“She did not know that it was I who gave her the grain, the wine and the oil, and who lavished on her silver and gold, which they used for Baal.”  (Hosea 2:8)

Despite its ancient appetite for child sacrifice, ritual prostitution, and bisexual orgies, a tribute to the pagan deity Baal will be erected in New York’s Times Square this April 19, with a matching structure in London’s Trafalgar Square.

As an act of defiance against the destructive Islamic State (ISIS or Daesh), which destroyed the Temple of Baal in Palmyra, Syria last August, the Institute of Digital Archaeology (IDA) has recreated a portion of the pagan temple for display during World Heritage Week 2016.

“Our aim is to highlight the potential for the triumph of human ingenuity over violence by offering innovative, technology-driven options for the stewardship of object and architecture from our shared past,” the IDA website states.

Syrian officials and activists reported in August 2015 that ISIS had blown up the temple of Baalshamin and killed Khaled al-Asaad, a prominent Syrian archaeologist who worked at the site. Satellite images of the area confirmed the report.

The IDA will be resurrecting the temple’s 50-foot-tall entrance arch.  To accomplish this, they are utilizing an image database to digitally reconstruct and print a 3D life-size copy of the structure. 

World Net Daily (WND) reports the temple was dedicated in AD 32 around the time of the death of Messiah Yeshua (Jesus).  Up until its destruction, the temple drew about 150,000 visitors a year.

Despite ISIS’ stance against Baal, the history of Baal worship ironically reflects practices of ISIS.

“Ritualistic Baal worship, in sum, looked a little like this:  Adults would gather around the altar of Baal.  Infants would then be burned alive as a sacrificial offering to the deity,” Matt Barber states for a World Net Daily article, “Amid horrific screams and the stench of charred human flesh, congregants — men and women alike — would engage in bisexual orgies.”

Where ISIS heavily slaughters people, including children, to honor their god, Baal worshipers gave up their own children freely to be sacrificed to their god. Where ISIS perpetuates prolific sex slavery among the women and children they capture, Baal worshipers engaged in promiscuous sexual practices and abundant immorality.

The Palmyrene deities Aglibol (lunar deity), Baalshamin (center), and Malakbel (sun deity) formed a type of trinity in Baal worship.

Baal worship also invoked pantheism, elevating nature beyond its place:  the orgies, for instance, were “intended to produce economic prosperity by prompting Baal to bring rain for the fertility of ‘mother earth,’” says Barber.

Meanwhile, “many of the elements of ancient Baal worship are being mirrored in our society in 2016,” argues End of the American Dream blogger Michael Snyder..

“A tsunami of wishful thinking has washed across the West,” Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, once the chief rabbi of Great Britain, commented in 2011 in the Wall Street Journal.  This “wishful thinking” says “that you can have sex without the responsibility of marriage, children without the responsibility of parenthood, social order without the responsibility of citizenship, liberty without the responsibility of morality, and self-esteem without the responsibility of work and earned achievement.”

Our free will provides us the capacity to choose either moral or immoral living, but the consequences of living or forgoing the ethical outline of the Bible in favor of manmade gods cannot be a blessing; it can only be a curse.

Elijah and the Prophets of Baal (Otto Semler)

So it is for the nations who live “in the futility of their thinking, … are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.  Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity …”  (Ephesians 4:17–19)

So was the lifestyle of Israel in the days of Elijah, who submitted a challenge that would once and for all prove the unworthiness of this false god.

Elijah called for the “450 prophets of Baal” and another 400 prophets of another false god, Asherah, to be present at this challenge.

To “the people from all over Israel” that were summoned to Mount Carmel, Elijah asked, “How long will you waver between two opinion?  If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him.’  But the people said nothing.”  (1 Kings 18:21)

On Mount Carmel, today, near the assumed site of Elijah’s challenge, a monument of Elijah has been erected by a Catholic order of monks.  It stands to commemorate the failure of the pagan gods Baal and Asherah to bring down fire as Elijah challenged them to do, while the God of Elijah proved in the eyes of Israel that “The LORD—He is God! The LORD—He is God!”