The cult of the Bull with the worship of the Sun are very ancient beliefs with a common thread and significance. They are found in many nations and civilisations reaching back in time into early or even prehistory. Two prominent peoples of the past that were heavily involved in these practices were ironically enough – near neighbours and arch enemies – the Philistines and the tribes of Israel in the land of Canaan.

Unknown source – emphasis & bold mine:

‘The best example of a palace society are the Minoans [Philistines] in Crete. 

According to Greek myth, Minos was a powerful ruler who lived in Crete in a palace so big that it is known as the Labyrinth. The Athenians had wronged him, so every nine years they had to send seven youths and seven beautiful maidens who were devoured by the Minotaur, a fearsome beast half man half bull.’ 

A well known online Encyclopaedia – emphasis & bold mine: 

‘Bull-leaping is thought to have been a key ritual in the religion of the Minoan civilisation in… Crete… the bull was the subject of veneration and worship. Representation of the Bull at the palace of Knossos is a widespread symbol in the art and decoration of this archaeological site. The assumption, widely debated by scholars, is that the iconography represents a ritual sport [non-combating bull fighting] and/or performance in which human athletes – both male and female – literally vaulted over bulls as part of a ceremonial rite. This ritual is hypothesized to have consisted of an acrobatic leap over a bull, such that when the leaper grasped the bull’s horns, the bull would violently jerk its neck upwards, giving the leaper the momentum necessary to perform somersaults and other acrobatic tricks or stunts. The sport survives in modern France, usually with cows rather than bulls… in Spain, with bulls… and in Tamil Nadu, India with bulls… ’  

Bull vaulting or leaping artwork from Minoan Crete and as it is performed today

‘A running of the bulls… is an event that involves running in front of a small group of cattle, typically six but sometimes ten or more, that have been let loose on a course of a sectioned-off subset of a town’s streets, usually as part of a summertime festival. Particular breeds of cattle may be [favoured], such as the toro bravo in Spain… Bulls (non-castrated male cattle) are typically used in such events.’

Unknown source:

‘Bull fighting is very closely associated with Spain and can trace its origins back to 711 A.D. This is when the first bullfight took place in celebration for the crowning of King Alfonso VIII. It is very popular in Spain with several thousand Spaniards flocking to their local bull-ring each week. It is said that the total number of people watching bullfights in Spain reaches one million every year.’

A well known online Encyclopaedia – emphasis & bold mine

‘Tauroctony is a modern name given to the central cult reliefs of the Roman Mithraic Mysteries. The imagery depicts Mithras killing a bull, hence the name tauroctony after the Greek word tauroktonos… A tauroctony is distinct from the cultic slaughter of a bull in ancient Rome called a taurobolium; the taurobolium was mainly part of the unrelated cult of Cybele.’ 

Britannica – emphasis & bold mine:

‘Mithra, also spelled Mithras, Sanskrit Mitra, in ancient Indo-Iranian mythology, the god of light, whose cult spread from India in the east to as far west as Spain, Great Britain, and Germany. The first written mention of the Vedic Mitra dates to 1400 BC. His worship spread to Persia and, after the defeat of the Persians by Alexander the Great, throughout the Hellenic world. In the 3rd and 4th centuries AD, the cult of Mithra, carried and supported by the soldiers of the Roman Empire, was the chief rival to the newly developing religion of Christianity. 

According to myth, Mithra was born, bearing a torch and armed with a knife, beside a sacred stream [Holy Spirit] and under a sacred tree [in the Garden of Eden], a child of the earth itself. He soon rode, and later killed, the life-giving cosmic bull [the Storm god], whose blood fertilizes all vegetation [the god who oversaw the creation/evolution of life on the Earth]. Mithra’s slaying of the bull was a popular subject of Hellenic art and became the prototype for a bull-slaying ritual of fertility in the Mithraic cult. As god of light [a light bringer], Mithra was associated with the Greek sun god, Helios, and the Roman Sol Invictus’ [the god who sustains and rules life on Earth].

Argentina and Uruguay have the golden sun god of May on their flags. The month of May’s name comes from the Italian Goddess of Spring, Maia. She was the wife of Vulcan. Maia is the eldest of the seven sisters, that comprise the Pleiades constellation. She is a nymph, the daughter of Atlas and her name means great one.  

May begins the month in the sign of Taurus the Bull. Two common sayings describing Taurus include: ‘bull headed’ and like ‘a bull in a china shop’ and these have similarity with the definitions for being a ‘Cretan’ or a ‘Philistine.’ Also, ‘Two bulls do not live in the same shade’ [Swahili Proverb], reminiscent of ‘a Mexican standoff’, that is, no winners; and ‘Talking about bulls is not the same as facing them in the ring’ [Mexican Proverb]. 

Pleiades and Orion are constellations of stars seen in the night sky.  Pleiades is well known as the Seven Sisters and Orion as the Great Hunter. Both are next to the constellation of Taurus, on either side – Orion to the west and the Pleiades to the east of Taurus. Intriguingly, the Bible deems the Pleiades and Orion important enough to mention them twice.

Job 38:31-33

English Standard Version

31 “Can you bind* the chains [H4576 ma’adannah – (sweet) influence] of the Pleiades or loose the cords [belt] of Orion? 32  Can you lead forth the Mazzaroth in their season [the 12 signs of the Zodiac and their 36 associated constellations],or can you guide the Bear [Ursa Major constellation] with its children? [Arcturus, a red giant star, 4th brightest in the sky, in the Bootes (the herdsman) constellation to the west of Ursa Major] 33  Do you know the ordinances of the heavens? Can you establish their rule [H4896 mishtar – dominion, authority] on the earth?

Amos 5:8

English Standard Version

He who made the Pleiades [the seven sisters] and Orion [the great hunter], and turns deep darkness into the morning and darkens the day into night, who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out on the surface of the earth, the Lord is his name;

The belt of Orion has been written about copiously since the three stars, Zeta, Epsilon and Delta were discovered to be in the same alignment as the three pyramids of the Giza complex. The dating arrived at astronomically from the direction of the internal shafts and where they point to in the sky, provides a date in confluence with the time of the flood 10,837 BCE during the precessional Age of Leo, for the building of the Great Pyramid. There is also evidence that the constellations of Orion to the south and Draco in the north are linked to the ancestral homes of the Sons of God and of the fallen Angels, the progenitors of the Nephilim. 

Bible Science forum, Josh Hartnett – emphasis & bold mine:

‘… [the]… Pleiades as a group of seven stars… [are] visible to the naked eye as seven bright, blue-white stars, also called the Seven Sisters. Modern astronomy has shown that the constituent stars of Pleiades are expected to dissociate within the next 250 million years, and hence Pleiades is an open or unbound* cluster. That is, the motions and velocities of its constituent objects are such that the gravitational forces between them are not sufficient to hold it together (as a recognizable cluster) over the longer term. A ‘bound’ cluster, by contrast, can be shown to still be a recognizable grouping even if its motions are projected forward by a billion years or so. 

Modern astronomy has revealed that more than 500 mostly faint stars belong to the Pleiades star cluster… Pleiades is a large but expanding, or unbound, cluster of stars that are all just passing the same region of space at the same time with the same motion. What was originally thought to be bound is unbound and what was thought to be unbound is bound (given current astrophysical definitions).

The text in Job 38:31, 32 describe real astronomical bodies. God is speaking to Job in practical terms about real objects that Job can see (or has seen) and He is expecting Job to give Him immediate answers. In the past, some have used this passage in Job to claim biblical accuracy in relation to the universe… it was argued that God was asking Job if he can do the same as God, while now we could turn the argument around and suggest that God is asking Job if he can undo what God has done…’

The veneration of the Bull was so prevalent and dominant in the second millennium BCE that the sons of Jacob incredibly made a golden calf idol, soon after they had been miraculously delivered from bondage in Egypt and staggeringly yet again over five hundred years later, when Israel and Judah split into two Kingdoms after King Solomon’s reign [970-930 BCE]. 

Exodus 32:1-8, 35

English Standard Version

When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, “Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” 2 So Aaron said to them, “Take off the rings of gold that are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” 3 So all the people took off the rings of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. 

4 And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool [H2747 cheret – ‘a stylus, chisel]’ and made a golden [H4541 maccekah – ‘molten metal, cast image’] calf [H5695 egel – bull-calf, bullock, a steer’ a male calf nearly grown]. And they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” 5 When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord.” 

6 And they rose up early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. 

7 And the Lord said to Moses, “Go down, for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. 8 They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them. They have made for themselves a golden calf [The Sun god, Ra] and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’”

19 And as soon as he came near the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, Moses’ anger burned hot, and he threw the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain. 20 He took the calf that they had made and burned it with fire and ground it to powder and scattered it on the water and made the people of Israel drink it.

21 And Moses said to Aaron, “What did this people do to you that you have brought such a great sin upon them?” 22 And Aaron said, “Let not the anger of my lord burn hot. You know the people, that they are set on evil. 24 So I said to them, ‘Let any who have gold take it off.’ So they gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf.” 

35 Then the Lord sent a plague on the people, because they made the calf, the one that Aaron made.

This is quite a scenario. There were people who were either oblivious or chose to ignore the leadership of Moses and that the Eternal was working through him and the fact that the Creator had delivered the Israelites from Egypt through a series of ten spectacular miracles and then again in a mind boggling act of parting the Red Sea to save them and then crashing down the thousands of tons of water to kill their enemies. The very people who had cruelly enslaved them for one hundred and forty-seven years. 

Moses’s elder brother Aaron is a revelation; the man chosen to found the Levitical Priesthood for the ancient Israelites and replace the perpetual Melchizedek Order. Aaron put his artistic ability to use, fashioning the calf of gold and then he used his carpentry skills to build an altar to a pagan, false god. Aaron then ironically blames the people, for being set on evil and finally how does he think he can fool Moses, with: ‘I threw [the gold] into the fire, and out came this calf.’ Miracles had been so plenteous, it was worth a shot it would seem.

The Creator shows His wrath and disgust not for the last time, when He says to Moses that they are ‘your people, whom you brought up out of… Egypt.’ It is not surprising that Moses’s loses his temper, ‘his anger burned hot’, forgetting himself and dares to smash the tablets of the Law that the supreme Creator has just given him, the very One who has also just delivered Moses and everyone that is partying, giving veneration to a god of gold that has no life, no power and for deeds not done, not worthy of any honour. 

As an after thought, the Creator inflicts a plague. 

It wasn’t a good start for the fledgling relationship between the Eternal and the sons of Jacob and the tempestuousness of the marriage covenant continued so that eventually the Creator divorced his chosen people and sent them into captivity some seven hundred years later for Israel and eight hundred and fifty years for Judah.

1 Kings 12:27-32

English Standard Version

27 If this people go up to offer sacrifices in the temple of the Lord at Jerusalem, then the heart of this people will turn again to their lord, to Rehoboam king of Judah, and they will kill me and return to Rehoboam king of Judah.” 28 So the king took counsel and made two calves of gold.And he said to the people, “You have gone up to Jerusalem long enough. Behold your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.” 29 And he set one in Bethel, and the other he put in Dan. 30 Then this thing became a sin, for the people went as far as Dan to be before one. 31 He also made temples on high places and appointed priests from among all the people, who were not of the Levites. 32 And Jeroboam appointed a feast on the fifteenth day [the sabbath] of the eighth month [October/November] like the feast that was in Judah [seventh month, September/October], and he offered sacrifices on the altar. So he did in Bethel, sacrificing to the calves that he made. And he placed in Bethel the priests of the high places that he had made.

We will return to the appointed feast in the eighth month in a later chapter. The weakness of Jeroboam is saddening in that he established a new feast, new temples and new false gods so as to reinforce his new position as King of Israel and not lose his power to Rehoboam, King of Judah.

The Genesis 6 Conspiracy, Gary Wayne, 2014, page 228, 585-586 – emphasis & bold mine:

‘The golden calf altercation communicates more significance than the superficial text delivers, explicating why God responded the way He did. The idol was part of the bull cult of Canaan… and the mysticism of [evil] Enoch. The golden calf would not have been a calf but rather a bull… Exodus describes the idol as a calf to denigrate it… a bull, the aboriginal symbol or potency. Others… conclude the golden calf was indeed a calf and base this on the Apis/Osiris bull cult of ancient Egypt… Isis bore from her womb a calf that died and later became Osiris. The Apis bull was part of Horus-king tradition… The bull from Egypt’s rival bull cult was a symbol of power and defiance… the skill set required for Aaron to manufacture the golden calf came from Jethro… these skills were derived from his Kenite background that allegedly dated back to Tubal-Cain and Cain, the master antediluvian metallurgists. Baal and related deities were by and large portrayed as mating bulls symbolising fertility… Early depictions of Molech portrayed him to be a man with a bull’s head… [with a] striking similarity between Molech… and the bull of Minos… on Crete.’

In the Mithras Symbolism [refer photo] the Bull is Taurus; the Dog is Canis Major, the Greater Dog star, Sirius; the Snake is Hydra and Serpens from Draco and the Scorpion is Scorpius [scorpio]. Coincidentally, all are represented in the shaft positions within the Great Pyramid.

Sun – Bull Cult: English Words Ox, Cow and Latin Taurus… derive from Sumerian Turkish, Mehmet Kurtkaya, 2019 – emphasis and bold mine:

‘Imagine how important it was for the people living in the region to have domesticated these big animals. Aurochs [bulls] are the biggest animals ever domesticated apart from the elephant. There is a dispute whether elephants are [truly] domesticated or not. Moreover, cattle and [oxen were] not only a symbol of richness, it meant richness. Domestication of… cattle was a major breakthrough that provided the opportunity for people to rely less on game hunting. Cattle provided them milk, meat and blood. Their hides were used for clothing, their [dung] as fuel, and their bones as tools.’

Wild Aurochs painted on the walls of Lascaux Caves, France

‘Gobeklitepe was deliberately buried with dirt and stones some 10,000 years ago. The reason is still unknown. “Many animals have been totem animals for tens of thousands of years. These animals were representative of the group/tribe of people and their beliefs. Cult animals were symbols. Even today, sports teams have animal mascots… maybe remnants from ancient periods. At the very least, associating a team with an animal is a major coincidence with ancient practices.”

[The] Bull is the oldest and most prominent [animal worshiped] in early agricultural societies. Latest genetics research revealed that [the] farming revolution… started in and around the Taurus mountains in Southeast Turkey and spread West to Europe and East to Iran from there. In fact, our modern wheat was first domesticated in Alacadag (Alaca mountain), near Gobeklitepe! 

We know that bulls are specially portrayed by the hunter gatherers of Gobeklitepe. Not too far from Gobeklitepe, neolithic site of Catalhoyuk had a bull cult about 8000 years ago. We find a bull cult in the indigenous Hatti civilization in Turkey (Anatolia) some 4500 years ago. And in Sumer (starting around 4000 BC), bulls represented sun and sky gods, their highest gods. So, there is a continuity of [the] bull cult for civilizations in Turkey and Mesopotamia for thousands of years. The fact that Gobeklitepe is located on a hill is an indication of a very important aspect of human beliefs some 12,000 years ago: sky and sun worship. This is in line with the idea of [a] sacred mountain found in Shamanistic beliefs from Siberia. In Sumer, we find Ekur, [a] sacred mountain house where gods resided, very similar to Olympos Mountain in Ancient Greece.’ 

From Ankara Medeniyetler Muzesi. Bull Cult from Catalhuyuk, a famous pre-pottery neolithic archeological site in Central Turkey 9,500-6,500 BP

‘Egyptian Pyramids are the representations of the same beliefs based on sacred mountains. In Sumerian, “E” means house and the word “kur” represents a cosmic mountain, in addition to being the term for mountain: e+kur = Ekur. “Kur” is also the stem for the Turkish word “kurgan”, the burial mound found all over Eurasia, north Africa and [the] Americas. It also means the underworld. “Gin” is [a] Sumerian word for mountain. “Gan” is gate as in gate to heaven. Kur+gan = Kurgan means “underworld mountain”. Some of the highest Sumerian gods, Enlil and Enki, who resided in Ekur were thought to have brought agriculture and animal husbandry to humans.

In Turkey, Mesopotamia and the surrounding regions, the bull was commonly associated with [the] sun and later [the] storm gods. Ugur (Hurrian) religious mountain sanctuaries Musasir, Kumme, Ukku and Subria located along the Taurus mountains in Southeastern Turkey, were considered as the most important centers of the Hurrian weather god Teshub (similar to Hatti Taru). Hence, the name of the mountain ranges in Southern Turkey is the same as the word for Bull, [the] symbol animal of the storm god… They were first found in Sumer, Akkadian, Assyrian, and other ancient Near Eastern societies including the later Urartu kingdom, and Persia, Iran. Winged animal deities continued to be used elsewhere, for example in Ancient [Greece] such as the Pegasus, with [a] horse instead of the bull. [The] Cretan Minotaur is the half man-half bull deity.

Gold was the most important precious metal for ancient people, and it still is, many thousands of years later. Sumerians used gold and lapis lazuli not only as [an] ornament but more so, for religious reasons. 

Gold represented the sun, and lapis lazuli the sky and the heavens. However, there was no lapis lazuli nor gold mines in Sumer or in the immediate vicinity. Moreover, their knowledge and their advanced workmanship of gold proves they worked with gold before migrating to Sumer. These are among the many evidences indicating the origins of the Sumerian people. For gold, Iran, Turkey, [and the] Indus Valley civilization are the potential sources but for lapis lazuli, there is only one source: Afghanistan! All of this clearly point[s] at [the] Northeast [the Himalayan Mountains: refer Chapter I Noah] as the direction of their migration. 

Gold and Lapis Lazuli were not the only ones, they also imported silver which they used as money, as well as carnelian and chlorite. Sun Language Theory states that languages were born out of religious rituals, specifically sun [sky] worship. Taurus is the word used for bull in Latin and similar words are found in other Indo-European languages that prove a single origin for the word. Taurus is also the name of the constellation deriving from the word for bull. Moreover, Taurus is the name of the mountain ranges extending from Southwest to Southeast Turkey! 

… The chapter “Gat (Gut) / Hatti / Hittite civilizations” [from] my book on Sumerian Turks: 

“How many people know that Taurus, the name of the zodiac sign, derives from a rather unknown civilization that lived in Turkey in ancient times? The bull was commonly the symbol and depiction of ancient Near Eastern storm gods, Taru/Taur is [the] Gat/Hatti bull cult from some 5,000 years ago. In Turkmenistan, Sumer, Anatolia, Ancient Greece and elsewhere in many corners of Eurasia we find: Taurus.” 

Taru was the name of the Hatti storm god and also the basis of Hittite Tarhunz, Etruscan Tarkan, similar in function to Greek Zeus, Indian Indra, Roman Jupiter and other Indo-European gods as well as Hurrian Teshub. In Greek mythology, many deities had an animal form. They are called theriomorphic gods. Note the relation of the Ancient Greek word “Theri” meaning “wild beast” to the word for Hatti god Taru and the word for bull “Taurus”. 

In “Greek Religion: Archaic and Classical”, late German Professor Walter Burkert explains [the] bull god in Greek mythology and shows that major Greek gods, Zeus, Dionysus, and Poseidon among others were at times associated with the bull. In Kyzikos, founded by the Pelasgians / Etruscans, Dyonisus has a tauromorphic cult image. Poseidon, the god of the sea, was associated with either a horse or a bull. Zeus, in the form of a bull, abducted Europa and brought her to Crete. It is very likely that the Latin word for sea “Mare” derives from [the] Sumerian word for bull “Amar”… and this is due to the role of [the] bull in Greek mythology! Indian god Nandi is associated with the bull. Indra also is often mentioned as a bull. In Egypt, the bull was worshiped as Apis, and representative of the Sun god Ra.

In Irish mythology, the hero Cu Chulainn appears in [the] Ulster cycle and Scottish folklore. 

Donn Cuailnge the bull, appears in Tain Bo Cuailnge, a legendary tale from Early Irish mythology. From [a] Wikipedia article for “Cu Chulainn”. “Cu Chulainn shows striking similarities to the legendary Persian hero Rostam, as well as to the Germanic Lay of Hildebrand and the labours of the Greek epic hero Heracles, suggesting a common Indo-European origin, but lacking in linguistic, anthropological and archaeological material.” 

“Lacking linguistic material”, wrong! And there is quite a lot of groundbreaking genetic studies involving the peopling of Europe and the British Isles that supports the connection. 

As a side note, Rostam or Rustam is the legendary hero in Shahname and Iranian mythology. Irish mythological hero Cu Chulainn sounds the same as Sumerian divine bull Gugalanna! This is not a coincidence and points at the Sumerian Turkish origins of the Irish and English language and civilization.

Turkish word “okuz”… sounds and means exactly same thing as the English word “ox”. In Hungarian, the word for “ox” is “okor”. It is very telling that Turkish “okuz” which is connected to the word “Oguz” Turkish has an “r” counterpart in Hungarian, as “okor”. There are currently two versions of Turkish, one is Ogur Turkish the older one, and Oguz the newer one marked by an r-z conversion and some other features. This is additional evidence for [a] Hungarian connection to ancient Ogur Turkish which includes Sumerian. That’s why Hungarian matches Sumerian so well.’ 

We will return to the Hungarian, Turkish and Sumer link.

The tradition of keeping alive the veneration of the bull is highly visible in Spain, where the people of Casluh and Caphtor [the Philistines] once lived. 

Edited excerpt from Chapter XV – Casluh & Caphtor