Religious Belief = Mental Illness: A More Venomous Response

[Brettongarcia]

388. It's been widely asserted. Possibly there is some good scholarship in German; Germans were the

Last edited Sun Mar 9, 2014, 04:37 PM - Edit history (3)

... great Asian scholars.

Note by the way that your own emphasis was on the ORIGIN of language groups, c. 20,000 BCE ff.. But that is a red herring.

The crucial period for early Christianity is probably the Greek and Roman period, c. 300 BC to 100 AD. At this time Greek and Roman empires assured much cultural interchange in the areas we are interested in here. From Britain, to Greece, to Rome, to Persia and the Ishtar Gate ... and the Ishtar myth. Romans famously unified this area to a fair degree; and we can expect a heightened rate of cultural interchange in this critical timeframe. Including of course, religions, myths.

So not only is there phonetic similarity therefore; there was plenty of cultural/Geographic opportunity for such influence. Particularly and especially in the timeframe just before the appearance of Christianity.

At such a time by the way, it might well not have been one, but many regional cultures that developed different and later, regional variations on the "Eoster" myth: Greece and its "Eos"; Germany and its Eoster; and so forth. In general there were many myths in the ANE relating to vernal equinox and spring fertility. Ishtar by the way, is linked to eggs; even prostitution links to fertility.

Many scholars note parallels with Persephone; the Greek goddess relating to life continuing underground in the winter, to emerge in the spring.

Moreover, she is not just Persian: she is "East Semitic Akkadian, Assyrian and Babylonian goddess of fertility, love, war, and sex.[1] She is the counterpart to the Sumerian Inanna, and is the cognate for the Northwest Semitic Aramean goddess Astarte.

Since she is Semitic, this legend would have been available to jews, therefore. Likely in fact, her myth was assimilated rather directly into ancient cultures around the Jews; so that the Greek Eos and German Oestre would have been later developments, in other cultural spheres.

But heck, what do I know about mythology? Oxford University wanted me to have Max Muller's surviving papers. Though in some ways his work is put down today, he was one of the great scholars of myth, and specifically myth in this particular region. Where I lived for many years.

BIBLIOGRAPHY This remains an hypothesis, as yet not fully substantiated by academic literature. See however: Davis, Tenney L. "The Dualistic Cosmogony of Huai-nan-tzǔ and Its Relations to the Background of Chinese and of European Alchemy." Isis 25.2 (1936): 327-340. Reference to "ASTARTE, ASTAROTH, or ISHTAR (for whom the festival of Easter was originally celebrated)"

One likely direct link with Semitic and Jewish culture, would be in part literature relating to "Esther"; which in the OT is the only book that mentions "GOD" little if all; suggesting an other-religion origin. Possibly on this: "Easter and Yuletide became Christian festivals; and it is this process also which turned a primitive agricultural rite into the Israelite feast of ... on the ritual of the Babylonian New Year at which
there was a portrayal of the victory of Babylon's deities Marduk and Ishtar over those ... " in Littman, Robert J. "The Religious Policy of Xerxes and the" Book of Esther"." The Jewish Quarterly Review (1975): 145-155. Attempts have been made in Christian literature - Christianity Today for example - to review and discredit pagan sources fof course. However, a reliable survey has yet to be written.