I am about to publish my new book, “From Neanderthal to Moses: The World Before Religion, War & Inequality.” This brief history of humanity looks at our origins from the beginning and follows a cognitive development course of history. In other words, it begins by asking the question, “How do we learn?” Not how do we learn in the modern world, but how do we start learning when there are no words for things or even the idea of words?
We learn by cooperation and the open sharing of knowledge and skills. There is no other way to create a common language for interactions and trade.
Did you know that everything you know about early human civilization is probably wrong?
Before it was a symbol of the Nazis, did you know the Indian swastika was used by the Hebrew people to decorate synagogues in ancient Israel because the Hebrews came to the Middle East from India’s Indus Valley 4,300 years ago?
Did you also know that 30,000 to 400,000 years ago prehistoric people had their versions of websites such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook and developed knowledge and language together the same way scientists solve advanced problems of physics at the CERN particle laboratory in Switzerland?
Did you know that the Pharaoh of the Exodus story (Akhenaten) was not native Egyptian but of mixed Indian-European background like the Hebrews and that he may have been related to the Biblical character Joseph who saved Egypt?
Among the artifacts of Stone Age history — a period lasting more than one million years — there are no weapons of war. As a result, the world’s first free public schools and universities were built 12,000 years ago, the first art was created 40,000 years ago, and long-distance trade between humans and other prehistoric people was launched as far back as 400,000 years ago.
Seven years ago, I read a quote from Aristotle claiming the ancestors of the Jews — the Hebrew people of the early Bible — came to the Middle East from ancient India. I began investigating and found all the evidence agreed with Aristotle. According to ancient Jewish authorities, the land where the Biblical Eden was located — Havilah — was ancient India.
The fall of Eden was the world’s first war about 3000 B.C.E. This was followed by the first anti-war state, the Indus, founded about 2600 B.C.E. on the principles of multiculturalism, free trade, the separation of church and state and a bathroom in every home. Genetic research into the people of the Indus Valley has revealed Semitic and Middle Eastern backgrounds among them. After a flood destroyed the Indus (the story of Noah), many migrants moved west to Mesopotamia and the Middle East. Some were called the Hebrews or “wanderers from the East.”
The world divided into East and West, as Near Eastern cultures with roots in old India — the Hittites, Babylonians and the Hyksos of ancient Egypt among others — were supplanted by western-rooted ones.
The divisions in the world today are modern, but in many ways the solution may be the most ancient one used by our common ancestors — cooperation.
Are you interested in learning more? Visit shalomaste.com.
Barry Brown is a veteran Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist who has written for The Baltimore Sun and The Washington Times, among other publications. Contact Brown at barry17@rogers.com.
I am not historically much know about the fact that Jews are Indians. But this sounds me the real fact that there is some similarities between them. Forget about sunnatt and koshar. But there are few Jews those does not do this sunnat. Myself a Indian and a Sikh my parents were forced to migrate from birth place fo Guru Nanak to India in 1947. My parents and our ancestors were living there since more than thousands years. And now the secracy is this that our Tribe name is Maneseh. We consider ourself a Tribe and not a caste in Hindu system. And I think Maneseh is a one of the lost tribe of Israel.
I am an indian, but i dont think jews (ashkenazi or other) came from india. Is middle-eastern land and waters really that uncapable to produce jews? I dont think so.
Before somebody here ask, how will i explain the evidence the author cited. For this i can grudgingly say some people from indus-valley ”might” have come to the middle-east but i dont think all of them did.
The Hebrew link to Judiasim is in India and other Asian regions. However the people of the North or Arayans or some white people are also in the Bible as well as Egypt and Judah. So Jewish origins are in multiple natons and places as well as the Mideast and Mediterianian Region and other locations.
Dear Mr Brown
There are even today two distinct schools of Tantra in India, the Kauls and the Samayins. The Jewish ‘Kabalah’ seems to be a corruption of the work ‘Kaulah’, the ending ‘ah’ being the glottal stop at the end of a noun .
When Aristotle’s Jew says ‘Kalani’ or ;Kalami’, he may have meant ‘Kaulah’.
And the notion of ‘sacrifice’ is so pervasive among Vedic Brahmans, and especially among the Kauls that it is no wonder that it finds a place in Abraham’s story.
The Tantriks believe the Himalaya to be the spinal column of the Purusa (Narayana) and there is a physical place called ‘Ganesh’ where we find red coloured earth – contrast this with ‘Ganesha’ the red-coloured elephant-faced God who is the deity of the ‘Mulaadhaara’ chakra at the base of the corporeal spine and protector of the Kundalini (‘Shakti’: the primordial Maya) – present in present-day Baltistan which is where the Kauls were resident till they relocated or dispersed.
Aristotle’s story definitely demands a closer investigation of the similarities between the Tantrik practices of the Kauls and the Kabalah-ists.
With best regards
Kiran
There is extant evidence to show that the monotheism of the Zorastrians was either a product of or had influence upon the tribes of Israel and Judah.
What surprises me is the uncanny similarities between South Indian monotheism and early Judaism. Much more study is required to find a link between the two.
One of the most prolific Brahmans in Indian History is clearly Jewish. His name is Chanakya Kautilya. A brilliant tactician and political expert in every arena. He is credited with perfecting the concept of “intelligence” and covert operations.
Chanakya or Kautaliya is Jewish. LOL
This dude is delusional. Chanakya was Hindu not Jew.