FOOD FOR THOUGHT: "Ignorance is an affront."
	YOU ARE IN DARKNESS.
old testament page 6

The story is that the Jews got their present code of laws thanks to a discovery! A long lost document of Moses was discovered and the original laws were reintroduced (!). The existing Law in the Pentateuch is almost entirely of the work of the priests in the exilic and post-exilic periods. As pointed out elsewhere the writing and the finalisation of the Books of Moses took hundreds of years. A simple reasoning tells us that these Laws must have been in practice all through these years and even before. So they were written down. But who could say that these Laws were practised by the Jews? No one. Think about it! Moses writes down the Laws given to him by God and ignores them; furthermore all the priests all through these centuries ignore them as well. That is not all! This trick of a newly 'discovered' Laws of Moses was tried few years previously by Josiah. Let us read 2 Kings 23:24: "Moreover the workers with familiar spirits, and the wizards, and the images, and the idols, and all the abominations that were spied in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, did Josiah put away, that he might perform the words of the law which were written in the book that Hilkiah the priest found in the house of the Lord." But he was unable to persuade the educated people of his time. They thought that this newly discovered document was the secret creation of High Priest Hilkiah, secretary Shapan and the prophetess Huldah. It is clear that the Persians had introduced their God and His laws to the Jews. Who did this work? Ezra of course. Ezra was a legal expert, a priest-scribe and worshipper of YHWH. He was attached to the court of the Achaemenian ruler Artaxerxes/ Artakhshathra (A king in the Achaemenid dynasty of Persia. Second in line of the three kings of the same name). Among his duties was the inspection of the re-established Temple at Jerusalem. Ezra 7:14 refers to "the king and his seven counselors." This could have been an advisory chamber within the royal court, maybe a remnant of an earlier monarchical structure, imitating the seven divine beings in the Zarathustran belief system: The king representing Ahura Mazda and the seven counselors representing Spenta Mainyu ['Holy Spirit'] and the Amesha Spentas ['Immortal Bountiful Beings']." (Peter Clark, Zoroastrianism, An Introduction to an Ancient Faith). This concept of angels (Amesha Spentas) was taken over by Judaism and Islam. Ezra wrote down the law himself. But Ezra's laws were different and more numerous than Josiah's. It is thought that Ezra's laws were the missing parts of the Avesta - the Zoroastrian holy book. Ezra was a courtier of the Persian king. In 397 BC. He was sent from Baylon to Israel with the purpose of "teaching the statutes and ordinances / judgements" as told in Ezra 7:10. Under Ezra's leadership the Torah/Pentateuch in its entirety was made sovereign in the state of Judea. Ezra was born in Babylon, educated there. He was well acquainted with Artaxerxes, who appointed him high priest and judge over Israel. An agent of the Persian king - Ezra - introduced a whole new body of monotheistic laws - the laws of Zoroastrianism - to the Jews of Israel. If you would like to see his document of appointment look at Ezra 7:11-26. It is addressed to "Ezra the priest, the scribe, even a scribe of the words of the commandments of the Lord, and of his statutes to Israel." Ezra was sent to Judea to "see if the people there be agreeable to the law of God."

Artaxerxes was a monotheist and the law of God he was referring to must have been the divine law of Ahura Mazda / Ohrmazd / Ohrmuzd / Hormuz. These laws were unknown to the Jews, and Artaxerxes spent everything possible to introduce them to the Jews. It took seven days to read these laws. Ezra explained how these laws came about as follows: God had spent 40 days with Moses on Mount Sinai. He gave Moses patterns for clothes, tongs, basins and snuffers etc. etc. And these laws were lost.. to appear suddenly in a foreign country. These laws were alien to Judaism. Read the Leviticus the evidence is there: The distinction between clean and unclean animals in Leviticus and Ezekiel was derived from Vendidad. Check the purification rituals in Pentateuch, which are identical with the ones in older Vendidad.

CYRUS IS THE NEW RULER, AND THE ANOINTED - THE MESSIAH

Cyrus the Great of Persia conquered Babylon in 539 BC., released Israel from their captivity, and became the benefactor and and the servant of the God of Israel. This shows at several points in the Hebrew Old Testament, e.g., at Isaiah 45:1-3, where Cyrus the Great is actually called 'God's anointed.' After the period of exile, some other major themes of both Judaism and Christianity also begin to appear. The idea of Messiah - the 'Anointed One' is one of them. Cyrus the Great is the first Biblical person to be given this title. Here is Isaiah 44:28: "Thus saith the Lord...that hath said of Cyrus: "He is My shepherd, and shall perform all My pleasure, even saying of Jerusalem, 'Ye shall be built', and to the Temple, 'Thy foundation shall be laid'." Here is Isaiah 45:1: "Thus saith the Lord to His Anointed [Hebrew: [mashiyach]Messiah] to Cyrus whose right hand I have holden to subdue nations before him....'I will go before thee and make the crooked places straight...' " According to John Romer (Testament) "Later, biblical scribes redefined the term [Messiah] so that it came to mean, quite specifically, a son of the House of David, a defender of the Children of Israel who will establish a new era on earth and a new kingdom with its capital in Jerusalem."

Graham N. Stanton writes in The Gospels and Jesus: "In the later Old Testament period hopes for a 'messianic age' arose. Sometimes these hopes focused on a divinely appointed King of David's line - i.e., a Messiah. But in many passages, especially in Isaiah 40-66, hopes for the future are expressed in general terms. There is often no explicit reference to an agent or Messiah through whom God would bring the longed-for new age of salvation."

Zoroastrian and Persian influence on the post-exilic history was immense. Post-exilic prophets were the spokesmen for the Persian kings. Ezra and the other prophets dated the events by the reigns of the Persian kings. They recorded the kings' edicts. The Old Testament has become the only religious Book to honour foreign princes. Artaxerxes was requested to mediate Jewish prayers. God reportedly called the Persian governor of Judah, Zerubbabel His 'chosen one.' Darius is revered. Cyrus is called the 'Anointed of the Lord' or 'Messiah' or 'Christ'. Ezra, Nehemiah and Daniel were written originally in Aramaic. Aramaic was the official language of the Persian empire. It is even possible that all the books of the Old Testament were written in that language..

DEMONS, ANGELS, ESCHATOLOGY

The Babylonian captivity of the Jews had a fundamental influence on the Mosaic belief system. This forced detention may have lasted either 48 years or 70 years (according to what is written in Jeremiah 29:10). Jews were under very powerful cultural pressures in a foreign country but they kept their national spirit and religious identity. Elders played a great role in this. Mainly Ezekiel and several other prophets were instrumental in keeping alive the hope of returning home. Jews observed the Sabbath and other religious holidays. They practiced circumcision and had to substitute prayers for former ritual sacrifices in the Temple. During this period of exile Zoroastrian concepts influenced Jewish thought. Ideas about the end of the world, judgement day, salvation, and Satan (the Evil One) have their origins in Zoroastrianism.

During the exile days when Israel did not have a land of their own this idea of 'Kingdom of God' slowly changed into an expectation of a universal "golden age.  There were also other amendments to the Judaic belief system following the Babylonian exile: Demonology, angelology and eschatology are examples. The new approaches and ideas in these areas have all existed in the Zoroastrian belief system and naturally were taken over by the Israel. The amendments to the ideas on demonology are especially worth noting. Before the Babylonian exile Satan is presented as a servant acting as a prosecutor in accordance with the divine orders (Job 1:6-12, and Zechariah 3:1-2). After the exile Satan is presented as an adversary of God (I Chronicles 21:1), because Jews had been exposed to the Zoroastrian pantheon, with its good Gods headed by Ahura Mazda ('God of Light,' more correctly 'Lord of Wisdom') and its bad God headed by Ahura Manah or Ahriman ('God of Darkness', 'Deceitful Spirit' - Ahriman is Pahlavi for Angra Mainyu). This led to the belief that the prolonged overlordship that outlasted the captivity was the fault of the bad Gods, rebel messengers who has refused to obey Yahweh's orders. According to William Harwood (Mythologies of Last Gods: Yahweh and Jesus): "Alternative versions of the seraphs' (the six-winged angels standing in the presence of God) original disobedience were postulated, the most popular being that they were the sons of the Gods who had sired the giants by illegally recreating with mortal women. Such rebels had to have a leader, and since the concept of a divine antagonist, a Jewish Ahriman, had been assimilated before there was any speculation as to the antagonist's identity, he was simply styled the Enemy ('ha-stan'). The first reference to the Enemy as a male in Jewish mythology was made by Zechariah in 520 BCE: "And the Lord said to Satan, 'The Lord rebuke you, O Satan! The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is not this a brand plucked from the fire?'" - (Zechariah 3:2).

The influence of Zoroastrian belief system is particularly evident in the pseudepigraphical book of 1 Enoch and Jubilees as well as a number of other texts in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Yasna 30.3-5 which is attributed to Zoroaster/Zarathustra himself reads: "Now these two spirits, which are twins, revealed themselves at first in a vision. Their two ways of thinking, speaking, and acting were the better and the bad. Between these two ways the wise choose rightly, fools not so. And then when these two spirits first met, they created both life and not-life, and that there should be at the last the worst existence for the followers of the Lie, but, for the followers of Truth, the best dwelling. Of the two spirits, the one who follows the Lie chose doing the worst things; the Most Bounteous Spirit who is clad in the hardest stones chose truth, as do they who will willingly come with true actions to meet Ahura Mazda." (For more information on the Zoroastrian Dualism check the pages on Zoroastrianism).

In the beginning belief in angels existed in the personal beliefs of the people, but almost non-existent in the belief system. There was only YHWH, good and evil emanating from Him. Later on with the influence of Zoroastrian/Zarathustran and Hellenic ideas heavens ceased to be a realm in where there was only the throne of YHWH, and started to be visualised as spheres within spheres all inhabited by angels. Let Spenta Mainyu remind you that in Zarathustran belief system there is Ahura Mazda/Ohrmazd/Hormuz (the father of Gods) on top. Around Ahura Mazda there were six Amesha Spentas - 'divine entities' also called as the 'Beneficient (or Holy) Immortal Ones' Following the death of Zarathustra these six 'divine entities' were associated with six branches of creation: Asha Vahishta ruled over the fire; Vohu Manah ruled over the Ox; Khshathra Vairya ruled over metals (Khshathra was identified with Xisitros, Ziusudra, Utnapishtim). Spenta Armaiti ruled over the earth; Haurvatat ruled over water and Ameratat / Ameretat / Amerodad ruled over plants. These 'divine entities' also appear as 'archangels' and 'angels' in the Old Testament and in Qoran which adopted many aspects of the Old Testament. The seventh spirit Ahura Mazda created was the sacred spirit, Spenta Mainyu, who was in reality the greatest of all powers, the Sublime Constructive Force. It is the driving force behind constructiveness, creativity and positiveness, and these are shared only with the human spirit. If these qualities are shared only with the human spirit and Spenta Mainyu's association in nature is man, then man becomes a co-creator. Here may be the origin of the Islamic belief that man is the pinnacle of creation (check the pages on Zoroastrianism in this Site). Hellenes believed also in good and evil Daimons / demons. The first reference in the Old Testament to creatures like angels is in Isaiah 6:2, 3, 6. Here they are called the 'seraphim' - seraphs.

'Kur' is the underworld where the dead would go according to the Sumerians. There was no coming back from that place, the dead would stay there forever as shadows. The initial Jewish concept of life-after-death formula made all persons, good or evil, go to the same place called Sheol or their spirits would remain in the grave forever. Identical with the Sumerian belief there was no concept of rising from the dead. When Sumerians wanted to praise a dead person they used to say 'let his shadow be proud' (this underworld Sheol exists as Hades in Greece, and 'ahıret' in Islam). But in special circumstances the 'shadows' could come up as in the story of Gilgamesh and Enkidu, where upon a reqeust by Gilgamesh the shadow of Enkidu comes up and they meet. We see an identical 'shadow' story in the Old Testament, Samuel 1:28, where the shadow of Samuel comes up upon a request by King Saul. Sumerians thought that if food and other offerings were not made to the spirits of the dead, their shadows would come up and annoy the living. They also believed that too much crying and weeping after the dead would annoy the dead. The praying in Islam for the dead person and the animal sacrifices may be a continuation of these practices. Islam maintains that the spirit of the dead should not be disturbed by too much crying and weeping. Where did this 'Sheol' come from? It was the name of the Canaanite God of Underworld.

GE-BNE HINNOM-GEHINNAM-CEHENNEM-THE HELL

Let us take up the idea of hell. If we leave aside the Sumerian idea of an underworld, what is the origin of this specific concept about a specific place where the evil is 'treated,' and 'purified' by fire? First of all it is a place(!) where evil is sent. It was called originally 'Ge bne hinnom' (the valley of the son of Hinnom) which was shortened into 'Gehenna' later on. 'Ge bne Hinnom' was the name of the valley where the Canaanites burnt their children offered to Baal, their God (some attributes of whom YHWH adopted later). The Greek 'geenna' derives from the Aramaic 'gehinnam', which in turn represents Hebrew 'ge-hinnom', an abbreviation of the full title, Ge bne Hinnom, the 'valley of the son of Hinnom'. This short explanation must have shown Moslems the origin of the name of their hell. The name probably is based on the name of the original Jebusite owner of the property. In the Old Testament this is a geographical term which divides ancient Jerusalem (Zion) from the hills to the south and west. It is the modern Wadi er Rababi, which joins the Wadi en Nar (the Kidron) at the southern extremity of the Hill of Zion. According to John L. McKenzie (Endtime: The Doomsday Catalogue): 'The valley was a point on the boundary between Judah and Benjamin' (Joshua 15:8, 18:16). This usage is reflected in Nehemiah 11:30. The valley had an unholy reputation in later Old Testament books because it was the site of Tophet, a cultic shrine where human sacrifice was offered (2 Kings 23:10; 2 Chronicles 28:3, 33:6; Jeremiah 7:31, 19:2ff, 32:35)'. Alan Millard (Discoveries from the Time of Jesus) writes: 'There Jews who turned to foreign religions performed horrible ceremonies, burning their children in honor of pagan Gods (Jeremiah 7:30, 31).' John L. McKenzie goes on: 'It is called simply 'the valley' (Jeremiah 2:23). Because of this cult Jeremiah cursed the place and predicted that it would be a place of death and corruption (7:32, 19:6ff). The valley is referred to, not by name in Isaiah 66:24, as a place where the dead bodies of the rebels against Yahweh shall lie. Their worm shall not die nor shall their fire be quenched..' The Biblical scholar write that the authors of Enoch (ca.150 BCE) adapted Gehenna to the mythology of Zarathustra 'to produce an Essene/Pharisee cleansing identical with the Christian Hell except for the lack of permanence. Prior to Jesus, the Essenes reportedly had pictured Gehenna as a monstrous torture chamber that sinners needed to endure as the only method of purifying them of their sins and making them fit for an afterlife fitting saints. It was not...the suffering through which a sinner was purified, but rather exposure to the sacred power of Fire. Zarathustra did not quite deify Fire, but he saw it as an aspect of the divinity of Ahura Mazda.' (William Harwood, Mythologies of Last Gods: Yahweh and Jesus). The spirits of the dead 'are going to be thrown into a blazing furnace. They are going to be wretched in their immense agony, and into darkness and chains and burning flames..' (1 Enoch 98:3, 103:7-10). 'In the first century it was the fires of burning refuse that lit the valley. By that time its name had been put into Aramaic as Gehenna, and had become a common Jewish word for hell.' writes Alan Millard (Discoveries From the Time of Jesus). In Revelation 20:14 the author, over 200 years later, writes how Hades itself would be consumed by fire: 'Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death.' There are many many references to paradise and hell in Talmud, where it is written that a few of the evil would stay forever in Gehenna and the rest would go to Adn (paradise) following a suffering of 12 months.

THE EXILE AND ITS EFFECTS ON POLITICS

The state organisation Jews had established was based on the religion, commandments and rules revealed (!) by God. Religion was the cement holding the community and the state in one piece. In order to solve the religious-state issues Jews formed a council called Sanhedrin. There were two parties in it. Sadducees and Pharisees. Sadducees were the group which called themselve 'purists'. They did not believe in resurrection, angels, and spirit (The Acts 23:8) . They believed only in the original Law of Moses, and rejected the law of Pharisees. Sadducee God was a national God, peculiar to Israel. They formed the vast majority of the Israel.

When Jerusalem fell for the last time to the Romans in 70 AD. Pharisaism survived and the Sadducees lost the struggle. Present day Judaism is considered to be 'Pharisaic Judaism.' It survived because of its fundamental Zoroastrian pacifism. They further say that only the traitorous act of Rabbi Johannan ben Zakkai's(LNK) deal with the Romans kept the Pharissaic Judaism alive. What was this deal? Ben Zakkai made a deal with the Romans which allowed him to move to Jamnia. He is claimed to have left his fellow Jews to their deaths.

CURTAIN IS DOWN ON ANCIENT ISRAEL- ENTER THE JEWS - AND THE LOST TRIBES

When Nebuchadnezzar took Jerusalem, and razed it to the ground finally, the curtain of history was lowered on a desolate land. The tribes of Israel were scattered in every direction. With the end of the kingdom of Judah came the end of the history of ancient Israel, and the beginning of the history of Jews. The Dispersion of Jews The roots of Israel and their predecessors - Hebrews - most probably go as far back as 3000 BC. According to some scholars, a tribe set off from ancient Armenia and emigrated to Mesopotamia and Palestine, and they were named as 'Habiru' by the locals - Canaanites. Jacob, we are told, had twelve sons, and from them derived the twelve tribes of Israel. They are known in history as the Children of Israel. In the East they are known as Ban-i Israel, the Children of Israel. Moses united them as a nation, gave them a a belief system, and called them the 'Chosen of God.' When Moses exited they fought among themselves. Their united kingdom broke into Israel and Judah. The internecine fighting brought the end of their nation, they were conquered, and scattered to foreign lands. Assyria conquered them around 721 BC. Many of them were taken to Mesopotamia. Some escaped to Syria and the north. Then Nebuchadnezzar conquered the land. Jews were taken to Babylon and held captive there, until Cyrus the Great of Persia conquered Babylon and let the Jews return to their homeland. Many Jews returned to Palestine but a substantial number stayed or moved to Persia. There the Judaic and Zarathustran thought were blended and the present they Judaism came into being. Those Jews who were scattered to even more distant lands intermingled with the locals and lost their identity. Some of the Jews in Persia are thought to have moved further east to Afghanistan, Bactria and north-west India. The only tribes that were left in Palestine were Israel and Judah. The other ten tribes were lost forever. Successive prophets made it their duty to find the trace of these tribes. The other lands to which these people are thought to have migrated are Yemen, Abyssinia (Ethiopia), Wales, Armenia, Ukraine in the west and Bamiyan, Bokhara, Samarkand, Khorasan, Kashgar, and Kashmir in the east. Some groups went as far as China. In the following centuries these peoples adopted Buddhism, Shivaism and Islam. Despite the fundamental transformation they have gone through, certain sections of these communities still describe themselves as Ban-i Israil.

George Moore the writer of the book The Lost Tribes of Israel has found examples of Hebrew writings in many of the archaeological excavations in India. In an excavation in Sirkap (Pakistan) near ancient Taxila a stone was found with Aramaic writing on it. Aramaic was the language spoken by Jesus Christ. Arab historian Al Biruni in 11th century wrote that no foreigners were allowed to enter Kashmir, except Jews. Professor Fida Hassnain in his book The Search for Historical Jesus also writes that more than 300 names of geographical places, settlements, regions, estates, tribes, families and individuals in the Old Testament are related or phonetically similar to the ones in Kashmir. Kashmiris are totally different than the people living in other regions of India. Their daily lives, attitudes, moral values, characters, style of clothing, language, traditions, habits are absolutely like Israelis. They use not animal fat but vegetable oil in their food like present day Israelis. Majority of Kashmiris, in memory of the days before they came out of Egypt, eat boiled fish (...We remember the fish we used to eat always....Numbers 11:5). The butchers knives in Kashmir are exactly like the ones used in Israel, like half moon. The rudders of the Hanji boatmen are heart shaped like Israelis. The head cover of the old Kashmiri women is exactly like the Israeli women. Kashmiri girls like the Israeli girls dance in formations in a similar fashion. The name of their songs is rof . The Kashmiri women, following the delivery of a child are considered untouchable for 40 days, like the Israeli women (the same applies to Moslem women). The majority of the old graves in Kashmir are aligned in east-west direction like the Jewish graves, whereas the Moslem graves are in the north-south direction.

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