Europe\'s oldest book soon to be deciphered

[Arthes]

1. I would love to know who the grave belonged to....!
2. Christianity is a religion that took much from earlier and contemporary faiths and claimed it as theirs, to draw followers.
Arthes

I think that they rather accepted practices and dates for festivals that didn't cause a problem with Christian Theology. You can choose to view this as deceitful hijacking of the beliefs of others, or as liberalism. Here's a thought for you: many people like to think Christianity "stole" crucifiction from Asatru - despite the fact that this form of punishment was standard in the relevant place and time - and in the face of the fact that Christianity pre-dates this story of Odin.

The faith of Asatru/Vanatru seems to have traced its path to Scandinavia and Germany from the region of the Steppes and possibly earlier in Mesopotamia.
Some of the Gods and Goddesses can be recognised under earlier names and elements of early language from the region such as Ossetian seems to indicate links as does Finn Ugric (I think that is the one, may be wrong) to the migrations North
Forms of crucifixion also exsisted in these areas prior to the crucificion of Christ.
Odin was not crucified, he underwent a test of faith and strength which can be interpretated as a physcial or spiritual one. He was hung from Yggdrasil for 9 days, pierced with his own spear Gungnir and gave his eye to learn the secrets of the Runes. (As you probably know)
The other interpretation of this is that Odin underwent a Shamanistic journey lasting 9 days. Yggdrasil being the World Tree that connects to the nine worlds of this faith (rather like the Cabbalah or Celtic Tree of Life)..
Or if you want to be really awkward, he travelled in a ship like Frey's Skidbladner, that needed no sails to fly through the air, and visited these places personally.... :wink: :wink:
Now how did the early Vikings know about the nine planets.....as you can't see Pluto (he is in the dark underworld)
and how do you know that the crucifixion of Christ was not compared to the earlier tale of Odin?
To change the subject slightly, a staunch RC Christian immortalised Odin in his stories, as an intelligent if rather eccentric immortal who fought on the side of good .... he was called Gandalf...!
Of the Vanir, Ingvi -Frey can be found as Ingwe the Lord of the Vanyar (note the similarity of the name to Vanir) who is High King of the Elves in Valinor and I strongly suspect that Galadriel was based on Freya.....! :lol: :lol:
Regards
Arthes