Anyone else study comparative religious history?
The last few years I have been digging into the history of monotheistic religious doctrine and comparing it to the world history of human settlement. The idea is to see how and when humans developed their social structures and how/why religion followed.
It becomes interesting when you start adding in the vedas and their history then the tora then the christian church after Constantine then the Nicean creed then the lost books and the koran. It all ties together. The same ideas that brewed from the vedas into the Upanishads and formed buddhism then hindu also made their way to judea thru trade routes and influenced religious culture there. You can find traces of the Upanishads in the koran and the Ethiopian christian bible as well as the lost books of the pre-orthodox christian church. Some even claim Jesus was a buddhist monk.
I wonder if others find this as fascinating as I and if they have any unique directions or thoughts.
1
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3 comments
Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.Yes but only as an amateur, studying an one religion tends to lead you in to picking up bits and pieces of all the others.
LenHazell53
Level 9
Jan 3, 2019
1
This whole subject was rather formative in my turning to agnosticism, you don’t even have to look very deeply to come across material which totally discredits the church narrative of the bible as divinely inspired. The whole idea of how religions come to form I find fascinating, especially as there seems to be very little of truthfulness and a lot of how inspiring it is.
The editing history of the bible is another related area which I find fascinating. It’s very much a creation by human hands over the ages.
Denker
Level 7
Jan 3, 2019
1
I have a Doctorate in Theology and Comparative Modern Religions, the bible ( Goat-herders Guide to the Galaxy) consists of the first 5 books (pentateuch) lifted directly from the Hebrew Torah, the rest being little more than an amalgamation of myths and legends plagiarised from different cultures from different nations around the Middle East and Far Eastern Regions.
Triphid
Level 9
Jan 2, 2019
0
YES! You're darn right it is!! And the catechism wasn't even consistent. There are references made in Corinthians to Solomon's powers which is talking about his necromancer powers from the Psalms of Solomon. It has always floored me how the so-called orthodoxy just rejected long cherished textual compilations that had been used by some time by rather large communities. The book of Enoch comes to mind. It's all rather fascinating.
right now I've been looking for a good narrative to describe the way china's cultural/social/religious evolution happened in isolation from the rest of asia and europe. if the concurrent evolution theory of homo erectus holds true then those far eastern myths and beliefs may far predate the vedas and also predate sanskrit.
@kauva Have you tried reading up on the Denisovans, they were in and around that region.
@Triphid oh yeah i have. I can tell you all that we know about those peoples. I was especially intrigued with the idea that denisovans mixed with a superarchaic homo erectus around there. you have a ton of myths about giants and white haired white skinned sailors and red headed giants and lizard looking people. a lot of the same stuff that you hear about in the book of enoch and the vedas and the koran. very cool stuff.
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