ONE OF THE MOST MYSTERIOUS places in Israel is the recently identified Serpent Mound of Bashan. It’s three-quarters of a mile long, 20 to 25 feet high, covered with more than 140 megalithic tombs probably more than 5,000 years old, and it’s a quarter of a mile from Gilgal Refaim on the Golan Heights.

We discuss the significance of this monument to the cult of the dead and speculate on whether this is why the ancient kingdom of King Og was called Bashan—the “Place of the Serpent.”

We also visited Tel Dan at the foot of Mount Hermon, where we showed how a misunderstood verse in the Book of Hosea reveals that the golden calves of Jeroboam marked a return to the worship of the entity who was believed to live on the mountain, the Canaanite creator-god El—who, as Derek shows in his book The Second Coming of Saturn, was known to the Hebrews as Molech.