The Religions of Babylon & Assyria before Moses

I am interested in any information from any religion concerning Babylon. The religious sect here preceded Moses, what was the ancient text and language used by the Babylonians and was it the same ancient text and language used at the same time by the Assyrians? Therefore, was this then used by Moses for the first five books of the Bible? Also, has it been proven that the Garden of Eden was probably in this area and actual chronologies connecting all above would be helpful as well.
Two more question, the word "Pentateuch" were does the word come from and what does it mean and explain the difference between the Apocrapha(?) and the Bible. Thanks ya'all!This message has been edited by pagewizard, 07-01-2005 05:24 AMThis message has been edited by pagewizard, 07-01-2005 04:10 PM

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To reunite all souls under the "One True God" Would take an act of God. For man's inability to unite baffles me.

Welcome to EvCforum, pagewizard.My recommendation to you is that you trying joining in some existing discussions yourself before starting new threads. When you do start a new thread, you will need to pick a more concrete topic.Some of your questions are really trivial, and can be looked up yourself with a dictionary. Not worth a thread.The associations between Babylonian and Hebrew religion could be interesting, but why not try a little bit of research yourself first and present your conclusions along with any questions. If you are going to claim something is "proven" with respect to the Garden of Eden, that is an indication of a point where you need to present some information and argument of your own.Cheers -- AdminSylasThis message has been edited by AdminSylas, 07-01-2005 07:20 AM

Hello, As to your recommendations of joining other discussions first, I have reviewed all existing threads and none touch upon anything near what I wish to discuss.
I have been doing alot of research and find such contradictory information that I believe that they are mostly based upon conjecture rather than evidence. Therefore, I am open to all of what anyone can offer on these subjects as to their own experience, evidence and research and from many different religious backgrounds, for I believe this is were the contradictions arise.
To call anyone's quest for other's input towards a greater understanding of the differences we all have on any one given subject as "Trivial" I find insulting.
As for the Garden of Eden, I did not claim that it was a "proven" fact only that my research all points to this being possible and that I was questioning this possibility and hoping others may shed more light on this subject for me as a comparison to my research.
I do not wish to discuss only Christianity, I wish to discuss all ancient religious beliefs that have intermingled and morphed into todays religions and I wish to start with Babylon.
If you have other sugestions on how I may have a topic on Babylon and it's ancient religions, please feel free to open a thread of discussion on this subject.Thank you and enjoy the day.

As part of quality control here at EvCforum, we have incorporated a hurdle for new threads. It is a bit harder to get a new thread started here than in most forums. The aim is to help, and most folks can see it in that light. There is no intent to insult; and the comments I make will also occur to others. If you can accept that we are trying to help, you'll be able to use this initial review to tighten up your post and get off to a good start.I still recommend you trying joining in a few other discussions as a way of getting a feel for the forum. If you find nothing else here of interest, that may be an indication you're in the wrong place. This forum is really intended for discussion on evolution and creationism; not ancient religion.But that is entirely up to you, and I am quite happy to continue to review this proposal with you and see if we can get a useful new thread from it. Your topic has excellent potential as an interesting sideline to the main business of the forum, but so far there is nothing substantive that could be suitable to start the ball rolling.OK: onto the concrete suggestions. There are two primary things you need in the first post of the thread.

• Focus. Make your topic clear and limited in scope. The initial post should define a specific point of interest; not try to open up to the whole field of ancient religion.
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• Substance. So far you've mainly got a scattershot of questions. Try presenting some point of substantive information you have found in your own investigations already, and then let any questions be matters that arise from this.

Other more directed suggestions:

• It really helps to have a blank line between paragraphs.
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• What I called trivial was your question on the meaning of "Pentateuch" and "Apocrypha". The questions were at a level that can be answered with a dictionary, and the merely detracted from your main point on Babylonian religion. For the record, the word "Pentateuch" comes from the Greek, and it means "five containers". It is a reference to the first five books of the bible, also called the Torah by Jewish believers. The word "Apocrypha" also comes from the Greek, and it means "hidden things". It is not clear why this term was used, but what it denotes is a collection of Jewish writings that have a similar style to other books of the Old Testament, but were not included in the canon. The Apocrypha dates from long after the times of Babylon and Assyria. There are many basic introductions on the web.
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• You certainly did say that "has it been proven that the Garden of Eden was probably in this area". If this is important then you should give more detail. Otherwise you should omit.
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• More useful suggestions are found in Forum Guidelines, Style Guides for EvC, Assistance w/ Forum Formatting
  

By all means try again. I'm still happy to see if this can be developed into a new thread.Cheers -- AdminSylasThis message has been edited by AdminSylas, 07-01-2005 07:25 PM

Closing down. No response after two weeks, so I will stop checking for updates from here on. New threads on ancient religions remain welcome if pagewizard or anyone else wants to try again. Cheers -- AdminSylas