war,
in a new creation. He does not naively and idealistically call for peace on earth
during this age. Rather He calls it a time of war. Jesus said he came to start the
final war, and that he will return to end the final war. In the interim, the world of
faith is so incompatible with the world of unbelief, that conflict is inevitable, both
physically and spiritually. Polytheism is a good example of Satan's wish for war,
and of the polarisation between the One True God and the many false gods.

When we think of the Greco-Roman-Persian polytheistic worlds,

we may think 'civilisations' or we may think 'religions',
but we should think: 'wars'.

That is because their religion was their civilistaion, and it was polytheistic
mayhem.

------------------------------------

The next section examines why historians (Herodotus in particular) don't record
Yahweh's miracles as readily as you might naively expect.

HERODOTUS
The so-called 'Father of History'

Herodotus was a Greek historian, around 440BC, in the time just before the
Greek empire, who reviewed the Greek wars with an eye to explaining the causes
of the wars.
There were historians before him, of course. Most notably Moses and the Hebrew
prophets.
But Greeks like to praise Greeks.

Secondarily, he seems to have an agenda of recording oracles, prophecies and

prodigies and their fulfilments.
He rightly regards them as an essential ingredient to explaining the history of the
times.

Again, he has an agenda to record snatches of wise counsel and public oratory, as
reconstructed after the event or recorded from the time. Since war-counsel (in
the Bible also) was the province of spiritually wise men, able to interpret omens,
dreams, oracles and circumstances, these are one-piece with the idea of
prophecies come true. However, since political interpretation and military advice
is less provably spiritual than the dreams, oracles and sooth-saying itself, I omit
this dimension from the mix.

Here is a Biblical equivalent:

2Sa_16:23 And the counsel of Ahithophel, which he gave in those days,

was as if a man inquired at the oracle of God:
so was all the counsel of Ahithophel both with David and with Absalom.

Since Herodotus is a Greek, in the times of Greek resistance to the Persian

Empire, the Greeks shine a little too brightly in his telling of their wisdom and
skill, and the power of their gods.
In his travels throughout the Middle-East, from Ethiopia to India, he collected
the history and customs and religion of many people, and as such his record is an
almost perfect match with the extent of the Persian Empire as described in the
Bible -- which allows a direct comparison between the pagan oracles and the
Hebrew prophets -- who dealt with those same events.

From this history of his, I have gleaned my information on the character of the
oracles; and consequently, when I complain that the oracles are mainly to do with
politics and war, it is partly due to the biassed selection put forward in the history
of the wars. The other part of the explanation is that they were indeed war-gods,
which is why the Greek wars are the focus of history, and why they have a
decidedly religious flavour attached to them.

The whole history of Herodotus is a very entertaining read, since he is an

excellent story-teller, who made it his business to collect the 'stories' handed
down, and he plays upon the very idea of story-telling, by first drawing the reader
into a good tale, then adding: 'Yet another version of this event, is told by the
other side, as follows...'.
You can read the whole of it for yourself, as it is in length no more than a medium
novel.

His attitude to such 'stories' is stated thus, p457:

For myself, my duty is to report all that is said;

but I am not obliged to believe it all alike
 - a remark which may be understood to apply to
my whole History.
Indeed he moves easily from eye-witness verificiation, to traditional memory,
into travellers' tales, and on into sheer fantasy.

p213, 237. Here he speculates about the nations who live beyond the Scythians,
but doesn't believe the tale:

The story runs that the one-eyed Arimaspi purloin

it from the griffins; but here too I am incredulous,
and cannot persuade myself that there is a race of
men born with one eye, who in all else resemble
the rest of mankind.

Aristeas also, son of Caystrobius, a native of

Proconnesus, says in the course of his poem that
wrapt in Bacchic fury he went as far as the
Issedones.
Above them [by hearsay] dwelt the Arimaspi, men
with one eye;
still further, the gold-guarding griffins;
and beyond these, the Hyperboreans [uttermost
Northerners], who extended to the sea.
We must allow some latitude for historians to fill in the dark vacuum with
whatever snippets they can find.
The Bible is not like that -- Yahweh doesn't need to guess.

p209 A 'story' to keep outsiders off the scent of gold?

..and from them the men are sent forth who go to

procure the gold. For it is in this part of India that
the sandy desert lies. Here, in this desert, there
live amid the sand great ants, in size somewhat
less than dogs, but bigger than foxes. The Persian
 king has a number of them, which have been
caught by the hunters in the land whereof we are
speaking. Those ants make their dwellings under
ground, and like the Greek ants, which they very
much resemble in shape, throw up sand-heaps as
they burrow. Now the sand which they throw up is
full of gold.
...
When the Indians reach the place where the
gold is, they fill their bags with the sand, and ride
away at their best speed: the ants, however,
scenting them, as the Persians say, rush forth in
pursuit. Now these animals are, they declare, so
swift, that there is nothing in the world like them:
if it were not, therefore, that the Indians get a
start while the ants are mustering, not a single
gold-gatherer could escape.
God's 'traveller's tales' have stood the scrutiny of palaeontology and science and
historical accounts and reason and theology.
Name one other ancient book which has stood such scrutiny.

Here is a time-traveller's tale from the Bible:

Isa_11:6-9 And the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie
down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together;
and a little child shall lead them.
7 And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down
together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
8 And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned
child shall put his hand on the adder's den.
9 They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall
be full of the knowledge of Jehovah, as the waters cover the sea.

Isa_65:25 The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat
straw like the ox; and dust shall be the serpent's food. They shall not hurt nor
destroy in all my holy mountain, saith Jehovah.

And in image-language, here is a flying goat, but in reality it was a swift conquest:
 Dan_8:5 And as I was considering, behold, a he-goat came from the west
over the face of the whole earth, and touched not the ground: and the goat had
a notable horn between his eyes.

The point is that God does not need third hand pub-talk to fill in the space.
He doesn't need to rely on historians writing decades after the events.

Here, in contrast, Herodotus himself records a second-hand but an eye-witnessed

story, of the truth of a prophecy, p549:

What follows was recounted to me by Thersander,

a native of Orchomenus, a man of the first rank in
that city. Thersander told me that he was himself
among those invited to the feast, and that besides
the Persians fifty Thebans were asked; and the two
nations were not arranged separately, but a
Persian and a Theban were set side by side upon
each couch. After the feast was ended, and the
drinking had begun, the Persian who shared
Thersander's couch addressed him in the Greek
tongue, and inquired of him from what city he
came. He answered, that he was of Orchomenus;
whereupon the other said-
"Since thou hast eaten with me at one table,
and poured libation
from one cup, I would fain leave with thee a
memorial of the belief I hold
- the rather that thou mayest have timely
warning thyself,
and so be able to provide for thy own safety.
Seest thou these Persians here feasting,
and the army which we left encamped yonder by
the river-side?
Yet a little while, and of all this number thou wilt
behold but a few surviving!"
 As he spake, the Persian let fall a flood of tears:
whereon Thersander, who was astonished at his
words, replied-
"Surely thou shouldest say all this to [Persian
army leader] Mardonius, and the Persians who are
next him in honour"
- but the other rejoined-
"Dear friend, it is not possible for man to avert
that which God has decreed shall happen.
No one believes warnings, however true.
Many of us Persians know our danger,
but we are constrained by necessity to do as our
leader bids us.
Verily 'tis the sorest of all human ills, to abound
in knowledge and yet have no power over
action."
All this I heard myself from Thersander the
Orchomenian;
who told me further, that he mentioned what had
happened to divers persons, before the battle was
fought at Plataea.
Herodotus's credence of the oracles and omens has earned him a reputation
among historians as 'gullible', but historians themselves have a reputation for
being one-eyed, and by professing skepticism, they are just drinking in the (anti-)
religious propaganda of their own times themselves. The Bible has outlasted all of
them, and it sides with Herodotus, not with modern academics.

Here is a comment of his which shows how he considers that when king Xerxes
punished a river for a storm, it was a gross sacrilege.
The picture therefore, is of both intelligent Greek and mighty Persian taking
seriously what we gag at swallowing:

p418...
Xerxes, who chose this way, found here a plane-
tree so beautiful, that he presented it with golden
ornaments...
 ...
When, therefore, the channel had been bridged
successfully, it happened that a great storm arising
broke the whole work to pieces, and destroyed all
that had been done.
So when Xerxes heard of it he was full of wrath,
and straightway gave orders that the Hellespont
should receive three hundred lashes, and that a
pair of fetters should be cast into it. Nay, I have
even heard it said that he bade the branders take
their irons and therewith brand the Hellespont. It
is certain that he commanded those who scourged
the waters to utter, as they lashed them, these
barbarian and wicked words:
"Thou bitter water, thy lord lays on thee this
punishment because thou hast wronged him
without a cause, having suffered no evil at his
hands. Verily King Xerxes will cross thee,
whether thou wilt or no. Well dost thou deserve
that no man should honour thee with sacrifice;
for thou art of a truth a treacherous and
unsavoury river."
While the sea was thus punished by his orders, he
likewise commanded that the overseers of the
work should lose their heads.

Jesus cursed the fig-tree:

Mat_21:19 And seeing a fig tree by the way side, he came to it, and found
nothing thereon, but leaves only; and he saith unto it, Let there be no fruit
from thee henceforward for ever. And immediately the fig tree withered away.

... p426...
And now let us offer prayers to the gods who
 watch over the welfare of Persia, and then cross
the channel."
All that day the preparations for the passage
continued; and on the morrow they burnt all kinds
of spices upon the bridges, and strewed the way
with myrtle boughs, while they waited anxiously
for the sun, which they hoped to see as he rose.
And now the sun appeared; and Xerxes took a
golden goblet and poured from it a libation into the
sea, praying the while with his face turned to the
sun "that no misfortune might befall him such as
to hinder his conquest of Europe, until he had
penetrated to its uttermost boundaries." After he
had prayed, he cast the golden cup into the
Hellespont, and with it a golden bowl, and a
Persian sword of the kind which they call acinaces.
I cannot say for certain whether it was as an
offering to the sun-god that he threw these things
into the deep, or whether he had repented of
having scourged the Hellespont, and thought by
his gifts to make amends to the sea for what he
had done.
...
After the ten sacred horses came the holy chariot
of Jupiter, drawn by eight milk-white steeds, with
the charioteer on foot behind them holding the
reins; for no mortal is ever allowed to mount into
the car.

Holy animals and other gifts -- treated as God's property:

Lev_27:9-10 And if it be a beast, whereof men offer an oblation [offering]

unto Jehovah,
all that any man giveth of such unto Jehovah shall be holy.
 10 He shall not alter it, nor change it, a good for a bad, or a bad for a good:
and if he shall at all change beast for beast,
then both it and that for which it is changed shall be holy.

...(p422)
he made an offering of a thousand oxen to the
Trojan Minerva, while the Magians poured libations
to the heroes who were slain at Troy.

Do not let modern fashions stop you imagining how you too would behave and
think, if you feared the real power of the spirits, the truth of the oracles, the
abundant reports of spiritual experiences proving trustworthy, and believed that
your great success in empire-building was due to favour with the gods; and if you
were in charge of the lives of over five million men (not counting women) and
over a hundred nations, and were facing war.
The Christian belief is not so different to any of this, and even the modern
fashions are still aimed at doing what is seen as right and proper according to
prevailing beliefs.
Whether believers or unbelievers, we are all gullible in a percenatge of our beliefs
and practices, without at all being fools.

p439, after Xerxes numbered his land army and fleet, before it grew...

Let them [the best of the Greeks] be five

thousand, and we shall have more than a
thousand men to each one of theirs.
p 478
This will give 5,283,220 as the whole number of
men brought by Xerxes, the son of Darius, as far
as Sepias and Thermopylae.
p485
Here did four thousand men from Pelops' land
Against three hundred myriads bravely stand.
[3,000,000]

Here is the prevailing Greek opinon in favour of honouring the gods, and heroes,
images and altars:
 Be sure we have not done this [driven off the
Persians] by our own might. It is the work of gods
and heroes, who were jealous that one man should
be king at once of Europe and of Asia- more
especially a man like this, unholy and
presumptuous- a man who esteems alike things
sacred and things profane; who has cast down and
burnt the very images of the gods themselves;
who even caused the sea to be scourged with rods
and commanded fetters to be thrown into it.

p530. Here is the fate of the sacred steeds:

..in Macedon. Here Xerxes, on his march into

Greece, had left the sacred car and steeds of Jove;
which upon his return he was unable to recover;
for the Paeonians had disposed of them to the
Thracians, and, when Xerxes demanded them
back, they said that the Thracian tribes who dwelt
about the sources of the Strymon had stolen the
mares as they pastured.
Yahweh's sacred vessels, cups and utensils were repeatedly recovered, after He
had allowed them to be taken.

p535. Hereodotus agrees with a spiritual interpretation of a natural event:

After Artabazus had continued the siege by the

space of three months, it happened that there was
an unusual ebb of the tide, which lasted a long
while. So when the barbarians saw that what had
been sea was now no more than a swamp, they
determined to push across it into Pallene, And now
the troops had already made good two-fifths of
 their passage, and three-fifths still remained
before they could reach Palline, when the tide
came in with a very high flood, higher than had
ever been seen before, as the inhabitants of those
parts declare, though high floods are by no means
uncommon. All who were not able to swim
perished immediately; the rest were slain by the
Potidaeans, who bore down upon them in their
sailing vessels. The Potidaeans say that what
caused this swell and flood, and so brought about
the disaster of the Persians which ensued
therefrom, was the profanation, by the very men
now destroyed in the sea, of the temple and image
of Neptune, situated in their suburb. And in this
they seem to me to say well.
This similar occurrence was (1) on cue and immediate, (2) larger by far, (3)
clearly explained, (4) stated to be comprehensive:

Exo_14:28-29 And the waters returned, and covered the chariots, and the
horsemen, even all the host of Pharaoh that went in after them into the sea;
there remained not so much as one of them.
29 But the children of Israel walked upon dry land in the midst of the sea;
and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left.

p585. Herodotus is convinced of the gods:

The Greeks now, having finished their

preparations, began to move towards the
barbarians; when, lo! as they advanced, a rumour
flew through the [Greek] host from one end to the
other- that the Greeks had fought and conquered
the army of Mardonius in Boeotia. At the same
time a herald's wand was observed lying upon the
beach. Many things prove to me that the gods take
part in the affairs of man. How else, when the
 battles of Mycale and Plataea [a long way
separated -- 300km by sea] were about to happen
on the self same day, should such a rumour have
reached the Greeks in that region, greatly cheering
the whole army, and making them more eager
than before to risk their lives.
A strange coincidence too it was, that both the
battles should have been fought near a precinct of
Eleusinian Ceres. The fight at Plataea took place,
as I said before, quite close to one of Ceres'
temples; and now the battle at Mycale was to be
fought hard by another.
...But when the voice fell on them, their fear
vanished, and they charged

Herodotus brings forward evidence for believing in the gods and

spirits

In the quotes from Herodotus, which show that prophecies come true, you can
get the feeling that he is adding the preceding omens and oracles and wise-advice
into the early part of the story, whose outcome is already known to him, and
therefore the feeling of surprise to read of the omens coming true is somewhat
artificial. You could simply select all the bits which worked, and reject those
which didn't, and the resulting biassed selection would read with astounding
accuracy.
The real test is perhaps that he should show that more premonitions came true
than chance could account for. However, an alternative view is more respectful to
his researches as a careful historian: Knowing the need to satisfy the skeptics, he
is deliberately setting out to preserve the evidences for the truth behind the
religious practices of the sooth-sayers and similar. Therefore, although this
biasses his selections, all that is needed is to show that clear predictions were
made beforehand, of things unlikely to happen, even by chance. The sum total of
such events then tells a stronger story than chance. We should trust him, who
outshone his peers, to be no dimwitted deceiver, but to make a careful and vetted
selection for us.

The Bible has a similar approach, but has another couple of ways of being
convincing. One way is to predict what the other prophets will predict!

In this example, the prognosticators cast around for omens by shaking the arrows
and reading the entrails -- but Yahweh simply predicts the outcome before they
even get around to doing it! He even predicts the place where they will do so, and
makes a monument there, to prove it, and explains why fate will turn against His
own people:

Eze_21:18-23 The word of Jehovah came unto me again, saying,

19 Also, thou son of man, appoint thee two ways, that the sword of the king of
Babylon may come;
they twain shall come forth out of one land:
and mark out a place, mark it out at the head of the way to the city.
20 Thou shalt appoint a way for the sword to come to Rabbah of the children
of Ammon,
and [another way] to Judah in Jerusalem the fortified.
21 For the king of Babylon stood at the parting of the way, at the head of the
two ways,
to use divination: he shook the arrows to and fro, he consulted the teraphim,
he looked in the liver.
22 In his right hand [=chosen] was the divination for Jerusalem, to set
battering rams, to open the mouth in the slaughter, to lift up the voice with
shouting, to set battering rams against the gates, to cast up mounds, to build
forts.
23 And it shall be unto them as a false divination in their sight, who have
sworn oaths unto them;
[Jerusalem was a strongly fortified city; and seemed to be a good ally] but he
bringeth iniquity to remembrance, that they may be taken.

Another Biblical punchline is to predict a miracle, something unpredictable, or

unbelievable, or something outrageous, such as that all the hearers think the
prophet must be mad or a true prophet indeed -- things like the downfall of the
world empire at its height; or that God will burn His own temple down; or that
God will appear as a man, and be killed, but will rise from the dead.

In the Bible quotations given, one can take it as read that the prophecies recorded
did come true and are recorded in later pages of the Bible. I will not always print
out the results, as I do with Herodotus.

A Note of Caution about Censorship

Herodotus censors himself,

p20
His name is known to me, but I forbear to mention
it.
p110
Pan is represented in Egypt by the painters and
 the sculptors, just as he is in Greece, with the face
and legs of a goat. They do not, however, believe
this to be his shape, or consider him in any respect
unlike the other gods; but they represent him thus
for a reason which I prefer not to relate.
p 111
There is a reason alleged by them for their
detestation of swine at all other seasons,
and their use of them at this festival, with which I
am well acquainted,
but which I do not think it proper to mention.
p115 and also at p144, p160,
The ceremonies at the feast of Isis in the city of
Busiris have been already spoken of.
It is there that the whole multitude, both of men
and women, many thousands in number,
beat themselves at the close of the sacrifice,
in honour of a god, whose name a religious scruple
forbids me to mention.
Again on p160
On this lake it is that the Egyptians represent by
night his
sufferings whose name I refrain from mentioning,
and this
representation they call their Mysteries. I know
well the whole course
of the proceedings in these ceremonies, but they
shall not pass my
lips. So too, with regard to the mysteries of Ceres,
which the
Greeks term "the Thesmophoria," I know them,
but I shall not mention
 them, except so far as may be done without
impiety.
p117
If I were to explain why they are consecrated to
the several gods,
I should be led to speak of religious matters, which
I particularly shrink from mentioning;
p123
These persons, when a body is brought to them,
show the bearers various models of corpses, made
in wood, and painted so as to resemble nature.
The most perfect is said to be after the manner of
him whom I do not think it religious to name in
connection with such a matter
p218
Oroetes, however, slew him in a mode which is not
fit to be described,
and then hung his dead body upon a cross.
Add to this the fact that this English translation at least, has been censored

p 333. Secret orgies concerning 'men and women', only worse, must be guarded
from disclosure for a bad reason:

This done, they fixed a worship for the images,

which consisted in part of sacrifices, in part of
female satiric choruses; while at the same time
they appointed certain men to furnish the
choruses, ten for each goddess. These choruses
did not abuse men, but only the women of the
country. Holy orgies of a similar kind were in use
also among the Epidaurians, and likewise another
sort of holy orgies, whereof it is not lawful to
 speak.
p412
The dreams that wander to and fro among
mankind,
I will tell thee of what nature they are- [detail
omitted]
..the details of the sort of dream a man has are missing. In another translation
it mentions a man sleeping with his mother.

By contrast, the Bible does not shy away from naming, exposing and shaming the
secret sins of men.
Some of its passages are notorious for being sexually explicit.
I will censor myself, and not reproduce them.
God's laws were explicit about what was outlawed, and were applied nation-wide,
without granting licence to secret religious cults.

So the point is that we are not hearing of the worst abuses of pagan
practices -- hardly any of the sexual rites, temple prostitution and sodomites;
no details about cutting out the beating hearts of virgins, or child-sacrifice by fire;
no black magic and poisoning or other witchcrafts; nothing about incest or
homosexuality; very little about the secret mysteries.
Take warning, therefore, against you yourself warming to the religious ways
which Yahweh called 'abominable; worthy of death; worthy of genocide'.
The Bible addresses these abominable practices head-on, and has single-
handedly largely cleaned the world of the worst of them.
We have much to be grateful for, whether atheist or Christian, for we all benefit
from the welcome changes from the past; but first we have to realise what has
been censored from our newly delicate ears.

Lack of appreciation of the excesses of paganism has allowed many of these

practices to resurface. That is why I say 'we need to realise'.

------------------------------------

HERODOTUS AND ANTI-SEMITISM

Herodotus was convinced of the gods and of their prophetic oracles, so we all
would expect that he also had very decided opinions on the God of the Hebrews
and on the Hebrew prophets and the Hebrew scriptures. Here is his opinion...

Herodotus' opinion of the Hebrew prophecies...

 [a studied silence]

This is common in all Greek philosophy and religion -- to wilfully ignore what has
become world famous despite their best efforts.
Ancient Egypt similarly quashed the history of Abraham, Joseph and Moses as
mighty prophets of a God who repeatedly defeated them.

Herodotus' careful avoidance of the Hebrew 'prophets', is despite using the word
'prophecy' many times in his history.

For a historian of extensive and careful researches across the known world, this
silence about Hebrew prophecy, has to be a deliberate policy decision.

The Hebrew scriptures were a treasure trove of history of Egypt, which he was
keenly interested in,
and touched on the very wars he was addressing as to their causes and religious
significance,
and were full of prophecy in general and of particular fulfilled prophecies, which
he takes such care to record, uphold and defend.

Herodotus had visited Palestine, p131:

The pillars which Sesostris erected in the

conquered countries have for the most part
disappeared; but in the part of Syria called
Palestine, I myself saw them still standing, with
the writing above-mentioned, and the emblem
distinctly visible.
He made enquiries of the other religions of that area, p47:

I have inquired and find that the temple at Ascalon

[Ashkelon] is the most ancient of all the temples to
this goddess; for the one in Cyprus, as the
Cyprians themselves admit, was built in imitation
 of it; and that in Cythera was erected by the
Phoenicians, who belong to this part of Syria.
The closest he gets to even mentioning the Hebrews or Israel, is their neighbours,
'the Syrians of Palestine', p 130:

..the circumstance that the Colchians, the

Egyptians, and the Ethiopians, are the only nations
who have practised circumcision from the earliest
times. The Phoenicians and the Syrians of
Palestine themselves confess that they learnt the
custom of the Egyptians; and the Syrians who
dwell about the rivers Thermodon and Parthenius,
as well as their neighbours the Macronians, say
that they have recently adopted it from the
Colchians. Now these are the only nations who use
circumcision, and it is plain that they all imitate
herein the Egyptians.

'The only nations' must include the Jews, infamous for their circumcision.
Yet Herodotus' list is apparently inaccurate, since the Bible lists many non-Syrian
nations who were circumcised.

Jer_9:25-26 Behold, the days come, saith Jehovah, that I will punish all them
that are circumcised
[yet spiritually remain] in their uncircumcision:
26 Egypt, and Judah, and Edom, and the children of Ammon, and Moab,
and all that have the corners [or 'tips', not] of their hair cut off, that dwell in
the wilderness;
for all the nations are uncircumcised,
and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised
in heart.

The comment about imitating the Egyptians would have to be treated as

inaccurate to Israel's history, for they inherited circumcision from Abraham in
Canaan, even before Israel dwelt in Egypt, and by covenant-command, rather
than by imitation.

p 434:
 The triremes amounted in all to twelve hundred
and seven; and were furnished by the following
nations:-
(i.) The Phoenicians, with the Syrians of
Palestine, furnished three hundred vessels, the
crews of which were thus accoutred: upon their
heads they wore helmets made nearly in the
Grecian manner; about their bodies they had
breastplates of linen; they carried shields without
rims; and were armed with javelins. This nation
[Which one of the two mentioned??] , according to
their own account, dwelt anciently upon the
Erythraean [Red] Sea, but crossing thence, fixed
themselves on the seacoast of Syria, where they
still inhabit. This part of Syria, and all the region
extending from hence to Egypt, is known by the
name of Palestine.
The description seems to refer to the origins of the Phoenicians, a sea-faring
people, who settled on the sea-coast of Palestine, which hardly describes the
Israelites. They were not a sea-side people.
The sea coast of 'Palestine' had been inhabited in the south by the Philistines, and
in the north by the Tyrians and Sidonians, without Israel ever successfully
populating the full coastal strip.
But still 'Palestine' accurately enough locates Israel.

The Hebrews were from Paddam-Aram, now known as Syria. He could therefore
possibly be talking of Israel as coming from Paddam Aram (in other words, via
Abraham and his company), while also saying that they as a full-grown nation
had later come from across the Red Sea:

Is it mentioning the crossing of the 'Red Sea' by Israel?

'by their own account' might refer to their scriptures,

in which case Herodotus would surely have a more thorough knowledge of
them than this, and be proven to be very quiet about their scriptural
accounts of the history of the region which he is so interested in otherwise.

'Dwelt anciently upon the Red Sea' might refer to their own scriptural account
by Moses, of over a thousand years before, when they had crossed the 'Red
 Sea' or 'Reedy River' in order to escape Egypt from the Delta region. At the
distance of 1000 years, the identity of the 'sea' (or river or lake or body of
water) in question has been lost -- If it were the southernmost branch of the
Nile, it had since silted up and disappeared, and been confused with the 'Red
Sea'.

The point is hardly whether there are yes or no answers, but that this is as close
as Herodotus gets to even mentioning Israel as a nation, the Bible as history, or
any of their God's spectacular proofs or prophets.

A case in point, of censoring Yahweh, is the extensive debate in Herodotus, over

the oracles as to whether Greece could successfully resist the Persians, when the
book of Daniel had already, before the Persian empire had even come to be,
successfully predicted their empire, by naming specifically the Medes and the
Persians as the conquerors of Babylon. Daniel then went on to predict that the
Greeks, by name, would overcome Persia.

Dan_8:16-22 And I heard a man's voice between the banks of the Ulai, which
called, and said, Gabriel, make this man to understand the vision.
17 So he came near where I stood; and when he came, I was affrighted, and
fell upon my face: but he said unto me, Understand, O son of man; for the
vision belongeth to the time of the end.
18 Now as he was speaking with me, I fell into a deep sleep with my face
toward the ground; but he touched me, and set me upright.
19 And he said, Behold, I will make thee know what shall be in the latter time
of the indignation; for it belongeth to the appointed time of the end.
20 The ram which thou sawest, that had the two horns, they are the kings of
Media and Persia.
21 And the rough he-goat is the king of Greece: and the great horn that is
between his eyes is the first king.
22 And as for that which was broken, in the place whereof four stood up, four
kingdoms shall stand up out of the nation, but not with his power.

Dan_11:2 And now will I show thee the truth. Behold, there shall stand up yet
three kings in Persia; and the fourth shall be far richer than they all: and when
he is waxed strong through his riches, he shall stir up all against the realm of
Greece.

To not even raise these most clear predictions, of great interest to anyone
investigating the oracles about Greece vs Persia, amounts to wilful blindness, not
to oversight, irrelevance or disinterest.

The ability of Daniel in interpreting Nebuchadnezzar's prophetic dreams

(including the dream of the five empires in succession) was part of Babylonian
history, since Daniel was prime minister, and since emperors had chronicles
kept. I will soon show that Herodotus had a keen interest in dreams and
interpretations, especially ones touching on the empires.

It is not as if he had to travel to Palestine to find the records, since Jews had been
scattered all over the successive empires -- Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Greek.

Similar divine occurrences had been officially published all over the Babylonian,
Median and Persian empires -- how could that escape the notice of a historian
researching the religious history of these very empires? Daniel was mentioned by
name:

Babylonian:

Dan_4:1-2 Nebuchadnezzar the king, unto all the peoples, nations, and
languages, that dwell in all the earth:
Peace be multiplied unto you.
2 It hath seemed good unto me to show the signs and wonders that the Most
High God hath wrought toward me.
...
Dan_4:7-8 Then came in the magicians, the enchanters, the Chaldeans, and
the soothsayers; and I told the dream before them;
but they did not make known unto me the interpretation thereof.
8 But at the last Daniel came in before me, whose name was Belteshazzar,
according to the name of my god, and in whom is the spirit of the holy gods:
and I told the dream before him, saying,
...
Dan_4:37 Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of
heaven;
for all his works are truth, and his ways justice; and those that walk in pride
he is able to abase.

Medes and Persians:

Dan_6:25-28 Then king Darius wrote unto all the peoples, nations, and
languages, that dwell in all the earth:
Peace be multiplied unto you.
26 I make a decree, that in all the dominion of my kingdom men tremble and
fear before the God of Daniel;
for he is the living God, and stedfast for ever, And his kingdom that which
shall not be destroyed; and his dominion shall be even unto the end.
27 He delivereth and rescueth, and he worketh signs and wonders in heaven
and in earth,
who hath delivered Daniel from the power of the lions.
28 So this Daniel prospered in the reign of Darius [the Mede] , and in the
reign of Cyrus the Persian.

I have made the point that Yahweh opposed polytheism. There are two ways to
regard this. The first way is to say to yourself,

'Oh, in Israel things were done differently. Their God told them to follow His laws
and not to follow other gods; The rest of the world did it the ordinary way.'

The second way is more to the point:

'Yahweh made a stand against polytheism as His point, because that is the very
point. It is the issue. It is Creator God vs created spirits in opposition. It is Truth
vs Deception. Therefore He chose a people to make a stand, to show up the
differences.'

A third way to regard 'Yahweh vs the Rest of the World', is historical:

Anti-Semitism Explains It

Anti-Semitism is old, as old as the Flood, but not as old as Adam, Enoch and
Noah.
Polytheism is old, but not as old as Adam walking with Creator God.
The two (polytheism and anti-Semitism) are related after the Flood.

The original religion, stemming from Adam walking with his Creator was, at
least since the Flood, that which survived the Flood with Noah, for Noah
found favour with Yahweh because of his righteousness. Yet even then, Noah
was surrounded by unrighteousness.

The rest of the world, at that time, was called violent, immoral, sinful and
unrighteous. You could expect that to be some form of polytheism.
Egypt's polytheism is therefore not the most ancient religion; It is the
breakaway religion.

Egypt's religion began after the Flood, with Ham, who was the father of
Egypt and Canaan (and Libya and Ethiopia).
You could say that Ham imported pre-Flood polytheism, and its sins, into
the post-Flood world.

From Egypt, Greece later learned the names of their gods, and the religious
practices, like processions and methods of divination.

Ham, after the Flood, was cursed, for his immorality, while his older brother
Shem was blessed, for his righteousness. Shem was blessed in the name of Noah's
God, Yahweh.
Therefore Ham hated Shem.
That is called 'anti-Sem-itism'; It is the hatred of God and His choices.
It predates Babylon, Egypt, Persia, Greece.
It is no wonder that a breakaway religion must depart from a single God, who
chose a single man, Shem, to bless, into polytheism, which ignores the claims of
Shem's line.

The spirit of anti-semitism must have always been there before the Flood,
opposing the Creator God, and His chosen creature, man, but the name 'anti-
Semitism' cannot predate Shem.

Polytheism degrades 'god' down to share the level of Man, and raises Man to
the level of 'gods'.
Hebrew scripture raises sinful and created man to eventually share the level of
righteous Creator God.

So the humanism of Greek philosophy is tied up with the breakaway religion of

Ham's children.

You can see that the Bible's history explains later polytheism as a direct result of
previous sinful practices.
Polytheism therefore, is the Enemy, to the True God.
Anti-Semitism is simply its post-Flood expression, the flagship of Satan's
opposition forces.

Anti-Semitism was thriving in each successive empire

Egyptian:

Exo_1:8-22 Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who knew not [=would
not acknowledge the man very famous in Egypt for being a prophet of the one
God of the Hebrews,] Joseph.
9 And he said unto his people, Behold, the people of the children of Israel are
more and mightier than we:
10 come, let us deal wisely with them, lest they multiply, and it come to pass,
that, when there falleth out any war, they also join themselves unto our
enemies, and fight against us, and get them up out of the land.
11 Therefore they did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their
burdens. And they built for Pharaoh store-cities, Pithom and Raamses.
12 But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and the more
they spread abroad. And they were grieved because of the children of Israel.
13 And the Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigor:
14 and they made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and in brick,
and in all manner of service in the field, all their service, wherein they made
them serve with rigor.
15 And the king of Egypt spake to the Hebrew midwives, of whom the name
of the one was Shiphrah, and the name of the other Puah:
16 and he said, When ye do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women, and
see them upon the birth-stool;
if it be a son, then ye shall kill him; but if it be a daughter, then she shall live.
 17 But the midwives feared God, and did not as the king of Egypt commanded
them, but saved the men-children alive.
18 And the king of Egypt called for the midwives, and said unto them, Why
have ye done this thing, and have saved the men-children alive?
19 And the midwives said unto Pharaoh, Because the Hebrew women are not
as the Egyptian women; for they are lively, and are delivered ere the midwife
come unto them.
20 And God dealt well with the midwives: and the people multiplied, and
waxed very mighty.
21 And it came to pass, because the midwives feared God, that he made them
households.
22 And Pharaoh charged all his people, saying, Every son that is born ye shall
cast into the river, and every daughter ye shall save alive.

Assyrian:

Assyria had already deported all of Northern Israel, and now attacked Jerusalem,
with words of mocking, against them and their God:

Isa_36:4-20 And Rabshakeh said unto them, Say ye now to Hezekiah, Thus
saith the great king, the king of Assyria, What confidence is this wherein thou
trustest?
5 I say, thy counsel and strength for the war are but vain words: now on
whom dost thou trust, that thou hast rebelled against me?
6 Behold, thou trustest upon the staff of this bruised reed, even upon Egypt,
whereon if a man lean, it will go into his hand, and pierce it: so is Pharaoh
king of Egypt to all that trust on him.
7 But if thou say unto me, We trust in Jehovah our God: is not that he, whose
high places and whose altars Hezekiah hath taken away, and hath said to
Judah and to Jerusalem, Ye shall worship before this altar?
8 Now therefore, I pray thee, give pledges to my master the king of Assyria,
and I will give thee two thousand horses, if thou be able on thy part to set
riders upon them.
9 How then canst thou turn away the face of one captain of the least of my
master's servants, and put thy trust on Egypt for chariots and for horsemen?
10 And am I now come up without Jehovah against this land to destroy it?
Jehovah said unto me, Go up against this land, and destroy it.
11 Then said Eliakim and Shebna and Joah unto Rabshakeh, Speak, I pray
thee, unto thy servants in the Syrian language; for we understand it: and
speak not to us in the Jews' language, in the ears of the people that are on the
wall.
12 But Rabshakeh said, Hath my master sent me to thy master, and to thee, to
speak these words? hath he not sent me to the men that sit upon the wall, to
eat their own dung, and to drink their own water with you?
13 Then Rabshakeh stood, and cried with a loud voice in the Jews' language,
and said, Hear ye the words of the great king, the king of Assyria.
 14 Thus saith the king, Let not Hezekiah deceive you; for he will not be able to
deliver you:
15 neither let Hezekiah make you trust in Jehovah, saying, Jehovah will
surely deliver us; this city shall not be given into the hand of the king of
Assyria.
16 Hearken not to Hezekiah: for thus saith the king of Assyria, Make your
peace with me, and come out to me; and eat ye every one of his vine, and
every one of his fig-tree, and drink ye every one the waters of his own cistern;
17 until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of grain
and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards.
18 Beware lest Hezekiah persuade you, saying, Jehovah will deliver us. Hath
any of the gods of the nations delivered his land out of the hand of the king of
Assyria?
19 Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? where are the gods of
Sepharvaim? and have they delivered Samaria out of my hand? 20 Who are
they among all the gods of these countries, that have delivered their country
out of my hand, that Jehovah should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?
[Yes, Yahweh was the only God, out of all the nations and their many gods,
who beat the Assyrians]

Babylonian:

Dan_3:8-12 Wherefore at that time certain Chaldeans came near, and

brought accusation against the Jews.
9 They answered and said to Nebuchadnezzar the king, O king, live for ever.
10 Thou, O king, hast made a decree, that every man that shall hear the sound
of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer, and all kinds of
music, shall fall down and worship the golden image;
11 and whoso falleth not down and worshippeth, shall be cast into the midst
of a burning fiery furnace.
12 There are certain Jews whom thou hast appointed over the affairs of the
province of Babylon: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego; these men, O king,
have not regarded thee: they serve not thy gods, nor worship the golden image
which thou hast set up.
...
Dan_3:15 Now if ye be ready that at what time ye hear the sound of the
cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer, and all kinds of music, ye
fall down and worship the image which I have made, well:
but if ye worship not, ye shall be cast the same hour into the midst of a
burning fiery furnace;
and who is that god that shall deliver you out of my hands?
[You know the story, that Yahweh God did just that]

Medes:

Dan_6:3-13 Then this Daniel was distinguished above the presidents and the
 satraps, because an excellent spirit was in him; and the king thought to set
him over the whole realm.
4 Then the presidents and the satraps sought to find occasion against Daniel
as touching the kingdom; but they could find no occasion nor fault, forasmuch
as he was faithful, neither was there any error or fault found in him.
5 Then said these men, We shall not find any occasion against this Daniel,
except we find it against him concerning the law of his God.
6 Then these presidents and satraps assembled together to the king, and said
thus unto him, King Darius, live for ever.
7 All the presidents of the kingdom, the deputies and the satraps, the
counsellors and the governors, have consulted together to establish a royal
statute, and to make a strong interdict, that whosoever shall ask a petition of
any god or man for thirty days, save of thee, O king, he shall be cast into the
den of lions.
8 Now, O king, establish the interdict, and sign the writing, that it be not
changed, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which altereth not.
9 Wherefore king Darius signed the writing and the interdict.
10 And when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house
(now his windows were open in his chamber toward Jerusalem) and he
kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before
his God, as he did aforetime.
11 Then these men assembled together, and found Daniel making petition
and supplication before his God.
12 Then they came near, and spake before the king concerning the king's
interdict: Hast thou not signed an interdict, that every man that shall make
petition unto any god or man within thirty days, save unto thee, O king, shall
be cast into the den of lions?
The king answered and said, The thing is true, according to the law of the
Medes and Persians, which altereth not.
13 Then answered they and said before the king, That Daniel, who is of the
children of the captivity of Judah, regardeth not thee, O king, nor the interdict
that thou hast signed, but maketh his petition three times a day.
[The result is published above -- That Yahweh delivered Daniel from the
lions]

Persian:

Est_3:12-15 Then were the king's scribes called in the first month, on the
thirteenth day thereof;
and there was written according to all that Haman commanded unto the
king's satraps, and to the governors that were over every province, and to the
princes of every people, to every province according to the writing thereof,
and to every people after their language; in the name of king Ahasuerus
[=Xerxes of Herodotus] was it written, and it was sealed with the king's ring.
13 And letters were sent by posts into all the king's provinces, to destroy, to
slay, and to cause to perish, all Jews, both young and old, little children and
women, in one day, even upon the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which
is the month Adar, and to take the spoil of them for a prey.
14 A copy of the writing, that the decree should be given out in every
province, was published unto all the peoples, that they should be ready
against that day.
15 The posts went forth in haste by the king's commandment, and the decree
was given out in Shushan the palace.
And the king and Haman sat down to drink; but the city of Shushan was
perplexed.

Est_8:1-14 On that day did the king Ahasuerus give the house of Haman the
Jews' enemy unto Esther the queen. And Mordecai came before the king; for
Esther had told what he was unto her.
2 And the king took off his ring, which he had taken from Haman, and gave it
unto Mordecai. And Esther set Mordecai over the house of Haman.
3 And Esther spake yet again before the king, and fell down at his feet, and
besought him with tears to put away the mischief of Haman the Agagite, and
his [wicked] device that he had devised against the Jews.
4 Then the king held out to Esther the golden sceptre. So Esther arose, and
stood before the king.
5 And she said, If it please the king, and if I have found favor in his sight, and
the thing seem right before the king, and I be pleasing in his eyes,
let it be written to reverse the letters devised by Haman, the son of
Hammedatha the Agagite, which he wrote to destroy the Jews that are in all
the king's provinces:
6 for how can I endure to see the evil that shall come unto my people? or how
can I endure to see the destruction of my kindred?
7 Then the king Ahasuerus said unto Esther the queen and to Mordecai the
Jew,
Behold, I have given Esther the house of Haman, and him they have hanged
upon the gallows, because he laid his hand upon the Jews.
8 Write ye also to the Jews, as it pleaseth you, in the king's name, and seal it
with the king's ring;
for the writing which is written in the king's name, and sealed with the king's
ring, may no man reverse.
9 Then were the king's scribes called at that time, in the third month Sivan,
on the three and twentieth day thereof;
and it was written according to all that Mordecai commanded unto the Jews,
and to the satraps, and the governors and princes of the provinces which are
from India unto Ethiopia, a hundred twenty and seven provinces, unto every
province according to the writing thereof, and unto every people after their
language, and to the Jews according to their writing, and according to their
language.
10 And he wrote in the name of king Ahasuerus, and sealed it with the king's
ring, and sent letters by post on horseback, riding on swift steeds that were
used in the king's service, bred of the stud:
11 wherein the king granted the Jews that were in every city to gather
 themselves together, and to stand for their life, to destroy, to slay, and to
cause to perish, all the power of the people and province that would assault
them, their little ones and women, and to take the spoil of them for a prey,
12 upon one day in all the provinces of king Ahasuerus, namely, upon the
thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month Adar.
13 A copy of the writing, that the decree should be given out in every
province, was published unto all the peoples, and that the Jews should be
ready against that day to avenge themselves on their enemies.
14 So the posts that rode upon swift steeds that were used in the king's service
went out, being hastened and pressed on by the king's commandment; and
the decree was given out in Shushan the palace.

Compare p522:

Nothing mortal travels so fast as these Persian

messengers. The entire plan is a Persian invention;
and this is the method of it. Along the whole line
of road there are men (they say) stationed with
horses, in number equal to the number of days
which the journey takes, allowing a man and horse
to each day; and these men will not be hindered
from accomplishing at their best speed the
distance which they have to go, either by snow, or
rain, or heat, or by the darkness of night. The first
rider delivers his despatch to the second and the
second passes it to the third; and so it is borne
from hand to hand along the whole line, like the
light in the torch-race, which the Greeks celebrate
to Vulcan. The Persians give the riding post in this
manner, the name of "Angarum."

Greek Empire:

Here are 3 non-Biblical Jewish records of the intense and bitter rivalry between
Israel and Greece:
(For more, read the separate commentary on the Greek Games')

[I need to point out that the most sacreligious indignity possible to a Jew, was to
be forced to give up Jewishness, Jewish law and custom, and Jewish worship of
their God.]
Israel was forced into bitter division about whether to give in to Greek
domination or to remain faithful to their God...

From Josephus, Antiquities, Bk 12, Ch. 5:

And the sons of Tobias took the part of Menelaus, but the
greater part of the people assisted Jason;
and by that means Menelaus and the sons of Tobias were
distressed, and retired to Antiochus,
and informed him that they were desirous to leave the
laws of their country, and the Jewish way of living
according to them, and to follow the king's laws, and the
Grecian way of living.
Wherefore they desired his permission to build them a
Gymnasium* at Jerusalem.
* [Editor's footnote]: This word "Gymnasium" properly
denotes a place where the exercises were performed
naked, which because it would naturally distinguish
circumcised Jews from uncircumcised Gentiles, these
Jewish apostates endeavored to appear uncircumcised, by
means of a surgical operation, hinted at by St. Paul,
1Co_7:18, and described by Celsus, B. VII. ch. 25., as Dr.
Hudson here informs us.
And when he had given them leave, they also hid the
circumcision of their genitals, that even when they were
naked they might appear to be Greeks.
Accordingly, they left off all the customs that belonged to
their own country, and imitated the practices of the other
nations.

From the First book of the history of the Maccabees:

1Ma_1:11 And there came out of them a wicked root,

Antiochus the Illustrious, the son of king Antiochus, who
had been a hostage at Rome:
and he reigned in the hundred and thirty-seventh year of
the kingdom of the Greeks.
12 In those days there went out of Israel wicked men,
and they persuaded many, saying: Let us go and make a
covenant with the heathens that are round about us: for
since we departed from them, many evils have befallen
us.
13 And the word seemed good in their eyes.
14 And some of the people determined to do this, and
went to the king: and he gave them license to do after
the ordinances of the heathens [Greeks].
15 And they built a place of excercise in Jerusalem,
according to the laws of the nations [non-Jews]:
...
46 So the king Antiochus sent his messengers with his
commission unto Jerusalem, and to all the cities of Judah,
that they should follow the laws of the heathen:
47 And he forbade either burnt-offering, meat-offering, or
peace-offering to be made in the temple of God, &
[commanded] that there should no Sabbath nor high feast
day be kept:
48 But commanded that the sanctuary and the holy
people of Israel should be defiled:
49 He commanded also, that there should be set up other
altars, temples, & idols, to offer up swines flesh, and
other unclean beasts,
50 That men should leave their children uncircumcised, to
defile their souls with all manner of uncleanness and
abominations:
(1Ma_1:16 And they made themselves prepuces
[foreskins], and departed from the holy covenant, and
joined themselves to the heathens, and were sold to do
evil:)
51 That they might so forget the law, and change all the
holy ordinances of God,
52 And that whosoever would not do according to the
commandement of king Antiochus, should suffer death.
59 And as for the books of the law of God, they burnt
them in the fire, and rent them in pieces.
60 Whosoever he was that had a book of the testament of
the Lord found with him, yea whosoever endeavored
 himself to keep the law of the Lord, the kings
commandment was, that they should put him to death.
1 Not long after this, the king sent an old man of Antioch,
to compel the Jews to transgress the ordinances of the
fathers, & of the law of God,
2 To defile the temple that was at Jerusalem, and to call it
the temple of Jupiter Olympius: and that they should be
in Gerizim, as those which dwell at the place of Jupiter.

From the Second book of the history of the Maccabees:

2Ma_4:7 But after the death of Seleucus, when Antiochus,

who was called the Illustrious, had taken possession of
the kingdom, Jason, the brother of Onias, ambitiously
sought the high priesthood: 8 And went to the king,
promising him three hundred and sixty talents of silver,
and out of other revenues fourscore talents.
9 Besides this he promised also a hundred and fifty more,
if he might have license to set him up a place for exercise,
and a place for youth, and to entitle them that were at
Jerusalem, Antiochians.
10 Which when the king had granted, and he had gotten
the rule into his hands, forthwith he began to bring over
his countrymen to the fashion of the heathens.
11 And abolishing those things, which had been decreed
of special favour by the kings in behalf of the Jews, by the
means of John, the father of that Eupolemus, who went
ambassador to Rome to make amity and alliance, he
disannulled the lawful ordinances of the citizens, and
brought in fashions that were perverse.
12 For he had the boldness to set up, under the very
castle, a place of exercise, and to put all the choicest
youths in brothel houses.
13 Now this was not the beginning, but an increase, and
progress of heathenish and foreign manners, through the
abominable and unheard of wickedness of Jason, that
impious wretch, and no priest.
14 Insomuch that the priests were not now occupied
 about the offices of the altar, but despising the temple
and neglecting the sacrifices, hastened to be partakers of
the games, and of the unlawful allowance thereof, and of
the exercise of the discus.
15 And setting nought by the honours of their fathers,
they esteemed the Grecian glories for the best:
16 For the sake of which they incurred a dangerous
contention, and followed earnestly their ordinances, and
in all things they coveted to be like them, who were their
enemies and murderers.
17 For acting wickedly against the laws of God doth not
pass unpunished: but this the time following will declare.
18 Now when the game that was used every fifth year
was kept at Tyre, the king being present,
...
22 Where he was received in a magnificent manner by
Jason, and the city, and came in with torch lights, and
with praises, and from thence he returned with his army
into Phenicia.

So do not be surprised that the Greek Herodotus will not enlighten you about a
God who hates the Greek gods.
He will tell you about Egyptian gods, from whom, he says, Greece took most of
their religion.
But he won't tell you about the Egyptian gods being humiliated.
He will tell you about Persian religion, but not about how Yahweh predicted it
better than all their gods could.

If there is a lesson to re-learn from this, it is that the true God is hated by all men,
and that there is a conspiracy of silence about His history, champions, miracles,
prophecies, triumphs and promises. Greek democracy is based on it.
Parliamentarians are practised at it. The modern media are skilful at it.
Historians are masters of it.

------------------------------------

Contents in the full article in the 'freecommentary' at

http://sites.google.com/site/freecommentary

Part 1: Introduction. The Delphic Oracles

Part 2: Herodotus./ The so-called Father of History
Part 3: Herodotus and Anti-Semitism
Part 4: The Clearly Spiritual Powers of Polytheism
Part 5: The Cloudy Origins of Polytheism
Part 6: Prophetic Dreams, Apparitions and Visions
Part 7: Divination by Sacrifices, Victims and Entrails
Part 8: Astrology
Part 9: Prophesying; Soothsaying; Interpreting; Omens
Part 10: Prodigies, Signs and Wonders
Part 11: Oracles