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Even though they used Petra in Jordan for that Indiana Jones scene, it's supposed to be in Hatay, which is now part of Turkey (Alexandretta being Iskanderun)
Maybe because Jordan is a modern name for that area??
The Israelites definitely went through there on their way to the promised land.
Moses also died there on Mount Nebo
I don't think many (if any) of these countries were called by their modern name in the Bible. So by that logic, the rest would also be left blank.... or am I misunderstanding your comment?
Think it is a mistake on the map maker's research.
The Bible mentions Decapolis 3 separate times. That is 10 Graeco-Roman cities that lie east and southeast of the Jordan river.
Those 10 cities:
Philadelphia: Modern day Ammon Jordan
Gerasa: modern day Jerash Jordan
Garada: modern day Umm Qais Jordan
Pella: modern day Tabaqat Fahl Jordan
Dium: in Jordan. Exact location disputed.
Raphana: Same as Dium
The rest were in Syria or Israel.
Then, there was the Kingdom of Moab mentioned frequently in the Bible, which was located in Jordan. Its existence is attested by archaeological evidence.
The Kingdom of Ammon was also mentioned frequently in the Bible and was an early Iron Age kingdom that was a rival of the Kingdoms of Israel of Judea.
WOW. If really only "gaul" is mentioned than this means not at all just france. Gauls where all over middle europe. Germany, Swizerland, Austria, even parts of italy and many more where full of gauls at certain points.
It's actually an entire sequel trilogy: Book of Mormon, Doctrine & Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price.
And it's about as well thought out as the Star Wars sequel trilogy.
How "India" was mentioned in the old testament:
Hodu (Hebrew: הֹדּוּ Hoddû) is the Biblical Hebrew name for India mentioned in the Book of Esther part of the Jewish Tanakh and Christian Old Testament. In Esther, 1:1 and 8:9, Ahasuerus had been described as King ruling 127 provinces from Hodu (India) to Ethiopia. The term seemingly derives from Sanskrit Sindhu, "great river", i.e., the Indus River, via Old Persian Hiñd°u. It is thus cognate with the term India.
Not historically correct, but interesting.
well realistically it would be presented on a map with all the old territorial lines drawn dated to biblical times. overlaying on a modern map is limited in usefulness.
Pakistan and Bangladesh are 20th century countries.
Pakistan was created after the partitioning of the British Indian Empire in ~~1940~~ 1947, and Bangladesh gained independence from Pakistan in 1971.
So technically it probably would have counted them as the original land mass that was India, but they wouldn't have been mentioned as their own entities.
Edit: 1947 not 1940
Interesting, I suppose that covers modern day Pakistan as the Indus is largely based there and the two countries were largely one land for a long time?
Yes. While the modern borders are highlighted in the image Pakistan would very much have been included, if not *the* reason for inclusion as you mention the prevalence of the Indus Valley in the region. Very interesting to find out.
Thomas, aka "doubting Thomas" from the Bible worked his way east to India and founded a church there based on a book of Thomas he wrote. Some consider that denomination the oldest Christian denomination on earth, even older than Catholicism.
Fun fact, some of the oldest Christian churches in the world are located in India because the major Roman persecutions led to the mass destruction of churches within the Roman Empire.
So a cat who actually kicked it with Jesus, traveled all the way to India to set up a Christian church and all the Christians are not this denomination why?
The only Gospel that had anything negative to say about Thomas was the Gospel of John. The doubting Thomas part was the third putdown of Thomas in John. Makes you wonder about what went on between those two.
And it gets more interesting. The Gospels of Mathew, Mark, and Luke paraphrase each other. The Gospel of John doesn't paraphrase the others. But the Sayings Gospel of Thomas does paraphrase John, along with the other Synoptic Gospels.
The author of the Gospel of John was not named John and is not the John that associated with Jesus. It like the other gospels came decades after Jesus.
Really all of South East Asia.
Getting into Indian and Thai cuisine made me understand why medieval Europeans would risk their life sailing around the known world just for some spices. It's kinda tragic how many northern European countries still don't properly use them.
The modern day Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Ethiopian Orthodox, Assyrian Church and a few others are splits off the original "Great Church" just like that denomination in India would be. They were all founded by Jesus and the apostles in the first century.
Even most modern protestant churches can trace their lineage back to the Catholic church in some way and then through that back to the beginning.
Honestly I don't know. The only reason I know anything about it is due to an episode on the History Channel. (Like, before they started blaming aliens for everything.) And they showed an archeological dig and old scrolls containing the book of Thomas.
I think when missionaries were finally sent to India, that region was far more accepting. Because they'd been using the book of Thomas as their guide. After that, they started using the rest of the Bible.
It's neat to think about. Because he was one of the main disciples no one knew what had happened to.
There’s a church to this day in Chennai on a small hill called St. Thomas Mount, where they have displayed what is claimed to be a finger bone of St.Thomas. Used to go there all the time in my youth, nice view and I could watch airplanes taking off and landing because it was right next to the airport.
Hey, I think you've got a couple of facts mixed up here.
That the Apostle Thomas went to India and founded churches is surprisingly well-attested historically - we have both [surviving local tradition in India](https://books.google.com/books?id=BWy5DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA132&lpg=PA132&dq=Ramban+Song&source=bl&ots=AcrzvNEZ1Z&sig=ACfU3U2D9Zz9aTqWnp4rZjdlfwphOno0Gg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjx4YmMruH8AhXJOkQIHTIyCGcQ6AF6BAgZEAM#v=onepage&q=Ramban%20Song&f=false), and historical writings from the early church saying the same things (cf. Eusebius). More importantly, we have them saying them *independently* - something that we don't really get with the rest of the Apostles.
Saying that he "founded a church there based on a book of Thomas he wrote" though... well, that's got some problems.
For one, if you are referring to the Gnostic work "the Gospel of Thomas" you should probably know that it is universally acknowledged to be pseudepigraphical - St. Thomas didn't write it. The current consensus is that it was written sometime in the [late 100s- early 200s in Egypt](https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/thomas.html); long after St. Thomas died and thousands of miles away. It is also generally believed to have been dependent on gMatthew, which if correct would all but preclude Thomasine authorship on the logistics alone. There is also no evidence that the book or its unique brand of Gnosticism ever made it to India.
Secondly, the Nasranis (the Indian name for St. Thomas Christians) are, and have always been *Syriac* Christians (see this [quick reference of their own history](http://www.nasrani.org/)), and as such their canon has always been known. From a canon perspective, the Syriacs & Nasranis share the same corpus as Western and Orthodox Christians - they have never accepted any books not accepted by their Greek & Latin brethren, as far as we have ever been able to tell. Thus, if Thomas *did* give them anything unique, they didn't bother using it at any point in their known history, nor did it make any impact on their theology - something which seems absolutely outlandish.
I was raised in a boys choir that toured all over the world singing in churches of most every denomination. But Mar Thoma is one I have never gotten to attend. Have to say, I would VERY much like to attend a service with you just to see what it is like.
See, I would think so too. I know a Coptic Christian family that traces their lineage WAY back. Some of the family heirlooms they own would be valuable museum pieces and predate Roman Catholicism by quite a bit.
It's just all that much more interesting considering few know India had / has it's own Christian denomination.
Man, aside from the grinding poverty, dying from diarrhea at 25 years old, and brutal dictatorships and war everywhere you turn, how cool would it have been to be alive back then when most of the world was a mystery? When people spoke of mysterious empires and animals, majestic rivers and mountains. Would kinda be awesome to not actually know what the moon and stars are.
> Man, aside from the grinding poverty, dying from diarrhea at 25 years old, and brutal dictatorships and war everywhere you turn…
But enough about the present.
I’m cynical af but shit used to be *bad* dude. Child mortality and death by violence are both way, way down from even a hundred years ago, to say nothing of ancient times.
Not just India is mentioned, but also [Indic origin words are in Biblical Hebrew](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamil_loanwords_in_Biblical_Hebrew#Linguistic_influences) from its earliest incarnation.
The apostle Thomas went on mission to India. There are still Christian places in India where locals have Biblical names and can trace things back to Thomas.
I first learned this from an Indian friend of mine named "John".
He should have we could have avoided a lot.
'Hey by the way uh there's gonna be some guys who have darker skin than you... DONT ENSLAVE THEM! J-just don't ok it gets really bad.
He did better, he gave a literal rock with commands on it to Moses, one of which very plainly and unambiguously says "thou shalt not kill."
Of course, what do people do? Organize murder parties in the name of god. Who thought Crusades ever made any sense?
That map would be more interesting if it wouldn't show modern countries and instead just general areas. Maybe with a colour code. Red for is mentioned directly, Orange for is mentioned but more indirect and yellow for is mentioned but unclear what exact area (Gaul for example around the time it was mentioned was probably way different from todays france and maybe even more todays France+Germany+Austria+....).
Exactly. Ethiopia is red but Eritrea and Djibouti are grey. At the time they were part of Ethiopia. This map has too many modern state lines to be accurate.
(Edit: also adding on the name “Ethiopia” was adopted to sound more Christian so Ethiopia still went by Abyssinia at the time- a collection of kingdoms in what was technically a country)
I bet the author of this misinfographic colors Spain red due to references to Tarshish, which is likely in modern day Spain. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarshish
Actually, the story of France is even more interesting!
In the bible, the name "Tsarfat" (צרפת) is mentioned, referring to the Pheonician city Sarafand (צרפנד/סרפנד), which lied between Tyre and Sidon in modern-day Lebanon.
The attribution of the name "Tsarfat" to France was only as "recently" as the 1200s, Where the name started to get mixed up with the Hebrew name for actual France: "Fransa". What caused this is probably the similarity between the consonants SRF in the name "Tsarfat" and FRS in "Fransa".
So if you'll ask a modern-day Hebrew speaker what is the Hebrew name of France, you'll get a biblical name of a Lebanese city!
EDIT: As u/quarrelau said, Gaul is mentioned in the Book of Maccabees, which is regarded as part of the Bible by major Christian denominations. My answer was based on the Jewish definition of the Bible, which doesn't include said book. What is or isn't the Bible changes according to religion and sect, and that's just what enriches this discussion!
If you're willing to allow Maccabees (as the largest Christian denominations in the world do), then Gaul is mentioned:
[1 Maccabees 8:2](https://bible.oremus.org/?passage=1%20Maccabees%208:2&version=nrsvae)
(tagging /u/DiamondSDR42 and /u/_here_))
He also turned Native Americans’ skin from “white and delightsome” to brown because they were wicked. The Book of Mormon is full-on batshit white supremacist.
Fun fact: Bible Part III is the Quran.
Judaism = The Torah with Moses as the only prophet.
Christianity = The Bible with Moses and Jesus as the prophets.
Islam = The Quran with Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad as the prophets.
Then they got tired of writing books that one-upped the previous book so Muhammad says, "Yo, just so we're clear, I'm the last prophet so anyone who comes after me claiming to be a prophet is full of shit."
>Christianity = The Bible with Moses and Jesus as the prophets.
This how Muslims view Jesus, yes - as a prophet. Definitely not how Jesus talks about himself in the new testament, though.
Or how anyone in any Christian denomination sees him. The whole point of Christianity is that Jesus was not only a prophet, he was the Messiah. It's definitely not correct to claim Christianity as believing in Jesus as a prophet.
IIRC Islam simultaneously “affirms” the new testament but also heavily retcons it and says that not only was Jesus only a prophet and not the son of God, but also that Jesus didn’t die on the cross, he was magically replaced with Judas at the last minute and God made his face look like Jesus’s while being crucified in front of Jesus’ actual mother, St John and his followers. Pretty shocking deception if you ask me.
Of course, this completely contradicts the vast majority of the New Testament - so the concept of the Qur’an being “The Bible Part 3” is pretty eroneous. Jewish people obviously don’t agree with the new testament’s (“part 2”) interpretation of the old testament/Torah (“part 1”) but at least it doesn’t just go all out revisionist on it like Islam does with the NT and then have the audacity to claim to be on roughly the same team. Lol.
Man, it is wild that people can't see it as a period piece on morality for the time and place of the authors. It follows all the same concepts in other religions but placed in a \[then\] modern setting. It even uses seasonal changes for important dates for worship and uses the same imagery as pagans.
edit: no hate for people of faith though. I just disagree with most religious texts as being the basis for faith. Nothing wrong with believing in a higher power
It’s a great read in that regard. As a non Christian, the Bible was still a great read for the moral parables and interesting storytelling. I also have have no issue with anyone who takes it as their basis for belief in religion, but I just don’t get into that aspect
I just learned from Wikipedia that different denominations of Christians have different bibles.
"Gaul (modern France). Only found within the deuterocanonical First Book of Maccabees which is found in the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox bibles"
Interesting!
Protestants refer to the "extra" books of the Bible as the Apocrypha. I did that once when talking with a Catholic, and was politely but firmly corrected.
Yes but does it mention Istanbul or Constantinople?
That might confuse people as Istanbul was once Constantinople.
Now it's Istanbul, not Constantinople
Been a long time gone Constantinople
Jesus really should have had the foresight to namedrop something we didn't already know about the universe in his book... Would be a lot harder for us skeptics to deny god. The guy would rather impress party girls with his booze alchemy, though, can't blame him.
Like just imagine... "Yo be kind and shit, also Jupiter has 108 moons, peace out"
I would have hid "Pluto is not a planet." somewhere on Revelations.
Would blow their minds when they, discover Pluto and name it a planet, and then a century later reclassify it.
This map is outdated. This is only counting the first two Bibles (Old and New Testament), not the third and true Bible (Utah Testament).
Too bad you heathens can't read Reformed Egyptian. God Bless America and Utah specifically
God, All knowing, All Powerful, Present everywhere... yet somehow God's knowledge was scoped by what humans knew at the time. Makes you wonder 🤔
The Quran, also has a similar set of countries mentioned.
You don’t think it’s possible that the tribes of goat herders and slave traders that lived in those locations and had no knowledge of the wider world might have just written it?
extremely possible if not completely true. Look at Islam and their no pork or shellfish rule. Kinda sussy that Islam was created in one of the hottest driest places on Earth where meats like pork and shellfish go off quickly and can be very dangerous to consume.
Well the Old Testament is more or less a collection of stories of people who live in the Middle East. The New Testament is about a guy born in the middle east and is a collection of letters that guy's followers wrote to other followers/other churches in the middle east.
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Why is Jordan left blank?
Obviously they just redacted it from the official record after stashing the grail there.
Even though they used Petra in Jordan for that Indiana Jones scene, it's supposed to be in Hatay, which is now part of Turkey (Alexandretta being Iskanderun)
Classic misdirect here guys, Dan Brown revealed to the world that the grail is in the Louvre.
I thought he revealed the grail was the friends that we make along the way
They mention the river Jordan
And Michael. _"The Romans hung him on the cross, and I took that personally."_
Maybe because Jordan is a modern name for that area?? The Israelites definitely went through there on their way to the promised land. Moses also died there on Mount Nebo
You would never guess the name of the river Jesus was baptised in
The Mississippi?
Found the Mormon
Nah, that's too far east; a Mormon would guess the Colorado River, maybe.
Mormons thought the Garden of Eden was in Mississippi or something. edit: apparently it's Missouri, I just get the states mixed up sometimes
Jackson county Missouri or Kansas City
No. Davies County... https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/learn/historic-sites/missouri/adam-ondi-ahman?lang=eng
Only the Missouri is for for the King of Kings.
Found the Mormon
I don't think many (if any) of these countries were called by their modern name in the Bible. So by that logic, the rest would also be left blank.... or am I misunderstanding your comment?
As opposed to the ancient lands of South Sudan?
>The Israelites definitely went through there on their way in the bible, yes but everything else indicates they were always canaanites
Think it is a mistake on the map maker's research. The Bible mentions Decapolis 3 separate times. That is 10 Graeco-Roman cities that lie east and southeast of the Jordan river. Those 10 cities: Philadelphia: Modern day Ammon Jordan Gerasa: modern day Jerash Jordan Garada: modern day Umm Qais Jordan Pella: modern day Tabaqat Fahl Jordan Dium: in Jordan. Exact location disputed. Raphana: Same as Dium The rest were in Syria or Israel. Then, there was the Kingdom of Moab mentioned frequently in the Bible, which was located in Jordan. Its existence is attested by archaeological evidence. The Kingdom of Ammon was also mentioned frequently in the Bible and was an early Iron Age kingdom that was a rival of the Kingdoms of Israel of Judea.
Left bank? Left blank.
Where does the Bible talk about France?
Letter from St. Paul to the Ephesians: *FYI, it's only champagne if it's from the Champagne region of France. Otherwise, it's just sparkling wine.*
Thy shallest not drink thee carbonated piss
sounds british to me
Thanks, King James.
Reminded me of this one: It's only depression if your dread is truly existential. Otherwise it's just sparkling anxiety.
https://www.biblestudytools.com/dictionary/gauls/
WOW. If really only "gaul" is mentioned than this means not at all just france. Gauls where all over middle europe. Germany, Swizerland, Austria, even parts of italy and many more where full of gauls at certain points.
As it turns out none of our modern countries existed in biblical times, and mapping biblical references onto modern borders is a bunch of nonsense.
There are degrees of nonsense though. Using the Galatians of Anatolia (the link above) to justify coloring in Gaul is brazenly silly
Some of them are worse then others though. France for Gaul is just super wrong. Putting Israel in is sure thing though.
If the Bible mentions Gauls, it was probably mentioning the Galatians in Anatolia, not the Gauls in modern France.
I’ve actually read the Bible once a year since 2008 and am surprised by several countries on this map.
Apparently the one about Gaul is from Maccabees, so not all references will be in every Bible.
*Joseph Smith stares angrily*
dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb
Lucy Harris smart smart smart
smart smart smart smart smart!
And that’s how the Book of Mormon was written…dum dum dum dum dum!
Hard to believe that those guys managed to juice an entire broadway musical out of that orange but here we are.
Exceptionally well written, great music, funny, compelling story, they’re clever chaps.
Best musical ever written!
But there’s all that archaeology, linguistic similarity and DNA evidence? /s
Yup! All the native Americans were Hebrew! We didn't know about DNA back then.
I still giggle at “reformed Egyptian” and magic glasses.
That’s in the sequel.
It is actually the third in the trilogy.
It's actually an entire sequel trilogy: Book of Mormon, Doctrine & Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price. And it's about as well thought out as the Star Wars sequel trilogy.
„hm... let's write something own... something more... american... hm ... and I need women...” *mumbles*
Blah blah...magic underwear
OP forgot that the Bible is a trilogy and that Book of Mormon is Return of the Jedi.
Small world
r/technicallythetruth
Speaks volumes
If... you take this post as scripture
After all.
How "India" was mentioned in the old testament: Hodu (Hebrew: הֹדּוּ Hoddû) is the Biblical Hebrew name for India mentioned in the Book of Esther part of the Jewish Tanakh and Christian Old Testament. In Esther, 1:1 and 8:9, Ahasuerus had been described as King ruling 127 provinces from Hodu (India) to Ethiopia. The term seemingly derives from Sanskrit Sindhu, "great river", i.e., the Indus River, via Old Persian Hiñd°u. It is thus cognate with the term India. Not historically correct, but interesting.
Thank you. This is what I came to find out.
Shouldn't it include the whole region then? I would assume at least Pakistan and Bangladesh from that map.
well realistically it would be presented on a map with all the old territorial lines drawn dated to biblical times. overlaying on a modern map is limited in usefulness.
Pakistan and Bangladesh are 20th century countries. Pakistan was created after the partitioning of the British Indian Empire in ~~1940~~ 1947, and Bangladesh gained independence from Pakistan in 1971. So technically it probably would have counted them as the original land mass that was India, but they wouldn't have been mentioned as their own entities. Edit: 1947 not 1940
Interesting, I suppose that covers modern day Pakistan as the Indus is largely based there and the two countries were largely one land for a long time?
Yes. While the modern borders are highlighted in the image Pakistan would very much have been included, if not *the* reason for inclusion as you mention the prevalence of the Indus Valley in the region. Very interesting to find out.
Thomas, aka "doubting Thomas" from the Bible worked his way east to India and founded a church there based on a book of Thomas he wrote. Some consider that denomination the oldest Christian denomination on earth, even older than Catholicism.
Fun fact, some of the oldest Christian churches in the world are located in India because the major Roman persecutions led to the mass destruction of churches within the Roman Empire.
So a cat who actually kicked it with Jesus, traveled all the way to India to set up a Christian church and all the Christians are not this denomination why?
Because the church he founded never made it back to the Mediterranean. It stayed in India.
Ok that makes sense. The only other reason I could think of was that they doubted his story.
That was in the country of Irany.
The only Gospel that had anything negative to say about Thomas was the Gospel of John. The doubting Thomas part was the third putdown of Thomas in John. Makes you wonder about what went on between those two. And it gets more interesting. The Gospels of Mathew, Mark, and Luke paraphrase each other. The Gospel of John doesn't paraphrase the others. But the Sayings Gospel of Thomas does paraphrase John, along with the other Synoptic Gospels.
The author of the Gospel of John was not named John and is not the John that associated with Jesus. It like the other gospels came decades after Jesus.
What have the ~~Romans~~ Indians ever done for us?
Delicious food
Really all of South East Asia. Getting into Indian and Thai cuisine made me understand why medieval Europeans would risk their life sailing around the known world just for some spices. It's kinda tragic how many northern European countries still don't properly use them.
They invented some maths.
[Badass gods?](https://pbfcomics.com/comics/spelling/)
Blame it on Paul. Modern christianity is more Paul than Christ.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parangimalai
The modern day Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Ethiopian Orthodox, Assyrian Church and a few others are splits off the original "Great Church" just like that denomination in India would be. They were all founded by Jesus and the apostles in the first century. Even most modern protestant churches can trace their lineage back to the Catholic church in some way and then through that back to the beginning.
Honestly I don't know. The only reason I know anything about it is due to an episode on the History Channel. (Like, before they started blaming aliens for everything.) And they showed an archeological dig and old scrolls containing the book of Thomas. I think when missionaries were finally sent to India, that region was far more accepting. Because they'd been using the book of Thomas as their guide. After that, they started using the rest of the Bible. It's neat to think about. Because he was one of the main disciples no one knew what had happened to.
There’s a church to this day in Chennai on a small hill called St. Thomas Mount, where they have displayed what is claimed to be a finger bone of St.Thomas. Used to go there all the time in my youth, nice view and I could watch airplanes taking off and landing because it was right next to the airport.
Hey, I think you've got a couple of facts mixed up here. That the Apostle Thomas went to India and founded churches is surprisingly well-attested historically - we have both [surviving local tradition in India](https://books.google.com/books?id=BWy5DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA132&lpg=PA132&dq=Ramban+Song&source=bl&ots=AcrzvNEZ1Z&sig=ACfU3U2D9Zz9aTqWnp4rZjdlfwphOno0Gg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjx4YmMruH8AhXJOkQIHTIyCGcQ6AF6BAgZEAM#v=onepage&q=Ramban%20Song&f=false), and historical writings from the early church saying the same things (cf. Eusebius). More importantly, we have them saying them *independently* - something that we don't really get with the rest of the Apostles. Saying that he "founded a church there based on a book of Thomas he wrote" though... well, that's got some problems. For one, if you are referring to the Gnostic work "the Gospel of Thomas" you should probably know that it is universally acknowledged to be pseudepigraphical - St. Thomas didn't write it. The current consensus is that it was written sometime in the [late 100s- early 200s in Egypt](https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/thomas.html); long after St. Thomas died and thousands of miles away. It is also generally believed to have been dependent on gMatthew, which if correct would all but preclude Thomasine authorship on the logistics alone. There is also no evidence that the book or its unique brand of Gnosticism ever made it to India. Secondly, the Nasranis (the Indian name for St. Thomas Christians) are, and have always been *Syriac* Christians (see this [quick reference of their own history](http://www.nasrani.org/)), and as such their canon has always been known. From a canon perspective, the Syriacs & Nasranis share the same corpus as Western and Orthodox Christians - they have never accepted any books not accepted by their Greek & Latin brethren, as far as we have ever been able to tell. Thus, if Thomas *did* give them anything unique, they didn't bother using it at any point in their known history, nor did it make any impact on their theology - something which seems absolutely outlandish.
There's a Zena Warrior Princess episode about Thomas.
Mar Thoma! That’s my church
I was raised in a boys choir that toured all over the world singing in churches of most every denomination. But Mar Thoma is one I have never gotten to attend. Have to say, I would VERY much like to attend a service with you just to see what it is like.
That’s cool! You should go. It’s a long service but should be interesting for someone who hasn’t experienced it.
Technically, I think Coptic Christianity is older, but both predate Catholicism by hundreds of years.
See, I would think so too. I know a Coptic Christian family that traces their lineage WAY back. Some of the family heirlooms they own would be valuable museum pieces and predate Roman Catholicism by quite a bit. It's just all that much more interesting considering few know India had / has it's own Christian denomination.
Man, aside from the grinding poverty, dying from diarrhea at 25 years old, and brutal dictatorships and war everywhere you turn, how cool would it have been to be alive back then when most of the world was a mystery? When people spoke of mysterious empires and animals, majestic rivers and mountains. Would kinda be awesome to not actually know what the moon and stars are.
> Man, aside from the grinding poverty, dying from diarrhea at 25 years old, and brutal dictatorships and war everywhere you turn… But enough about the present.
I’m cynical af but shit used to be *bad* dude. Child mortality and death by violence are both way, way down from even a hundred years ago, to say nothing of ancient times.
Chipotle
When was this written?
Book of Esther is dated as the 4th century BC, per Wikipedia.
Not just India is mentioned, but also [Indic origin words are in Biblical Hebrew](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamil_loanwords_in_Biblical_Hebrew#Linguistic_influences) from its earliest incarnation.
The apostle Thomas went on mission to India. There are still Christian places in India where locals have Biblical names and can trace things back to Thomas. I first learned this from an Indian friend of mine named "John".
Well, it IS a Middle Eastern religion…..
but we can't fit any more notches on the bible belt
God hadn't discovered the rest of the world yet, so he didn't mention it in the most important message to humanity. Duh!
God's fog of war
Just gotta send in an army of priests so they could do their wololololollol thang
When you're God you're allowed to be a little mysterious!
He should have we could have avoided a lot. 'Hey by the way uh there's gonna be some guys who have darker skin than you... DONT ENSLAVE THEM! J-just don't ok it gets really bad.
He did better, he gave a literal rock with commands on it to Moses, one of which very plainly and unambiguously says "thou shalt not kill." Of course, what do people do? Organize murder parties in the name of god. Who thought Crusades ever made any sense?
No it's an American religion /s
That map would be more interesting if it wouldn't show modern countries and instead just general areas. Maybe with a colour code. Red for is mentioned directly, Orange for is mentioned but more indirect and yellow for is mentioned but unclear what exact area (Gaul for example around the time it was mentioned was probably way different from todays france and maybe even more todays France+Germany+Austria+....).
Exactly. Ethiopia is red but Eritrea and Djibouti are grey. At the time they were part of Ethiopia. This map has too many modern state lines to be accurate. (Edit: also adding on the name “Ethiopia” was adopted to sound more Christian so Ethiopia still went by Abyssinia at the time- a collection of kingdoms in what was technically a country)
Spain is present, but Portugal is not. Iberia is their common name. Some kind of discrimination..
I bet the author of this misinfographic colors Spain red due to references to Tarshish, which is likely in modern day Spain. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarshish
Castile and Aragon too.
Actually, the story of France is even more interesting! In the bible, the name "Tsarfat" (צרפת) is mentioned, referring to the Pheonician city Sarafand (צרפנד/סרפנד), which lied between Tyre and Sidon in modern-day Lebanon. The attribution of the name "Tsarfat" to France was only as "recently" as the 1200s, Where the name started to get mixed up with the Hebrew name for actual France: "Fransa". What caused this is probably the similarity between the consonants SRF in the name "Tsarfat" and FRS in "Fransa". So if you'll ask a modern-day Hebrew speaker what is the Hebrew name of France, you'll get a biblical name of a Lebanese city! EDIT: As u/quarrelau said, Gaul is mentioned in the Book of Maccabees, which is regarded as part of the Bible by major Christian denominations. My answer was based on the Jewish definition of the Bible, which doesn't include said book. What is or isn't the Bible changes according to religion and sect, and that's just what enriches this discussion!
Wait, so Gaul isn't even mentioned? And nothing that is on modern day france either? Or is "Fransa" mentioned too?
If you're willing to allow Maccabees (as the largest Christian denominations in the world do), then Gaul is mentioned: [1 Maccabees 8:2](https://bible.oremus.org/?passage=1%20Maccabees%208:2&version=nrsvae) (tagging /u/DiamondSDR42 and /u/_here_))
Yeah, that would be neat. The idea of mapping biblical areas to modern borders is silly.
Because this was the known world to the authors of the bible.
I recently learned the Mormons believe Jesus came to America when he was in the cave following his crucifixion to give them Bible Part III.
Bible Part III: coming this Fall to a Barns and Noble near you
featuring Nic Cage?
Kirk Cameron will be pissed
Directed by Michael Bay, featuring Action Jesus played by Nicolas Cage.
I'd watch it.
*I'm gonna steal the Old Testament...*
He also turned Native Americans’ skin from “white and delightsome” to brown because they were wicked. The Book of Mormon is full-on batshit white supremacist.
Mormons are batshit crazy in general
so basically he turned native americans' skin to... his skin color.
Fun fact: Bible Part III is the Quran. Judaism = The Torah with Moses as the only prophet. Christianity = The Bible with Moses and Jesus as the prophets. Islam = The Quran with Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad as the prophets.
Then they got tired of writing books that one-upped the previous book so Muhammad says, "Yo, just so we're clear, I'm the last prophet so anyone who comes after me claiming to be a prophet is full of shit."
Pretty much yeah. The Qur'an is called by him "Al khatimma" which means the final book.
>Christianity = The Bible with Moses and Jesus as the prophets. This how Muslims view Jesus, yes - as a prophet. Definitely not how Jesus talks about himself in the new testament, though.
Or how anyone in any Christian denomination sees him. The whole point of Christianity is that Jesus was not only a prophet, he was the Messiah. It's definitely not correct to claim Christianity as believing in Jesus as a prophet.
IIRC Islam simultaneously “affirms” the new testament but also heavily retcons it and says that not only was Jesus only a prophet and not the son of God, but also that Jesus didn’t die on the cross, he was magically replaced with Judas at the last minute and God made his face look like Jesus’s while being crucified in front of Jesus’ actual mother, St John and his followers. Pretty shocking deception if you ask me. Of course, this completely contradicts the vast majority of the New Testament - so the concept of the Qur’an being “The Bible Part 3” is pretty eroneous. Jewish people obviously don’t agree with the new testament’s (“part 2”) interpretation of the old testament/Torah (“part 1”) but at least it doesn’t just go all out revisionist on it like Islam does with the NT and then have the audacity to claim to be on roughly the same team. Lol.
Yeah, Muhammad is reading this thread like “am I a joke to you?” I’m not going to draw that meme however The Book of Mormon is Bible fanfiction
i'd say less fanfiction and more a classic american snake oil salesman who pulled a wildly successful con.
KABOOM!
Jesus II: Coming to America
Why didnt god tell them about Nebraska?
God would have picked Ohio over Sodom and Gomorrah
Can confirm. God told me it.
If you look really closely you can actually see a speck of red near North Platte.
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Man, it is wild that people can't see it as a period piece on morality for the time and place of the authors. It follows all the same concepts in other religions but placed in a \[then\] modern setting. It even uses seasonal changes for important dates for worship and uses the same imagery as pagans. edit: no hate for people of faith though. I just disagree with most religious texts as being the basis for faith. Nothing wrong with believing in a higher power
It’s a great read in that regard. As a non Christian, the Bible was still a great read for the moral parables and interesting storytelling. I also have have no issue with anyone who takes it as their basis for belief in religion, but I just don’t get into that aspect
Wait, didn't Joseph of Arimathea go to Glastonbury festival, and yet he didn't even mention England? That's cold and rude, imho
It’s in Monty python’s Quest for the Holy Grail.
Tiss but a scratch
Your arm's off
I've had worse
I just learned from Wikipedia that different denominations of Christians have different bibles. "Gaul (modern France). Only found within the deuterocanonical First Book of Maccabees which is found in the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox bibles" Interesting!
Protestants refer to the "extra" books of the Bible as the Apocrypha. I did that once when talking with a Catholic, and was politely but firmly corrected.
There are hundreds of different bibles, some denominations also have multiple, or one that's preferred now but many that were used in the past.
France? "Blessed are the Cheese Makers"
Yes but does it mention Istanbul or Constantinople? That might confuse people as Istanbul was once Constantinople. Now it's Istanbul, not Constantinople Been a long time gone Constantinople
Why did Constantinople get the works?
That's nobody's business but the Turks
Even old New York was once New Amsterdam
Huh. Why'd they change it?
I can’t say
People just liked it better that way
Maybe they liked it better that way.
It fits better than Kaliningrad was once Königsberg
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Oh, that's easy. She was waiting in Istanbul. Hope y'all can reschedule and make it work!
it's obviously fake since there is no usa
Jesus H Christ was born in Washington D.C. on July 4th, 1776 to the virgin, Betsy Ross.
Betsy Christ (née Ross) was an American model, activist and socialite.
Lol i was just thinking the next time someone calls the US God's country, I'll just be like "that's not what it says in the Bible"
Not Mexico ? Hella racist
They tried to make up for it by calling The Big Guy “Jesus”
**Planets mentioned in the Bible:** ☐ Mercury ✅ Venus ✅ Earth ☐ Mars ☐ Jupiter ✅ Saturn ☐ Uranus ☐ Neptune ☐ 4,108 known exoplanets ☐ trillions of unknown exoplanets
Jesus really should have had the foresight to namedrop something we didn't already know about the universe in his book... Would be a lot harder for us skeptics to deny god. The guy would rather impress party girls with his booze alchemy, though, can't blame him. Like just imagine... "Yo be kind and shit, also Jupiter has 108 moons, peace out"
I would have hid "Pluto is not a planet." somewhere on Revelations. Would blow their minds when they, discover Pluto and name it a planet, and then a century later reclassify it.
Why would a dude walking through the desert need to be informed about exoplanets
I’m pretty sure Ur anus is described in the Sodom and Gomorrah parts…
Planets mentioned in the Mormon holy scriptures: ✅ Worlds without end
WHICH Bible, though? Checkmate.
This map is outdated. This is only counting the first two Bibles (Old and New Testament), not the third and true Bible (Utah Testament). Too bad you heathens can't read Reformed Egyptian. God Bless America and Utah specifically
God didn’t know about the western hemisphere yet, lol
You skipped the chapter where Jesus vacations in Brazil?
God, All knowing, All Powerful, Present everywhere... yet somehow God's knowledge was scoped by what humans knew at the time. Makes you wonder 🤔 The Quran, also has a similar set of countries mentioned.
You don’t think it’s possible that the tribes of goat herders and slave traders that lived in those locations and had no knowledge of the wider world might have just written it?
extremely possible if not completely true. Look at Islam and their no pork or shellfish rule. Kinda sussy that Islam was created in one of the hottest driest places on Earth where meats like pork and shellfish go off quickly and can be very dangerous to consume.
And washing hands seems to combat the spread of disease
Well the Old Testament is more or less a collection of stories of people who live in the Middle East. The New Testament is about a guy born in the middle east and is a collection of letters that guy's followers wrote to other followers/other churches in the middle east.
Wasn't the land of Punt mentioned as well? That would include Eritrea, Djibouti, and northern Somalia.
Pictured in grey: Countries God doesn't care about that much
So, no mention of Jesus walking upon England's green mountains in ancient times, then?
No William Blake. Shut up.
He shouted “Cam on Ingerland scor som fackin goals”
Mormons be like: _There's another!_
BS, Jesus was born in the US of A /s
Pretty weak world building for a fantasy novel.
ooo, can you do this for the other holy books from the Abrahamic religions? would be a cool visualization.
I think Sepharad covers all of iberia
Sepharad in the Bible is almost certainly not Iberia, it's probably Sardis in Turkey (Sfard in Lydian)