Chaldean

Chaldean can refer to an ancient people of lower Mesopotamia and their culture, or a contemporary Christian people living mostly in Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon and Iran, as well as a relativley widespread diaspora concentrated in the western world. Chaldean today are a religious denomination which has nothing to do with the ancient Chaldeans. Chaldeans are ethnically Assyrian.

The Chaldeans are Eastern-rite Catholics - autonomous churches of Eastern origin which retain their own liturgy and traditions, but recognise the Pope's authority.

The traditional liturgical language of Chaldean churches is Syriac - a descendent of Aramaic, the language thought to have been spoken by Jesus and his disciples. Most Iraqi Christians still speak Syriac.

Historical references

• Chaldea, "the Chaldees" of the KJV Old Testament, was a Hellenistic designation for a part of Babylonia.

According to Josephus, Chaldeans were known in Hebrew as Kasdim (כשדים), which, in time, came also to mean "sorcerers". One such reference is to the impending sack of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar II (Hab 1:6).

• The 11th dynasty of the Kings of Babylon (6th century BC) is conventionally known to historians as the Chaldean Dynasty.
• Chaldean mythology is a generalized term used to refer to all the mythologies of ancient Sumer, Akkad, Assyria and Babylonia.

• Chaldean language in old references may refer to the Urartian language, also known as Vannic, that was the official language of Urartu, spoken in northeastern Anatolia in the 9th–6th centuries BCE. It is thought to be descended from the same language as Hurrian. However, Biblical Aramaic also used to be referred to as 'Chaldean' or 'Chaldee'.

• The Chaldean Oracles played a role in Hellenistic mystery religions of the first centuries BC and AD.
• Roman and medieval authors used the name 'Chaldeans' in particular for astrologers and mathematicians of Babylonia.

Contemporary references

• Modern Chaldeans are traditionally Syriac-speaking Christian people from Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Iran and The United States.

• Chaldean Neo-Aramaic is a modern Aramaic language. Chaldean script is sometimes used to refer to the Eastern Syriac alphabet.

• Chaldean is a name applied to Eastern Rite Catholic Assyrians also known as Syriacs. (see Chaldean Catholic Church)

• Chaldean Syrian Church of the East is the name most often used by the Assyrian Church of the East in India.

The content of this page is retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaldean under GFDL