Horses as biological weapon carriers in Israel

The Torah strictly forbids the consumption of horses and donkey meat

The Torah strictly forbids the consumption of horses and donkey meat; this even precedes the ban on pork. Several ancient authors describe the religious significance of horses and donkeys in Judaism. 

Democritus (472 BC – 363 BC) said that a golden ass’ head was worshipped at the Jerusalem temple. Mnaseas of Patara, Alexandria is said to have made the same report late in the 3rd BC century.

According to Posidonius of Apamea (135 BC -51 BC), the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes is said to have found a picture in the temple of Jerusalem, showing a man with a book riding the donkey; this occurred in 167 BC.

According to Josephus, the same report was made by Apion (~20 BC – ~ AD 48). Josephus also claimed that Apollonius Molon (who taught rhetoric to Cicero and Caesar) and Diodorus Siculus knew of the report that ass’ head was worshipped in the temple.

And Tacitus alleged the Jewish persons prayed to the donkey. In the third century AD, an unknown person carved a stone image of a man with a horse’s head posing as if he were being crucified.

This creature was being worshipped by a Christian soldier, Inscription: “Alexamenos worships God. The Christians were said to worship an ass’ head. 

In Israel breeding horses was a privilege reserved for the priests. Even Israel’s chosen king was permitted to breed horses for himself: “But he shall not multiply horses to himself, or cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that he should multiply horses.”

The biblical King David won some of his victories with a biological weapon that worked on horses: “And David took from him a thousand chariots and seven hundred horsemen, and twenty thousand footmen: and David houghed all the chariot horses but reserved of them for a hundred chariots.”

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