CANNABIS CULTURE Host of the popular podcast Data over Dogma and Biblical scholar, Dan McClellan PhD, has recently posted videos dismissing Sula Benet’s linguistic theory that the Hebrew kaneh, and kaneh bosem identify cannabis, as well as dismissing the claim from the controversial scholar, Ammon Hillman, that the term ‘Christ’ means “to apply drugs”. Let’s look at the Data out there on this, and see if Dan is correct, or if he has his feet stuck in Dogma. 

Who is Dan McClellan?

McClellan has built a career on confronting misinformation being shared on social media with research he has garnered from the academic study of the Bible and religion. Although McClellan is a member of the Mormon Church, he does a pretty good job of separating academic pursuits from religious beliefs, often pointing to an academic consensus on historical matters, and interpretations of the text. Although in my opinion, McClellan can, at times, fall into the area of a postmodern Biblical apologist in regards to the way he tries to interpret the inherent homophobia of the Bible, in an attempt to make it more LGBQT friendly, and in a way that does not fit with the “academic consensus” he so often retorts to. (I am in no way siding with the Bible here. I am a LGBQT ally, and I reject such passages, a long with so much on the Bible itself, this is about historical accuracy.) 

McClellan leads online classes, cohosts the Data Over Dogma Podcast, and is also active on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter. He has become popular by “stitching” videos containing misinterpretations of the Bible. 

I’ve listened to a number of McCLellan’s podcasts, and like others, such as History Valley and MythVision which interview scholars on the Bible and other historical subjects, I think they do a good job of bringing quality secular scholarship to a new generation that is constantly challenged with so much misinformation. 

Dan and Biblical era Cannabis use

Dan dismisses another ‘creator’s’ video that suggested that cannabis use was ‘sorcery’, in a stitch Does the Bible Say Smoking Weed is Sorcery? This ‘creator’s’ claim is based on an interpretation of the Greek word Pharmakeia which occurs in the book of Revelation, and is generally translated as ‘sorcery’ and refers to the use of drugs as well. It was in this video that McClellan first addressed the use of cannabis in Biblical times. He pointed to the fascinating 2020 archaeological finds of cannabis resins on an 8th century BCE temple altar, in tel Arad, Jerusalem, as well as a 4th century CE find of medical cannabis in Biet Shemesh, Jerusalem. 

McClellan, gave a fair and unbiased synopsis of the archaeological evidence, going as far to suggest that based on this evidence, the ritual use of cannabis likely took place in the main temple in Jerusalem, stating that Christian use as well, “almost certainly happened”. However, McClellan suggests there was no opposition to this in Judaism, and this came later under Greek influences pushing asceticism, temperance and abstinence. A view I reject, and in regards to this, it’s important to note, the archaeological evidence at tel Arad, came a few centuries prior to any major Greek influence on the ancient Hebrews. The reason the cannabis resins and frankincense were so well preserved is that the site was ‘canceled’ 2,800 years ago. Its hasty burial ensured its chemical preservation. The altars were flipped over, buried in sand and a new floor placed over top of them, within days. Indeed, McClellan’s theory about a Greek influence here is not supported by the data, or any sort of indication of the sort of ‘scholarly consensus’ he uses to reject other people’s views in his video. 

We will take a closer, and more detailed look at what the evidence at tel Arad tells us, about its cancellation, later. In his second ‘stitch’ video about Cannabis, McClellan again discusses tel Arad, and mentions the Polish anthropologist Sula Benet’s etymological hypothesis, that the original Hebrew texts of the Old Testament, or ‘Hebrew Bible’, contained references to cannabis, in his video Is cannabis mentioned in the Bible? 

McClellan briefly mentions a theory that the Hebrew “qaneh bosem is a precursor etymologically to ‘cannabis’ the word cannabis I have not been convinced of that yet” (McClellan, 2023). However he again pointed to the archaeological evidence at tel Arad, again suggesting this use likely carried over to the Main Temple, stating that “cannabis was a part of ancient Israelite life”.

When I saw McClelaln’s video I began to try to connect with him in regards to how Sula Benet’s theory fits with the archaeological evidence of tel Arad. I have been writing about and expanding on Sula Benet’s hypothesis for over 30 years, first writing about it in my co-authored 1995 book, Green Gold the Tree of Life: Marijuana in Magic & Religion and then again for Cannabis Culture’s forerunner ‘Cannabis Canada’ in the 1998 article Kaneh Bosm: Cannabis in the Old Testament and then more thoroughly in the 2001 book, Sex, Drugs, Violence and the Bible and touching on it in chapters in later works and anthologies as well. I have always been keeping my eye out for relevant information regarding it. 

Sula Benet’s linguistic hypothesis

For some background to all this, Benet first expressed her theory in 1934-35, Le chanvre dans les croyances el les coutumes populaires. She expanded on it in 1936, Konopie w wierzeniach i zwyczajach ludowych. returning to it in even more detail in her 1975 article Early Diffusions and Folk Uses of Hemp. Benet proposed that the Hebrew terms kaneh, קנה and kaneh bosem, קנה בושם Identified ‘cannabis’. Kaneh can also be rendered qaneh, as the Hebrew letter Qoph can be phonetically translated with a hard ‘q’ sound or ‘k’. McClellan prefers the ‘q’ rendering of qaneh. Both renderings will be used throughout this presentation.

As Sula Benet explained:

“In the original Hebrew text of the Old Testament there are references to hemp, both as incense, which was an integral part of religious celebration, and as an intoxicant (Benet 1936) Cannabis as an incense was also used in the temples of Assyria and Babylon ‘because its aroma was pleasing to the Gods’.”

“Both in the original Hebrew text of the Old Testament and in the Aramaic translation, the word kaneh or keneh is used either alone or linked to the adjective bosem in Hebrew and busma in Aramaic, meaning aromatic. It is cana in Sanskrit, qunnabu in Assyrian, kenab in Persian, kannab in Arabic and kanbun in Chaldean. In Exodus 30: 23, God directed Moses to make a holy oil composed of ‘myrrh, sweet cinnamon, kaneh bosm and kassia.’ In many ancient languages, including Hebrew, the root kan has a double meaning —both ‘hemp’ and ‘reed’. In many translations of the Bible’s original Hebrew, we find kaneh bosm variously and erroneously translated as ‘calamus’ and ‘aromatic reed,’ a vague term. Calamus, [Calamus aromaticus is a fragrant marsh plant]. The error occurred in the oldest Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, Septuagint, in the third century B.C., where the terms kaneh, kaneh bosm were incorrectly translated as ‘calamus.’ And in the many translations that followed, including Martin Luther’s, the same error was repeated….”

“In Exodus 30:23 kaneh bosm is translated as ‘sweet calamus.’ In Isaiah 43:24 kaneh is translated as ‘sweet cane,’ although the word ‘sweet’ appears nowhere in the original. In Jeremiah 6:20 kaneh is translated as ‘sweet cane.’ In Ezekiel 27: 19 kaneh is translated as ‘calamus’. In Song of Songs 4:14 kaneh is translated ‘calamus.’

“In the course of time, the two words kaneh and bosm were fused into one, kanabos or kannabus, known to us from Mishna, the body of traditional Hebrew law. The word bears an unmistakable similarity to the Scythian ‘cannabis.’ Is it too far-fetched to assume that the Semitic word kanehbosm and the Scythian word cannabis mean the same thing?” (Benet, 1975).

Anthropologist Sula Benet (1903-1982) and a copy of her 1936 edition Konopie w wierzeniach i zwyczajach ludowych, where she published her linguistic theory about ancient Hebrew cannabis use.

Almost a century after Sula Benet first proposed her theory in 1935, it seemed that this was destined to remain an obscure, unprovable linguistic theory. That was until the archaeological discovery of an ancient Hebrew altar, upon which cannabis resins were burned in 2020, at tel Arad, Jerusalem. 

Cannabis resins at tel Arad

 

The Journal of the Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University, Volume 47, 2020 – Issue 1, published the paper Cannabis and Frankincense at the Judahite Shrine of Arad, by Eran Arie, Baruch Rosen & Dvory Namdar. The authors wrote about the analysis of unidentified dark material preserved on the upper surfaces of two altars that were used in a Hebrew Temple site. The residues were submitted for analysis at two unrelated laboratories that used similar established extraction methods.

“On the smaller altar, residues of cannabinoids such as Δ9-teterahydrocannabinol (THC), cannabidiol (CBD) and cannabinol (CBN) were detected, along with an assortment of terpenes and terpenoids, suggesting that cannabis inflorescences had been burnt on it” (Arie, et. al. 2020). The authors “suggest that cannabis female inflorescences may have been imported from distant origins and were transported as dried resin (commonly known as hashish)” (Arie, et. al. 2020).Alternatively, the “larger altar contained an assemblage of indicative triterpenes such as boswellic acid and norursatriene, which derives from frankincense…” (Arie, et. al. 2020).

As the authors of this fascinating archaeological find conclude: “These well-preserved residues shed new light on the use of 8th century Arad altars and on incense offerings in Judah during the Iron Age” (Arie, et. al. 2020).

You can only imagine my excitement at this news, after promoting a theory of such ritual use for decades. Unfortunately, this archaeological news was released in 2020, and was overshadowed by Covid news and constant tweets by Trump, and was largely ignored. 4 years later and little scholarly comment has been given on this archaeological find, which demonstrates that the ancient Hebrews were burning cannabis at an oracular site where Yahweh’s messages and blessing were likely retrieved.

Having written at length on Sula Benet’s theory about the Hebrew terms kaneh and kaneh bosem in a number of books and articles, as well as a documentary, I felt a sense of vindication. Ironically, just a few weeks prior to the discovery of cannabis resins at tel Arad, my 2014 documentary ‘Kaneh Bosm: The Hidden Story of Cannabis in the Old Testament’, which had 600k views at that time, had been removed from Youtube for allegedly spreading misinformation, and Pot TV was given a suspension, with penalties that included being prevented from Live Broadcasting Vancouver popular 420 event that year. 

I could see a number of points where the archaeology and linguistic theory met, and decided to revisit Sula Benet’s linguistic theory, in light of this new Archaeological information, in writing my fifth book on the history of the herb, ‘Cannabis: Lost Sacrament of the Ancient World’. 

Although response from my peers writing about the role of psychoactive substances in history and religion was positive, I was determined to take this material out of the realm of this counter culture niche, and into mainstream academia. I began to contact and send my books, to university departments and other organizations, that dealt with Biblical history and archaeology and researchers in the field, with little response or interest. 

Contacting Dan McClellan

This was about the time I came across McClellan’s podcast  Is cannabis mentioned in the Bible?, where he mentions Sula Benet’s theory, but stated he was not convinced of it. However, as noted, McClellans did give a reasonably detailed account of the findings at tel Arad, going as far as suggesting that this likely indicated more widespread use. More generally, what scholarly response that has been put forth, seemed to side more with the idea that the cannabis resins found at tel Arad was evidence of the ‘adulterous’ worship of other deities by the Hebrews, something condemned by some of the prophets and in the Books of Kings and Chronicles. 

After a lot of effort, I was finally able to contact McClellan, and he agreed to read my book, and see what I had laid out in regards to Benet’s linguistic theory on the Hebrew terms kaneh and kaneh bosem, in relation to the archaeology of tel Arad. I did request that I would like the chance to respond to any criticisms of the theory, prior to his making the video, a number of times when I wrote to him.  

Dr. McClellan is an obviously busy guy, but after much prodding on my end, about 5 months later he said he had completed my whole book. Responding to my latest enquiry he wrote “I apologize for the delay again. Your book is a long one and I’ve worked my way through it, but my own book and my podcast have been dominating my time lately. I will do what I need to do to get a video made about it within the week.” 

After 2 weeks had gone by, I pestered McClellan again for a response. He apologized for the delay, and said he had stopped and started the video a number of times, but wanted me to know where he was before making the video. I appreciated this as I had asked again to see any argument against the theory he presented and that I wanted the chance to respond. 

In our correspondence McClellan stated that he does not “think the argument that qaneh bosem is a reference to cannabis is strong” and that he did not “want to publish a complex criticism publicaly”. McClellan gave a few paragraph response explaining his position, which I will get into shortly.  At this point, I thought we had a discussion going on and I would be given a chance to respond before he made a video. I gave a detailed response to McClellan’s dismissal.

However, McClellan, did make a video that was released within a day or two of our correspondence, that discussed kaneh bosem, but in response to a video someone else had made that discussed Sula Benet’s theory briefly, in relation to tel Arad. I was undeniably miffed, as McClellan ignored material from my book, my emailed response, and key points of Sula Benet’s own work, were also largely dismissed without reference. 

Dan dismisses kaneh bosem as cannabis

In, Were the Israelites hot-boxing in the temple?  McClellan again addressed the archaeological evidence of tel Arad, as well as Sula Benet’s hypothesis on the Hebrew terms kaneh bosem and kaneh. Interestingly he asserts, that “the majority of scholars would probably say it’s plausible, and some even probable, that they were burning cannabis as part of their incense in the Jerusalem temple, however we don’t have any direct evidence for that”. Now this is of course due in part to no archaeological digs on the Jerusalem temple, as it sits under one of Islam’s holiest sites, Al-Aqsa Mosque. The temple at tel Arad, is the only Hebrew temple site that has been examined archaeologically. That said, I think McClellan is stretching it here in his suggestion that the majority of scholars would say it is plausible, and unless some means ‘a few’.  I doubt more than a handful suggest it was probable that this reflects practices at the main temple in Jerusalem. Although I myself would agree that it does. 

In fact, there has in fact been very little comment on tel Arad, from the academic community. When the study on the altars came out and since, most of the scholarly comments I have seen about it, have been dismissing its as the sort of foreign heretical pagan practices condemned so much in the Bible. The time period of the tel Arad temple’s decommission, fits well with this view. Beside’s McClellan, I can not think of any Biblical scholars who have written anything suggesting the use of cannabis at the Main temple based on tel Arad. Although there was some light speculation on this in the first few news stories on the find, most scholars seem to have sided with ‘pagan practices’. Certainly none were suggesting this was a possibility prior to the evidence of tel Arad. So it’s a pretty loose statement to make. Although, as noted, I do agree with McClellan here that it is both plausible and probable cannabis was burned in the Main temple though, along with the sort of pagan practices that were later rejected and resulted in the cancellation of the tel Arad temple.   

One of the interesting things about the kaneh references pointed to by Sula Benet, as we shall get into later, is, when looked at in context, they indicate a substance that was initially revered for its ritual use, used at the main Temple, but later rejected for heretical associations. This avenue is indicated by the discovery of cannabis resins at tel Arad as well. 

The ‘creator’ of the video McClellan goes on to analyze, then states that that tel Arad is proof of Sula Benet’s theory, which he discussed only briefly, mentioning the kaneh bosem reference, but ignoring the other kaneh references pointed to by Sula Benet. McClellan follows this, noting that there is only one reference to kaneh bosem, in Exodus 30:23, there it is listed as an anointing oil, and the term is a compound word, indicating the balsam tree, or fragrance , bosem, and kaneh reed, giving ‘fragrant reed’. He mentions Sula Benet’s 1975 paper, but ignores her early works going back to 1935, and 1936. No potential botanical candidate for this reference is given by McClellan for this appellation, besides balsam. As well, one listening to McClellan, would be left with the impression that Benet’s theory was based on this one reference in Exodus 30:23, and this just identified a fragrant anointing oil and not incense.

McClellan also emphasized this in our correspondence:

“Another problem is the assertion that the presence of cannabis in the incense used at Arad carries evidentiary weight for how we interpret qaneh bosem in Exodus 30:23. The fact that they burned cannabis doesn’t constitute evidence that they also applied it topically, and certainly not clearly enough to overrule the more likely etymologies of both cannabis and qaneh bosem.”  

It is here, where I think McClellan’s description of Benet’s theory is not just misleading but disingenuous. Benet referred specifically to the term kaneh. Kaneh bosem in Exodus, was 1 of 5 places the term kaneh was used as cannabis in Benet’s view. As Benet herself explained: “In many ancient languages, including Hebrew, the root ‘kan‘ has a double meaning — both hemp and reed”. 

On kaneh [קנה] and kaneh bosem [קנה בושם]

As Benet clearly explained:“Both in the original Hebrew text of the Old Testament and in the Aramaic translation, the word ‘kaneh‘ or ‘ keneh‘ is used either alone or linked to the adjective bosm in Hebrew… meaning aromatic. (Benet, 1975). Benet, points to 5 specific references in her hypothesis, Exodus 30:23,  Isaiah 43:24, Jeremiah 6:20, Ezekiel 27:19 and Song of Songs 4:14, noting that bosem only occurs in Exodus. Based on these five references Benet suggested cannabis was known as “both as incense, which was an integral part of religious celebration, and as an intoxicant” (Benet 1936)

The Hebrew term kaneh appears 62 times in 38 verses of the Hebrew bible, and as we can see, it is mostly used in a generic way, as ‘reed’ or ‘branch’ or as various means of measuring, especially length. The 5 underlined verses are the references that Benet points to as cannabis. Later we will look at these underlined references in context:

Gen. 41:5, Gen. 41:22, Exod. 25:31, Exod. 25:32, Exod. 25:33, Exod. 25:35, Exod. 25:36, Exod. 30:23, Exod. 37:17, Exod. 37:18, Exod. 37:19, Exod. 37:21, Exod. 37:22, 1 Ki. 14:15, 2 Ki. 18:21, Job 31:22, Job 40:21, Ps. 68:31, Cant. 4:14, Isa. 19:6, Isa. 35:7, Isa. 36:6, Isa. 42:3, Isa. 43:24, Isa. 46:6, Jer. 6:20, Ezek. 27:19, Ezek. 29:6, Ezek. 40:3, Ezek. 40:5, Ezek. 40:6, Ezek. 40:7, Ezek. 40:8, Ezek. 41:8, Ezek. 42:16, Ezek. 42:17, Ezek. 42:18, Ezek. 42:19

In our correspondence, McClellan asserted:

“The biggest problem I see is that the etymological argument is rather convoluted and doesn’t adequately engage the linguistic data. Benet asserts without argument that qaneh  is cognate with Akkadian qunnabu, and there’s just no case to make for that.” which as we can see, is not exactly what Benet said, she asserts that both kaneh and kaneh bosem, have their ancient counterparts in other languages, and qunnabu would be seen as connected to qaneh bosem.” 

McClellan continues with “qaneh is very clearly cognate with Akkadian qanû, and just like qanû, it has a wide variety of uses from the generic and figurative to specific and concrete, including the conceptual imagery of a tube as well as a measuring stick.” 

It is worth noting here, that this root word, besides it’s association with ‘reed’, is also the root word for the English word ‘cane’, which derives from Latin canna, which in turn comes from Ancient Greek κάννα, [kanna] from Official Aramaic qanhā, qanyā and from Akkadian qanû ‘tube, reed’. One of the many etymological suggestions for the word cannabis is that the term means “cane like” (Agrawal & Dhanasekaran, 2021). There is also the suggestion that the earlier “Sumerian language used the word ‘kanubi’, which means ‘cane of two (sexes)’ (Sfetcu, 2014). 

It is also worth noting here that the generic description given above by McClellan, does not dismiss cannabis. Cannabis can be grown in a very straight manner, when grown for fiber, that would be ideal for a ‘measuring stick’ and its stalk is often hollow.

 

This reference brings to mind Ezekiel, 40, of a man “with a thread of flax and a measuring rod [qaneh] in his hand” which was used for measuring the temple in Jerusalem. Imagery indicating this practice can be found in ancient Mesopotamian art as well, and may be connected with cannabis, as I noted in Cannabis and the Soma Solution.

Genesis 41:22, is another of the references to kaneh, and it refers to it producing heads of grains. This disallows an interpretation of a reed, as reeds are not known for edible seeds or grains, and do not have branches: “In my [ Joseph] dreams I … saw seven heads of grain, full and good, growing on a single stalk [kaneh].” Interestingly, the ancient Hebrews at times referred to cannabis seeds as a ‘grain’ and they were known to ingest them as well. 

The German researcher Immanuel Low (1854-1944) a Hungarian rabbi and scholar, botanist and politicianreferred to a sixth century Persian name for a preparation of cannabis seed, Sahdanag – Royal Grain; or King’s Grain, which demonstrates the high regard the ancient Persians held for the nutritious oil rich seeds that came from the same plant which provided them with their means of inspired religious revelation. Sahdanag was generally prepared in the form of a heart shaped cookie, possibly indicating that the ancient Persians recognized the seed’s close relationship with health and vitality (Low, 1925; reprinted 1967). In Mishnic times hemp seeds were consumed in “Babylonian Broth” . In Hebraic Literature: Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and Kabbala, Maurice Henry Harris records that in the Nedarim, fol. 49. col. 1, “Rav Yehudah [(220-299 CE)] says it is good to eat … the essence of hemp seed in Babylonian broth; but it is not lawful to mention this in the presence of an illiterate man, because he might derive a benefit from the knowledge not meant for him” (Harris, et al., 2004). [This “benefit” may have been acquired from brewing seeds with the THC rich calyx covering the seed, being intact when it was prepared.]

Immanuel Löw also suggests that the formerly unidentified Hebrew word, tzli’q, (Tzaddi, Lamed, Yod, Quoph), makes reference to a Jewish meal of roasted hemp seeds that was popular into medieval times and was sold by Jews in European markets. (The first part of the name tzli’q simply means roasted, the final letter, Qoph, an abbreviation of the Mishnic word qanabos, which begins with the letter Qoph. (Löw, 1925; reprinted 1967).

McClellan pointed to a variety of academic resources on ancient language to validate this standard view on qaneh, as ‘reed’. All of which offer no Hebrew word for cannabis and all composed prior to the discoveries of tel Arad. Asserting that these sources “marshal far too much contextual usage that is clearly cognate to be overruled with the simple assertion that qunnabu is the real cognate.” Which again, is not what Benet suggested.  Benet suggested that kaneh meant both ‘cannabis’ and ‘reed’, the Hebrew bosem, meaning ‘fragrant’ or ‘fragrant oil’ was added in the Exodus version, qunnabu, which is translated as ‘hashish’ or ‘cannabis oil’ was the cognate suggested, and both terms appear around the same time. As we shall see there are indications that qunnabu itself may have formed from a composite word that contains the root ‘reed’ . 

In regards to generic and specific use of kaneh, consider terms like ‘grass’ or “herb”, and how they are used with a double meaning, generic and specific, all depending on context. Franz Rosenthal, a Professor of Semitic Languages at Yale University, in his excellent book on the medieval Islamic relationship with ‘hashish’, The Herb: Hashish vs medieval Muslim Society, suggests that the Arabic term “hashish” is itself a nickname believed to have been derived from a more general word meaning “herb”, and was applied to hemp resin products in the same way the generic “grass” came to refer to cannabis in the 20th century. “Most likely, it may may be simply ‘the herb’ as distinguished from all other (medicinal) herbs” (Rosenthal, 1971).

Here is an example of context using the term ‘grass’: “I went to the backyard and smoked some grass” vs “I went to the backyard to cut the grass”. As we shall see later, the specific references noted by Benet, Exodus 30:23, Ezekiel 27:19, Song of Songs 4:14, Isaiah 43:24 and Jeremiah 6:20  the context goes beyond the generic ‘reed’. As McClellan himself has stated in relation to the Greek root for Christ on the Danny Jones podcast “as with many words in many languages the verbal root chrī́ō [χρίω meaning “to anoint”]  in Ancient Greek can mean more than one thing, there …is the generic sense but then in specific context it can have more meaning” (McClellan, 2024).

For those that would suggest that Sula Benet cherry picked these references, this is not the case. These references have long been noted by Biblical scholars for their more specific context, as opposed to the generic view that McClellan has based his dismissal of them on. To give some examples, see these same verses selected in: A concise Dictionary of the Bible for the use of Families and Students (1865); American Encyclopedic Dictionary (1897); The Bible Dictionary (2015); Figs, Dates, Laurel, and Myrrh: Plants of the Bible and the Quran (2007);  Song of Songs: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (1995)  and others books. 

 

McClellan ignored completely the context of Benet’s reference to kaneh, in the 5 references she pointed to and focussed on only the generic meaning of ‘reed’. In his video and our correspondence he does not discuss any particular botanical candidate in regard to kaneh, or as he prefers qaneh, and in his discussion of qaneh bosem, he states that the term just identifies a sort of “fragrant reed”. 

He expanded on this in our correspondence stating: “You’d have to assert a distinct noun qaneh that is spelled the same but has a different referent and comes from an entirely different source, and I don’t know what kind of evidence could be marshaled to support that argument.”

Here it should be noted that Benet was not alone in suggesting that the term qaneh/kaneh was a term for ‘cannabis’ as well as ‘reed’. Tomaschek in his study on ancient Thracians (1894), suggested that the Greek term “κάνναβις” cannabis arose from a composite word that belonged to the commercial language of the Phoenicians, who brought the cloth in question together with its designation from the North and this name subsequently spread everywhere. In this regard it is worth noting that cannabis, which was believed to have been used for its psychoactive purposes was recovered from a Carthaginian shipwreck, and these people were Phoenician settlers, and active in trade. “There was so much of this plant material that a bagful was easily obtained, more than enough for laboratory analysis. The results confirmed that the material was most probably Cannabis sativa…” (Seff, 1990)

The Phoenicians were the nearest people to the ancient Israelites in every respect. They spoke the same language and wrote in the same script. Even their religion was similar, at least during the First Temple period. Accepting the view that “κάνναβις” cannabis is composite, Tomascheck juxtaposed its first morpheme κάννα (kanna) with Hebrew kanah [qaneh] and Assyrian kanu [qanu], all meaning ‘reed’. Indeed, the first part of the Greek word for cannabis, in ancient Greek was κάννα (kánna, “reed”), from Akkadian 𒄀 (qanû, “reed”), the second part, bis, generally means two. This fits with the idea that the more ancient Summerian term suggested for cannabis, kunibu, also can be broken down as a composite as well. “Sumerian language used the word “kanubi”, which means ‘cane of two (sexes?)’. This is possibly the source of the Semitic usage’” (Sfetcu, 2014). 

The Elisabeth C. Miller Library, hosted by the University of Washington, gives the following etymology of cannabis, “The Latin name comes from Greek kannabis, which is derived from the Sanskrit root canna, meaning cane. There is a connection to Semitic languages as well (Arabic kunnab, Syriac kunnappa, Aramaic kene busma, etc.)”

That the Greek “κάνναβις” may mean ‘kanna – reed, bis- two’ as with the suggested Summerian root, kanubi, is supported by the idea that the Greeks saw two types of cannabis at work here. Alan Sumler, in Cannabis in the Ancient Greek and Roman World, notes that cannabis according “to ancient Greek and Roman sources was of two kinds”. This could be broken down to wild and cultivated, and also in regards to the way it was used. Sumler pointed to  a reference in the works of Artemidorus writing in the third century, that indicated two separate industries involved, one in preparing fiber hemp, and the other in the preparation of psychoactive strains. Generally the Greek term is thought to have been derived from the Scythian language, but this is only due to the fact that the first appearance of the term, comes from Herodotus’ 5th century account of the Scythians’ use of cannabis in funerary rituals. 

Phonetic counterparts of the Greek term, cannabis, can be found in a variety of earlier references in other languages, such as Akkadian qunnapu and Summerian kunnibu, and possibly Hebrew kaneh bosem, all of which may be composites indicating ‘reed’ as a component.

Here is what you get when you search “aromatic” in the Akkadian dictionary, note how qunnabu ‘cannabis’ and qanu ‘reed’ are grouped together, and this could very well indicate a linguistic connection.  

Neo-Assyrian Akkadian 𒋆𒄣𒌦𒈾𒁍 and it’s various phonetic translations qunnabu, qunappu, qun(u)bu. 

 

Interestingly, we see here that qunnabu is seen as hashish, whereas the whole plant appears as qunnabtu. This is interesting as the bu and btu, are not the same in both, and without them we get something very phonetically close to the Akkadian term for reed.

It is worth noting here that when you search ‘reed’ in The Akkadian Dictionary, you get 67 entries, and variations of qanu account for only 3 of those. When you search ‘aromatic’ you get 14, with qanu twice and qunnabu once, and as that term means ‘hashish’ and qunnabtu means ‘cannabis plant’, it appears that qunna is the key component of the word, bringing us very close to qanu, reed, and giving us the likely older root. 

Assyriologist Barbara Böck says the name for qunnabu, can also be rendered qunnubu, Thompson, in his Dictionary of Assyrian Botany, includes the rendering qunubu. Still other sources, list it with a single n, bring it even closer. A spelling shared by (Löpelmann, 1968, and numerous others). These bring us all bring us closer to qanu, ‘reed’ as a root for cannabis terms in Akkadian. 

We see qan in other plant names, such as that for calamus, qan tupi, and this as well may have a connection to ‘reed’ or ‘cane’ like plants. “Cinnamon. From Hebrew KiNaMoN, it’s also believed to be a cognate of KaNeH, [kaneh/qaneh] since the aromatic bark is shaped like a reed (Green, 2019).  This fits with Benet’s statement: “In many ancient languages, including Hebrew, the root ‘kan‘ has a double meaning — both hemp and reed” (Benet, 1975). 

There is also the forementioned possibility that the Akkadian qunnabu is an adaptation of the much older Summerian kunibu, itself said to be made from a composite meaning ‘reed’ and ‘two’ (It is believed about 7{d155401c9f5543f8138dc1769c3f5c029ac2c38547be62bd5af0b08231d0755d} of the Akkadian language is composed of Summerian loanwords).

As the cannabis at tel Arad, is believed to have been a prepared resin product, the authors of the archaeological report, suggest ‘hashish’, it may be that kaneh bosem, identifies a prepared resin product as well, as with Akkadian qunnabu. This would intensify the effects of its suggested use in topical form, considerably. 

This fits with the Hebrew adjective bosem, which as McClellan notes in his video Were the Israelites hot-boxing in the temple?  Can identify the “balsam tree, balsam oil or just to any kind of fragrant oil or substance”. There are 30 occurrences of bosem in the Hebrew Bible, and the vast majority translated as ‘spices’, or ‘fragrant’, only two have been translated as ‘balsam’. 

In Exodus 30:23, where bosem occurs with kaneh, it appears 3 times. 

“Take the following fine spices [bosem] : 500 shekels of liquid myrrh, half as much (that is, 250 shekels) of fragrant [bosem] cinnamon, 250 shekels of fragrant [bosem]cane [kaneh], 24 500 shekels of cassia—all according to the sanctuary shekel—and a hin of olive oil.

So here we can be certain it means ‘fragrant’ or ‘fragrant oil’. Again, oil, or resin product, fits with the form of cannabis resins found at tel Arad, but in that case used as an incense. 

Benet herself felt the term kaneh originated in the Semitic language, I disagree here, and with Prof. Carl Ruck, have suggested that the term came in from Indo-European groups, likely the Scythians, who were known to have ritually used cannabis and were in contact with the ancient Hebrews. “The Scythians participated in both trade and wars alongside the ancient Semites for at least one millennium before Herodotus encountered them in the fifth century B.C. …The city known as Beizan in modern times was originally called Bethshan and later renamed Scythopolis by the Greeks during the Hellenistic period, since many Scythians settled there during the great invasion of Palestine in the seventh-century B.C.” (Benet, 1975)

The Indo-European roots of cannabis words

The Indo-European cultures have a very widespread and ancient relationship with cannabis, and their language serves as the Mother tongue of many existing dialects, such as English, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Hindustani, Bengali, Punjabi, French and German. In our correspondence, McClellan did address the suggestion of an  Indo-European root for kaneh, through kanna, and other variations:

“You assert on page 91 that the IE name for cannabis is kanna, and that it comes from a PIE root, kannap. You then argue qunnabu and qaneh bosem are borrowed from kanna. The problem here is that overwhelmingly the IE word for cannabis is kanab (or more technically *kan(n)aB-)…. The vast majority of the etymologically related words in other Indo-European and other languages have that bilabial stop at the end represented either by a p or a b, and the couple that don’t are not close enough to Hebrew.” (McClellan, 2024)

McClellan is not completely wrong here, and it is a point I should have addressed clearer in my book. I should also note that the suggestions of kannap, or kannab, as the PIE (Proto-Indo-European) root word for cannabis, is not my assertion, this comes from Elizabeth Wayland Barber, an American scholar and expert on archaeology, linguistics, textiles, and folk dance as well as professor emerita of archaeology and linguistics at Occidental College. Barber went over the etymology of cannabis in her 1992 book Prehistoric Textiles: The Development of Cloth in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages with Special Reference to the Aegean

Barber analyzed cognate words for “hemp” and “cannabis” in Indo-European languages, and proposed an etymological root of *kan(n)aB- (where *B represents a *p or *b bilabial stop). This is present in Eastern European variations like Albanian kanëp; Armenian kanap and Slavic languages (Russian konopljá, Croatian konoplja, Bulgarian konop, and Czech konopí.

However, this hard *b, or *p in the suggested case of the PIE root is not present in other very old IE terms in languages like Sanskrit and Avestan. The Scythians spoke Iranian dialects, and Indo-Iranian languages have two words, represented by Sanskrit śaṇa– “a kind of hemp” (from *kana– or *kene– forms) and bhanga “narcotic hemp” (cf. bhang). Barber’s well-researched hypothesis involves two stages: in the late Palaeolithic and early Neolithic, a *ken– or *kan– name spread across Asia with the hemp plant, which was used for fiber and food; then in the early Iron Age, “an enlarged version of this very word, local to Iran and perhaps northern India…spread with the drug-bearing variety.”

It should also be noted that the suggested PIE root Kannap, and many of the following IE terms, are speculation based on what is known of language origins by following back other variations of the known names of cannabis.

Other suggestions as the PIE and IE root for ‘cannabis’ include; “ang” or “an” as a PIE and Proto-Semitic root from which the words for cannabis in “all modern languages” (ie – French chanvre, German Hanf, Sanskrit bhanga and sana etc.) derive, as suggested by  Alphonse de Candolle in Origine des plantes cultivées (1883); Marine Ivanishvili suggests “kan-” as the PIE root in “Proto-Kartvelian and Proto-Indo-European Plant-Names” (2007);  Allan Bomhard and John Kerns, have suggested that “san-” and “kan-” or “gan-” as the PIE root in The Nostratic Macrofamily: A Study in Distant Linguistic Relationship (2011). 

Otto Schrader (1917) suggested the prototerms underlying ‘cannabis’ names, and according to him evidently recognizable in some of them, as *kanna and *ken, seeing also a connection to Sanskrit cana . As far as the Greek Kannabis is concerned, Schrader found it to be a composite, Greek ‘Kanna’ ‘reed’  drawing attention to its second morpheme, i.e. – ,Bis.

Besides the later Greek composite, these examples do not have the *b or *p bilabial stop, that was seen as a concern in the linguistic connection by McClellan. As noted, the Scythians spoke Iranian dialects,  and these are seen as not including the *b or *p at the end of the word. Anthony Jakob, salso uggests that the Scythian word is “kana– without the labial” in A History of East Baltic Through Language Contact  (2023). 

In An Ethnographical Approach to the Controversies Concerning the Provenance and Diffusion of the Ancient Iranian and Indian Names of Hemp, Tomasz Marszewski, gives a thorough overview of the data, and from this we learn: Th. P. Keppen in his paper (1886)  noted Sanskrit cana, in comparison with Persian kenew, kanu; also pointing to later Ossetic gan and gana as phonetic counterparts. Ossetian is the sole survivor of the branch of Iranian languages known as Scythian. W. Tomaschek, who we referred to earlier, in his 1894 work on the Thracians, in reference to the Greek  κάνναβις (kánnabis), suggested this was a composite word, kanna, which came from the Phoenicians, bringing us into the Levant. 

Accepting the view that the Greek term was a composite, Tomaschek also juxtaposed its first morpheme  κάννα [kanna]with Hebrew kanah and Assyrian kanu, both meaning ‘reed’ and ‘cannabis’ (which independently fits with Benet’s assertions on kaneh/qaneh). K. Redei (1986) proposed *kan as the reconstructed prototerm and the Middle Persian form *kana. All of which indicate the term kaneh/qaneh could have come into the Hebrew language phonetically as identifying cannabis. 

Michael Witzel, Professor of Sanskrit at Harvard University and the editor of the Harvard Oriental Series, suggests  in The Home of the Aryans the term  kana/k’ana meaning “hemp” came from the language(s) of the Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC). This does seem like a likely avenue. The Bactria-Margiana Archaeological complex has some interesting archaeological claims about ancient temples used to process cannabis for ritual purposes from the Russian Archaeologist Viktor Sarianidi.  I discussed this at length in relation to the Vedic Soma and Avestan Homa, as well as the Scythians in The Cannabis Soma/Haoma Theory: A Synopsis Based on the Latest Textual and Archeological Evidence and more thoroughly in my 2010 book, Cannabis and the Soma Solution. 

A Trade Route and Linguistic Connection to BMAC

It is believed that the temples from BMAC, were involved in trade with Indo European groups that settled in China from about 2000-400 BCE when the Han Chinese chased them out of the region, from archaeological finds about sites that tie them together. Multiple Chinese archaeological sites associated with these Indo-European speaking people, have also documented their ritual use of cannabis in funerary ceremonies similar to those of the Scythians described by Herodotus. It is believed that the Scythians were the source of trade between BMAC and these Chinese groups, who were early cultivators and traders of psychoactive cannabis. 

A number of researchers have seen a connection with the ritual cannabis use of the Bactria Margiana Archeological Complex (BMAC), with the Tarim Basin culture in China where these ancient finds of cannabis were located. As  Elizabeth Wayland Barber explains in her book on the subject, The Mummies of Urumchi:

 “…[W]e know that early oasis hoppers were experimenting with hashish and opium… New cross-cultural archaeological data shows that the oasis settlers set up major ties to the south as they worked their way eastward. Thus the cult of the White room [BMAC] had ready avenues for a rapid southward spread across the Iranian plateau” (Barber, 1999). 

Sarianidi saw the temples of BMAC as a likely early Zoroastrian or Mazdean sites. Zoroastrian ritual use of cannabis has long been suggested. Sarianidi suggested Scythian contact with BMAC as well. 

The Scythians, we know from both written and archaeological evidence, burned cannabis and inhaled its fumes as well as prepared a sacred beverage from it. As Viktor Sarianidi notes: “In the Avesta one finds numerous references to the fact the settled Zoroastrians had constant contacts with the nomadic Scythians who are mentioned under the name of Saka in the ancient Persian inscriptions…. The Scythian element played an important role in Zoroastrianism and… it… emerged in direct contact with the Scythian environment” (Sarianidi, 1998).

The Scythians, were known by other names, one of these is the Haomavarga, the haomo-gatherers, and it was recorded that they burnt haoma as well as drank haoma, just as they did with cannabis! Numbers of scholars have suggested that it was this group which transported goods between the Tarim Basin in China, and soma/haoma temples postulated by Sarianidi in BMAC.

The contact between BMAC and these Chinese sites, has altered the estimated age of the ‘Silk Road’, taking it more than a millennia earlier that it was previously believed. It was part of a major trade route that extended all the way into India and serviced the ancient Mid East. The Scythians played an important part in the Silk Road, a vast trade network connecting Greece, Persia, India and China. As Benet mentioned above, the Scythians also settled in Israel. 

In Contact and Exchange in the Ancient World (2006) edited by Professor of Chinese history Victor Mair (who is responsible for so much of what we know about the cannabis using Indo-European culture that settled in China) includes an article by Michael Witzel, who,  in his discussion on early loan words,  describes cannabis as a wanderwort, like ‘coffee’ or ‘tea’, which traveled from culture to culture, retaining its name. Witzel suggested the root word fro cannabis, came from an Iranian language (such as Scythian). Witzel suggested origins with “kan-/k’an-; ‘hemp’ Ved. sana (hemp, cannabis)”. And, as noted, the later Ossett language, thought to be the closest surviving language, uses the phonetically similar gan for cannabis. 

So here, we see the most likely avenue of cannabis into Israel, from an archaeological perspective, likely came via Scythian traders, or groups that had traded with them. Scythian groups did not apply the *b or *p ending that was raised as a point of dismissal for the association of the Scythian word as a loan word into the Hebrew as kaneh (qaneh). As well, we have also seen that others have suggested that qaneh, qanu, kaneh, kan and other variations of words meaning ‘reed’ or ‘cane’ may have also been used for cannabis, such as Tomaschek’s suggestion that this was the Phoenecian term. 

As well, as we have seen, there were  other composite words which use the term for reed or cane, in conjunction with other composites to give a more full name, such as Sumerian kunibu, Greek κάνναβις, and likely Akkadian qannabu and Hebrew qaneh bosem. 

Based on archaeological and textual evidence, Benet’s theory looks increasingly concrete.

Akkadian qunnabu

We should also consider the time period of the believed composition of Exodus, where the single reference to kaneh bosem occurs,  and how this fits with the suggested date of the arrival of the term qunnabu in Assyria, as well as how cannabis was used in that region, along with the known Assyrian influences on the Hebrews at that time.

It is generally believed that Exodus was a composite work, it’s strata probably having been written between the 9th and 5th centuries BCE. With more of a consensus suggesting that the initial composition was a product of the Babylonian exile (6th century BCE), based on earlier written sources and oral traditions, with final revisions in the Persian post-exilic period (5th century BCE).

This date coincides with arrival of the term qunnabu, in the Assyrian world, and this also coincides with a time of great Assyrian influence on Hebrew worship, and life. It has increasingly been suggested the purges that resulted in the ‘cancelation’ of the tel Arad temple, were due to the Hebrew King Hezekiah’s desire to rebel against his Assyrian overlords and purge their ritual influence on Hebrew life, as well as enforcing monotheism. When we take a look at the similar way the Hebrews used kaneh and kaneh bosem, to the Assyrian’s and their qunnabu, a clear pattern of similar, if not identical use, emerges. 

Elizabeth Wayland-Barber notes that it was in the second quarter of the first millennium BCE that  the “word qun-nabu (qunapy, qunubu, qunbu) begins to turn up as for a source of oil, fiber and medicine” (Barber 1989). Assyriologist Barbara Böck also notes, “the name qunnabu is attested to relatively late in the ancient Mesopotamian record, namely from the 8th century BCE onwards. This late appearance fits well with the fact that wandering words spread usually through trade connections, and it occurs at a time the Assyrian and Babylonian Empires had reached their greatest territorial expansion and thus expanded commercial contacts… Akkadian qunnabu is almost exclusively attested as one one ingredient among many in incense blends and perfume mixtures used in the religious cult… A small cuneiform tablet… states ‘qunnabu is the aromatic plant of the goddess Isshkhara’” (Böck, 2021). (As we shall see shortly, this is not the only goddess associated with cannabis, and this may have played a role in it’s later rejection by the Hebrews) 

Prior to this time period, it is believed that cannabis was known under a variety of earlier names, such as azalluˆ –  A.ZAL.LA, gan.zi.gunnu, Sami nissati ‘a drug for sorrow’ and others. As British archaeologist Diana Stein has noted in reference to this sutuation “Cannabis has many variants, and it is possible that these were known by a variety of different names, some cryptic and others descriptive or allegorical (as is the case today: marijuana, hashish, hemp, grass, weed, dope, pot, skunk, kit, bhang, etc.).” (Stein, 2009). See Dr. Ethan Russo’s History of Cannabis and Its Preparations in Saga, Science, and Sobriquet (2007), which summarizes the various entries in R. Campbell Thompson’s A Dictionary of Assyrian Botany (1949) for a more thorough investigation of these terms and their various usage. 

However these terms lack the scholarly consensus in regards to their firm identification that qunnabu holds. As Thompson recorded “Towards the end of the eighth or first half of the seventh century B.C. the word qunubu has come in, it being mentioned on a Sargonid letter… to the King’s mother, along with myrrh, etc., in reference to certain dullu (work, or rites)” (Thompson, 1949). In the 1907 German edition of Mitteilungen zur Geschichte der Medizin und der Naturwissenschaften (Notes on the History of Medicine and Science) in reference to “the Indo-European plant names” that appear in Assyrian texts, “the plant qunubu – hemp corresponds exactly to the form of the name cannabis, as well.”

The case for qunubu as cannabis, is built on much more solid ground than these other words:

“Qunnabu, the probable Assyrian word for cannabis, is attested in texts of the first millennium BCE. It occurs in a Neo-Assyrian recipe for perfume, and a contemporary letter refers to its use in ritual contexts. A later Neo-Babylonian text records the delivery of large quantities of qunnabu to the great temple of Eanna and Ebabbar, and there are recipes in which hemp is an ingredient of aromatic oil used for cultic purposes. So cannabis was available in Mesopotamia during the sixth century BCE at the time when the Hebrew Bible was compiled in Babylon” (Stein, 2009).

McClellan states that another “problem is the assertion that the presence of cannabis in the incense used at Arad carries evidentiary weight for how we interpret qaneh bosem in Exodus 30:23. The fact that they burned cannabis doesn’t constitute evidence that they also applied it topically, and certainly not clearly enough to overrule the more likely etymologies of both cannabis and qaneh bosem.  

So Dan’s statement here is based on the exclusion of the 4 other kaneh (qaneh) references pointed to by Sula Benet. And this is the way he approached in his video, never even mentioning them, which is a dishonest representation of Benet’s hypothesis. Benet herself noted the Anointing oil as well as pointing out that in “the original Hebrew text of the Old Testament there are references to hemp…  as incense, which was an integral part of religious celebration”. Here she is referring to the references in Jeremiah and Isaiah. Let’s look at all 5 references pointed to by Benet, to understand their context and relation to the the cannabis and frankincense discovered at tel Arad. 

The 5 references to kaneh

When all 5 of the references are taken into account, Exodus 30:23, Song of Songs 4:14, Isaiah 43:23-24, Jeremiah 6:20, Ezekiel  27:19, the connection to tel Arad becomes very succinct, and the comparisons of use with the Assyrian references to qunnabu indicate identical use, in the same time period, as well as fitting with the known historical events happening in Israel. Let’s look at all 5 references in context and the material that Dan McClellan chose to ignore in his misrepresentation of Sula Benet’s work, as well as what he ignored in my book and our correspondence. I will be using the Hebrew kaneh in place of whatever English word has been translated in these verses, which are otherwise standard translations. 

Exodus 30:23

Then the Lord said to Moses, 23 “Take the following fine spices: 500 shekels[a]of liquid myrrh, half as much (that is, 250 shekels) of fragrant cinnamon, 250 shekels[b]of fragrant kaneh (Exodus 30:23)

Exodus 30:23, which we have discussed already, refers to kaneh bosem as an ingredient in the holy anointing oil. We can be sure bosem refers to either ‘fragrant’ or a ‘fragrant oil’, as it appears 3 times in Exodus 30:23, so the context here is clear. 

Similar use can be found in Assyrian and Akkadian references to qunnabu. Cannabis was not only sifted for incense like modern hashish, but the active properties were also extracted into oils. As Dr. Ethan Russo has noted in Assyrian “Letters and Contracts, No. 162,…  qu-un-na-pu is noted among a list of spices “(qunnapu): oil of hemp; hashish” (translation E.B.R.). Qunnabu was also noted… as an ingredient in a perfume recipe…” (Russo). 

In Studies on Neo-Assyrian Texts II: “Deeds and documents” from the British Museum (1983) Frederick Mario Fales, translates the following ancient cuneiform verse (No. 12. BM103205. Copy: p. 252) regarding the Goddess Ishara and qunubu cannabis:

The salve of Ishara

is cannabis;

The salve of Ishara

is cannabis:

From the mouth of Qisirayyu I hear so

The following passage regarding the topical application of cannabis is very interesting when compared alongside the suggested use of the cannabis infused “Holy Oil” for similar purposes amongst the ancient Hebrews. “An Assyrian medical tablet from the Louvre collection (AO 7760)(Labat, 1950)(3,10,16) was transliterated as follows…, ‘ana min sam mastabbariru sam a-zal-la sam tar- mus.’ Translating the French [EBR], we obtain, ‘So that god of man and man should be in good rapport:—with hellebore, cannabis and lupine you will rub him.’ (Russo 2005). However this last reference relies on another Assyrian term for its identification of cannabis, azallu, and as noted above there is a more general acceptance of the identification of qunubu as cannabis amongst Asyriologists than with azallu, (Reiner, 1995). Although this term as well has its supporters, with some suggesting that azallu represents the earlier name for cannabis, which only later came to be popularly known as qunnubu, in the 8th century BCE.

Only those who had been “dedicated by the anointing oil of… God” (Leviticus 21:12) were permitted to act as priests. In the “holy” state produced by the anointing oil the priests were forbidden to leave the sanctuary precincts (Leviticus 21:12). The holy oil was a carefully guarded secret that was limited to use in the Hebrews sacred rites. 

 Records from the time of king Esarhaddon (reigned 681 – 669 BC) give clear evidence of the importance of this substances in ancient Mesopotamia, as cannabis, ‘qunubu’ is listed as one of the main ingredients of the paramount ‘Sacred Rites’. In a letter written in 680 BCE to the mother of Esarhaddon, reference is made to qu-nu-bu. In response to Esarhaddon’s mother’s question as to “What is used in the sacred rites”, a high priest named Neralsharrani responded that “the main items…. for the rites are fine oil, water, honey, odorous plants (and) hemp [qunubu].”  

It should also be noted, that in relation to the Assyrian Sacred Rites,  Frederick Mario Fales, who was a Professor of Ancient Near Eastern History at the University of Udine, has stated that the ingredients required included specifically “quality salves (and particularly) salve of myrrh and salve of cannabis [qunubu]” (Fales, 1983).

As the recipe in Exodus 30:23 call for 250 shekels of kaneh bosem, and one shekel equals approximately 9.8 grams, this would mean that the THC of 2.450 kilograms, or close to 5 and half pounds of flowering cannabis tops, (or even cannabis oil, or hashish, as indicated by tel Arad’s altars) were extracted into a hin, about 6.5 liters of oil (1.6 gallons). The entheogenic effects of such a solution, even when applied topically, would undoubtedly have been intense. Health Canada has done scientific tests that show transdermal absorption of THC can take place. The skin is the biggest organ of the body, so of course considerably more cannabis is needed to be effective this way, much more than when ingested or smoked. The people who used the Holy Oil literally drenched themselves in it. Based upon a 25mg/g oil Health Canada found skin penetration of THC (33{d155401c9f5543f8138dc1769c3f5c029ac2c38547be62bd5af0b08231d0755d}). “The high concentration of THC outside the skin encourages penetration, which is a function of the difference between outside and inside (where the concentration is essentially zero)” ( James Geiwitz, Ph.D, 2001). I talked to Dr. Geiwitz personally and he told me that he felt this offered strong evidence for the potential psychoactive effects

More recently, Dr. Gary Wenk, a Professor of Psychology & Neuroscience & Molecular Virology, Immunology and Medical Genetics at the Ohio State University and Medical Center, has noted: “The act of anointing for religious purposes is incredibly ancient…. Extracts of the cannabis plant were often included in these ancient anointing oils…. The plant is mentioned… as ‘kaneh-bosm,’ in the Hebrew Bible, for example per Yahweh’s instruction to Moses in Exodus 30:23…. [A]nointing oils containing cannabis extracts would have had psychoactive and healing actions” (Wenk, 2022).

As Sula Benet explained:

“The sacred character of hemp in biblical times is evident from Exodus 30:22-23, where Moses was instructed by God to anoint the meeting tent and all its furnishings with specially prepared oil, containing hemp. Anointing set sacred things apart from secular. The anointment of sacred objects was an ancient tradition in Israel: holy oil was not to be used for secular purposes…. Above all, the anointing oil was used for the installation rites of all Hebrew kings and priests” (Benet 1975).

Notably, Moses not only anoints himself, and all the utensils used in the rite, but also the altar of Incense. This takes place in the ‘Tent of the Meeting” which like the temple site at tel Arad, was a small enclosed space. Moses talks to the Lord in the pillar of smoke over the incense altar. Smoke is described as pouring forth out of the tent. 

The story of the anointing of Israel’s first king, does give some clear indications of the oil’s potential psychoactive properties.  At the time of the prophet Samuel, the use of the Hebrew anointing oil was extended from exclusively the High Priests, to include Kings as well. Although cannabis is not mentioned directly by name in Samuel, the description of events that take place after Samuel anoints Israel’s first king, Saul, make clear the psychoactive nature of the ointment used.

Samuel “took a flask of oil and poured it on Saul’s head” (1 Samuel 10:1). After the anointing Samuel tells Saul: “The Spirit of the Lord will come upon you in power … and you will be changed into a different person”(1 Samuel 10:6), a statement indicating that the magical (psychoactive) power of the ointment will shortly take effect. Samuel tells Saul that when this happens, he will come across a band of prophets (Nebiim) Coming down from a mountaintop, “with harp, tambourine, flute, and lyre before them prophesying” (1 Samuel 10:5), and that Saul will join them. After Saul’s anointing As Samuel foretold, the spirit of Yahweh came mightily upon the new king and he ‘prophesied among them.’ The Hebrew verb translated as “to prophecy”, nebiim did not mean to foretell the future but rather to behave ecstatically, to babble incoherently under the influence of the Spirit. This ecstatic behavior is apparent when Saul strips off his clothing and lays naked all day and night, causing the people to ask, ‘Is Saul among the prophets?’ (1 Samuel 19:24). Sounds like a classic ‘bad trip’. 

I would say the biggest way that this Exodus reference to kaneh bosem fits with tel Arad, is that both indicate a resin product, rather than whole flowers. In this sense, it also fits with the references to the Akkadian qunnabu, itself translated as ‘oil of cannabis’ or ‘hashish’, and as we have seen, the ritual use of qunnabu  used topically and as an incense was an important aspect of sacred rites in the ancient Near East. 

Song of Songs 4:14

The Song of Songs, arguably the most beautiful piece of prose in the whole Bible begins with a reference to such Fragrant oils described in Exodus and also offered to the Goddess Ishara, gives us our second reference to kaneh, and as we will see, a number of scholars have seen indications of Goddess worship in the Songs… 

“The Song of Songs, which is Solomon’s. Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! For your love is better than wine; your anointing oils are fragrant; your name is oil poured out; therefore virgins love you. Draw me after you; let us run. The king has brought me into his chambers” (Songs 1:1-4).

It is in the 4th verse we find our reference to kaneh:

“How delightful is your love, my sister, my bride! Your love is much better than wine, and the fragrance of your ointments than all spices. “Your lips, my bride, drip sweetness like the honeycomb; honey and milk are under your tongue, and the fragrance of your garments is like the aroma of Lebanon. My sister, my bride, you are a garden locked up, a spring enclosed, a fountain sealed. Your branches are an orchard of pomegranates with the choicest of fruits, with henna and nard, with nard and saffron, with kaneh and cinnamon, with every kind of frankincense tree, with myrrh and aloes, with all the finest spices.… (Songs 4:10-14)

The Song of Songs is often portrayed as the pious song of the love of a people for their god, when in actuality it more likely testifies to the practice of erotic fertility rites amongst the Hebrews. A number of scholars believe that the Songs were composed from a mosaic of cultic liturgies and hymns from the ancient Levant which were artificially synthesized into a single narrative and placed with the authorship of Solomon. The text itself is called a “ritual song” (Zarir) at 2:12, and this same word is used to describe the fertility rite liturgies of Tammuz and Ishtar. Fertility cults of the Near East, including ancient Palestine, involved the ritual courtship and consummation of a goddess with a god to ensure fertility.

As the late Professor of Northwest Semitic Languages at Yale University, Marvin Pope  explained in his excellent review of the Biblical Sacred Marriage hymn,Song of Songs: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (1995) :

“The view that the Song of Songs derives from pagan fertility worship was developed in the present century and, in spite of resistance, has continued to gain ground with the accelerating recovery and progress in interpretation of documents of religious literature of the civilizations of the Near East, especially Mesopotamia, and more recently the Ugaritic mythological and religious texts. Already in 1906, Wilhelm Erbt … suggested that the Song of Songs is a collection of paschal poems of Canaanitish origin, describing the love of the sun-god Tammuz, called Dod or Shelem, and the moon-goddess Ishtar under the name Shalmith…. The cultic interpretation of the Song of Songs received new impetus from a catalog of Akkadian hymn titles edited near the end of the First World War by E. Ebeling (1923)” (Pope 1977).

Interestingly, Pope made reference to the Songs (4:14) kaneh reference when comparing an ancient hymn to Ishtar, to the Songs, which made reference to mellowing Ishtar’s mood with sacred incense “ease her mind with (incense of ) ‘sweet reeds’.” Pope compares these “sweet reeds” to references to the Bible: “The ‘sweet reed’ … with which the goddess’ inwards are soothed, is presumably the same ‘aromatic cane’ of Exodus 30:23 and the ‘sweet cane’ of Jer 6:20; Isa 43:24; Ezek 27:19 and simply ‘cane’ in Canticles 4:14” (Pope 1977). These are the exact passages we are discussing for their potential references to cannabis. Interestingly, the late Assyriologist Erica Reiner referred to the ‘aromatic of the Goddess Ishtar,’ “which is equated with the Akkadian qunnabu, ‘cannabis’… and also calls to mind the plant called ki.na Ishtar” (Reiner, 1995). The term ki.na here giving us another close approximation to kaneh. 

Ishtar, had a regional counterpart worshiped by the Israelites, and ancient inscriptions have shown she was often paired with the god of the Bible, Yahweh, and her name was Asherah, now considered The Hebrew Goddess. Although this is still radical news for the typical Christian public, this fact is well known and accepted by Biblical scholars. Check out Dan McClellan’s presentation  ‘On God’s Wife, Asherah’ for a good overview of the historical information regarding this. 

According to the Bible, Solomon worshiped Asherah under one of her other regional names. “For it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods: and his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father.  For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians…” (1 Kings 11:4-5). “Ashtoreth, Asherah, Astarte, and Ishtar are all manifestations of the same goddess who was worshiped in different regions, where people were divided by language and geography. Ashtoreth (a Hebrew name) was the supreme female deity of the Phoenicians, associated with Baal, the supreme god” (Brooklyn Museum). In reference to Solomon’s worship of the Goddess, Dr. Harry Thomas Frank noted in An Archaeological Companion to the Bible that “Asherah” who is “seemingly interchangeable with Ashtaroth in the Hebrew Scriptures, is by far the most widely known fertility goddess in the Old Testament” (Frank, 1972).

As Dvora Lederman Daniely, a lecturer and researcher at the David Yellin College of Education in Jerusalem, noted recently in the recent article “Who’s Afraid of the Goddess of Ancient Israel?”

Many studies on Asherah in the Bible have concluded that Asherah was a popular and beloved Mother-Goddess in the religion of Israel. Asherah was regarded as…the “Queen of Heaven”..; who bestows abundance and protection to the people. The human queens were in charge of Asherah’s worship and hosted her priests. The worship of Asherah, as the Book of Kings itself disapprovingly attests, was conducted within the Holy Temple itself alongside the worship of Yahweh… (2 Kings 21).”

Although biblical authors cast worship of this divine spouse as idolatry… this characterization was contrary to the prevalent cultic religion in the early days of Israel. This portrayal was intended to preserve the appearance of monotheism. It suited the spirit of religious reform that prevailed in… the seventh century… that abolished all divinities other than Yahweh. This monotheistic outlook took a central place in the edited version of the Bible. Essentially, biblical editors presented a new, more stringent cult, in which monotheism was present from the beginning of time, when in fact it was not. (Daniely, 2022)

In light of this it is not so surprising to find that recent scholarship has suggested Solomon’s Song of Songs, considered by many to be the most beautiful piece of poetry in the whole Hebrew Bible, was originally derived from Semitic hymns in honour of the sacred marriage ritual between a God and Goddess. The Sacred Marriage, also known as the Hieros Gamos, had already existed for millennia before the time of Solomon, under numerous variations throughout the ancient world. It is generally believed, Kings and queens, pharaonic couples,or priest and priestess, etc. would join in sexual union once a year in order to ensure general fertility and the well-being of the land and its people.

Solomon, also ‘burned incense’ to the Goddess “Solomon loved the LORD and followed all the decrees of his father, David, except that Solomon, too, offered sacrifices and burned incense at the local places of worship” (1 Kings 3:3). Throughout the Bible the condemnation against ‘burning incense” at the “high places” is repeatedly condemned, as was the worship of Asherah and display of her ritual objects. This led to a number of reforms, notably under King Hezekiah and Josiah, who “did away with the idolatrous priests appointed by the kings of Judah to burn incense on the high places of the towns of Judah and on those around Jerusalem…  He took the Asherah from the temple of the Lord to the Kidron Valley outside Jerusalem and burned it there. He ground it to powder and scattered the dust over the graves of the common people. He also tore down the quarters of the male shrine prostitutes that were in the temple of the Lord, the quarters where women did weaving for Asherah” (2 Kings 23:5-7)

This all brings up some interesting points in regards to the hilltop site of tel Arad, it’s temple, considered a smaller version of the Holy of Holies at the Main temple in Jerusalem, built by Solomon, and it’s two alters, one for burning frankincense and the other for cannabis resins or hashish. As the authors of the paper on the Arad altars have noted: “The excavator of Arad assumed that the two altars (and the entire shrine) were deliberately buried for ritual reasons… The motivation for this cultic interment is debated.”

One reason suggested for this suppression may be that tel Arad holds evidence of polytheistic cultic activities and that besides the two altars at the site, there are indications that originally there were two standing stones. This reconstruction brought about the conclusion that two deities were worshiped at the shrine, and this has suggested to some researchers a divine couple. Ziony Zevit, an American scholar of biblical literature and Northwest Semitic languages and a professor at the American Jewish University, explained in The Religions of Ancient Israel: A Synthesis of Parallactic Approaches: “Evidence for the worship of more than one deity, usually in the form of redundant or paired appurtenances such as altars, stands, and steles, is indicated at the temple of Arad XI (ninth century) … My own interpretational preference for the phenomenon of ‘twoness’… is to consider it a reflection of the worship of YHWH and Asherah, lord and lady of the Israelite pantheon” (Zevit, 2001). This is a widely held view, as we can see in the World Video Bible School’s presentation on tel Arad, “A Temple to Yahweh and His Wife?“

Numerous female clay’ pillar figures’, believed by many historians to represent the Goddess Asherah, have been found throughout ancient Israel, attesting to the popularity of the Goddess with the ancient Hebrews. A number of such pillar figurines were found at the Arad Temple site. The disappearance of these figurines from the culture coincides with the cancelation and burial of the two altars at Arad, and many scholars see a solid connection here and more evidence of the suppression of a Goddess, once recognized as the wife of Yahweh, the God of the Bible.

It is worth noting that even before the discovery of cannabis resins at tel Arad, there has been the suggestion that cannabis was burned and used as a holy oil as offerings to Asherah. The poet, novelist, and historical author Robert Graves, was the first to suggest this in an article he wrote for the 1970 edition of The Atlantic:

“Taking cannabis is indeed an ancient enough practice; cannabeizein, ‘to smoke pot,’ appears in the ordinary Classical Greek dictionary. Presumably its fumes were absorbed through the pores of the skin when the cannabis itself was smoked over a low fire – the pot taker crouching over it clad only in a poncho. This at least seems to have been how the Ashera priestesses of the pre-Reformation Temple at Jerusalem impregnated their skins with the holy incense, which was mixed with other perfumes” (Graves, 1970).

Unfortunately, Graves gave no indication for the origins of this claim and I cannot find anything regarding this, beyond his statement. However, what is interesting is that Graves had a very close relationship with Rapahel Patai, Hungarian-Jewish ethnographer, historian, Orientalist and anthropologist as well as the author of The Hebrew Goddess (1967). In fact in the early 1960s the two wrote a book together, The Hebrew Myths (1964). I can find nothing indicating Patai ever wrote about such a connection,  but interestingly enough, he does seem to be acquainted with the anthropologist and etymologist we have been discussing, Sula Benet, and her with him, as she references Patai in regards to anointing rituals. 

More recently, Father Angelo Bellon op of Amici Domenicani, suggested that the use of cannabis in the tel Arad temple, was likely connected to Asherah:

“…we know that even after the Jewish occupation some signs of Canaanite divinities remained here and there, in particular of Asherah, who together with Anat and Astarte, were the Canaanite ideas of fertility. The Old Testament mentions superstitious practices, referring to the aforementioned Canaanite goddess, practices that were opposed by the civil and religious authorities. It can be understood how the priests of pagan gods, who according to St. Paul are demons (1 Cor 10:20), needed certain practices to stimulate concentration in order to get in touch with occult forces…. But this mentality and similar rituals are despised by Holy Scripture” (Bellon, 2021)

Importantly, the incense chamber at the tel Arad temple was based on the same design of the Holy of Holies in the temple built by Solomon. Asherah was worshiped in both, and this practice was later abolished with the rise of monotheistic worship, as was the burning of incense on the high places. The reforms of Josiah specifically removed the women making ritual weavings for Asherah,  from the temple in Jerusalem, and we have archaeological evidence for the use of hemp in her cult for ritual weaving. These reforms coincide with the date of tel Arad’s cancellation.

Also in league with this is the recorded use of qunnabu in ancient inscriptions in a number of related Near Eastern Goddess cults. We have already noted the use of cannabis in salves and aromatics dedicated to Ishara and Ishtar. Ishtar may have also received a cannabis infused drink offering under the epithet Beltu, as noted in Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible (1999). Inanna also seems to have had strong ties with the ritual use of cannabis. Inanna had a famous cultic temple in Eanna, and as noted “later Neo-Babylonian text records the delivery of large quantities of qunnabu [cannabis]to the great temple of Eanna” (Stein, 2009).

It is also worth noting that a later book, The Testament of Solomon, thought to date from sometime between the first and third century AD, has King Solomon, who is wise in the ways of magic, force a demon to spin hemp!  “So I commanded her to spin the hemp for the ropes used in the building of the house of God; and accordingly, when I had sealed and bound her, she was so overcome and brought to naught as to stand night and day spinning the hemp”. Archaeological evidence from that time period, does document the use of hemp rope in the Levant. 

A much later magical text attributed to Solomon, refers to a cannabis ointment to see spirits in a magic mirror. Sepher Raziel: Liber Salomonis was written in the Solomonic tradition, which also brought us the still popular The Key of Solomon, and both texts, which come from the same period, have been attributed to the ancient Hebrew King, in an attempt to give them more authority:

“The third herbe is Canabus [cannabis]& it is long in shafte & clothes be made of it. The vertue of the Juse [juice]of it is to anoynt thee with it & with the juse of arthemesy & ordyne thee before a mirrour of stele [steel]& clepe thou spiritts & thou shallt see them & thou shalt haue might of binding & of loosing deuills [devils]& other things.” (Sepher Raziel, 1564).

Check out my article Cannabis in Jewish Magic and Alchemy for more on this. 

Isaiah 43:23-24 

“I have not burdened you with offerings, or wearied you with frankincense. You have not bought me sweet kaneh with money, or satisfied me with the fat of your sacrifices. But you have burdened me with your sins; you have wearied me with your iniquities.” (Isaiah 43:23-24)

As Benet noted, “In Isaiah… ‘kaneh‘ is translated as ‘sweet cane’ although the word ‘sweet’ appears nowhere in the original. Here we can see that at this point in the kingdom period, kaneh is a desired sacrifice of Yahweh’s. In my book Cannabis: Lost Sacrament on the Ancient World (2023) I argue that the reference to ‘sins’ and ‘iniquities’ In Isaiah 43 ties it to another verse in isaiah, where a smoke filled encounter sees Yahweh’s desire for fragrant incense appeased and the burden of sins and iniquities were removed.  

“…the temple was filled with smoke…. Then one of the seraphim flew to me, and in his hand was a glowing coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And with it he touched my mouth and said: “Now that this has touched your lips, your iniquity is removed and your sin is atoned for.” (Isaiah 6:4-7)

These two accounts in Isaiah, 43:23-24 and 6:4-7, are clearly connected. In Isaiah 43:24 God complains that he was not brought any cannabis (kaneh) “but thou hast made me to serve with thy sins, thou hast wearied me with thine iniquities”. However, after Isaiah’s lips touch the tongs and a coal of incense from the altar In Isaiah 6, these are both cleansed: “this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged” (Isaiah 6:7). A redemptive act, comparable to the consumption of the later Eucharist, in the way it relieves one of the burdens of sin and iniquity, and also which clearly connects the two verses. In one verse are lifted through the use of incense, in the other God complains of being burdened by Sins and Iniquities  without an offering of kaneh. This connection follows through into the original Hebrew as well. Isaiah 6:7 and 43:24 “sin” חַטָּ֑את  chatta’ah  Strong #2403 ; Isaiah 6:7 “Iniquity” עֲוֺנֶ֔ךָ ‘ă·wō·ne·ḵā , Isaiah 43:24 plural “iniquities” בַּעֲוֺנֹתֶֽיךָ׃ ba·‘ă·wō·nō·ṯe·ḵā  Strong #5771 in both cases. 

We see both kaneh (cannabis) and frankincense together in Isaiah, both of which were recovered from the altars at tel Arad and there is a clear connection here. Both kaneh and frankincense will be found together again in the Jeremiah 6:20 reference, and as noted this was the case with the Song of Songs 4:14.

It should be noted that in Isaiah, Asherah and Incense altars are both condemned: “They will not look to the altars, the work of their hands, and they will have no regard for the Asherah poles[a]and the incense altars their fingers have made.” (Isaiah 17:8)

However, a number of scholars see this reference to Asherah in this Isaiah passage as the result of Deuteronomistic influence, this being a group of later Biblical editors, who adjusted existing Biblical texts to fit with their monotheistic view. This also seems to be wound up with both the cancellation of tel Arad, and the rejection of kaneh, which we will look at in the next verse. 

Jeremiah 6:20

“What do I care about frankincense from Sheba or sweet smelling kaneh from a distant land? Your burnt offerings are not acceptable; your sacrifices do not please me.” (Jeremiah 6:20)

The Hebrew here translated as “sweet”,  טוֹב, Transliteration ṭôḇ, has been variously translated with kaneh, as ‘sweet calamus’, ‘fragrant calamus’, ‘sweet cane’, ‘cane of sweet spices’, ‘cinnamon’ (Hebrew kinnamon, is used elsewhere for cinnamon, as in Exodus 30;23 where it appears alongside kaneh), ‘spices’, ‘Sugar cane’, ‘sweet-smelling cane’,’cane of sweet incense’ and other variations as well. Strong’s describes ṭôḇ, as  “good (361x), better (72x), well (20x), goodness (16x), goodly (9x), best (8x), merry (7x), fair (7x), prosperity (6x), precious (4x), fine (3x), wealth (3x), beautiful (2x), fairer (2x), favour (2x), glad (2x), miscellaneous (35x)”. In this context, alongside frankincense, a pleasant aroma seems to be the most likely interpretation. 

Notably here, here, kaneh appears directly with frankincense, as with tel Arad, and Isaiah. As well, as with the reference in Ezekial, kaneh, it appears as an imported item, and this is the suggestion for the cannabis at tel Arad as well. “no cannabis seeds or pollen remains are known from archaeological contexts in the Ancient Near East, as opposed to northeast China or southeast Russia, where all parts of the cannabis plant and seed were found at different archaeological sites and contexts and were dated as early as 2000 BCE (Jiang et al. 2016; Russo et al. 2008; Russo 2014). Therefore, we suggest that cannabis female inflorescences may have been imported from distant origins and were transported as dried resin (commonly known as hashish)” (Arie, et. al., 2020). 

The reference to Sheba, brings up the Queen of Sheba, famous in the Solomon tale. As we noted earlier, cannabis bred for its resinous purposes, traveled with the Scythians, from Indo-European settlements in China, into BMAC and from there on the Spice Road caravans, caring its Scythian root name kan, or kanna, along with it as a wonderwort. 

Also notably here, unlike the other references to kaneh, the herb is sourly rejected in Jeremiah. This time frame fits with the suggested cancelation of tel Arad as well, under the reigns of either King Hezekiah or his grandson King Josiah, both of whom were monotheistic reformers, who wanted to purge ‘foreign’ elements of Jewish worship from the temple sites, and centralize worship to Yahweh alone, and solely at the Main Temple in Jerusalem. Both were also particularly focussed in stamping out all elements of Asherah worship. 

As we have noted, the temple in Arad was built according to the plan of the Tabernacle described in the Bible  and consisted of three parts: the inner courtyard, the temple and the Holy of Holies. As wel, an Inscription was found at the site which read ‘The House of Yahweh’. This was all before the centralization of worship to the Jerusalem temple that took place in Josiah’s reign, so the site is seen as reflective of the ritual practices that took place in the Main Temple in Jerusalem prior to the reforms.

All of this gives us some insights into Yahweh’s rejection of kaneh though Jeremiah, and the cancelation of tel Arad. In Cannabis: Lost sacrament of the Ancient world, I suggest that Hezekiah, tired of being a vassal to the Assyrians, and wanting to centralize worship for political gain, set about on a series of purges, to rid the kingdom of competing deities, like Baal and Asherah, who were worshiped alongside Yahweh, as well as foreign influences. 

2 Kings 18:4 records how Hezekiah, “destroyed the high places. He broke the memorial stones and cut down the Asherah poles. He broke into pieces the bronze snake that Moses made, for until then the Israelites were burning incense to it. It was called Nehushtan.”

So we can see here the sort of reforms tied to tel Arad’s cancellation. With its two altars, and likelihood of originally two standing stones, along with other evidence of the combined worship of Yahweh and Asherah, and this would account for the site’s destruction and burial. Also worth noting here “the goddess [Asherah] is called ‘lady of the serpent’ in second-millennium B.C.E. inscriptions from the Sinai; the late-thirteenth-century B.C.E. Lachish ewer dedicated to Asherah is decorated with images of sacred trees” (Ackerman, 2021).

These items were removed from the Main temple in Jerusalem, and one might be reminded of certain elements of the Garden of Eden at play here, so it’s worth noting other motifs, such as the two cherubim over the altar, and the sacred trees, also appear in the Eden Myth. This has caused some speculation that the Eden myth, composed late in the Old Testament time period, and placed at the beginning by later editors, was concocted as a sort of propaganda against the earlier combined cult of Yahweh and Asherah. This is a theme that is explored in Cannabis:Lost Sacrament of the Ancient World. 

Hezekiah’s reforms here did not last long, and his son and successor Manasseh, saw the return of Asherah worship, as well as an embracement of the Assyrian rule. Manasseh is particularly mentioned in Assyrian records  as a contemporary and loyal vassal of Sennacherib’s son and successor, Esarhaddon. Earlier we discussed the Assyrian king Esarhaddon, for references to the use of qunnabu, cannabis, in Assyrian ‘sacred rites’. We also find a references to qunnabu in the Library of his son Ashurbanipal. Ashurbanipal  appears in the Bible, as does his Father Esarhaddon.

Dr. Raphael Mechoulam, who discovered THC,  has suggested that it was likely in this time period a ban on cannabis was instilled:

“ [The]Assyrians were one of the major military powers in the area for hundreds of years and their influence was powerful… [t]he Assyrians employed cannabis, apparently quite extensively. The contacts between the Jews and the Assyrians were prolonged and wide. During certain historical periods the trade of Judea depended on Assyria; the cultural-religious impact of the Nineveh court and temples penetrated not only the royal and priestly class in Jerusalem but also the lower classes. Gradually in the 7th century B.C. even the Assyrian cult of heavenly constellations was adopted; the ancient forms of augury were revived; in the Temple itself an image of the Assyrian”queen of heaven” was erected; within the Temple young women offered their bodies in honor of the deity. During the reigns of the Assyrian kings Esarhaddon (681-669 B.C.) and Ashurbanipal (669-626 B.C.), the Jewish King Manasseh, who was their vassal, fought beside them in their wars with Egypt and probably also in Transjordan in order to secure the commercial roads for drugs and spices. The influence of the kings of Nineveh (“the bloody city, full of lies and robbery”) in Judea was immense. It can be assumed that under these conditions Assyrian medicine and drugs were known and used, at least among the ruling class.”

“After the death of Ashurbanipal the decadent and hedonistic kingdom of Assyria swiftly disappeared from history. The Jew- ish King Josiah (628 B.Cn.) is known to have taken advantage of the Assyrian decay to remove vigorously all pagan influence from Jewish life and religious customs. Hashish, presumably a symbol of Assyrian moralaxity, would have been banned. This is, of course, an assumption but it fits the historical background, the insular character of the Jews at the time, and the needs of the independent Judaean state” (Mechoulam, 1986).

Mechoulam here writing at a time when the view that Asherah was paired with Yahweh was less known and accepted. Ishtar, the “Queen of Heaven” in Assyria, was the semitic Asherah’s regional counterpart. But otherwise Mechoulam was spot on in relation to what we know about the temple of tel Arad. 

Josiah, the great grandson of Hezekiah, made his own attempt at purges and reforms aimed at a political and spiritual consolidation of the Kingdom, all of which took place during Jeremiah’s reign, and fitting with the rejection of kaneh and frankincense in Jeremiah 6:20. 

As the story goes, during Josiah’s reign, renovations were taking place at the temple built by Solomon, a king who worshiped the Goddess and burnt incense to her, a book was ‘discovered’ that was written by Moses, whose ‘brazen serpent’ was destroyed in Hezekiah’s reforms because the people were ‘burning incense’ to it. This tome is referred to as the Second Book of the Law, and is believed to be contained in large parts of Deuteronomy. It’s alleged ‘discovery’ is described in 2 Kings 22. 

By the style of writing in Deuteronomy, Biblical scholars have placed the text at a much later date of composition than that of Moses. In Understanding the Old Testament, Bernhard Anderson explains: “This new literary style, found in the Deuteronomic literature and the prose sections of Jeremiah, seems to have been characteristic of the late seventh and early sixth centuries B.C.”(Anderson 1975). The very time of the alleged “discovery.” Anderson suggests that the Book of the Law was written by an anonymous author in the seventh century who put his own words in the mouth of Moses; although he also felt that the work was “not a complete literary fiction …. [and]is essentially a revival of Mosaic teachings as it was understood in the seventh century B.C.” (Anderson 1975).

Other scholars have been far more hard-hitting in their comments upon this so-called ‘discovery’ suggesting that it was a forgery created by a Jerusalem lawyer and produced by a priest of the temple, an act committed by the ‘Yahweh alone’ Hebrew priesthood in hope of eradicating the competing cults and their deities, which were competing for sacrifices from the people with the Temple of Yahweh.

As the authors of the exhaustive The Columbia History of the World explained of this event:

“Sometime about 630, when Assyria was losing her grip, a lawyer in Jerusalem produced a new code as a program for future reforms, including the prohibition of the worship of gods other than Yahweh, and relief of the poor. He drew on older ‘Yahweh alone’ traditions, common usage, and ancient taboos, but his work was organized by his own thought, replete with his own invention, and cast with his own style. He represented it as ‘the law of Yahweh’ and – probably – as the work of Moses, and he arranged to have it ‘found’  by the high priest in the Jerusalem temple in 621. It was taken to king Josiah…. Most of it is now preserved, with minor interpolations, in chapters 12-26 and 28 of Deuteronomy.” (Garraty & Gay, 1981).

For a better understanding of all this see Dan McClellan’s video Why Do Scholars Date Deuteronomy to the Reign of Josiah? 

Most notable of the many effects rendered by the book’s supposed “discovery” was Josiah’s murderous purge of the cults of the high places. The book of Deuteronomy is explicit in its instructions of how best to deal with all the religious worship going on in Judah, other than the centralized worship of Yahweh in the temple in Jerusalem: 

“Destroy completely all the places on the high mountains and on the hills and under every spreading tree where the nations you are dispossessing worship their gods. Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and burn their Asherah poles in the fire, cut down the idols of their gods and wipe out their names from those places” (Deuteronomy 12:2-3).

King Josiah took immediate action obeying completely the severe dictates of the law and went about the land removing the altars of the various gods and goddesses being worshiped by the Israelites. The text goes into some detail concerning the violence unleashed by the king, beginning with reforms in the Temple of Jerusalem itself, the home of much pagan worship and where ironically the “lost” book of the law was found. It is from the Biblical description of Josiah’s reform that we receive a clearer idea of what the actual religion of the Judaic peoples was like:

“And the king commanded Hilkiah high priest … to bring forth out of the Temple of the Lord all the vessels that were made for Baal and for Ashera, and for all the hosts of heaven. He burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields … and took the ashes to Beth-El. He did away with the pagan priests appointed by the kings of Judah to burn incense on the high places of the towns of Judah and on those around Jerusalem–those who burned incense to Baal, to the sun and the moon, to the constellations of the starry hosts. He took the Asherah pole from the temple of the Lord to the Kidron Valley outside Jerusalem and burned it there. He ground it to powder and scattered the dust over the graves of the common people. He also tore down the quarters of the male shrine-prostitutes which were in the temple of the Lord and where woman did weaving for Asherah.

Josiah brought all the priests from the towns of Judah and desecrated the high places, from Geba to Beersheba, where the priests had burned incense. He broke down the shrines at the … Gate of Joshua…

He pulled down the altars the kings of Judah had erected on the roof near the upper room of Ahaz, and the altars Manasseh had built in the two courts of the temple of the Lord…. The king also desecrated the high places that were east of Jerusalem on the south of the hill of Corruption – the ones Solomon the king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the vile goddess of the Sidonians, for Chemosh the vile god of Moab, and for Molech the detest- able god of … Ammon. Josiah smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Ashera poles and covered the site with human bones.

Even at the altar of Beth-El, the high places made by Jeroboam … who caused Israel to sin – even that altar and high place he demolished. He burned the high place and ground it to powder, and burned the Asherah pole also. Then Josiah looked around when he saw the tombs that were on the hill side, he had the bones removed from them and burned on the altar to defile it…

Just as he had done in Beth-El, Josiah removed and defiled all the shrines at the high places that the kings of Israel had built in the towns of Samaria that had provoked the Lord to anger. Josiah slaughtered all the priests of those high places on the altars and burned human bones on them (2 Kings 23:4-20).

 

The worship of Asherah was popular with the people, but opposed by a faction of kings and prophets in Jerusalem who were devoted exclusively to Yahweh at the First temple in Jerusalem. Most people didn’t actually worship at the temple, it was reserved for elites and royals. The general population worshiped in small community shrines, or at a site like that at tel Arad. During periods when they held power, this Royal cabal sought to abolish the worship of other deities, particularly Asherah. From the Hebrew Bible narrative we see that for centuries the statue of Asherah was repeatedly removed and reinstalled in the temple of Solomon who himself burnt incense to the Goddess. Regardless of this violent opposition, the murder of her priests and priestesses, and the destruction of her cultic sites and icons, even in the Biblical account, Asherah’s image stood in the temple for 236 years, nearly two-thirds of the time that the temple stood in Jerusalem.

Despite these monotheistic reforms, Israel fell to Babylon, and many Israelites were displaced and ended up in foreign lands. It was at this point that the Prophet Jeremiah, who himself narrowly escaped persecution from both sides, as many from Jerusalem viewed him as a traitor, found himself in Egypt. There Jeremiah confronted fellow refugees from Jerusalem, and he directly blamed them for its fall through the Lord’s anger over “burning incense to the Queen of Heaven”.

Jeremiah 44: Disaster Because of Idolatry

 This word came to Jeremiah concerning all the Jews living in …Egypt… This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: You saw the great disaster I brought on Jerusalem and on all the towns of Judah. Today they lie deserted and in ruins  because of the evil they have done. They aroused my anger by burning incense to and worshiping other gods… Again and again I sent my servants the prophets, who said, ‘Do not do this detestable thing that I hate!’  But they did not listen or pay attention; they did not turn from their wickedness or stop burning incense to other gods. Therefore, my fierce anger was poured out; it raged against the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem and made them the desolate ruins they are today.

“Now this is what the Lord God Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Why bring such great disaster on yourselves by cutting off from Judah the men and women, the children and infants, and so leave yourselves without a remnant?  Why arouse my anger with what your hands have made, burning incense to other gods in Egypt, where you have come to live? You will destroy yourselves and make yourselves a curse and an object of reproach among all the nations on earth. Have you forgotten the wickedness committed by your ancestors and by the kings and queens of Judah and the wickedness committed by you and your wives in the land of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem? To this day they have not humbled themselves or shown reverence, nor have they followed my law and the decrees I set before you and your ancestors.

….Then all the men who knew that their wives were burning incense to other gods, along with all the women who were present—a large assembly—and all the people living in Lower and Upper Egypt, said to Jeremiah,  “We will not listen to the message you have spoken to us in the name of the Lord! We will certainly do everything we said we would: We will burn incense to the Queen of Heaven and will pour out drink offerings to her just as we and our ancestors, our kings and our officials did in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. At that time we had plenty of food and were well off and suffered no harm. But ever since we stopped burning incense to the Queen of Heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have had nothing and have been perishing by sword and famine.”

The women added, “When we burned incense to the Queen of Heaven and poured out drink offerings to her, did not our husbands know that we were making cakes impressed with her image and pouring out drink offerings to her?”

Then Jeremiah said to all the people, including the women, “Hear the word of the Lord, all you people of Judah in Egypt. This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: You and your wives have done what you said you would do when you promised, ‘We will certainly carry out the vows we made to burn incense and pour out drink offerings to the Queen of Heaven.’

“Go ahead then, do what you promised! Keep your vows! 26 But hear the word of the Lord, all you Jews living in Egypt: ‘I swear by my great name,’ says the Lord, ‘that no one from Judah living anywhere in Egypt will ever again invoke my name or swear, “As surely as the Sovereign Lord lives.”  For I am watching over them for harm, not for good; the Jews in Egypt will perish by sword and famine until they are all destroyed. (Jeremiah 44)

So we can see here, the direct condemnation of the burning of Incense to Asherah, the ‘Queen of Heaven’. As references to pouring out cannabis beer offerings occur in honour to Asherah’s Assyrian counterpart Ishtar, this seems likely the case here as well. 

In a Sourcebook for Ancient Mesopotamian Medicine (2014) JoAnn Scurlock records a recipe that requires 3 shekels of qunnabu [cannabis]to be mixed with other aromatic plants “a total of 26 shekels of aromatics in a mortar. You wash raisins in date beer. You take (them) out and mix these aromatics into them. You pour white (beer) onto it and then it is sealed for three days. On the fourth (!) day, you open (it) and pour out a libation to Beltu (before use).” ‘Beltu’ is not really a name but an epithet (‘Lady’). “The goddess to have been designated most frequently by this epithet, both in Summerian… and Akkadian… is no doubt Ishtar” (Becking & van der Horst, 1999).  

So here we see a scenario for kaneh that fits completely with the cancellation of tel Arad and the rejection of these same elements in Jeremiah, where kaneh and frankincense are refused as an offering and the burning of incense to the Queen of Heaven is flatly condemned. 

Ezekiel 27:19

“…and casks of wine from Uzal they exchanged for your wares; wrought iron, cassia, and kaneh were bartered for your merchandise.” (Ezeliel 27:19)

This verse is often translated with adjectives like ‘sweet’, ‘aromatic’, ‘fragrant’, before kaneh, which is translated as ‘cane’, ‘reeds’ and ‘calamus’. Even ‘sugar cane’ has been used. 

Ezekiel 27 describes kaneh arriving in on trade caravans, as we know cannabis resins arrived at the trading outpost of tel Arad. As the authors of the initial report on the altars at tel Arad noted “since there are no known cannabis seeds or pollen remains in archaeological sites in the Ancient Near East, the cannabis was likely imported in hashish form” (Arie, et. al. 2000)

 Ezekiel was living in Babylon, after the fall of Jerusalem, when he had his famous vision. A number of researchers have pointed to Ezekiel’s eating of a scroll, and the vision he received as some sort of entheogenic rite. The ingestion here occurs just before the prophet’s famous vision of a “wheel within a wheel”. Ezekiel 3 describes this shamanistic scenario perfectly, as well as describing the ingestion of the unknown entheogen to initiate the shamanistic flight. The ancient prophet tells us that the Lord told him:

Son of man, eat what is before you, eat this scroll; then go and speak to the house of Israel.” So I opened my mouth and he gave me the scroll to eat…. So I ate it, and it tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth…. Then the Spirit lifted me up, and I heard behind me a loud rumbling sound – May the glory of the Lord be praised in his dwelling-place! – the sound of the wings of the living creatures brushing against each other and the sound of the wheels beside them, a loud rumbling sound. The Spirit then lifted me up and took me away… (Ezekiel 3:4-14).

The account in Ezekiel is among those suggested by Dr. C. Creighton in 1903, as evidence of hashish use in the Hebrew Bible. Creighton believed that cannabis dipped in honey was a “secret vice” of the Hebrew Temple and Palace, and was evidence of a polluting foreign influence. Referring to Creighton’s research, Harvard Medical School Professor, Dr. Lester Grinspoon commented that the account in Ezekiel “does sound like a description of an intense cannabis intoxication – an almost psychedelic experience” (Grinspoon 1971).

As with Jeremiah’s account that the Lord burned with anger over the burning of incense, Ezekiel’s vision is written to include similar condemnations. The Prophet is shuttled in spirit to Jerusalem to witness the idolatry that had been taking place there. Ezekiel is shown the “idol that provokes jealousy,” this has been generally viewed as an Asherah image placed near the altar. As well, Yahweh’s anger burns at seeing “men of the ancients of the house of Israel” worshiping other deities in the confines of the House of the Lord in Jerusalem “with every man his censer in his hand; and a thick cloud of incense went up” (Ezekiel 8:11). Ezekiel then condemns a pagan rite performed in the Temple, where the participants were “putting the branch to their nose” (Ezekiel 8:17). This is another possible reference to the inhaling of the smoke from burning the branches of cannabis.

Kaneh in relation to tel Arad and the Assyrian qunnabu

Dan McClellan only considered the single reference from Exodus 30:23 when dismissing Sula Benet’s hypothesis. When all 5 references referred to by Benet the association with the cannabis resins on the altar at tel Arad, and the connection to the Akkadian qunnabu are made much clearer. 

As we have seen, kaneh does fit with the Scythian and other IE roots that it could have traveled on caravans with, kan or kanna which Benet noted as a root word for cannabis in many languages. This research has been concurred by other sources as well. 

   In some cases, as Sula Benet noted, kaneh does indicate “reed”, and this may have a Semitic origin. It is possible that when the cannabis arrived on the caravan as kanna, or close variations of the Indo-European root word, it was adapted and combined with an existing semitic word. We can see this sort of adoption with the generic ‘grass’ in our modern usage, and the term ‘hashish’ as well is generally thought to come from a word that meant ‘herb’, and used here in regards to cannabis as ‘the herb’.

By only focussing on the Exodus reference to kaneh bosm, and ignoring the other references to kaneh pointed to by Benet and others as, distinct specific accounts of a specific plant, rather than as the generic reed, McClellaln dismisses a connection to tel Arad. Dan’s view that one was a topical preparation and the others as an incense, comes only through the dismissal of the other references Benet referred to. Benet herself clearly indicated booth topical and Incense references to be found when looking at all 5 references.

The Exodus 30:23 reference, gives us indications that this was a cannabis oil or resin product, as was the cannabis used at tel Arad. The Akkadian qunnabu is believed to have a cannabis oil or hashish, like the Hebrew anointing oil, we also know that cannabis was used topically in Assyria in religious rituals. 

Song of Songs 4:14 identifies cannabis in a list of spices, which includes frankincense. It has been suggested by numerous scholars, that the Songs were a remnant of the Hieros Gamos, or Sacred Marriage. Archaeological evidence has confirmed the presence of a Hebrew Goddess, Asherah, in Israel during the Kingdom period. In the Bible Solomon was accused of burning incense on high and worshiping the Goddess. The temple of tel Arad sits high upon a hill, and is known for its evidence of the combined worship of Yahweh and Asherah, as well as its two altars for frankincense. Moreover the temple at tel Arad, is built upon the design of Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem. As well, references to qunnabu identify the use of cannabis in other regional representations of the Goddess, such as Ishtar, Inanna, Ishara and others. 

Isaiah 43:24, gives us a direct combination of kaneh and frankincense as an offering to Yahweh, identifiable with the cannabis resins and frankincense found on the two altars at tel Arad. Yahweh burns with anger for being burdened with ‘sins’ and ‘iniquities’ with no offering of kaneh and frankincense.  Connections with Isaiah 6, and the smoke filled inner chamber, indicates such ‘sins’ and ‘iniquities’ were lifted with incense offerings and this gave the prophet the power to speak for Yahweh. We see similar ritual use of qunnabu in Assyrian and Babylonian temples. 

Jeremiah 6:20 again gives us kaneh in direct company of frankincense, as with the cannabis resins at tel Arad. Here it is rejected, and this happens in the same time period as tel Arad’s cancellation. In both cases, it seems this was connected with the suppression of the Goddess Asherah. Jeremiah 44 specifically blames the fall of Jerusalem as being caused by the Lord’s anger of ‘burning incense to the Queen of Heaven’. 

As well Jeremiah identifies kaneh as coming from a foreign land, as was the case of the cannabis resins at tel Arad. 

Ezekiel 27:19 identifies cannabis as coming in via trade routes, as with the cannabis at tel Arad. 

Mishnic Kannabus 

McClellan noted that “it’s unclear the direction of influence if Hebrew is supposed to have borrowed the word as qaneh, but then incidentally combined it with bosem to later be fused into qanebosm and then reduced to qanebos, to then incidentally aligned it with all of the other languages that already had the bilabial stop deriving from the PIE root”.

As we have seen, the word qaneh/kaneh likely came in via the Scythians, and they did not have the bilabial stop *b or *p. The word bosem was likely used as an adjective, possibly to define a prepared resin form of the plant, as qunnubu did in Akkadian

McClellan stated in our correspondence in regards to the Mishnic term, “It makes much better sense that the postbiblical Hebrew qanebos derives from the Greek form kannebis. It also makes more sense that the phonemic similarities of qanebos and qaneh-bosem are incidental.” 

Does it though? I don’t think so. It is unclear when the Greek form came into play or where it came from. It is only by association the term is believed to have come from the Scythians due to its initial use in Herodotus discussion of Scythian use in funerary rites. Some scholars, as we have seen, have suggested the Greek term is a component, with kanna meaning ‘reed’ or ‘cane’ and bis likely identifying ‘two’. This fits with the suggestion that the Hebrew kaneh became a component, likely with bosem which as likely with the Akkadian qunnabu, likely to identify hashish, or cannabis oil, as the Akkadian Dictionary suggests, with a separate word qunnabtu the whole plant, and the component qunna likely developed phonetically from the Akkadian qanu – reed. 

Note, there are no claims that qunubu was an adoption of the Greek term kannabis, as is the case for the later term kanabos of the Mishnah. These Mesopotamian references occur a few centuries prior to the Greek account of ‘kannabis’ in Herodotus. Considering the cognate similarity between qunubu and qaneh bosem, there is no real reason to see the Mishnic kanabos, as a Greek adoption, but rather the phonetic continuation of these earlier Near Eastern terms. Indeed, a case could be made for an adoption of the Greek kannabis from these Near Eastern terms, rather than directly through the Scythian language.

Moreover, as we know from tel Arad and other archaeological sites the Hebrews were well familiar with cannabis, if the name for the plant was not kaneh and kaneh bosem, there would have been an existing Hebrew word that Greek Kannabis replaced if that was the case. So the question for McClellan becomes, what Hebrew word was used for cannabis and why was it replaced? Where is the discussion of this and where is the data to support that hypothesis on that? 

It makes much more sense that the Hebrew term kaneh bosem likely came to be used more, to differentiate it from the more generic term kaneh, which had the double meaning of ‘reed’ and ‘cannabis’ and this fused into the Mishnic Kannebus, over the intervening centuries. Consider how different English was a few centuries prior to our own time, and it’s easy to see how such fusions can take place in language.

“Evolution of the English language includes a process called univerbation (yes, that’s really a word), the combination of a fixed expression of two or more words into a single word. It’s how two nouns are transformed into a closed compound such as lightbulb, or how a phrase such as ‘forget me not’ coalesces into a noun such as forget-me-not, to represent something new. It’s how phrases like ‘young urban professional’ are abbreviated to words such as yuppie….” – FORMAL FUSED WORDS

Such univerbations, which also happened in the Hebrew language, can also include reductions, leading from the more ancient kaneh bosem, to the Mishnic  Kanehbos centuries later,. This makes more sense than a foreign word, replacing an existing Hebrew word, with no comment, or indication of such. We noted that the modern term Cannabis, likely arose from such a univerbation of the Greek Kanna – ‘cane’ and Bis – ‘two’ as with other regional variations of the term in the ancient world. 

Calamus and other candidates

McClellan not only ignored what Benet wrote about kaneh, and the evidence I supplied that collaborated with her view, he never addressed what botanical candidate was indicated in the specific references, and it is clearly referring to a specific plant, not a generic ‘reed’, as per the specified other ingredients in Exodus 30:23.

Calamus, has been the main suggestion, ever since the Septuagint. 

We mentioned earlier that the beginning of the Greek word for Cannabis,  κάνναβις, – κάννα, means reed. However this is not the only Greek word that identifies reed, there is also “κάλαμος” (kalamos) “a reed”. The specific name calamus is derived from Greek κάλαμος (kálamos, meaning “reed”). Kálamos was used in translating kaneh, and this has led to the translation of ‘calamus’ in many modern translations of the Bible. 

Calamus is a common marsh reed, it grows in the Levant so not needed to be imported, and it has little of the value ascribed to kaneh in the references we have been discussing. There is also no reference to its use as an aromatic in the Akkadian literature. (However, the Akkadian word for calamus, qan tuppi begins with qan, so it seems like this is another Akkadian designation that originated with a word for reed, as I have suggested for qannabu.)

Calamus is also believed to be psychoactive but can be toxic and carcinogenic, so it brings its own baggage, when identified with the Biblical passages. The book The Anointed Ones (2011) by Dr. Michael Albert-Puleo M.D. asks “Was a psychedelic drug the Key to the Kingdom for early Christians?… ‘The Messiah Medicine’, a special ointment applied to the skin of one who forever after would be known as ‘The Anointed One’…  the result of this anointing was the ability to prophesy, see visions, and dream dreams. The formula is found in Exodus. It contained… calamus root… [which]produces LSD-like effects” (Albert-Pueblo, 2011). 

Few Hebrew sources see kaneh bosem identified with calamus. Among Jewish authorities, there are various views on what botanical species the terms kaneh and kaneh bosm identify, and suggestions range from cinnamon bark, sugarcane, lemon grass, ginger grass, camel grass, fennel and others, with an increasing number acknowledging the suggestion of cannabis.

McClellan picks no candidate, for the specific references to kaneh or kaneh bosem. 

In his closing comments in our correspondence McClellan wrote: “ I’m not suggesting the hypothesis is disproven, but the argument as I understand it is not strong. I think there would need to be a lot more direct engagement with the longstanding consensus view of the etymological relationships of qaneh and qanû, as well as the direction of influence from PIE and IE languages, particularly related to the bilabial b/p stop that is spread far and wide before the fused form in Hebrew would have been able to influence things.”

McClellan’s comments here, are constructive, and in answering to his criticisms in this article, the case for kaneh and kaneh bosem as ‘cannabis’ has been strengthened imensley.

I think I have adequately addressed McClellan’s points here, the indications are that the Scythian root ‘kan or ‘kanna’ were adopted as words for cannabis, in Hebrew. Possibly, due to a similar existing term for ‘reed’ or ‘cane’ in Hebrew, the two were combined, and could be used either way, as with the modern terms ‘grass’ and ‘herb’. To distinguish it, bosem may have been added as an adjective, and over a few centuries fused into the kannabus of Mishnic times. Likewise in Assyria and other places, the generic term for reed, seems to have been distinguished by an additional component, and as we have seen, this is also a long standing suggestion for the Greek term Kannabis. 

The Messiah

As former Rabbi, and Times of Israel blogger Michoel Green has noted in his article Cannabis and the joys of biblical Hebrew!:

“As modern science rediscovers the ancient benefits of cannabis, could it be that this rediscovery is a harbinger of another awesome rediscovery that is yet to come in the imminent future, that of the sacred anointing oil? This holy oil that Moses made, the “שמן משחת קודש,” has been in hiding since the days of King Yoshiyahu in circa 445 BCE (see Talmud, Horayot 11b, Mishneh Torah, Laws of Beit Habechira 4:1), along with the Holy Ark and several other sacred items, which are destined to be rediscovered in the time of the Future Redemption. If cannabis is indeed the ingredient referred to as קנה בשם, ‘KaNeH BoSeM,’ the pungent stalk listed in Exodus 30:23, the resurgence of cannabis in contemporary times would be a most fitting prelude to the discovery of the ancient oil that stores the fragrance of that original KaNeh BoSeM that Moses prepared 3,330 years ago!” (Green, 2019)

In Hebrew, the one who received the anointing, is known as the Messiah, Hebrew: מָשִׁיחַ, Mashiach, and this means ‘The anointed one’, who received the specific unction in Exodus 30:23 we have been discussing. “In Old Testament times, prophets, priests, and kings were anointed by oil when they were set apart for these positions of responsibility. The anointing was a sign that God had chosen them and consecrated them for the work He had given them to do” (Bibleinfo).

Earlier we looked at events that took place after Samuel anoints Israel’s first king, Saul, which indicated a psycho-active component in the holy oil used. Clearly some sort of potent effect was garnered from the oil Samuel administered to Saul. Similar effects are indicated in other Old Testament references as well: “And Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed (mashach) him in the midst of his brothers. And the Spirit of the Yahweh came upon David from the day forward” (1 Samuel 16.13).”The Spirit of Yahweh God is upon me, because Yahweh has anointed me” (Isaiah 61:1).

The Greek equivalent of Messiah is the word Christos or, in English, ‘Christ’. The name “Jesus Christ” is the same as “Jesus the Messiah.” In biblical times, anointing someone with the holy oil was a sign that God was consecrating or setting apart that person for a particular role. Thus, an “anointed one” was someone with a special, God-ordained purpose. For this reason, the Holy oil of Exodus 30:23 was strictly limited to High Priests and later kings. 

The meaning of ‘Christ’

Dan addresses claims about the meaning of ‘Christ’ made by the controversial scholar Amon Hillman, in his stitch video Does “Christ” mean to use drugs to enter a trance?  and again when he is on podcaster Danny Jones show, Bible Scholar Responds to Ammon Hillman: Was Jesus Christ a Trafficker? . 

Amon Hillman has been getting a lot of attention as of late. Hillman’s controversial claim that the Greek Septuagint was the Original Hebrew Bible, or Old Testament, and not the Hebrew Tanakh, is being widely rejected by scholars, but embraced by his steadily increasing fan base, which has attained ‘cult’ status according to some. This is another topic McClellan has responded to. 

In a stitch McClellan responded to Hillman’s claim that the Greek word for ‘Christ’ means “to apply a drug to your eye’s so that they may be open” as well as that in Greek texts, the term can refer to the sting of a gadfly. McClellan calls these claims “pure and utter nonsense” and he states the actual meaning of the term can “mean more than one thing, overwhelmingly it refers to rubbing with some kind of sticky fluid of some kind, either after bathing or for some kind of ritual purpose… to anoint, the Anointed, anointing” is the general use of the term. Although, McClellan acknowledgesthe term can refer to the sting of a gadfly in Greek medical texts and lyrical poetry. McClellan notes that this Greek usage relates nothing to the context of the use of the term in a Jewish or Christian context, which is based on the references to Messiah in the Hebrew Bible. The Hebrew for Messiah, is translate as ‘Christ’ in the Septuagint (Isaiah 45:1). It is worth noting here, that in Hillman’s radical and largely contested view, the Septuagint is the original and the Tanakh a translation from Greek into Hebrew, so this”Christ” in Isaiah 45:1 is seen by him as the original, and the Hebrew for messiah, as the translation. . (For this same reason, Hillman sees kaneh and kaneh bosem as ‘calamus’). 

The sting of a gadfly, was seen as causing a sort of divine madness by the ancient Greeks, and Hillman equates this with the effects of anointing drugs producing a “state of mania’… to be in an altered state”. One is reminded here of the ecstatic state Saul received after his anointing by Samuel. McClellan takes this quite literally, as an actual Gadfly sting, and points out there is no context for that meaning in the Biblical texts. McClellan notes that ‘Christ’, is used as  a translation of the Hebrew ‘Messiah’, (mashach), “which means to smear or rub with oil”  which has no connection to ‘gadfly’. Thus in the Bible, the Greek ‘Christos” refers to ‘anointing’, ‘anoint’ and ‘anointed’, but not ‘gadfly’. 

In response to Ammon’s claim ‘Christ’ means ‘to apply drugs’, McClellan states that “I have yet to see a single piece of evidence actually from Christian literature to indicate that its ever being used in anything approximating the way he’s describing it” (McClellan, 2024). McClellan points this out in regards to claims about both psychoactivity and medical effects in Greek texts, reflecting practices or use of the term ‘Christ’ in the Biblical sense. As McClellan states, “that’s where I’d like to see evidence from the Bible… show me a text from early Judaism or early Christianity that uses the word this way, just because it is used that way in other texts, does not mean that” (McClellan, 2024).

In regards to examples, as Dan often says in his stitch videos, ‘Let’s see it’.  Let’s look at some Christ anointing references to see if they could indicate something with both medical and entheogenic effects…. . 

The Healing Oil

Although anointing with oil is a little practiced rite of modern Christianity, at one time it was paramount to becoming a Christian. For the most part, baptism has replaced anointing in modern Christianity and this dates back to the rise of the Catholic Church. It is worth noting in this context, that Jesus baptized none of his disciples in the New Testament account, but instead, in the oldest of the synoptic gospels, Mark, Jesus sent out the Apostles with this Holy Oil, “And they cast out many devils, and anointed with oil many that were sick, and healed them” (Mark 6:13). Casting out “many demons” could mean things like treating epilepsy, which was thought to have been demonic possession. There are Assyrian references that are believed to indicate the use of cannabis to treat ‘hand of ghost’ which was believed to be epilepsy. As well, the alchemist Paracelsus (died 1541) left us a recipe for a topical preparation of cannabis to treat epilepsy. Even today, parents who see their children’s epilepsy treated successfully with cannabis, see it as a miracle. 

Jesus used a poultice to cure a man’s blindness (Mark 8:22–26) so the idea that more than a mere laying of hands is used in other so-called ‘miracles’ is not without question. Many of the ailments cured in the Gospel, are ailments that have been historically treated by cannabis, skin diseases, crooked limbs, menstrual problems etc. 

We get a better idea when we look at early Christian texts that were left out of, and even suppressed from the official canon of the New Testament, as the Roman Catholic Church emerged as one of the sole bastions of Christianity. The later 4th century Christian text The Acts of Peter and the Twelve Apostles is written to demonstrate Jesus’ own view of the importance of this rite in healing, when he gives the disciples an “unguent box” and a “pouch full of medicine” with instructions to go into the City of Habitation, and heal the sick. He tells them you must heal “the bodies first” before you can “heal the heart”. The 3rd century The Acts of Thomas, gives us a prayer  to go with the holy oil’s application:

 “…[T]he holy Apostle… the oil, and cast (it) on her head, and said: “Holy oil, which wast given to us for unction, and hidden mystery of the Cross, which is seen through it—Thou, the straightener of crooked limbs, Thou, our Lord Jesus, life and health and remission of sins,—let Thy power come and abide upon this oil, and let Thy holiness dwell in it. And he cast (it) upon the head of Mygdonia, and said: ‘Heal her of her old wounds, and wash away from her, her sores, and strengthen her weakness.’ And when he had cast the oil on her head, he told her nurse to anoint her…”

The idea that Jesus may have used a healing cannabis ointment, has garnered international media attention, in reputable news sources like the BBC, The Guardian, The Washington Post, Vice, and other media. Check out my article Did Jesus Heal With Cannabis? For more on that theme. 

The Oil of the Spirit

As well, the New Testament gives us some indications that this same Holy oil, may have been used for entheogenic purposes. “. . . you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth. . . . the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit – just as it has taught you, remain in him.” (1 John 2: 27). So just the application of this oil, gave some sort of experience, ‘a teaching’. 

Through this open distribution the singular Christ, “the Anointed”, was extended to become the plural term “Christians”, that is, those who had been smeared or anointed with the holy oil. This was an important point in Christianity of the first few centuries. After water baptism, “We are thoroughly anointed with a blessed unction, (a practice derived), from the old discipline, wherein on entering the priesthood, then were wont to be anointed with oil from a horn, ever since Aaron was anointed by Moses. Whence Aaron is called ‘Christ’” Tertullian of Carthage ‘On Baptism’ (160 – 225 AD).  As Theophilus of Antioch (181AD) proclaimed “Are you unwilling to be anointed with the Oil of God? Wherefore we are called Christians on this account, because we are anointed with the oil of God.” “[T]he oil as a sign of the gift of the Spirit was quite natural within a Semitic framework, and therefore the ceremony is probably very early…. In time the biblical meaning became obscured”(Chadwick 1967).

Gnostic texts

Although there is some evidence of early Christian use of this Judaic cannabis oil in the traditional New Testament, we get a clearer picture of its importance when we also look at surviving Christian Gnostic documents. For the first four hundred years after Jesus’ birth, the term “Christian” was used to describe a wide variety of sects and a large volume of different documents. Through the acceptance of one of the more ascetic branches of Christianity by the Roman ruling class, Christianity eventually became the state religion of its former persecutors. In an effort to unify the faith into a controllable mass, the newly formed Roman Catholic Church held a number of councils. These councils prohibited not only pagans, but also differing Christian sects, and in the 4th century edited a wealth of Christian literature down to the few meager documents which have survived as the modern New Testament. 

The term Gnostic, meaning “knowledge”, is a blanket term that refers to a variety of early Jewish and Christian sects which had extremely different beliefs about Judaism, as well as Jesus and his teachings, than those which have come down to us through modern Christianity and the New Testament. From sect too sect, there was some variation to Gnostic belief, although there are some wider commonalities. 

These groups were in deep conflict with what would become the Roman Catholic Church, and baptism vs anointing was a point of specific contention. In an attempt to save their manuscripts from the editorial flames of the Roman Catholic Church, certain Christians, now considered Gnostic heretics, hid copies of their scrolls in caves. One of these ancient hiding places was rediscovered in upper Egypt in1945 and the large collection of early Christian documents was named the Nag Hammadi Library, after the Egyptian area where they were found. Prior to this discovery, what little was known of the Gnostics came from a few fragmentary texts that had made it down through the centuries in private hands, and the many polemics written against them by the fathers of the Catholic Church.There is no reason to consider these ancient Gnostic documents as less accurate portrayals of the life and teachings of Jesus than the New Testament accounts, unless it is might over right. 

Gnostic Christian ‘Anointing’ 

Gnostic descriptions of the effects of the anointing rite make it very clear that the holy oil had intense psychoactive properties, which prepared the recipient for entrance into “unfading bliss”. In some Gnostic texts like the Pistis Sophia and The Books of Jeu, the “spiritual ointment” is a prerequisite for entry into the highest mystery.

In the first few centuries AD, Christian Gnostic groups such as the Archontics, Valentians and Sethians rejected water baptism as superfluous, referring to it as an “incomplete baptism”. In the Gnostic tractate, “the Testimony of Truth, water Baptism is rejected with a reference to the fact that Jesus baptized none of his disciples (Rudolph 1987). On the other hand, being “anointed with unutterable anointings” the so-called “sealings” recorded in Gnostic texts, can be seen as a far more literal event, than the many metaphorical baptisms that are referred to. “There is water in water, there is fire in chrism.” (Gospel of Philip). “The anointing with oil was the introduction of the candidate into unfading bliss, thus becoming a Christ”(Mead 1900).  The surviving Gnostic descriptions of the effects of the anointing rite make it very clear that the holy oil had intense psycho-active properties that prepared the recipient for entrance into “unfading bliss”.

In the Gospel of Philip it is written that the initiates of the empty rite of Baptism:

“go down into the water and come up without having received anything. . . The anointing (chrisma) is superior to baptism. For from the anointing we were called ‘anointed ones’ (Christians), not because of the baptism. And Christ also was [so]named because of the anointing, for the Father anointed the son, and the son anointed the apostles, and the apostles anointed us. [Therefore] he who has been anointed has the All. He has the resurrection, the light. . . the Holy Spirit. . . [If] one receives this unction, this person is no longer a Christian but a Christ.”

Similarly, the Gospel of Truth records that Jesus specifically came into their midst so that he “…might anoint them with the ointment. The ointment is the mercy of the Father. . . those whom he has anointed are the ones who have become perfect.”

Incense and Infused wines

Interestingly, Gnostic texts give indications of potential psychoactive incenses, and infused wines. The “Second Book of Ieou”, which is believed to have been originally written down on papyrus sometime between the first and third century AD, describes a ceremony led by Jesus which involved an incense that contained a “wonder”. Significantly, in the case of the Second Book of Ieou, the “fragrant-incense” is offered to the Virgin of Light, (‘Light’ is also associated with anointing in Gnostic texts)  and this would seem to be reminiscent of the offering of kaneh-bosm incense to the Queen of Heaven that we was carried on from Polytheistic Hebrew times.

As well, in the “Second Book of Ieou” vine-branches, which were strewn with various materials of incense, were infused in wine. Holding implications for the Christian Eucharist. The Second Book of Ieou refers to the unidentified plant “cynocephalia” which was put into the mouths of people. Pliny mentions this same plant for divination, claiming to have heard from Apion the Grammarian, notorious resident of Egypt, that the herb cynocephalia is known in Egypt as osiritis, after the God Osiris, and is believed to be a source of divination and a protection against black magic. There are other unidentified plants in the Gnostic text as well, such as kasdalanthos. 

We may get some idea as to what took place in such initiatory rituals from the description in the second century Church father Irenaeus’ condemnations of the sex and drug antics of the Gnostic teacher Marcus. Even in it’s derogatory form, Irenaeus’ account of the rite performed by Marcus “affords a remarkable and very singular insight into the Gnostic celebration of the Eucharist”, which they believed “effects a realization of the original oneness of the Pleroma [Godhead]” (Rudolph 1987). “The Church father said Marcus was a self-proclaimed prophet and magician who would pray over a cup of purple liquid mixed with wine, a concoction Marcus said was the blood of Grace, the aeon also known as Silence in the Valentian Pleroma”(Dart 1976). An alchemical recipe for making a cannabis elixir of this colour, has been noted; “I have made the lavender elixir of Cannabis many times and have given it freely to seriously ill people. It never fails to provide astonishingly quick relief” (Osburn, 1995).

A Irenaeus (130-202 CE) wrote of the Gnostic Marcus’ use of this preparation:

Pretending to consecrate cups mixed with wine, and protracting to great length the word of invocation, he contrives to give them a purple and reddish color, so that Charis who is one of those that are superior to all things, should be thought to drop her own blood into that cup through means of his invocation, and that thus those who are present should be led to rejoice to taste of that cup, in order that, by so doing, the Charis, who is set forth by this magician, may also flow into them… When this has been done, he…. pronounces these words: “May that Chaffs who is before all things, and who transcends all knowledge and speech, fill thine inner man, and multiply in thee her own knowledge, by sowing the grain of mustard seed in thee as in good soil”….

It appears probable enough that this man possesses a demon as his familiar spirit, by means of whom he seems able to prophesy, and also enables as many as he counts worthy to be partakers of his Charis themselves to prophesy. He devotes himself especially to women, and those such as are well-bred, and elegantly attired, and of great wealth, whom he frequently seeks to draw after him, by addressing them in such seductive words as these: “I am eager to make thee a partaker of my Charis, since the Father of all doth continually behold thy angel before His face. Now the place of thy angel is among us: it behoves us to become one. Receive first from me and by me [the gift of]Chaffs. Adorn thyself as a bride who is expecting her bridegroom, that thou mayest be what I am, and I what thou art. Establish the germ of light in thy nuptial chamber. Receive from me a spouse, and become receptive of him, while thou art received by him. Behold Charis has descended upon thee; open thy mouth and prophesy.” On the woman replying,” I have never at any time prophesied, nor do I know how to prophesy;” then engaging, for the second time, in certain invocations, so as to astound his deluded victim, he says to her,” Open thy mouth, speak whatsoever occurs to thee, and thou shalt prophesy.” She then, vainly puffed up and elated by these words, and greatly excited in soul by the expectation that it is herself who is to prophesy, her heart beating violently [from emotion], reaches the requisite pitch of audacity, and idly as well as impudently utters some nonsense as it happens. to occur to her, such as might be expected from one heated by an empty spirit…. Henceforth she reckons herself a prophetess, and expresses her thanks to Marcus for having imparted to her of his own Chaffs. She then makes the effort to reward him, not only by the gift of her possessions (in which way he has collected a very large fortune), but also by yielding up to him her person, desiring in every way to be united to him, that she may become altogether one with him….

Some of his disciples, too, addicting themselves to the same practices, have deceived many silly women, and defiled them. They proclaim themselves as being “perfect,” so that no one can be compared to them with respect to the immensity of their knowledge, nor even were you to mention Paul or Peter, or any other of the apostles. They assert that they themselves know more than all others, and that they alone have imbibed the greatness of the knowledge of that power which is unspeakable. They also maintain that they have attained to a height above all power, and that therefore they are free in every respect to act as they please, having no one to fear in anything. For they affirm, that because of the “Redemption” it has come to pass that they can neither be apprehended, nor even seen by the judge. (Irenaeus, 2nd century AD)

There are some clear parallels with the Eucharist here. Gnostic Christians worshiped Goddesses, with the same sort of intention that the pre-monotheistic Israelites did, and there is the possibility that such practices had continued underground. 

Suffice to say, there are indications of the importance of Christ, in relation to specific  ‘anointing’ with ‘Holy oil’, along with indications of the use of drugs for both medical and spiritual purposes in early Christian literature, despite the rejection of this by Dan McClellan and other authors. 

For more on this, see my article Early Christianity’s Drug Fuelled Magic Rituals

Archaeological evidence for Christian Era

As McClellan himself has noted, besides the evidence of tel Arad, we have Christian era evidence of cannabis used for medical purposes, both topically and as an incense. An archaeological dig in Beit Shemesh, Israel, at a site from around 390 A.D. contained the body of a 14 year old girl who died in childbirth . “On her stomach was a fleck of a burnt brownish, black substance… it turned out to be a seven gram mixture of hashish, dried seeds, fruit and common reeds. Seven glass vessels containing traces of the drug were found near the skeleton” – Ancient Drug Trade Unearthed (CBSnews, 2002). 

McClellan on Christian Use of Drugs

In response to Danny Jones’s question of whether Christianity originated with drugs, or perhaps some used drugs, and this was left out aka ‘Plato’s noble lie’ as drugs would be seen as a negative source, McClellan responds:

 “Maybe, and I’m sure there were folks who saw drug use as something positive and so there certainly would have been an audience for something like that, but there is just no evidence within the literature, the other material remains, the history of early Christianity that supports that, some of the earliest references we have to what the christians were doing are just reports that ‘they gather, they sing hymns, and this is a religion for women and slaves and they don’t do anything wrong, but they’re just a bunch of superstitious weirdos… There is just no evidence that Christianity was oriented towards anything like this [drug use]in any literature. The only reference we have to any kind of drugs in the New Testament, is there is a reference to Pharmakeia, which is a Greek word that could be used to refer to like potions and poisons and curses and things like that, but also to elixirs and things you might rub on your forehead or might ingest. But there is a negative reference to people who engage in Pharmakeia” (McClellan, 2024).

Oddly, McClellan never mentions tel Arad, or bet Shemesh throughout the interview with Danny Jones, nor that he speculated that tel Arad may indicate that cannabis was burnt in the Main temple, or by Christians.

McClellan ignores so much Christian literary evidence for the use of ointments, the importance of anointing in Christianity, and the indication of drugs, here, it’s astounding. As Dan’s podcast is titled ‘Datta over Dogma’, it is important to remember, that dogma not only applies to religious views, it can also settle in Academic matters. When it comes to entheogens in early Judaism and Christianity, the vast majority of the Biblical scholars that dan often relies on for his ‘consensus’ have their feet firmly planted in the Dogma. 

We can clearly see that there was a known role for psychoactive and medical cannabis from 800 BCE to 400 CE in the so-called Holy Land. Biblical scholars like McClellan would have us believe that this took place with no historical reference or known name for cannabis. My questions for Dr. McClellan and other scholars interested in following up on this, would now be:

Questions for Biblical Scholars

 1) What botanical candidate of the numerous ones that have been suggested for kaneh, is the one you side with and why? 

2) What name do you suggest was used for cannabis by the ancient Hebrews, knowing they use it both as a fibre and incense based on archaeological evidence,  and why was it replaced with a Greek word with no comment or discussion on that when it happened? 

3) Why is that candidate positive in Exodus, Isaiah and the Songs but then later rejected firmly in Jeremiah 6:20? 

4) Can you show a direct connection in a passage of your botanical candidate and frankincense, as in the Jeremiah and Isaiah references. 

5) Can you provide identical usage for your candidate in the contemporary  cultures around the Hebrews? as I have done with the Assyrian quunabu references. 

6) Which Biblical scholars that you know of, successfully hypothesized about cannabis in the context indicated by tel Arad as I have done following the kaneh references long prior? This is important in regards to any sort of response that is based on a prior scholarly consensus. Biblical scholars did not see this coming, nor did the researchers who found cannabis on the altar at tel Arad. It was unexpected, but not for people who followed Sula Benet’s theory closely. 

7) Did or did not early Christians identify as Christian through the ritual of anointing, and did they view this as having healing and spiritual benefit? 

The Confirmation of kaneh and kaneh bosem as Cannabis

I am on a mission to see the consensus regarding the botanical identity of the Hebrew kaneh, swayed in favour of cannabis through its confirmation archaeologically at tel Arad, and am willing to address all challenges in that regard. Kaneh bosem, identified with cannabis, would be full of powerful theological implications in both Judaism and Christianity.

I will respond to any criticisms of this hypothesis directly until it is taken to a conclusion. I did try to draw McClellan into a written public debate on this issue, but he declined and has since blocked me on social media and ended our correspondence on the matter. Dan was upset with my public use of our emailed correspondence, as in this article, and I was miffed about his posting a video dismissing Sula Benet’s theory, in a way that misrepresented what she wrote on the matter, and with ignoring what I presented in my book and correspondence. I am willing to get past that and return to this discussion to a public conclusion in a written format.

Regardless, I do respect Dan’s work on bringing a more historically accurate view of the Bible to people, and I will continue to appreciate his work in that regard. If you would like to see this conversation continued, I invite you to email Dan a copy of this article and ask him to respond: [email protected] . 

Chris Bennett has been researching the historical role of cannabis in the spiritual life of humanity for more than three decades. He is co-author of Green Gold the Tree of Life: Marijuana in Magic and Religion (1995); Sex, Drugs, Violence and the Bible (2001); and author of Cannabis and the Soma Solution (2010);  Liber 420: Cannabis, Magickal herbs and the Occult (2018); and Cannabis: Lost Sacrament of the Ancient World (2024) . He has also contributed chapters on the the historical role of cannabis in spiritual practices in books such as The Pot Book (2010), Entheogens and the Development of Culture (2013), Seeking the Sacred with Psychoactive Substances (2014), One Toke Closer to God (2017), Cannabis and Spirituality (2016) and Psychedelics Reimagined (1999). Bennett’s research has received international attention from the BBC , Guardian, Sunday Times, Washington Post, Vice and other media sources. He currently resides in Nova Scotia, Canada.