Restarting the Iran ping. On or off ping list.
Posted on 06/18/2007 12:56:35 PM PDT by freedom44
GGG
However (as expected) AP can't get the facts straight: Persia, the ancient name for non-Arab Iran
Persia was the name the Greek, Romans and later other foreigners called the Country/Empire, referring to the people of the Fars province.
Iran (previously Aryanam), meaning "Land of the Aryans" has been the natives' name for their country since ancient times, long before Islam appeared.
1935 Reza Shah Pahlevi officialy made Iran the name to be used by natives and foreigners alike.
I’ve seen speculation several places that the Magi who visited baby Jesus with gifts, (Matthew 2), were Zoroastrians.
Interesting religion.
bump
Really? I didn't know that. How is this related to the apparently fictitious "Aryan race" that Hitler dreamed up?
The "Aryans" of Hitler and Co., as you know where imagined to be blond, blue-eyed Nordics... total nonsense.
Aryan actually refers to a linguistic family, stemming from the Northern Caspian region, who settled what is today Iran, Afghanistan, India etc.
“I’ve seen speculation several places that the Magi who visited baby Jesus with gifts, (Matthew 2), were Zoroastrians.”
I have as well. It is a long-standing belief.
Marco Polo claimed to have seen their graves in Persia.
The wise men were apparently monotheistic (since God directed them), from the East, and not Jewish, or at least not under the Law of Moses, so Zoroastrian is one of a few possible candidates.
I know nothing about zorastrian, other than it would apparently qualify as a Noahadic religion, and thus would be a valid relgion, pre-Christ.
Very interesting. I always knew Hitler’s idea of the Aryan race was bogus, but it would still be interesting to study the details of where the ideas came from.
The real Aryans were not a race, but a group of tribes.
The structural resemblance between Persian and Hindi and Latin and Greek and German led to them being called "the Indo-Aryan languages" and, due to Hitler, they are now called the Indo-European languages.
The Aryan tribes were a group of Caucasian peoples that raided and conquered modern-day Iran, northern India, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Their descendants are the Persians, Punjabis and Pushtun peoples.
These peoples have lighter skin and are generally taller and lankier than other regional ethnic groups, have a large number of green and blue-eyed individuals in their groups, and have a strong military tradition.
The racial nationalists of 1930s Europe saw these peoples as fellow members of their imagined master race - cousins of Europeans who could be used as a puppet master race for Asia.
The RSS in India was a neo-Nazi organization that agitated against British rule and for Hitler.
Yes, a good read! And thanks for the clarification on the correct naming of Aryanam ... Persia ... Iran!
Heresy? I suppose its not heresy to the followers of this sect...I guess what I am saying is that it all depends what side of the street you live on....in America we have the right to believe whatever we want(at least until we are crammed full with enough Islamofascists, for those b@stards to take over.).
Exactly.
I've also seen claims that it is older than Judaism. Much older, in fact. Some say that this is it; the original, Zoroastrianism goes all the way back to Noah, Enoch, even Adam.
Neat!
How ironic that both versions of Aryans ended up hating Jews.
It certainly could be older, in that God showed up on Mt. Sinia circa 1500BC.
bump.
I'd be careful with this description. The occurence of blue eyes and occasionaly fair hair in Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan have largely their origins from the Greek/Macedonians under Alexander the Great, who conquered the Persian empire, and intermarried with Persians and Baktrians.
While Persians are lighter skinned than i.e. Arabs, and often have green eyes, they are dark haired since ancient times.
Some cultural anthropologists say that the Jewish concept of the yetzrim - the good and evil impulses in each person - is a cultural borrowing from Zoroastrianism during the Babylonian captivity, since there is evidence of Zoroastrian presence in Babylon.
I don't buy the theory.
Manichaeanism owes something to Zoroastrianism, but it involves an importation from the Greek mystery religions: the demiurge.
In Manichaeanism and in Marcionism, we have the notion imported from Zoroastrianism of an evil power vying against a nearly-matched or equally matched good power, and the evil power is identified with the Greek demiurge: the creator of the physical world, while the good power is the creator of the spiritual world.
In Manichaeanism and Marcionism the evil demiurge is the God of the Hebrew Scriptures.
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