One of my primary interests has been to understand how the religions of the Bible (Judaism and Christianity) and the Bible itself (both the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament and the Christian New Testament) came about. There are other far more important questions pressing on us at the moment and I will address those as well — but for now, it’s time to sum up what I have learned from reading through mountains of scholarly literature.
This post will only touch on the conclusions. The various roads to those conclusions, I hope, will follow — although much of the background relevant research has been posted over the years on this site.
Russell Gmirkin has published several scholarly books and articles that present a very plausible case for the the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy), as well as some of the subsequent literature, being the work of authors and editors of the Hellenistic era (that is, from around 300 BC after the conquests of Alexander the Great) who were bringing together ideas and myths from the Samaritan-Judean worship of Yahweh into a new mix with Greek tropes and ideals. Such a notion is hard to accept at first if we have known nothing but the traditional Documentary Hypothesis (DH) of Biblical origins. The DH leads us to view the Bible as having is origins in the remote Iron Age (ca 1000 BCE, the purported time of David and Solomon) and through centuries of editorializing and additions it became what today we know as the “Jewish/Hebrew Bible” or the “Old Testament”. Niels Peter Lemche, according to my understanding, was the first to propose that we should rather look to the Hellenistic era (the time after the conquests of Alexander the Great from 334 BCE to his death in 323 BCE) for the origins of the Hebrew Bible. Since then, it would appear that Yonatan Adler has set out the archaeological evidence that would support the notion that the biblical religion did not emerge until the Hellenistic era.
Is the very idea that a new religious myth and a new concept of a supreme god could be “artificially” created and embraced by a mainstream of a community at all feasible? If we are to accept the view that the Hebrew Bible was an invention of scribes seeking to create a new myth of origins for disparate Yahweh worshipers (Samaritans and Judeans in particular, but also other Yahweh adherents), do we have any analogous enterprises that could help us accept that the such a development was to be expected — that it was not a bizarre outlier?
Yes we do. And not only does it exist, but it is located in the same time period and broader geographical area where we find the proposed Hellenistic origin of the Bible.
Not too long ago I attempted to illustrate the meaning of the term “Hellenism” or “Hellenistic” by pointing out that the term indicates an amalgam of Asian and Greek concepts. The Egyptian god Serapis was an invention of the Hellenistic era. This invention was an attempt to unite Greeks and Egyptians into a common community. The god had both Egyptian and Greek aspects merged into one. But there is more….
When Ptolemy I [a successor to Alexander] assumed power in Egypt, he faced the daunting task of uniting the various elements of the population—conquerors and conquered—to at least an extent where they tolerated each other. It has often been admired and extensively described how skillfully he proceeded, particularly in the perilous realm of religion, and how he managed to spare the feelings of the Egyptians without forcing the Greek spirit into the forms of Egyptian worship. As he set out to give the new center of the land a city deity—without such, no ancient foundation is conceivable, and here in Alexandria, as in Antioch, one stood entirely outside historical context, and therefore a city deity had to be created here as well—and as he began to establish a sacred center of his land in the new capital, he had to seek a god in whose worship Greeks and Egyptians could meet. No force on earth could have compelled the Egyptians to abandon their four-thousand-year tradition and turn to a Greek cult; but the king also did not want to make the Greeks Egyptians in their beliefs. Thus, it was only possible for something higher to unite both.
(Schmidt, translation from page 78 of Kultübertragungen [=Cult Transfers])
Continuing….
Those who created him must have been able to conceive of a god who had a part of the essence of each god and who therefore stood above them all; they may have had a sense that the countless gods worshiped by the world were ultimately only the emanation of a divine being, and they gave shape to this intuition and created a god whom they could interpret to the Greek as Greek and to the Egyptian as Egyptian: this was only possible if they created a universal god.
The details can wait for another post, but in short, the new god was Serapis. His statue looked Greek, but his name sounded Egyptian (a possible phonetic elision of Osiris and Apis). A myth of origin was created, too. It was declared that the first Greek ruler of Egypt (Ptolemy I) had a dream in which a numinous figure commanded him to send for a divine image from Sinope, a Greek area in northern Asia Minor. The newly created myth assured Greeks that Serapis was in many ways a familiar Greek god. Apart from looking Greek, his myth and name also contained hints of the Greek god Zeus of the underworld, or Pluto. The sound of the name Serapis, at the same time, strongly hinted at those thoroughly Egyptian deities of Osiris and Apis. So this new god was a creation of both Greek and Egyptian motifs. Its function was to bring Greeks and Egyptians together.
Serapis
But his name would hardly have been chosen if another element had not also played a role: that it was possible, through slight phonetic changes, to create the belief that the name Sarapis was simply the Greek form of the Egyptian wsr-hp (Osiris-Apis). Thus, the possibility was given to conceive Sarapis as an Egyptian god and to implant in the Egyptians the belief that they worshipped one of their ancient gods only in a new form.
And on the other hand, it has also been understood to represent the god referred to by the name Sarapis to the Greeks as a Greek one. His image shows it, and it is often emphasized in literature how closely related he is to Pluto, and in the legend that tells of his introduction from Sinope, it is even explicitly emphasized that he is none other than Pluto. And the existence of such a detailed narrative, as found in Tacitus and Plutarch, can only be explained if it was intentionally fabricated for a specific purpose: the purpose was to derive Sarapis from Greek belief.
(Schmidt 79f – translation)
On a lesser scale the Hellenistic era also witnessed the creation of many new religious myths and family cultic associations to promote the prestige of new rulers and city-states — as I referenced in another post not too long ago.
Prior to the Hellenistic era the Yahweh religion was polytheistic. Yahweh had a wife. The Bible presents Yahweh as the sole god. Genesis narrates the erection of shrines and appeals to various gods that the casual reader can easily assume are early names of the god Yahweh in the book of Exodus: El Shaddai, El Olam, El Elyon, Bethel ….
If it can be concluded that early in the Hellenistic era a new religious concept was built upon both the entrenched traditions of Greeks and Egyptians in such a way that neither tradition was offended, then it may not be too wide a step to imagine at the same time diverse Yahweh worshipers (viz. Samaritans and Judeans) constructing a narrative of mythical origins that both could embrace. The common god was, like Serapis, a universal deity, stripped of local particularizing appendages.
What of Christianity? We have here another potential analogue, also from the first two centuries of the Roman empire. In fact, the Schmidt work I quoted above came to my attention through a book by Troels Engberg-Pedersen discussing specific Greco-Roman influences on the shape of Christianity.
Photo by yours truly -British Museum
In the traditional (pre-Hellenistic and pre-Roman) Persian religion that we think of as Zoroastrianism, the god Mithras was not a major character. Yet in the second century CE the worship of Mithras, through a “mystery cult”, was widespread. This was the same period for which we have clear evidence of Christian growth.
The ancient [pre-Hellenistic and pre-Roman] cults in which Mithras appeared were public; in contrast, the Roman cult was secret, a mystery religion, and such religions appeared precisely during the Roman Empire.
Without the Roman world, in fact, they would not have been possible. Previously, all religions were closely tied to specific states or peoples; one was born into one of them. . . . They primarily addressed the spiritual needs of individuals and were generally “more religious” than other cults of the time. Initiates of Isis and Mithra, like Christians, were missionaries. Regardless of their country of origin, those who accepted the premises of the new cult and wished to join were welcomed, as it constituted a spiritual homeland.
Common to all these religions is the fact that they emerged from a people who had lost their political identity . . . .
(Merkelbach, 82 – translation)
If the founder(s) of the Christian religion, whether that was Paul or another, put an innovative twist on some branch or branches of Judaism to create their new faith, and did so at the time of the early Roman empire, they were not alone. Some unknown “genius” appears to have done something similar in relation to the orthodox Persian religion to create a new cult focusing on the worship of Mithras.
The mysteries of Mithras constituted a new faith that no longer had much in common with that of the ancient Persians, except for the name of the god and some mythical episodes.
Once fixed, the system . . . did not undergo any substantial modification over time. Therefore, it cannot be the result of a long evolution but was necessarily conceived and structured in its entirety once and for all. In Geschichte der griechischen Religion (vol 2 p. 675), M.P. Nilsson states that the mysteries of Mithras were created as a whole by an unknown genius, and we can only confirm his opinion.
The place of origin of this cult is unknown, but its creator was well acquainted with the Persian religion. It will be seen how, probably very soon, the center of the new religion became Rome, the capital of the empire, from where that cult then spread to the provinces.
(Merkelbach 82f – translation)
The reference was to Nilsson, who wrote:
The conclusion is inevitable that the Mithraic mysteries are a unique creation of an unknown religious genius, who, based on certain myths and rituals selected by him and incorporating elements from the astrology prevalent at the time and from Greek beliefs, created a form of religion capable of conquering a place in the Roman world.
(Nilsson 675)
I do not suggest that Christianity mutated from Mithraism. Not at all — despite the embarrassment of some early Church Fathers attempting to grapple with a few overt similarities between the two religions. Rather, what is of particular interest is the emergence of two comparable religions around the same period and place as a result of deliberate invention to meet what were arguably comparable public needs.
If both Mithraism and Christianity were “invented” to meet certain needs of individuals who found themselves looking for a new community and identity, they may have been little different, in essence and function, from two earlier Hellenistic religions that were created to meet specific community needs of their day.
Engberg-Pedersen, Troels. Paul in His Hellenistic Context. T&T Clark, 2004.
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27 thoughts on “Two Ages and the Inventions of Four Religions”
The pattern of evidence strongly suggests that all the book religions were instituted by warlords after a civil war. The Gita is set on the battlefield of a civil war. Ashoka bought in Buddhism after a civil war in India. If Gmirkin is right and I think he is then Ptolemy II (or the Maccabees) brought in Judaism after a civil war. The now extinct Zoroastrian monotheistic state cult was brought in by Ardashir after a civil war in Sassanid Persia. Constantine instituted Christianity after a civil war in the Roman empire. Mohammad or his descendants bought in Islam after a civil war in the Arabian empire. Every one of these religions was created by and for “the Elite Warlords” and then imposed on “the people” after a civil war. “WAR IS A RACKET” (Major General Smedley D. Butler). The book religions are spin-off rackets spun off from the great racket of war.
If Gmirkin is right, as you suggest, then we have to accept that the “religion of the book” was created before the Maccabean wars. There is a difference between the origin or creation of a religion and its fate in the hands of the politically powerful.
If you look at the works I cited you will find a very different way of handling evidence.
Some people (such as Niels Peter Lemche) accept Gmirkin’s c.272-269 BCE date as a terminus a quo with a mid 2nd century BCE terminus ad quem provided (via archeology) by Yonatan Adler. A later date for the Letter of Aristeas does not alter Gmirkin’s earliest possible date but will alter his latest possible date into the Maccabean wars. Of course, there may a difference between the creation of a religion and its political institution by warlords. But it is an inescapable historical fact that the major religions listed above were all instituted by warlords at the zenith of their military power after a civil war.
>Ashoka bought in Buddhism after a civil war in India.
Not a civil war, to be precise, but a victorious war of conquest against Kalinga.
In China, however, Buddhism became influential during times of civil war, being made a state religion first by Shi Le, a non-Chinese former slave who had taken advantage of strife strife in order to seize power and proclaim himself emperor in 330 CE. Prior to that the warlord Shi Xie, who died in 226 CE during the 3 Kingdoms’ Period’s strife, promoted Buddhism in China even though he did not claim any imperial title.
I think you need to pay some attention to the work of Henry Davis concerning Christianity’s origins. It investigates and expands on Atwill’s work, but offers far more in terms of textual and contextual evidence.
Davis has received similar derogatory treatment as that given to Atwill and Salm concerning ‘academic credentials’. However, as far as I’m aware, Davis has or will be completing a degree in classical studies soon.
Anyway, I think you should read his work.
Ps. Last time I commented on one of your posts, Tim O’Neill saw my comment and ridiculed my comment in his usual arrogant way on Twitter. I wonder if the same will happen this time?
From the amazon description of Henry Davis’s book, Creating Christianity, it very much looks like it is based on speculative and question-begging approaches to primary and secondary sources, methods that are contrary to the approaches of the works I have cited.
I would encourage you to compare the work by Henry Davis with another by Gmirkin or other scholarly contributor to academic publications. The writing of the latter is on the whole very precise, with little room for ambiguity or sweeping generalizations, and marked throughout with references to works on which each idea is based so that readers can consult for themselves the basis of every step of an argument.
On the other hand, Davies begins with these words:
To begin, Classical Scholarship assumes that the ancient authors of history were1) who they claimed to be. 2) writing in an honest and forthright manner. 3) not using hidden agendas or ulterior motives for misleading the reader or listeners. 4) not closely related to each other, and therefore, were not writing in concert with each other. 5) writing in a time where everyone could publish for public consumption, this was not the case, there was no published freedom of speech that existed in those times. Only royals could publish works for the public. 6) not using literary devices and other methods in which to deceive the masses.
He gives the reader no sources by which they can check his claim. In fact, the claim he begins with is simply erroneous. In the works of Classical scholarship one will find, in fact, the exact opposite of most of his claims. Classical scholars are very well aware of the practice of pseudepigraphy and of creative literary devices that are used in place of historical “facts”. I have posted about classical scholarship making these particular points: check for my posts relating to work by John Moles and Moses Finley, for example.
In Davies’ chapter arguing for the non-existence of Josephus, we find unsupported supposition taking the place of hard evidence. Example:
What ‘Roman [Piso]׳ noticed was that when the family trees for these individuals were compared, they were the same, only with different names having been used, essentially indicating that they were the same person.
How does one make sense of that kind of statement? How can family trees be considered the same if they have different names? How can one know if different names were applied for the same person in such cases? When trying to explain why the name Fannia is an alias for Arria Davies, without any appeal to sources to justify his claims, he declares that F from Flavia was added in front of Arria and the double r was changed to double n, perhaps because the Phoenician letter for n was a symbol for fish and the double n thus was a clue to her Christian identity.
All of this is most boldly speculative. I would hope Davies does take up a classics study course as you said is his intention.
I have long speculated that on the opposite end of the Persian cultural sphere, the cult of the Buddha Amitabha, not to be confused with the Buddha Shakyamuni who refounded Buddhism upon this planet during this portion of this aeon, may have been some type of synthesis with Persian or Indian solar gods. The Buddha Amitabha is said to live and preach in the world Sukhvati, to the far west, and to be red in colour and bright – wherefore he is referred to as the Buddha of infinite light. Furthermore, in at least 1 early Sutra about Amitabha Buddha, meditators upon Amitabha Buddha are told to begin their meditations by looking upon ther setting sun. Amitabha Buddha was aparently originally a rather minor Buddha said to be active off this planet before he was through some process given attributes which had previously been given to the Buddha Akshobhya, with Amitabha Buddha’s world Sukhavati being presented as an even better paradisical world in which to be born than Akshobhya Buddha’s world Abhirati.
Nattier, Jan (2000). “The Realm of Aksobhya: A Missing Piece in the History of Pure Land Buddhism”. Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 23 (1), 71–102 is a useful resource for more reading about this matter.
Interesting that Sinope would be a place where a new deity comes from. I see it is peninsular hemmed in by a rugged landscape and only one road in. No doubt a difficult place to reach by land.
Is it peculiar that Marcion of Sinope is accused of introducing a new god? Or was Marcion’s origins transported to Sinope for that very reason?
Yes, interesting that Sinope does have its fame in religious history, but the Sinope story of origin for Serapis was a myth, according to the study by Schmidt in his thesis. It raises too many contradictions and implausibilities to have been a genuine account. To translate a portion of Schmidt’s where he makes his concluding statements based on the preceding pages of analysis:
There is a significant reason against the notion that any pre-existing religion was transferred at all: Sarapis has no mythos2. As incomprehensible as it would be if a god were introduced in Alexandria who had previously been worshipped elsewhere and thus had developed myths—because it is clear that it cannot be about primitive stages of religion or an abstract concept of god—it is quite understandable if the god is an artificial creation3.
Let’s reconsider his image: as much as it exhibits Greek elements individually and as much as it is a creation of the Greek spirit; the Cerberus4 in its remarkable form, composed of a lion, wolf, dog, and snake, cannot be explained by Greek elements alone. Thus, the composition of heterogeneous elements is quite evident.
And now let’s consider the goal pursued with the establishment of the cult of Sarapis. When Ptolemy I assumed power in Egypt, he faced the daunting task of uniting the various elements of the population—conquerors and conquered—to at least an extent where they tolerated each other. It has often been admired and extensively described1 how skillfully he proceeded, particularly in the perilous realm of religion, and how he managed to spare the feelings of the Egyptians without forcing the Greek spirit into the forms of Egyptian worship. As he set out to give the new center of the land a city deity—without such, no ancient foundation is conceivable, and here in Alexandria, as in Antioch, one stood entirely outside historical context, and therefore a city deity had to be created here as well—and as he began to establish a sacred center of his land in the new capital, he had to seek a god in whose worship Greeks and Egyptians could meet. No force on earth could have compelled the Egyptians to abandon their four-thousand-year tradition and turn to a Greek cult; but the king also did not want to make the Greeks Egyptians in their beliefs. Thus, it was only possible for something higher to unite both.
If Sarapis subsequently absorbed all the old great gods, this phenomenon also sheds light on his origin. For the equivalences and identifications2, which are completely worthless for understanding the nature of the ancient gods, can in this case bring to our consciousness the content of the newly emerged concept of god. Those who created him must have been able to conceive of a god who had a part of the essence of each god and who therefore stood above them all; they may have had a sense that the countless gods worshiped by the world were ultimately only the emanation of a divine being, and they gave shape to this intuition and created a god whom they could interpret to the Greek as Greek and to the Egyptian as Egyptian: this was only possible if they created a universal god.
But they had not yet risen so far as to have a name for this god: the belief in the power of the name1 was still too strong in them. And is it not understandable then that Ptolemy, cum Alexandriae recens conditae moenia templaque et religiones adderet [=”When it was recently founded, he added walls, temples, and religions to Alexandria”], wanted to name the new god in his city of Alexandria with the name of the one who once, in a moment of immense significance, gave a directive full of such profound meaning?
The history of the entire world had been tied to this life: must not the god, who deemed it better that it should end, appear as the highest and mightiest ruler of this world? Ptolemy had brought the body of the great king to Egypt to be buried in Alexandria2; how meaningful that he wanted to have the god close to the ηρως κτίστης [= founder hero] of his city, the god who had deemed it best for him that he should exist no more3. But his name would hardly have been chosen if another element had not also played a role: that it was possible, through slight phonetic changes, to create the belief that the name Sarapis was simply the Greek form of the Egyptian wsr-hp (Osiris-Apis). Thus, the possibility was given to conceive Sarapis as an Egyptian god and to implant in the Egyptians the belief that they worshipped one of their ancient gods only in a new form.
And on the other hand, it has also been understood to represent the god referred to by the name Sarapis to the Greeks as a Greek one. His image shows it1, and it is often emphasized in literature how closely related he is to Pluto, and in the legend that tells of his introduction from Sinope, it is even explicitly emphasized that he is none other than Pluto2. And the existence of such a detailed narrative, as found in Tacitus and Plutarch, can only be explained if it was intentionally fabricated for a specific purpose: the purpose was to derive Sarapis from Greek belief.
We hear in the legend of two men who stood by Ptolemy during the introduction of the new god; they are more likely to have jointly created the new religion at his instigation: the Eumolpid Timotheus from Eleusis3 and the high priest Manetho from Sebennytos. As Manetho has hardly failed in his works4 to derive Sarapis from Egyptian sources, Timotheus, who under Ptolemy II transferred the Eleusinian Mysteries to Alexandria, will be the author of the legend5.
Some might have ascended to the lofty thoughts of the unity of all divine things; but they were only a few. The people needed something tangible; they couldn’t conceive of a god who was everywhere, or a cult that didn’t come from somewhere. For those educated individuals, the god was no longer attached to his image: for the lower classes, god and image were identical. They could create a universal god, but these people could only understand him as Egyptian or as having come from afar: for them, the wise priest invented the legend of Sinope1. (translated from pages 78ff of the Italian version)
I do not know when Marcion’s origin is first placed in Sinope, but it seems now possible that someone like Tertullian (or Iraneous) may have fabricated this origin because they knew about the earlier myth of a new god coming from this place – a myth that may have added to their scorn?
Of course, it is possible Marcion really came from Sinope and the earlier myth had been long forgotten and there is nothing to it, and I am seeing patterns where there are none!
The patterns are real. The question is whether they are best explained by something more than chance or other unrelated phenomena. But maybe I’m being picky — No doubt that’s what you meant anyway. 😉
The reason I made that point was not because of you — it was not really directed at you — but I have encountered so many persons who try to dismiss an argument based on “parallelomania” by the wrong-headed methods. Telling someone who can see obvious patterns and parallels that the patterns and parallels are not real is pointless and does nothing to persuade — and simply wrong. I have a link to the famous article about Parallelomania, the one by Sandmel that made the term “infamous”, in the right margin of this blog: I suspect many persons who attempt to dismiss an argument as “parallelomania” have never read it and simply do not realize that they are missing the mark entirely by their attempts to say “the parallels are not real”. Sandmel acknowledged their reality but was trying to argue for the most direct and simplest method for explanations.
Thanks for the clarification. I of course never assumed that Seraphis was first worshipped at Sinope anymore than Timbuktu is a place that Dr Seuss (not his real name!) once visited for inspiration!
If Tertullian did invent the idea of Marcion coming from Sinope as a form of ridicule, it probably only reinforces my perception/bias that Tertullian was making sh^t up! I am probably not going to rewrite the frontiers of historical research on this discovery!
My quick adventure into google maps to see where Sinope (now Sinop) is located does show that it really is remote, so a bit like Timbuktu there also! there is now a 2.5km tunnel under a mountain that connects it, but before that it would have been a hard trek to get there by land! Going to Sinope must have been the ancient equivalent of going to Tibet to consult a monk!
“parallelomania” is a healthy condition to have, as long as you don’t take it too seriously!
Yes, and the difficulty of access that you note was one of the reasons Schmidt offered as a reason to doubt the story that an enormous statue was actually transported from Sinope to Egypt.
I have myself had my efforts to point out the similarities between Mahayana Buddhism and Christianity – and their attitudes towards their allegedly superseded religions “Hinayana” Buddhism and Judaism – dismissed as pseudo-parallels by a person who was not polite enough or interested in informing other readers why they were pseudo-parallels rather than parallels.
For what it is worth, here was my claimed listing, which other people are welcome to disagree with if they want.
— Mahayana Buddhism and Christianity arose in similar religious environments (even though they are quite different religions – no Christian contemporary to the Buddhist Nagarjuna would have written treatises refuting the existence of souls or uncreated creator gods).
— Both arose within sectarian environments in which their “parent religions” (Judaism and so-called Hinayana Buddhism) were centred around canons of texts but were nonetheless religious minorities (Judaism versus Greco-Roman religion and so-called Hinayana Buddhism versus Hinduism).
— Both involved communities of devout men gathering for religious discussion, prayer/meditation, consideration of scriptures, and experiencing of visions that were taken seriously.
— Both movements produced four types of written scriptures in response to these impulses (although certainly each produced other types of scriptures also):
—- letters to others setting forth doctrines and guides to right conduct, such as Nagarjuna’s Letter to a Friend and Paul’s letters;
—- hymns espousing their doctrines (such as the hymns within Pauline letters and Nagarjuna’s hymn in praise of dharmadhatu);
—- accounts of the lives of their founders from birth until death (GMatthew and GLuke for Christians, and the anonymous Lalitavistara Sūtra and Aśvaghoṣa’s Buddhacarita for Mahayana Buddhism);
—- and texts based upon visions (the Revelation to John and many Mahayana Sutras – most notably the Sutra of Golden Light).
— Both movements produced extraordinary missionary impulses that allowed them to expand beyond their homelands to a degree unprecedented by their parent religions, even though both Judaism and so-called Hinayana Buddhism had had success in converting foreign elites (cf., Menandros the Bactrian King, who became a Buddhist monk and whose conversion seems to have triggered the use of Buddhist symbolism in one form or another on the coinage of close to half of the Greek kings in India who succeeded him, and Queen Helena of Adiabene).
— Both movements condemned their parent religions as inferior in many ways (the term Hinayana literally meaning inferior vehicle, opposed to the great vehicle of Mahayana Buddhism). Both movements developed what seems to have been a minor industry (if I may introduce levity) of fabricating texts and attributing them to a great master from the past (Nagarjuna among the Buddhists, Paul among the Christians).
— Both movements used a key scripture in which ideas alien to the teachings that they attributed to their founders were presented as their founders’ teachings (The Perfection of Wisdom in 8,000 Lines Sutra for Buddhism and the Gospel of John).
I am not alleging that either religion inspired the other – rather, I am seeking guidance about whether scholars have researched whether the same impulses created such parallel developments, rather like (to use a modified Mahayana Buddhist expression) the same soil and water conditions can cause healthy plants to develop from different species.
The first thought that came to mind when reading your list of similarities (I have reformatted them for an easier grasp of the points) was Harvey Whitehouse’s anthropological work on modes of religiosity. I would be interested to see if there are similar patterns in other “religions of a book” such as the Mormons. I posted an overview of Whitehouse’s notion at https://vridar.org/2020/06/20/modes-of-religiosity/
That’s only my immediate response, though.
To follow up what I recall of the Harvey Whitehouse anthropological model of the emergence of new religions “of a book”, I recall the following points about a cult no longer in existence but which I once knew quite well — the Worldwide Church of God (formerly the Radio Church of God):
1. It also arose within a sectarian environment in which the “parent religion” (Churches of God Seventh Day) were centred around canons of texts but were themselves nonetheless religious minorities;
2. It also involved communities of devout persons gathering for religious discussion, prayer/meditation, consideration of scriptures, and membership was told of the founder’s wife experiencing of a “more than a dream” type vision that was taken seriously.
3. The church produced four types of writings in response to these impulses ….
—- a monthly letter from “the apostle” to all members exhorting to “right conduct” etc.;
—- biblical psalms were written and set to music so that they became the church’s hymnal;
—- members read published works setting out the founder’s biography from birth and would refer to it for inspiration;
—- a major part of the church literature was presented as the chief apostle’s being divinely inspired with the key to understand the mysterious visions of Daniel and Revelation.
4. The cult produced extraordinary missionary impulses that allowed it to expand beyond the U.S. to a degree unprecedented by their parent religions.
5. The cult/church condemned its parent religion as inferior in many ways — relegating it to the “spiritually dead” “church of Sardis” — by contrast the cult understood itself as the “pillar” church of “Philadelphia” that was walking through open doors world wide with its evangelistic activity.
6. The founder of the church plagiarized a text preaching a major doctrine (British-Israelism) and passed it off as his own work, a result of revelation to understand the scriptures. Other documents from past ages (Testament of Truth, for example) were falsely claimed to have been products of the true church’s ancestors.
7. The church used key scriptures in which ideas alien to the teachings of the New Testament were presented as teachings of the original apostles from biblical times. More recently, I understand that a few bedrock teachings of the 1960s and 70’s and early 80s were not part of the original founder’s teachings back in the 30s and 40s but this information was suppressed at the time.
Neil,
I thank you for reformatting my list of parallels (formatting ideas beyond the sentence is not my strength as a writer) and for adding interesting parallels from another religious movement of which I was and am relatively unaware – and an author whose thoughts will, perhaps, explain such recurring patterns of human behaviour.
I hope that my recent email to you was interesting and informative.
I think we can see similar parallels with the Mormons, too. “Book-grounded cults” — maybe cult is a perjorative term but I am thinking of what I have learned about the psychology of these groups — and leaders of breakaway “book” religions need to find ways to attract members, most of whom are have been long conditioned to the comparative “comfort” and “stability” of the parent religion. I’m thinking of both the psychology of cults and the explanations of Whitehouse (though only from memory), and think the following goes some way to explaining the common features:
1. The breakaway leader has to set him/herself apart in sharp contrast. That means both with a clear new direction and a personal “vibe” or “charisma” that will mean potential followers will need to see a clear distinction against what they have been used to.
2. The leader needs to convince potential followers of his or her divinely called status as an alternative leader — and that can involve appealing to evidence of special divine calling: enter the visions and claims of miracles. A conscious effort will be made to match (with modern adaptations) experiences in the new leader’s life with current mythology about ancient prophets etc. (One of the myths in the Worldwide Church of God about its leader was the claim that he had at first fiercely resisted the new ideas of his wife and God had to “knock him down” repeatedly, especially financially, before he had his eyes opened to “the truth”. Shades of the biblical calling of Paul were well acknowledged.
3. Religions of the book need to rely, as much as possible, an overwhelming of senses in various ways, including through the tedium of repeated rituals. By producing a wide range and large quantities of literature, both for reading and singing, along with demands on members to keep up regular reading of these words (having a variety of types helps — hymns, letters, explanatory booklets, instructions and doctrinal texts, biographies) — all of this helps immerse followers in the life and community of the new group and keep them actively mentally engaged in it.
4. The new leader needs to justify himself to his followers by drawing attention to the failings of the parent group. This point maybe should be #1.
5. Members need to justify their own affiliation with the new cult or group by committing themselves zealously every day: in active thoughts related to the new group, in sacrificing time and assets (especially money and property), ….. and this produces an energetic program of seeking new converts and growing the group. It becomes “alive” by contrast with the usually comparatively “lukewarm” parent group.
6. Another important factor is that new teachings of some kind are required to justify the breakaway group and that might well explain the focus on “revelation”, new truths and prophecies being revealed to the leader or group.
Those are thoughts that come to my mind right now as I think back on what I have read as explanations for new cults and religions of a “book” or “doctrinal” mode.
Thank you for this summary Neil, I read your posts with interest but there are so many different books with not-quite-the-same-ideas that a synthesis of your overall takeaway is welcome.
I listen to the Behind The Bastards podcast and they had a series awhile back on the Illuminati that drove home for me how *common* this kind of thing is. They discussed how the Illuminati had been invented by this one person who gave it this long history and an important reason we know the whole thing was in fact made up when it was is that one of his associates got caught and all their secret documents came to light.
Now this happened in comparatively modern times and one could argue that it holds no lessons on the origin of the Bible or Christianity; that in fact the guy who came up with the Illuminati was in a culture where Christianity and the Bible were there to be copied, and the environment where the Bible or Christianity originated was a more ancient, “naive” one where religions emerged organically instead of being invented.
Except as you point out, we know religions *did* get invented wholesale then too. That if there ever was (or still are) “naive” environments where religions “just emerge” instead of individuals going “I’ll invent a religion”, the Mediterranean in Antiquity wasn’t such an environment. Civilization was already ancient by then with notions of history and museums and enough general understanding of religion for “making a religion up” to be something that made sense.
And it’s pretty interesting how we always seem to go with this default presumption that religions or cults emerge gradually & organically from group dynamics when it seems so common – arguably much, much more common – for them to start as the wholesale invention of a specific person.
Thanks for the comment, Caravelle. Yes, and I suspect that another vital background any historian of origins of religions must have is a grounding in current anthropological studies of the natures of the various types of religions. I generally find myself attempting to various explanations for Christian and Judaism origins to what I have read by Harvey Whitehouse in particular, but others, too.
Wow I don’t think I’d heard of Harvey Whitehouse but looking him up it looks like I should maybe read his stuff. I’ve been thinking a bit more about anthropology & human society lately after reading “The Evolution of Agency” by Michael Tomasello and “The Gardener and the Carpenter” by Alison Gopnik and it looks like his books could be a good complement coming from the social sciences side.
Indeed — Harvey Whitehouse is indispensable for anyone with an interest in “how religion works”. I’ve referred to some of his work in a few posts on this blog.
The pattern of evidence strongly suggests that all the book religions were instituted by warlords after a civil war. The Gita is set on the battlefield of a civil war. Ashoka bought in Buddhism after a civil war in India. If Gmirkin is right and I think he is then Ptolemy II (or the Maccabees) brought in Judaism after a civil war. The now extinct Zoroastrian monotheistic state cult was brought in by Ardashir after a civil war in Sassanid Persia. Constantine instituted Christianity after a civil war in the Roman empire. Mohammad or his descendants bought in Islam after a civil war in the Arabian empire. Every one of these religions was created by and for “the Elite Warlords” and then imposed on “the people” after a civil war. “WAR IS A RACKET” (Major General Smedley D. Butler). The book religions are spin-off rackets spun off from the great racket of war.
If Gmirkin is right, as you suggest, then we have to accept that the “religion of the book” was created before the Maccabean wars. There is a difference between the origin or creation of a religion and its fate in the hands of the politically powerful.
If you look at the works I cited you will find a very different way of handling evidence.
Some people (such as Niels Peter Lemche) accept Gmirkin’s c.272-269 BCE date as a terminus a quo with a mid 2nd century BCE terminus ad quem provided (via archeology) by Yonatan Adler. A later date for the Letter of Aristeas does not alter Gmirkin’s earliest possible date but will alter his latest possible date into the Maccabean wars. Of course, there may a difference between the creation of a religion and its political institution by warlords. But it is an inescapable historical fact that the major religions listed above were all instituted by warlords at the zenith of their military power after a civil war.
The date 269 BCE is Gmirkin’s ad quem, not a quo (Berossue and Manetho, p. 87).
(The interest of the post is in origins.)
>Ashoka bought in Buddhism after a civil war in India.
Not a civil war, to be precise, but a victorious war of conquest against Kalinga.
In China, however, Buddhism became influential during times of civil war, being made a state religion first by Shi Le, a non-Chinese former slave who had taken advantage of strife strife in order to seize power and proclaim himself emperor in 330 CE. Prior to that the warlord Shi Xie, who died in 226 CE during the 3 Kingdoms’ Period’s strife, promoted Buddhism in China even though he did not claim any imperial title.
Hi Neil,
I think you need to pay some attention to the work of Henry Davis concerning Christianity’s origins. It investigates and expands on Atwill’s work, but offers far more in terms of textual and contextual evidence.
Davis has received similar derogatory treatment as that given to Atwill and Salm concerning ‘academic credentials’. However, as far as I’m aware, Davis has or will be completing a degree in classical studies soon.
Anyway, I think you should read his work.
Ps. Last time I commented on one of your posts, Tim O’Neill saw my comment and ridiculed my comment in his usual arrogant way on Twitter. I wonder if the same will happen this time?
From the amazon description of Henry Davis’s book, Creating Christianity, it very much looks like it is based on speculative and question-begging approaches to primary and secondary sources, methods that are contrary to the approaches of the works I have cited.
I would encourage you to compare the work by Henry Davis with another by Gmirkin or other scholarly contributor to academic publications. The writing of the latter is on the whole very precise, with little room for ambiguity or sweeping generalizations, and marked throughout with references to works on which each idea is based so that readers can consult for themselves the basis of every step of an argument.
On the other hand, Davies begins with these words:
He gives the reader no sources by which they can check his claim. In fact, the claim he begins with is simply erroneous. In the works of Classical scholarship one will find, in fact, the exact opposite of most of his claims. Classical scholars are very well aware of the practice of pseudepigraphy and of creative literary devices that are used in place of historical “facts”. I have posted about classical scholarship making these particular points: check for my posts relating to work by John Moles and Moses Finley, for example.
In Davies’ chapter arguing for the non-existence of Josephus, we find unsupported supposition taking the place of hard evidence. Example:
How does one make sense of that kind of statement? How can family trees be considered the same if they have different names? How can one know if different names were applied for the same person in such cases? When trying to explain why the name Fannia is an alias for Arria Davies, without any appeal to sources to justify his claims, he declares that F from Flavia was added in front of Arria and the double r was changed to double n, perhaps because the Phoenician letter for n was a symbol for fish and the double n thus was a clue to her Christian identity.
All of this is most boldly speculative. I would hope Davies does take up a classics study course as you said is his intention.
I have long speculated that on the opposite end of the Persian cultural sphere, the cult of the Buddha Amitabha, not to be confused with the Buddha Shakyamuni who refounded Buddhism upon this planet during this portion of this aeon, may have been some type of synthesis with Persian or Indian solar gods. The Buddha Amitabha is said to live and preach in the world Sukhvati, to the far west, and to be red in colour and bright – wherefore he is referred to as the Buddha of infinite light. Furthermore, in at least 1 early Sutra about Amitabha Buddha, meditators upon Amitabha Buddha are told to begin their meditations by looking upon ther setting sun. Amitabha Buddha was aparently originally a rather minor Buddha said to be active off this planet before he was through some process given attributes which had previously been given to the Buddha Akshobhya, with Amitabha Buddha’s world Sukhavati being presented as an even better paradisical world in which to be born than Akshobhya Buddha’s world Abhirati.
Nattier, Jan (2000). “The Realm of Aksobhya: A Missing Piece in the History of Pure Land Buddhism”. Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 23 (1), 71–102 is a useful resource for more reading about this matter.
Amitabha Buddha’s world Abhirati.
Should be
Akshobhya Buddha’s world Abhirati.
corrected
Interesting that Sinope would be a place where a new deity comes from. I see it is peninsular hemmed in by a rugged landscape and only one road in. No doubt a difficult place to reach by land.
Is it peculiar that Marcion of Sinope is accused of introducing a new god? Or was Marcion’s origins transported to Sinope for that very reason?
Yes, interesting that Sinope does have its fame in religious history, but the Sinope story of origin for Serapis was a myth, according to the study by Schmidt in his thesis. It raises too many contradictions and implausibilities to have been a genuine account. To translate a portion of Schmidt’s where he makes his concluding statements based on the preceding pages of analysis:
I do not know when Marcion’s origin is first placed in Sinope, but it seems now possible that someone like Tertullian (or Iraneous) may have fabricated this origin because they knew about the earlier myth of a new god coming from this place – a myth that may have added to their scorn?
Of course, it is possible Marcion really came from Sinope and the earlier myth had been long forgotten and there is nothing to it, and I am seeing patterns where there are none!
The patterns are real. The question is whether they are best explained by something more than chance or other unrelated phenomena. But maybe I’m being picky — No doubt that’s what you meant anyway. 😉
The reason I made that point was not because of you — it was not really directed at you — but I have encountered so many persons who try to dismiss an argument based on “parallelomania” by the wrong-headed methods. Telling someone who can see obvious patterns and parallels that the patterns and parallels are not real is pointless and does nothing to persuade — and simply wrong. I have a link to the famous article about Parallelomania, the one by Sandmel that made the term “infamous”, in the right margin of this blog: I suspect many persons who attempt to dismiss an argument as “parallelomania” have never read it and simply do not realize that they are missing the mark entirely by their attempts to say “the parallels are not real”. Sandmel acknowledged their reality but was trying to argue for the most direct and simplest method for explanations.
Thanks for the clarification. I of course never assumed that Seraphis was first worshipped at Sinope anymore than Timbuktu is a place that Dr Seuss (not his real name!) once visited for inspiration!
If Tertullian did invent the idea of Marcion coming from Sinope as a form of ridicule, it probably only reinforces my perception/bias that Tertullian was making sh^t up! I am probably not going to rewrite the frontiers of historical research on this discovery!
My quick adventure into google maps to see where Sinope (now Sinop) is located does show that it really is remote, so a bit like Timbuktu there also! there is now a 2.5km tunnel under a mountain that connects it, but before that it would have been a hard trek to get there by land! Going to Sinope must have been the ancient equivalent of going to Tibet to consult a monk!
“parallelomania” is a healthy condition to have, as long as you don’t take it too seriously!
Yes, and the difficulty of access that you note was one of the reasons Schmidt offered as a reason to doubt the story that an enormous statue was actually transported from Sinope to Egypt.
I have myself had my efforts to point out the similarities between Mahayana Buddhism and Christianity – and their attitudes towards their allegedly superseded religions “Hinayana” Buddhism and Judaism – dismissed as pseudo-parallels by a person who was not polite enough or interested in informing other readers why they were pseudo-parallels rather than parallels.
For what it is worth, here was my claimed listing, which other people are welcome to disagree with if they want.
— Mahayana Buddhism and Christianity arose in similar religious environments (even though they are quite different religions – no Christian contemporary to the Buddhist Nagarjuna would have written treatises refuting the existence of souls or uncreated creator gods).
— Both arose within sectarian environments in which their “parent religions” (Judaism and so-called Hinayana Buddhism) were centred around canons of texts but were nonetheless religious minorities (Judaism versus Greco-Roman religion and so-called Hinayana Buddhism versus Hinduism).
— Both involved communities of devout men gathering for religious discussion, prayer/meditation, consideration of scriptures, and experiencing of visions that were taken seriously.
— Both movements produced four types of written scriptures in response to these impulses (although certainly each produced other types of scriptures also):
— Both movements produced extraordinary missionary impulses that allowed them to expand beyond their homelands to a degree unprecedented by their parent religions, even though both Judaism and so-called Hinayana Buddhism had had success in converting foreign elites (cf., Menandros the Bactrian King, who became a Buddhist monk and whose conversion seems to have triggered the use of Buddhist symbolism in one form or another on the coinage of close to half of the Greek kings in India who succeeded him, and Queen Helena of Adiabene).
— Both movements condemned their parent religions as inferior in many ways (the term Hinayana literally meaning inferior vehicle, opposed to the great vehicle of Mahayana Buddhism). Both movements developed what seems to have been a minor industry (if I may introduce levity) of fabricating texts and attributing them to a great master from the past (Nagarjuna among the Buddhists, Paul among the Christians).
— Both movements used a key scripture in which ideas alien to the teachings that they attributed to their founders were presented as their founders’ teachings (The Perfection of Wisdom in 8,000 Lines Sutra for Buddhism and the Gospel of John).
I am not alleging that either religion inspired the other – rather, I am seeking guidance about whether scholars have researched whether the same impulses created such parallel developments, rather like (to use a modified Mahayana Buddhist expression) the same soil and water conditions can cause healthy plants to develop from different species.
The first thought that came to mind when reading your list of similarities (I have reformatted them for an easier grasp of the points) was Harvey Whitehouse’s anthropological work on modes of religiosity. I would be interested to see if there are similar patterns in other “religions of a book” such as the Mormons. I posted an overview of Whitehouse’s notion at https://vridar.org/2020/06/20/modes-of-religiosity/
That’s only my immediate response, though.
To follow up what I recall of the Harvey Whitehouse anthropological model of the emergence of new religions “of a book”, I recall the following points about a cult no longer in existence but which I once knew quite well — the Worldwide Church of God (formerly the Radio Church of God):
1. It also arose within a sectarian environment in which the “parent religion” (Churches of God Seventh Day) were centred around canons of texts but were themselves nonetheless religious minorities;
2. It also involved communities of devout persons gathering for religious discussion, prayer/meditation, consideration of scriptures, and membership was told of the founder’s wife experiencing of a “more than a dream” type vision that was taken seriously.
3. The church produced four types of writings in response to these impulses ….
—- a monthly letter from “the apostle” to all members exhorting to “right conduct” etc.;
—- biblical psalms were written and set to music so that they became the church’s hymnal;
—- members read published works setting out the founder’s biography from birth and would refer to it for inspiration;
—- a major part of the church literature was presented as the chief apostle’s being divinely inspired with the key to understand the mysterious visions of Daniel and Revelation.
4. The cult produced extraordinary missionary impulses that allowed it to expand beyond the U.S. to a degree unprecedented by their parent religions.
5. The cult/church condemned its parent religion as inferior in many ways — relegating it to the “spiritually dead” “church of Sardis” — by contrast the cult understood itself as the “pillar” church of “Philadelphia” that was walking through open doors world wide with its evangelistic activity.
6. The founder of the church plagiarized a text preaching a major doctrine (British-Israelism) and passed it off as his own work, a result of revelation to understand the scriptures. Other documents from past ages (Testament of Truth, for example) were falsely claimed to have been products of the true church’s ancestors.
7. The church used key scriptures in which ideas alien to the teachings of the New Testament were presented as teachings of the original apostles from biblical times. More recently, I understand that a few bedrock teachings of the 1960s and 70’s and early 80s were not part of the original founder’s teachings back in the 30s and 40s but this information was suppressed at the time.
Neil,
I thank you for reformatting my list of parallels (formatting ideas beyond the sentence is not my strength as a writer) and for adding interesting parallels from another religious movement of which I was and am relatively unaware – and an author whose thoughts will, perhaps, explain such recurring patterns of human behaviour.
I hope that my recent email to you was interesting and informative.
I think we can see similar parallels with the Mormons, too. “Book-grounded cults” — maybe cult is a perjorative term but I am thinking of what I have learned about the psychology of these groups — and leaders of breakaway “book” religions need to find ways to attract members, most of whom are have been long conditioned to the comparative “comfort” and “stability” of the parent religion. I’m thinking of both the psychology of cults and the explanations of Whitehouse (though only from memory), and think the following goes some way to explaining the common features:
1. The breakaway leader has to set him/herself apart in sharp contrast. That means both with a clear new direction and a personal “vibe” or “charisma” that will mean potential followers will need to see a clear distinction against what they have been used to.
2. The leader needs to convince potential followers of his or her divinely called status as an alternative leader — and that can involve appealing to evidence of special divine calling: enter the visions and claims of miracles. A conscious effort will be made to match (with modern adaptations) experiences in the new leader’s life with current mythology about ancient prophets etc. (One of the myths in the Worldwide Church of God about its leader was the claim that he had at first fiercely resisted the new ideas of his wife and God had to “knock him down” repeatedly, especially financially, before he had his eyes opened to “the truth”. Shades of the biblical calling of Paul were well acknowledged.
3. Religions of the book need to rely, as much as possible, an overwhelming of senses in various ways, including through the tedium of repeated rituals. By producing a wide range and large quantities of literature, both for reading and singing, along with demands on members to keep up regular reading of these words (having a variety of types helps — hymns, letters, explanatory booklets, instructions and doctrinal texts, biographies) — all of this helps immerse followers in the life and community of the new group and keep them actively mentally engaged in it.
4. The new leader needs to justify himself to his followers by drawing attention to the failings of the parent group. This point maybe should be #1.
5. Members need to justify their own affiliation with the new cult or group by committing themselves zealously every day: in active thoughts related to the new group, in sacrificing time and assets (especially money and property), ….. and this produces an energetic program of seeking new converts and growing the group. It becomes “alive” by contrast with the usually comparatively “lukewarm” parent group.
6. Another important factor is that new teachings of some kind are required to justify the breakaway group and that might well explain the focus on “revelation”, new truths and prophecies being revealed to the leader or group.
Those are thoughts that come to my mind right now as I think back on what I have read as explanations for new cults and religions of a “book” or “doctrinal” mode.
Thank you for this summary Neil, I read your posts with interest but there are so many different books with not-quite-the-same-ideas that a synthesis of your overall takeaway is welcome.
I listen to the Behind The Bastards podcast and they had a series awhile back on the Illuminati that drove home for me how *common* this kind of thing is. They discussed how the Illuminati had been invented by this one person who gave it this long history and an important reason we know the whole thing was in fact made up when it was is that one of his associates got caught and all their secret documents came to light.
Now this happened in comparatively modern times and one could argue that it holds no lessons on the origin of the Bible or Christianity; that in fact the guy who came up with the Illuminati was in a culture where Christianity and the Bible were there to be copied, and the environment where the Bible or Christianity originated was a more ancient, “naive” one where religions emerged organically instead of being invented.
Except as you point out, we know religions *did* get invented wholesale then too. That if there ever was (or still are) “naive” environments where religions “just emerge” instead of individuals going “I’ll invent a religion”, the Mediterranean in Antiquity wasn’t such an environment. Civilization was already ancient by then with notions of history and museums and enough general understanding of religion for “making a religion up” to be something that made sense.
And it’s pretty interesting how we always seem to go with this default presumption that religions or cults emerge gradually & organically from group dynamics when it seems so common – arguably much, much more common – for them to start as the wholesale invention of a specific person.
Thanks for the comment, Caravelle. Yes, and I suspect that another vital background any historian of origins of religions must have is a grounding in current anthropological studies of the natures of the various types of religions. I generally find myself attempting to various explanations for Christian and Judaism origins to what I have read by Harvey Whitehouse in particular, but others, too.
Wow I don’t think I’d heard of Harvey Whitehouse but looking him up it looks like I should maybe read his stuff. I’ve been thinking a bit more about anthropology & human society lately after reading “The Evolution of Agency” by Michael Tomasello and “The Gardener and the Carpenter” by Alison Gopnik and it looks like his books could be a good complement coming from the social sciences side.
Indeed — Harvey Whitehouse is indispensable for anyone with an interest in “how religion works”. I’ve referred to some of his work in a few posts on this blog.