← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Faust
Thread ID: 12844 | Posts: 47 | Started: 2004-03-23
2004-03-23 07:24 | User Profile
Yahweh an Indo-Aryan god?
[QUOTE]Yahweh . . . It is most interesting that the name (Yahweh)also occurs at 21 places in the Rigveda as an epithet for as an epithet for the fire-god Agni. This fact may be a consequence of the early connections between the Mitanni Hindu worshiping Veda and the early Hebrews.
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahweh[/url] [/QUOTE]
[QUOTE]Mitanni . . . The Mitanni were a people of Indic origin who ruled a vast kingdom (with a common Hurrian population) in West Asia in the second millennium BC. Mitanni arose near the sources of the Khabur River in Mesopotamia sometime after 1500 BC. It was a feudal state led by a warrior nobility. The kingdom ruled northern Mesopotamia (including Syria) for about 300 years, out of their capital of Washshukanni, (or Wassukkani, or Vasukhani, meaning "a mine of wealth.") Their warriors were called marya, which is the proper Sanskrit term for it.
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitanni[/url][/QUOTE]
Related thread:
Ancient Indo-European texts [url]http://forums.originaldissent.com/showthread.php?t=12797[/url]
2004-03-23 08:31 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Faust]Yahweh an Indo-Aryan god?
Related thread:
Ancient Indo-European texts [url]http://forums.originaldissent.com/showthread.php?t=12797[/url][/QUOTE] May be significant, or may not. Peoples in that area were not that far away and similarities and influences from other's religions occurred, as the Jews themselves. Unbelievers would say of course the Hebrews borrowed their ideas from those around them, believers vice versa.
The similarity is interesting nevertheless, although one wonders how one could say the Indians used the same word for god as Hebrews, since no one now really knows for sure what that name was.
2004-03-23 08:56 | User Profile
More stuff:
[QUOTE] Yahweh's existence was indicated through the means of a burning bush and Agni is Hindu the lord of fire.
Meaning of Sanskrit word yahva.
meanings of "yahva" [1]
a.{a-stem}
1.great;
2.active
meanings of "yahva" [2]
m.{a-stem}
1.an employer of priests for sacrifices
meanings of "yahva" [3]
f.du.{a-stem}
1.an epithet of heaven and earth;
2.of night of day;
3.of morning and evening
An article of note Akhenaten File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat [url]http://www.ece.lsu.edu/kak/akhena.pdf[/url] View as HTML [url]http://216.239.53.104/search?q=cache:1pxCD2zYmZIJ:www.ece.lsu.edu/kak/akhena.pdf+Yahweh+Rigveda&hl=en&ie=UTF-8[/url]
Religion, Mind, Evolution and the Social Order [url]http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~lka/conz6a.htm[/url] [/QUOTE]
2004-03-23 09:36 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Faust]More stuff:[/QUOTE]Yahweh's existence was indicated through the means of a burning bush and Agni is Hindu the lord of fire.
Meaning of Sanskrit word yahva. I'm not what the exact context of your quote is, but remember, nobody knows in fact that the name spelled with consonants YHWH is Yahweh. That's just a guess. If we just spelled your name FST would we be certain your name was Faust? It could after all also be Fist, Fust, Fosty, etxc.
As for the origin of the Hindu god Agni, I'd suspect that the Hindus as polytheists borrowed all sorts of religious concepts from others. That's the nature of polytheism.
2004-03-23 16:50 | User Profile
There were a bunch angel-type guys knocking about during Abrams time, wonder whatever happened to those? (ââ¬ÅAll I got were these lousy ââ¬ÅAaron Levis T-Shirts" Moishe must have struck his head complaining.)
Comment on this hypothesis based on (merely) linguistic (though important) evidence.
[url]http://www.worldhistoryhub.com/Moses_and_Akhenaten_The_Secret_History_of_Egypt_at_the_Time_of_the_Exodus_1591430046.html[/url]
Moses and Akhenaten: The Secret History of Egypt at the Time of the Exodus > Customer Review #2:
Bah ha ha ha ha ha ha
Anything for money... what a joke. The idea that the Atenist religion was the first monotheism is silly when one considers that other deities(including Maat) continued to exist alongside the Aten. Akhenaten did not remove all the other Netjeru, but most of them. Still, this makes the religion far from the standard of monotheism. Additionally, the Egyptians were already a form of monotheistic(where the various gods, or Netjeru, are aspects of the One) and similar ideas were found in Babylon in its latter years. It has been supposed that Moses may be a shortened version of an Egyptian name(such as Thothmosis). True or not, I do not believe this makes Moses an Egyptian king, the founder of monotheism, and so on. This is just another ploy to sell books to people who enjoy conspiracy theories- its really just the "I know a secret" mentality that people buy into. Im not saying that conspiracies and secrets dont exist... but this is just silly.
Moses and Akhenaten: The Secret History of Egypt at the Time of the Exodus > Customer Review #3:
Moses or Akhenaten??
Ahmed Osman did extensive research on monuments, papyrus texts and the tombs of Egypt. However his basic idea that Akhenaten was Moses is proposterus and his arguments are unconvincing. Despite this, his extensive research in Egyptian and Israelite history is quite helpful. He also follows the western idea that the Egyptians were the first monotheists and that
Average Customer Rating:
Akhenaten: History, Fantasy and Ancient Egypt > Customer Review #1:
The origin of a self-portrait, the memory that were twisted.
For one Oriental who does not have tradition of Judaism-christianity-Islam, this book is very interesting.I understood it a little why is Akhenaten exposed to praise and blame? (Evaluation of this book seems to be exposed to praise and blame, too.) Archeology needs material evidence and history needs evidence of a document . There are few definite things when only fragmentary evidence is left or when we are going to reconstruct the times eliminated by a record once. A guess and the supposition that carved a seal of the times of advocate bury a crack. It be spread with journalism and the subculture that a sensational theory becomes popular. Scholarship is not free from the political situation of the culture that oneself stands. We distinguish between a certain matter and fiction and cannot press the reason to produce a mystery. What is an image reflected there why such a fiction is made? The contest of Akhenaten is the contest of the origin. Curiously it seems to be the origin of Monotheism of Europe civilization and the origin of people plundered of. Akhenaten will become both an Aryan and a black. This book is useful in order to ascertain dregs of Aten cults to loiter around still in the internet and the mass-media. I estimate this book to be a good guide as thinking about the history of Egypt understanding in Europe.
Akhenaten: History, Fantasy and Ancient Egypt > Customer Review #2:
a volume of perspectives...
Well worth a read - its definitely the most entertaining and interesting book (that Ive found) dealing with the plethora of contradictory views on the reign of Akhenaten.
Akhenaten: History, Fantasy and Ancient Egypt > Customer Review #3:
Horrendously overpriced for a mere skimming of information
I couldnt agree more with the reviewer from Georgia who mentioned that this book is a great idea betrayed by an utter lack of thoroughness. Indeed, and without belaboring what has already been said in that review, this potentially valuable idea (for somebody elses book) is quite a frustrating read. And it does seem like more of an annotated bibliography than a real study of/comparison between competing notions of ideas about Akhenaten. While much of the information provided is interesting, there is basically no room for investigation, for follow-through, for earnest authorial postulation. Too, I found the book a lumpy piece of writing. For any American-educated scholar there seems to exist a wholly annoying and singular European mode of academc writing that would drive the MLA absolutely insane. Whereas parts of this book are utterly fascinating, such as the discussion of the aborted Akhenaten film script by the late Derek Jarman, such parts are touched upon ever so slightly . . . The idea of this book rates an A for me, but the combination of iffy execution and alarming brevity (and PRICE!) cause me to caution anyone, especially poor graduate students, from plunking down a veritable jackpot wad only to receive this disappointing scholarly effort.
IMHO: the connection of ââ¬ÅIndoAryanââ¬Â, like ââ¬ÅJudaeo-Christianââ¬Â is a conspiracy between Jews and Shabbos goy academics to write present day Israel into history ââ¬â stretching the Mitanni tribeââ¬â¢s use of the YHWH/phoneme inscription, which is easily explained as a sign-use token carried by eastern Sumeria migrants (through todayââ¬â¢s Pakistan and Kashmir). And, at the same time, entirely ignoring ââ¬â as if itââ¬â¢s motive were precisely to bracket-out, eliminate, the massive evidence (archeoastrological ââ¬â solstice/equinox positioning of vast stone edifices standing long before 2000 b.c. at Baalbek, Egyptââ¬â¢s Ghiza pyramids, Stonehenge, the Girsu (holy place of Gudeas famed ziggarut circa 2,000 BC, model of later Solomonââ¬â¢s Temple), the Torreon of Machu Picchu, Peru) linking Abram-Abraham (the ââ¬Åraââ¬Â may have been an Akhanaten/Marduk priest forgery to ââ¬Åconvertââ¬Â the Man into a semite, the way jews forge their way into everything).
Not just the well-known code of Hammarubi as basis of Genesis 1, an almost literal transliteration from Babylonian calendar/New Years religion that had been centered as Kish; but, also, details of the O.T.ââ¬â¢s Gen. 14 reference to the battle of 5 kings vs. 4 kings up and down the eastern Mediterranean areas into the Sinai pensula, is paralled in the Khederalomar tablets of ancient Sumeria. This is new historical knowledge just coming out. Their history disappears into Egypt with the absorption of Isaacââ¬â¢s sonââ¬â¢s by Joseph, reappearing in the altogether dubious origination of ââ¬ÅMosesââ¬Â, who arranged to get them kicked out, but delivered them after trials and tribulations of the sort later endured by Mormon Americans (whose memory they must thwerefore destroy) to Godââ¬â¢s Promised Land, somewhere to the West, and South of the original Garden of Eden.
Pathetic it is, indeed, when YHWHââ¬â¢s chosen people have to make up what YHWH is, that has chosen them. Well, leave it to the Talmudic scholars. They will survive. Unless, of course, the real texts from Baghdadââ¬â¢s museum , which someone looted, turn up with contradictions to the claim that The Almighty gave Likudniks the deed toEretz Yoesrael. .
2004-04-05 03:53 | User Profile
The Hebrew book of Genesis is based on the Sumerian creation story. I've read conflicting analysis of the word Yahweh. One author said that it means Blower of Storms AKA Stormblower in Sumerian. While another auther I read said that it means Blower of Words AKA Speaker or Speaker of Words in Sumerian.
Hebrews and their Phoenecians cousins originated as Sumerians who selected one god each from the patheons and dedicated themselves to that God alone. In other words, formed a covenant relationship. Hebrews with Yahweh, and Pheonecians with (I think) Dagon. Or did the Philistines worship Dagon?
2004-04-05 13:33 | User Profile
Yahweh an Indo-Aryan god?
The Old Testament borrowed large dollops of myth from Zoroastrianism, which was Indo-Aryan, so it is likely.
2004-04-05 15:26 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Bardamu]The Old Testament borrowed large dollops of myth from Zoroastrianism, which was Indo-Aryan, so it is likely.[/QUOTE]
Yes, and Zoroastrianism received many of its legends and teachings from a space creature named Wingo from the planet Jomama Jabootee in a solar system light years away.
2004-04-05 20:45 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Texas Dissident]Yes, and Zoroastrianism received many of its legends and teachings from a space creature named Wingo from the planet Jomama Jabootee in a solar system light years away.[/QUOTE]
Yes, that's pretty unbelievable compared to the solid stories about Yahveh :caiphas:
2004-04-05 20:57 | User Profile
[QUOTE=madrussian]Yes, that's pretty unbelievable compared to the solid stories about Yahveh :caiphas:[/QUOTE]
You a follower of Farrakhan and his spaceship theories, MR? :afro: :1eye:
Sorry, I didn't mean to trample on anyone's sacred cows.
2004-04-05 21:13 | User Profile
I am a follower of neither :caiphas: nor :afro:
:caiphas: = :afro: = :dung:
2004-04-06 00:08 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Texas Dissident]Yes, and Zoroastrianism received many of its legends and teachings from a space creature named Wingo from the planet Jomama Jabootee in a solar system light years away.[/QUOTE]
Do a google search on Zoroastrianism + Judaism and you get nearly 50,000 hits.
2004-04-06 07:29 | User Profile
[url]http://www.google.com/search?as_q=Zoroastrianism+Judaism&num=10&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&btnG=Google+Search&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&lr=&as_ft=i&as_filetype=&as_qdr=all&as_nlo=&as_nhi=&as_occt=any&as_dt=i&as_sitesearch=tektonics.org&safe=images[/url]
[url]http://www.probe.org/docs/e-zoro.html[/url]
[url]http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&as_qdr=all&q=Akhenaten+site%3Atektonics.org&btnG=Search[/url]
[url]http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&as_qdr=all&q=Dagon+site%3Atektonics.org&btnG=Search[/url]
2004-04-06 13:03 | User Profile
[url]http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/6315/religion/zoro.html[/url]
[url]http://www.vohuman.org/Article/Zoroastrianism%20and%20Judaism.htm[/url]
[url]http://www.pyracantha.com/zjc3.html[/url]
2004-04-06 13:19 | User Profile
There are many similarities between Judaism and Zoroastrianism, and it is a fact that the ancient Jews sojourned in Persia when Zoroastrianism was the state religion, so why would you say it is kooky to think there was some influence from the one to the other? What are you saying TD, that there are no myths in the Old Testament, that it is all literally true, that there are no borrowings between ancient religions?
2004-04-06 13:58 | User Profile
heritagelost,
Great Post.
[QUOTE=heritagelost] The Hebrew book of Genesis is based on the Sumerian creation story. I've read conflicting analysis of the word Yahweh. One author said that it means Blower of Storms AKA Stormblower in Sumerian. While another auther I read said that it means Blower of Words AKA Speaker or Speaker of Words in Sumerian.
Hebrews and their Phoenecians cousins originated as Sumerians who selected one god each from the patheons and dedicated themselves to that God alone. In other words, formed a covenant relationship. Hebrews with Yahweh, and Pheonecians with (I think) Dagon. Or did the Philistines worship Dagon? [/QUOTE]
2004-04-06 14:03 | User Profile
Bardamu,
Great articles. [QUOTE=Bardamu][url]http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/6315/religion/zoro.html[/url]
[url]http://www.vohuman.org/Article/Zoroastrianism%20and%20Judaism.htm[/url]
[url]http://www.pyracantha.com/zjc3.html[/url][/QUOTE]
:cheers:
2004-04-06 16:37 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Bardamu]What are you saying TD, that there are no myths in the Old Testament, that it is all literally true, that there are no borrowings between ancient religions?[/QUOTE]
I believe the Holy Scriptures are the Holy Ghost inspired, error-free, infallibly true Word of God.
From some cursory reading on this subject, while some parallels are interesting, it seems that Zoroastrianism borrowed from ancient Judaism and not vice versa. Nevertheless, we know what the real agenda is for those that promote this kind of "scholarship" -- principally it is to undermine historic, orthodox Christianity. That's the bottom line.
2004-04-06 23:40 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Okiereddust]I'm not what the exact context of your quote is, but remember, nobody knows in fact that the name spelled with consonants YHWH is Yahweh. That's just a guess. If we just spelled your name FST would we be certain your name was Faust? It could after all also be Fist, Fust, Fosty, etxc.
As for the origin of the Hindu god Agni, I'd suspect that the Hindus as polytheists borrowed all sorts of religious concepts from others. That's the nature of polytheism.[/QUOTE]The ancient Hebrews were also polytheists. That's readily apparent to anyone reading the original Hebrew texts who isn't blinkered by "monotheistic" preconceptions.
Anyway, the Hindu "texts" are considerably older than the Hebrew "texts" so who is borrowing from whom is a pretty obvious. There's nothing in the Bible that wasn't borrowed from many other, much older, sources in the ancient near east. All that is necessary to confirm this is to educate one's self on the subject, and by that I don't mean reading religious apologetics from hucksters intent on shoring up the crumbing ramparts of religious orthodoxy.
As to polytheists, these "polytheists" didn't have a problem with the concept of a single, omnipotent creator God, it's just that they sensibly realize that such a God is beyond naming, beyond imagining, beyond knowing, and beyond the reckoning of mere mortals. As such, claiming that there is such a God who can be so constrained by religious dogmatic definitions (and who picks "favorites") struck them as, well, more than a little blasphemous.
2004-04-06 23:54 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Texas Dissident]I believe the Holy Scriptures are the Holy Ghost inspired, error-free, infallibly true Word of God.
Why don't you just admit "my mind is made up, and all facts that don't agree with my faith will be disregarded". Attributing everything in the Bible to divine inspiration means you can turn your brain off and just "believe", evidence be damned. That's fine for you if you want to do so, but don't think you can shut up the rest of the world with such illogical "reasoning". You openly admit that you are not willing to use your mind (on this topic), and will never be persuaded otherwise. So why bother debating the topic with anyone of opposing viewpoint?
From some cursory reading on this subject, while some parallels are interesting, it seems that Zoroastrianism borrowed from ancient Judaism and not vice versa. Nevertheless, we know what the real agenda is for those that promote this kind of "scholarship" -- principally it is to undermine historic, orthodox Christianity. That's the bottom line.[/QUOTE]You need to stop doing "cursory" reading, and start doing some real reading and thinking - or drop the subject entirely if you think your faith will be threatened thereby.
The prior existence of Zoroastrianism and the strong influence of Zoroastrianism on early Judaism (that is, post-exile, pre-Christian Judaism) is undeniable. Zoroastrianism had all of its essential features in place long before the polytheistic Hebrews encountered it in exile in Babylon. These exiles left Jerusalem as polytheist or henotheistic Hebrews and returned to Jerusalem under Cyrus as monotheist, ethical dualist, exclusivist "Jews", adopting Persian ideas about angels, good vs. evil, messianism, and other things which they adapted and changed to meet their own needs.
Indeed, many have observed that Pharisee is uncannily close to Parsee, that is, Persian. The Pharisees where in fact the Persian party in Judea, advocating "new fangled" Persian ideas about the afterlife, the judgement of the dead, etc., that were not accepted by more conservative Jewish elements like the Sadducees who held to older Judaic notions.
In fact, what we think of as the "Jewish" religion from about roughly 600BC to 600AD was not a single religion or people, but rather a loose ethnic grouping with several competing religious groups with differing, and evolving, ideas about what constituted the Jewish religion. It was only the eventual triumph of the Pharisees that came to make "Judaism" identical with the Pharisees and the Talmudic tradition.
2004-04-07 00:07 | User Profile
According to the basic Christian paradigm, all nations were originally monotheistic, but later degenerated into idolatry.
That is, we believe that the spiritual life of mankind has generally undergone devolution, not evolution.
Sure enough, many Israelites were tempted by polytheistic syncretism of their neighbors, and the Holy Bible in its honesty doesn’t hide this fact at all, but scolded them for it. Likewise, modern Western Christians have largely given in to all possible universalist nonsense.
Alas, the righteous “hardcore” Yahwists did not give in to the temptation back then. That is why prophet Isaiah spoke about the “righteous remnant”.
COLOR=Navy[/COLOR]
Perhaps the best layman presentation on this universality of monotheism has been given by missionary Don Richardson in his book “Eternity in Their Hearts: Startling Evidence of Belief in the One True God in Hundreds of Cultures Throughout the World”, here:
[url]http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0830709258/inktomi-bkasin-20/ref%3Dnosim/002-9012263-4666446[/url]
[COLOR=Red]“Anyway, the Hindu "texts" are considerably older than the Hebrew "texts" so who is borrowing from whom is a pretty obvious.”[/COLOR]
Easy to blurt out, considerably harder to prove. How on earth would have Hindus gotten into touch with Israelites?
[COLOR=Red]“All that is necessary to confirm this is to educate one's self on the subject, and by that I don't mean reading religious apologetics from hucksters intent on shoring up the crumbing ramparts of religious orthodoxy.”[/COLOR]
Sounds a pretty smug, don’t-bother-answering-me, I-already-know-everything attitude to me.
Petr
2004-04-07 00:28 | User Profile
[COLOR=Navy] - “You need to stop doing "cursory" reading, and start doing some real reading and thinking - or drop the subject entirely if you think your faith will be threatened thereby.”[/COLOR]
I know all about your kind of half-educated sceptics who have read some anti-Christian literature, and immediately consider themselves as unbeatable experts.
[COLOR=Navy]- “Zoroastrianism had all of its essential features in place long before the polytheistic Hebrews encountered it in exile in Babylon.”[/COLOR]
Heh, apparently you are not aware that according to the latest Zoroastrian scholarship, ole Zoro didn’t even began his work until the time of Cyrus, whose contemporary he probably was. This would agree with the Zoroastrian tradition itself. The Bundahishn, Zoroastrian scripture written around the time of the Arab conquest of Persia, states that Zarathushtra was born in 588 BC, stating that this was 258 years before Alexander’s conquest of Persia.
[COLOR=DarkGreen][COLOR=SeaGreen]"Gherardo Gnoli: Zoroaster in History / Bibliotheca Persica Press, New York, 2000
"Coming some two decades ater Zoroaster’s Time and Homeland, Gnoli has reconsidered his previous position, and has revived the “traditional” date: Zoroaster is thus placed in the period between the last two decades of the seventh to the middle of the sixth century B.C. “The present work concludes, therefore, with the remark that the analysis which Jackson made of the sources a hundred years ago ... should leave no room for doubt as to the fact that Zoroaster lived between the end of the 7th and the middle of the 6th century B.C."[/COLOR][/COLOR]
[url]http://www.fravahr.org/theology/zoroaster/the_date_of_Zoroaster.php[/url]
[COLOR=Navy]- “Persian ideas about angels, good vs. evil, messianism”[/COLOR]
Nuh uh. All those things can be easily found from the 8th-century BC book of Isaiah alone, even from those parts that you skeppies will admit were composed by Isaiah himself.
Angels:
[COLOR=Red]“In the year that king Uzziah died COLOR=Black [/COLOR] I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and his train filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is Jehovah of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.” COLOR=Black[/COLOR][/COLOR]
Good vs. Evil:
[COLOR=Red]“Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” COLOR=Black[/COLOR][/COLOR]
Messianism:
[COLOR=Red]“And there shall come forth a shoot out of the stock of Jesse, and a branch out of his roots shall bear fruit. And the Spirit of Jehovah shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of Jehovah. And his delight shall be in the fear of Jehovah; and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither decide after the hearing of his ears; but with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; and he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth; and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked. And righteousness shall be the girdle of his waist, and faithfulness the girdle of his loins. And the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of Jehovah, as the waters cover the sea.” [/COLOR] (Isaiah 11)
[COLOR=Navy]- “Indeed, many have observed that Pharisee is uncannily close to Parsee, that is, Persian.”[/COLOR]
Laughably amateurish interpretation. In fact, it comes form the Hebrew word of P'rushim. The entymology is based on the semitic root prsh, vocalized parash, "to separate".
That is, they were separated from the filth of common people whom those elitist Pharisees saw as tainted by their non-performance of all their Talmudic rites - thus they were separatists.
Petr
2004-04-07 01:57 | User Profile
In addition, the famous Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology, 1960, which no-one needs to suspect for trying to uphold Christian orthodoxy, (it has a foreword by that hero of neo-pagans, Robert Graves!) clearly states that the Persians received their apocalyptic lore from the Semites and not the other way around.
[url]http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0765193841/inktomi-bkasin-20/ref%3Dnosim/002-9012263-4666446[/url]
I don’t have that book with me right now, but I can provide the exact quotation when I have time to visit the library where I read it.
Petr
2004-04-07 02:31 | User Profile
And you can’t even certainly say that the Hindu literature predates Moses!
Ancient nations like Chinese, Egyptians AND Indians have traditionally tended to give themselves preposterously long histories – in the scale of tens of thousands of years. After all, Oswald Spengler said that the Indian culture had no real sense of time.
19th-century scholars took these claims a bit too seriously, and therefore dated the Rigveda, the oldest piece of Hindu literature, around 1500 BC, and rest of the Vedas on the following centuries.
Later scholars have considerably cut down these time periods. This link gives a pretty good example on how the mainstream scholarship now dates these pieces:
[COLOR=Red]“Vedic literature went through four stages of development: the Samhitas (c. 1000 bc), the Brahmanas (c. 800 bc), the Aranyakas (c 700 bc) and the Upanishads (c. 600-500 bc).”[/COLOR]
[url]http://alumni.cse.ucsc.edu/~mikel/sriyantra/vedas.html[/url]
The Vedic corpus was thus completed around the time of Buddha, 500 BC – too late to influence Israelites returning from Babylon, even if they had lived on the same area.
The traditional Christian Chronology dates Moses and his writings around 1400 BC.
So you see grep14w, the claim that Moses predates the Vedas isn’t so senseless as it may first seem. Learn to approach the pagan stories with the same scepticism that you approach the Bible.
Petr
2004-04-07 02:58 | User Profile
Petr,
[QUOTE=Petr]Easy to blurt out, considerably harder to prove. How on earth would have Hindus gotten into touch with Israelites?[/QUOTE]
Did you read [URL=http://forums.originaldissent.com/showthread.php?t=12844&page=1]the first page of the thread[/URL] There were Hindus in Mesopotamia.
[QUOTE]Mitanni . . . The Mitanni were a people of Indic origin who ruled a vast kingdom (with a common Hurrian population) in West Asia in the second millennium BC. Mitanni arose near the sources of the Khabur River in Mesopotamia sometime after 1500 BC. It was a feudal state led by a warrior nobility. The kingdom ruled northern Mesopotamia (including Syria) for about 300 years, out of their capital of Washshukanni, (or Wassukkani, or Vasukhani, meaning "a mine of wealth.") Their warriors were called marya, which is the proper Sanskrit term for it.
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitanni[/url][/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Petr]According to the basic Christian paradigm, all nations were originally monotheistic, but later degenerated into idolatry. [/QUOTE]
Well, some Hindu are pretty monotheistic in some ways. And Zoroastrianism is monotheistic.
2004-04-07 03:32 | User Profile
[QUOTE=grep14w]So why bother debating the topic with anyone of opposing viewpoint?
If you somehow got the impression that I was bothering to debate the topic then I do apologize, because I am not bothering to do anything of the sort. Nevertheless, it seems that in my absence Petr has most admirably stepped-up and taken things well in hand.
You need to stop doing "cursory" reading, and start doing some real reading and thinking - or drop the subject entirely if you think your faith will be threatened thereby.
If you think my faith in the True Truth is threatened by the fatuous barkings of anti-Christs like yourself then you are severely misguided, as if that wasn't already obvious. Further, if it is beyond your haughty intellectual capability to show more respect then go back to the dark hole you crawled out of, infidel.
2004-04-07 03:35 | User Profile
My apologies to the lurkers and innocent bystanders here for having to be so harsh, but experience shows that there is no other way to effectively deal with folks like our 'friend' grep. It's unfortunate, but it is what it is. Please don't let it detract from the rest of you going about your business here.
2004-04-07 04:05 | User Profile
Depends on what you mean by “Hindu”. The Hindu religion as we know it is – Vedas included – a product of people who had already settled in India and mixed with the Dravidian Indus-people.
[COLOR=Navy]“An interesting point is that proponents of interfaith religions, such as Bahai, claim that the name COLOR=Black [/COLOR] also occurs at 21 places in the Rigveda as an epithet for the fire-god Agni. Their theory is that this may be a consequence of early connections between the Mitanni (whom they believe to have been related to the Indo-Aryans) and the early Hebrews. “[/COLOR]
I checked your link, Faust, and looks like this Yahweh-mystery is solved – the source for this nonsense are BAHAIS – your basic New Age bullshitters. Take everything these weirdos tell you with a ton of salt – they are the among the spiritual forefathers of this mush-headed “we are the world” nonsense today. Their ultimate goal is to prove that all religions in the world are basically the same.
[COLOR=Red]”Bahá'u'lláh taught that there is one God Who progressively reveals His will to humanity. Each of the great religions brought by the Messengers of God such as - Moses, Krishna, Buddha, Zoroaster, Jesus, Muhammad, the Báb - represents a successive stage in the spiritual development of civilization.”[/COLOR]
[url]http://www.knowledgerush.com/kr/jsp/db/viewWiki.jsp?title=Bahai[/url]
Large part of that monotheism has its origins in the influence of Christianity when British colonized India. Educated Indians became ashamed of the flagrant superstition and idolatry in Hinduism, and slick gurus like Krishnamurti and Vivekananda came up with a more philosophical rationalizations and interpretations for their myths. Heck, I‘ve seen rationalizations that explain quite convincingly how Haitian voodoo is basically monotheistic. You’ve got the draw the line somewhere.
No it wasn’t. It never really managed to break its relationship with the simple Iranian folk religion, but co-existed with it like Catholicism exists with voodoo in Haiti - the official religion of higher class and the state, to whom common guys don’t pay too much attention.
Zoroastrianism was to a large degree a turf of intellectual, elitist priesthood that was definitely NOT interested in ”spreading the good word” but keeping the club lean and mean.
That is a one thing that anyone quick to claim how something was supposedly influenced by Zoroastrianism should consider – that its upholders were are class of Magian priests who had trouble influencing even THEIR OWN PEOPLE – let alone other nations.
[COLOR=Red]“The bulk of the people of Western Iran at the time of Herodotus would not seem to have been greatly influenced by any recognizable form of Zoroastrianism and only a portion of the Magi would seem to have adhered to the new cult.”[/COLOR]
[url]http://www.farvardyn.com/magi2.htm[/url]
Many classical writers mention Zoroastrianism, but since the whole thing was so exclusive, they had only faint sense of what it was all about, mainly mentioning most visible things like worship of elements (fire, air, earth, water).
It was precisely because of this exclusiveness and intellectual artificiality, only upheld by the state, that the vast majority of Iranians ditched Zoroastrianism for Islam so amazingly quickly when Arabs took over.
Even nowadays, the remnant of Parsees in Bombay are even stricter in this regard than Orthodox Jews – in the latter case, there exists at least a theoretical possibility to convert to Judaism, but Parsees don’t practise ANY kind of missionary work - it’s a purely inherited religion!
And even at its best, Zoroastrianism was dualist – the devil-figure Ahriman is credited for creating his own creatures and phenomenons, like destructive animals and weather, whereas in the Biblical theology, Satan can only pervert things what God has created, not being creative himself.
Petr
2004-04-07 05:00 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Texas Dissident] If you think my faith in the True Truth is threatened by the fatuous barkings of anti-Christs like yourself then you are severely misguided, as if that wasn't already obvious. Further, if it is beyond your haughty intellectual capability to show more respect then go back to the dark hole you crawled out of, infidel.[/QUOTE] :shocking:
2004-04-07 08:28 | User Profile
Here is what an accomplished Classical scholar Edwin Yamauchi (Ph.D., Miami University) has to say about Zoroaster and his doctrine:
[url]http://www.irr.org/yamauchi.html[/url]
On dating him:
[COLOR=Red]"Zoroaster (628-551 B.C.). We have what appear to be the genuine sayings of Zoroaster in the Gathas of the Avesta. The mass of Zoroastrian texts, however, are in late Pahlavi recensions (ninth century A.D.). Contemporary Old Persian cuneiform inscriptions betray at best only allusions to early Zoroastrianism. Some Greek and Arabic authors also allude to Zoroaster. The Persian national epic, the Shah Namah by Firdausi (c. A.D. 1000), includes traditions of the prophet.
"Zoroaster (or Zarathustra) was born into the Spitama clan, evidently in northwestern Iran though he ministered in northeastern Iran. According to Arabic sources he lived from 628 to 551 B.C., which would accord with the tradition that he converted Hystaspes, the father of Darius who ruled the Persian Empire from 522-486 B.C. (Greek sources were greatly mistaken in placing Zoroaster 6000 years before Plato!) [/COLOR]
On the Zoroastrian "messianism", and how it was not so "developed" as often thought: [COLOR=Red]
"It seems that Zoroaster preached the monotheistic worship of Ahura Mazda, who was the creator of two other spirits - one good, the other evil.18 Classical dualistic Zoroastrianism, which pitted Ahura Mazda against the evil Ahriman, developed in the Sassanian period (A.D. 226-652). Later Zoroastrianism also developed a doctrine of a Saoshyan (Savior) who would raise the dead. According to Jacques Duchesne-Guillemin:
Zoroaster did not give himself out to be the redeemer. When his prayers call the redeemer who is to renew existence, he means the prince who shall accept his doctrine and realize the Dominion of Righteousness and Good Mind. He even allows the role of redeemer to any man, provided he practises righteousness.19[/COLOR]
Petr
2004-04-07 08:36 | User Profile
Last but not least, here is what Tekton Ministries has to say about Zoroastrianism and its relationship to the Bible:
[url]http://www.tektonics.org/zoroaster.html[/url]
Take notice how LATE these Zoroastrian holy books are:
[COLOR=Red] "Our main source for details on Zoro is the Avesta, a collection of sacred texts which was put in writing between 346-360 AD [Herz.ZW, 774] and of which we have manuscript copies only as early as the 13th century [Wat.Z, 56 -- and note to conscpiracy theorists: blame Alexander the Great and the Muslims for the destruction of Zoroastrian literature]. Some of the material probably comes from a time before the Christian era, but most of this is reckoned to be hymns and some basic information [Rose.IZ, 17] that was part of the oral tradition. The rest seems likely to have been added later, and for good reason, as Rose notes [ibid., 27]:
"The incorporation of certain motifs into the Zoroastrian tradition in the ninth century CE could indicate the conscious attempt of the priesthood to exalt their prophet in the eyes of the faithful who may have been tempted to turn to other religions.
"In other words, if we see a "Jesus-like" story in these texts, especially this late, we have a right to suspect borrowing -- but in exactly the opposite way that Acharya supposes!"[/COLOR]
And here is something that I find to be a particularly perceptive remark:
[COLOR=Red]"Finally, it is significant that while the OT used plenty of Persian loanwords for governmental matters, they did not use any for religion [Yam.PB, 463]."[/COLOR]
Petr
2004-04-07 08:45 | User Profile
Faust wrote:
[COLOR=Navy] "Bardamu,
Great articles."[/COLOR]
Sorry, they are not. They are amateurish gibberish from obviously biased sources - like "A Zoroastrian Educational Institute" and a guy who thinks that Apostle Paul was a Mithraic.
Petr
2004-04-07 13:45 | User Profile
Petr,
What of the Three Wise Men who came to see Christ at the time of his birth. Where they not Magian Zoroastrianism priests?
2004-04-07 16:16 | User Profile
To Faust, on Three Wise Men:
Could be – the Biblical paradigm there is no bigoted attitude towards well-meaning pagans that show interest towards the Truth, (Ruth, Naaman, Cyrus, Darius) and their coming could have nicely symbolized the coming expansion of the Church to the all nations of earth.
But anyways, their visit did not have such a “Zoroastrian” nature. They acted more like CHALDEAN astrologers, and all learned pagans from the East were simply called “Magians”.
Astrology was no part of the early Zoroastrianism of Zarathustra, which was actually more like an abstract moral philosophy a la Confucianism than a genuine cult. Persians slowly adopted astrological ideas after conquering the Semitic Mesopotamians, who influenced their religion on other ways as well.
For instance, Zoroastrianism’s most known emblem, the man-eagle figure Faravahar, here:
[url]http://www.accessnewage.com/articles/mystic/fravah2.htm[/url]
was originally an Assyrian royal symbol.
[SIZE=7][SIZE=3][FONT=Book Antiqua][COLOR=Sienna][FONT=Verdana]Once again I advise people to pay attention to dates – that practically everything that looks like Christianity (or even Judaism) in the Zoroastrian scriptures was put to writing only in the Sassanian renaissance period – that is, 224–636 AD, or even later. [/FONT] [/COLOR] [/FONT] [/SIZE] [/SIZE]
At the point of this Sassanian revival, Christianity was already a major factor in the Middle East, with Armenia becoming officially Christian in 302 AD. Persia also had a great Jewish population that composed their Babylonian Talmud on their territory.
Famous Zoroastrian scholar R.C. Zaehner testifies that the compilers of Avesta quite readily took and modified ideas from their Greek and Indian neighbors – so why wouldn’t they have borrowed stuff from Semites as well?
[url]http://www.farvardyn.com/zurvan.htm[/url]
[COLOR=Blue]“The Influx of Greek and Indian Ideas
“Such, then, are the main sources on which we must rely for our information on the Zoroastrianism of the Sassanian period. The 'orthodoxy' they reflect is that imposed on the Zoroastrian Church by Khusraw I. It is, however, not to be supposed that that monarch had eliminated all questionable doctrine from the corpus of writing in the pahlavi tongue which constituted the Sassanian Avesta. This corpus, which probably bore little relation to what of the original Avesta had survived in the Avestan language, had already been heavily adulterated with extraneous material, and this material, once it had become embedded in it, passed off as having divine sanction. Shapur I, it will be recollected, had 'collected those writings from the Religion which were dispersed throughout India, the Byzantine Empire, and other lands, and which treated of medicine, astronomy, movement, time, space, substance, creation, becoming, passing away, qualitative change, logic, and other arts and sciences. These he added to the Avesta and cmmanded that a fair copy of all of them be deposited in the Royal Treasury; and he examined the possibility of basing every form of academic discipline on the Religion of the Worshippers of Mazdah.
“Little is known of what 'writings from the Religion' can possibly have been circulating in India, but it is clear from the Denkart and the Shkand-Gumanik Vichar that Aristotelian philosophy had been adopted into the main stream of Zoroastrianism, and that this philosophy, on occasion, took on some very queer forms. We know from our Greek sources that some very curious works circulated under Zoroaster's name in the Hellenistic world, and that Zoroaster was supposed to have been the preceptor of Pythagoras whom he allegedly met in Babylon; and it can therefore be surmised that works circulating under Zoroaster's name might contain Pythagorean ideas. That this may have been so will come out in the sequel.” [/COLOR]
Besides, not a single Achaemenian stone carving or document even mentions the name of Zoroaster or any major point of his doctrine, save the abstract idea of “defending the truth and fighting evil” (on the behalf of Persian state) which I think that every one who listened to speeches by Dubya Bush can affirm is not very “deep” point.
Achaemenian official writings only mention the divinity called “Ahura-Mazda”, the official divinity of the state and the Magian priesthood class.
Magians were originally a Median tribe that became totally devoted to practicing priestly duties, like the tribe of Levi in Israel. They did not usually practise any kind of “missionary work”, but were self-consciously elitist, alienating themselves even from their Iranian countrymen and thus paving way for the Islamic takeover.
I am going to take a quote from the horse’s mouth.
There exists nowadays some national socialist sentiment among educated Iranians who are alienated from Islam, and if THEY cannot be positive on Zoroastrianism, then no-one can.
In the following, this Iranian Nazi writer tells us just how artificial religion Zoroastrianism really was. 19th-century European scholars (Nietszche included) had very romanticized notions about this faith, and could therefore seriously compare it to missionary religions like Christianity and Islam.
This guy is zealous for the pre-Zoroastrian Iranian folk religions, and I don’t agree with all that he says, but his words are a perfect antidote to any overly romantic ideas on Zoroastrianism.
[COLOR=Red]
“THE ARYAN NATIONAL PRESS”
[url]http://www.geocities.com/aryannews/religion.htm[/url]
“What Is The True Aryan Religion? - by Dr. Javan Daragan
[Note: This is the first in a series of articles which were written as part of a study conducted by the Anthropological Society of Iran. We hope to have the translation of the rest of this article and the entire series completed soon.]
I. Zoroastrianism Exposed
"It is a common misconception amongst many Iranians that the original pre-Islamic religion of Iran was Zoroastrianism. This was also commonly accepted by many scholars in Iran and the West, until coming under serious scrutiny in recent years.
"The fact is, Zoroastrianism as it exists today officially became the religion of the Persian Empire during the reign of the Sassanid Dynasty, and only after the Zoroastrian clergy had organized sufficient power to intimidate the Emperor. Before the establishment of the Zoroastrian clergy and the rise of the Sassanids, the various Aryan kingdoms of the Persian Empire all practiced different forms of the primordial Aryan faith, which the Zoroastrians later were effective in destroying completely through violence and bloodshed and enforcing their own universalist faith.
"It should also be remembered that most of the Zendavesta, the great religious epic of the ancient Aryans, was destroyed before and during the time Zarathustra had begun his spiritual mission to purify the Aryan faith of foreign and corrupt elements brought in from the non-Aryan territories. Only tiny fragments of the original Zendavesta survive today, and even those are suspect. After thousands of years, it is hard to believe that they too have not been altered.
"The Zendavesta that we have today was mostly codified during the Sassanid era and modifications continued to be made many centuries later, when Zoroastrianism had effectively become a dead religion for the majority of Iranians, who had long ago converted to the Islamic faith and had begun to establish the Shi'a branch of Islam, "Aryanized" Islam.
"The reason for the conversion to Islam is not difficult for us to deduce. The Zoroastrian religion was not founded upon the teachings of Zarathustra, but upon the lies of the established clergy, whose only desire was to maintain their power and wealth through the forceful deception of the masses. The realization that the clergy had been deceiving them after all these years resulted in the desire for spiritual truth and freedom, which they saw in the Islamic faith, and which they proceeded to make their own.
"While the Zoroastrians had spent much of their tenure destroying the last remnants of the Aryan religion throughout the empire and violently persecuting religious minorities such as the Manicheans, the followers of the Persian prophet Mani who was executed by the Emperor under pressure from the ruling Zoroastrian clerics, as well as attempting to force the violent conversion of the Christian populations of Armenia to Zoroastrianism, an attempt which failed miserably, the Islamic period inspired a total regeneration of Iranian art, literature, and philosophy and a much renewed interested in the pre-Zoroastrian history of Iran. This regeneration brought forth such great poets as Hafez and Ferdowsi, the rebirth of the ancient spiritual traditions and the reestablishment of the Persian Empire as a massive force to be reckoned with.
"It is little wonder that Zoroastrianism today is very much a dead and dying religion in Iran and has been for many centuries.
…[/COLOR]
Thus in all likelihood, the official Avestan Zoroastrianism copied any similar-looking stuff from Christians and Jews, and not vice versa.
Petr
2004-04-07 16:30 | User Profile
To AntiYuppie:
You are wrong. Zoroastrianism and Mithraism were for all practical purposes two different religions, save the similarity in divine names – thus says the latest scholarship, led by David Ulansey.
Mithraism was a
Check it out in here:[COLOR=Red]
“By the time of the First International Congress of Mithraic Studies in the early 70s, the lack of evidence of an Iranian/Roman continuity led Mithraic scholars to suspect that Roman Mithraism was "a new creation using old Iranian names and details for an exotic coloring to give a suitably esoteric appearance to a mystery cult" [MS, xiii] -- and that Roman Mithraism was Mithraism in name only, merely a new system that used the name of a known ancient Eastern deity to attract urbane Romans who found the east and all of its accoutrements an enticing mystery. Think of it as repackaging an old religion to suit new tastes, only all you keep is the name of the deity!”[/COLOR]
[url]http://www.tektonics.org/tekton_04_02_04_MMM.html[/url]
Anyways, the claim of Mithraic influence on Christianity is even much more easier to disprove than the claim of Zoroastrian influence on Judaism.
[COLOR=Navy]- “Phariseism was a reactionary Judaic revolt against Zoroastrian Persian influence,” [/COLOR]
Nope. It was a revolt against the Hellenistic Greek influence in the time of Maccabees. It was their Sadducee rivals who where considered to be “reactionaries”.
[COLOR=Navy]- and the Temple Pharisees saw in Christianity simply another Mithraic heresy.[/COLOR]
Nonsense. No concrete evidence for anything like this exists.
Petr
2004-04-07 17:20 | User Profile
[COLOR=Red]- “Satan in the Old Testament is not nearly the central figure that he became to Christians,”[/COLOR]
In my humble opinion, Satan has too central role in Christian ideology nowadays. The correct attitude towards him is not worry and wringe your hands about his plots and influence, but concentrates on doing good – “beating evil with good”.
The book of Genesis shows “that old serpent” slandering God to man, and the book of Job shows him slandering man to God. That’s what he is trying to be – a wheeler-dealer between man and his Creator, trying to sow trouble between them.
I actually prefer the form of religion that doesn’t give Satan and his minions too much credit or attention, unlike the crude demonology of both Zoroastrianism and Talmudic Judaism. Christianity gives him just enough attention – not too much but not too little either.
(Those forms of religion that believe in predestination don’t pay too much attention to Satan – in Islam he is a very minor character, and I understand Calvinists also don’t worry too much about his plots, at least compared to dispensationalists…)
Here’s the archive of Zoroastrian literature:
[url]http://www.avesta.org/avesta.html[/url]
See if you can find any place where Ahriman is portrayed as that intelligent and cunning seducer as Satan is in the story of Jesus’ Temptations.
In truth, Zoroastrian devils are more like Talmudic toilet-demons – they mainly concentrate on polluting the ritual purity of the believer.
And like I said: in the Bible, Satan is NEVER credited for creating something of his own – he is the very epitome of unfruitful negativity, just corrupting what God has created.
Whereas in the Zoroastrian Vendidad (Vi-dev-dat, law against daevas):
[COLOR=Navy]"FARGARD 22. Angra Mainyu creates 99,999 diseases; Ahura Mazda counters with the Holy Manthra and with Airyaman"
[COLOR=Navy]“2. 'Then the ruffian looked at me2; the ruffian Angra Mainyu, the deadly, wrought against me nine diseases, and ninety, and nine hundred, and nine thousand, and nine times ten thousand diseases. So mayst thou heal me, thou most glorious Manthra Spenta!”[/COLOR][/COLOR]
[url]http://www.avesta.org/vendidad/vd22sbe.htm[/url]
Very significant theological difference - in fact, I think that Zoroastrian demonology has more in common with superhero comics than with the Bible.
(If anyone tries to bring up Satan smiting Job with sores, then in that particular case he had God's permission to do it, and he did not create the disease himself. Satan is always allowed to get just THAT far with men - and no further.
Anyways, the book of Job is such profound piece of literature that you can't approach it with a shallow interpretations. Even Oswald Spengler agreed on that.)
True Biblical Christianity is not dualistic. If such traits have appeared during the church history, then they are heretical elements that we need to get rid of.
(That crazy mixture of Christianity and Zoroastrianism, Manicheanism, serves as a good example of dualist heresy.)
Petr
2004-04-07 19:04 | User Profile
[COLOR=Red] - "The newfound centrality of Satan ..." [/COLOR]
And excuse me, but Christianity is centered around Lord Jesus Christ and not his vanquished opponent.
True Christian understands that his greatest threat doesn't come OUTSIDE - from the plots of Satan - but "from man's own heart", that is, his own fallen and sinful nature.
"You have met the enemy and he is you"
Both Talmudic Pharisees and Zoroastrians thought that sin is something that enters you from outside, from ritual pollution - whereas Jesus taught that the enemy is already inside the gates - the evil comes from man's own heart.
Petr
2004-04-07 20:57 | User Profile
I hate to show my ignorance but the only Jewish God, from the old days, that I am familiar with is father Zog..........
How many Gods do those people have? ,,,,,,,,, heck, one of this days I'll find out that they have a Ponce God,,,,,, blessed be his name.
2004-04-08 13:45 | User Profile
All right, ladies and gentlemen, here we have it:
Genuine expert statements from your top (secular) scholars on whether Persians borrowed stuff from Jews or vice versa:
[COLOR=Blue]From "The Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology" by Robert Graves,[/COLOR]
[url]http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0765193841/inktomi-bkasin-20/ref%3Dnosim/002-2268164-1802409[/url]
Chapter "Mythology of Ancient Persia", page 322.
[COLOR=Red]"Eschatology.
[COLOR=Red]"The Iranians, who held that the human soul was igneous or luminous, believed [/COLOR] that the dead continued to exist. The idea, widespread among Indo-European peoples, of an underground abode of the dead gave them their conception of a var of Jam. Nevertheless the normal destiny of souls was the Light from which they came - hence a celestial abode. This integration with the Ahura, however, was not instantaneous. [/COLOR] [COLOR=DarkRed]THE PERSIANS NO DOUBT RECEIVED FROM THE SEMITES THE NOTION OF A LAST JUDGMENT AND TOGETHER WITH RELATED IDEAS: PROPHETS AND WORLD SALVATION PREPARED BY A MESSIAH."[/COLOR]
Also, on the page 310:
[COLOR=Red]"Now, leaving on one side inscriptions (the most valuable being that of Darius at Bisutun) and the documentary evidence of neighboring civilizations, Iranian cults and myths are known to us only through the Zend-Avesta which, though many of its themes are rooted in prehistoric Aryanism, was written at a very late date, during the Sassanian period."[/COLOR]
On the Magians, page 311:
[COLOR=Red]"The Magi appear to have been a priestly corporation of which originated in a certain Persian tribe. They were given to the practice of a special ritual which expressed the ancient Aryan cult.
"... It is, however, a misuse of terms when Greek authors, through ignorance or prejudice, call the Magi the Iranian clergy. They were, indeed, invested with religious functions, but they had no monopoly on them. The Magi must have been no more than a sect until, under the Sassanians, they became an official priesthood which organized Mazdaism. No doubt they had first been fire-priests rather than zealots for Mazda."[/COLOR]
On the date of Zoroaster himself, page 312:
[COLOR=Red]"... Zoroaster himself who, according to Parsee tradition lived between 660 and 583, ..."[/COLOR]
On Iranian dualism, page 312:
[COLOR=Red]"The traditional "Iranian dualism" popularised by books on the history of religions is far from corresponding to the reality of the beliefs which were held between the days of Cyrus and the Moslem conquest.
"Though preached by Zoroaster as one aspect of his system, this dualism only became implanted much later under the political pressure of the Sassanians who were eager to renew an ancient and indigenous tradition in opposition to Hellenistic influences. Until then it had been merely an opinion of one sect."[/COLOR]
Petr
2004-04-25 15:33 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Petr][COLOR=Red] - "The newfound centrality of Satan ..." [/COLOR]
And excuse me, but Christianity is centered around Lord Jesus Christ and not his vanquished opponent.
True Christian understands that his greatest threat doesn't come OUTSIDE - from the plots of Satan - but "from man's own heart", that is, his own fallen and sinful nature.
"You have met the enemy and he is you"
Both Talmudic Pharisees and Zoroastrians thought that sin is something that enters you from outside, from ritual pollution - whereas Jesus taught that the enemy is already inside the gates - the evil comes from man's own heart.
Petr[/QUOTE]
[COLOR=Red]The concept of internally originating sin is not confined to the Christian religion but is known to the Jews as well. If this were not the case then Christ will have implemented a mode of belief that is not rooted in the Old Testament which surely is a contradiction of him having come to "fulfill the law and the prophets"?[/COLOR]
2004-04-25 20:22 | User Profile
Widukind -
what is your point?
Petr
2004-04-30 18:33 | User Profile
One more bit about Zoroastrian demonology – I have studied Zoroastrian scriptures here:
[COLOR=Blue]http://www.hinduwebsite.com/sacredscripts/zoroscripts/zora_script_index.htm[/COLOR]
and I cannot find any place where Ahriman is depicted in the role where Christians know Satan best, from the Genesis to Revelation – as a cunning seducer.
Ahriman (Angra Mainyu) always seems to be just a cartoonish bad-guy without any satanic “subtility” (Genesis 3:1). He always announces his evil intentions like the most stereotypical Hollywood villain.
Zoroastrians never apparently thought that Ahriman could “masquerade as an angel of light” (2 Corinthians 11:14).
Here is the MOST sophisticated “seduction” tale that I could find from the Avesta: check yourself which one seems more believable and dignified, this or the tale of Jesus’ Temptations:
[COLOR=Red]I.
[COLOR=DarkGreen](Commentary: 3. Buiti is identified by the Greater Bundahishn with the Bût, the idol, worshipped by Budasp (a corruption of Bodhisativa). Buiti [Buddha] would be therefore a personification of Buddhism, which was flourishing in Eastern Iran in the two centuries before and after Christ. Buidhi (Vd11.9 may be another and more correct pronunciation of Bodhi.)[/COLOR]]
2 (5). Zarathustra chanted aloud the Ahuna-Vairya[4]: 'The will of the Lord is the law of holiness; the riches of Vohu-manô shall be given to him who works in this world for Mazda, and wields according to the will of Ahura the power he gave to him to relieve the poor.' (He added): 'Offer up prayers to the good waters of the good Dâitya[5]! 'Profess the law of the worshippers of Mazda!' The Drug dismayed, rushed away, the demon Bûiti, the unseen death, the hell-born. 3 (7). And the Drug, the guileful one, said unto Angra Mainyu: 'O baneful Angra Mainyu! I see no way to kill him, so great is the glory of the holy Zarathustra.' Zarathustra saw (all this) from within his soul: 'The evil-doing Daêvas and Drvants[1] (thought he) take counsel together for my death.' 4 (11). Up started Zarathustra, forward went Zarathustra, unshaken by the evil spirit, by the hardness of his malignant riddles[2], swinging stones in his hand, stones as big as a house[3], which he obtained from the Maker, Ahura Mazda, he the holy Zarathustra. 'At what on this wide, round earth, whose ends lie afar, at what dost thou swing (those stones), thou who standest by the river Darega[4], upon the mountains, in the mansion of Pourusaspa[5]?' 5 (16). Thus Zarathustra answered Angra Mainyu: 'O evil-doer, Angra Mainyu! I will smite the creation of the Daêva; I will smite the Nasu, a creature of the Daêva; I will smite the Pairika Knãthaiti[6], till the fiend-smiter Saoshyant come up to life out of the lake Kãsava, from the region of the dawn, from the regions of the dawn[1].' 6 (20). Again to him said the guileful one, the Maker of the evil world, Angra Mainyu: 'Do not destroy my creatures, O holy Zarathustra! Thou art the son of Pourusaspa[2], just born of thy mother[3]. Renounce the good law of the worshippers of Mazda, and thou shalt gain such a boon as the murderer[4] gained, the ruler of the nations.' 7 (24). Thus in answer to him said Spitama Zarathustra: 'No! never will I renounce the good law of the worshippers of Mazda, though my body, my life, my soul should burst!' 8 (27). Again to him said the guileful one, the Maker of the evil world, Angra Mainyu: 'By whose Word wilt thou strike, by whose Word wilt thou repel, by whose weapon will the good creatures (strike and repel) my creation who am Angra Mainyu?' 9 (29). Thus in answer to him said Spitama Zarathustra: 'The sacred mortar, the sacred cup, the Haoma, the Words taught by Mazda, these are my weapons, my best weapons! By this Word will I strike, by this Word will I repel, by this weapon the good creatures (will strike and repel thee), O evil-doer, Angra Mainyu! To me Spenta Mainyu gave it, he gave it to me in the boundless Time[5];{p. 207}to me the Amesha Spentas, the all-ruling, the all-beneficent, gave it.' 10. Zarathushtra chanted aloud the Ahuna-Vairya. The holy Zarathushtra said aloud: 'This I ask thee: teach me the truth, O Lord 20! ...'
[url]http://www.hinduwebsite.com/sacredscripts/zoroscripts/venfar_19.htm[/url][/COLOR]
And as you can see from this excerpt alone, "the Maker of the evil world" Ahriman is also able to create his own creatures, natural phenomena and diseases, which Satan is never capable of – hence Mazdaism is dualistic, not monotheistic.
(When Zoroastrianism really began to indirectly influence Christendom, in the 3rd century AD, it gave birth to a strong dualistic heresy known as Manicheanism.)
Avesta is also filled with countless prayers, where Zoroastrian priests praise and worship, not Ahura Mazda himself, but his countless underlings and avatars, thus perpetrating exactly the kind of angel-worship that was strictly prohibited from Christians in Revelation 19:10 and 22:9.
Like here, worshipping the genius of fire, which is called “the son of Ahura Mazda”
[COLOR=Blue]“YASNA 62.
TO THE FIRE.
I offer my sacrifice and homage to thee, the Fire, as a good offering, and an offering with our hail of salvation, even as an offering of praise with benedictions, to thee, the Fire, O Ahura Mazda's son! Meet for sacrifice art thou, and worthy of (our) homage. And as meet for sacrifice, and thus worthy of our homage, may'st thou be in the houses of men (who worship Mazda). Salvation be to this man who worships thee in verity and truth, with wood in hand, and Baresman ready, with flesh in hand, and holding too the mortar. 2. And may'st thou be (ever) fed with wood as the prescription orders. Yea, may'st thou have thy perfume justly, and thy sacred butter without fail, and thine andirons regularly placed. Be of full-age as to thy nourishment, of the canon's age as to the measure of thy food, O Fire, Ahura-Mazda's son! ”[/COLOR]
(It goes on and on…) [COLOR=Blue] [url]http://www.avesta.org/yasna/y54to72s.htm[/url][/COLOR]
Is this typical pagan idolatry or what?
And sure enough, we can find some good ol' calf worshipping cult in here too:
[COLOR=Red]"I.
[url]http://www.hinduwebsite.com/sacredscripts/zoroscripts/venfar_19.htm[/url][/COLOR]
(By the way, Tex: the followers of Christ must stick together. If any heathen pulls this Zoroastrian-borrowings nonsense on you again, kindly direct him to this thread. I am ready to receive and return his punches.)
Petr
2004-04-30 19:16 | User Profile
QUOTE=Petr[/QUOTE]
Amen. Yeoman's work Petr, as usual. It is noticed and appreciated.
Keep the faith.
:thumbsup:
2004-09-25 17:54 | User Profile
I think I have found a pretty concrete additional argument why neither Jews or Christians could have borrowed ideas from Zoroastrianism (as we know it from Avestan literature), even if they had wanted to.
It’s simple: until the ascendancy of the Sassanian dynasty in the 3rd century AD, Zoroastrianism was more or less limited to the tribe of Magians, not really penetrating even Persian masses themselves.
(Magians were originally a Median tribe that eventually monopolized the practice of Zoroastrian rites in Persia, a bit like the tribe of Levi became the priests of Israel.)
It was really not until the Sassanian empire (226-640 AD) that Avestan doctrines became implemented by imperial laws on Iranian non-Magian laymen.
And even then, Zoroastrianism was always a sort of “religion of aristocracy” in Persia, which is why masses so easily gave it up once the Sassanian Empire, the official protector of Zoroastrianism, had collapsed in the Islamic onslaught.
James Darmesteter describes how little influence Magians had on the life of ordinary Persians during the Achaemenian dynasty, as opposed to Sassanians:
[COLOR=DarkRed]“If we pass now from dogma to practice, we find that the most important practice of the Avesta law was either disregarded by the Achæmenian kings, or unknown to them. According to the Avesta burying corpses in the earth is one of the most heinous sins that can be committed; we know that under the Sassanians a prime minister, Seoses, paid with his life for an infraction of that law . Corpses were to be laid down on the summits of mountains, there to be devoured by birds and dogs; the exposure of corpses, was the most striking practice of Mazdean profession, and its adoption was the sign of conversion.
Now under the Achæmenian rule, not only the burial of the dead was not forbidden, but it was the general practice. Persians, says Herodotus, bury their dead in the earth, after having coated them with wax. But Herodotus, immediately after stating that the Persians inter their dead, adds that the Magi do not follow the general practice, but lay the corpses down on the ground, to be devoured by birds. So what became a law for all people, whether laymen or priests, under the rule of the Sassanians, was only the custom of the Achæmenians.
“7. There are other features of the Avesta religion which appear to have been foreign to Persia, but are attributed to the Magi. The hvaêtvôdatha, the holiness of marriage between next of kin, even to incest, was unknown to Persia under Cambyses (Herod. III, 31), but it is highly praised in the Avesta, and was practised under the Sassanians (Agathias II, 31); in the times before the Sassanians it is mentioned only as a law of the Magi (Diog. Laert. Prooem. 6; Catullus, Carm. XC).]
…
“There were therefore, practically, two religions in Iran, the one for laymen and the other for priests. The Avesta was originally the sacred book only of the Magi, and the progress of the religious evolution was to extend to laymen what was the custom of the priests.”[/COLOR]
[url]http://www.hinduwebsite.com/sacredscripts/zoroscripts/venintro_03.htm[/url]
Now, how probable is that Israelites would have borrowed doctrines from people who could not really influence even their own nation?
And apparently Magians were forbidden to even reveal their doctrines to outsiders! At least before the Sassanian times, they did not perform any “missionary work,” but were more like Freemasons, exclusive and guarding their secrets!
[COLOR=DarkRed]“There were, in fact, four kings at least who bore the name of Valkhash: the most celebrated and best known of the four was Vologeses, the contemporary of Nero. Now that Zoroastrianism prevailed with him, or at least with members of his family, we see from the conduct of his brother Tiridates, who was a Magian (Magus); and by this term we must not understand a magician[3], but a priest, and one of the Zoroastrian religion.
That he was a priest appears from Tacitus' testimony; that he was a Zoroastrian is shown by his scruples about the worship of the elements. When he came from Asia to Rome to receive the crown of Armenia at the hands of Nero, he wanted not to come by sea, but rode along the coasts, because the Magi were forbidden to defile the sea.
"3. Pliny very often confounds Magism and Magia, Magians and Magicians. We know from Pliny, too, that Tiridates refused to initiate Nero into his art: but the cause was not, as he assumes, that it was 'a detestable, frivolous, and vain art,' but because [SIZE=3]Mazdean law forbids the holy knowledge to be revealed to laymen, much more to foreigners: [/SIZE]
(Yast IV, 10; cf. Philostrati Vita Soph. I, 10).”[/COLOR]
[url]http://www.hinduwebsite.com/sacredscripts/zoroscripts/venintro_03.htm[/url]
And here is that Avestan text that Darmesteter cites (couldn't get my hands on that Philostratus quote):
[COLOR=Blue]Hordad Yasht 10:
'O Zarathushtra! let not that spell be shown to any one, except by the father to his son, or by the brother to his brother from the same womb, or by the Athravan to his pupil in black hair, devoted to the good law, who, devoted to the good law, holy and brave, stills all the Drujes. [/COLOR]
[url]http://www.avesta.org/ka/yt4_bi.htm[/url]
So I think were can conclude that it would have been hard for Israelites or Christians to borrow doctrines from Zoroastrians even if they had wanted to.
Petr
2004-09-25 20:44 | User Profile
Ever heard of the gnostics...that seems to be the link...
2004-09-25 20:49 | User Profile
[COLOR=DarkRed][QUOTE=Pennsylvania_Dutch]Ever heard of the gnostics...that seems to be the link...[/QUOTE][/COLOR]
Do your basic history study. Gnostics only showed up after the crucifixion of Jesus Christ - in fact, it is almost as if they had been raised by Satan to counter the rise of the Church.
The dualistic heresy known as MANICHEANISM was a mixture of Zoroastrianism and Gnosticism, but it was born only about 250 AD.
Petr
2004-10-07 13:26 | User Profile
And here we've got a non-Christian scholarly opinion (Jan Bremmer) from the very prestigious "Bryn Mawr Classical Review":
[COLOR=Blue] " Looking back even further, B argues that rather than early Jews inheriting resurrection from Zoroastrianism, later Zoroastrians adopt the notion from Christianity. In a similar vein he argues for the likelihood that a number of pagan cults in late antiquity develop their interest in resurrection from the Christians as well. "[/COLOR]
[url]http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/2002/2002-07-04.html[/url]
Now that we think about it, wouldn't it be rather more natural for Israelites, who buried their dead to the ground, to believe in the resurrection of the body, than Magians, who left their dead at the open air, to be devoured by vultures?
Petr