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Bogus Babylon

This Rock Volume 16, Number 5   May-June 2005     Frontispiece By Karl Keating   Letters   Are Jesus and Buddha Brothers? By Carl E. Olson and Anthony E. Clark   Christ versus Budhha   Pope John Paul II By Robert P. Lockwood   Nothing New under the Sun By Marcellino D’Ambrosio   Did the Catholic Church Have Its Origin in Paganism? By Ralph Woodrow   Bogus Babylon   How the U.S. Bishops Are Changing—and Why By Russell Shaw   Step by Step Is Catholicism a Dangerous Religion? By Christine Pinheiro and Kenneth J. Howell   Fathers Know Best Mortal Sin   Damascus Road How Father Brown Led Sir Alec Guinness to the Church By Rita Reichardt   Reviews   Classic Apologetics The Shadow of Peter By Selden Peabody Delany   Quick Questions    Subscribe    Permissions

Here are some of the unsubstantiated claims made about the religion of ancient Babylon:

• The Babylonians went to a confessional and confessed sins to priests who wore black clergy garments.
  
• Their king, Nimrod, was born on December 25. Round decorations on Christmas trees and round communion wafers honored him as the Sun-god.
  
• Sun-worshipers in Babylon went to their temples weekly, on Sunday, to worship the Sun-god.
  
• Nimrod’s wife was Semiramis, who claimed to be the Virgin Queen of Heaven and was the mother of Tammuz.
  
• Tammuz was killed by a wild boar when he was forty years old; forty days of Lent were set aside to honor his death.
  
• The Babylonians wept for Tammuz on "good Friday," and they worshiped a cross—the initial letter of his name.