The Science of Religion. Howard Barry Schatz
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Turning now from the pre-Sumerian, or Irano-Semitic, period in the earlier history of Lower Mesopotamia, to the following Sumerian period, we find the latter to consist of three cultural stages: the preliterate, the proto-literate, and the early-literate. The first, or preliterate, stage of the Sumerian period began with an era of stagnation and regression following the collapse of the earlier and more advanced Irano-Semitic civilization, and the incursion of the Sumerian barbaric war bands into Lower Mesopotamia.
The centuries of barbaric Sumerian war lords created a struggle between them and more cosmopolitan Sumerians. The only cultural bright spot was the continued attempt to chisel their pre-dynastic legacy onto clay tablets. The extant Sumerian literature dates back to this period. Kramer calls it “the Heroic Age of ancient Sumer.” And, from a syncretistic perspective, he comments on the theological similarities between the earliest heroic epics of Sumer and those of ancient India and Greece:
These gods form organized communities in a chosen locality, though, in addition, each god has a special abode of his own... At death the soul travels to some distant locality that is regarded as a universal home and is not reserved for any particular community. Some of the heros are conceived as springing from the gods, but there is no trace of heroic worship or hero cults.48
A brief survey of the extant literature reveals only nine Sumerian tales. Two of these focus on the hero Enmerkar, two revolve around Lugalbanda, and five describe the star of ancient Sumer — Gilgamesh. It is important to note that all three heros were inscribed on the Sumerian King List.49 The King List begins with the statement, “When kingship was lowered from heaven the kingship was in Eridu.”50
The Aryan-Semitic Roots of Religion
Pre-Sumerian Aryans had been studying the sky ever since their ancestors left the confines of Ice Age caves. During that early period, they discovered a significant anomaly in the motion of the sun in relation to the background stars. In Chapter 4, we will take a close look at this anomaly: the annual drift of the stars across the celestial dome (Vedic astronomy’s ayanamsa). It created a tiny gap each year that suggested an opening, or “gateway” leading onto the Sun’s spiral path. The Aryans believed that their liberated soul traveled through this “gateway” and followed the Sun’s voyage across the heavens, to the dwelling place of immortal souls. The Aryans had discovered what they believed to be Heaven. However, invading Semitic tribes regarded the ayanamsa as an imperfection in the cosmos, and concluded that they too, like the cosmos, must be imperfect. From either perspective, the ayanamsa became critically important to both the Aryan and Semitic traditions.
Within the Torah, and within Jewish Kabbalistic tradition, two holy men overcame this “imperfection” — Enoch and Noah — and thus, they are said to have “walked with God.” Historically, they both would have been born into the Aryan tradition, a tradition that considered each soul that reached Heaven an immortal god. The 10 generations from Noah to Abraham roughly corresponds to the transition period of cross-fertilization described by Kramer. The Semitic tribes would have considered their inability to achieve Moksha (Sanskrit: Liberation) as one of “exile from Paradise.” Teaching Semitic tribes the necessary skills to achieve Moksha would have to wait for the emergence of a Semitic High Priest. Genesis tells us that it was Melchizedek who initiated Abraham into the ancient tradition of High Priests. Orthodox rabbis believe Melchizedek to be the reincarnation of Shem.
The rapid development of writing, mathematics and science seems to coincide with a Semitic presence in the region, possibly suggesting that written communication, previously unnecessary for such a superior race, suddenly became critical in order to educate Semitic neophytes. The pre-Sumerian Aryans may have been meditating and liberating their soul for tens of thousands of years, whereupon late-coming Semitic tribes were likely to have had great difficulty in achieving the desired spiritual state. The Semitic conclusions about their own spiritual shortcomings is supported by the mathematics. We will see how the mathematics of sin takes on a dominant role in the history of Semitic monotheism. Mathematics and science evolved quickly from this point forward, driven by a great spiritual quest. With the advent of Semitic monotheism, the theological focus began to shift from the liberation process to the purification process, a necessary remedy for man’s perceived imperfection and inherent sin. These mathematically articulated concepts became the scientific justification for the Bible’s moral imperative.
Cultural differences between the Aryan and Semitic tribes were preserved in the two earliest extant treatises on the science of religion: the Rig Veda and the Sefer Yetzirah. Philologists date the Sefer Yetzirah to a period no earlier than 200 CE. However, it is fair to say that even the greatest philologists and religious scholars have little or no knowledge of the music theory that is so critical to the understanding of these two texts. Without knowledge of the Sefer Yetzirah’s arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy, and how it all integrates to explicate Scripture, we gloss over the meaning of Scripture, with little concern for its deepest meaning, or the derivation of that meaning. And, by addressing only the extant text of the Sefer Yetzirah, philologists date the text based on form rather than content. Conclusions are drawn solely from linguistic principles with no consideration of the well-known oral tradition that transmitted ancient texts, nor of the hermeneutics of religious science. A mathematical analysis of the book’s content dates back to the Old Babylonian period, to the approximate time of Abraham’s birth as described by Genesis. Its mathematical content is considerably older than the oldest pages of Scripture.
Approaching the Rig Veda and the Sefer Yetzirah through ancient science reveals identical mathematical constructions, providing strong evidence that they were authored at about the same time, in about the same place — in the ancient city of Haran during the early to middle part of the 2nd millennium BCE. Today, this is considered northern Iraq. The Rig Veda was begun soon after Aryan tribes migrated from the Southern Caucuses to defeat the Hurrians and rule a kingdom called Mitanni. The Torah tells us that Abram and his family (before he was called Abraham), were en route to Canaan, but settled in Haran, a city in the kingdom of Mitanni, on the Euphrates River. The patriarch finally migrated to Canaan with his family when he was 75 years old.
Both the Rig Veda and the Sefer Yetzirah are based on the mathematical construction of the Navel of Order. From this mathematical construction, Aryan thought became the foundation of Eastern religion, while the Semitic interpretation became the foundation of monotheism. The Semitic interpretation of the Aryan “Pathway to Heaven” became familiar to the Semitic mind as a closed “Gateway to Heaven” — a cosmic “flaw” that manifested deep within the Semitic psyche as inherent sinfulness or “original sin.” Western religion’s optimism about their ability to overcome that flaw was dealt a fatal blow by the loss of the ancient meditation practise of High Priests during the destruction of Solomon’s Temple, whereas Moksha has always described the core and foundation of Eastern faiths.
Within the Rig Veda, Yama was the first mortal to “ascend” and pave the way to the celestial abode of Heaven for all who followed (Figure 5a). He was the King of the Dead. Yama thus belongs to the earliest stratum of Vedic mythology. Those following in Yama’s footsteps become ascetics who drink of the Divine Elixir, Soma. A 2nd millennium Vedic hymn, The Long-haired Ascetic (quoted below), describes sacred figures “riding on the wind” (Figure 5b). These verses describe figures that have been set in shrines at the Neolithic site of Çatal Höyük (ca. 6500 BCE). The shared mathematics of the Navel of Order encrypted the metaphysics of a sacred practice that would empower the practitioner to reach Heaven in the footsteps of Yama. If Vishnu was dreaming the world illusion (Sanskrit: Maya), then learning to remain within the hypnagogic state was the only true existence, and the only way to discern what was real and what was unreal.
Figure 5a & b - Rig Vedic Hymns Describe Sacred Figures Discovered at Çatal Höyük