Before Historel :

It has been more than ten years since the author of these texts, Jean-Claude Brinette, started to write by hand this history of religion, which it was hoped would help commemorate the upcoming two-thousandth anniversary of Christ's birth. This manuscript was revised three times and put into the memory of a one of the very first generation of PC type computers, both to protect the pages written, and to make corrections. In the meantime, a Moslem friend gave us a copy of the Koran, and the author was struck by the likeness between this religious book and the Bible. He studied all the biblical personnages methodically, especially noting any resemblances.

Once on this path, the author revised and condensed the complete texts of Flavius Joseph, a great biblical historian and writer of his time, (in the 1st century A.D), to find the most interesting passages, and to put them within reach of the general public. His first goal was not to write about the life of Herod the Great and the Jewish wars, but to describe the social climate and politics at the time of Jesus of Nazareth's childhood.

One can really only understand the aspirations of the Jewish people, and in particuliar those of the apostles, if one is aware of the reign ( 36 years) of Herod the Great, who was a servant and guardian of the Romans' interest in the country.

But the main theme, the examination of the ancient religions of Egypt and the Orient, were written fairly recently to search for an answer to the great question of our world : what is the source of our religion?

The Koran speaks of having its origin in EGYPT, and examination of religious texts and of rare archaeological pieces, (which started to be found 150 years ago on Egyptian soil) fascinated the author, who decided to try to describe to the general public these extraordinary discoveries. (Here the Internet becomes a marvelous tool with infinite possibilities.)

 

Birth of Historel :

Historel is a small private project composed and conceived essentially by two people:

1. Jean-Claude Brinette (father): main author of the texts of the different sites of Historel. He lived for eight years in religious life, before leaving orders for reasons of health.
2. Bernard Brinette (son): programmer organizing the retranscription of texts for the diffusion on the Internet, (and your conscientious correspondent!)

Even though manuscripts were written several years ago, HISTOREL, (a History site of Religions) was born in May 1997, when our server, AOL, asked us for a pseudonym to use for our first Web site. Happily, Historel, (which sounds like an excellent login), had not been used, and represented our work very well. For months, Historel continued to add to its pages, constantly improving the presentation. But we still have many things to discover along with you, if God grants us life and health...

 

Hopes for Historel :

Our goal is not to create a new sect, or to convert people, (because nowadays one knows that merely raising the topic of religion is considered suspicious), but we want to share our knowledge of history and religion with everyone, aiming to give us all a better understanding of the texts which are the basis of our great religions.

Even though significance of hieroglyphs were LOST for 1600 years, we cannot escape our past, and the Texts of the Pyramids emerged from the sand like a museum, retracing the ancient history of our civilization. One also hopes that one day we shall recover evidence that the cult of THE ONE GREAT GOD of the universe began well before the time of IMHOTEP and his kin, who were the last known witnesses of lost civilisations...

NOAH, IMHOTEP, ABRAHAM, MOSES, ZOROASTRE, books consecrated by the Hindus, JESUS and his apostles, and also MUHAMMAD, have COMMON POINTS when they speak of resurrection, peace and mercy.

Because of this, we are persuaded that these ideas already existed BEFORE and on into the period that followed the deluge! In the perpetual struggle of good against evil, one could believe that humanity was lost in the fray, but eternal forces make this kind of faith returns (as a new Pheonix), thanks to MESSENGERS and luminaries who come at every era or stage of our civilization.