View Full Version : mythology behind christianity and islam?
VAE VICTUS
09-09-2005, 21:12
just wondering about the mythology behind religions,christianity and mithras,christmas and the solstice.
allah and the moon god(dess)
if anyone had any links and information on these two things please.
Look for works by Joseph Campbell, the leading scholar of comparative mythlogy of our time. A good one to start would probably be, for your question, The Masks of God: Occidental Mythology. There is probably a good portion of a shelf at your local library or bookstore devoted to his works. ~;)
Christmas is one of those things adopted by the Church to help smoothe things over with the pagans, specifically the Germans. Yule (Jul), as I understand it, is still the name for Christmas time in Scandinavia, which meant "wheel" an age ago. The Christmas tree is supposed to be a German creation, but I've read that it goes farther back than the Germans today brag, citing a spear-point on top of the tree as a reference to Odin.
All Saints' Day and Hallowe'en, November 1st and October 31st, has a similar history with the Celts - this was the date of Samhain, an important date in the Celtic calendar which had very much to do with the spirits of the dead and the Otherworld. Such a tradition is obviously bastardised to reach the point that it has today.
I don't know much about the Moon Goddess, but I know that since Sumerian mythology, the moon has been regarded by cultures in that area as a masculine force.
Allah was originally the chief god in a massive pantheon of Arabic deities (250? 255? something like that). One day, according to Muhammed, Allah spoke to him and enlightened him, telling him that he was the only true god. The large stone whose name I eludes me at this point (the one in Mecca, where all Muslims face when they pray) had all the gods engraved into it, but it was defaced (improved?) and now has only the image of Allah. Of course, I'm not Muslim, so I could easily be mistaken on the details of this.
Actually Neon I heard that most of the modern Christian holy days are on the dates of Roman solstices celbrations, the winter and spring ones are around like with in a few days of Christmas and Easter.
LeftEyeNine
09-10-2005, 05:06
Kabe ( I guees it is called Kaaba in English) is where all Muslims turn towards while doing their regular praying ritual called Namaz.
Kabe was full of totems that the Cahiliye (English translation needed) period Arabs used to erect and worship. As soon as it was cleansed off those, it was then the Mosque Of Allah on Earth.
Cahiliye (English translation needed)
Would the term "Pagan" do?
Thanks for filling that in.
Actually Neon I heard that most of the modern Christian holy days are on the dates of Roman solstices celbrations, the winter and spring ones are around like with in a few days of Christmas and Easter.
Oh yeah, Easter. What I know of Easter is that it is named after a Germanic goddess (Eostre) of fertility. The rabbit was seen as a fertile animal (you know..."do it like rabbits"..ahem) and thus was associated with her cult often, hence the Easter bunny.
I imagine a great deal of the Roman rituals are more in alignment than the Germanic ones when compared to the Christian dates. I don't know that Jul was practiced on December 25th, for example; it may easily have been a different point throughout winter. Eostre's festival would have been sometime in the spring (fertility season), but not necessarily a certain amount of weeks after another certain ritual. Rome, after all, did have much more control over Christianity as it developed early, and setting the auspices at already auspicious dates would have made it easier for the Romans to swallow, just like the addition of other pagan traditions in other regions.
I have heard of another god who's birthdate was 25th of December and one which christianity assimilated. Just too bad I can't remember where or what it is really is.
Besides, in Scadinavia we celebrate christmas the 24th in the evening, just like the population of old did before christianity. And yes it is called Jul to this day (wheel is called hjul and pronounced the same way).
But of course this is not taken from the paganism of Scandinavia and applied all round. That celebration is very much a common celebration among pagan religions, noone can claim to have christmas as theirs, it is most certainly all's.
The main holy day of Sol invictus is December 25.
Mr Frost
09-11-2005, 04:24
I have heard of another god who's birthdate was 25th of December and one which christianity assimilated. Just too bad I can't remember where or what it is really is.
Mithra . Mithraism was the big contender Vs Christianity when Constantine was looking for a new religion to control his empire with . It was actually winning the "competition" untill the Christians slaughtered most of the Mithraite Civilian preisthood and supporters in Rome {how Christian of them ~:rolleyes: } and Constantine had a sudden "change of heart" ~:rolleyes: {couldn't possibly have had anything to do with expedience of course *ahem*} .
The Early Roman Christians then stole and incorporated many aspects of Mithraism {Mithras' birthday , sacrament , the Mithraic style of confession amoung others} , likely to not only flesh out their own religion somewhat {it was still very new and rough hewn} , but also to seem more attractive and appeasing to Mithraites {from outside of Rome , much of the Roman Army for one ; actually quite supprising the Amry Mithraites didn't march on Rome after the masacre , probably a good proof of Constantines abilities as a politician} .
I wonder what the Nazarine {Jesus never saw Nazareth , as the town wasn't even founded untill 60 A.D. , he was however the most famous Nazarine -a Jewish religous sect that still exists- of all time , a fact that the major Christian churches seem reluctant to mention to their flocks , probably on the grounds of then having to explain how their religion of Jesus is legitimate when it is shown next to the actual religion of Jesus ~;p } would have made of so many murders in his name but for the obviously sole purpose of gaining temporal power . I'm willing to be that had he actually shown up again , his "own" church would have crucifyed him as a threat .
Steppe Merc
09-11-2005, 05:01
I know a lot of Christian and Muslim (and I guess Jewish) beliefs are similar to the Zoroastrians or Mazdaians. There is one big god Ahura Mazda, and the evil devil, Angra Mainyu or Ahriman who is his eternal enemy. After a big catastorphy thing, Ahura Mazda will destroy Angra Mainyu.
There are a bunch of angels, as well. This was culled by Zarathustra from Iranian beliefs, who put Ahura Mazda in charge of the other gods, who became the angel like guys.
I don't think Ahura Mazda has a concrete form, and he is often shown as a disc, or a guy with wings coming off of him.
VAE VICTUS
09-12-2005, 06:25
I have heard of another god who's birthdate was 25th of December and one which christianity assimilated. Just too bad I can't remember where or what it is really is.
Besides, in Scadinavia we celebrate christmas the 24th in the evening, just like the population of old did before christianity. And yes it is called Jul to this day (wheel is called hjul and pronounced the same way).
But of course this is not taken from the paganism of Scandinavia and applied all round. That celebration is very much a common celebration among pagan religions, noone can claim to have christmas as theirs, it is most certainly all's.
mithras i believe. he was also if i read it correctly born of a virgin and had 12 followers who ate a dinner with him before he died.he to rose from the dead.sol invictus.im not sure if any of that is true because another source claimed that mithras sprang from a "cosmic" egg.and werent many pagan and roman holidays close if not on the same days?
I know a lot of Christian and Muslim (and I guess Jewish) beliefs are similar to the Zoroastrians or Mazdaians. There is one big god Ahura Mazda, and the evil devil, Angra Mainyu or Ahriman who is his eternal enemy.
To grow even more literal with the comparison, Ahriman is considered a synonym for Satan.
That celebration is very much a common celebration among pagan religions, noone can claim to have christmas as theirs, it is most certainly all's.
Well, no, Christmas could never belong to a people. It's Christian. I wouldn't say it was all's, though.
Incongruous
09-12-2005, 10:05
You need to read Holy Blood Holy Grail.
Colovion
09-12-2005, 18:48
To grow even more literal with the comparison, Ahriman is considered a synonym for Satan.
and the way Satan looks was contrived from changing the Horned God from paganism and skewing it into "Satan" so that it put a bad light on the God of Fertility (and the Wicca) --> link1 (http://www.starkindler.org/god.html) link2 (http://www.paganspath.com/magik/hornedgod.htm)
it must be quite the mindjob for any devout Christian to do some serious reading up on the Zoroastrians.
and the way Satan looks was contrived from changing the Horned God from paganism and skewing it into "Satan" so that it put a bad light on the God of Fertility (and the Wicca) --> link1 (http://www.starkindler.org/god.html) link2 (http://www.paganspath.com/magik/hornedgod.htm)
it must be quite the mindjob for any devout Christian to do some serious reading up on the Zoroastrians.
Well, Wicca has nothing to do with it, really. It's more of a bastardised mishmash of belief and practice than Christianity is.
Colovion
09-12-2005, 21:22
Well, Wicca has nothing to do with it, really. It's more of a bastardised mishmash of belief and practice than Christianity is.
Then you must realize that Christianity is merely a mishmash of random beliefs, doctines and social codes which have been indoctinated through the millenia into an organised fashion.
Meneldil
09-12-2005, 21:25
Well, I'm not a big fan of this book, but you should read Da Vinci Code ~;)
Well, no, Christmas could never belong to a people. It's Christian. I wouldn't say it was all's, though.
You failed to see my point... christmas when spoken of in a historical manner often has some group go "yeah, the early christians took this and that from our local religion and adapted that to the new one." That is all good and well, but he point is that it was done all over, becasue most people had a specific winter celebration, just around the 24th-25th of December. St. Lucia for instance is another case of that. 13th of December is another special date as it was the believed shortest day (21st), so again several people had celebrations there, the christians coem along and put in St. Lucia.
Now what date is Christ's real date? I have heard anything from 2nd of November to some time in March. Basically everything but dates in December.
While there are many similarities, do not kid yourself, Christ did live. He is mentioned a couple of times in contemporary sources (even his non-violence is commented as it was very different from all other radical Jewish predicants of the time).
Then you must realize that Christianity is merely a mishmash of random beliefs, doctines and social codes which have been indoctinated through the millenia into an organised fashion.
Of course. Wicca has only been around for about 50 years, though, and is, well... I hate it.
You failed to see my point... christmas when spoken of in a historical manner often has some group go "yeah, the early christians took this and that from our local religion and adapted that to the new one." That is all good and well, but he point is that it was done all over, becasue most people had a specific winter celebration, just around the 24th-25th of December. St. Lucia for instance is another case of that. 13th of December is another special date as it was the believed shortest day (21st), so again several people had celebrations there, the christians coem along and put in St. Lucia.
Yeah, it happened a lot. I'd rather not generalise, though; if I can learn the proper dates and rituals, it would help to paint a clearer picture than "they took it from everyone".
Incongruous
09-13-2005, 01:53
Well, I'm not a big fan of this book, but you should read Da Vinci Code
Its a rip off of Holy Blood Holy Grail and Dan Brown is being taken to court for plagerism.
Doesn't really matter Holy Blood holy grail and the DaVinci code are all based on BS, lies, and spelling errors. So it really doesn't matter either way.
Meneldil
09-13-2005, 07:27
Holy Blood Holy Grail is certainely some nice BS. This book is trying to appear as an elaborated study and to make us (the reader) believe in either false or unsupported claims, while DVC is just a novel.
A novel that lifts all it's idea's from Holy Blood Holy Grail.
Watchman
09-13-2005, 16:12
Eh, so far as I know (and for that matter the university textbook I once had to read for a test tells) Judaism, Christianity and Islam are essentially different branches of the same tree. This little detail, no matter how much of a syncretist heresy, appears to have been fairly well realized by many medieval literati - look up Boccaccio's Decamerone sometime; one of the stories recognizes the similarity of the three quite matter-of-factly. Judaism is obviously the oldest and Islam the youngest - it readily admits as much (the operative idea being "finished version"), for that matter - and Christianity started out as little more than a Judaic splinter sect.
Naturally enough, the junior members of the family draw to a fairly large degree upon the senior ones. And all have accumulated an impressive amount of bits and pieces from other religions - scholars apparently consider the time the Jewish elite spent as captives in Babylon to be one of the most important formative phases in the developement of that religion, for example. And ancient Babylonian mythology has a deity who bears an uncanny resemblance to good ole Lucifer the Rebellious Angel...
Christianity, the first of the family to be truly evangelical, had a pressing need to play fast and loose way back in the Dark Ages while trying to win ground among the manifestly pragmatic and down-to-earth barbarian lordlings. Superimposing and co-opting old pagan holidays and suchlike was a more or less succesful measure to help recent converts get used to their new religion (and not spite the "old gods" on the side; common folks in particular tended to have a very result-oriented approach to the divine...), and for that matter "pagan" practices could right well survive well into the 1800s if not later among the common folk quite regardless of what the Church - be it Catholic, Eastern Orthodox or Protestant - would have liked.
Islam had its share of similar issues, particularly around the time when Mohammed's position and hence the future of his religion was still very much unsure. The issue over the "satanic verses", which earned Rushdie his death sentence, can be taken as a prime example of the realpolitik that had to be engaged in due to immediate pressures, similar to the famous "give unto the Caesar what he is due" line of Jesus. Apparently the Prophet initially found it necessary to recognize a handful of old local pagan deities as the children of Allah; since this was obviously at odds with the fundamental monotheism of his faith it is probably not surprising this idea got ditched ASAP, and Mohammed claimed that the earlier statement had been whispered into his ear by Satan instead of the usual middleman of his revelations, the archangel Gabriel.
It's probably obvious why the devout might find the issue... troubling. But then again the few Muslims I've spoken with also insist the Qu'ran was written by the Prophet himself, which it patently wasn't - it was compiled with the help of his personal secretary by his immediate successors, who became understandably alarmed when they realized the faith was circulating in at least three different versions all around the Caliphate shortly after his death. Naturally enough, tenets that aren't written down tend to chenge in the telling, part intentionally but to a very large degree by default owing to the way human mind and memory works. And the early Caliphs, shrewd and practical men like their prophet had also been, rectified the issue by compiling as accurate and reliable scripture as possible and then declared it inviolable, which worked quite well - while Islam saw schism and splintering like any other major religion, at least those didn't stem from different editions of the scripture as oft happened with Christianity...
But then again, I've had flyer-giving Christians earnestly tell me the Bible was written by Jesus. :dizzy2:
As for connections between Allah and the earlier lunar deities, I understand those are mostly the product of the context; when all is said and done Mohammed was, like any human, the product of his culture, and more importantly had to work in the context of the Arabic culture. If that culture held moon in high regard and considered it important, it is only natural that influences would bleed through into the new faith. Whether this was by accident or design (whether divine or temporal is entirely up to what one considers the source and design of his revelations to be) is fairly irrelevant.
Incidentally, by what I've read the crescent didn't become an Islamic symbol before the Turks came from the steppes; they probably retained it from their old pagan lore (as by that time the old Arab religions had been dead and buried for some three centuries already...), and later Ottoman ascendancy and near-hegemony would cement it as a distinctly Islamic symbol. That the primary Christian symbol didn't develop due to something equally frivolous is solely owing to the centrality of the death on the cross to the faith.
The cresent moon symbol of Islam today is of Greek origin. It represents the divine patreoness of Byzantium, Artemis. In a broader sense it is the banner of Constantinople. The star and cresent combo scene on the Turkish flag is also of Roman/Greek/Christian origin. The cresent represents Constantinople home of the patriarch the star the virgin Mary. I've seen 2 none Islamic banenrs that have a cross and cresent/star motif to them. All from Orthodox christian peoples (Serbian and Russian specifically). The Turks may have simply continued to use the cresent moon-star banner as there own after they conquered the Romans in 1453.
Watchman
09-13-2005, 20:50
Appropriating the symbols and vestements of folks you just deposed is a fine and respected tradition, all the more so if the symbols or folks themselves are prestigious (and Byzantium certainly was, even in its twilight), so that'd certainly make sense.
Meneldil
09-13-2005, 20:57
A novel that lifts all it's idea's from Holy Blood Holy Grail.
A novel that lifts all its ideas from ancient legends and theory used by the losers who wrote HBHG.
Watchman
09-13-2005, 21:40
Given that they most likely raked in some neat profits from the book, I see little point in calling them "losers". It ain't dumb who charges, but he who pays after all.
'Course, if the buggers actually believe what they wrote they're a bunch of loons (and I'm not talking about the birds). But I leave that between them and their conscience, or lack thereof.
Meneldil
09-13-2005, 21:46
Yeah, obviously, my point is that I don't see the point of calling DVC with bad names when HBHG is just the same thing, an easy way to get load of money, and a somewhat enjoyable reading.
Watchman
09-13-2005, 21:51
Point. Then again, those ancient myths and whatnots they ripped off in turn did a whole lot of "elevating" from other stories - some cynic once observed that stories that haven't been told before in one form or another are few and far between. You know the old fairytale about that princess Whatshername, the shoe, nasty step-family and all that ? It's been moving from one end of Eurasia in one form or another for several millenia now; the earliest known incarnation being from ancient Egypt...
Go fig. Methinks calling names in the context is a wee bit silly.
Appropriating the symbols and vestements of folks you just deposed is a fine and respected tradition, all the more so if the symbols or folks themselves are prestigious (and Byzantium certainly was, even in its twilight), so that'd certainly make sense.
The Turks did change it a little. They rotated the whole deal 90 degrees to the right.
Watchman
09-13-2005, 23:27
Maybe they didn't want to get sued for plagiarism ? ~:cool:
Incongruous
09-14-2005, 00:35
I wasn't saying that one should actually believe in HBHG, simply that it has a lot of proven facts about the symbolism of the church and where some symbols are derived from.
And it's full of more horse dung per square inch than a Parthian stable.
Incongruous
09-14-2005, 09:06
Well it's full of, now how should one put it?
Factual evidence based upon teniuos links with reality, thus if one were to visit looney world it would be the greatest work of non-fiction in the said world.
No the factual evidence is in fact BS. If you look at closely you'll see.
LeftEyeNine
09-14-2005, 17:13
Maybe they didn't want to get sued for plagiarism ? ~:cool:
Yes there were intellectual property rights for the time and Turks needed to rotate it. ~;)
Paul Peru
09-14-2005, 17:43
I really enjoyed Cosmos, Chaos, and the World to Come (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0300090889/102-9849773-7883327?v=glance)
by Norman Cohn.
It doesn't cover Islam, but Judaism and Christianity emerged from the same mythology/pantheon, with El, Baal etc. and different tribal/local deities.
LeftEyeNine
09-14-2005, 18:00
You may know, I am a believer of Islam.
I am very interested with the ongoing discussion here. One of the really informative threads lately. Keep it up..:2thumbsup:
I am concerned how "faithful" it is to assign the Godsend religions with symbols and myths of the earlier past. Is it about realization of an abstract concept since human beings need to see something somehow, to stregthen the perception of the religion ? Or is it a form of decay ?
Steppe Merc
09-14-2005, 18:03
And it's full of more horse dung per square inch than a Parthian stable.
Well, they didn't use too many stables, most were in pastures... ~;)
Well, they didn't use too many stables, most were in pastures... ~;)
That doesn't detract from the statement..
I am concerned how "faithful" it is to assign the Godsend religions with symbols and myths of the earlier past. Is it about realization of an abstract concept since human beings need to see something somehow, to stregthen the perception of the religion ? Or is it a form of decay ?
I'm afraid it's not quite as simple as that. For most people, the introduction of a new religion wouldn't even have made sense (because of their "institutionalisation") without somehow breaking it down in terms of their old religion.
Steppe Merc
09-14-2005, 18:25
I know, I was being an ass. ~D
I know, I was being an ass. ~D
Really? ~;p
Well, for starters as someone has already stated Christmas was placed during a Mithraic holiday (Dec. 25th). Rome effectively transposed the Christian holiday on top of the holiday of Saturnalia. The Romans took what they were already familiar with and adapted Christianity to it.
Our Christmas today also has some ingrained Celtic elements. The burning of the Yule log was an offering to the Mother Goddess. Mistletoe was considered a holy plant whose properties could bring enemies to a truce. It was often, as is still done today, hung above a doorway to grant peace to those who entered. Holly was also revered.
I have to go but I'll post more later. ~:)
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