Did the Ancestors of the Jews Create the World's First Civilization?

I take it to mean the seeds of Western, and hence, American civilization.

http://www.varchive.org/ce/theses.htm

#89 etc

Well Abraham was Semitic, Amorite in origin, the second wave of Semitic people from Yemen who came to Mesopotamia after the Akkadians
.............
Why then are the Kurds of northern Iraq said to be related to the Jews if the Jews came from Yemen.

Of course, genetic markers also exist for Irishmen, Chinese people, Indians, etc.

Not to mention penguins, earthworms, bacteria ...

——Fertile Crescent-—

The fertile crescent is ISIL....... it’s there, on the map

A little on a tangent, but have you ever noticed how many “studies” come to the most obvioius and banal conclusions? And that people get paid good money for being Captian Obvious.

I did a little reaseach on Wikipedia before posting this, but I didn’t see that. could be I was in too much of a hurry as I am at work.

do you have a link, or a reference? This stuff fascinates me.

Thanks

It also “sort of follows” that an omniscient God who knows the end from the beginning would have had the plan in place far before Abraham.

Hey Cronos, not to nit-pick, but what you wrote you stated as fact. I am currently working on my masters in History and this is very closely related to what I am actually working on for my thesis. There are five major theories for the homeland of the proto-Semites: North Africa, northern Syrian / Turkish border, Northeast Anatolia, Northern Arabia, and Southern Arabia. There are variations of all of these.

The Sumerians may be related to the Indus peoples, but that has not been proven at all linguistically nor through DNA. The Elamites could be related to Dravidian people (this is more likely than the Sumerians). Some look to the transcaucasus area for the roots of the Sumerians. The origins of the Sumerian people and their language is known as the "Sumerian Problem".

I personally think that they came from the Iranian plateau, or even up the dry Persian gulf, but that is pure speculation (but would possibly link them up to the Dravidian people).

I personally think the proto-Semites came from Northern Africa to the Levant during the 7th Millennium BC. Juris Zarins, an American archaeologist thinks the proto-homeland of the proto-Akkadians is northern Arabia / the Syrian desert. I think he is right and I am using a lot of his work for my thesis.

Sorry about the length and I hope I did not come across as pedantic, I just love this stuff...

Let's go through your points one by one:

homeland of the proto-Semites:
1. North Africa
2. northern Syria/Turkish border
3. Northeast Anatolia
4. Northern Arabia
5. Southern Arabia
-- I find the place where there is the most diversity of language would be the urhmeit - so not syria/turkey -- that looks like the homeland of the proto-Georgians. Ditto Northern Arabia and northeast Anatolia -- the waves of Semites all came from the Yemen area. I can believe a north africa --> southern Arabia and then forth thesis, but not others
Sumerians, Elamites, Dravidians, transcaucasus --> as an aggulitinative language I consider it very likely. Also the geographical proximity and the trade between the Sumerians, Elamites and Harappans. "came from the Iranian plateau or even up the dry Persian gulf" - that is possible,but that also ties in with my hypothesis linking the Sumerians to Dravidians
Pro-Semites from NA to the Levant during the 7th Millenium BC -- I find that hard to believe as the early Sumerians were "pure Sumerian", but by 2500 BC there was mixing with Akkadians who came from the West and South West.

Putting this as 7000 BC is pretty far back -- if one extrapolates the historical population of the world, the population in 500 BC was about 70 million or so (with a large chunk living in the Persian Empire), and possibly 3000 BC (First Dynasty in Egypt) would have been a population of just about 10 million or 20 million -- the Indo-European splitting of centum and satem languages dates only to 2000 BC (with hittite seemingly similar to Avestani, Sanskrit, proto-Greek and proto-Latin) -- so I'd say in 3000 BC, the Indo-Europeans were just a tribe of a few thousands (or hundreds of thousands) in the eastern Ukraine. The Georgians were in Anatolia, the Sumerians in Sumeria and the SEmites in Arabia -- Europe, India were covered by huge forests, so the Caucasian peoples would have been small in number and limited to the middle east

To gain a better understanding, I recommend adding in a study of religions and languages as well -- language, religion, culture, ethnicity, "race" are intertwined. My failing is that I don't know anything outside the Indo-European (well I knew Arabic, but forgot most of it now) -- and I find the study of the indo-european religions facinating --> Proto-Indo-Europeans had 2 "families" of gods -- in the most primitive form, among the Nordics, these remained, as the Aesir and Vanir.

Among Indo-Iranis these two families were the Daevas/Devas and Ahuras/Asuras

Among the Indics, the devas were slowly elevated post the Vedic times to the higher supernatural beings, to the only gods and the Asuras were first bad supernatural beings and then post Christian influences (Christianity came to India in the 1st century with St. Thomas) the Asuras were relegated to demonic status as in present day Hinduism

Among the Iranics, the opposite happened -- the Ahuras ("s" in Indic languages becomes "h" in Iranic, hence the people who lived on the Indus river are Sindhis in India and were the ones from whom the term Hindu derives) were elevated and daevas just remained as gods of the hearth (like that other Indo-European race, the Latins who called their daevas as "genus")

Zoroaster came along and said one should only worship Ahura Mazda (the God of Light) who is the only good God. Aingra Mainyu is his opposing number and mankind fights alongside Ahura Mazda against Aingra Mainyu

Zoroastrianism introduced the idea of angels too as distinct entities -- and this lead to the devolution in the form of Yazidism where they believe that God left the earth to the care of 12 angels, led by the Peacock Angel (Melek Taus)

Yazidiism along with Mandaens and Manichaenism, Druze and Allawis are fascinating studies in how communities co-mingled beliefs to their central tribal identities

The Yazidis are Kurds (or Medes as they were), an Irani people. They retained their version of Zoroastrianism through the persecutions by Islam (Moslems consider them devil worshippers)

The Mandaens revere Adam, Abel, Seth, Enosh, Noah, Shem, Aram and especially John the Baptist as the founders of their religion and consider Moses, Jesus and Mohammed as false prophets -- these guys seem to be descendents of Abraham and may very well be some of the "lost tribes". They believe in strong dualism too, like the Zoroastrian belief (unlike the Yazidis who believe there is no "satan" and good and evil reside in each person). Of course the fact that they consider the founders of Judaism, Christianity and Islam as false hasn't really helped them be liked :)

Druze seem to be a syncretism of Abrahamic beliefs mixed with Platonic and the Allawis are Gnostics imho

.

One interesting correlationship is between the Aryanic gods from Dyaus Pita (Sky Father) to Jupiter and Zeus and Deus

also the storm god, Indra = Thor.

And, finally the two "families" of gods. In the Indic religions these are Devas and Asuras.

You see initially in the Rig Veda how some of the gods are referred to as Asuras -- like Varuna (god of wind) and Agni (god of fire).

By the time of Buddha, the Asuras were relegated to a lower family of supernatural beings, not to be worshipped but feared (an aside -- one of the now-famous Hindus gods, Ganesha/Ganapati, the elephant-headed god started out around the time of Christ as an asura or a spirit of malevolence like the rogue elephants who destroyed houses, but now he's the most popular Hindu god -- check Ganeshutsav).

Then, Christianity came and highly influenced Hinduism, from the Hindus taking the concept of a Trinity (only completely accepted around 900 AD) to their relegation of Asuras as demons.

In contrast, the opposite happened in the Irani Aryanic group where the Asura got prominence. Now, between Indic and Iranic languages there is a change of the sound S to H (so the people of Sindh (Indus valley) became Hindus) and the Irani gods were the Ahuras, with the Daeves being relegated to household gods, gods of the fireplace. These daeves were the same as the genius fireplace gods in Greek and Roman myths.

Zoroaster, around 1800-1700 BC was the prophet of his religion Zoroastrianism -- he took ONE God, Ahura Mazda and raised him as THE God of light. He consider there to be an equal god of darkness, Aingra Mainyu who represented evil. The Zoroastrian belief is that mankind should fight for Ahura Mazda against Aingra Mainyu. They should do this based on the Zoroastrian motif of "Good thoughts, good words, good deeds". Later sects of Zoroastrianism even went so far as to say that some humans were made by Ahura Mazda (Ormazd in some English poems) and others by Aingra Mainyu hence the idea that Ahura Mazda only loved some. They also had the concept of a Messiah-type figure, angels etc. (though their angels are bulls with the heads of men and wings!). It is fascinating on this Zoroastrian influence on Judaism post the exile.

Anyway, I digress -- the other branches of the Aryan family were the Greek-Romans who reduced it to one family of gods. The Romanic religion was far more primitive than the Hindu/Irani and more primitive than the GReek, hence whole-scale borrowing from the Greeks, who in turn were influenced by Semitic religions of the Canaanites/Pheonicians.

The Nordics/Germanics were probably the most primitive Aryanic religion retaining BOTH families of gods: Aesir and Vanir. No, wait, they would tie for primitiveness of their religion with the Celts.

Hinduism is best understood by NOT trying to compare it to Christianity or Islam. Hinduism is a meta-religion, by that I mean you can be a monotheist, athiest, polytheist or worshipper of any one of the 330 million gods or goddesses

it's best understood by understanding the origin of the term. The name for the Indus river system (yes it is 5 rivers, hence the term "Panjab" or "Panch jab" = "five rivers") during Aryanic times was the Sindhu. Anyone who lived on this was a follower of the Arya (Truth) or the religion of the Aryans, which in Vedic times was the Vedic gods -- old Indo-European gods like the God of Thunder (Thor, Zeus, Indra) or others.

In the Indo-Irani branch of Indo-Europeans the old 2 families of Gods developed divergently. During Vedic/Avestani (Vedas = ancient Indian texts dating from 1200 BC or earlier, Avestan is of similar vintage -- these were the basics of Sanskrit and Avestani Persian respectively) the Devas/Daevas and Asuras/Ahuras were worshipped differently by Indic/Iranic peoples respectively. Amongs the Indic peoples, the Devas were elevated and became the higher gods, while the Asuras were initially made the lower gods, then the bad supernatural beings, then under influence from Christianity and Judaism (yes, Jews were there in Keral from the 2nd century BC and Christianity from the time of St. Thomas and St. Bartholomew the Apostles) they became demons which is what they are today.

In Iran (and remember that "Iran" I really mean the original greater Iran which included all of what is now Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Iran, Azerbaijan and had Irani peoples ruling over Slavs and Germanics in the Ukraine -- these were Persians, Medes, Cimmerians, Alans, Scyths, Sarmatians, Bactrians, Sogdians etc. etc.) the opposite happened -- Daevas became house spirits and then malevolent followers of the "lie" -- daeveils. And Ahura Mazda, the God of Light was elevated to the one of two main gods -- the other being Angra Mainja, the god of darkness.

In later Hinduism, the older, pre-Aryanic gods like Shiva appear and modern day Hinduism pays little attention to the Vedic gods like Indra etc. (in fact Indra is an object of ridicule in the Ramayana which dates after the Mahabharatha) and focuses on the Hindu "Trimurthi": Brahma (god of creation), Vishnu (protector) and Shiva (destroyer). Ram, Krishna etc. are posited as incarnations of Vishnu (I think he has 11 or 12, canny brahmins even made the Buddha an incarnation, reversing the surge of Buddhism that went over all india from 400 BC to 300 BC)

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Ok, I diverged. Back to the term -- "Sindhu" is the Indic term, but in Iranic, the "S" becomes "H" -- that's why asura became Ahura. To the Iranis who learnt the art of Empire from the Assyrians, the peoples to the east of the Hindhu river were Hindus, not followers of Ahura Mazda

This came to mean anyone in south Asia (bordered by the sea and the Himalayas.

Hinduism spread, absorbed local religions and essentially became a meta-religion with no one fixed book or core of belief

During the 7th to the 4th centuries BC, philosophers arose like Mahavira or later, Gautama Buddha.

Mahavira was the founder of Jainism, but according to Jains was the 24th Tirthankara (or great one who shows the path). According to Jainism the universe was never created or destroyed (creating something out of nothing is nonsensical to them), hence they do not believe in any creator deity. To them there are "gods" but they are just beings on a higher level of existence, not worthy of worship. By extension, EVERY living being is part of this cycle of birth and rebirth, hence jains are the ultimate pacifists, the extreme monks wearing no cloths (as insects could get killed in the folds, sweeping the paths before themselves to not step on any insects, and wearing a cloth over their mouths to prevent inhaling and killing any insects.

Buddhism lessened this severity, but retained the same non-theistic aspect.

By a broad brush these are also "Hindus" or so the hindu fundamentalists say :)

you can also see this outline in the Vedas, especially the earliest, the Rig Veda. A closer reading of the Vedas sees that the war against the Dasyus seem more to be a war between Indics (who raised Devas over Asuras in their pantheon) and Iranics (who raised Ahuras like Ahura Mazda over Daevas in THEIR pantheon). The Ramayana could be interpreted as an ARyanic-Dravidian war in Ceylon, but the Tamils were never in Ceylon until British times, they concentrating more on their Empires in Indonesia (the Srivijaya Empire etc).

Zoroastrianism predates Christianity and Islam (founded in 1700 or 700 BC -- dates are unclear)

From Buddhism there will be a linkage as both stem from Aryanic religions -- the Zoroastrians from Iranic and the buddhists from Indic

I think if you look at Aryanic/Indo-European religion, the basic idea is of two families of god -- Devas/Daevas and Asuras/Ahuras

In the lowest form, the Nordics these are two nearly equal "families" of the Aesir and Vanir. In the Celtic this may be the basis for fairies.
In Greek (highly developed) and Latin (not developed but borrowed heavily from the Greeks, Etruscans, Phoenicians etc.) there is one family (Olympians) overthrowing an early, related family (Titans) -- names of the gods also tie across the three (Deus in Latin, Zeus in greek, Dyaus Pitr in Sanskrit -- meaning sky father)

In the advanced religions of Indo-Irani Aryanic cultures you see the highest development of these. among Indics you see the initial thrust of equal levels of gods, with in fact the higher Devas like Varuna or Agni called Asura almost like "Sir God!", but later Vedic Hinduism sees the Asuras reduced to lesser supernatural beings (not quite demons), then post Jainism (700 BC) and Buddhism (400 BC) the Asuras become evil supernatural beings and post the influence of Christianity (Christianity reached India in Apostolic times thanks to St. Thomas), the Asuras became demons

in Iran the opposite happened with the Ahuras ("s" in Indic becomes "h" in Irani languages hence Sindhus became Hindus) gaining prominence and the Daevas becoming purely gods of the hearth (akin to the Roman "genius" of the house), until Zoroaster came along and said all of these are just symbols/not gods - the real God is Ahura Mazda the God of Light and his counter-force Aingra Mainyu

Buddhism arose out of Vedic hinduism, but more clearly out of Jainism (founded by Mahavira Jaina in 700 BC but claiming eternal existence)

Jainism arose from a time when Vedic Hinduism was decaying. Vedic Hinduism which predates 1700 BC (supposed to be the time when the Rig Veda was composed) details a religion that has a strong emphasis on yagnas i.e. fire sacrifices including horse sacrifices (the highest sacrifice indicating the horseback origins of the Indo-Europeans like the Hittites in Anatolia) and then the Rishis (holy men who meditated a lot and had powers) dominating Hinduism.

Hinduism also began to stagnate as monasticism reached its peak and then Jainism came with the radical strong ahimsa, utter veganism, etc. ideas. along with the rejection of a creator deity and indeed of creation or destruction.

Buddhism took this and made it "lighter"

They do count. The evil is Islam

well, sumerian civilisation is one origin of european civilisation (the other basal root being proto-indo-european)

I never heard of Kurds being related to Jews. Kurds are not Semites -- they are an Irani people, speaking an Irani language. They are most likely descendents of the Cardusii (a people who lived on the western bank of the caspian during Achaemenid times) or the Medes or both

Though of course, they could also have Jewish blood or Israelite blood due to centuries of living next to each other

No, sorry, I don’t think there’s any one link. One needs to dig up various pieces and put it together. I don’t think I’ve got the complete picture, but I like to believe I’m close :-)

Here is a google search of the question..”are kurds related to Jews”.
http://bit.ly/1yQCSIh
What turns up is a number of articles that discuss their genetic links.

But for their polytheism, and hence their primitivism, of course certain social under-structures were derived from earlier cultures by the early Hebrews. However, it was the articulation and historical consistency of ethical monotheism that has brought Judaism here, where every one of those former societies are just that.

The Old Testament provides the glue essential to American Liberty.

they are an Irani people,...What’s that? I thought the land they stole was called Persia?

thanks

There are many Irani peoples, many of whom do not live in Iran. These include Tajiks, Baluchis, Azeris, Kurds, Ossettians and in Iran you have Persians, Azeris, mazandanis etc.

Pars or the land of the Persians is one region of Iran in the south. There are many others.

thekurds live where they live not in pars

The link you sent talks of Jews in Kurdistan