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Theories of the Origin of God
At one time it seemed that science had disposed of the Creator God. Human beings try to explain and seek rational solutions to problems. When reason fails, they try to rationalize. Adherents of all creeds try to explain the edicts which no longer make sense. Muslims find reasons for polygamy. Fundamentalist movements flourish among all the people of faith.
They started to worship gods as soon as the faculties evolved sufficiently.
Al faiths express the fear and attraction of the unknown. Humans have attributed transcendence to phenomenon they did not understand. Only Buddhists deny the supernatural.
God has always meant something different to each group of people. The concept harbors inner contradictions. Ideologies have succeeded each other. Fundamentalists try to revive ancient modes and norms. They insist that their prophets had a close communion with God.
Priests who lived among the people, not in monasteries, were called secular. Secularism in the sense of not accepting religious creeds, evolved when most of the mysteries of nature yielded to scientific solutions. It takes knowledge and an open questioning mind to acquire Western human liberalism and is a function of education, affluence and free society.
Atheism has had different historic connotations. The establishment always branded the followers of a new religion atheist as they did not worship the existing deities. It has come to its own only in the last two centuries when they rejected all known creeds.
Monotheists have accepted on God, but Christians added the concept of Trinity. Muslims may not try to visualize him. Jews may not even utter the word.
After seemingly receding, the idea of God is making a comeback in the West. It is overwhelming the Muslim societies and getting to be more and more.
The conception of God made himself known to prophets in an exquisitely agonizing experience. The prophets of Israel and the prophet of Islam felt physically overwhelmed. It mimicked the throes of the Big Bang, on a human scale.
Myths have a way of creeping back into religion, in spite of the official dogma. Monotheists initially rejected the myths of their pagan neighbors, but they had to adopt them in the end. Some mystics have seen god as a woman. In Arabic, al-lah is masculine, but the word for the inscrutable essence of God-al-dhat-is feminine.
In “The Origin of the Idea of God,” Father Wilhelm Schmidt wrote in 1912, “in the beginning, human beings created a God, who was the first cause of everything and the ruler of heaven and earth. He had no temple or priests and no images; He was too exalted for an inadequate human cult. Gradually he faded from human consciousness as had become so remote, people decided, they did not want him any more”. Schmidt suggested primitive monotheism had preceded polytheism. Belief in one Supreme deity, sometimes called Sky God, as He was associated with heaven, is still common in many African tribes. According to Schmidt, in ancient times, He was replaced, due to his remoteness, by more attractive gods of the pagans. 1
The German historian of religion, Rudolf Otto in his ‘The idea of the Holy’, published in 1917, says that the ‘numinous’ was basic to religion. When people began to worship gods, they were not seeking a literal explanation of natural phenomenon. The stories, paintings and carvings expressed their wonder and wanted to link the phenomenon with their lives. 2
When agriculture was developing in the Paleolithic period, the cult of Mother Goddess worshipped the fertility, which for the first time in human existence gave the hope of a consistent supply of food. Carvings of naked and pregnant women have been found all over the place in Europe, Mid-East and India in archaeological digs. She was later amalgamated with other gods in pagan pantheons, though she remained one of the most powerful, in fact more than the Sky god. Her names were Inana in old Sumeria, Ishtar in Babylon, Anat in Canaan, Isis in Egypt and Aphrodite in Greece. The myth was metaphorical, meant to describe a complex and elusive reality.
In ancient times, people seemed to believe that they could become truly human, only if they somehow participated in divine life. It was said that gods had taught men how to build cities and temples, which were replicas of god’s own places in the heavens (1)-3. In ancient Iran, the belief was that every single person or object in the human world (getik) had an archetype in the sacred world (menok). Resting on the Sabbath is an imitation what many believe, god had done.
Abraham left Ur between 20th and 19the centuries BC and settled in Canaan. There is no contemporary record of Abraham, but according to scholars, he may have been one of the wandering chieftains (or even the name of a tribe) who led their people from Mesopotamia to the Mediterranean region at the end of the 3rd millennium BC. These people are called Abiru, Apiru or Habiru in Mesopotamian and Egyptian sources and spoke West Semitic languages. Hebrew is one of them. They had merchants, mercenaries, tinkers and private and government servants in their ranks. The Book of Genesis shows Abraham serving as a mercenary to the king of Sodom, was in frequent conflict with the authorities and after the death of his wife, Sarah, he bought land in Hebron, on the West Bank. The Book of Gensesis-4
There were three waves of early Hebrew settlements in Canaan, in what is now Israel. The one Abraham led was about 1850 BCE. Abraham’s grandson, Jacob led the second wave and settled in Sheeham, now Nablus on the West Bank. Jacob’s sons became the ancestors of the twelve tribes of Israel and migrated to Egypt during a famine. The third wave was that of Hebrew refugees from Egypt, who claimed to be descendants of Abraham and arrived in Canaan in about 1200 BCE. They claimed to have been enslaved by Egyptians and were liberated by a deity called Yahweh, the God of Moses their leader
German scholars developed a critical method of analysis of the bible in the 19th century AD, called higher criticism and arrived at the conclusion that the first five books of the bible-Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, numbers and Deuteronomy had four different sources. These were collected in the final text in the 5th century BC into what we know as Pentateuch. Religious scholars have harshly criticized the method of critical analysis, but have not been able to come up with an explanation of the two different accounts of key Biblical events as the flood and Creation and why the Bible contradicts itself. The earliest authors of the bible, whose work finds a place in Genesis and Exodus, wrote most likely in the 8th century BC. One is known as “J”, as he calls his god, Yahweh and the other as “E”, because he uses the more formal title, “Elohim”.
Both J and E shared the religious perspectives of their neighbors, but by the 8th century BC, they had started to develop a distinct theology. Compared to that in Enuma Elish, J gives a perfunctory account of the Creation (6)-6. It was not till the 6th century BC, that “P” in Israel shows real interest in Creation, whose account appears in the first chapter of Genesis. J was not quite sure if Yahweh was the sole creator of heaven and earth, but perceived man and the divine as distinct.
J is not dismissive of mundane history as profane and insubstantial compared with the primordial time of gods. He hurries through the events of the Flood and the Tower of Babel, till he arrives at the beginning of the history of people of Israel.
He abruptly begins with Abram, later named Abraham (father of multitude), whom Yahweh commands to leave for Canaan and tells him that he will become the father of a mighty nation that would grow to be more numerous than the stars in the sky and his progeny will possess Canaan.
In ancient times in the Mid-East, Marduk, Baal and Anat were not expected to involve themselves in the profane lives of their worshippers. Mana was experienced in ritual and myth. The God of Israel, on the other hand, interfered in the current events.
The bible is vague on Yahweh, and gives conflicting answers. J contends that people worshipped Yahweh since the time of Adam’s grandson, but according to P, Israelites were not aware of him until he appeared to Moses in the Burning Bush. P, as though not sure, has Yahweh explain that He was the same God as the God of Abraham, who called him “El Shaddai” and did not know the name Yahweh.
We can not presume that Abraham or Moses believe in their God as the current monotheists do. It does not appear that Abraham, his son Isaac and grandson were monotheists. It is, indeed, more likely that they shared many of the religious beliefs of their neighbors in Canaan. It is quite possible that the God of Abraham, the “Fear” or “Kinsman” of Isaac and the “Mighty One” of Jacob were three separate gods. In fact it is highly unlikely that the God was Abraham was the same as El, the High God of Canaan (9)-7. The name is preserved in Hebrew names as Isra-El and Ishma-El.
Israelites found the mana or holiness of Yahweh terrifying. On Mount Sinai, he would appear to Moses in the midst of an awful volcanic eruption. Abraham’s God is friendly and at times assumes human form. This kind of divine apparition is called epiphany and was quite common among the pagans.
Certain mythical individuals had met their gods face to face. The Iliad has many such epiphanies. The gods and goddesses appear both to Greeks and Trojans. In the Iliad, a charming young man guides Priam, and in the end turns out to be god, Hermes (10)-8. As late as the 1st century AD, people of Lystra, now in Turkey mistook Paul and his disciple, Barnabas for Zeus and Hermes.
Israelites, looking back at their golden age, imagined Abraham, Issac and Jacob living on familiar terms with their gods. El gives friendly advice like a chief. J tells us in the Chapter 18 of Genesis that Abraham looked up and saw three strangers approaching his tent by the oak tree of Mamre, near Hebron. He invited them in to sit down and hurriedly prepared food for them. It transpired that one of the three was Yahweh. The other two were angels. When J wrote all this in the 8th century BC, no one would any longer expect to see God.
When Jacob was on the way to Haran to find a wife, he fell asleep in a place called Luz near the Jordan valley and dreamt of a ladder between the earth and heaven on which angels were going up and down, akin to the ziggurat. At the top of the ladder was El, who blessed Jacob and made the same promise to him he had to Abraham, that his descendants would become a mighty nation. On waking up Jacob realized that he had fallen asleep in a sacred place, “How awe inspiring…this is nothing less than the house of God (beth El), this is the gate of heaven” (13)-9. He had fallen back to a pagan expression; Babylon, the abode of gods, was called “Gate of gods” (Bab-ili). Following the pagan tradition, Jacob took the stone he had used as a pillow, upended it and sanctified it with oil. Luz was now called Beth-El, the house of God. Jacob struck a bargain
with the god he had met; adopt him as his elohim, the only god that counted, in return for protection.
Abraham and Jacob put their faith in El because he worked for them. God for them was not a philosophic abstraction, the one who delivered mana proved his worth.
On the way back from Haran, with his wives and progeny, Jacob had another epiphany. On the West Bank, a stranger wrestled with him all night. In the morning he wanted to leave, but Jacob would not let him till he revealed his name. During the ensuing struggle, Jacob realized that his opponent was none other than El. It is akin to Iliad, than to Jewish monotheism.
In asking Abraham to sacrifice his son, the Bible is following the pagan custom of human sacrifice. The first child was frequently believed to be the offspring of a god, who had impregnated the mother in an act of droit de seigneur (the right of the chief to spend the first night with a bride in his tribe, still practiced in Baluchistan, Pakistan). The god had depleted his energy in the process, and the child had to be returned to him to replenish his mana.
But this new god was above the need for replenishment. It was only a test, he told Abraham, only after Issac had carried the wood for his burning and Abraham had the knife in his hand. It depicts God as a capricious sadist.
The tale of Exodus is even stranger. Israelites were such good slaves; the Pharaoh was reluctant to let go. God sent plagues, the Nile turned to blood, locusts and frogs infested the land, and the country was plunged into darkness. Unable to move the Pharaoh, God sent the angel of death to kill the first-born son of every one, except those of the Hebrew slaves. The Pharaoh gave in, but changing his mind, pursued them. At the Sea of Reeds, about to catch them, God let the sea part to let the Hebrews cross, but closing the waters, drowned the following Pharaoh and his army. The Pharaoh and other Egyptians were his creations too and had given shelter to his favored Hebrews when they were starving. He does not seem to have full control over his creations, and had to send plagues. He behaves more like a tribal deity. He would be known as Yahweh Sabaoth, the God of armies.
A rational explanation of the tale would be that it was it was a mythical rendering of the successful revolt of the Hebrew slaves against the Pharaoh (15)-11.
Israelis would eventually transform Yahweh into a symbol of transcendence and compassion. But the myth would continue to inspire a vengeful theology. The myth of chosen people has inspired a tribal theology from the time of Deuteronomy till the current Jewish, Christian and Muslim fundamentalisms, justifying the horrors visited upon the victims-Palestinians, Lebanese and the innocent civilians in Pakistan.
The clergy are the beneficiaries as usual. Even as early as Deuteronomy, Israelites are commanded to offer the first fruits of the harvest to the priests of Yahweh (16)-12.
The God has ordained social justice and fair play to the specific followers of the monotheistic faiths. The clergy of the adherents of the creeds have chosen to maintain status, quo, to support the establishment and palm off the ordinary mortals with the ease and luxury of the hereafter, and wait in the wings to grab the first opportunity of take over of the government.
Yahweh, called the “the god of our fathers” by the Israelites, may in fact have been different from El, the Canaanite high God, or he would not have to insist to Moses at some length and often that he was indeed the God of Abraham, even though he had originally been called El Shadai. Some academics have suggested that Yahweh was initially a warrior god, a god of volcanoes, worshipped in Midian, now Jordan 17-13.
Among the pagans, gods were often merged; the god of one locality may be accepted as the same as that of another. But Moses, after the Exodus was able to convince his people that Yahweh was indeed the same as El, the God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob.
Moses had fled Egypt to Midian for killing an Egyptian, who was mistreating Israelites. He had married there, and was looking after his father in law’s sheep, when he had sighted a Bush that burnt without being burnt down. He went closer to the Bush and Yahweh addressed him by name. This God is very different from the God Abraham had shared a meal with. This one inspires terror and keeps his distance. When asked to reveal His identity, he replies, “I am who I am (Ehyeb asber ehyeb)” (19)-14.
God is telling Moses to mind his own business.
The older sky gods had been remote, the later ones like Baal, Marduk and mother goddesses were close to mankind. Yahweh had widened the gulf between men and the divine, once again. Moses had to warn his people, “…not to go up to the mountains…whoever touches…will be put to death”. Pagans had worked out the principles of justice, order and peace by themselves. Now the law is handed down from on above.
In the final version of Exodus, written about 5th century BC, God is supposed to have made a covenant with Moses on Mount Sinai around 1200 BC. The covenant clearly indicates that the Israelites were not monotheistic yet. The God told them to ignore all other deities and worship him alone. Even the Ten Commandments say, “There shall be no strange gods for you in my face” (21)-15.
Pharaoh Akhenaton had imposed the worship of Sun God alone, but his successor had reversed the policy. All gods could be a source of mana and to ignore them did not seem prudent.
Yahweh was good at war, but was not a fertility god. Once settled in Canaan, the Israelites instinctively looked up to the cult of Baal. In spite of the prophets, the majority continued to worship Baal, Asherah and Anat, in the usual way. While Moses was up on Mount Sinai, the people made a golden bull, the traditional effigy of El and performed ancient rites before it. People wanted the holistic vision of unity among gods, nature and man.
After the Exodus, Israelites had promised to make Yahweh, their elohim, and had been made His special people in return. Essential to the whole idea of the covenant was absolute loyalty. The ceremony of the covenant was conducted after the Israelites had arrived in Canaan, by all descendants of Abraham and was conducted by Joshua, the successor to Moses.
Israelites were convinced that Yahweh was qualified to be their elohim (23)-16. But they did not keep their word except in times of war. In peacetime, they reverted to the worship of Anat and Asherah.
Following pagan norms the temple Solomon built for Yahweh in Jerusalem was similar to the temples of Canaanite gods. Among other spaces, it had a cube-shaped room, the holy of holies for the Ark of the Covenant, a portable altar, a huge bronze basin representing Yam, the primeval sea of Canaanite myth and two forty foot free standing pillars representing the fertility cult of Asherah. The Israelites continued using the ancient shrines they had acquired from the Canaanites to worship Yahweh, and had frequent pagan ceremonies as well. They began to imagine that the temples were the Replica of Yahweh’s heavenly court.
The New Year festival of Israelites began with a scapegoat ceremony on the Day of Atonement. Five days later they had the Feast of Tabernacles celebrating the beginning of the agricultural year. Some of psalms celebrated the enthronement of Yahweh in his temple on the Feast of Tabernacles, which were akin to the enthronement of Merduk reenacting his victory over chaosKing Solomon had several pagan wives, who continued to worship their own gods and his dealings with his pagan neighbors were friendly.
King Ahab ascended the throne of Northern Kingdom of Israel in 869 BC. His wife Jezebel, a daughter of the King of Sidon, was a fervent pagan. In order to convert the people to the religion of Baal, she imported priests who quickly acquired a following among her people. When a drought struck the land, a prophet named Eli-Jah (Yahweh is my god”), sporting a hairy mantle and a leather loin cloth, started wandering through the land, spouting curses on the people for their disloyalty to Yahweh, and invited the king and his people to watch a contest between Yahweh and Baal. The audience included 450 prophets. He then asked for two bulls, one for Baal and the other for him, to be placed on alters. The prophets of Baal and the ones for Yahweh would call upon their gods to send down fire to consume the holocaust. There was general agreement.
The prophets of Baal, dancing their hobbling dance, shouted the whole morning, gashing themselves with swords, but “there was no voice, no answer…”
Eli-Jah then dug a trench around the Alter of Yahweh, and filled it with water. He called upon Yahweh. Fire fell and consumed the Alter and the bull. People, of course, fell upon their faces and shouted, “Yahweh is God”.
Eli-Jah ordered the seizure of the prophets of Baal, took them to a nearby valley and killed them all (25)-20. After the slaughter, Eli-Jah went up the top of Mount Carmel to pray. Eventually a cloud the size of a man’s hand appeared. He sent his servant to hurry to the city, before the rain stopped him.
Rain came in torrents. Yahweh had taken over the function of the storm god, Baal, of providing rain.
Yahweh, unlike pagan gods, demanded violent suppression and denial of other faiths. Frightened of the followers of the slain prophet’s revenge, Eli-Jah fled to the mountain where Moses had met God. He experienced a theophany, and to protect himself from the divine impact, was asked to shield himself in the crevice of a rock (26)-21.
The story of Eli-Jah was the last account of an encounter with Yahweh. It is an object lesson in how people of faith did not hesitate in committing genocide for the sake of their creed.
During the ‘Axial’ period of 800-200 BC so called because changing economic and social conditions led to new ideologies. A new merchant class arose. Power was shifted from the palace and the temple to the market place. Inequality and exploitation became less tolerated. Taoism and Confucianism developed in China, Hinduism and Buddhism in India. In Iran Zoroastrians and in Israel the Hebrews developed new versions of monotheism.
The rationalism of Plato and Aristotle is important in this respect, as all the monotheistic creeds drew upon and tried to adapt the ideas to their own faith.
Aryans from Iran invaded the Indus valley in the 7th century BC and overcame the indigenous population (their progeny hotly dispute this and claim that they have always lived in India). They imposed their own religious ideas as expressed in the Rig-Veda. We find a multitude of gods, offering many of the attributes of their counterparts in the Mid-East.
But people were coming to the realization that all the gods might just be manifestation of one absolute power, the unification theory. Aryans like Babylonians were trying to explain the then inexplicable as myths.
The Vedas only tried to help people come to terms with existence. But the ideas of the indigenous population, which had been suppressed, arose again and led to a revival of interest in Karma. The concept that destiny was dependent on one’s action made people unwilling to blame gods for their behavior.
Vedic religion had been too involved in rituals, but interest in old Indian practice of Yoga (focussing the powers of the mind to the special discipline of concentration) was gradually re-emerging, and people became unhappy with a religion, which focused on externals alone. They wanted to divine the inner meaning of rituals.
Gurus (religious teachers/divines) soon superseded gods in India. Humans claimed control of destiny. Hindus and Buddhists sought new ways to transcend gods. During the 8th century BC, sages began to address the issues in treatises called Aranyakas and the Upanishads, together known as the Vedanta, the end of the Vedas. By the end of the 5th century BC, there were about 200 Upanishads. Hinduism eschews systems and holds that one interpretation would not be adequate. But the Upanishads did offer a distinctive conception of godhood that transcended gods and was present in all things.
People had felt a holy power in sacrificial rituals of the Vedic religion. They had called it Brahman. The priestly caste known as Brahmanas also possessed the power. Brahman gradually came to mean a power, which sustained everything. The whole world was a mysterious activity welling up from Brahman, which was the inner meaning of all existence. The Upanishads encouraged people to think that everything that happened became a manifestation of the Brahman. Brahman is not a he or she. It transcends all human activities and cannot meet them. It does not respond to prayers or praise, does not love us or can be angry with us. It would be entirely alien, except it is in us, sustains and inspires us.
The Upanishads claimed that the new dimension of self was also the power that sustained the world. The eternal principle in each individual was Atman, a new version of the old holistic vision of the pagans and prevented god from becoming an idol, a projection of our own desires. It is impossible to speak to a God who is as immanent (30)-25 or even to think about it.
Reason is not denied, but like gods, it is transcended.
The Yogi leaves his family and social ties to seek enlightenment and seeks another realm. Siddhartha Gautam, appalled by the suffering of the masses, became a mendicant ascetic to discover the secret of ending the misery. He sat at the feet of gurus and undertook fearful penances. But it was not until he put himself in a trance that he gained enlightenment and the whole cosmos rejoiced. There was hope of liberation from suffering and attainment of nirvana, a state of bliss. The demon Mara tempted him to enjoy his bliss, but the gods Maha Brahma and Sakra, the lord of devas, implored him to enlighten the whole world and he spent the next forty five years tramping all over India, spreading the message. The Buddha believed that the ultimate reality of nirvana was higher than the gods. Instead of relying on gods, the Buddha asked his followers to save themselves.
He told his disciples that all existence was dukkha, suffering. Things come and go in a meaningless flux. Religion led to the myth of a divine. The Buddha taught that it was possible to gain release from dukkha by living a life of compassion. He insisted that he had not invented the system, only discovered it. (Muhammad claimed that he was bringing the true religion which the followers of Moses and Christ had distorted). Karma bound the humans to an endless cycle of rebirth into a series of painful lives. But reform of egoistic attitudes could change destiny.
Nirvana literally means “cooling off or going out”, but in Buddhism, it plays the role of God (32)-28. Nirvana could not be defined as another human reality, because our words and concepts are tied to the world of sense and change (33)-29. He asked his monks not to speculate about the nature of nirvana. He could only provide them with a raft to carry them to “the farther shore”. We could not understand nirvana. Jews, Christians and Muslims are also asked not to speculate on the divine.
The Greeks, on the other hand, were passionate about the rational. They called it logos. Plato (428-348 BC) devoted his life to epistemology (study of the source of knowledge) and the nature of wisdom. He spent much of his time defending Socrates, who asked thought provoking questions of the people, but was sentenced to death in 399 BC, on the charges of impiety. The 6th century BCE philosopher/ mathematician, Pythagoras, who may have been influenced by the ideas of Indian philosophers, transmitted via Persia and Egypt. He had believed that the soul was a fallen and polluted deity, which had been entombed in the body and doomed to perpetual cycle of rebirth. He taught that the soul could be liberated by ritual purifications and believed in the existence of a divine unchanging reality beyond the world of senses. His doctrines of eternal form were crucial to monotheists when they tried to express their conception of God.
Plato’s eternal ideas can be seen as a rational version of the mythical divine world. He did not discuss the nature of god, though ideal Beauty and Good may represent a supreme reality. Plato believed that the divine world was changeless. The Celestial bodies imitate the divine world the best they could.
Plato’s divine forms could be discovered within the self (34)-30.
Because humans were fallen divinities, the forms of the divine were within them and could be touched with reason, which an intuitive grasp of the eternal reality within us. This would have a great influence on mystics.
Plato believed that the universe was essentially rational. Aristotle (384-322 BC) was the first to appreciate the importance of rational reasoning as the means of arriving at an understanding of the universe. He wrote a fourteen-volume treatise known as Metaphysics (the term coined by his editor means after physics) in which he attempted to understand truth. He also studied theoretical physics and empirical biology. He did not agree with Plato’s transcendent view of the forms, that they had prior and independent existence.
He was, though cognizant of the nature of religion and mythology. He pointed out that people who had become initiates in mysticism did not have to learn any facts, “but to experience certain emotions….” (35)-31. He offered that tragedy effected a purification (katharsis) of the emotions of terror and pity and that amounted to a rebirth.
The Greek tragedies, initially part of a religious festival did not necessarily offer a factual account of a historical event. History was more trivial than poetry and myth: “The one describes what has happened; the other what might, hence poetry is more philosophic…poetry speaks of what is universal, history of what is particular” (36)-32. The facts of the lives of Achilles and Oedipus, whether existed or not, were relevant in Homer and Sophocles. Events which could not be endured in life would be transformed them into pure and pleasurable experience in a mythical drama.
In Physics, Aristotle developed a philosophical version of the old emanation account of creation. At the top of the hierarchy was the Unmoved Mover, which he identified with God, who was pure, eternal, immobile, spiritual and eternal. He was pure Thought and Thinker, engaged in an eternal moment of contemplation of Himself; the highest object of knowledge. He activates the world by a process of attraction, since all beings are drawn to Him and thus causes all the motion and activity in the world.
Man’s human soul has the divine gift of intellect, which makes him a kin to God and a participant in the divine nature. It puts him above animals and plants. Man is the microcosm of the whole universe, and contains the basest materials and as well as the divine attribute of reason. It is his duty to become immortal and divine by purifying his intellect.
Wisdom (Sophia) was the highest human virtue; it was expressed in contemplation (theoria) of philosophical truth, which makes him divine by imitating the activity of God himself. Theoria was achieved by a disciplined intuition, which resulted in an ecstatic self-transcendence. Very few people were capable of acquiring this wisdom.
Aristotle’s God had not created the world as that would have involved an inappropriate temporal activity, and thus had little religious relevance. He remains quite indifferent to the world because He cannot contemplate anything but Himself. He does not guide or direct the world. It is questionable if He even knows of the existence of the cosmos, which had emanated from Him as a necessary effect of His existence.
In the the Axial age, there was a general agreement that human life contained a transcendent element that was essential.
The prophets of Israel were simultaneously developing their own myths to meet the changing conditions.
Emergence of one God:
Ahaz took over the kingdom after death of his father Uzzaih in 742 BC and under the influence of his wifwe Jezebel, encouraged his subjects to worship pagan gods along sideYahweh. The northern Kingdom of Israel descended into a virtual state of anarchy. King Sargon II of Assyria would take it over in 722 BC and deport the population. Ten out of twelve tribes of Israel were forced to assimilate and disappeared from history.
Isaiah, a member of the Judean royal family, while praying in 742 BC, in the temple Solomon had built, had a vision of Yahweh, who was accompanied by two seraphs. The seraphs chanted “Holy, holy, holy is Yahweh Sabaoth…” (1)-33 Yahweh is other, other, other. Isaiah had experienced the numinous, which Rudolf Otto in his “The Idea of the Holy” has described the experience of transcendent reality as mysterium terrible et fascinans-terrible and fascinating. There is nothing rational about the experience (2)-34. Unlike Buddha, Isaiah was not enlightened, but full of terror (3)-35.
One of the seraphs flew towards Isaiah and purified his lips with a live coal, so he could utter the word, Yahweh. Jews have since not been allowed to say the word (4)-36. Christians diluted the injunction by just not allowing utterance of the name in vain.
Unlike the Brahman of Hindus, Yahweh could be described in human terms. The psalms describe Yahweh enthroned in his temple as king, just as Baal, Merduk and Dagon did (5)-37. Yahweh can speak and Isaiah can answer him.
Yahweh asked Isaiah, “Whom shall I send…” Isaiah volunteered, “Here I am, bineni, send me”. It is a commission to act. Yahweh told Isaiah that he must not be dismayed if people did not accept what he told them, “Go and say to people:’Hear and hear again, but do not understand: see and see again, but do not perceive” (6)-38.
Jesus would echo these words seven hundred years later (7)-39.
In 701 BC, king Sennacherib of Assyria would invaded Judah, impaled the defending officers on poles, put the Jewish king in a cage in Jerusalem and deport 2,000 people.
Isaiah had had the futile task of forewarning his people of the impending catastrophe. Yahweh, unhappy with his favored people uses Sargon II and Sennacherib as his agents, and was using Catastrophe to assert that he was becoming the Lord and Master of history (11)-40.
Israelites would not have been happy to learn that Yahweh had masterminded the campaigns of Assyrians, as he had those of Joshua, Gideon and King David.
The trend continues. Christians and Muslims are taught that God sends disasters to test people’s faith.
Compared to the God of Moses who gloried in triumphs, the God of Isaiah was a sorry figure, “Israel knows nothing; my people understand nothing” (12)-41. He was revolted by animal sacrifices in the temple.
The Axial ideologies were insisting that religions be integrated with daily life.
The story of Exodus had indicated that God was on the side of the oppressed. Empowered Israelites had turned into oppressors (as Christians did after the creed became official and Muslims did soon after achieving dominance).
Simultaneously with Isaiah, two other prophets were preaching a similar message. One was Amos. (16)-42. He invited the Israelites to have a dialogue with Yahweh, which they regretfully declined.
Only a minority follows the religion of compassion. Most religious people prefer decorous worship in temples, mosques and synagogues to tolerance and compassion.
King Jeroboam I, in the 10th century, had set up two cultic bulls in the temples sanctuaries of Dan and Beth-el. The Israelites were taking part in fertility rites and sacred sex there two hundred years later (20)-43. Archeologists have unearthed inscriptions, “To Yahweh and his Asherah”, so they had given him a wife too.
Prophet Hosea was perturbed that they were breaking the covenant by worshipping other gods. He made Yahweh say, “What I want is love (besed), not sacrifice; knowledge of God (death Elohim), not holocausts” (21)-44. Daath comes from the Hebrew verb yada: to know and has sexual connotations, like Adam ‘knew’ his wife Eve (22)-45. Baal had married the soil and people had celebrated it with ritual orgies. Hosea asserted that since the covenant, Yahweh had taken the place of Baal and had wedded the people of Israel (23)-46. But he was still wooing Israel like a lover, to lure her back from Baal (-47 A history of God p 47).
Yahweh had told of Hosea to marry a whore (eshebeth zeuunim), because the whole country had, “become a whore abandoning Yahweh” (25)-48. His marriage with Gomer, a temple whore, reflected Yahweh’s relationship with the faithless Israel. At the birth of the youngest of their three children, Yahweh annulled his covenant: “You are not my people, and I am not your God”.
Gomer became a whore only after her children were born. That gave Hosea an insight into how Yahweh felt on being abandoned by the Israelites. But Hosea still loved Gomer and in spite of the religious injunction to divorce an unfaithful wife, he bought her back from her new master. He felt that like him, Yahweh was willing to give Israel another chance.
All religions are replete with anthropomorphisms. Isaiah had seen Yahweh as king, Amos preached that He had empathy for the poor and Hosea compared him to a jilted husband.
The people of Babylon and Canaan (according to Karen Armstrong-give ref-49) had taken the effigies of gods as symbols of divinity. Yet the prophets jeered at deities of their pagan neighbors (as Muslims do those of Hindus and the concept of Trinity).
Pagans always had room for another god. Hindus and Buddhists were encouraged to go beyond the gods, rather than be consumed with loathing for alien ones. But the prophets of Israel (and other prophets) were unable to take the tolerant view. They harbored deep anxiety. They must have subconsciously thought that there was a hint of paganism in their own conception of Yahweh (or the black stone in Kaaba).
Yahweh was taking over the functions of the elohim of Canaanites. Hosea was arguing that he was a better fertility god than Baal. But he, even though monotheists would insist transcended gender, was masculine and could not take over the function of the goddess Asherah, Ishtar or Anat.
In earlier societies before the Axial age women were often held in higher esteem than men were. The prestige of goddesses reflects that. They at least regarded themselves as equal of their husbands. Deborah had led an army, and Israelites celebrated Judith and Esther, till Yahweh became the only God (in the pre-Islamic tribal society women of the elite enjoyed nearly equal rights. Muhammad’s first wife was her employer, and when he was on his way to propose to her, a woman stopped him on the way and offered a hundred camels as dowry, if he married her. He promised to look her up, if his boss turned him down. Even after Islam, Muhammad’s wife Ayesha led an army against his son in law, Ali)
When humans settled on land, and property could be inherited which enhanced the idea of legitimacy, the position of women deteriorated. Their position was particularly bad in Greece, worse than that in the Orient. Women did not have a vote in Greek Democracy; they had to live in seclusion and were despised as inferior human beings.
For a long time Yahweh was not the only deity. In the council of gods, he accused other gods of failing to meet the challenges of the times. In the olden days he had been prepared to accept them as elohim, the sons of El-Elyon (God Most high” 30-51), but they were no longer any good.
In monotheist parlance, idolatry becomes objectionable only if the image of god is confused with the ineffable reality to which it refers. Jews, Christians and Muslims worked at it and arrived at a conception closer to Hindu and Buddhist visions.
King Josiah of Judah was anxious to reverse the syncretistic policies of his predecessors, who had encouraged the people to worship the gods of Canaan at the same time as Yahweh. It came to a head in 622 BC. One of his predecessors Manasseh had put up an effigy of Asherah in the Temple. Most Israelites were devoted to Asherah and thought she was Yahweh’s wife.
Josiah had decided to make extensive repairs to the Temple. During repairs to the Temple, the High Priest, Hilkiah discovered an ancient MS, purported to be Moses’ last sermon. Yahweh was so upset because they had failed to obey his instructions to Moses.
The Book of Law ‘discovered by Hilkiah is most likely the core of what we now know as Deuteronomy. Yahweh had marked his people out of love, not because of any merit in them and in return demanded loyalty and rejection of all other gods. The author makes Moses say that would have no dealings with the goyim, must make no covenant with them or show them any pity. Tear down their altars, smash their standing stones, cut down their sacred poles and set fire to their idols (The God of Muslims would similarly grant his favors on the Day of Judgment, not on merit, but for his pleasure. That makes all the paraying, fasting and pilgrimage to Mecca an exercise in futlity, like paying homage to a merciless maiden in hopes of favors).
The Deuteronomist had not reached the point of monotheism. Yahweh ehad meant that Yahweh was the only deity it was permitted to worship. Other gods were still a threat. If they deserted Yahweh, the consequences would be devastating (35)-52.
Josiah and his people had so far managed to keep the Assyrians at bay. In 606 BC, the Babylonian king Nebupolassar would crush the Assyrians and expand his empire.
In this climate of impending peril, the Deuteronomy had great impact. Josiah implemented a reform; images, idols and fertility symbols of the Temple were removed and burnt. He pulled down the effigy of Asherah and destroyed the apartments of Temple prostitutes. All the pagan shrines were demolished.
Buddha had serenely accepted the deities he had no use of. Here we have naked hatred born out of anxiety and fear.
They rewrote history as well (All insecure societies do it. Pakistan movement started with the invasion of Sind by Muhammad bin Qassim in the 7th CAD, according to history text books in the country). The books of Joshua, Judges and Samuel were revised to fit in the new ideology. A little later they added passages to the Pentateuch giving the Deuteronomist color to the Exodus Myth and to the older narratives of J and E, making Yahweh a militant holy exterminator of Canaan (compare Islam’s pacific revelations of the Mecca period with the aggressive ones of the medina period-get ref-53). Native Canaanites must no longer live in their country (Palestinians must leave Israel and the West Bank). Joshua is made to implement the policy with thoroughness (38)-54. The genocide was given religious justification.
It makes God like humans and is used to endorse ethnic hatred.
In the 11th and 12th centuries, the Crusaders justified the holy wars against the Jews and Muslims, as they were the new Chosen People. Calvinists have convinced many Americans that they are the Chosen Nation.
Such beliefs are more likely to flourish at a time of political uncertainty and reverses. Islamic fundamentalism is a reaction to the decline of Muslims over the last 5-6 centuries (Wahabism was a reaction to the foundering fortunes of the Turks and ascendancy of Britain/France in Mid-East and Africa and the British victory over the Moghals in India), especially since the fall of the Ottoman Caliphate, establishment of Israel in 1948, the devastating defeat of the combined Arab forces in 1967, the humiliating defeat of the Pakistan army at the hands of the Indian army in 1971.
Bucking the trend, the prophet Jeremiah revived the iconoclastic perspective of Isaiah; God was using Babylon as his instrument to punish Israel. This was in 604 BC, when Nebuchadnezzar took over in Babylon and would destroy Jerusalem in 587 BC and deport the Jews to Babylon (39)-55, where they would spend seventy years of exile.
Unlike other regions, the Mid-East of the time had not developed a broadly inclusive ideology (44)-56. Israel was a tiny enclave of Yahweh and not all Israelis accepted him. He was an external, transcendent reality and needed to be humanized. Jeremiah ascribed human emotions to Yahweh, and makes him lament his own affliction, desolation and homelessness. God was dependent upon man when wanted to act in the world.
Once the Babylonians conquered Jerusalem, Yahweh became more consoling. He would save them as they had learned the lesson.
Jeremiah had been allowed by the Babylonians to stay behind in Judah (46)-57. Some people blamed Yahweh for the disaster. Women, especially claimed that everything had been fine as long as they had worshipped Ishtar, the Queen of Heaven.
A priest, Ezekiel was among the first batch of exiles. He had a shattering vision of a cloud of light, which was shot through with lightening, in the midst of which he seemed to see a great chariot pulled by four beasts, similar to the karibu carved on the palace gates of Babylon. Each one had four heads, with the face of a man, a lion, a bull and an eagle. The beatings of the wings of the creatures was deafening…like rushing water…voice of Shaddai”. On the chariot was a throne…sitting in state was a being… like a man…like the glory (kavod) of Yahweh (49-58) and heard a voice addressing him.
A violent image, a hand stretching towards him carrying a scroll, covered with wailings and moaning, conveyed the divine message. The prophet was commanded to eat the scroll and make it a part of his body.
The story illustrates how foreign and strange the divine world had become to humanity.
The pagan world, on the other hand, continued to celebrate the continuity between gods and the world. Ezekiel called the old religion ‘filth’.
Some exiles in Babylon felt that they could not practice their religion outside the Promised Land. They had homicidal thoughts about Babylonian babies. A new prophet, about whom nothing is known now, preached tranquility. His work was added to the oracles of Isaiah, so he is called the Second Isaiah. The Temple of Yahweh was in ruins. He declared that Yahweh was the only god (53-59). He denounced the gods of goyim.
The new theology was accepted because it was effective in preventing despair and offering hope.
When Cyrus conquered the Babylonian empire in 539 BC, he did not impose Persian gods, but worshipped at the Temple of Merduk and also restored the effigies of the people conquered by the Babylonians. In 538 BC, he allowed the Jews to return to Judah. Most of them elected to stay, and according to the bible, only 42,360 left. They imposed their new Judaism on the people living there. This entailed insertion of the Priestly tradition (P) written after the exile, and gave its own interpretation of events as given by L and E and added two books, Numbers and Leviticus. Nobody could actually see God as J had suggested (60-60).
The most famous contribution of P was the story of creation in the first chapter of Genesis, which borrowed heavily from Enuma Elish. He began with the waters of the primordial abyss (tebom, a corruption of Babylonian Tiamat) from which Yahweh had fashioned heavens and earth. But there was no battle of gods, or gradual emanation of reality, Yahweh did it by an effortless act of will, as gods of later creeds would do. Men and women did not share the divine nature as in the Babylonian story of creation, but they had been created in the image of God. As in Enuma Elish God worked for six days and rested on the 7th day.
In the East, Temple building had been an act of imitatio dei, enabling the humans to take part in the activity of gods. During the exile, many Jews had found consolation in the story of the Ark of the Covenant, the portable shrine in which God had set up his tent. The new Temple was therefore central to P’s Judaism.
Sabbath was an act of imitation of God. In old paganism, every human act was imitation of the acts of gods. The cult of Yahweh had produced a huge gulf. Now the Jews were invited to come closer to Yahweh by observing the Torah. Deuteronomy had listed obligatory laws, including the Ten Commandments. In time it had been elaborated into 613 commandments (mitzvot). The era of prophecies ended with the end of Exile. There would be no more direct contact with God.
During the 4th century BC, Jews came under the influence of Greek rationalism. Alexander had defeated Darius of Persia in 332 BC, and the Greeks had started to colonize Asia and Africa. The Jews were surrounded by Hellenic culture. Some were apprehensive, while others were excited by theatre, philosophy, poetry and sports. They took to all, the language, gymnasia and names. Some joined the Greek army as mercenaries, and translated their scriptures into the language-the Septuagint. Some Greeks came to worship Yahweh, calling him Iao, along side Zeus and Dionysus. The Jews had evolved synagogues (meeting houses) in place of Temple worship during the exile. There was no ritual or sacrifice in the Synagogue. It was more like a school of philosophy. Some Greeks joined the Jews in syncretistic sects. There were a few instances of mergers between Yahweh and one of the Greek gods.
Most of the Jews, though, held aloof. Jews who claimed that these gods did not exist were branded ant-social atheists. In the 2nd century BC, there was a revolt when Antiochus Epiphanes, the Seleucid, tried to Hellenize Jerusalem. Jews started producing their own literature. In the 3rd century BC, the author of the Book of Proverbs suggested that Wisdom was the master plan of god on earth (70-61). In the 2nd century BC, a devout Jew, Jesus ben Sira makes wisdom stand up in the divine Council and sing her own praises (71-62).
About 50 BC, in The Wisdom of Solomon, a Jew from Alexandria, exhorted Jews to resist the seduction of Hellenic culture, that the fear of Yahweh (fear of Allah among Muslims), not Greek philosophy, was true wisdom (72-63). The God of Aristotle was indifferent to the world, whereas the god of the Bible was passionately involved in human affairs. Yet whenever monotheists fell under the spell of Greek philosophy, they tried to adopt its God to their own.
Philo of Alexandria (30 BC to 45 AD), an eminent Jewish philosopher was one of the first to do that. He was a Platonist and wrote in Greek. He did not see any incompatibility between his God and that of the Greeks. He even tried to rationalize the historical books of the Bible into elaborate allegories. He solved the problem of how God revealed himself to prophets by making a distinction between the essence of God (ousia), which is beyond comprehension and his activities in the world, his powers (dynameis) or energies (energeiai). P and Wisdom writers had done essentially the same things. He interpreted the story of Yahweh’s visit to Abraham at Mamre with two angels, as an allegorical presentation of God’s ousia (74-64). Philo hypothesized that God had made a master plan (logos) of creation which was akin to Plato’s realm of the forms. He suggested that religious contemplation had much in common with other forms of creativity (76-65).
Romans, while spreading their empire to the Middle East and Africa had been seduced by Greek culture. But they had not inherited the Greek hostility to Jews, in fact favoring them to Greeks. By the 1st century CE; one tenth of the population of the empire was Jewish. Romans were looking for new religious solutions. Local gods were seen as manifestations of the one God of the monotheists. Romans were reluctant to be circumcised, but were enamored of the high moral code of Judaism. They often became honorary members of the synagogue and were called the “God Fearers”.
In Palestine, fanatics fiercely opposed the Roman rule. In 66 AD, they rebelled and managed to keep the Roman forces at bay for four years. In 70 AD, the Roman forces under the new emperor Vespasian conquered Jerusalem, burnt the Temple and exiled the Jews, once again. Various sects had sprung up, some of which like the Essene and Qumran had dissociated from the Temple, believing that it had become venal and corrupt. They had a “Temple of the Spirit” and instead of sacrifices, they held communal meals and baptismal ceremonies.
The most progressive among the sects were Pharisees. They were passionately spiritual, believing that the whole of Israel was meant to be a holy nation of priests that god could be present in the humblest homes as in the Temple, and therefore, they observed the special laws that applied to the Temple in their homes as well. Jews could approach God without the intercession of priests. They could atone for their sins by loving and being kind to neighbors. The New Testament depicts them as ‘whited’ sepulchers and hypocrites. That is a blatant example of rewriting history for a ‘higher cause’. (77-66).
By 70 AD, they had become the most respected and important of the sects among the Jews. One rabbi Yohonnan had been smuggled out the burning city of Jerusalem was allowed by the Romans to found a self-governing community at Jabneh, to the west of Jerusalem. Other communities sprung up and threw up scholars known as the tannaim, including Yohonnan, the mystic Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Ishmael. They updated the Mosaic Law, codified an oral law and compiled the Mishnah. Another set of scholars known as amoraim, began a commentary on the Mishnah, which came to be known as the Talmud. Actually two Talmuds were produced, the Jerusalem one, completed by the end of the 4th century AD, and the more authentic Babylonian one completed by the end of the 5th century AD.
The spirituality of the Rabbis, that God was an intimate presence within mankind, has been described as a state of mysticism (79-67). They could feel him in rushing wind, a blazing fire and clanging of a bell.
Theological ideas about God are still private matters in Judaism and are not enforced by the clergy.
Jews were forbidden to utter his name (83-68). One of their favorite synonyms was Shekinah, derived from Hebrew shakan, to dwell in or pitch one’s tent. Shekinah was conceived as the presence of god on earth (88-69).
The image of Shekinah helped exiles to feel God’s presence, wherever they were. They were encouraged by their Rabbis to see themselves as a united community.
The Talmuds tell us that some Jews started wondering if God could make any difference in such a dark world (95-70).
The spirituality of Rabbis became normative in Judaism, but it was for men only, since women could not become Rabbis, study the torah or pray in the synagogue. Women’s role was to keep the ritual purity of home. In practice, they were regarded as inferior. Men were commanded to thank God during the morning prayer for not making them Gentiles, slaves or women. (-71 A woman was commanded to take a bath after the menstrual period to prepare herself for the holiness of sex with her husband).
Rabbis taught that it could even be sinful to avoid pleasures such as sex and wine, which God had provided for enjoyment.
Offenses against a human being were a denial of God. Murder was the greatest of all crimes. “Scripture instructs us that whatsoever sheds human bloodis regarded as if he had diminished the divine image. 100-72
Zionists obviously do not regard Palestinians as human beings.
Bibliography/References:
1. Schmidt, Father William, “The Origin of the Idea of God”
2. Otto, Rudolf, “The Idea of Holy: An Enquiry into the Non-Rational Factor in the Idea of the Divine and Its Relation to the Rational”, trans. W. Harvey, (Oxford: 1923).
3. Eliade, Mircea, “The Myth of the Eternal Return or Cosmos and History”, trans. Willard R. Trask, (Princeton: University of Princton Press, 1954).
4. Genesis 2:5-7.
5. find ref on Higher Criticism of the Bible See chapter above
6. Genesis 2:5-7.
7. Genesis 17:1.
8. Acts of Apostles 14:1-18.
9. Genesis 26:16-17.
10. Exodus 3:14.
11. Mendenhall George E., “The Hebrew Conquest of Palestine”, (The Biblical Archeologist, 25, 1962).
12. Deuteronomy 26:5-8.
13. Bihu, L. E., “Midianite Elements in Hebrew Religion,” 31, (Jewish Theological Studies).
14. Exodus 3:14.
15. Exodus 20:2.
16. Joshua 24:24.
17. find ref to Temple of Solomon.
18. find ref to the new year festivities of Israelites.
19. find ref on Jezebel wife of prophet/king Ahab.
20. 1 Kings 18:20-40
21. 1 Kings 19:11-13; 22.Jaspers, Karl, “The Origin and Goal of History,” trans. Michael Bullock) 1-78, (London: Publisher, 1953).
23. Will, Durant, “The Story of Civilization: Our Oriental Heritage, Chapxviii,” (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1954).
24. Ibid.
25. Kena Upanishad 1 in Juan Mascaro (trans. and ed.), “The Upanishads,” 52, (Harmondsworth: Publisher, 1965).
26. Armstrong, Karen, “Buddha,” (London: Phoenix, 2002); Conze, Edward, “Buddhism: Its Essence and Development”, (Oxford: Publisher, 1957).
27. Pickthal, Muhammad Marmaduke, “Meaning of the Glorious Qur’an” version 2.03) The Koran 59-2.
28. Conze, “Buddism: Its Essence and Development,”
29. Udana 8.13, trans. and Quoted in Paul Stientha, “Udanan,” 81, (London: Publisher, 1885).
30. Plato, “The Symposium,” trans. W. Hamilton, 93-4, (Harmondsworth: Publisher, 1951).
31. Aristotle, “Philosophy,” Fragment 15 (City, Publisher, Year).
32. Aristotle, “Poetics” 1461 b, 3 (City, Publisher, Year).
33. Isaiah 6:3.
34. Otto, Rudolf, “The Idea of Holy, An Enquiry into the Non-Rational Factor in the Idea of the Divine and Its Relation to the Rational”, trans W. Harvey, (Oxford: Publisher, 1923).
35. Isaiah 6:5.
36. Exodus 4:11.
37. Psalms 29, 89, 93-Dagon, the god of Philistines.
38. Isaiah 6:10.
39. Matthew 13:14-15.
40. Isaiah 10:5-6.
41. Isaiah 1:3.
42. Amos 3:8.
43. Hosea 8:5.
44. Hosea 6:6.
45. Genesis 4:1.
46. Hosea 2:23-24
47. Armstrong, “A History of God,” p 47.
48. Hosea 2:1.
49. Armstrong, “A History of God,”
50. Hodgson, Marshall G.S., “The Venture of Islam,” vol: 1 (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1974).
51. Genesis 14:20.
52. Deutronomy 28:64-8.
53. The Koran, Early Verses, 42:48,10:99, 5:54, 4:137, 2:256, 2:256, There is no compulsion in religion; Later verses, Sura 8:12 The fires of hell will be fueled with the bodies of idolators and unbelievers, Sura 72:15, Sura 4:55 Those who reject our Signs, We shall soon cast into the Fire.
Sura 5:45 Jews and Christians are evil-livers. Sura 5:72 Muslims that make friends with disbelievers will face a doom prepared for them by Allah, Sura 33:48 those who oppose Islam will be slain with a fierce slaughter. Sura 76:4. Allah plots against non-Muslims.
54. Joshua 11:21-2.
55. Jeremiah 25:-9
56. Taoism and Confucianism are complimentary. Buddhism borrowed a lot from Hinduism.
57. Jeremiah 32:15.
58. Ezekiel 1:4-25.
59. Isaiah11:15-16.
60. Exodus 33:20.
61. Proverbs 8:22, 30, 31.
62. Ben Sirah 24:3-6.
63. The Wisdom of Solomon 7:25-26.
64. The Life of Moses 1:75.
65. The Migration of Abraham 34:35.
66. Shabbat 31 a.
67. Jacobs, Louis, “Faith”, p 7, (London: Publisher, 1968).
68. Mishna Psalm 25:6.
69. B. Migillah 29a.
70. Marmorstein, A., “The Old Rabbinic Doctrine of God, The Names and Attributes of God,” p 171-74, (Oxford: Publisher, 1927).
71. Armstrong, “A History of God,” p 77.
72. Ibid.
72. Mekhilta on Exodus 20:13.
Dr. S. Akhtar Ehtisham |
