Lauri Friberg, Mon Dec 23 19:19:21 2019 (Edited on the Christmas Eve the 24th
of December 2019 at 5:40PM-7:18PM. This text is Creative Commons and copyright
by Lauri Friberg 2019):

This is a short essay I wrote about Middle Eastern religions (Zoroastrianism,
Hinduism, Paganism (yes - Paganism originated in the Middle East, believe it
or not), Christianity (birth of Christ), Judaism and Islam (an Abrahamic
religion with its roots in the Arabic world, has some of its own rituals,
beliefs and traditions and some are common with Judaism and Christianity).

I wrote the essay about Christmastime ("Yuletide", "jultid", "joulun aika"),
on the 23rd and 24th of December 2019. Judaism is also mentioned as the
religion of Jesus Christ of Nazareth and of the folk (the people) and of the
Jews (also known as the Hebrews).

THE ASTROLOGY IN "ZOROASTRIANISM":
Interestingly enough there is astrology in Zoroastrianism, as supposedly is or
at least was in Hinduism. Zoroastrians had a god, called "Tishtrya" that is
the Northern Star - "Tish"="Taivas" and "Trya" is "Tyr" (one-handed
Scandinavian-Germanic god), and "Tir" (Persian name for "arrow", the "archer
in the sky", the sky-star-god). It would be "Taivaannuoli" in Finnish, and the
equivalent for it in Finnic Paganry and Shamanism is "Taivaannaula" ("the Nail
of the Sky"), aka "Pohjantähti" ("The Northern Star"). Zoroastrianism competed
with Vedaism that became Hinduism later.

THE THREE WISE MEN IN THE BEGINNING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT OF THE BIBLE, THE
BIRTH OF JESUS - THE INTERSECTION OF THE RELIGIONS "ZOROASTRIANISM",
"JUDAISM", AND "CHRISTIANITY":
I had a Christian book that claimed that the Three Wise Men who came to
Bethelehem to behold the birth of Jesus Christ of Nazareth were Zoroastrian
astrologers -Zoroastrian mages, that competed with the religion "Judaism" that
still exists to these days, especially in Israel, the nation-state of the
Jewish folk/people.

WHO WAS *THE* "JESUS CHRIST" OF NAZARETH?
Jesus was an Aramaic Jewish person who was a teacher to Jewish and non-Jewish
(Pagan, Hellenic, etc.) people; he was born about 3 B.C. - 1 A.D. and he died
about 30-33 A.D. Jesus was 30 years of age when he died under shady
circumstances. He was also a Prophet, according to the New Testament and
according to some Islam's writings, perhaps the Koran or some such. I am not
that interested in Islamic writings - one can Google Islamic writings or not,
they are not a very interesting nor important topics in my humble opinion,
although some of the Islamic (Muslim) texts make a lot of sense, like the one
that one should not fast (one should eat and drink) if one is travelling
(wandering).

WHO ARE THE JEWS (ALSO KNOWN AS THE HEBREWS) AND WHO WERE AND ARE THE SEMITES?
The Jews are a people - a folk - who have a Jewish nation-state called
"Israel" in the Middle East, West Asia. The Jews are also known as the
Hebrews. They are a Western Aramaic branch of the Bedouins of the Middle East.
Some Jews came from Ur (Uruk, Iraq) of Caldea (Kaldea), and some from Egypt.
There are lots of historical and mythical stories about the wanderings of the
Jews who are considered mainly a religion, but also a people who may speak
various languages, but have regained Hebrew as their main mother tongue in
Israel. The Jews were not the only "Semitic" people since there were the
Sacae, the Saxons, the Persians, the Aramaics, the Canaanites (who are
considered Hamitic in the Jewish and Christian Bible), the Amhari, the
Ethiopians, the Arabs, etc. etc. Also the land called Syria is known in Arabic
as Al-Sham ("The Land of 'Shem'").

ABOUT THE RELIGION CALLED "ISLAM" AND ITS VARIOUS SECTS:
Islam is on the other hand a religion that has spread all over the world, as
has Christianity, and there are a lot of sects in Islam. The main ones being:
"Sunna" and "Shia". There is also something called Sufism, and then there is
Alawite Islam, and Sunna (Islam) and Shia (Islam) also are dispersed into
various cults and sects, of which Salafism (a part of Sunni Islam) is one, and
Wahhabism can also be considered a part of Salafism. Some Islamic writings
make a lot of sense, like what I read in a flea market Islamic book: "One
should not fast if one is wandering." Islam is a collection of very big
religions with various pieces of texts, writings, and the so-called oral
traditions also known as the Hadiths, etc. Google is your friend, or if you
are really interested (I am not very interested, I have studied Islam since my
childhood from 1990's and I know quite a lot about it for a Christian
Westerner) you can go foraging the flea markets and second-hand book shops
(antiquaries, also known as "divari" and "antikvariaatti" in Finnish) and the
public book libraries.

WHO ARE THE ARABS?
The Arabs are various folks and people who speak Arabic as their mother
tongue, and most Arabs are (Sunni) Muslims, although some may be Christians,
Jews, etc. The land called Saudi Arabia used to inhabit Bedouins, but became
the de facto land of the Arabs, when they stroke a deal with some Western
countries about their oil fields.