WE CONTINUE our deep dive into the leader of the Genesis 6 rebellion, who we believe is “the angel of the bottomless pit” (Rev. 9:11), Apollyon/Abaddon.

Why, when we studied Revelation 9 more than a year ago? Because our research has led us to conclude that the chief of the rebellious Watchers, called Shemihazah in the Book of 1 Enoch, was worshipped throughout the ancient Near East and classical Greece and Rome under the names Saturn, Kronos, El, Enlil, Milcom (Molech), Assur, Dagon, Osiris, and others.

In particular, we look at El and Kronos, and their connections to bovid imagery. El’s main epithet (nickname) was “Bull El,” and the name Kronos probably derives from a Semitic word, qarnu, that means “horns.” In fact, the name of the gods over which Kronos ruled, the Titans, also comes from a Semitic language: It was the name of an Amorite tribe, the Tidanu, who were eventually worshipped by the Canaanites as underworld entities linked to the Rephaim—which is where the Greeks got the concept of their demigod heroes like Herakles and Perseus!

In short, this “king of the god-gate” (“king of Babylon” in Isaiah 14) inspired the Amorites, who originated in Syria near a mountain called Jebel Diddi (“Mount Titan”), to spread the worship of this fallen angel chained up in the bottomless pit to nearly every land around the Israelites. And this, we think, is what God had in mind when he mentioned “the iniquity of the Amorites” to Abraham nearly 4,000 years ago.