The Ancient Origin and Myths of Israel and Judaism

[septimus]

The thread title is Judaism, but let’s talk of other ancient religions instead!

@GreenWyvern

@septimus

The ancient Irish religion, BTW, also traces back to the same place and time — and there are huge affinities between the religions of the Druids and of the Brahmin.

:rolleyes:

Like to post a cite for that?

One reason that I post at SDMB is: I avoid the need for bookmarks! I just Search for my old posts:

@septimus

The most ancient Indo-European cultures divide society into three castes. Their rituals involved the sacrifice of three animals: typically a ram for the priestly caste (Brahmin, Druids, etc.), a stallion or bull (or rarely a human) for the warrior caste, and a he-goat (or boar) for the third caste.

@septimus

There were very strong similarities between the early religious rituals of the Hindu Brahmin and the Old Irish Druids. This article is about new Irish Kings bathing with a sacrificed horse and compares it with the traditional Vedic Hindu royal inauguration. And there are other similarities between ancient Indic and Irish religions; as well as relationships to Greek, Roman and Norse religions.

This connection seems odd — Ireland is a long distance from India; the Irish and Indic languages separated about 5500 years ago; the two populations have different Y-chromosome haplogroups. I think these religious parallels may suggest the great dominance of the early Indo-European culture.

@septimus

… strong parallels among Indo-European religions.

Of course the details vary. In the ancient Irish royal anointment, the King fornicates with a sacrificial white mare. In the ancient Hindu ritual it is the Queen who fornicates with a white stallion.

The royal Celtic name Epomeduos (< ek’wo-medhu = “horse + mead”) reflects the ceremony, mead being the fermented honey imbibed during the ritual. Was it coincidental parallel development that the Vedic ritual is called Ashvamedha (अश्वमेध), cognate with the Irish name (although AFAIK no fermented honey is involved in the Vedic ritual)?

There are other specific parallels between the functions and rituals of Druids and ancient Brahmins, down to the ceremonial clothing color (white — also in each society the warrior caste wore red).

The cognacy of Epomeduos and Ashvamedha (अश्वमेध) seems especially convincing. Mallory’s In Search of the Indo-Europeans discusses other Druidism-Hinduism similarities.

ETA: Re-reading the above, I see another similarity I overlooked was Druid and Brahmin priests both chanting while circling a fire (or some such?. I won’t try to find a cite for that in the 5-minute Edit window.

Emphasis on father-son inheritance of clan or caste was also strong both in Ireland and India.