From: kg+02@me.unda.edu (Kaya Guralp)
Subject: Re: Turk(iye) gelenekleri
Organization: University of Dakota, School of Engineering
Date: Fri, 1 Jan 1993 19:58:45 GMT


hubey@pilot.njin.net (Hubey) writes:

*>
*>In article <29862@castle.ed.ac.uk> emev02@castle.ed.ac.uk (H Oral) writes:
*>
*> > "Christmas day" is NOT the birthday of Hz. Isa (peace be upon him).
*> > It is the birthday of JAZEUS, The Babylonian Sun God.  The name Isa
*> > is Joshua in Hebrew, not Jesus.

*> I think December 25 was a Roman holliday.  It's not clear to
*> me that it's related to Babylonians. Neither does it make much
*> difference. Cultures borrow from one another. Herakles (Hercules) is the
*> Greek version of the Phoneocian god, Melqart. The tradition of the
*> virgin birth of a half-human half-god is also from the Hercules
*> tradition.

It comes from Sumerians. In Sumerian religion, it is believed that the
world was created in 7 days by the gods, and then the life on the earth 
started. (December 25) + (7 days) = 31 (including 25th of December)

*> > It was not until 400 A.C. that Christians finally accepted the dogma
*> > of trinity and the "Christmas" day as the birthday of "Jesus."
*> > In fact Christmas have been celebrated since centuries before
*> > Hz. Isa (peace be upon him) the same as Easter, Halloween and all
*> > other Pagan traditions.
*> Old pagan traditions can be found in many places.

*> The 'flood' story (Noah) goes back to the Sumerians--Epic of
*> Gilgamish.

The tablets found in archeological excavations are dating back to 2700 BC.
A complete version found and translated into English was written by
Babylonians around 2200 BC.

*> The universal seven days of the week also goes back to the
*> Sumerians, in whose tradition the gods created the world and
*> rested.

 It was believed that the sky had 7 layers. Another interesting fact is
that the number of moving stars? is 7 e.g. Sun, moon, venus, saturn, jupiter,
mars, mercury. Each layer carrying one of those stars was created in one
day by the gods.

*> There is evidence that indicates that the Abraham and the Ram
*> story might have been brought to the Middle East by Sumerians,
*> and probably from India. It was widespread in the Middle East
*> and predates the beginning of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic
*> traditions.

Probably Abraham lived around 1200 BC. Contrary to beliefs, he was
a pagan as was Moses. He lived in Ur city in Mezopotamia and immigrated 
to Syria in Canaaite civilization. Most of the stories about him are 
known to be exeggarated and assembled from some other stories of some 
other people.

*> Furthermore, if I recall correctly, the word Allah was already
*> in use by pagan Arabs. It was one of their deities. It's related
*> to the word 'ilah'. The word also pops up in the Bible under
*> the Hebrew name 'Elohim' which is Hebrew equivalent of the 
*> the plural of 'ilah' i.e. gods.

True. Al'ilah (Al=the, ilah=god) was known by pagan Arabs, but they were
worshipping to 3 daughters of Al'ilah, (Lat, Manat, Uzza), fertility godesses.
In Mecca, they were the main idols in Ka'ba. Also there are some suras (i.e. 
satanic verses) in Quran which carry the names of those godesses. There
are some tablets in Aramic (Ibranice) found in Ka'ba (615 AD, before
Islamic era), saying that this is the house of Elohim (high god in Hebrew
religion before monotheism). I will write about the history of Ka'ba and
other shrines in Arabian Peninsula later.

*> As far as the Babylonians go, they also bequethed to us the 
*> sexagesimal system (base 60). The use of the 60 minutes,
*> 60 seconds, and the 360 degrees comes from them.

In term of practicality, 60 is a nice number which is divisible by any number.
Sumerians and babylonians used this numbering systems. 360 degrees has an
interesting story. In Sumerian religion, they used to put 360 idols
circling temples as in the case of preislamic pagan tradition in Mecca.

*> -- 
*>
*> 	mark	

regards
-------
kaya