Ancient conceptualization of the Matrix

a reply to: Byrd

I think the perspective still holds good, not exactly in the literal sense but as a general indicator that the major influence upon Israel and the Yahwist was from that direction, because an explanation is required for what led to the overthrow of the Canaanite city states, a collapse that is now considered to have been largely internal in terms of an uprising through the lower classes against the ruling elite and religious institutions, an ideological origin of Israel.

I didn't say Atenism was a religion in and of itself prior to Akenhaten but that there was the cultic aspect of the Aten, in terms of this thread the diametrical opposite of what i have suggested regarding the Sun Goddess of the Netherworld and the generation of her energies through the Earth, the Masculine expression of the unknowable external light, save through the chosen intermediary.

Moses and the Levites were very keen on establishing the abstract principles of Law because the Masculine archetype is the personification of the abstract principle compared to following one's own natural inclinations, Egypt did have civil laws and Atenism a rigid hierarchy, one cannot state with certainty what was written down as available evidence is largely from tombs.

a reply to: pthena

Reminds me of this one, which is very similar to a dream i had prior to viewing in which Horus and Hathor steal back the plans of the naughty Atenists, and Neith is in on it too...

originally posted by: pthena
Ley Lines has become a meme. The discussion of ley lines does not necessitate adherence to a particular book. That's how memes work.

Ok. Great. Fantastic, Everyone listen please, from now on, when anyone describes something as a meme, we can throw scientific enquiry and empirical evidence out of the window.... /sarcasm

a reply to: Marduk

I only accept it because some of us physically and spiritually senitive folk feel these physical energy changes in different locations, such as I.

I wonder if NASA will ever use CERES to track this trapped solar energy to perhaps discover it may travel in specific lines through or around Earth's magnetic fields. But, that would require various scientific disciplines to converge, which may be unlikely with space science.

According to NASA, the sun annually provides the planet about 340 watts per square meter — roughly the energy radiated from six incandescent light bulbs. If the planet returned an equal amount of energy to space, temperatures would be constant, Loeb said. That is not occurring. Instead, roughly 0.8 watts per square meter stays on Earth. The energy is trapped by greenhouse gases, such as water vapor and carbon dioxide, that come from burning fossil fuels and other sources. Clouds also play a role; they reflect sunlight back into space and, depending on their height and thickness, prevent it from leaving the planet.

mynasadata.larc.nasa.gov...

Also, it may be that these solar energies are absorbed in underground water systems, which seem to coincide with locations of monuments (ley lines). Humans too are mostly comprised of water, so the energy absorption theory/fact may apply here too.

In addition to the fact that water is excellent at absorbing solar radiation, the fact that there is so much of it means that water is very important in the global energy budget. Roughly 71% of the surface of the Earth is covered with water. Water absorbs and stores tremendous amounts of solar radiation, and thus is one of the most important factors in moderating global temperatures.

www.sciencepartners.info...

a reply to: Marduk

Even the word Matrix has become a meme, based on a 1999 film, along with white rabbit, red and ,blue pill, & etc.

I must admit, I had to watch the film over several times to figure out why people were so focused on such things. The film made very little impact on me.

But a network connecting all things, yeah, wasn't created by a 1999 film.

originally posted by: pthena
But a network connecting all things, yeah, wasn't created by a 1999 film.

I know

a reply to: Marduk

That was funny, glad I watched it instead of assuming I'd seen it before.

Sorry, allowed edit time expired.
The archetypes in this song, and video even, predate any Hollywood production.

originally posted by: Kantzveldt
a reply to: Byrd

I think the perspective still holds good, not exactly in the literal sense but as a general indicator that the major influence upon Israel and the Yahwist was from that direction

I would point to the Amarna letters, specifically the ones where the diplomats complain about being forced to stand in the hot sun. Egypt was not a friend; a neighbor; an ally. They were the victors, hated by the ones they conquered. Their subjects usually revolted when a new pharaoh ascended to the throne.

Subject states generally do not take on the religion of their oppressors unless it's forced on them. History shows this pattern repeatedly - the conqueror builds churches and temples throughout the land and the upper classes are forced or coerced or find it politically expedient to convert.

This doesn't happen with Atenism.

... a collapse that is now considered to have been largely internal in terms of an uprising through the lower classes against the ruling elite and religious institutions, an ideological origin of Israel.

Which argues strongly against it being an influence from Egypt. The lower classes are the last ones converted (the main targets at first are the elites; once they can't raise armies, the peasants are subjected to become labor for their overlords.

I didn't say Atenism was a religion in and of itself prior to Akenhaten but that there was the cultic aspect of the Aten, in terms of this thread the diametrical opposite of what i have suggested regarding the Sun Goddess of the Netherworld

I don't recall any civilization or culture that has a sun goddess of the netherworld.

Moses and the Levites were very keen on establishing the abstract principles of Law because the Masculine archetype is the personification of the abstract principle compared to following one's own natural inclinations,

I find this a little confusing to follow (maybe not enough coffee on my part?) - I thought it was evident that the laws and the structure were inspired by Babylonian laws and culture.

Egypt did have civil laws...

And we have legal papyri. These weren't the foundation of the religion of Atenism.

and Atenism a rigid hierarchy, one cannot state with certainty what was written down as available evidence is largely from tombs.

The tombs really seem sort of bleak to me, compared with what went before and what came after. But that's just my opinion. I think that Atenism probably confused a lot of people in Amarna (one tomb indicates in the afterlife, the owner would listen to Akhenaten singing and proclaiming from the origin point of the temple in the Afterlife.)

...and adding:

I don't see why it's necessary for a proud, tribal people who were xenophobes to suddenly and slavishly adopt part of the religion of an alien country with whom they were at war.

Why couldn't they have developed it on their own (as evidence indicates)?

Why must they be cast as unoriginals who would follow any conqueror's religion, no matter how alien or uncomfortable it might be?

a reply to: Byrd

The narrative takes into account such natural prejudice by establishing that even though Moses was a figure of the Egyptian court he had in fact been born a Hebrew, whatever the truth of that.

The tribal regions of the Sinai were very much a religious backwater and hardly the place you'd expect radical ideological beliefs to develop, but it's the lack of sophistication that makes them impressionable to those who have such, and given the failed attempt to transform Egyptian religion and society from the top downward it could simply have been considered expedient to gather broad based support from the lower classes and marginalized, unite through natural resentments.

What i suggested was that they had a powerful weapon on their side, truth, when it came to understanding the relationship of the Sun to the Earth, that religions that taught the Sun descended into and passed through the Earth were based on false perspective and the related after-life cults guilty by association, also those who ruled as the Divine personification of such tradition in false positions.

The Egyptians of course didn't have a Sun Goddess of the Netherworld but the Atum could be considered as passing through Feminine and Masculine phases, were only at the point of sunrise does the Masculine transformation take place, within the Netherworld the Atum being Feminine, an earlier understanding that gradually diminished but derived from a far earlier tradition of the core Neolithic region were there was very much a Sun Goddess of the Netherworld;

The Eštan worshipped by the “indigenous” Hattic people was female, as demonstrated by her epithet kattah ˘ a, “queen”.

She might also be referred to by the Hattic epithet Wurunšemu, seemingly “Mother of the Earth”, or after her primary cult site, as the Sun-goddess of the city of Arinna

Eštan, who appears in the Hittite pantheon as Ištanu, indeed possessed celestial features, being called, for example, “the torch of the land of Hatti”,and quite possibly being represented by the “solar standards”

But she was most often associated with the Netherworld, in which capacity she also bore the title “Sun-goddess of the Earth

Sun Goddess of the Netherworld.

This was common to all the Kingdoms of Asia Minor including the Hurrians, but generally the Sun of the skies was Masculine, if it transpires that in fact the Sun is always in the skies and the Earth merely rotates then you have no choice according to your own traditions but to accept the singular rule of the Masculine archetype.

The question then becomes what qualities were associate with the Sun of the skies and these tended toward the unknowable abstract, governance and the rule of law, light, truth and reason, a basis for principles of science and applied mathamatics.

If he or she is alive, let the Sun-god above deliver him or her. If he or she is dead, let the Sun-goddess of the Earth deliver him or her – the accursed person afflicted by a (broken) oath!

a reply to: Marduk

I dunno tropes seem to cover way more of life than memes do... unless one is feeling ironic towards how easy life actually is with some just trying to over complicate it because without complication it's not worth living unless there's some struggle or something to that effect.

I've a feeling it's going to come to a point where people just don't care, a place of complacency because everything seems like a joke that has ceased to be funny in a redundancy because there's really no new thought occurring, just rinse repeat with a new coat of paint.

Maybe that's just me though, I've been over it for over a decade now... even seeing various phenomena and experiencing various phenomena that unless someone else has experienced it would make you sound like a damned loon so it's moot to even mention.

But as far as matrices go, there is a scientific paper on calcite crystals growing in the pineal gland with 3 types of possibilities for their formation... as far as structure goes. Theres one that has a piezoelectric effect and one with an inverted matrice that doesn't, they can also be several colors from black, to brown, to white, violet, blue or fluoresce. The only other place such crystalline structures are found within living tissue are within the ear.

The were alluding to resonance frequencies etc. not long ago in the science forum there was a thread about someone meeting "god" and it was located to be in the pineal where this experience was occurring.

I've come to see that such experiences or phenomena are more of a personal nature and if they aren't occurring in the general population at pretty much 24/7 it's a pretty moot matter to be discussing, it's kinda like someone mixing your coffee that has no idea the way you'd like it... while it may be nice that they would make the effort it's just easier to handle it oneself, in the same way such esoteric phenomenon seems to be similar... whether there's some possibility to precognition doesn't really seem to matter on the local level any way. I heard the word turkey as an objective phenomenon out of thin air so many times after exiting meditation I found it annoying enough to say out loud get stuffed.

Then a week and a half later the turkey incident occurred with a few echoes of turkey in the mean time. Not like that has anything locally to do with me, globally yes but what could any precognition do for anyone? Other that say hey something is going to go down in turkey... but if thats something thats going to occur anyway then its like saying hey rain is going to occur and well theres nothing anyone can do about it so it's sort of a stupid experience and not even a curiosity so just like everything else, I let it go seeing how everything is impermanent such things are sort of a useless distraction than any sort of help.

Maybe if I wanted to make people go woo guy can predict with psychic stuff or play the market such stuff might be useful but I don't really care for either as such predilection is an annoyance... like a neighbor that plays the same song everyday that you're just over it and can't see any future where you'd ever possibly want to hear it again for any reason. In such after hearing the word turkey at least 50 times leading up to that it made me dispassionate about what occurred when it did, I mean like wholly unempathetic... yet it's something important on the worlds stage and I could give 2 sh-ts less having been nagged about it so often before hand... kinda like you know you should move your shoes from the front of the door adnauseam and you're like I should live by myself than keep putting up this nonsense.

If anyone is interested in the studies of the pineal crystal study and the matrice business I'll hunt it down and drop some links... if it's the doorway to psychic or jhana states fine but I for one don't care for it, spent a lot of years of practice to finally come to mental quiescence in every moment only to have some random nonsense or other people jibber jabbering instead of my own thoughts... it's more a curse instead of any gift, because everyday peoples thoughts are so inane, bland, and annoying.

It's just like this:



I wish I was lying, because it makes empathy for anyone very very difficult as of late.

a reply to: BigBrotherDarkness

I dunno tropes seem to cover way more of life than memes do... unless one is feeling ironic towards how easy life actually is with some just trying to over complicate it because without complication it's not worth living unless there's some struggle or something to that effect.

I looked up trope. Yes, a much better word than cliché. I've been embarrassed sometimes using cliche, always having to apologize: "There is a reason that's a cliché. If it weren't anecdotally true, than it wouldn't be a cliché."

Now, I can say trope without apology. Thank you.

Life does seem quite mundane, perhaps banal. Struggle or perceived struggle does tend to add a bit of zest. Stimulating discussions, like this thread are, well, ... stimulating. Tying present day human experience to previous human experience does provide something valuable, in my opinion. A worthy endeavor in my book anyway.

I also enjoy children's books, especially Newberry winners; horseback riding (no that's someone else), long walks (no that's some one else too), sleeping, napping, dreaming.

ETA my current all-time favorite movie is Avatar. I've got it in 3 different formats. Lots of excitement, lots of truth (in my opinion).

a reply to: pthena

I got no star for my Neil Diamond contribution. Perhaps I should explain.

There is a story I read once, perhaps a children's mythology book.

Artemis was upset about being the Moon Goddess because people were always staring at her. So Apollo agreed that he and she could switch places. So Artemis became the Sun Goddess, and people couldn't be staring at her. At least not for long anyway.

The opening shot of the music video has a picture that reminded me of the story.

a reply to: pthena

If I was a paranoid fellow then it could be assumed you were literary devicing me... a fellow once told me he was very paranoid, and I told him that he had an over reaction response to stimulus that means very little to anything so why pay any tribute to it.

Seems we live in paranoid days however, with all this Henny Penny running people around cause terrorism. I'm not buying it any more than how the war on drugs ran people around paranoid about machete wielding sex crazed brown people... um wait, kinda sounds like the same thing.

It just doesn't butter up my idiot cracker insensibilities.

So of course these tropes or cycles continue on repeating, with pledges that actually strip wax and damage furniture. But the furniture industry needs to sell more right? Tada!

You know, I said to a friend once what if shaving cream had hair growing chemicals in it so people needed to use more of it? Oddly enough a few years later a friend was going pretty bald and he started shave creaming his head and shaving it well oddly his male pattern baldness started dissipating.

Co-incidence? Maybe. Possible recursion and a way to keep selling more things at a larger volume than normal... like toothpaste commercials showing a loaded down brush when it should only be a 1/4 of what they show on the brush when put to actual use.

A matrix is a box or cube, it seems that life has 4 boxes, ones home, outdoors, where someone works, and where someone spends money. Of course not everyone uses all 4 boxes and well some of that is just one box like for the agoraphobic... then that box narrows down to rooms.

Seems to be a domain thing, and the control of where people keep their domain. Like we are strictly a Ford or Toyota family... I've heard people actually say such in brand loyalty, even if it's a piece of crap they have a traditional love for it, sort of like religions, some corporations have even gone so far as calling themselves family...

Weird sh-t.

Insensibility



I

Happy are men who yet before they are killed

Can let their veins run cold.

Whom no compassion fleers

Or makes their feet

Sore on the alleys cobbled with their brothers.

The front line withers,

But they are troops who fade, not flowers

For poets’ tearful fooling:

Men, gaps for filling:

Losses, who might have fought

Longer; but no one bothers.



II

And some cease feeling

Even themselves or for themselves.

Dullness best solves

The tease and doubt of shelling,

And Chance’s strange arithmetic

Comes simpler than the reckoning of their shilling.

They keep no check on armies’ decimation.



III

Happy are these who lose imagination:

They have enough to carry with ammunition.

Their spirit drags no pack.

Their old wounds, save with cold, can not more ache.

Having seen all things red,

Their eyes are rid

Of the hurt of the colour of blood forever.

And terror’s first constriction over,

Their hearts remain small-drawn.

Their senses in some scorching cautery of battle

Now long since ironed,

Can laugh among the dying, unconcerned.



IV

Happy the soldier home, with not a notion

How somewhere, every dawn, some men attack,

And many sighs are drained.

Happy the lad whose mind was never trained:

His days are worth forgetting more than not.

He sings along the march

Which we march taciturn, because of dusk,

The long, forlorn, relentless trend

From larger day to huger night.



V

We wise, who with a thought besmirch

Blood over all our soul,

How should we see our task

But through his blunt and lashless eyes?

Alive, he is not vital overmuch;

Dying, not mortal overmuch;

Nor sad, nor proud,

Nor curious at all.

He cannot tell

Old men’s placidity from his.



VI

But cursed are dullards whom no cannon stuns,

That they should be as stones;

Wretched are they, and mean

With paucity that never was simplicity.

By choice they made themselves immune

To pity and whatever moans in man

Before the last sea and the hapless stars;

Whatever mourns when many leave these shores;

Whatever shares

The eternal reciprocity of tears.


~Wilfred Owen

originally posted by: Kantzveldt
The tribal regions of the Sinai were very much a religious backwater and hardly the place you'd expect radical ideological beliefs to develop, but it's the lack of sophistication that makes them impressionable to those who have such, and given the failed attempt to transform Egyptian religion and society from the top downward it could simply have been considered expedient to gather broad based support from the lower classes and marginalized, unite through natural resentments.

History is full of encounters of unsophisticated cultures encountering sophisticated ones -- and frankly, humans aren't that impressionable. If they were going to continue Atenism, they would do it in Egypt where they had social and political contacts and economic power - and - nobody had to explain what the Aten was because there was a precedent.

The Egyptians of course didn't have a Sun Goddess of the Netherworld but the Atum could be considered as passing through Feminine and Masculine phases,

There's no suggestion of this in their writings.

were only at the point of sunrise does the Masculine transformation take place, within the Netherworld the Atum being Feminine,

There's REALLY no suggestion of this anywhere. Ever.

an earlier understanding that gradually diminished but derived from a far earlier tradition of the core Neolithic region were there was very much a Sun Goddess of the Netherworld;

Beyond your Hittite reference (I read it and then looked up other papers - thank you for the link!), there's no other indication of such a deity. I noted that she dates to around 1500 BC, and is grafted onto Inanna... who famously descended into the underworld to retrieve Tammuz.

This was common to all the Kingdoms of Asia Minor including the Hurrians

I only see it for the Hurrians and not the Chaldeans, Babylonians, etc, etc.

... if it transpires that in fact the Sun is always in the skies and the Earth merely rotates then you have no choice according to your own traditions but to accept the singular rule of the Masculine archetype.

I'm a tad skeptical that they reasoned this way.

The question then becomes what qualities were associate with the Sun of the skies and these tended toward the unknowable abstract, governance and the rule of law, light, truth and reason, a basis for principles of science and applied mathamatics.

I'm not following your reason, here. The Egyptians already had a well developed mathematics for their time and had developed medicine (though they lagged behind in other fields.) Other tribes and civilizations with a solar deity did not seem to associate science, math, light, truth, reason, and governance with a solar deity - and many who did actually didn't advance in any of these fields.

a reply to: Byrd

Humans aren't that impressionable...hmmmm...moving quickly on that's exactly what the inner circle of Akenhaten needed to do after the counter revolution, continuation of their ideas in Egypt no longer possible.

I'm not sure why you say why there's never any suggestion of the Atum being both Male and Female when there is, "I am these Two, male and female" - CT, spell 136, and also relating to the transformative phases of the Sun.

But anyway you're right about the Sun Goddess of the Netherworld being well referenced in Anatolia and Cilicia but not neccesarily in Northern Mesopotamia or elsewhere, it's an Indo-European tradition and seems to have originated in the core Neolithic region and to have been transmitted into Western Europe from a very early date, the evidence for this actually goes back to the third millenium BC in terms of Deities such as Ishara.

It's a good question that even if they recognized such qualities associate with the Sun of the skies or the even more abstract and Universal Yahweh then what would have made them so different, and my consideration is that they actively eradicated and suppressed that which they considered false and thus transformed society through confrontation with reason.

a reply to: Kantzveldt

Humans aren't that impressionable...hmmmm...moving quickly on that's exactly what the inner circle of Akenhaten needed to do after the counter revolution, continuation of their ideas in Egypt no longer possible.

I know this isn't directly related to the discussion you and Byrd are having, but:

Consider the LastThursdayites who believe that all things were retroactively created last Thursday.

Compare the LastThursdayite religion to Bon religion of Nepal.

Though some people call the old pre-Buddhist religion of Tibet ‘Bon’, it is unlikely that before Buddhism the Tibetans had a clear sense of practising a religion as such, or a specific name for these practices. In fact, the Bonpo religion only started to take shape alongside the revival of Buddhism in the eleventh century. And when the scriptures of the Bonpo started to appear in Tibet, it was mainly through the work of tertons.
wikipedia/Bon

Tertons are treasure caches of hidden writings.

Compare the Bon religion to a couple of instances related in the Old Testament.
2 Kings 22

8Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphan the scribe, "I have found the book of the law in the house of Yahweh." Hilkiah delivered the book to Shaphan, and he read it. 9Shaphan the scribe came to the king, and brought the king word again, and said, "Your servants have emptied out the money that was found in the house, and have delivered it into the hand of the workmen who have the oversight of the house of Yahweh." 10Shaphan the scribe told the king, saying, "Hilkiah the priest has delivered a book to me." Shaphan read it before the king

2 Kings 17

24The king of Assyria brought men from Babylon, and from Cuthah, and from Avva, and from Hamath and Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel; and they possessed Samaria, and lived in the cities of it. 25So it was, at the beginning of their dwelling there, that they didn't fear Yahweh: therefore Yahweh sent lions among them, which killed some of them. 26Therefore they spoke to the king of Assyria, saying, "The nations which you have carried away, and placed in the cities of Samaria, don't know the law of the god of the land. Therefore he has sent lions among them, and behold, they kill them, because they don't know the law of the god of the land."

27Then the king of Assyria commanded, saying, "Carry there one of the priests whom you brought from there; and let them go and dwell there, and let him teach them the law of the god of the land." 28So one of the priests whom they had carried away from Samaria came and lived in Bethel, and taught them how they should fear Yahweh.

Ezekiel 16:3

and say, Thus says the Lord Yahweh to Jerusalem: Your origin and your birth is of the land of the Canaanite; the Amorite was your father, and your mother was a Hittite.

Is there any evidence that Samaria was monotheist before Assyrian rule?

Is there evidence that Judah was monotheist before Josiah?

originally posted by: Kantzveldt
a reply to: Byrd

Humans aren't that impressionable...hmmmm...moving quickly on that's exactly what the inner circle of Akenhaten needed to do after the counter revolution, continuation of their ideas in Egypt no longer possible.

What's the advantage to promoting a religion that was forced on them, declared by the king and highly unpopular in Egypt? And why would people far away, speaking a different language and having a very different culture, welcome into their bosoms an enclave of their enemies and suddenly adopt their religion.

In cases where it was done in other places (Jim Jones in Guyana, for example) the locals did not convert or even adopt elements of the religion (there are other cases... that's just one that is most prominent.)

I'm not sure why you say why there's never any suggestion of the Atum being both Male and Female when there is, "I am these Two, male and female" - CT, spell 136, and also relating to the transformative phases of the Sun.

I stand corrected. There is that reference. But the transformative phases of the sun were always male (baby boy, young man, old man), even when Atum-Re is going through the Caverns.

But anyway you're right about the Sun Goddess of the Netherworld being well referenced in Anatolia and Cilicia but not neccesarily in Northern Mesopotamia or elsewhere, it's an Indo-European tradition and seems to have originated in the core Neolithic region and to have been transmitted into Western Europe from a very early date, the evidence for this actually goes back to the third millenium BC in terms of Deities such as Ishara.

I thought it was the other way around - they borrowed Ishtar?

It's a good question that even if they recognized such qualities associate with the Sun of the skies or the even more abstract and Universal Yahweh then what would have made them so different, and my consideration is that they actively eradicated and suppressed that which they considered false and thus transformed society through confrontation with reason.

In other words, they didn't need to wait until Egyptians came to teach them monotheism - they worked it out on their own.

a reply to: Byrd

To see the advantages just look around, it's the dominant global ideology both in terms of the religious and the secular and the Jews are doing very nicely for themselves, of course they'd have had to be very far sighted to see the way things worked out but the principles involved have proven their own potential, given the ideological suppression and subversion of contrary systems of belief success was always going to be measured in terms of dominance, the advantage for the Hebrews was in assimilating the radical insight of the Egyptian intellectual and religious elite into their culture.

The transformation of the Atum into a Male only really began with the transition from Khepri the beetle to Neferatum, the Feminine aspect of the Sun in the underworld was probably in former times strongly associate with Wadjet, who in later times was seen as the daughter of old man Atum, but they did settle entirely on the whole Masculine cycle by the time of Osiris.

The ancient Egyptian word Wedjat signifies blue and green, the sun goddess whose eye later became the eye of Horus, the eye of Ra, and as the Lady of Flame, Another early depiction of Wadjet is as a cobra entwined around a papyrus stem, beginning in the Predynastic era and it is thought to be the first image that shows a snake entwined around a staff symbol.

Istar was of course an Akkadian import into Anatolia, as Antares Ishara was seen as giving birth to the seven spiritual archetypes relating to the planets and the myth relates to one of them in terms of Venus entering into and returning from the underworld, even though Istar could be seen as the ruling principle of the seven she was still in some sense an aspect of Ishara.

a reply to: pthena

The last quote makes a good point, the ancient cultic site of Shechem and El Shaddai was Amorite and Asherah was of Hittite/Indo-European origin, so it was a always a case of hand me down religion in that region.

Northern Israel had broken away from Judah by the time of the Assyrian conquest and were often accused of wishing to return to their former cultic sites and ways, but it was always a struggle for the Jerusalem based authorities to exert their influence fully over the land.

The critical point seems to have been the Babylonian exile in that this involved an absolute break away from the former cultic sites and artifacts, before the exile one can find ongoing evidence for Asherah worship but afterward none, thus Rabbinical teaching and reliance upon the Torah becomes seemingly absolute.

Also of interest is their replacement by the Nergal worshipping Kuthites, as Nergal had probably displaced that aspect of the cult of Eres-Kigal which related to the Sun in the underworld and his iconography mirrored that of Shamash.

a reply to: Kantzveldt

The critical point seems to have been the Babylonian exile in that this involved an absolute break away from the former cultic sites and artifacts, before the exile one can find ongoing evidence for Asherah worship but afterward none, thus Rabbinical teaching and reliance upon the Torah becomes seemingly absolute.

The Ezra/Nehemiah purges seemed to be toward pure-bloodedness as opposed to religious reform. Which brings us to Sanballat, Persian Governor, said to be willing to help rebuild the temple, offer refused. Sanballat was asked to help in the restoration of Yahweh temple in Elephantine.

Anat-Yahu
The papyri suggest that, "Even in exile and beyond, the veneration of a female deity endured." The texts were written by a group of Jews living at Elephantine near the Nubian border, whose religion has been described as "nearly identical to Iron Age II Judahite religion". The papyri describe the Jews as worshiping Anat-Yahu (or AnatYahu). Anat-Yahu is described as either the wife (or paredra, sacred consort) of Yahweh or as a hypostatized aspect of Yahweh.

I wasn't aware that the Persians had control of Egypt during this time.