SJF,

I found your posit very interesting: - Western yearning for a lost utopia as represented by Indo-Germanic culture and manifesting as a fascination with the Eden story

However, this proposition is dependant upon the view that Eastern religions have always been patriarchal etc. Your inference being that urbanization was responsible for a gendered, patriarchal etc. world-view.? I’m not sure that I fully agree.

The various texts comprising the bible were written when urbanization was already established, yeah? These texts in the original were not all written reflecting either the monotheistic or the patriarchal however, were they? The expunging of both polytheistic and matriarchal themes occurred only at a later date: i.e. post-Christian. Thus I can’t see how urbanization per se can be offered as the genesis of a “hierarchical, non-democratic, misogynist, slave-based, military and imperialistic” construct.

Other Eastern religions (one thinks immediately of Indian or S.E. Asian cults and practices which survived into the Common Era) were neither monotheistic, patriarchal nor hierarchical – but India and South Eastern Asia were also urbanized.

So it would appear to me that your placement of urbanization as the catalyst through which social, moral and gendered imbalance was born is not convincing. Surely our fascination with the Garden of Eden story – and the fascination of all primitive cultures with creation stories - is far more simple and is merely a manifestation of all of humankind’s (whether urban or nomadic) search for its origins – completely independent of politics, religion or racial grouping?

Romany

I didn’t mean to give the impression that ‘urbanization [was] the only catalyst through which social, moral and gendered imbalance was born’, or that Eastern societes have always been patriarchal (although, by the time the Bible was written down, they had been for several millennia).

The effects of urbanisation in the ancient world depended on many other factors – the level of complexity, internal and external stresses, harshness of the environment, population density etc. For example, excavations at Catal Huyuk from c. 6000 BCE indicate a sophisticated urban but egalitarian society. Minoan Crete (c. 4000 – 1500 BCE) was urban and highly sophisticated, but appears to have had a gender-balanced social order and religious pantheon – unlike the militaristic Indo- European nomads that destroyed it.

I agree with you that ‘the fascination of all primitive cultures with creation stories …is merely a manifestation of all of humankind’s (whether urban or nomadic) search for its origins’. However, I don’t agree that they are ‘completely independent of politics, religion or racial grouping’.

The Biblical Genesis reflects a society that valued blind obedience over the getting of knowledge. I’m sure that much earlier versions of this same story would have been very different.

Also, many early creation myths portrayed genesis as being from a great Earth Mother – e.g.Gaia, Danu. Over time, however, and as many societies became so complex that they gave way to a more imbalanced social order, the genesis role of the great Earth Mother devolved into a pantheon of problematic female characters – victims, vengeance seekers, femme fatales, adulterers, disobedient wives etc.

And, even though Old Europe was not urban for a long time, this didn’t necessarily mean all its cultures were in a permanent state of balance with nature. Over time, the ancient Norse peoples, for example, became very warlike, possibly because of the harshness of their environment, and this was reflected in their myths, e.g. in the Norse genesis myth, woman came from a man’s armpit (yuk!)

Daviy

I’ve read your post through twice. Although I'd love to comment, unfortunately I found the concepts you describe too complex to offer an opinion. I’ll certainly mull them over though.

Thanks for a very interesting thread

SJF,

Thank you for an interesting post.

While it is not universally so, countries’ principal cities typically need to be cross-culturally tolerate to function. Ancient Rome typically fitted that construction. Jewish mendicants would have had little difficulty teaching their theologies under Augustus. For the Jews, there was a shift in Executive patronage, from the Herodians under Julius to the Annas under Augustus.

Monotheism didn’t only mean that the Jews did not pray for the health of Caesar. Superstitious Romans wanting to hedge their bets would have been unwelcome at the Temple. Some Greeks making offerings in the vicinity of the Temple, fuelled a Jewish mob (zealots?) to attach a Roman garrison, ultimately, leading to the First Jewish-Roman War (66-73 CE). More than a generation after Jesus.

Habiru nomads whom elevated Yahweh *(from the Canaanite Baal) were bondsman and mercenaries without strong familial ties. Of this social class there were two sub-kinds. The shepherds exiled by Ahmose I circa 1,600 and the mercenaries and tradespersons of the Exodus, whom left Egypt three hundred years latter. Moses or whomever morphed the social class into a monotheist religion. Yahweh the god for “kin-shattered” persons and a god of war. A logical choice.

[*See Psalm 82]

Dear Daviy,

I will need a little time to think things through. Midst my own research today.

Oliver.

Oliver

Thanks for your post. Don’t know if these comments are relevant, but I offer them as a springboard from yours…

The existence of polytheism among the early Judeans is an interesting debate – the obvious reference being the First Commandment, ‘Thou shalt not have other gods before me’. If there were no other gods around for Yahweh to compete with, why would there be a need for such a commandment? (I read somewhere once that Yahweh also had a girlfriend at some stage – but I digress.)

Generally speaking, the conversion from polytheism to monotheism seems to run parallel to political unifications within the host culture. On this basis, it’s extraordinary that Rome remained polytheistic and religiously tolerant for as long as it did.

It’s also interesting to note that monotheistic conversion marked the dying stages of Rome’s empire. However, it’s unlikely that monotheism brought about Rome’s end. The causal link would have been that it was on its way out and monotheism was a rock of stability to cling to – especially for nervous emperors.

The tragic irony of all empires is that they become the unifying cultural force for all the cultures they destroy – like abused children clinging to an abusive parent. Once the empire goes, a massive vacuum is left. It was out of this vacuum that early Christianity developed, along with the rise of its city (and later, nation) states.

I believe this has been Christianity’s (and Europe’s) greatest weakness