We come to some understanding that Truth is eternal. Revelations of Truth from different religions are as circulating loops with repeating themes. Many scholars agree that Egypt was the primogenitor of Israel’s “mystery” religions.

Savior Gods are one such repeating theme. Marduk or Tammuz, the Babylonian God, was to come to earth as a savior. Saoshyant was the savior of the Persian religion. Krishna in India had the same role as savior. The Egyptians as early as 2,200 B.C., proclaimed Osiris as savior described as the “shepherd of his people who shall gather together his scattered flocks and in whom there is no sin.” Most often these were dying gods who had originally signified the annual death and revival of vegetation with the seasons. Like the withering vegetation, they disappeared into the underworld when they died, then when the onset of summer was signaled at the spring equinox, the god was born again to fertilize the crops and stimulate the reproductive cycle. See U.M.S. Symbols and Colors course.

There are religious texts written before the earliest parts of the Old Testament. The Rig Veda dates from before 1,000 B.C., possibly as early as 1,500 B.C., making it older than the surmised Old Testament sources. Likewise, the Hindu Upanishads date from sometime between 1,400 and 800 B.C., again as old as the Old Testament sources. The Hindu scriptures are a vast body of literature, which include such epic poems as the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, including the Bhagavad-Gita as a later insertion. The collection and writing of the Hindu scriptures continued well into the Christian era, about 500 A.D., giving them a span that is much longer than the Bible writings. Often the messages are the same.