The Ancient Roots of Western Religion
- One for All -
Despite outward appearances of violently opposing basic philosophies, all three
major western religions - Judaism, Christianity and Islam - have common roots.
When I say "western" that is because the general spread of these three has been
mainly to the west, north and south of the original, middle-eastern source
although Islam, of course, has spread eastwards to cover most of south-central
Asia and Indonesia. The generic term "
eastern
religion" points to the geographical locations of India and the orient and
would include the likes of Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Taoism and Shinto.
So, the common roots of the three so-called western religions go all the way
back (at least) to the Old Testament patriarch,
Abraham (known as Ibrahim in
Islam), said to be the first to teach monotheism: the worship of a single God.
Indeed, these three are sometimes referred to as the "
Abrahamic
religions". The story of Abraham and his children also marks the dividing of
the ways for the faiths of Islam and Judaism. According to the old testament
book of Genesis, God made a covenant with Abraham which - in return for
observance of certain rules and rituals including circumcision - God promised:
"
You shall be the father of a multitude of nations ... and
kings shall come
forth from you ... an everlasting covenant throughout the ages ... I assign the
land you sojourn in to you and your offspring to come, all the land of Canaan,
as an everlasting holding."
"Your offspring" is the bit that is the problem here. Which offspring? Which
line of descendants? You see, Abraham - according to the texts - produced
children from more than one woman. His "number one wife", as it were, would have
been Sarai (later called Sarah) but she couldn't have children so she arranged a
surrogate in the person of her handmaid, Hagar (Hajar). Hagar duly gave birth to
Abraham's firstborn son called Ishmael who, according to the Muslims, is the
rightful heir to the promised land. Later, by way of a miracle from God, Sarah
(by this time in her nineties!) was to deliver Abraham (at the sprightly age of
100) a son of her own. This son bore the name of Isaac and, say the Jews, he and
his line are the rightful heirs to the promised land (Ishmael, they say, doesn't
count because he was illegitimate).
Each son, Ishmael and Isaac, would produce descendants who would form twelve
tribes:
Ishmael's twelve tribes
of wandering Arabs and Isaac - through his son Jacob (a.k.a. Israel) -
the twelve tribes of Israel.
Obviously, I can't do justice to the whole story here but we can already see the
deep roots of the conflict between Jew and Muslim (even though Islam, as an
"official" religion of the Arabs, did not appear for over 2,000 years after the
Abraham story). Indeed, it has been very difficult for me to find and provide
links to unbiased web sites on this subject. Still, the most important aspect of
the Abraham story is that he was the founder of the first monotheistic religion
- the worship of a single God. This God became known to the Jews as YHWH,
Yahweh, Yehovah or Jehovah and to the Arabs as Allah.
But wait ... let's look a little more carefully at the biblical claim for
Abraham being the first monotheist. First, there is some doubt as to whether
Abraham actually existed as there seems to be little archaeo-historical evidence
that he did. Nevertheless, assuming that the bible is describing a real person,
Abraham would have been the leader of a nomadic tribe, moving his goats and
cattle from place to place. His father was a dealer in religious idols that
needed to be carried about with the tribe wherever they went. Many gods means
many idols. This was a cumbersome, if not risky, chore. Much simpler to have a
single God requiring no idol. Perhaps Abraham was a pragmatist rather than a
prophet? Perhaps his story has been enhanced with a little spin by the scribes
of the Old Testament? As
Robert Feather
points out in his book "The Mystery of the Copper Scroll of Qumran":
"
To understand why later scribes found such inspiration
from Abraham's story, it seems reasonable to conclude that there was some truth
in the main elements, as handed down from generation to generation by word of
mouth, and described in the Old Testament.
"
However, Abraham does not come across as a 'messianic'
leader who publically preached a new creed. It even seems unlikely that
monotheism was Abraham's original idea."
Feather goes on:
"
In the Old testament, Abraham does not exhibit the
characteristics of someone who preaches to a wide, or even select audience. You
cannot found a religion unless you go out and preach the new gospel."
The title of the chapter containing those quotes puts it in a nutshell: "
Abraham
- Father of Three Religions, Founder of None".
The book of Genesis (
Chapter
12) tells us that Abraham journeyed with his tribe from
the region
of Ur which, according to modern research, could be one of several
historical places in the region of
Mesopotamia in modern-day
Iraq. He went to the land then called Canaan where he was to receive the promise
- mentioned above - that this land would become the great nation to be given to
his descendants. This promise was to be repeated later when Abraham returned to
Canaan after famine had forced him to spend a while in Egypt. Here, importantly,
we have the first mention of possible Egyptian influence on biblical events and
the development of a religious philosophy. Today there is much speculation about
the extent of that influence and the attempts of later Old Testament scribes to
expunge it from the records.
Correspondences abound between the texts of ancient Egyptians and the Old
Testament stories, so much so that the boundaries between the two begin to blur
considerably.
If we now skip several generations and take a look at
Genesis: 37 and the story of
Joseph (he of
the colourful coat), we find him in Egypt too - as a result of being banished
there by his jealous brothers (well, what did he expect when he told them about
his dream that they would all - one day - bow down to him?). According to the
scriptures, Joseph - after a spell in prison because of some tabloid scandal
involving his master's wife - gradually worked his way into the favour of his
Egyptian rulers (using his talents as a dream interpreter) until, eventually, he
became the second most powerful man in the land.
Now, a little historical discussion here might help put these bible stories into
perspective. Some historians have suggested that (if we are to accept that such
an individual actually existed) Joseph might have come to Egypt during the time
of the
Hyksos rulers (sometime
between 1700 and 1500 BCE). The Hyksos were not native Egyptians but Asiatic
(Semitic) tribes who had first settled in Lower Egypt and then advanced their
influence to become rulers for a period of more than 100 years. If Joseph
arrived during this time - being, of course, of Semitic stock himself - this
might explain how he became accepted and promoted through the ranks to a
position of great power.
Another - perhaps more controversial - theory is that Joseph was actually a
character from a later period (
18th
Dynasty, around 1400 BCE): a high ranking minister named
Yuya. Ahmed Osman, an Egyptian
historian and author has promoted
this hypothesis in
several books on the subject. Yuya had a daughter,
Tiye, who became the wife
of the
Pharaoh Amenhotep III.
Now, here's where it gets interesting if you follow Osman's line of reasoning:
Amenhotep III and Tiye were the parents of the future Pharaoh, Amenhotep IV
otherwise known as
Akhenaten.
So, according to Osman, if Yuya (and therefore Tiye) were of Semitic (Hebrew)
descent they probably (if privately) followed the monotheistic faith of Abraham.
Tiye was said to be very influential with her son, Akhenaten, who is today
famous for introducing the monotheistic Atenist religion during his reign.
Others - including the majority of orthodox Egyptologists - disagree (to put it
mildly) with Osman's speculations. Still, the question is still relevant: did
the early Hebrews influence the Egyptians towards monotheism, or was it the
other way around?
The question gains more significance when we move on to the next A-List
celebrity in the biblical cast:
Moses. It seems that even the experts disagree on who he was and when he
lived. The main problem is that there appears to be little or no evidence - from
Egyptian records at least - for the existence of Moses or indeed for the hugely
significant (in biblical terms) event of the Exodus - when Moses is said to have
led thousands of Hebrew slaves out of Egypt, parted the Red Sea and set off on a
40 year hike through the desert. Here are links describing a few of the many
speculations:
Jan Assmann:
Moses was an Egyptian.
Ahmed Osman:
Moses was Akhenaten.
David Rohl believes that Moses did exist and that the Exodus did
happen. The reason, he says, that archaeologists have found so little evidence
is that they were looking at the wrong time period. He places these people and
events a couple of hundred years earlier than the conventional dating.
Sigmund
Freud was a keen student of this period of history. In his book
"Moses and Monotheism" he too places Moses in the reign of Akhenaten but stops
short of Osman's claim that they were one and the same person.
If some, like Osman, believe the "Moses = Akhenaten" theory then others, such as
Velikovsky,
add to the speculation with "Akhenaten = Oedipus" (a figure out of Greek
mythology).
Graham Phillips proposes that the biblical character of Moses is a
composite of two historical Egyptians, both named Tuthmosis, who lived at
different times. The first converted the Israelites to monotheism, the second
led them out of exile about a century later.
Some
scholars argue that the whole story was invented by Jewish scribes during
the period of the exile in Babylon.
Whatever the truth of the matter of Moses might be, once again the important
factor for me is the influence of Egyptian religion and philosophy upon the
formative stages of Judaism. "Moses the Law Giver", according to the bible,
received the
10
commandments directly from God. Odd then, isn't it, that they bear a
remarkable similarity to Chapter 125 of the Egyptian Book of the Dead (see the
Papyrus of Ani,
section:
The Negative
Confession)?
I could (but won't) work through the old testament pointing out Egyptian
parallels to the stories of the various prophets and kings. There are numerous
books out there dealing with the subject and - if you look hard enough - plenty
of websites too. I've already provided links (above) to some of those I have
found and, if you know of others of high quality, please use the "Contact Me"
address to let me know.
But we are not restricted to the Ancient Egyptians when it comes to "external"
influences on the nascent Hebrew religion. What about the Sumerians, the
Babylonians, the Assyrians and Persians? The more I look, the more apparent it
appears to me that the many merge into the one the farther back in time you go.
While, on the surface, it seems that the various religions of the region
coalesced over time into the major three we know today, at a deeper level the
opposite direction seems to be true: the various religions (including the big
three of our times) appear to trace their ancestry back to a very ancient
philosophy indeed. How ancient is not clear right now.
Some have argued that it goes back way
beyond the Old Kingdom of Egypt (about 5,000 years ago) - perhaps to the end of
the last Ice Age about 10,000 years ago. Others contend that extraterrestrials -
the ancient astronauts - had a hand in our ancient development.