There is not one single instance where he addresses her as “mother.” He invariably refers to her as “woman.” “What have I to do with you, woman?” “Woman, see! your son!”—Matt. 12:46-50; Luke 8:21; 2:49; 23:46; John 2:4; 19:26, NW.

Nowhere in the Bible is Mary seen as a mediatrix or intercessor, or as a co-worker with Jesus in the role of human salvation. Jesus stands alone in these offices, saying: “Apart from me you can do nothing at all. If anyone does not remain in union with me, he is cast out as a branch and is dried up, and men gather those branches up and pitch them into the fire and they are burned. If you remain in union with me and my sayings remain in you, ask whatever you wish and it will take place for you.” “No matter what you ask the Father in my name he might give it to you.” Instead of God’s servants’ performing “all their actions ‘through Mary, with Mary, in Mary, and for Mary,’” as taught by the Roman Catholic Church, the inspired Paul extols God’s mercy and wisdom, and says: “Because from him and by him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen.”—John 15:5-7, 16; Rom. 11:33-36, NW.

PAGAN BACKGROUND EXPOSED

Mary’s exaltation is part of a deliberately planned and carefully executed scheme on the part of the Roman Catholic Church to revive the ancient form of worship of the queen of heaven, as was practiced in the pagan nations of ancient Babylon, Egypt and Rome; and also in the unfaithful ancient nation of Israel. Herodotus, from personal knowledge, testifies that in ancient Egypt the “queen of heaven” was “the greatest and most worshipped of all the divinities.” The historian Alexander Hislop writes that according to the Chaldean doctrine, Semiramis, the mother and later the wife of Nimrod, when exalted to divinity under the name of the queen of heaven, came to be worshiped as “the Holy Spirit incarnate.” Nonnus, speaking of the Babylonian queen of heaven, calls her “the hope of the whole world.” She is also referred to as “mistress of all creation.” Hislop further says that it was this same goddess who was worshiped at Ephesus, whom Demetrius, the silversmith, characterized as the goddess whom “the whole province of Asia and the inhabited earth worships.” All of these titles, which were once applied to pagan goddesses, are now attributed to Mary.—Acts 19:27, NW.

The ancient nation of Israel fell victim to this form of idolatry. Instead of to Mary, the Hebrew women offered cakes in the streets of Jerusalem to the Babylonian goddess, Astarte. They burned incense to the queen of heaven and poured out drink offerings to her. The people openly defied God and his Word to carry out their wicked practices. For their willful wickedness God reduced them to slaves and completely devastated the land. Will God react differently today? He says of himself: “I, Jehovah, change not.”—Jer. 44:15-19; Mal. 3:6, AS.

Aside from Babylonian paganism and Catholic tradition, there is absolutely no authority whatsoever for the present worship of Mary or any other woman as the queen of heaven. It would be well, therefore, to heed the apostle Paul’s advice: “Look out: perhaps there may be some man that will carry you off as his prey through the philosophy and empty deception according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary things of the world and not according to Christ.” “Even if we or an angel out of heaven,” says the apostle, “were to declare to you as good news something beyond what we declared to you as good news, let him be accursed.” Because as the apostle Peter sums up regarding Christ Jesus: “There is no salvation in anyone else, for there is not another name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must get saved.” Let these inspired words of God, not the traditions of men, guide you in your worship.—Col. 2:8; Gal. 1:8; Acts 4:12, NW.

The Great Pyramid of Giza

Product of the true worship or the false?

THE Great Pyramid of Giza is one of “the seven wonders of the ancient world.” It is the largest of nine pyramids found in Giza, in the valley of the Nile. The Great Pyramid is 486 feet high, or about the height of a modern 40-story building, and each of its four sides is 764 feet long; its base covers thirteen acres. The ratio of its height to the perimeter of its base is the same as that of the radius of a circle to its circumference, a most remarkable feature according to some mathematicians and astronomers. Its four sides line up perfectly with the four directions of the compass.

The date that Herodotus gives for its building would make the Great Pyramid about three thousand years old today, but others insist that he is mistaken and that it was built about four thousand years ago. According to Herodotus and Manetho (Egyptian historian of the third century before Christ), the Great Pyramid was built by Cheops, one of the Shepherd kings who invaded Egypt and easily subdued it, closed all the temples and then compelled one and all to labor for them. “A hundred thousand men laboured constantly and were relieved every three months by a fresh lot. It took ten years’ oppression of the people to make the causeway for the conveyance of the stones, a work not much inferior, in my judgment, to the pyramid itself.” This causeway was three fifths of a mile long, sixty feet wide and reached a height of forty-eight feet, was “built of polished stone, and [was] covered with carvings of animals. . . . The Pyramid itself took twenty years to build.” The two lesser pyramids of Giza, Herodotus tells us, were built by Cheops’ brother and son.

There has been much speculation as to the reason why these pyramids of Giza were built, and in particular why the Great Pyramid was built. Some have disposed of the problem by claiming that it was built solely as a tomb for Cheops, but is it reasonable that a ruler would direct all the resources of a land such as Egypt toward the building of a tomb, and that for thirty years? Others have concluded that it was built to house royal treasure, but the cost involved in building such a structure far exceeded all the value of whatever treasure