While most believe they pray to Mary, the mother of Jesus, the truth of whom they actually pray to will surprise you.

We have seen that the biblical Mary is much different from the “Mary” popularly taught around the world.

But where did this other Mary originate?

David C. Pack’s book The True Jesus Christ – Unknown to Christianity provides unmistakable proof that the Mary of antiquity is tied to the same pagan holiday that led to the modern-day Easter celebration. The following excerpt from Chapter 13 “Vain Worship—and Another Jesus” makes this plain:

It will come as a surprise to most that Easter is mentioned repeatedly in the Bible—but never in a good context. In fact, God condemns the custom in the strongest possible terms. We will see that Easter is interwoven with the worship of Baal and sun worship.

Before concluding that this cannot be true, force yourself to consider the facts of history. It is vital to understand the origin of Easter, and its connection to the Jesus worshipped by millions, because this spring celebration is considered the holiest in the Christian calendar.

So then, who or what is Easter? From where does this term derive?

The following sources answer the question: “What means the term Easter itself? It is not a Christian name. It bears its Chaldean origin on its very forehead. Easter is nothing else than Astarte, one of the titles of Beltis, the queen of heaven…Now, the Syrian goddess, or Astarte, is identified with Semiramis by Athenagoras (Legatio, vol. ii. p. 179), and by Lucian (De Suria Dea, vol. iii. p. 382)…Now, no name could more exactly picture forth the character of Semiramis, as queen of Babylon, than the name of ‘Asht-tart,’ for that just means ‘The woman that made towers’…Asht-turit, then…is obviously the same as the Hebrew ‘Ashtoreth’” (Alexander Hislop, The Two Babylons, pg. 147, 446, emphasis ours).

Notice this conclusive quote from Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia: “Ishtar was the Great Mother, the goddess of fertility and the queen of heaven.” In Jeremiah 7:18, God condemned baking cakes (hot cross buns) to the “queen of heaven.” So, in actuality, Ashtaroth (Ishtar) was Nimrod’s (Gen. 10:8-10) harlotrous, mother/wife widow, Semiramis, as many other ancient historians attest! Easter is none other than Ashtaroth! More proof will follow, but we can now examine the scriptures that show how God views the worship of this pagan goddess—by any name.

Easter, Baal and Israel

Now that we know that Easter is the goddess Ashtaroth, we need to look into the Bible and see what God thinks of her, and notice her connection to Baal.

This first of two sources about Baal comes from Encyclopaedia Britannica, and it begins to connect Baal to Ashtaroth: “The Semitic word baal, meaning owner or master, was also used in ancient religions for lord or god, and it is still defined as a Canaanite or Phoenician deity. Among the greatest of the Semitic peoples’ deities were Baal and Astarte—both symbols of fertility. Baal, the god of the sun, was supposed to make crops grow and flocks increase. Astarte [was] the goddess of the moon.”

Now read this quote from The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition: “Baal had become the ruler of the universe. The Ugarit tablets make him chief of the Canaanite pantheon. He is the source of life and fertility, the mightiest hero, the lord of war, and the defeater of the god Yam. There were many temples of Baal in Canaan, and the name Baal was often added to that of a locality, e.g., Baal-peor, Baal-hazor, Baal-hermon. The Baal cult penetrated Israel and at times led to syncretism…The practice of sacred prostitution seems to have been associated with the worship of Baal in Palestine and the cult was vehemently denounced by the prophets.”

Baal was the most popular and powerful god of his time, considered to be “ruler of the universe,” and Israel wanted to be associated with—to worship—both Baal and the true God. Hence, the above reference to “syncretism,” which is the mixing of true and false religion—the worship of the true God mixed with customs, practices and worship of other gods.

Merging worship of the true God with Baal worship was Israel’s problem. It led Elijah to indict all Israel: “How long halt you between two opinions? If the Lord be God, follow Him: but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word” (I Kings 18:21).

Now let’s examine Israel’s involvement with Baal and Ashtaroth: “And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord…And they forsook the Lord, and served Baal and Ashtaroth [Easter]” (Judg. 2:11, 13).

The context of the passage shows that God allowed His people to be taken from their land into foreign captivity as a result of this sin! It continues, explaining that God delivered His people over and over again through a series of judges. After each deliverance, Israel returned to the same false gods, which in turn brought another captivity, via conquest by the nations around them. They never seemed to learn, as verse 19 makes clear: “And it came to pass, when the judge was dead, that they returned, and corrupted themselves…in following other gods…and…they ceased not from their own doings, nor from their stubborn way” (Judg. 2:19). In chapter 10, verse 6, Israel repeats this pattern of rebellion and stubbornness. And God, just as insistently, called it evil—as He still does today.

Baal and Ashtaroth worship reappeared during the prophet Samuel’s time. Samuel told Israel, “Put away the strange gods and Ashtaroth from among you, and prepare your hearts unto the Lord, and serve Him only…Then the children of Israel did put away Baalim and Ashtaroth, and served the Lord only” (I Sam. 7:3-4). Later, in I Samuel 12:10-11, Samuel publicly recounted Israel’s history to them. He reminded them that they continually returned to obeying God, only to fall backward into idolatry time and time again!

Let’s read one final example. The Bible states that King Solomon was the wisest man who ever lived. Yet, he made a mistake God considered so great that, after his death, He punished Solomon by removing the kingdom from his son.

His mistake?

Solomon married a Gentile “stranger” who led him into the worship of Easter (Ashtaroth). Notice I Kings 11:4-6: “For it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods…For Solomon went after Ashtaroth the goddess of the Zidonians…And Solomon did evil in the sight of the Lord, and went not fully after the Lord, as did David his father.” Verses 11-12 demonstrate that the kingdom was, in fact, taken from his son.

God considered worship of this goddess as outright “evil.” This was even though Solomon was only “not fully” seeking the true God.

German philosopher Georg Hegel wrote, “What experience and history teach is this,—that peoples and governments never have learned anything from history.” George Santayana took it further, stating, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” (emphasis ours).

This lesson describes ancient Israel—but it also describes today’s modern world. Because Israel could not stay on track, they were taken into captivity, eventually becoming lost to history! (After one more captivity and punishment, prophecy reveals that God will gather them from a final, coming captivity just before Christ’s Return.)

This paragraph requires far too much explanation for this book. In fact, it requires its own full book to explain—America and Britain in Prophecy. You have never read anything like it.

What History Reveals

We are now prepared to examine the astonishing record from history, and allow it to expose the popular “another Jesus” worshipped today for who he really is. Prepare to be stunned—and, hopefully, even more deeply motivated to act upon all that you are learning!

First, there is this: “the conception of a Saviour-God was quite normal in the ancient pagan world…a conception of salvation underlies the notion of such Gods as Osiris, Attis, and Adonis” (John M. Robertson, Christianity and Mythology, p. 395).

And then this incredible admission: “It has often been urged that this belief in the Resurrection of Jesus is due to ideas of divine resurrection current in the contemporary world…stories of Attis, Adonis, and Osiris…In the pagan stories the rising again is a joyous reversal of defeat; in the Christian story it is the complement of victorious death. It may be said that Attis and Osiris saved by rising again, Jesus by dying…The Easter observance did not arise at once out of belief in the Resurrection, but developed later by gradual stages out of the Jewish Pascha. The notion implied in the Easter greeting ‘Christ is risen’ is a secondary development; the idea comes from this festival and from its occurrence in spring; the festival does not come from the idea. The idea of Christ’s Resurrection was injected into the old practice of Easter observance and not the other way around” (A. Nock, Early Gentile Christianity and Its Hellenistic Background, pp. 105-107, emphasis ours throughout).

The powerful theme of this oft-repeated counterfeit is made absolutely clear by the famous historian, James George Frazer: “Now the death and resurrection of Attis were officially celebrated at Rome on the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth of March, the latter being regarded as the spring equinox, and…according to an ancient and widespread tradition Christ suffered on the twenty-fifth of March…Thus the tradition which placed the death of Christ on the twenty-fifth of March…is all the more remarkable because astronomical considerations prove that it can have had no historical foundation…When we remember that the festival of St. George in April has replaced the ancient pagan festival of the Parilia; that the festival of St. John the Baptist in June has succeeded to a heathen Midsummer festival of water; that the festival of the Assumption of the Virgin in August has ousted the festival of Diana; that the feast of All Souls [Halloween] in November is a continuation of an old heathen feast of the dead; and that the Nativity of Christ himself was assigned to the winter solstice in December because that day was deemed the Nativity of the Sun; we can hardly be thought rash or unreasonable in conjecturing that the other cardinal festival of the Christian church—the solemnization of Easter—may have been in like manner, and from like motives of edification, adapted to a similar celebration of the Phrygian god Attis at the vernal equinox…it is a remarkable coincidence…that the Christian and the heathen festivals of the divine death and resurrection should have been solemnized at the same season…It is difficult to regard the coincidence as purely accidental” (James G. Frazer, The Golden Bough, Vol. I, pp. 306-309, emphasis ours).

While very extensive, this next and final source is perhaps the most powerful—and the most fascinating to understand. Let its message crash on your ears: “The similarity of these ancient pagan legends and beliefs with Christian traditions was indeed so great that it excited the attention and undisguised wrath of the early Christian…not knowing how to explain it…Tertullian also says that ‘the devil by the mysteries of his idols imitates even the main part of the divine mysteries’…Cortez, too…complained that the Devil had positively taught to the Mexicans the same things which God had taught to Christendom” (Edward Carpenter, Pagan and Christian Creeds, p. 25).

“The common notion is that…pagan gods…fled away in dismay before the sign of the Cross, and at the sound of the name of Jesus…yet, as is well known to every student, it is…contrary to fact…At the time of the…recorded appearance of Jesus…and for some centuries before…there were Temples without end…dedicated to…Apollo or Dionysus among the Greeks, Hercules among the Romans, Mithra among the Persians…Baal and Astarte among the Babylonians…and so forth…An extraordinarily interesting fact…is that notwithstanding great geographical distances and racial differences between…cults…in the details of their services, the general outlines of their creeds and ceremonials were—if not identical—so markedly similar” (ibid., pp. 19-20, emphasis ours).

A fact that cannot be considered coincidental is that “of all or nearly all the deities…it was said and believed that…They were born on or very near our Christmas Day…They were born of a Virgin-Mother…in a Cave or Underground Chamber…They led a life of toil for Mankind…And were called by the names of Light-bringer, Healer, Mediator, Savior, Deliverer…They were however vanquished by the Powers of Darkness…And descended into Hell or the Underworld…They rose again from the dead, and became the pioneers of mankind to the Heavenly world…As to Krishna [part of the Hindu trinity], the Indian god, the points of agreement with the general divine career…are too salient to be overlooked, and too numerous to be recorded” (ibid., pp. 21, 24).

“That God sacrificed his only Son for the salvation of the world…is so mystical, so remote…yet the extraordinary fact is that a similar belief ranges all through the ancient religions, and can be traced back to the earliest times” (ibid., p. 131).

We can summarize the last two sources. The universal church at Rome often incorporated pagan festivals—pasting Christian-sounding names over them and calling them “Christian.” This was done to make Christianity more palatable and familiar to heathen worshippers, whom the Church was trying to attract. It became easy—natural—for the masses who accepted Christianity to be permitted to bring the familiar customs, traditions and beliefs about their own “savior” into worship of the new “savior,” from then on to be referred to as “Jesus Christ.”

While there is not space in this chapter to thoroughly cover the entire history and origin of this different “Jesus,” a brief summary, followed by one more revealing statement from history, is helpful.

The Mother and the Savior

Semiramis (Easter) was both the mother and wife of Nimrod, described in Genesis 10:8-10, who was the great-grandson of Noah and the original Baal. In a blatant attempt to rebel against God shortly after the Flood—and the Tower of Babel was built so that civilization would be impervious to “any other flood that God might bring”—history shows that this mother/son duo appointed themselves as gods to be worshipped. History also records that Noah’s son Shem (Nimrod’s great-uncle) eventually tracked down and killed Nimrod, and sent his body parts throughout his kingdom. (This is also what happened to Osiris, the “father” in the Egyptian trinity with Horus and Isis.) Semiramis fled for her life, only to return 30 years later with her younger son, Horus (the son in the Egyptian trinity), whom she said was born supernaturally and was the reincarnation of Nimrod—the resurrected savior! Nimrod was Horus’s supposed father, and Semiramis claimed that she had immaculately conceived him. She also claimed that she came from the moon in a giant egg that fell into the Euphrates river and that this occurred after the spring equinox on the first full moon. This moon egg was known as Ishtar’s (pronounced Easter’s) Egg. She reinstituted worship of herself and Nimrod, calling herself the mother of god and queen of heaven, among other things, by saying that Nimrod symbolized the sun as it “died” during the long cold winter. She also taught that Nimrod was resurrected, and that his son Horus was resurrected to join him in heaven, and Nimrod’s resurrection was represented by the sun returning each spring to warm the earth and renew life.

While there is much more to the story than can be included here, Semiramis’s new “mystery system” eventually spread to all peoples of the earth, as the earlier sources reveal.

Now notice this from the Akkadian (Assyrian-Babylonian) creation epic, speaking of Nimrod, the original “savior” of the world: “As for us, by however many names we call him, he is our god! Let us then proclaim his fifty names” (James B. Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, p. 69).

Here are some of them from history, many of which God condemned Israel for having followed: Nimrod, Molech, Chemosh, Baal, Milcom, Bacchus, Dagon, Osiris, Saturn, Adonis, Cupid, Apis, Volcon, Attis, Kronos and Tammuz, the son in the Babylonian trinity with Ninas (Nimrod) and Ishtar (Easter). (Ezekiel 8:14-16 directly connects Tammuz—the resurrected son of, and reincarnation of, Nimrod—to sunrise services and sun worship, which God calls there an abomination.)

It can now be better understood why the apostle Paul wrote the Corinthians to beware of the subtle deceit of “another Jesus whom we have not preached.” The original apostles understood that “another” very different “Jesus” whom they had “not preached” had existed for millennia.

Bible “believers” today can think that they are worshipping the true Savior when they are really worshipping a false savior—“another Jesus”!

Understand. The entirety of traditional Christianity is worshipping Baal, the mediator and sun god, who was named after his “wife” Ishtar (who we have seen was really his mother Semiramis).

The modern mother/child “Mary/Jesus” emphasis, including the worshipful adoration of Mary by millions, is a parallel with Semiramis and Nimrod that cannot be missed, even at a cursory glance.

One Mary—the biblical Mary—was a willing tool in God’s hand to accomplish a major step in His plan of salvation for mankind. She lived a full life and as a true saint, is now asleep in the grave awaiting the First Resurrection.

The other Mary—Ishtar—is an ancient false idol manufactured and propagated from the minds of men and condemned in the Bible. Millions still blindly worship her today.

To learn more about the true Mary, read David C. Pack’s book The True Jesus Christ – Unknown to Christianity.