Monday, July 11, 2005
Religion
Here's my quick rundown on religion.
Basically it all started with the Sumerians, who had a pretty decent knowledge of astronomy etc.
Along came the Egyptians, they had lots of gods, but they had a heretic pharaoh originally called Amenhotep IV but he changed it to Akhenaten (the Aten was the Sun god). He was maried to Nefertiti. They started a religion based on the one god (the Sun). Some of the prayers of this time were very similar to old Jewish prayers.
At some point around this time Egypt went back to its old system of beliefs, either Akhenaten died or fled (or his followers did). He left a son, Tutankhaten (later Tutankhamen).
The Israelites aren't mentioned in Egyptian history until several dynasties later.
So the Moses story could be followers of Akhenaten leaving Egypt (and crossing the red sea could be possible, there are various reefs that though broken now, could have spanned sections of the sea). After Moses came down from the mountains, he came to find people worshipping a golden bull i.e. the old Eqyptian religions.
The Jews went on happily for a while and then came along the Romans ("what did the Romans ever do for us?" ...). Herod was a puppet king installed by the Romans. He was worried about someone being born, why? Well if the newly born boy was decended from the line of King David, he should have rights to the Kingdom of Israel.
So potentially Jesus was really a king. He was definately jewish and probably quite pious, the last supper was "Pass Over" the most religious Jewish festival. It's also likely he was quite wealthy as being able to hold pass over in an Inn would have been difficult (imagine trying to book Xmas lunch - you have to book ages in advance and they generally charge a fortune for the privilige). There's the whole Priory of Sion that goes with this legend too.
Anyway there were lots of factions of Christianity that sprung up and follwed the teachings of Jesus (well maybe anyway, they followed the teachings of his disciples, remember Jesus was a religious Jew), but there were many arguments (and the Catholic Church doesn't particularly like early gospels or ones that don't make Jesus a deity). The Romans didn't much like all this squabbling so they called everyone together and made them agree on the various dates (and them bashed them around a bit to make them fit with the Roman pagan festivals). Jews have Saturday as the sabbath, Christians have Sunday - remember early Christians were likely to be Jewish, so the Romands imposed it because they celebrated the day of the Sun (day of Sun. Sunday). It just so happens a lot of other Christian religious days fall on Roman pagan festivals. The bible wasn't knocked together until quite a while later, after Rome had converted.
Then we have Islam, basically just another split from the original Jesus/Jew to Christian. Happened a bit later but Mohammed could well have been Jesus and went in another direction.
Of course this is just opinion ...
Basically it all started with the Sumerians, who had a pretty decent knowledge of astronomy etc.
Along came the Egyptians, they had lots of gods, but they had a heretic pharaoh originally called Amenhotep IV but he changed it to Akhenaten (the Aten was the Sun god). He was maried to Nefertiti. They started a religion based on the one god (the Sun). Some of the prayers of this time were very similar to old Jewish prayers.
At some point around this time Egypt went back to its old system of beliefs, either Akhenaten died or fled (or his followers did). He left a son, Tutankhaten (later Tutankhamen).
The Israelites aren't mentioned in Egyptian history until several dynasties later.
So the Moses story could be followers of Akhenaten leaving Egypt (and crossing the red sea could be possible, there are various reefs that though broken now, could have spanned sections of the sea). After Moses came down from the mountains, he came to find people worshipping a golden bull i.e. the old Eqyptian religions.
The Jews went on happily for a while and then came along the Romans ("what did the Romans ever do for us?" ...). Herod was a puppet king installed by the Romans. He was worried about someone being born, why? Well if the newly born boy was decended from the line of King David, he should have rights to the Kingdom of Israel.
So potentially Jesus was really a king. He was definately jewish and probably quite pious, the last supper was "Pass Over" the most religious Jewish festival. It's also likely he was quite wealthy as being able to hold pass over in an Inn would have been difficult (imagine trying to book Xmas lunch - you have to book ages in advance and they generally charge a fortune for the privilige). There's the whole Priory of Sion that goes with this legend too.
Anyway there were lots of factions of Christianity that sprung up and follwed the teachings of Jesus (well maybe anyway, they followed the teachings of his disciples, remember Jesus was a religious Jew), but there were many arguments (and the Catholic Church doesn't particularly like early gospels or ones that don't make Jesus a deity). The Romans didn't much like all this squabbling so they called everyone together and made them agree on the various dates (and them bashed them around a bit to make them fit with the Roman pagan festivals). Jews have Saturday as the sabbath, Christians have Sunday - remember early Christians were likely to be Jewish, so the Romands imposed it because they celebrated the day of the Sun (day of Sun. Sunday). It just so happens a lot of other Christian religious days fall on Roman pagan festivals. The bible wasn't knocked together until quite a while later, after Rome had converted.
Then we have Islam, basically just another split from the original Jesus/Jew to Christian. Happened a bit later but Mohammed could well have been Jesus and went in another direction.
Of course this is just opinion ...
