An Historical Perspective

Something a little different today from me.

I may have occasionally mentioned that I have throughout my life developed a (I would like to say ‘keen’ but it is more or less a comes and goes thing – which is hardly ‘keen’ – but always in the background ready for an interesting find) deep interest in history as it pertains to mankind (us), how we have developed and the things which shaped our destiny – to, I guess, try to understand what brought us to the sad state we find ourselves in today. There are probably other names for such an interest but I prefer to keep it mostly unlabeled so as to not have it consume me. Which causes of any importance tend to do.

From my teenage years I would read whatever I could lay my hands on of Christian literature, mostly focused in determining a date for the return of Jesus Christ to this planet. I have of course grown up since that time, and now consider such things as pure myth. I no longer have a religion of any kind, but I have kept my personal writings from that time and in fact expanded them to at first include a broader aspect of human history, in the knowledge that much of the ‘history’ recorded in print are merely the wild guesses of individuals who never escaped the traps that I did. They spring from the mythology adduced by wealthy men (mostly men) who could afford to travel the world and lay down records of what they found in terms which would support their views coloured by their own religious perspective. That is the way that much of all formal aspects of natural science has developed over the past two centuries. Plainly speaking, we have been misled, bamboozled and lied to. Reality and a clear perspective would bring an entirely different picture to narratives of historical developments in all these varied fields.

Therefore my life’s work – let’s call it more of a ‘hobby’ – assumes an importance as a truth telling, or truth collecting objective, which I personally do not have sufficient academic background to provide. Indeed, others with the appropriate background who have attempted to collate and publish such a distortion-free account of our past, in any of the related fields, have always been met with derision and rebuttle of their work. Such is the embodiment of the false truths laid down by earlier and less authentic persons (let’s label them appropriately – historians, archaeologists, paleontologists, etc.) driven by their own demons to add their own personal distortions to the records, that any correcting of those records is nigh on impossible to bring about. That doesn’t matter. The truth will eventually be revealed, or at least individuals can make their own personal assessments of the facts – which is all that really counts in the end. You can make your own personal assessment too, given the real narrative to follow.

Unfortunately, while some great strides and grand efforts in the field of historical human development have been made in the past century by a few stalwarts (their work being invariably labeled pseudo-science – as if the recognised science were anything else other than that), no-one has as yet uncovered the full truth of the matter. At least to my satisfaction. This may of course never happen, but while there is hope, and while I have the strength, and while there are undeveloped but already uncovered aspects of investigation to pursue and dots to join (I will never be a frontline investigator – that was not my role in life) I will continue to attempt to join those dots and to relate any ‘discoveries’ I may prise from their hidden niches. That is the least, and at the same time the most I can now do.

And now to what I wanted to talk about here.

No-one can really understand history without having a clear picture of where the facts and events they are already aware of actually fit into the puzzle. That has long been realised and it is the reason why extended time-charts of past developments have been produced. Of course they can only represent the truth known at the time of their collation. With that in mind, I want to share such a time chart of world history, specifically focusing on religious developments, which came to my attention today.

It dates from 1883 and is labeled as ‘A Student’s Synchronological Chart of the Religions of the World’, compiled by a Major General Forlong, FRGS, FRSE, MAI, &c. &c. of the Indian Army who trained as a civil engineer in Scotland and England. He was renowned for his road-building skills through the jungles of India and Burma. But he also found time to put together this splendid work of possibly stupendous historical significance. It was designed to accompany a book also written by the Major General – which is freely available at the Internet Archive – titled – ‘Rivers of Life, or Faiths of Man in all Lands’.

Both works are downloadable as PDFs. They are also text searchable with good quality PDF software – like iLovePDF.

Now, I have not read the Book and probably never will, though I have skimmed through some of the pages. Its main use for me will be as a reference work (using word searches). But I want to suggest to you that you may wish to see where any religion in which you may have an interest, fits into the timeline and in particular where the main theogonies of that religion were compiled.

In particular, Christians, many of whom are not well versed in their own theogony may be surprised that their sacred books were not written when they perhaps were told they were, but at a much later date. As I mentioned in a post yesterday, the Judaic scriptures of the Old Testament (the Septuagint – 70 scribes engaged in the work) were begun in the mid-500s BCE while in Babylonian captivity – around 1500 years after the death of Moses – and compiled using 2,500 year older stories of the beginning of man (and the world) from Assyrian, Akkadian, Sumerian libraries. The work being completed only around 290 BCE.

The Christian Bible was compiled only some 1500 years ago during the 4th and 5th centuries CE, from parts of the Jewish Old Testament and various letters and gospels purportedly written during the 1st century CE. Various related works from both sources were omitted as not supportive of the proposed narrative. Some of those omissions are very illuminating.

OK, I’ve said all I want to say at this stage, but I will hopefully come back with more on what I believe the true narrative may be and the questions arising from that still to be answered. That may be a long, drawn out process. Well, what else is there to do in this post COVID world, apart from watching it all break up/down?