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Iraq's 'Exorcist' temple falls into Isis jihadist hands Ancient pre-Christian temple in northern Iraq featured in film The Exorcist at risk of destruction by Isis jihadists An ancient temple made famous in the film The Exorcist has fallen into the hands of the Islamic militants who have taken over northern Iraq, the Telegraph has learnt. The pre-Christian worship complex at Hatra, a vast network of 200-ft high sun-god temples that is a Unesco world heritage site, features in the opening sequence of the 1973 horror classic. But it now lies in the territory claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq...

Aren’t there some striking parallels between the Jesus and Mithra stories? Hardly. Before reading this list, a little background on the Mithraic religion is in order. Mithra was a Persian god dating back to roughly 1400 B.C. It later sprang up in Rome after Christian times, with a severely different story to it. Here is the list given, with my responses: 1. Mithra was born of a virgin on December 25th in a cave, and his birth was attended by shepherds. There is no support for the idea that Mithra was born of a virgin. And since nowhere in...

Thracian God Dionysus's Temple Discovered in Bulgaria? Updated on: 27.05.2008, 12:30 Author: Blaga Bangieva Over the tomb of Sevt III (on the coin) in the mound Goliama Kosmatka near Shipka town (Central Bulgaria) is most probably located the temple of Dionysius - the God of Fruitfulness. The news was reported in Kazanluk city by the director of local History Museum Kosio Zarev. According to Zarev's words the conclusion was made after the detailed geo-radar examinations of the mound executed by a private team. The researches showed that immediately over the Sevt III's tomb, revealed three years ago, is located a...

Where It All Began The very thing which is now called the Christian religion existed among the ancients also, nor was it wanting]rom the inception if the human race until the coming if Christ in the flesh, at which point the true religion which was already in existence began to be called Christian. -ST. AUGUSTINE, Retractiones THIS ASTOUNDING STATEMENT by St. Augustine, one of the most brilliant thinkers in the earliest centuries of the Church, utterly refutes the traditional view that Christianity, though of obvious Jewish roots, virtually fell from the skies as a radically new, unique, all- surpassing religion...

PRE-CHRISTIAN RITUALS AT NAZARETH Defleshed human skulls with features modeled out of red-painted plaster are among the unusual finds at the Nazareth cult site. (Courtesy Nigel Goring-Morris) rchaeological investigations near Nazareth--Jesus' boyhood home --have revealed that the area was a major cult center 8,000 years before the time of Christ. Excavations at Kibbutz Kfar HaHoresh, less than two miles from the town center, have so far unearthed strangely decorated human skulls and evidence for unusual, complex burials. "This is the first example in the Levant of a purely religious complex from this remote period," says excavation director Nigel Goring-Morris of...