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I don't know how the "g" got there: maybe I'm completely mistaken (it does happen, sometimes!). But I did think the root was "father", which would make a connection to a woman's name quite unlikely. We're somewhat talking past each other here. Younger Avestan is a frozen "liturgical...

The names "Adam and Eve" are from the poetic phrases ben Adam "son of clay" for a man, and em chawwah ("w" shifts to "y" in later form chayyah) "mother of life" for a woman. So in the origin story, the original man is named Clay, and the original woman is named Life. This indicates the...

With four bent arms coming out (counter-clockwise) from a central circle; similar to, but not really the same as, the swastika. Who were not Indo-European, it should be pointed out. Especially if Irano-Afghans insist on using that word "Aryan" which none of those peoples ever have, and...

On another thread, mojobadshah does give what looks like the source for your quotes about Mithra's titles.

(Rome, continued) It is frustrating that Acts breaks off without telling of Paul's trip to Spain or the “Great Fire” disaster, but presumably the “We Document” ends where it does because that is when Luke wrote it: in my view as a report to Peter and John, who came to Rome to check up on what...

The church of Rome, surprisingly, does not have any official story about how it was founded. My opinion is that it was founded by Paul, when he arrived and started preaching as described at the end of the book of Acts. This appears to be the implication (though not plainly stated) of the...

Yeah, I try to argue with everybody, but once in a while I agree with somebody-- just by accident, I'll try not to let it happen again :p

No big deal. Instead of deleting it, just let it sink to the bottom.

That's all I was saying. I don't have trouble with the basic story. All "we" know is that you have a personal belief that the story was made up (for no apparent reason); you base your belief on the profound misconception that the story was set during a time of mass slaughter which actually...

Well, bbrain, I think Ben is trying to make the point that Jesus came from a Jewish context and can best be understood as such.

I am talking about the fact that the Jewish revolts against Nero and Hadrian hadn't happened yet at the time we are talking about. When the story we are talking about takes place, Rome had never lost any legions or even taken any significant casualties in Judea. It is like you are arguing...

There was no need to make a duplicate post and extra thread. See my reply at John 10:16

And blowing off the findings of everyone who has devoted their lives to figuring these things out; this is the opposite of "educating" yourself. Because unfortunately you are only one of a large number of fundamentalist American Christians who aggressively promote ignorance, to the severe...

The Avesta itself is crystal-clear that the Vedic myth is older: it takes it for granted that everyone worships the Daevas, and is telling them, precisely, to change to a newly formulated set of beliefs. Isa. 10:5-15 says all events in the world are subject to the will of YHWH, who is not like...

Radiocarbon is hardly the only technique for determining ages. We "blow off" your opinion because, frankly, it is nothing but a stubborn ignorance: Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the...

These all look plausibly related to the "mind" root. This is from the "mate" root, as in Indic maitri "friendship, benevolence" and Celtic maite "close friend" from which English has mate, matey in the sense of "friend" assimilated to the Germanic mate "husband or wife". I showed you what...

I'm just somebody who has been a voracious reader for a half-century. Nothing that I say should be taken as fact just because I say it. If you want primary sources for the existence of the swastika design in the NaDene group (Athabaskans and others in Alaska and Yukon plus the Navajos who...

It is seriously against the odds that someone could undergo all those tortures, and yet stand up again (I'm sure I would respond by lying down dead), but there is nothing about impossible about it. Faith healing is not understood, but people of strong will do often survive conditions which the...

No it isn't. Half of the things you listed aren't even *in* Zoroastrianism at all, and much of the rest is not attributable to Zoroastrianism alone. The Zoroastrian conception of "God" as this bundle of multiple emanations, enabling the rehabilitation of pagan deities, is alien to the...

Antioch, the capital of Syria in Seleucid and Roman times (Damascus was an older city, but was somewhat smaller than Antioch for a while), is where the first sizable contingent of non-Jews converted to a belief in Jesus, and where according to Acts the name "Christian" was first used. An early...