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    Narrating Ancient Religions: The Scholars Speak Vol. 1
    Narrating Ancient Religions: The Scholars Speak Vol. 1
    Narrating Ancient Religions: The Scholars Speak Vol. 1
    Ebook129 pages1 hour

    Narrating Ancient Religions: The Scholars Speak Vol. 1

    By Brent Waterbury

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    About this ebook

    A new way of discerning nonfiction in a linear way. "Narrating..." explores in depth how ancient religions, Judaism & Christianity began... It begins with Egyptian, Babylonian, Zoroastrian, Judaism religions which Christianity included in its base including Platonism and Essene Judaism. This ebook was methodically researched over 5 years from 100's of scholarly, historical, religious and secular books into an easier way to study history of religion.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrent Waterbury
    Release dateApr 2, 2013
    ISBN9781301090327
    Narrating Ancient Religions: The Scholars Speak Vol. 1
    Author

    Brent Waterbury

    I've lived in 6 states but mainly grew up in Midwest, moved to California in 70's, studied psychology and music at 3 different colleges/university. Initially I wrote movie scripts for professional attention and only years later thinking in a more historical and non-fiction way.

    Read more from Brent Waterbury

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      Book preview

      Narrating Ancient Religions - Brent Waterbury

      Narrating Early Religions: the Scholars Speak, Vol. 1

      By Brent Waterbury

      Smashwords copyright 2013

      Intro

      All truth passes through three stages: First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as self-evident. Schopenhauer, 19th century philosopher

      Honest criticism of religious faith is a moral and intellectual necessity.

      (Letter to a Christian Nation, Sam Harris)

      This book is also written more for laypeople and not scholars; although there are 1000’s of sources for just about everyone. The layout is unique in that I'm playing 'detective' by asking hypothetical questions while the scholars give the answers . The reason for this is that readers don't need to wade through tons and tons of dry scholarly material just to get at a few sentences or conclusions:

      The subject of religious origins is somewhat complex.

      (Pagan & Christian Creeds, Carpenter, pg. 12)

      Contextualization

      Regarding our modern insight of religion within the past 150 years historians have come up with a term called contextualization. This means scriptures within their historical boundaries and no more. Well, this has brought about a Pandora's Box of new revelation as to exactly who wrote scriptures out and their reasons for writing them in the first place! So starting in the mid 1700’s, newer interpretations were published that has deciphered mans most esteemed institution. Later, a few of these ‘contextualized’ books even became #1 best sellers:

      "The ancient’s ways are almost incomprehensible to the unstudied modern."

      (Theosophy: a modern revival of the ancient wisdom, Kuhn, 1930)

      Scholars are often accused of being out of touch with the average person and writing only about things significant to themselves and their Ivy-league colleagues.

      (Searching for the Original Bible, Price, pg. 19)

      About the author

      My own background in writing goes back roughly 20 years when I began writing scripts to market. Scripts are a self-discipline and are not as easy as many presume since an audience with a camera is always in mind. Script writers are essential voyeurs and must come up with something new and get to their point very quickly. Like any writer, having a good imagination is of first order. I also have three other ebooks currently online.

      Finally, any book on religious history won’t be an easy read. Stitching together 4000 years of religious history with citations from 100’s of historians and scholars into a narrative that the layman can understand wasn’t easy! As we know, ancient concepts from the Old World are not exactly dinner table conversations anymore. Sadly they are not even church conversations anymore. Maybe this book can turn our older studies of religion a new direction...

      Contents -Vol. 1

      1. Early Religions 6,000- 800 BC

      2. Ancient civilization of Sumer

      3. Egypt 5,000-2300 BC

      4. Savior Religion Primer

      5. Indian religion 3000 BC

      6. Ancient Devil

      7. Babylonia & Syria 2800 BC

      8. Sin 3000 BC

      9. Pagan hell

      10. The Sacrifice

      11. Persia and Zoroasterianism

      12. Mithaism 1st-4th c.

      Early Religions- 6000BC--800 BC

      Ugaritic on clay

      Indeed our creator is eternal. Indeed ageless he who formed us.

      "Religion is human experience interpreted by human imagination. The idea that religion contains a literal, not symbolic, expression of truth and life is simply an impossible idea... Matters of religion should never be matters of controversy. We seek rather to honor the piety and understand the poetry embodied in these fables."

      (essay, Sense of Beauty, Santayana, Sp., in Life of Reason: Phases of Human Progress: 5 vol.,

      1896, pg. 189)

      "The concept of [ancient] religion is hazy. Some old problems have never been solved… Namely distinguishing between 'true' religions, 'superstitious' and 'philosophical' belief systems... 2. Ancient myth is a deliberately chosen means of communicating knowledge. It is we who are at the disadvantage."

      (Transformation of the World: 19th c., Osterhammel, pg. 874+), (Serpent in the Sky: high wisdom of ancient Egypt, West, pg. 127+) see also, Golden Bough, Frazer, 12 vols.

      Our subject of religious origins has always been a complex undertaking since all pages of this book are in effect one continuous story line. Continuous in that the term ‘God’ or ‘gods’ would be the ancients end result while their scriptures their link in:

      "...It seems that in the ancient world people believed that it was only by participating in this divine life that they would become truly human... if men and women imitated the actions of the gods they would share their greater power and effectiveness. Everything on earth was thus believed to be a replica of something in the divine world."

      (History of God, Armstrong, pg. 12)

      Oddly, no one in modern times knows how religion got into their society--although they do have many theories. In a nutshell ancients saw religion as something mostly outside of themselves. The natural world greatly haunted them. They wrote out from their imagination what their unseen gods wanted—or wanted from them. So for tens of 1000’s of years our ancients lived in a wary, dream-like state where good and bad gods willed just about everything--including the food they hunted down:

      Myth has been called the ‘perennial philosophy’ because it informed the rituals and social organization of all societies before the advent of modernity.

      (Short History of Myth, pg. 4)

      "Religion has an inverse history. It starts from the individual, it is extended to the community. The individual must have a sense a power outside himself, whom he is called upon to worship before he can rise to the idea of tribal gods… The association of morality and religion is of comparatively late origin in the history of mankind."

      (Religions of Egypt & Babylonia, Sayce, pg. 10)

      So in these early chapters we should try to imagine ourselves into the minds of the initiates and to see the world from their perspective—as hard as that is to do! As mentioned, their world was radically different from today in that their gods delivered to them ‘truth’-- whether it was actually true or not:

      "The Mediterranean and neighboring world had been the scene of a vast number of pagan creeds and rituals. There were Temples without end dedicated to gods like Apollo or Dionysus among the Greeks, Hercules among the Romans, Mithra among the Persians, Adonis and Attis in Syria, Osiris and Isis and Horus in Egypt, Baal among the Babylonians. Societies, large or small, united believers with their respective deities and in the creeds which they confessed… They recognized in some dim way that it was only a type of the hidden meaning, not a real deity; a representation, and not an incarnation."

      (

      Pagan & Christian Creeds, pg. 20), (Natural Genesis, vol. 1, Massey) note-- Massey was a social

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