GLOSSARY
by Mudarras Kadhir Gaznavi
: Dynasty of Caliphs ruling the Muslim Empire (750-1258) and claiming descent from Abbas the uncle of Mohamed.
Abhidammapitaka: Third part of Pitaka. ‘Basket of Dogma (metaphysics)’ Discourses on the foundations of philosophy.
: Old Testament Patriarch and the founder of Hebrew people. : Ancient meaning is the alchemist who has attained the knowledge of how to change base metals into gold. A highly skilled or well trained individual. Thoroughly proficient. A youth loved by Aphrodite, killed at hunting by a wild boar, and restored to Aphrodite from Hades. (Hades is the underground abode of the dead in Greek mythology. Sumerians called it Kur. In Hebrew belief it is called Sheol. In our time it is called Hell.) : Wise Lord. The Zoroastrian god. The force of total good. He is Eternal and Uncreated, wholly wise, good, beneficient and just, creator of all the spiritual and material worlds. Being just, wise and all-seeing, Ahura Mazda can see into the hearts of everyone and speak to everyone, and anyone, not just the priests. Furthermore he is transcendent, immanent and impersonal. In his transcendence he is beyond all creation, yet the cosmos depends upon him for existence. In his immanence he is within all creation. But he is not identical with that creation. Creation is not his body. He has no spatial location (Moslems will be able to detect their supreme creator's basic characteristics in this definition). Zoroaster taught that observance of god should be an intensely personal experience - such as his had been - with no need for priestly interpretation (Islam is against intercessors as well). : Akh-en-aton / Ikhnaton = 'It pleases Aton' or 'Pleasing to the Aton'. Akh-en-aton: Akhnaton, Akhenaten, Echnaton, Ikhnaton, Khouniatonou. All of these are the names of the same person. : The language spoken by the inhabitants of the land of Akkad, which was used from about 28th century B.C. to the 1st century B.C.; A Semitic inhabitant of central Mesopotamia before 2000 B.C. Akkad is the land in central Mesopotamia. Akkad eventually became the name of Babylon and Babylonia. : A place for stopover related to the 'nether world'. A place in between paradise and hell. According to the general belief those souls whose good deeds and sins are equal would go to A'raf. On the other hand according to the Catholic belief, A'raf is the place for those who died after receiving divine favour but failed to rid themselves fully of bad habits and therefore not yet forgiven. No one would be accepted to the paradise without fully purified of their sins. : The sacred black stone built into the eastern wall of the Ka'ba. This stone in Ka'ba, Mecca, consists of three large pieces and some fragments of stone, surrounded by a stone ring and held together with a silver band; total diameter is about 12 inches. The stone, an object of veneration by Muslim pilgrims to Mecca, probably dates back to the pre-Islamic religion of the Arabs. : Tell-el Amarna. The modern name given to the collection of ruins and rock tombs in upper Egypt, on the east bank of the river Nile, 58 miles by river below Asyut and 190 miles above Cairo. The ruins are those of Akhetaten, the city built about 1375 B.C. by Ikhnaton (Amenhotep/Amenophis IV / Akh-en-aton) as the new capital of his kingdom (in place of Thebes) when he abandoned the worship of Amon and devoted himself to the worship of Aton, i.e. the solar disk. Shortly after Ikhnaton's death the court returned to Thebes, and the city after an existence of hardly more than 15 years was abandoned. : Members of one of the various groups of Semitic peoples living in Mesopotamia, Syria and Palestine during the 3rd and 2nd millennia B.C. : Predecessor of Harappa. A proto-Elamite culture. It is the oldest one in the Indus Valley. : Amon, Amon-Re. The great god of the city of Thebes. : Belief in the angels and the study of the subject.Angra mainyu/Ahriman/Ahura Manah
: The evil spirit in constant battle with Ahura Mazda / Ohrmazd in Zoroastrianism. : (Latin, anima, soul) A doctrine that the soul is the vital principle of organic development. Attribution of conscious life to nature or natural objects. Belief in the existence of spirits separable from bodies. : To smear or rub with oil or an oily substance. To apply oil to as a sacred rite especially for consecration. : Described or thought of as having a human form or human attributes. Ascribing human characteristics to non-human things. : One who denies or opposes Christ. A great antagonist expected to fill the world with wickedness but to be conquered forever by Christ at his second coming. : The Sumerian sky god. : Son of god An. : Apocalypses are the beliefs about the end of the world and the expectation of an imminent cosmic cataclysm in which god destroys the ruling powers of evil and raises the righteous to life in a messianic kingdom. : Writings or statements of dubious character. : A Semitic language known since the 9th century B.C. as the speech of the Aramaeans; used extensively in southwest Asia as a commercial and governmental language in later periods; adopted as their customary speech by various non-Aramaean peoples including the Jews after the Babylonian exile. : The greatest dissenter from an established church dogma. One who dissents from an accepted belief or doctrine. : It is the vessel purportedly built by Noah in accordance with the measurements that god has given him. Where does this name come from? A large vessel in Sumerian is Gis-ma, Hittites took it and the Anatolian peoples adopted from them. Turks call a vessel gemi which must be the corrupted version of Gis-ma. Another word of the region for a large vessel is the Akkadian Ekallu which is thought to be the corrupted version of ê-gal (palace) in Sumerian. There are also elippu and eleppu meaning a vessel in Akkadian as well. Present day chaluppe in French, sloop in English, and shalopa in Italian are all corruptions of the original words, elippu and eleppu. When the Old Testament was translated into Latin, the name of the vessel became Arca. Thus Arca Noé- Noah's Ark. : [Sanskrit, ārya noble, belonging to the people speaking an Indo-European dialect who have migrated into northern India.] A member of the Indo-European speaking people occupying the Iranian plateau or entering India and conquering and amalgamating with the earlier non-Indo-European inhabitants. : In the Gathas we find a set of rules for living a life in line with god's eternal law. This eternal law is known as Asha. It is truth, righteousness, fire, world order, eternal law, fitness. In short it is the basic law governing the material and spiritual realms. This is the law, eternal and immutable, that governs the universe in both physical and spiritual realms. Selfless service for the preservation and development of the world is essential. The ultimate aim is to remove injustice, inequality and evil from the Earth by battling ignorance which is the source of all error.Ashura/Aşura: The food (aşura in Arabic) which was supposedly prepared in large containers, by the remaining supplies in the Noah’s Ark when it was supposedly grounded on mount Cudi.
: The renowned Assyrian king. Phrygian deity. : Another name of Re, the Sun-god. Zoroastrian scriptures. : One of the two ancient languages of old Iran and that in which the sacred books of Zoroastrianism were written. : Any of numerous Canaanite and Phoenician local deities. Plural is baalim. We shall come across this deity when we start looking into the Hebrew mythology. A Christian sacrament marked by the ritual use of water for admitting the recipient to the Christian community. A non-Christian rite using water for ritual purification. Christian science: Purification by or submergence in Spirit. : ' Son of the Hebrew ', (1226-1286). Also known by the Arabic name Abu'l Faraj. One of the greatest Syriac writers and a man of wide learning. Son of a Jewish physician he was born in Melitene (present day Malatya in Anatolia). He studied there and at Antioch (present day Antakya in Anatolia) and Tripolis (Lebanon), becoming a monk when he was about 17 years of age. Hebrew prophet Jeremiah's friend and secretary, who was employed to write from dictation or to copy manuscripts.. : A central being, a message carrying person, the out-of-this-world message called revelation, an idea with a central place of worship, with initiated persons and a functioning group of officials, and performing of related ceremonies all make up a belief system. : Bel-usur, Berossos, Berosus. (4 th/3rd century B.C.). A Chaldean priest of Bel in Babylon who wrote in Greek three books, describing the history and culture of Babylonia. He is said to have migrated late in life to the island of Cos where he founded a school of astronomy. : Here stands for the institutionalized belief system. : The Old Testament, the New Testament, and Kuran. : God. The ultimate reality, the supreme spirit. : A part of the Vedas. Basically it is a prose manual of ritual and prayer especially for the guidance of the priests. (8-7th century B.C.) : Land of Canaan is the 'Land of Purple'. It was the country where the most famous dye of the ancient world, purple, was extracted from a marine gastropod called murex, whose body turned into purple under the sunlight. Greeks called the people living here as Phoenicians (producers of purple) and the country Phoenicia meaning 'purple', the 'land of purple' in Greek. Tyre and Sidon were the centres for this business. Canaan is also the birthplace of two things which have radically affected the whole world : 1. Bible: Phoenician port city was god parent to Greek word byblos (book). From byblos comes biblion and Bible. 2. Modern day alphabet: in the 19th century B.C. the Greeks took over from Canaan the letters of our alphabet.Catechesis: Whole of catechumens, who are the converts to Christianity receiving training in doctrine and discipline before baptism.
: Chaldaia, Chaldea is a region of the ancient Babylonia. A Chaldean is the member of an ancient Semitic people that became dominant in Babylonia.Chinvat-Cinwat-Chinwad Bridge
: This is the supposed or imagined bridge, creation of the human mind again. After death until the time of the final judgement spirits of the dead would have to cross this Bridge of the Requiter. It is imagined to be in the shape of a sword. If the dead person was good and righteous a beautiful woman would let him pass on the side of the sword and the soul would rise to paradise. If the dead person was evil, then an ugly old woman would try to help and the sword would turn sharp edge up and the soul would fall down to hell. : The religion derived from Jesus Christ, based on the Bible as sacred scripture and professed by Eastern, Roman Catholic and Protestant bodies. Conformity to the Christian religion. Some scholars call Christianity as Paulinism due to the fact that basic foundations of Christianity; the atonement for the original sin, redemption, resurrection - all pagan ideas - were taken over and written into the religion by Saint Paul. : A group of writings within a diversified group which are known as Clementine Literature, all came into being by additions to one genuine epistle remaining from Clement, the Bishop of Rome toward the end of the st century. : Here defines the functioning of the belief system with a central institution (church, mosque, synagogue etc.). : A curved goat's horn overflowing with fruit and ears of grain that is used as a decorative motif emblematic of abundance. : Formal, solemn and binding agreement. Pledge. Contract. : Any of ancient units of length based on the length of the forearm from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger and usually equal to about 18 inches, but sometimes could be 21 inches or more. : Having the shape of a wedge. Composed of or written in wedge-shaped characters.Cyrus the Great
: Founder of the Persian Empire. His name in old Persian was Kurush : Hebrew Dani'el. The Jewish hero of the Book of Daniel, in the Old Testament, who as an exile in Babylon interprets dreams, gives accounts of apocalyptic visions, and is divinely delivered from a den of lions and/or a fiery furnace. : To make a god of. To take as an object of worship. : A movement or system of thought advocating natural religion based on human reason rather than revelation, emphasizing morality, and in the 18th century denying the interference of the creator with the laws of the universe. : A platonic subordinate deity who fashions the sensible world in the light of the eternal ideas. A Gnostic subordinate deity who is the creator of the material world. Something that is an autonomous creative force or a decisive power. : The study of demons or evil spirits. Belief in demons.Demotic: Relating to or written in a simplified form of the ancient Egyptian hieratic writing; of or relating to the form of Modern Greek that is based on colloquial use.
: Sanskrit, dharmapada. A chapter from the Suttapitaka Khuddakanikaya. Elaborate literary collection of the Buddha's sayings in verse. Viewed as a kind of gospel of early Buddhism and Theravada. : The basic principles of cosmic or individual existence.Diacritical: Diacritic: a modifying mark near or through an orthographic or phonetic character or combination of characters indicating a phonetic value different from that given the unmarked or otherwise marked element.
: As far as we know from the Sumerian clay tablets, Dilmun / Tilmun is a kind of paradise to the east of the land of Sumer. It is described as 'the land where sun rises'. Some scholars say that it is a country on the eastern shores of the Gulf of Basra-Persian Gulf. Some say it is one of the islands of Bahrain. And still there are those who affirm that the islands of Bahrain and the neighbouring lands constitute the mythological land Dilmun. The well-known Assyrian King Sargon tells us in one of the Assyrian texts (as read by Sir Henry Rawlinson): "King of Dilmun, whose country - like a fish - is in the middle of the sea of the rising sun, and twice thirty-hours away, has heard what a great ruler I was. He sent me gifts." Sargon's son Sannherib (705 B.C.) mentions Dilmun in his book titled History. Still some other scholars point to the narrations which mention the island of Dilmun and the mountains of Dilmun as well. There are no mountains on Bahrain. There are no significant high ground on the eastern shores of the Gulf of Basra. Some researchers emphasize that after the Flood Ziusudra (Noah) went to the mountains of Dilmun and settled there. Ut-Napishtim's (the Akkadian name for Ziusudra who is called as Atrahasis, Xisuthros, as well.) ark is said to have settled on mount Nizir after the Flood. Some scholars say this mountain is near Urmia, in Iran. Is this a coincidence? We understand that not only Ziusudra - who is purportedly sent there - but also other Sumerians used to flee to the high ground of southeast Anatolia to escape flooding. There are reportedly many places in eastern Anatolia and near Lake Urmia in Iran with the names starting with ' til ', which in Sumerian is known to mean life; and 'men' means nobility . So 'tilmen' could be translated as the 'place where there is noble life. (As mentioned elsewhere in this chapter, Dilmun was built by the gods for themselves and Ziusudra was given a god-like life (he was made immortal), and sent there because he heeded all the divine orders. Why the survivor of the Flood (Ziusudra-Noah) was sent to Dilmun by the gods is explained on a tablet found in Nippur which is in the form of a mythological poem titled Enlil and Ninhursag: "In Dilmun; raven never crows; peacock never sings like a peacock; lion never kills; wolf never snatches the lamb; the wild dog which devours children is not known here; crop eating wild boar does not exist; birds in the sky don't pick on the barley the widow spread on the roof; dove never bow down its head; those whose eyes are sore never say 'my eyes are sore'; the old women around here never say 'I am an old woman'; the old men around here never say 'I am an old man." : The art or practice that seeks to foresee or foretell the future events or discover the hidden knowledge usually by the interpretation of omens or by the aid of supernatural powers. : At several parts of the Mass it is customary with the Nestorian priests to make the sign of the cross upon themselves when using this salutation, which in English is, "Peace be with you all." Their deacons, for the most part, say, "Peace be with us." The Greeks never use the salution "Dominus vobiscum," but always say instead "Eirene pasi," that is "Peace to all", to which is responded "Kai to pneumati sou" which is "And to thy spirit." The same forms are observed in all the other churches of the East, with very little difference. ("Dominus vobiscum,'' the priest said, and the congregation responded: "Et cum spiritu tuo" , that is "The Lord be with you," "And with your spirit.") : A theory that considers reality to consist of two irreducible elements or modes. : Prototype of all the vegetation gods who die and rise again with the rebirth of vegetation in the spring. : A 13th century collection of mythological, heroic, and aphoristic poems in alliterative verse. : Elam is derived from the native Elamite name Ha(l)tamti, Assyro-Babylonian Elamtu. Geographically and culturally part of Elam has belonged to the southern lowlands of the Tigris-Euphrates river systems; at various times its peoples fought the inhabitants of Sumer and AkkA.D. Periodically Elam also included river and mountainous areas to the northeast and southeast of the Mesopotamian lowlands. Its exact limits, however, cannot be defined. : People of Elam. The Biblical name given to a country in south-western Persia approximately equivalent to the modern Iranian province of Khuzistan. : Sumerian god of Wisdom. : A group of nine. It refers to nine Heliopolitan gods. : The Babylonian Creation Myth. Enuma elish are the opening words which in English "When on high". Epiphany was the celebration of Christ's birth. It then became a celebration of Christ's baptism. The date, January 6th, which is observed as a church festival in commemoration of the coming of the Magi, as the first manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles. In the Eastern Church it is observed in commemoration of the Baptism of Christ, which has originated in the Eastern Church probably as early as 3rd century, and came to be celebrated in the West in the 4th century. Some scholars, however feel that epiphany has always been an idea feast, celebrating the manifestations of Christ's power. : A letter. In Christian terminology it is especially used to refer to the letters of Paul in the New Testament. : The Sumerian city, whose god was Enki, the Babylonian god of wisdom. : A branch of theology concerned with the final events in the history of the world and mankind - end of the world. : Either of the two books of the Roman Catholic canon of the Old Testament; Either of the two non-cannonical books of Scripture included in the Protestant Apocrypha. : Designed for or understood especially by the initiated alone. Relating to knowledge restricted to a small group. : God. Spiritual communion with god. : From or out of nothing. : The story told in the mainly narrative second book of the canonical Jewish and Christian Scripture where Moses and his followers reportedly came out of Egypt and wandered in the wilderness until they reached the promised land. : To expel (an evil spirit) by adjuration. To free of an evil spirit. Exorcism : The act or practise of exorcising. A spell or formula used in exorcism. : A Hebrew priest and prophet of the 6th century B.C. : A Hebrew priest, scribe and reformer of Judaism of the 5th century B.C. in Babylon and Jerusalem.Falsafah: Philosophy. The attempt to interpret Islam in terms of ancient Greek rationalism.
Faylasufs: Philosophers. Those Moslems and Jews in the Islamic empire who were dedicated to the rational and scientific ideals of Falsafah.
: An object which is believed, by the primitive peoples, to have a magical power to protect or aid its owner. : Belief in magical fetishes. Erxtravagant irrational devotion.First Cause: The self-created source of all causality.
: When the universe was in the process of being formed mankind has existed in a spiritual state of pure, divine energy - consciousness - and they were called the Fravashis. Hymns in the central parts of Yasna which is the liturgical part of the Avesta. They are the Zarathustra's teachings put into writing in the form of hymns. : A commentary on the Mishnah forming the second part of the Talmud. It is the myth based on an account of the descent of a person, family or group from an ancestor or from older forms. : Knowledge; esoteric knowledge of spiritual truth held by the ancient Gnostics to be essential to salvation. : Adherent of gnosticism. : Systems based on knowledge,. : The thought and practice especially of various cults of late pre-Christian and early Christian centuries distinguished by the conviction that matter is evil and that emancipation comes through gnosis. of St Luke: The third Gospel in the New Testament. Luke was a Gentile physician and companion of the Apostle Paul, traditionally identified as the author of the third Gospel in the New Testament and the Book of Acts. : The first four New Testament Books telling of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.Hadith: A technical term for a tradition of what the prophet had said or did.
/ Haggadah: Moral teaching from midrashic expositions of Hebrew texts. : One of the names of god, which means alive, ever-living, robust, forceful. The word is thought to have originated from the Phoenician vegetation god (Hai-Tau). : The body of Jewish law supplementing the scriptural law and forming especially the legal part of the Talmud. : A son of Noah and progenitor of Egyptians, Nubians and Canaanites. : According to Islamic sources names of fallen angels confined in a pit in Babylon. : Egyptian goddess. Originally a personification of sky, as the meaning of her name Castle of Horus shows. Her worship in the sun temples near Memphis was associated with another sun god, Ra of Heliopolis. In the old centre of her cult, Dandarah in upper Egypt, she was considered as the wife of Horus and as the goddess of festivity, dance and love. Later on, owing to the proximity of the necropolis of Thebes she became The Lady of the West and patroness of the region of the dead. Greeks identified Hathor with their Aphrodite. : A member of or descendant from one of a group of northern Semitic peoples including the Israelites. : A Greek god who serves as herald and messenger of the other gods. Roman version is Mercury. : Conquering people in Asia Minor (Anatolia) and Syria with an Empire in the 2nd. millennium B.C. : He was a soldier. He was a whole-hearted supporter of the old religion. As a practical man he had to bring order to the long neglected administration of the country and to suppress the extortions of the official classes by severe measures. He has probably began also to re-establish the prestige of Egypt by military expeditions in the surrounding countries. : Hurrians are an ancient non-Semitic people prominent in northern Mesopotamia, Syria, and eastern Asia Minor about 1500 B.C.Human Race (Creation of)
: According to the Sumerian myths, " gods were having difficulty in finding food, and their problems have increased when the later born goddesses joined them. Enki the water god - he was the god of wisdom and in a position to help them - was fast asleep in the sea and did not hear their complaints. Enki's mother Mother of all gods Nammu brought the tears of the complainants to Enki and told him in their presence: "O! my son, get off your bed... do what is wise. Give shape to (make some) servants to gods. Let them make their own copies.(?)" Enki thinks, decides to head the 'union of good and bright modelists' and says to Nammu: 'O! mother, the creature you have mentioned exists: Put the image of gods(?) on him. Shape his heart from the clay on the surface of the Bottomless Deep. Good and bright modelists will thicken this clay. You make its organs; Ninmah (goddess of Earth) will work in front of you. While you are making a model…goddesses of birth will be with you. O! mother decide on the faith of the newborn, let Ninmah put the image of gods on it: This is the human."Hyksos: The Semite dynasty that ruled Egypt from about the 18th to 16th century B.C.
Ibn Mas'ud: He is said to be an early convert; present in the group that crossed the sea over to Abyssinia; a member also of the group that moved to Medina; present at the battles of Badr and Uhud; and most importantly a personal servant of Mohamed. He is said to have learned seventy suras from the prophet. Therefore one of the earliest teachers of the belief system. He was reportedly commended by the prophet himself for his knowledge of the Kuran. The codex he produced was used in Kufa, and many copies were made of it. He was a formidable figure and a potential threat for Uthman who ordered the rewriting of the Kuran to produce an official version. So when Uthman has ordered Mas’ud to hand his copy he refused, arguing that his text was more accurate than Zayd ibn Thabit’s. About ibn Mas'ud's Kuran Diyarbakre writes (Tarikh-al Khamis): "if the Kuran of Ibn Mas'ud had remained in the hands of the people, it would have caused a schism in the faith, on account of the disgraceful anomalies that it contained."
Ichor: An ethereal fluid taking the place of blood in the veins of the ancient Greek gods.
: A picture or symbol used in a system of writing to represent a thing or an idea but not a particular word or phrase for it. : Akh-en-aten, Akh-en-aton. The name assumed by the Egyptian Pharaoh Amenhotep (Amenophis) IV, early in his reign (1379-1362 BC). The adoption of this name, perhaps to be translated as 'pleasing to Aton', has heralded a profound change in the official religion of Egypt. By the king's decree, the worship of the great god of Thebes, Amon-Re , and of the other deities of the large Pantheon was to be replaced by that of the sun-disk, the Aton, a universal god whose rays fell upon noble and commoner, Egyptian and Asian alike. The cult of this deity has probably originated in the north at Heliopolis, where the hawk-headed son-god Re-Horakhte, had long been sovereign. The new cult emphasized the personal nature of the relationship between god and the king; no longer anthropomorphic, the sun was depicted as a golden orb shedding rays of light on the king and his queen Nefertiti, each ray ending in a little hand offering the sign of life, the ankh, to the royal pair. The cult of Aton was an exclusive, indeed a monotheistic cult, the word 'gods' was deleted here and there from inscriptions. Had Akh-en-aton succeeded in his reform centered on a sole god, (which is the first in the history of mankind) the course of Egyptian civilization might have taken a different turn. : Akkadian Ishtar, Queen of Heaven, also called Ninlil. : Having originated in and being produced, growing or living in a particular region or environment. : Called alternatively the Harappan Civilization, one of the earliest civilizations known, first identified in the Sahiwal district of the Punjab, and then in 1922 in Mohenjo-Daro / Moenjo-Daro near the Indus River in the Larkana district of Sind, both in Pakistan. : Initiated or properly admitted to a membership (of a group, society). Instructed in some secret knowledge. : Engaged in activity requiring the creative use of the intellect.Iranian Saviour Ideology
: According to the Zoroastrian teachings it was Angra Mainyu (Evil Spirit) who killed the first Plant, the Bull and the Man. Evil triumphed and the Amesha Spentas (Angels created by Ahura Mazda) created life from death and brought the world as we know it today, into being. Angra Mainyu was trapped and condemned in the cosmic battle between good and evil. After the original death of the Plant, the Bull and the Man there would be a 3000 year balance between the good and evil. Then Zoroaster would be born, and from that point onwards, with the revelation of the good religion to Zoroaster it was acknowledged that the forces of evil would be beaten in the end and banished from the world. But this would take another 3000 years. There would be three more prophets (each would be born of a virgin impregnated by bathing in a lake which preserves the seed of the prophet). The last of these prophets would rise from the dead to bring about the final judgment. : God is all-knowing and all-seeing in his concern for man and he alone rewards or punishes. He will one day send a Messiah, a descendant of the line of David, who will usher in the age of redemption and the resurrection of the deA.D. : As its name shows us this is a square shaped building. Its corners are roughly aligned with the four directions of the compass. Around Ka'ba there are small buildings like the well which is created(!) out of nowhere by the god for the mother of Ishmael, Hagar, when they were left in the desert by Abraham. According to the popular belief the stone (a meteorite) in the wall of Ka'ba was given to Adam when he was kicked out of paradise. It was white but was blackened by the sins of all those pilgrims kissing it, so they say. Though we don't have a definite information on Ka'ba's past it most certainly was accorded the necessary respect as a sacred place before the advent of Islam. It is written in Kuran that the foundations of Ka'ba was laid by prophet Abraham and Ishmael. At this point it is not clear what the Islamic mythology means, but their interpretation seems to be claiming that the first sacred place there was established by Adam first, and then Abraham and Ishmael have rebuilt on the ruins of the first Temple's foundations. Mohamed seemed as if he did not attach too much importance to Ka'ba in the beginning. It is known that after Hegira/Hagira/Hicra (moving to Medina) he has experienced difficulties with the local Jewish population and turned kibla from Yerushalim to Mecca-Ka'ba. : King of Hubur. Hubur must be the land which includes the valley of Khabur, around the river Khabur which rises from Turkey, flows through Iraq and joins Euphrates. : Akkadian Sharru-ken or Sharrum-kin, meaning "the king is legitimate". "Sargon of Agade" (2350-2300 B.C.). A former vizier of a king of Kish. He was the founder of the city of Agade in north Babylonia, and wresting the hegemony of the city-states from the Sumerian Lugalzaggesi of Erech (Uruk) he established the first Semitic dynasty. This was the culmination of Semitic infiltration from the desert. The dynasty of Agade lasted little more than a century, but left a permanent imprint on the Mesopotamian society. Sargon gained possession of Sumer and Akkad - north and south Babylonia - and claimed control of regions as far distant as the Lebanon and the Amanus range. The later tradition accorded him an empire extending to Asia Minor. There are three Sargons in history. First one is the Sargon of Agade, the great Akkadian King (2350-2300 B.C). Second one is Sargon I of Assyria (1850 B.C). Third one is Sargon II of Assyria (722-705 B.C.) : The day of god's judgment of mankind at the end of the world according to various theologies.. A day of final judgment. : A female demon of Jewish folklore, equivalent to the English vampire. The personality and name ('night monster') are derived from a Babylonian-Assyrian demon Lilit, Lilitu or Lilu. Lilith was believed to have a special power for evil over children. The superstition was extended to a cult surviving among some Jews even as late as the 7th century A.D. In the rabbinical literature Lilith becomes the first wife of Adam, but flies away from him and becomes a demon which makes the two creation stories in the Old Testament agreeable (Are they?). : A eucharistic rite. A rite or body of rites prescribed for public worship. : Greek; speech, word, reason. Reason, which in the ancient Greek philosophy is the controlling principle in the universe. The divine wisdom manifest in the creation, government and redemption of the world and often identified with the second person of the Trinity. Father-Son (Yshua) and the Holy Spirit. : The Hebrew Leviathan. This could be taken as the evidence of the influence of the Akkadian myth of the killing of the dragon Tiamat - the first satan in written history - by Marduk. The Leviathan story is the adoption of the original Akkadian and Ugaritic versions to Hebrew mythology. : Here are some excerpts from Lu-dingir-ra's account: "..Enlil is our father. He created the sky and the earth. A very long time ago there was only an endless and bottomless sea called goddess Nammu. One day this sea goddess gave birth to a great mountain. Upon seeing this, Great Enlil separated it into two parts. Upper part became the sky and the lower one the earth. ...Scholars came together in Nippur and the city became a center in Sumer, where all kinds of education was given. Those who want a good education came to this city. Books for schools were written here and the copies were sent to other cities. Thus same level of basic education in every city became possible... (Referring to the Dumuzi and Inanna myth) goddess Inanna comes up to the surface of the earth accompanied by horrific looking underground jinns and starts going around the cities to find someone to send to the underground in her place. In each city she finds gods grief-stricken and in sack-cloths due to the disappearance of their goddess (Inanna), and could not bring herself to give anyone of them to the underworld as her replacement. (In many places in the Old Testament we read that persons wear sackcloth when they were mourning or penitent. So here you have the origin of this practice. SM)... Foreigners took over right away this new year's ceremony (Dumuzi and Inanna Ceremony). They have changed our goddess' name to Ishtar and our god's name to Tammuz and held on to them as if they were theirs. They taught them to their next of kin living in other countries. So this ceremony spread beyond our boundaries. Who knows! Its effects may last hundreds of years, and no one would know and understand its origins. Shameful and sad, is it not?.. We believe in fortune-telling. Most popular method is looking at animal livers and interpret the signs on it. By this method our kings establish if the time is right for war. We also look at water and the stars to learn what the future holds. We have priests at the temples whose function is fortune-telling... The difficulty with the scribe's job is the necessity to know Sumerian and Akkadian at the same time... Our laws and tradition necessitate each transaction to be written according to certain rules. No rights could be claimed or matters taken to court if they are based on unwritten agreements. That is why people who wanted to sell a house, a field, a garden, a slave, an animal; or to rent something, lend or borrow money; divide their inheritance while still alive; reject or adopt a child would come to my father accompanied by witnesses and their seals hanging round their necks. Those who are going to marry has to make a transaction before the witnesses to establish the conditions of marriage and who would get what in case of divorce. Couples won't be considered married without a written transaction. Our rules are definite. Burgul is the only institution authorized to finalize the transactions in our city. But my father was given a special permission by our chairman. He was a very honest and loved person. First the subject, then the conditions, names of the witnesses, their oath, date, month and year would be written on the transactions and stamped by the seals of both parties. The most important thing was to cover the seals with soft clay and stamp the seals again. Thus if the outer shell of the transaction is broken the inside would stay intact, and it could not be amended. Do you know that all these rules were invented by the Sumerians... We the Sumerians as natives speak Sumerian. The language of those who govern us is Akkadian. Two languages with no similarity at all. They were trying to teach us their language. In reality we have to learn the Akkadian, and they have to learn the Sumerian. They have taken over our writing, our religion and our gods. We have schools teaching how to write, and lots of books on the religion and science. And the majority of people are Sumerians... Hundreds of years ago an Akkadian named Sargon appeared and somehow or other took over the Sumerian kingdom and started governing our country and many neighbouring countries. Since then Akkadians are coming to our country and settling everywhere. Their aim is to take all the land and destroy the Sumerians. And they are progressing. Our youth establish friendship with the Akkadians, and marry them. It is impossible to prevent this now. Sumerians are becoming a minority in their country. What a dreadful situation for our nation... King Shuruppak taught our first proverbs to his son, Ziusudra, the hero of the Flood, and they were passed down to us orally because they (our ancestors) didn't have writing at that time,. When our writing was developed enough to write down these proverbs our scholars collected and wrote them down. But we found unwritten ones even in my time: ** "He who eats too much cannot sleep // Flies enter an open mouth // What is in the heart won't cause enmity, tongue is the source of it // Lie once, and you won't find a believer when you speak the truth // Be firm with your feet when walking // Friendship lasts a day, kinship is to the end // Everybody bows down before a well-dressed man // Fox stands guard in a village where there are no dogs // You wasted your time, what did you gain? // If you know it, why don't you teach it?" ** Let their shadows be proud! (Sumerians believed that a person became a shadow in the dark underworld when he died. So this 'shadow' must be referring to the dead person who is existing as a 'shadow' in the nether world.)... Our gods built and prepared for us our cities in the beginning, and filled them with the humans they have created. Then sent kings to govern these people. According to what is told and written, the first kingdom was given from the skies to the city of Eridu. Later on kingdoms were given to Badtibire, Larak, Sippar and Shuruppak. In these five cities only eight kings ruled. Do you know the total of the years they have lived? 241,200 years. I cannot believe that these people have lived this long. Another thing I cannot believe is this: How our forefathers thought our nation is this old? And this is only the period before the Flood! Thousands of years have passed since the Flood until my time. A very long time. Is it not? Following the first eight kings, such a disaster of flooding happened in our country that it swept everything. As it is told, our gods for whatever reason have decided to wipe out the mankind they created from the surface of the earth. At that time there was a king in the city of Shuruppak called Ziusudra, who was extremely kind, god-fearing and able to receive divine messages. Our respected god of Wisdom Enki was upset upon the gods' decision to destroy the mankind. Realizing that he could not change this decision all by himself, he whispered to King Ziusudra from behind a wall and instructed him to build a ship with the measurements he gave, load as much humans and animals as possible on this ship.. (after an inundation for seven days and nights) Upon realizing that the weather calmed down Ziusudra came out of the big ship and prostrated before our Sun god Utu, Sky god An, and god of Air Enlil. Made offerings to them. In return for the respect he has shown, our gods gave him an immortal life like gods and sent him to the Garden of gods where the sun rises... Following the Flood kingdom was given down to our country again, and the first kingdom has started in the city of Kish. In this city 23 kings have ruled for exactly 24510 years, 3 months and 3,5 days. Which means that each king has lived more than 1000 years. To tell you the truth, this is extremely difficult to believe. Writing was not invented then. Some of the kings between the ones mentioned may have been forgotten as these numbers and the names of the kings were passed down to us. Anyway, I am interested with an event related to Etana who ruled for 1560 years among these 23 kings. He was the first one to ascend to heavens. ( This must be the origin of the stories about the frequent ascensions(!) by almost all the prophets in different belief systems. Now you know the likeliest source of this "impossible fairy tale. SM.).. Following the city of Kish Kingdom have created. We have started taking down these stories as our writing has developed. But are all these true? I don't know. One could easily guess that the accounts of the events which had taken place almost hundreds of years ago would have changed as they were passed down orally. These Kings are Gilgamesh, Lugalbanda and Enmerkar... Freedom is very important. Alas! we have lost it. The state of Sumer is no more after hundreds of years. It has disappeared. Now Akkadian kings are ruling us. But their religion is ours, civilization is ours... We Sumerians have lost our freedom to the Akkadians. In reality we have a lot of the blame. If our cities came together and joined their forces this would not have happened. Our administrators who were after fame and recognition had our country disintegrate, and made our enemies eat us up. How sad?... You should know how the administration, then started taking Sumerian cities one by one under his rule. Then he could not stop himself and invaded the neighbouring nations, declared himself the king, and established a great Akkad state on the foundations of the Sumerian state. He had the following written about himself: He was the son of a poor woman. His father was not known. His mother gave birth to him secretly in a city on the banks of the river Euphrates, put him in a basket covered with pitch, and let the waters of the river carry it away. A gardener named Akki found him and raised him (Check the birth stories of Moses, Zarathustra, and other prominent personalities. You will find similar or almost identical stories. An unknown father, later on replaced by something divine, and the holy spirit. The secret birth, the basket, the river, and an unrelated third party finding the basket and the child, and bringing him up! M.K.G.) Later on with affection from our goddess Inanna he became the king of us the "dark-heads." He was probably the son of a priestess. That's why his mother had released him to the waters of the river. Come to think of it, I have read somewhere that his mother was a priestess. As I wrote earlier priestesses should not bear child because the child would be considered as child of the god. (..Because they lived in the house of god and belonged to the god, the children born would be god's children. Therefore they were given various herbal medicines to prevent pregnancies. An accidental child would be killed if the mother could not hide the newborn. According to Lu-dingir-ra's account - who had a daughter who wished to be a priestess - of the daily life in Sumer these Temples were also the designated places for a young boy to experience his first sexual intercourse with a woman or for the unmarried man to meet their needs, and priestesses were present at these Temples to serve for these purposes.M.K.G.). I knew that the most suitable places for this practice are our temples, and there were our priestesses who dedicated themselves to this practice in the name of our goddesses. But it is impossible for anybody and everybody to enter the temple for this purpose. Only those members of the intellectual families who respect our gods and temples, who present regularly their offerings and gifts, and those who take part regularly in the religious ceremonies and festivities have the right to do it. Suddenly I remembered, these "sacred prostitutes" has to cover their heads out in the streets. But (I noticed) they covered their heads in the temples as well. (So here is the most possible origin of the practice of females covering their heads. Please take note that the idea behind this practice is "possession", being "possessed by someone," or "belonging to someone." Since all the females belong(!) to the males in a patriarchal society; since all the males hold(!) themselves responsible(!) for the female's honour and chastity, those women should cover their heads. That's an order!) To force a woman to a (sexual) union is considered a despicable act by our nation. Our laws have heavy penalties for this act. (...) When Urnammu became the king the first thing he did was to organize and strenghten the armed forces. Thus he united the land and took him under his power. During his rule of 16 years one of the most important things he had achieved was the promulgation of a written law. Since then all the court rulings are made according to this law... In the beginning of this law achievements of Urnammu is told, followed by the articles of the law... Akkadians one day would promulgate a law in their language. They would boast claiming that they were the ones to have written down the first law. Don't forget we, the Sumerians, promulgated also the first law. Taking ours as a model they could write down a new law according to their traditions in the future... (In one of the poems included to relate the achievements of King Shulgi) In another poem of his, our king will tell you how a good runner he is: "Before Utu turned his face toward his home / I finished the 15 'double-hours' journey / My priest Sag-ur-sag looked at me with bewilderment / I celebrated 'Eshesh' festivities in Ur and Nippur." I cannot understand how our king went to these two cities so far away from each other in the same day. But he did it somehow! (Stories about a person seen in two far away places simultaneously despite the impossibility of the feat or travel at impossible speeds between two far away places were apparently in existence then. Like they exist in the code books of the belief systems of our day. Lu-dingir-ra was suspicious about those stories, 6000 year ago! But the present day believers just take those stories as granted after 6000 years of development. M.K.G.)... In our neighbourhood there is a beer-house. This place has came down to us passing from mother to daughter for hundreds of years. In our country women are the proprietors of beer-houses. These places are open to everybody female and male. Only the high level priestesses cannot enter. (Why? Because they are in the service of the god. They cannot mix with plain people, who are also taking alcohol. Can they? M.K.G.).(...) A relief of a jinn hanging on the main entrance protects us from evil. Our courtyard is surrounded by rooms, two of which are extremely sacred for us. One of them is a small worship room where we pray. On the wall opposite the door there is a recess in which a statue of our "family god" is placed and in front of that there is an altar. I wonder if you were you confused when I mentioned our "family god?" According to our belief each family, even each person has a protective god. This protective god conveys our wishes to greater gods. The second sacred room is where we inter our deA.D. In the past dead were used to be interred here in the house. This tradition does not exist anymore. Dead are taken to a cemetery out of the city." : A source of light or illumination. A body that gives light - one of the celestial bodies. : Ma'at is the goddess of honesty, order, and justice and the daughter of Re, the sun-god.Magi:
Priests in the native religion of ancient PeRsia that Zoroastrianism had replaced. They infiltrated the religion and began to incorporate some elements from their pre-Zoroastrian beliefs. They brought back some of the old gods. Then changed various qualities of Ahura Mazda into "beings". : A member of a hereditary priestly class among the ancient Medes and Persians. One of the traditionally "three wise men" from the East paying homage to the infant Jesus. Magician, sorcerer. : Melanesian and Polynesian origin; akin to Hawaiian and Maori mana. The power of the elemental forces of nature embodied in an object or person. : The chief god of the city of Babylon and the national god of Babylonia. As such, he was called simply Bel, "Lord." His name probably of Sumerian origin, is of uncertain meaning. He was given all the powers and prerogatives of all gods, because it was his mission to conquer the monster of the primeval chaos Tiamat - the first Satan in history. He becomes "lord of the gods of heaven and earth, king of the gods of heaven and earth, king of all gods and kings and lord of all lords." All nature, including man, owes its existence to him; the destiny of kingdoms and subjects is in his hands. : This city is on the upper section of the Euphrates, its present day name is Tell Hariri. Ma-ri means "city of ships". It was a very important kingdom about 1900-1800 B.C. Its lands extended 450 kilometers from the boundary of Babylon to the boundary of Syria. One of their Kings, the one after Zimri-lim was the great Semite king Hammurabi. : Scribes who compiled the Masorah, which is a body of notes on the textual traditions of the Hebrew Old Testament brought together by the scribes during the 1st millennium of the Christian era. An apostle traditionally identified as the author of the first gospel in the New Testament. : The religion of the mazdayasna, "worshippers of Ahura Mazda," another name of Zoroastrianism. : A priestly healer or sorcerer especially amongst the American Indians : Theology developed in Memphis. According to this theology, the gods were regarded as manifestations of the uncreated Ptah, who produced all the gods in conjunction with Nun, and who created all other objects in the world from his own thought.Merneptah: Merneptah reigned 1290-1223 B.C. This stele, also called the Israel Stele, is set up in Merneptah’s mortuary temple at Thebes. It is important because of the Victory Hymn written on it. In this hymn a great victory against the invading Libyans is recorded and the last lines of the stele summarizes Merneptah’s military achievements. Libya is wasted, the Hittites pacified, Canaan, Ascalon, Gezer and Yenoam in Galilee sacked and plundered; “Israel is desolate and has no seed, Khor (Palestine) has become a widow of Egypt.”
: In the usual "jargon" it is called "revelation", meaning something revealed by god to man. It means also the act of revealing or communicating divine truth. : Prophet; one who utters divinely inspired revelations. One gifted with more than ordinary spiritual and moral insight: an isnpired poet. One who foretells future events. An effective or leading spokesman for a cause, a doctrine or group. Messiah - the anointed one. The person chosen by god to be king. : A member of an ancient northern Arabian people. : Midrash is the term applied to certain methods of Biblical explanation and interpretations and to a class of Jewish writings employing these methods. Midrash Rabba is one of the 11 more important Midrashim. It is on the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Old Testament) and Megilloth (Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, and Esther). : A haggadic or halakic exposition of the underlying significance of a Bible text. : The collection of mostly halakic Jewish traditions compiled about 200 A.D. and made the basic part of Talmud. Mishnah means "teaching." It is the compilation of "unwritten" or "oral laws" which were passed down the centuries by the word of mouth. The compilation of the discussions on the articles of Mishnah is called the Gemara (which means complementary) The explanations in the Gemara have further explanations called Midrashim (exposition, explanation - A haggadic or halakic exposition of the underlying significance of a Bible text).. But Midrashim are not considered a part of The Talmud. Mishnah had taken its final form as a result of 50 years of study by Judah Ha Nasi in Beth Shearim in Galilee. Judah Ha Nasi ("The Prince"-135-220 A.D.) was a Palestinian Patriarch, a disciple of the school of Rabbi Akiba. Judah Ha Nasi went through the "Oral Law" and organized it in six sections as established by Rabbi Akiba and his student Rabbi Meir. This work of Judah Ha Nasi became the foundation of the Talmud. Judah Ha Nasi was called "Rabbi" (teacher), "Rabbenu" (our teacher), "Rabbenu ha kadosh" (our saintly teacher). By judicious interpretation of the Law Judah Ha Nasi tried to alleviate the hardships of his people. His students of extraordinary calibre furthered his studies by compiling his works, by reorganizing Tosefta (addendum to Mishnah) and compiling the Baraitoth (extraneous citations). : The oriental mystery cult for men which had its heyday in the late Roman Empire.Moab: Moab is the name of the highlands to the east of the Dead Sea. The archaeological research has revealed that the area was occupied densely during the Bronze Age from the 23rd to the 20th century B.C. with a highly developed agricultural civilization. After a gap of about six centuries Moabite civilization appeared in this region.
: Belief in and worship of one god. : Manliness/acting like a man; courage in battle, patience and endurance in suffering, absolute dedication to tribe. : An act or instance of mystifying, the quality or state of being mystified, something designed to mystify.... : To perplex the mind of. To make mysterious or obscure. : 1. Story from ancient times, dealing with the beginning of the world and society. 2. Widely believed false story or idea. What is a myth? Encyclopedia Britannica writes: “ ‘myth’ meant anything that was opposed to ‘reality’ ”: The creation of Adam, the invisible man, no less then the history of the world as described by the Zulus or the Polynesians or the theogony of Hesiod - these were all myths. Like many of the other cliches of Positivism this was of Christian and ultimately of Greek origin. For the Greeks mythos meant fable, tale, talk, speech. Contrasted both with logos and later with historia, mythos finally came to denote ‘what cannot really exist’.. According to Max Müller mythology is the result of a ‘disease of language’. The fact that an object can have many names (polyonymy) and conversely that the same name can be applied to several objects (homonymy) produced a confusion of names which resulted in the combination of several gods into one and the separation of one into many: nomina, numina. Moreover the use of endings denoting grammatical gender led to the personification of gods. According to Müller, the ancient Aryans constructed their pantheon around the sun, the dawn and the sky. This all embracing ‘solar mythology’ was cleverly criticised by Andrew Lang who asserted that myths result not from any ‘disease of language’ but from the personification of cosmic elements, a mental process characteristic of the animistic stage of culture. Lang utilized the data of the new science of anthropology, and drawing heavily upon E. B. Taylor has concluded that animism was the earliest stage of religion. But now the lunar and Mesopotamian myths usurped the exalted position of Max Müller’s solar and Vedas myths. There were those who tried to explain the ancient near eastern and Greek myths in terms of ritual magic. The periodical death and resurrection of vegetation was claimed to have created the figure and the myth of a dying god, of which Adonis, Attis and Osiris are the best known examples. A great number of scholars concluded that the rituals preceded the myths; the myth was held to be an explanation of the ritual. The English and Scandinavian ‘myth and ritual school’ or ‘patternism’ elaborated the interdependence of myths and rituals. It was pointed out that in the ancient near east the king, representing the god, was the centre of the cultus and as such he was responsible for the crops and for the prosperity of the cities. One went even further and maintained that the king was responsible for the very well-being of the cosmos. It was claimed that this conception later gave rise to the Iranian and to Jewish myths. This ‘patternism’ has been attacked from many sides who maintained that differences are more important than similarities and consequentially that the myth and ritual pattern is an artificial construction. The new approach to myth is greatly indebted to the results of modern ethnology. The scientific study of archaic societies - i.e., those societies in which mythology is or was until recently ‘living’ - has revealed that myth for the primitive man means a true story and beyond that, a story that is a most precious treasure because it is sacred, exemplary and significant. There are types of myths: The first type is the ritual myth. This type of myth shows that the people who lived in Mesopotamia and Egypt thousands of years ago had created an elaborate pattern of activities, which we call ritual. These rituals were carried out by large staffs of priests in the temples. These were a system of actions, performed in an unchanging way, at regular times, by authorized persons possessing the specialized knowledge of the correct way in which these actions should be carried out. All these activities were designed to secure the well-being of the community by controlling the incalculable forces which surrounded man. Moreover there were spoken words, chants and incantations whose magical efficacy was an essential part of the ritual. Rituals consisted of the part which was done, Greeks called it drômenon; and the spoken part, which the Greeks called the muthos, or myth. The myth was the word of power. The historical truth of the story contained in the myth was irrelevant. The function of the myth was not knowledge but action, which is essential for the existence of the community. Long before the earliest forms of historical records, the myth had had a vital function in the life of the community; as an essential part of ritual it helped to secure those conditions upon which the life of the community depended. Another type is the myth of origin which is more generally called the aetiological myth. Some scholars regard it as the earliest. Its function is to give an imaginary explanation of the origin of a custom, a name, or even an object. Sumerian myth of Enlil and the Pickaxe is an example in which it is explained how a most valuable agricultural implement came into existence through the activity of a god. Another example is the Hebrew myth of Jacob’s conflict with a supernatural being. Which explains an ancient Israeli food taboo. Then there is the cult myth. In the development of the religion of Israel a new use of myth made its appearance. Passover, Pentecost or the Feast of Weeks, and Tabernacles all had their own special ritual, preserved and carried out by the priests at the local shrines. The Feast of Passover was celebrated with a ritual whose origin was far older than the historical event that was commemorated. Accompanying it was the cult myth describing the event, not in historical terms, but in terms borrowed in part from Babylonian and Canaanite myth. The function of the cult myth was to confirm the covenant relation between YHVH and Israel. In this new use, the myth is divested of its magical potency which it had possessed in the ritual myth. The prestige myth is distinct from the previous ones and its function is to invest the births and exploits of a popular hero with an aura of mystery and wonder. The mirth of Moses in an ark of bulrushes on the Nile, and its parallels in the similar stories relating to Sargon, Cyrus, Romulus and Remus are examples of this type. The stories of Elijah and Elisha fall into the same category. Prestige myths also tend to gather around the names of famous cities: Troy is built by the hands of gods. Zion is described in mythical terms borrowed from Babylonian and Canaanite mythology as being built ‘on the sides of the north’ (the expression used in those myths to describe the abode of the gods). And the last one is the eschatological myth. It may owe something to the eschatology of Zoroastrianism. But it is especially characteristic of Jewish and Christian thought. The conception of a catastrophic end of the present world order occupies a prominent place in it. The prophets believed that the ‘salvation history’ must have its consummation in a decisive divine intervention. When they tried to describe the final situation they had to fall back on the language of myth. Marduk’s conquering the chaos-dragon in the Babylonian Epic of Creation supplied them with imagery which they used to describe YHVH’s final victory over the forces of evil. This type of myth was carried over from Judaism into Christianity and appears in its fullest display in the Apocalypse of Saint John.. Here the myth has become an expansion of symbolism. (Summarized from the middle Eastern Mythologies by Samuel Henry Hooke. : One who compiles myths. : Not real : Body of myths, especially those of a particular people. : Sumerian Moon-god of Ur. : A Jewish leader of the 5th century B.C. who supervised the rebuilding of the Jerusalem city walls and instituted religious reforms in the city. : A descendent of Ham represented in Genesis as a mighty hunter and a King of Shinar. : The most populous and the oldest city in Assyria. Situated on the east bank of the Tigris opposite modern Mosul in Iraq. : Sumerian Earth-mother. (Eve): There is a region called Dilmun in the land of Sumer. This is a pure, clean, shining land where gods live. Sickness and death is unknown there. But they had no water so Enki called upon the Sun god to bring water to the surface and fill the region with it. Sun god did as requested. The whole region became a garden of gods with gardens and fields everywhere. Here the Earth goddess Ninhursag planted eight trees. They grew and Enki tasted the fruits of each of them. Earth goddess was furious, she cursed Enki and disappeared. Enki became very ill. Other gods found Ninhursag and pleaded with her to treat Enki. Enki's eight organs needed treatment one for each of the trees. So Ninhursag created eight entities one for each organ. Five of these entities were female and the rest males. One of the eight organs were the rib and the goddess created to treat this rib was named Nin-ti ( Nin: lady, ti: rib) "the lady of the rib". Another meaning of "ti" was "life", making Nin-ti "the lady of life". This story appears in the Old Testament and in Kuran. And in its passage from Sumerian myths to the Old Testament, treating the rib has become creation from the rib. "The Lady of life" became the Old Testament's Havvah (Eve). : Nibbana. A blowing out. A ceasing of self. Liberation. Extinction. Noah: A mythical personality who built the "Ark" by means of which he and his family have escaped the Flood. : Nuzi is the ruins of a city to the southeast of Nineveh. Here an extensive archive was discovered, written in cuneiform Akkadian. The people living in Nuzi was called "Horites" in the Old Testament. They were not of Indo-European or Amorite descent. They have founded a state on the Amorite lands. They were influenced very much by the Sumer and Ugarit cultures. These tablets helped very much in establishing the reasons behind and the roots of certain traditions in the Old Testament. : Having unlimited power. Almighty, invincible, supreme, unconquerable. An authoritative or wise answer. A person through whom a deity is believed to speak. A shrine in which a deity reveals hidden knowledge or the divine purpose through such a person. An answer or decision given by an oracle. A person giving wise and authoritative decisions or opinions.Orphic: The mystical and religious cults written supposedly by Orpheus in ancient Greece and Rome.
: The state of sin that according to Christian theology characterizes all human beings as a result of Adam's fall. One of the most important Egyptian gods, who composed a trinity with Isis and Horus the child. The name is the Greek form of the Egyptian us-yri ("occupier of the throne" - i.e., the king or "a joy to behold") The language spoken during the Sassanian rule, also known as Middle Persian. The Pahlavi Books has given us extremely important keys for interpreting the dark-obscure sections of the Gathas.Pantheon of gods (Sumerian)
: Sumerians were polytheists. Gods were human like immortal beings with superhuman powers . Like a king they had a chief god and all the other gods gathered under this chief god. These gods fell in love, saddened, were jealous and fought with each other. They were malicious. They were prone to sicknesses. Also suffered wounds. Earth, sky, air and water god were creators and the rest were protecting and governing gods. There were 1500 gods. Sun god Utu saw everything, kept justice, headed the fortune tellers. Enki the god of Wisdom and Water protected humans and magi. Goddess İnanna symbolised the planet Venus, protected lovers and warriors etc.Pharaoh: The title comes from the ancient times of the god-king, ‘the Lord of Life and Death’. He was so powerful that his name could not be mentioned. A symbolic cover-term was used - par’o - ‘the Big House’.
: An anti-nationalist party which emerged in the second century B.C. Kept the faith alive after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. through religious rather than political means. : Pictorial symbols. : (205-270 A.D.) Philosopher and founder of the neo-Platonist school. : Plutarch of Athens. 4th-5th century A.D. Greek philosopher Head of the Platonic School at Athens. It is generally agreed that Plutarch's account is drawn from early Egyptian sources such as the Pyramid Texts. : Belief in or worship of more than one god. : An address (as a petition) to god or a god in word or thought. A set order of words used in praying. The act or practise of praying to god or a god. : First created or developed. : The function or vocation of a prophet. The inspired declaration of divine will and purpose. An inspired utterance of a prophet. : "Force", "expression on a person's face showing his state of mind", "the exterior expression of somebody's inner nature" , "the individual self as it is presented to an onlooker." : Any of various pseudonymous or anonymous Jewish religious writings of the period 200 B.C.to 200 A.D; one of such writings (as Psalms of Solomon) not included in any canon of Biblical scripture. : Originally the local deity of Memphis, capital of Egypt in the 3rd. millennium B.C. In Egyptian belief, Ptah was the creator of the universe and maker of things, therefore also a patron of craftsmen, especially sculptors. The title of his high priest was the "supreme leader of craftsmen." Consequently the Greeks identified him with their Hephaestus, the divine blacksmith. Ptah was always represented in purely human form. The connection between him and the sacred bull Apis was artificial, but Apis had his stall in the great temple of Ptah in Memphis and was called "intermediary of Ptah", that is, intermediary between men and god. : The relatively small pyramids of Unas, the last monarch of the 5th dynasty, of four kings and three queens of the 6th and of an obscure 7th dynasty pharaoh named Ibi, all of which are at Saqqarah, are of particular interest because inscribed on the walls of the inner chambers are collection of prayers, hymns and spells meant to ensure the welfare of the king and queen in the afterlife. These inscriptions known as the Pyramid Texts, form the world's oldest surviving body of religious and funerary writings.Q : Quelle. The source material. Many historians and theologians are sure that Q is the oldest source that circulated amongst the followers of Jesus, much older than Mark. Scholars believe that the sayings of Jesus were probably taken down in writing for the first time by his followers immediately after the crucifixion.
: Ever self-existent, eternal god. Qumran Scrolls: Old scrolls, discovered in 1947, which contained Biblical texts and other ancient religious writings believed to have been written by the Qumran people, who were called Essenes. R.R. Marett: English anthropologist.Rabbi: ("Rab", "Rabbi": Master, teacher); Jewish, "my master." A Jew qualified to expound and apply the halakah and other Jewish law. A Jew trained and ordained for professional religious leadership. The official leader of a Jewish congregation.
: Relating to Rabbis or their writings. Here "Rabbinical" means the writer/writers of the text. : The Smriti texts - Scriptures "remembered" or "created by man", fundamental to Hinduism. Ramayana, Vedanga and Mahabharata constitute the Smriti texts. : Re or Ra the sun-god of Egypt. He was thought to travel across the sky in his boat each day, and during the night in another boat to make his passage through the underworld, where in order to be born again for the new day, he had to vanquish the evil deity, Apophis. Originally Re was one of the solar deities but eventually his worship pervaded all other solar gods and that of many of the animal-headed deities. Thus among others syncretisms such as Re-Horakhte, Amon-Re, Sebek-Re, and Min-Re. : One who redeems. One who atones for. One who expiates; : Determination to act in a certain way. : Scriptures that are fundamental to Hinduism. There are two forms, Shruti ("heard" or "god given to man") and Smriti ("remembered" or "created by man") Shruti is the more important and includes both, the four books of the Veda, in which are contained the beliefs and customs of what eventually became Hinduism, and the Upanishads. The Smriti texts include the Vedanga and the great epics, loved and revered by all Hindus - and by many non-Hindu Indians - such as the Ramayana and the Mahabharata.S. Radhakrishnan: The important religious historian and philosopher.
: Dedicated or set apart for the service or worship of a deity. Worthy of religious veneration. Entitled to reverence and respect. : Siddhartha Gautama or Gotama - Buddha. Deliverance from the power and effects of sin. Christian Science: the realization of the supremacy of infinite Mind over all bringing with it the destruction of the illusion of sin, sickness and death. : An ancient Indic language that is the classical language of India and of Hinduism as described by the Indian grammarians. Classical Sanskrit together with the older Vedic and various later modifications of classical Sanskrit. The rulers of the third Iranian Empire who established their rule in 224 A.D. During their rule for almost 400 years they have reinstated the Zoroastrianism as the official state religion and established an ecclesiastic organization. : Of or relating to the worldly or temporal. Not overtly or specifically religious. Nor ecclesiastical or clerical. Not bound by monastic vows or rules. : One that predicts events or developments. A person credited with extraordinary moral and spiritual insight. One that practices divination especially concentrating on a glass or a crystal globe. : [Hebrew Shēm] A member of any of a group of peoples of south-western Asia, chiefly represented now by the Jews and Arabs, but in ancient times also by the Babylonians, Assyrians, Aramaeans, Canaanites and, Phoenicians. : Of or relating to or characteristic of the Semites. Specifically Jewish. Afro-Asiatic language family that includes Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, and Ethiopic. : The first "evil", "satan". The first one we know in history was in the shape of a dragon called Tiamat in Sumer. : A son of Adam. : A priest who uses magic for the purpose of curing the sick, divining the hidden and controlling events. : A religion of the Ural-Altaic peoples of northern Asia and Europe characterized by the belief in an unseen world of gods, demons, and ancestral spirits responsive only to the shamans. : One of the Trimurti - destruction. : A Sumerian city on the river Euphrates.Sicarians: Sicarii-Assassins. The term applied to the extreme Jewish Zealots, in the two decades immediately preceding the destruction of Jerusalem. Sicae: the small daggers, which the members of these groups conceal under their cloaks. Greek sikarioi, ‘daggermen”.
: English anthropologist who is credited by many authorities with having created the science of culture. His studies on mythology and magic and his famous derivation of religion from animism are both scholarly and provocative. : British anthropologist, folklorist and classical scholar, who wrote The Golden Bough. : Creator. God. Omnipotent. : (Holy Spirit) The force for good. The possible twin of Angra Mainyu in Zoroastrianism. : An early Christian apostle and missionary; author of several New Testament epistles; founder of the Christianity as an organized belief system around the Christian Church. : Sumer was the homeland of the world's earliest civilisation. It was roughly the same territory as modern southern Iraq from around Baghdad to the Persian Gulf. With the help of irrigation the people of Sumer made the land productive (so much so that some modern scholars tend to identify it with the garden of Eden). Sumer was first settled about 4500 B.C. by the Ubaidians. They founded villages that later became important Sumerian urban centres. In the following 1000 years these settlements were infiltrated by Semitic nomads from the Arabian and Syrian deserts. From this cross-fertilisation of peoples evolved a relatively high culture in which the Semitic element was predominant. The Sumerians, whose original home may have been in the region of the Caspian Sea probably did not reach Sumer before 3300 B.C. Their arrival and subsequent ethnic and cultural fusion with the existing population led to the creation of man's first high civilisation, now commonly known as Sumerian primarily because Sumerian was the prevailing language of the land. Their contributions to human development includes such technological devices as the potter's wheel, the wheeled vehicle, the sailboat, and the seed plow. Sumerian temples and Ziggurats are the architectural prototypes of the synagogue, church and mosque. The Sumerians were first to develop a system of writing. The first coherent musical system centreing on a diatonic scale can also be traced back to Sumerian sources. The city-state originated in Sumer. Sumerian written law is the forerunner of Biblical, Greek and Roman law. The division of circle into 360 degrees and of the hour into 60 minutes of 60 seconds goes back to the Sumerian sexagesimal (base 60) system of numbers. Judaeo-Christian ideas about the creation of the universe and man, and the creative power of the divine Word, the Flood, the confusion of tongues, man's personal god, suffering and submission, death and the Nether World have all their counterparts in Sumerian religious thought. Such Biblical Books as Psalms, Lamentations, Proverbs and the Song of Songs have their forerunners among Sumerian literary works. According to "Ludingirra the Sumerian" which is the life story of a Sumerian named Lu-dingir-ra (god's man) who lived 4000 years ago tells us on a clay tablet the history of the Sumerians: "…according to what the scribes and archivists at the royal palace wrote down about the past, Sumerians came to this land thousands of years ago from a mountainous country to the north-east. But some of those were said to have come by sea from a land called Dilmun in the east. The reason for their migration was the onset of a drought in their warm and rainy land.. According to our beliefs our gods have built these cities, the roads, complete with various institutions. Then they created us and 'invited us in. To tell you the truth I do not believe all these. But I have no doubts that we are a chosen nation by the god. Enlil the father of all our gods has founded the city of Nippur and settled some of us the 'blackheads' in that city…The results of my research into the reasons why we were called the 'blackheads' and the rumours point to the fact that neighbouring the land where our ancestors were living in the distant past, there was another land where blue eyed blond people were living."Sunna: The body of Islamic custom and practice based on Mohamed’s words and deeds.
Superior Beings
: Out-of-this -world entities, so called "divine" beings. They are "superior" because human beings consider themselves inferior and powerless in the face of the natural phenomena almost all of which either originate from the skies or the result of atmospheric events. Sky is "up there." The force of aerial phenomena is "overwhelming." There must be "something" or "someone up there doing all this to the earthlings living down on the earth." Furthermore the earthly phenomena like earthquakes, volcanoes, eruptions and subsidences, possibilities, probabilities and chance all come together and create this idea of "superior beings." : A belief or practice resulting from ignorance, fear of the unknown, trust in magic or chance or a false conception of causation. : Sanskrit Sutrapitaka. "Basket of Teaching Discourses". Second part of the tripitaka with explanation of the Buddha's basic teachings. Consist of five main sections (nikaya). : Sanskrit, Svasti: welfare; Originally regarded as a good luck symbol. A symbol or ornament in the form of a Greek cross with the ends of the arms extended at right angles all in the same rotary direction. Since the ends of these never meet, some say it represents the eternity, four corners of the endless universe etc. : Having or forming a syllable or syllables with each syllable distinctly articulated. : Speech-sound or group of sounds containing one vowel pronounced as a unit and forming a word or part of a word. : The combination of different forms of beliefs or practices. : A Tent sanctuary used by the Israelites during the Exodus, which contained the Holy Ark. A receptacle for the consecrated elements of the Eucharist. : (Tongan "tabu") Forbidden to profane use or contact because of supposedly dangerous supernatural powers. Banned on grounds of morality or taste. A prohibition imposed by social custom or as a protective measure. : The authoritative body of Jewish tradition comprising the Mishnah and Gemara. Talmud is second only to Torah as the main text of Rabbinical (as opposed to Temple) Judaism. There are two versions of it. The more detailed, complete and progressive version is called the Babylonian Talmud, which came about during the Babylonian exile in Sura (5th century A.D.) The second version is the Palestinian or the Yerushalaim Talmud of the 4th century A.D., which is more conservative and traditionalist. Talmud is made up of the Mishnah (compilation of the Oral Law) and the Gemara (commentaries on the Mishnah). The Talmud is encyclopaedic both on the Halakhah-Halakhot (Legal teaching based on midrashic expositions) and on the Haggadah (Moral teaching from midrashic expositions of Hebrew texts), the theological, ethical, and folkloric side of things. Rabbis (Rabbi: "master", religious teacher and interpreter of the Torah. Today, a preacher, leader of synagogue worship, minister to the community) often refer to it. The Talmud records all views, no matter who said it and why. Disputes, discussions go on. When there is a need to reconcile contradictory texts, commentaries known as Midrash (A tradition of Rabbinical Biblical exposition and exegesis designed to reveal the inner meaning of Torah. The Shulhan Aruch, a 16th cent. abridgement of Talmud, is popularly used by most Jews, leaving the full Talmud for scholars. So, the TALMUD has two sections: MISHNA (compilation of unwritten laws) and GEMARA (book dealing with legal matters; basically a commentary on the Mishnah). MISHNAH is arranged by the subject matter of Halakhot. GEMARA in its narrowest meaning, is often called TALMUD. TORAH - "Torah Shebikhtab" is the "written law." TALMUD is the "unwritten law," or "oral law, or "non-pentateuchal law." Comprising of Mishnah, Gemara; Baraitoth (Hebrew Law), Tosefta (Collection of those halakhot that were not recorded in Mishnah). TALMUD is not sacred. Only the Old Testament carries that attribute. But unfortunately a belief system cannot achieve its final form only with its sacred book, but also by the contributions of its clerics. Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are all alike in this sense. Judaism has taken its final form in 5th century A.D. : Akkadian Vegetation god; Sumerian Dumuzi. Sometimes considered as Enlil.Targum of Onkelos: May be regarded as an official translation of the Law, in the Judean-Aramaic dialect, which was carried out in Babylon probably about 4th century A.D. The final form of which cannot be earlier than the 5th century A.D.
: The ethical commandments of god, given(!) according to Biblical accounts to Moses by voice and by writing on stone tablets on mount Sinai. : The Old and New Testaments. : Belief in the existence of a god or gods. Belief in the existence of one god viewed as the creative source of man and that the world who transcends yet is immanent in the world. : An account of the origin and descent of the gods. : The study of god and his relation to the world especially by analysis of the origins and teachings of an organized religious community (as the Christian church). : Teaching about god and the world based on mystical insight. : The "salt-water-ocean" which existed in the beginning, as opposed to "sweet-water ocean", later on acquired the form of the chaos-dragon, Tiamat, killed by Marduk in the myth "Enuma elish". The first "symbol of evil", the first satan in history. The gender of this dragon is much more important. It is a female, which in my opinion, led to the negative expressions related to the female gender, like "woman / female is bad", or she should be kept at arms length and always under the control of the male gender. etc.. We see these echoes in all the "religions of the book."Tosefta A collection by Rabbi Hiyya bar Abba of those halakhot which was not recorded in the Mishnah.
: Religious systems in which trees function as manifestations or symbols of supernatural power. Vertical growth, periodic regeneration, and the flow of sap in trees suggest hidden, sacred or cosmic forces to many peoples. : The trinity of Brahman, Vishnu, and Shiva. The three main aspects of the god. : The heaven in which Buddha lived before his incarnation as Siddhartha Gautama. : Together with Dhammapada, Udanavarga are the texts which present Buddhist moral teachings. : Ras Shamra. : This refers to the name of the "supreme being" of course. If "He" is all enveloping, all seeing, all hearing and decides on the fate of each and everyone of us, how can one utter "His" name? Because an unwitting utterance of "His" name may evoke and unleash the tremendous power with the result of death and destruction. : The last books of the Vedas. The Vedanta. Shruti scripture, 1500 BC, most sacred text, comprising the Rig-Veda, the Sma-Veda, the Yajur-Veda and the Atharva Veda. : The 19th and the only one of the original 21 nosks - books - of theVinayapitaka: First part of Tripitaka. ‘Basket of Monastic Discipline’, rules of the Buddhist order
: One of the Trimurti - the preserver. Appears as Rama and Krishna.Vishtaspa-Hystaspes
: Gushtasp in later Persian tradition. Hystaspes is the Greek form of old Persian Vishtaspa. He was a local ruler in a country called in the Avesta, the Aryana Vaejah-Aryana Vaego. A Latin version of the Bible authorized and used by the Roman Catholic Church. : German philosopher, physician, physiologist and psychologist, often called the father of scientific psychology, founded the first psychological laboratory. : Ancient Hebrews who worship Yahveh. They use Yahveh as the name of god as opposed to Elohim. Here, "Yahwist" means the writer/writers of the text. : The principal liturgical book of the Parsees, which contains the texts recited by the priests at the solemn Yasna (izeshne) ceremony, which is the general sacrifice in honour of all deities. Yasna is divided into 27 chapters. Yasna means "to unite with Ahura Mazda through fire" in the secret doctrine. : Deities predating Zoroastrianism. : (JHVH, Yahveh, Jehovah). 'Tetragrammaton', the four Hebrew letters that form a biblical proper name of god. The sacred unspeakable name of god which means ' I am ' or 'he who is' or 'I am that I am' or 'I am who I am', which is unlikely as explained in the relevant page in this site.Zealots: A fanatical sect arising in Judea during the first century A.D. They opposed the Roman domination of Palestine.
: Ziusudra of Shuruppak. He is a person loyal to the gods, likes daydreaming, likes to listen to his inner self and the world beyond. He is the king of Shuruppak. Ziusuddu, Ziusuduru,Ziu Sudra are other versions of his name. In Sumerian Zi is "spirit", "heart", "life"; Su-du or Su-du-ra is "height", "length". So there are those who prefer the "man of long days" as the meaning of Ziusudra. Zi is identified with "light" also. Zi is thought to have corrupted into the Semitic (Hebrew-Arabic) Zav and Zia and those who are of this opinion suggest that Ziusudra has gone to where the sun rises/shines and made offerings to the Sun god therefore he was called Zi-u-sud-du, Zi-u-su-du-ru. It is highly likely that these names carry the meaning, "sublime light", "man who enlightens mankind with his wisdom". In the Greek version of the Flood story the hero Deakalion takes the instructions of Zeus the Sun god. Zeus, Zi, Zia, Zav, all pertainig to "sublime light", "sun" should be related. If, like some scholars argue, we start from "Zi" as "light" then we can think that Zeus is formed of "Zi+us". Also "Ziu" is the god of light and sky. mount Zion which is considered sacred by the Jewish belief system and Jebel-i Khira which is sacred for the Arabs especially and Moslems in general are related to "light", "wisdom", and "sky" due to "Zi" and "Khi" in these names. Ziusudra furthermore corrupted into Ziusuddu, then Sisythes, Sisouthros, Xisouthros, and there are those Turkish scholars who report that in Anatolia "Hıdr-Hızır" is considered to be the great helper and saviour from difficulties and evil, and in a certain region in the southeastern Anatolia people address "Hızır" as follows: "O! Hızır on the ships save us from this disaster," which seems to support their claim that Hızır and Ziusudra is the same character, the Ziusudra of Sumer (who is the Biblical Noah). Zoroastrians have their Ziusudra also. He is called Khshathra Vairya. Indians and Pakistanis call the water god, Khwadja Khidr. Hâce Hızır is the name of the personality who is considered to be a man of god, saint. Hâce here could be the corrupted version of the Arabic Hodja, meaning a learned man, a person well versed in religion, preacher in Islam. : Prophet of Zoroastrianism. He is a mixture of legend and myth (as almost all of the protagonist of religions). As a result of the recent studies carried out on the scriptures, it is now acknowledged that Zoroaster probably lived around 1200 B.C. From the scrutiny of the Avesta (The Zoroastrian Scriptures) he could be said to have descended from the settlers of the first nomads, that he was an hereditary priest of an indigenous religion, he was married, had children. In Zorroastrian teachings every man and woman has the duty of living a life of right thoughts, right words and right deeds. Only thus will the creation be cleansed of evil. : Around 2000 B.C. a wave of nomadic tribesmen (known today as Indo-Iranians although they called themselves Aryas, the noble ones) passed through northern Persia en route for India and eventually absorbed the Indus Valley civilization. Some of these peoples settled in lands on the way and took up an agricultural life. Their religion was based on their earlier nomadism; no temples or images and using fire as a ritual focus. It was simple, fatalistic, sacrificial and polytheistic. Their gods and devils were abstract forces, rather then representational, drawn either from nature (wind,rain) or from the nature of man; relating to concepts such as Truth or Lie, Victory or Procrastination. Sacrficial offerings were made to please the gods and to ensure that the world continued on the path of asha, Truth. Priests had power over ordinary people and were even more powerful than the kings, because priests alone held the power of interpretation of the wishes of the gods. : Believers of a modified form of Zoroastrianism which appeared in Persia during the Sassanian period (3rd and 7th century A.D.). Zurvanizm was opposed to orthodox Zoroastrianism which by that time had become dualistic in doctrine. That is, Ahura Mazda who should be the creator of everything became a part of this dualism, creating all "good" vs. Angra-Mainyu, creating all "evil." These two are in continuous conflict.
