In Which the Ringmaster Considers Etymology

I'm currently reading The Lost Treasure of the Knights Templar by Steven Sora. The book's pretty much a bunch of speculation and guesswork, but it's written in such a scattershot order I've learned all kinds of historical fact that I never knew. Most impressively,it had a bunch of word origins!

"The Jewish religion came to fruition at a time when goddess cults were prevalent everywhere. The moon goddes was called Sin. Her mane exists today in the Sinai Peninsula, which separates Israel from Egypt. The Hebrew faith first made Sin a male lunar god and then dropped all such multiple gods. "Sin" came to signify something evil."

"The Achaean peoples of early Greece had a female-dominated culture that survived in the Olympic Games. The old king [kings were rotated yearly, was]often called Hercules (from his devotion to Hera, the Mother Goddess) was put to death. The new king, "Green Zeus," mated with the winner of the [women's]footrace."

"The Ressurection of Jesus, possibly the most imortant date in the Church year, was fixed by the spring solstice - and then named for a Celtic pagan feast day that the Church wished to eradicte. Easter was named for Eostre, goddess of the east, the spring and of course, fertility. She was depicted with a rabbit."

"In Celtic Europe and early cultures of the Levant, the oak tree represented knowledge. This throwback to nature religion never truly died away. The first letter of the alphabet in Celtic Europe were extablished for corresponding objects in nature. "D" in the Ogam alphabet was the seventh letter, "duir." From "D," we get our word for the product of the sturdy oak, the "door.""

"The Druids also took their name from duir the name of the sturdy tree. Druids were literally "Oak Knowers," practitioners of an ancient art of worship."

Words associated with the sciences of the druids still remain in our language. "Chronology derives from the name of the goddess who determined time. From India to Ireland, this dark goddess was "Kali," who measured both time and the lives of humans. We take our modern word calendar from her books of time, the Kalends. From the mother goddess herself came the word calibrate, meaning "to measure," and caliber which is the diameter(of a projectile.) The circle named for the goddess Circe, was divided by the diameter (Dia-Meter[the god-mother.]) In its center was the core, named for the goddess Kore. Radius takes its name from the course of the sun (Ra) crossing the circle to its center, or core."

"In Ireland, Kali's preiestesses responsible for watching the skies wore green (kelly green.) Our word for month is from moon, which in time of the goddess measured divisions of time."

"The word hour derives from the temple prostitutes of Babylon, each assigned one period of time to stand watch and make herself available to passerby and strangers. The "ladies of the night," those assigned temple duty in the evening, became the "whores.""

"Our word horoscope comes from horos, meaning "time," and scope meaning "watch." The horoscope is a product of the "time watchers.""

Night itself was named for the goddess Neith, who was known by that name from the Atlantic to Egypt.

There are several more that I might post later. Consider yourself educated!