>>19984558>>19984559The Star of Bethlehem that the Magi were following was probably Venus, the brightest star in the sky called the Morning Star/Venus. The goddess Venus/Aphrodite comes from Phoenician Astarte, who comes from Babylonian Ishtar, who comes from the Sumerian goddess Inanna. Inanna/Ishtar descended to the underworld through seven gates where she was stripped naked, becoming trapped in the underworld, but was saved by her lover Dumuzi (also known as Tammuz/Adonis, whose City of David/Jesus, Bethlehem, is named after) who took her place in the underworld. This gave rise to the Gnostic story where Sophia falls from the Pleroma, being raped/prostituted with the seven archons, until she is rescued by the Aeon Christ who incarnates in Jesus and absorbs the fallen divine sparks of Sophia in the form of a dove at his baptism, with her leaving his body before the final moments on the cross, that's why he says "“Eli (my God), Eli (my God), lama (why) sabachthani (you have left/abandoned)?". Jesus dies and spends 3 days/thousand years in hell in Sophia's place, being later resurrected by her. In Sumeria/Babylon there was a ritual that emulated the substitution/sacrifice of Dumuzi/Tammuz.
>Babylon worshipped the patron deities Ishtar and Tammuz. Ishtar, depending on the period, was also known as Inanna or Sarpanit, but was associated with the planet Venus broadly speaking. Her symbol was an eight-pointed star called the star of Ishtar, and would later become known to monotheists as the Whore of Babylon. Her consort was Tammuz, also known as Marduk, Bel, or Dumuzid, who represented the the planet Jupiter. Religious rituals surrounding these two deities involved sexual rites known as sacred prostitution, or sex magic. These rituals were performed as reenactments of Ishtar's mythologised origin stories 