Man's Search For Spirituality - E Christopher Reyes (jenna bush book club .TXT) 📗

[on record] who dies of a natural cause before his father. Lamech is able to talk with Adam [56 years], and learns of the Garden of Eden, etc., directly. Lamech’s grandsons Japheth, Shem and Ham [98 years], thus becoming the prevailing link that possibly will bring the eyewitness history from “God’s Creation” to the death of Shem after the flood, which is a period of 2158 years.
BC 3113- The Babylonian sage Berossus says, “The world will burn when all the planets that now move in different courses come together in the Crab, so that they all stand in a straight line in the same sign, and ... the future flood will take place when the same conjunction occurs in Capricorn. For the former is the constellation of the summer solstice, the latter of the winter solstice; they are the decisive signs of the zodiac, because the turning points of the year lie in them.” ~ Zimmer, Heinrich. Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization. Pg. 15.
BC 3102-February 17th is believed to be the beginning of our own “World Age” and will last for 1,200 “Divine Years.” The Kali Yuga is the last cycle of the Indian Sacred Books and is characterized by the mixing of the castes [separation of castes still prevails in India] in a lawless declining epoch.
BC 3100- Methuselah talks with Seth 355 years, Enos 453 years; Cainan 548 years; Mahalaleel 603 years; Jared 735 years, and with Enoch 300 years. The Book of Enoch is translated in 3017 B.C.E., at the age of 365.
BC 3000-Chaldeans develop Astrology, a belief that astronomical spheres control the destinies of mankind [freewill vs. destiny.] It is a fact that more crimes are committed during the full moon than at any other time of the month. Is there some truth to it? Some believe the stars do not lie, only the Astrologers. This system survives and spreads, eventually being adopted by the Greeks in BC 500. ~The Church, through the centuries with new dogmas, has removed most references to Astrology and reincarnation, in the Bible. However, we still have mention of Astrology in: Matthew 2:2, 2:7, Ezekiel 4:6, Daniel 2:27, and Exodus 40:38. Remember, it was the Persian Magi [Astronomers] who read the signs in the sky as denoting the savior is born.
Orpheus, the earliest Greek poet, relates how Bacchus also had a rod with which he drew water from a rock, and performed miracles, and this rod he could change into a serpent at pleasure; and that he passed through the Red Sea dry shod at the head of his army.
BC 3000 (?)-Hindu Astrology is developing in predicting actual events in a person’s life and the circumstances involved. Indian palmistry is found in Vasishtha Rule 21 whereby it is explained that palmistry is forbidden [To practice Palmistry, Astrology, and Omens as a living for any financial gain].
It is the Essenes who are believed to have introduced the Gospel of Chrishna, the Hindu Savior, to the Holy Land via ancient translations from the Sanskrit to Aramaic. In AD 325, these translations are incorporated into the new Christian faith.
The “Godhead” is represented in Hindu religious observance as “Atman,” [Immortality of the individual soul], who is said to be the only thing that truly exists, an immortal substance that transmigrates from body to body. Brahma, the creator, appears in the lotus of Vishnu’s dream.
The cosmic dream dissolves after 100 Brahma years. 360 days and nights of Brahma equal 3,110,400,000,000 human years. One divine year equals 4,320,000 human years.
In Numerology the three aforementioned figures individually add up to nine, which is considered a magical number in many cultures. In India, under the name of Vishnu, the ‘Preserver’ or ‘Savior’ of men, though a god, is worshipped as the great “Victim-Man,” who before the worlds were, because there was nothing else to offer, offered himself as a sacrifice.
The Brahmins, to exalt themselves as a priestly, half-divine caste, to whom all others ought to bow down, for many ages will teach that, while the other, lower castes came from the arms, and body and feet of Brahma, the visible representative and manifestation of the invisible Brahm, and identified with him, they alone came from the mouth of the creative God.
Brahma is referred to as the ‘One Supreme God,’ as cannot be accounted for, except on the supposition that Brahma had the very same meaning as the Hebrew Rahm. Thus, we find the God Krishna, ‘Christ,’ in one of the Hindu sacred books, when asserting his high dignity as a divinity and his identity with the Supreme, using the following words: “The great Brahm is my womb, and in it I place my fetus, and from it is the procreation of all nature. The great Brahm is the womb of all the various forms, which are conceived in every natural womb.” ~The Ultimate Deception-The Two Babylons or The Papal Worship Proved To Be The Worship of Nimrod and His Wife, By The Late Rev. Alexander Hislop.
“It has been contended that neither a God, nor man, called Jesus Christ existed in Jerusalem... Or men called Christ once existed in Jerusalem, any more than we should deny that a man named Brama, Vishnou, or Chrishnou, once did certain things in India; or that a man called Hercules once played a conspicuous part in Phenecia and Egypt; but it is denied that a man or God, called Christ, was ‘Born of a Virgin,’ performed certain miracles, was crucified by the Jews, and after remaining three days, or nearly so, in the tomb, ascended into Heaven, it is denied that a man called Jesus Christ performed those wonders, and delivered those instructions which have been ascribed to him. All Christians will agree that the story told by ignorant and abused Indian enthusiasts about the god Brahma coming down upon the earth in the form of a man, and eating of flesh like a Cannibal, is absurd and unworthy of credit. What Christian would believe that Chrishnou, or Chrishna, or Vishnou, suffered all the metamorphoses which credulous Indians believed they did? Who, one degree above or below lunacy, would credit the idle tales [for idle and most mischievous they are when taken in relation of facts] about Hercules and his club, Balaam and his ass, Sampson with and without his hair, Jupiter and Juno, Ceres and Bacchus, Prosperine and Pluto, and a hundred other gods and goddesses, whose histories have been deemed veritable, sacred, and most holy,—to disbelieve which, was deemed execrable, and a crime worthy of death. The poet says, 'Would that God the gift would give us to see ourselves as others see us. If Christians could see themselves as others see them, they would be far more humble, far less self-sufficient and arrogant than they now are, think less highly of themselves, and far better of others, have less of love for themselves, and more for their fellow-beings,or rather, their self-love would be far more social in its consequences.” ~See: A History of Freethought in the Nineteenth Century, J.M. Robertson, vol. 1, 76.
BC 3000-2000-Ishtar is principal goddess of the Babylonians and Assyrians. Ishtar is the fertility goddess identified with the Morning Star; later Venus receives this honor. Ishtar has two faces, one warlike and the other gentle. Apsu is identified with the waters of the rivers, Mummu is the Womb of Chaos, Tiamat is God of the Sea, Anu is God of the Heavens [sky].
In King Hammurabi’s kingship, Anu is known as the “King of Gods,” the “Sky God,” or “Sky Father,” and his insignia is the shepherd’s staff, while Ea is ‘God of the Earth’ and Marduk the ‘Sun God’ born of Ea and the personification of perfection of all the gods. Truth seekers find it exceedingly interesting that thousands of years before the Hebrews wrote their ‘Genesis’ we have in the Assyrian Books, the ‘Babylonian Epic of Creation,’ beginning very much like Genesis, “When the heavens above were not yet named, or the earth beneath had recorded a name, in the beginning the deep was their generator, the Chaos of the Sea was the mother of them all.” ~Is It Gods’s Word? By Joseph Wheless.
The most perfect of the Chaldean monuments, a large four sided monolithic pillar, unearthed from the debris of the ages, is a beautiful black diorite stele of Hammurabi, the King of Abram's own native country about 2350 B.C.E., or some three or four hundred years before the advent of that Pagan patriarch. In the preamble of King Hammurabi's Code, in which he styles himself as the ‘King of Righteousness,’ the self-same title as that of Abram's Bible friend, Melchizedek, the heathen Jebusite King of Salem, it is written, “Priest of El-Elyon, God Most High.” ~Genesis 14:18.
The Hammurabic Code concludes with a series of ‘Blessings’ for those who will obey his laws [similar to the Beatitudes in Scripture], and a long series of ‘Curses’ against those who will give not heed to the laws or interferes with the words of his code, similar to the format used by the Hebrews, followed by the Apostles, thousands of years later, in their coercing the ignorant masses to believe the myths of the new God-man. Ancient tribes accepted the idea that if it was written, then it must be true.
A carving at the head of the stone is said to represent Hammurabi standing before the god ‘Shamash’ with a scepter in his hand, and some [The error got into Well's book, Outline of History] erroneously state that it is the King receiving the Code of Law from the god. However, Hammurabi expressly says that he compiled the code himself, thus excluding any religious influence.
The entire code, which is more than a thousand years older than the first Hebrew prophet, is more strictly and comprehensively based upon principles of justice than any other known code until modern times. From certain archaic features, we have the inclusion of the 'Lex talionis,' ‘An eye for an eye,’ and the death penalty for adultery.
Professionals conclude that the laws are much older than 2000 B.C.E. and go back to the Sumerians; and it is an ironic comment on the Hebrew ‘genius for morality’ that in borrowing from the Babylonian for the so-called ‘Mosaic Code,‘1,300 years later, the Jews omit the most salient features, that of justice to woman, minimum wages for the workers, etc., yet retain such principles as the ‘lex talionis,’ or salient threats of fear.
In the Hammurabi Code priests have no distinct privileges and are mentioned only as ordinary citizens; and it is noteworthy that, while the Code envisages every aspect of life and work, there is no reference in any clause to the compulsory prostitution in the temples before marriage, which religious writers often quote, in spite of the warning of experts, from Herodotus.
Sex crimes are the most heavily punished, while adultery, which civil laws very rarely treat as a crime, the penalty is death, unless the King should forgive the man, and the husband forgives his wife, which suggests that it is an old law that was not strictly enforced.
The penalty for incest and rape is death; and a priestess who incurs suspicion of looseness can be condemned to death. Justice to woman, who in Babylon, as in Egypt, was the equal of man, is a conspicuous feature of the Code. If a man divorces his wife, or even a concubine, he must return her dowry, and a wife may on liberal grounds divorce her husband, and she may retain her dowry, and a man cannot divorce his wife to marry a concubine. There are sixty clauses regulating marriage, divorce, and property on a basis of justice. Modern law is archaic, until a century ago, compared to these codes instituted a millennium before Christ, while the notion