Vishnu, Moses, Buddha, Jesus and Mohammed
are they really that Different?
....are all religions mutually exclusive?
I recently had a friend ask me to explain my personal interpretation of Jesus' statement from the Gosple of John " I am the way the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except by the Son"! How do you define the intent of a man that lived 2000 years ago? That might be a good place to start. It isn't simply a problem of time, or of language. Greek, the language of the Gospels is still widely spoken, the ancient Greek of Palistine with all of it's variation, however, no longer exists. Pulling out our Greek/Hebrew lexicons won't do the trick, any more than it would to try and give a clear definition of how 21st century Americans used the word "Cool". Context is everything, even a shift in time of fifty years can radically change the meaning of words and their usage.
Jesus and his followers spoke Aramaic, probably some Greek, but it would've been a second language. They lived in a time when most people were functionally illiterate and the written word was rare. Oral tradition was the norm, carefully memorized passages of the Torah, with a simplified history reduced to simple, memorable phrases would have been the norm. This leads us to another problem, how do we know that Jesus actually said it?
Throughout most of human history people have been geographically isolated. Human populations that shared a geographic range developed and shared similar languages, which is a key element in the evolution of a common culture. This commonality of language and culture produced a shared world view. There was diversity, but, within a much narrower range. A parallel example might be, The U.S. and England, as opposed to The U.S. and China. The great religions of the Near East, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, all monotheistic, have similar ideas about culture, law and morality for the same reasons.
The Nile River, the longest river in the world, played a fundamental role in the evolution of the region, acting as a kind of super highway which facilitated cultural and economic exchange between the various Asian (Middle Eastern) and Africa (North African) people. This shared geographic range shaped common myths and origin stories, expressed in different dialects and languages. One of the most widely spread, Aramaic, is an Afro/Asiatic language that evolved between the two continents more than a thousand years before Christ. It was the language of Jesus and his followers.
Hebrew was a variant of the more widely spread Aramaic, which was adapted by the various
Semitic people according to region. It’s also why, this particular part of the world was central to the development of many of the great civilizations of the ancient world, Egypt, Persia, Babylon, the Assyrians and the Hebrews among others. By comparison, the interior of Africa, or sub-Saharan Africa, the place that most slaves came from, was isolated by a vast desert region, rocky seacoasts, impenetrable jungle and treacherous mountain ranges. The result being, sub-Saharan Africa, unlike Northern Africa, remained largely undeveloped with limited technology and no written texts.
The great religions of the Far East, Confucianism, Shinto, Taoism, and Mahayana Buddhism, the oldest form of Buddhism, were variously pantheistic, agnostic, atheistic and to a lesser degree, monotheistic. Mahayana Buddhism, which evolved on the eastern part of the Indian Sub-continent, closest to China, formed a primary link between China and India.
Hinduism is generally thought to be the world’s oldest organized religion and is the primary religion of the Indian Sub-continent, or Southern Asia. Its various subsets reflect the cultural and linguistic distinctions that grew up independent of the rest of Asia. Hinduism has no essential founder, unlike Buddhism Islam and Christianity, but, was derived from a substantial range of older cultural and religious traditions, which explains why there is no central figure or single set of beliefs at its core.
Westerners tend to forget that Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam are all Asian religions. By comparison the religions of the Greeks, Romans, the Persians and Egyptians, have all died out, although, elements of them remain as an influence on the remaining world religions, including Christianity. An example being; the use of the Greek word Hades, "The abode of the dead” the word most commonly translated as "Hell" in the King James Bible. It was used heavily by Jesus and many other first century people living under Greek and Roman rule.
The period in which Jesus and his disciples lived was uniquely diverse, reflecting the convergence of three continents, Asia, Africa and Europe. It may also be why his message resonated as broadly as it did across cultural and linguistic barriers. It was a period when the first democracies emerged, including city states, where free men (non slave) could participate in self government.
Democracy is a Greek term that has no precedent prior to The Greeks. In most cultures, Kings, Pharaohs and the Caesars were considered the divine representative of the gods, on earth.. The Hebrews, by comparison, developed the office of the Prophet as a way of distinguishing themselves from the other nations. No Hebrew would have considered divinity as anything other than a crime punishable by death, in accordance with Jewish Law.
There is also evidence that Plato was influenced by The Law of Moses, the unique monotheism of the Jews and egalitarian morality at it's center. Plato was a monotheist, and it was this vision of a moral code rooted in something more substantial than personal wisdom that helped to lay the foundation for the emergence of democracy, and later, the scientific method.
I recently had a friend ask me to explain my personal interpretation of Jesus' statement from the Gosple of John " I am the way the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except by the Son"! How do you define the intent of a man that lived 2000 years ago? That might be a good place to start. It isn't simply a problem of time, or of language. Greek, the language of the Gospels is still widely spoken, the ancient Greek of Palistine with all of it's variation, however, no longer exists. Pulling out our Greek/Hebrew lexicons won't do the trick, any more than it would to try and give a clear definition of how 21st century Americans used the word "Cool". Context is everything, even a shift in time of fifty years can radically change the meaning of words and their usage.
Jesus and his followers spoke Aramaic, probably some Greek, but it would've been a second language. They lived in a time when most people were functionally illiterate and the written word was rare. Oral tradition was the norm, carefully memorized passages of the Torah, with a simplified history reduced to simple, memorable phrases would have been the norm. This leads us to another problem, how do we know that Jesus actually said it?
Throughout most of human history people have been geographically isolated. Human populations that shared a geographic range developed and shared similar languages, which is a key element in the evolution of a common culture. This commonality of language and culture produced a shared world view. There was diversity, but, within a much narrower range. A parallel example might be, The U.S. and England, as opposed to The U.S. and China. The great religions of the Near East, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, all monotheistic, have similar ideas about culture, law and morality for the same reasons.
The Nile River, the longest river in the world, played a fundamental role in the evolution of the region, acting as a kind of super highway which facilitated cultural and economic exchange between the various Asian (Middle Eastern) and Africa (North African) people. This shared geographic range shaped common myths and origin stories, expressed in different dialects and languages. One of the most widely spread, Aramaic, is an Afro/Asiatic language that evolved between the two continents more than a thousand years before Christ. It was the language of Jesus and his followers.
Hebrew was a variant of the more widely spread Aramaic, which was adapted by the various
Semitic people according to region. It’s also why, this particular part of the world was central to the development of many of the great civilizations of the ancient world, Egypt, Persia, Babylon, the Assyrians and the Hebrews among others. By comparison, the interior of Africa, or sub-Saharan Africa, the place that most slaves came from, was isolated by a vast desert region, rocky seacoasts, impenetrable jungle and treacherous mountain ranges. The result being, sub-Saharan Africa, unlike Northern Africa, remained largely undeveloped with limited technology and no written texts.
The great religions of the Far East, Confucianism, Shinto, Taoism, and Mahayana Buddhism, the oldest form of Buddhism, were variously pantheistic, agnostic, atheistic and to a lesser degree, monotheistic. Mahayana Buddhism, which evolved on the eastern part of the Indian Sub-continent, closest to China, formed a primary link between China and India.
Hinduism is generally thought to be the world’s oldest organized religion and is the primary religion of the Indian Sub-continent, or Southern Asia. Its various subsets reflect the cultural and linguistic distinctions that grew up independent of the rest of Asia. Hinduism has no essential founder, unlike Buddhism Islam and Christianity, but, was derived from a substantial range of older cultural and religious traditions, which explains why there is no central figure or single set of beliefs at its core.
Westerners tend to forget that Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam are all Asian religions. By comparison the religions of the Greeks, Romans, the Persians and Egyptians, have all died out, although, elements of them remain as an influence on the remaining world religions, including Christianity. An example being; the use of the Greek word Hades, "The abode of the dead” the word most commonly translated as "Hell" in the King James Bible. It was used heavily by Jesus and many other first century people living under Greek and Roman rule.
The period in which Jesus and his disciples lived was uniquely diverse, reflecting the convergence of three continents, Asia, Africa and Europe. It may also be why his message resonated as broadly as it did across cultural and linguistic barriers. It was a period when the first democracies emerged, including city states, where free men (non slave) could participate in self government.
Democracy is a Greek term that has no precedent prior to The Greeks. In most cultures, Kings, Pharaohs and the Caesars were considered the divine representative of the gods, on earth.. The Hebrews, by comparison, developed the office of the Prophet as a way of distinguishing themselves from the other nations. No Hebrew would have considered divinity as anything other than a crime punishable by death, in accordance with Jewish Law.
There is also evidence that Plato was influenced by The Law of Moses, the unique monotheism of the Jews and egalitarian morality at it's center. Plato was a monotheist, and it was this vision of a moral code rooted in something more substantial than personal wisdom that helped to lay the foundation for the emergence of democracy, and later, the scientific method.
This provided one of the other two links in the chain which was the logical culture and philosophy of the Greeks, Aristotle, Socrates and Plato or Platonism—and the emergence of a written language that was more sophisticated than the pictograph language (Pictures as word symbols) that was the norm before about 700 B.C.
With a more complex written language it was much easier to preserve historical information, while communicating greater complexity of thought. It also why ancient histories earlier that about 700 A.D. are primarily myth histories. The simplified language simply wasn't sophisticated enough to preserve the necessary historical detail. This would include ancient oral traditions as well.
Not surprisingly, Buddhism, Platonism and Biblical Judaism, all, emerge from within this same narrow historical range. Alexander the Great expands the boundaries of Greece across three continents, from Mediterranean Europe into Africa and Asia Minor, bringing a common language, classical Greek, with him; this becomes the lingua franca (the language of commerce) throughout Alexander’s kingdom, similar to the way in which English is used today.
This Convergence of continents and cultures increased the growth of technology, facilitated human knowledge, expanded geographic boundaries by means of sturdier ocean going ships and helped to create new weapons of war that greatly enhanced exploration and colonization. People that had previously been isolated no longer were.
In the preceding fifty or one hundred thousand years, the general time frame for the emergence of modern man, only about 1% of the worlds population was born. Meaning that better than 99% of all the people that have ever lived, were born after the birth of Jesus. Inherent in this idea is the oft asked the question; "what about all those people that lived before Jesus was born"? The potential theological ramifications of this for Christians can't be overstated.
This unique period in the evolution of human societies radically expanded understanding, even if the negative effects of colonization were carried disproportionately on the backs of the colonized rather than the colonizers. The benefit to the nations being colonized was a rapid transfer of knowledge, including education, technology and in some cases the Wolf (the cultural super powers) kept the peace between warring factions in the smaller nations (The Lambs). The image of a lamb or a kid, could be used as a symbol of purity, but also as a symbol of the weaker ad poorer nations that fell prey to emerging "Iron Age" superpowers, whose wealth and military might made them invincible.
All of these variables suggest that geography or environment, more than any other single factor, shapes the way we think about the world that we live in, including our language and ultimately our world-view.
Cognitive brain function aside, geography and environment shape culture and language, which shapes tradition, including the way we speak about things like, spirit, soul and God. It can likewise be inferred that as cultural barriers fall as the result of international trade, a common language becomes necessary to facilitate exchange. In the time of Christ it was Greek. Today its English. Tomorrow it could be Chinese. Whatever the language, a moral code will be a fundamental component for keeping the peace while facilitating trade. It will, by necessity, need to have freedom at it's heart and articulate universal truths regarding human nature, including an external source of rights greater than government, with a higher authority than human agents.
No such process is perfect, and there's no reason to believe, given human nature, that it ever will be. Perfection is an abstraction, an adjective that often describes something subjective and highly personal. For the ancient Hebrews it was completeness, a world where the lion (the super powers) laid down with the lambs (the smaller nations) and the possibility of justice existed for all men. With the morality of the one "true" God as a light shining in the darkness.
Christianity's wide spread acceptance across gender, racial, cultural, ethnic, linguistic, educational and class boundaries in its first three hundred years of existence, prior to becoming the official religion of Rome, fits all of these categories. It managed this achievement without any army, and with virtually no political support. In spite of wide spread persecution by Nero and the Roman Empire, it thrived, and eventually conquered the most powerful nation of the ancient world, all without firing a shot. What happened after it became the official religion of Rome, well, that's another story. One that will have to wait until next time.
Mark Magula
With a more complex written language it was much easier to preserve historical information, while communicating greater complexity of thought. It also why ancient histories earlier that about 700 A.D. are primarily myth histories. The simplified language simply wasn't sophisticated enough to preserve the necessary historical detail. This would include ancient oral traditions as well.
Not surprisingly, Buddhism, Platonism and Biblical Judaism, all, emerge from within this same narrow historical range. Alexander the Great expands the boundaries of Greece across three continents, from Mediterranean Europe into Africa and Asia Minor, bringing a common language, classical Greek, with him; this becomes the lingua franca (the language of commerce) throughout Alexander’s kingdom, similar to the way in which English is used today.
This Convergence of continents and cultures increased the growth of technology, facilitated human knowledge, expanded geographic boundaries by means of sturdier ocean going ships and helped to create new weapons of war that greatly enhanced exploration and colonization. People that had previously been isolated no longer were.
In the preceding fifty or one hundred thousand years, the general time frame for the emergence of modern man, only about 1% of the worlds population was born. Meaning that better than 99% of all the people that have ever lived, were born after the birth of Jesus. Inherent in this idea is the oft asked the question; "what about all those people that lived before Jesus was born"? The potential theological ramifications of this for Christians can't be overstated.
This unique period in the evolution of human societies radically expanded understanding, even if the negative effects of colonization were carried disproportionately on the backs of the colonized rather than the colonizers. The benefit to the nations being colonized was a rapid transfer of knowledge, including education, technology and in some cases the Wolf (the cultural super powers) kept the peace between warring factions in the smaller nations (The Lambs). The image of a lamb or a kid, could be used as a symbol of purity, but also as a symbol of the weaker ad poorer nations that fell prey to emerging "Iron Age" superpowers, whose wealth and military might made them invincible.
All of these variables suggest that geography or environment, more than any other single factor, shapes the way we think about the world that we live in, including our language and ultimately our world-view.
Cognitive brain function aside, geography and environment shape culture and language, which shapes tradition, including the way we speak about things like, spirit, soul and God. It can likewise be inferred that as cultural barriers fall as the result of international trade, a common language becomes necessary to facilitate exchange. In the time of Christ it was Greek. Today its English. Tomorrow it could be Chinese. Whatever the language, a moral code will be a fundamental component for keeping the peace while facilitating trade. It will, by necessity, need to have freedom at it's heart and articulate universal truths regarding human nature, including an external source of rights greater than government, with a higher authority than human agents.
No such process is perfect, and there's no reason to believe, given human nature, that it ever will be. Perfection is an abstraction, an adjective that often describes something subjective and highly personal. For the ancient Hebrews it was completeness, a world where the lion (the super powers) laid down with the lambs (the smaller nations) and the possibility of justice existed for all men. With the morality of the one "true" God as a light shining in the darkness.
Christianity's wide spread acceptance across gender, racial, cultural, ethnic, linguistic, educational and class boundaries in its first three hundred years of existence, prior to becoming the official religion of Rome, fits all of these categories. It managed this achievement without any army, and with virtually no political support. In spite of wide spread persecution by Nero and the Roman Empire, it thrived, and eventually conquered the most powerful nation of the ancient world, all without firing a shot. What happened after it became the official religion of Rome, well, that's another story. One that will have to wait until next time.
Mark Magula
|
|
|