A Provocative People: A Secular History of the Jews

Wales

INTRODUCTION BY ADAM CHALOM

There are many, many volumes called a history of the Jews. But few, if any, highlight the Jewish experience from a secular perspective. What if the most important Jewish developments were multicultural ethnic Diasporas and modern capitalist entrepreneurs, and not monotheism—a belief system on which Judaism holds neither the patent nor the monopoly? Other cultures and philosophies came to the same conclusion. Christianity and Islam spread that belief much more widely and effectively than Judaism. And, as I heard Sherwin Wine say many times, who says that monotheism is such a great advance over polytheism anyways? Is a dictatorship better than a ruling junta, when our real standard is human freedom and self-actualization?

One of the most inspiring principles of the Humanistic Judaism that Sherwin Wine created is its commitment to truth and integrity—speaking and living what one truly believes, even if it is unpopular, and seeking the truth as best we can discover, even if the results are problematic.

Facts are facts. They are enormously discourteous. They do not revere old books, they do not stand in awe before old beliefs. They do not bow before famous ancestors. They are simply the stuff out of which reality is made and the final judge of truth.¹

That is one of many ironies in this history—the first Humanistic rabbi defending polytheism as being as reasonable and as ethical as the competition, and even the original Jewish tradition! But the truth is the truth, and from an honest commitment to the truth emerges dignity: If we have dignity, we do not run away from the truth. We do not turn the world into a reflection of our fantasies….We strive for knowledge. We weigh our beliefs on the scales of evidence.²

Of course, in real life everyone chooses what to emphasize from the available evidence, and their interpretation of that evidence. In Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States, a self-admitted ideological history, Zinn does not condemn

…selection, simplification, emphasis, which are inevitable for both cartographers and historians. But the mapmaker’s distortion is a technical necessity for a common purpose shared by all people who need maps. The historian’s distortion is more than technical, it is ideological; it is released into a world of contending interests, where any chosen emphasis supports (whether the historian means it to or not) some kind of interest, whether economic or political or racial or national or sexual.³

Zinn’s point is that every history is an ideological history, or used for ideological purposes, wittingly or not. One of the original titles of this book was The Real History of the Jews—asserting that it was true and objective where all others were wrong.

When Sherwin Wine died in an automobile accident in July 2007, one of the many projects (and there were always many projects) left tragically incomplete was this book—arguably Wine’s magnum opus, the culmination of half a century of reading, writing and teaching on Jewish history and its meanings. And Wine’s multiple roles as rabbi of the Birmingham Temple in Farmington Hills, Michigan, Provost of the International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism, and star attraction of the suburban Detroit-based Center for New Thinking had afforded him the opportunity to study and lecture on an amazingly wide range of topics—this book represents one corner of a vast library of knowledge. Those who had many years of first-hand experience of Wine’s knowledge, humor, wisdom and brilliance knew that finally editing and presenting this book, to bring out into light in the Hebrew phrase for to publish, would be quite a challenge for many reasons.

Not the least of which was the fact that death does not end differences of opinion. Wine’s writing style, like his lectures, tended to make assertions without direct sources—his vast knowledge assured one that he knew what he was saying, but a history book generally needs more support. Those who studied with him, from public lectures to rabbinic training, experienced both a vast store of historical evidence at his disposal, and also his personal theories about what made sense or what must have been the case that would be stated definitively, where most historians would be more cautious. Wine once wrote, ‘I do not know’ is a brave and dignified answer, especially when it is true,⁴ but how often did he actually say I don’t know?

There were a few options: simply correct typos, scan in maps Wine had hand-drawn on his ubiquitous letter-sized lined paper, and print the book; substantially edit the text to agree with prevailing academic standards and conclusions; or find some middle ground between those two. Thus one will find many editor’s notes—sometimes clarifying terms, but also providing academic support for Wine’s assertions, if not always his exact sources. As Martin Kotch, one of Wine’s first rabbinic students, said in a request for more sources, As Humanistic Jews we can’t just say, ‘my rebbe told me’! Some biblical passages Wine would often cite while teaching (e.g., the rejection of Cain’s sacrifice as evidence of a divine preference for meat) were relatively easy to produce, while others required original research. It did turn out that some ideas initially assumed to be Sherwin being Sherwin were actually strongly academically supported. And when they were not, that is also indicated.

The result may be described as Sherwin Wine’s history of the Jews, which for those who knew or experienced him is high praise. At times he gives the biblical narrative more credence than most scholars would today; for example, the specific narratives of Saul and David are not treated historically when scholars debate whether David even existed, or whether he was a small chieftain or a king. Nevertheless, what such sections demonstrate is how one can treat the narratives seriously, but from a critical, historical perspective—on the one hand aware of the historical criticism of the evolution of the biblical text, and on the other exploring the story behind the story. Some speculations are difficult to justify, and some theories (e.g., Semitic invasion waves of the Ancient Middle East) are no longer the current approach in scholarship, but like any detective, one makes one’s best extrapolations based on the evidence and on one’s training, experience and insight.

What marks this as particularly Sherwin Wine’s history of the Jews? Five features are worth highlighting.

An amazing breadth of knowledge and erudition: One gets the sense that one sees only the tip of the iceberg on many topics that touch on Jewish history. The Roman Empire, the history of Christianity, centuries and volumes of doctrinal disputes are summarized in less than a page. It truly puts Jewish history in context, which is how real life is experienced—not in a religious bubble of independent development, but in dialogue and interaction with the surrounding culture and government. How many histories of the Jews have an excursion on major Christian heresies? But those heresies become important to understand later political and social developments that have a clear impact on the Jews. In addition, it is also an interesting tangential diversion. I was always struck that the Birmingham Temple library, the house that Sherwin built, included many works on science, general history and philosophy (as well as the congregation’s Torah scroll). The message was clear: to be a well-rounded, knowledgeable Humanistic Jew was to have a great store of general human knowledge as well.

An ability to summarize complex ideas and developments in short, memorable ways: Wine’s rubric of the Protest Movement to summarize the anti-urban zealots of Yahweh, or his simple explanation that Jews in multilingual settings tend to adopt the language of the dominant power (English in Montreal, German in Prague, French in North Africa), are simple keys to complex phenomena. How better to challenge the conventional wisdom that Judaism has always been primarily concerned with good deeds and not supernatural belief than to treat the Amidah, the thrice-daily standing prayer of nineteen blessings, as clear statements of beliefs about God? If the recitation of these words was not required as an act of public conformity, then they would not be a creed. But they are. Wine was always a masterful teacher in his lectures—his teaching continues here.

Religion as a human phenomenon: This history explores the development of Jewish religion from a secular perspective, paying attention to historical factors, vested interests, economic and social influences, psychological needs, and all the other tools of human knowledge that humanity uses to understand any other phenomenon. The supernatural as a direct cause or influence is unverifiable, un-analyzable, and therefore beyond the scope of such an analysis.

What this opens up is a genuine exploration of the evolution of Jewish religious ideas from their early stages through modern times. It also enables illuminating comparisons of other, similar human phenomena that are assigned to other religious traditions. Wine calls the first century BCE Pharisees the Calvinists of their day and enumerates the similarities:

contemptuous of the old religious establishment, hostile to the old aristocracy, populist in their insistence on turning lay people into priests, bourgeois in their class resistance and ambitions for power, conformist in their love of surveillance, self-righteous in their dismissal of the opinions of their opponents, fervent in their articulation of Judgment Day reward and punishment, and ardent in their obedience to their own newly created clergy.

Indeed, a very illuminating comparison, but only possible if religion is considered as a human phenomenon and not as separate, widely-divergent, divinely-revealed traditions. There are times that his emphasis on historical or economic causation minimizes religious or intellectual factors—The main agenda of the French Revolution was the overthrow of the old management and the replacement of the old rulers with a new management friendly to the new economy—but such was Wine’s choice of emphasis, the historian’s prerogative.

A delicious sense of humor: sometimes playful, sometimes cruel, but always with a twinkle in the eye and a marvelous sense of irony and the comic. Referring to the god of Enlightenment deism as a Deity Emeritus is priceless. The reader will discover many more such gems.

The courage to challenge conventional wisdom and tradition: Too many scholars pay lip service to the possible historicity of events and people in whom their readers believe devoutly. In other histories of the Jews, one can easily find passages like these:

Yet even the least historically authentic biblical traditions clearly represent real events, social processes, and flesh-and-blood figures… .In the Bible the patriarchs are located in space but not in time… .The stories of the patriarchs’ migrations are therefore true in the sense of containing certain accepted historical facts: the ethnic basis and social structures of the tribes about to merge into a new nation.⁵

Scholars have long ago pointed out that this story lacks historicity and that it is probably based on a medieval Christian legend…Nevertheless, it has retained such a hold upon the imagination of Jews throughout the ages that it has acquired a kind of reality which transcends the prosaic limitations of fact.⁶

As we have seen, the limitations of fact are precisely the boundaries Wine draws for his vision of Jewish history. Wine includes no such apologies or softening of the blow—if he believed something not to be historical, it is very clear. You will find no rationalizations seeking to preserve some veneer of historicity for Abraham or the Exodus. In Wine’s own words, Courage is the search for respect, not agreement.⁷

Most introductions conclude with a summary of the contents and conclusions of the book, or an appreciation of the author. Wine himself wrote summaries of each chapter, which appear in the table of contents. And an essay of biographical and intellectual appreciation of Wine appears as an afterword to this volume.

One of the many lessons personally learned from Wine: he almost always ended his phone calls with thank you, because you can never acknowledge those who support you enough. Many people deserve many thanks in the epic journey that has been A Provocative People. Wine’s life partner, Richard McMains, and his sister and brother-in-law, Ben and Lorraine Pivnick, were constant sources of love and encouragement through every project that Wine undertook, including this history. Wine’s long-time partner in crime, first at the Birmingham Temple and then at the International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism (IISHJ), Marilyn Rowens, was the prime captain of the Sherwin History project for many years, including sending all those drafts to all those publishers, and also receiving all those rejection letters. Wine’s assistants at the IISHJ, Susan Williams and Kirk Wicker, converted literally reams upon reams of handwritten manuscript into typed pages, and then reams of corrected pages into new drafts. After Wine’s death, Linda Glass and Michael Egren did amazing work to assemble the computer files and boxes of papers that represented all of drafts and re-drafts of the book, which were eventually dropped on me. Invaluable advice and help in bringing the manuscript to book were offered by Bonnie Cousens, Miriam Jerris, Dawn Friedman, Irene Chase, Dan Cohn-Sherbok, Brian Schmidt, Mark Friedman, AJ Chalom, and many others. Special thanks to my detailed proofreaders Susan Chalom, William Roberts, indexer Leonard Rosenbaum and our design consultant Jennifer Gordon. Esther and Ron Milan and Milan Press have been indefatigable supporters of the Institute and its publications, and cannot be recognized enough. Most important, the ordinary members of Humanistic Judaism, from the Birmingham Temple to the Society for Humanistic Judaism and beyond, who have found Wine’s message powerful enough to survive and thrive beyond the death of the messenger—they are Sherwin Wine’s natural immortality.

¹ Wine, Sherwin. Celebration: A Ceremonial and Philosophic Guide for Humanists and Humanistic Jews (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1988), p. 156.

² Wine, Celebration, p. 48.

³ Zinn, Howard. A People’s History of the United States:1942-Present (New York: HarperCollins e-books, 2003), p. 8/location223 ff.

⁴ Wine, Celebration, p. 157.

⁵ Hoffman, Yair The Migrations of the Patriarchs in Barnavi, ed. A Historical Atlas of the Jewish People (NY: Schocken Books, 1992), p.2.

⁶ Gaster, Theodor. Festivals of the Jewish Year: A Modern Interpretation and Guide (NY: William Morrow Co., 1952), p119.

⁷ Wine, Celebration, p. 41.

PROLOGUE

Once upon a time there was a man called Abraham. He lived in Chaldea near the city of Ur. One day a god called Yahweh came to him and told him to leave. Abraham listened to Yahweh and left. He moved to Haran in Mesopotamia and from there to the land of the Canaanites. Being a rich shepherd, he traveled with many servants. In Canaan, Yahweh promised the land to him and to his descendants. Abraham promised to obey Yahweh in all things. When his wife, Sarah, bore him a son, Isaac, at the age of ninety, Abraham was very happy. Isaac in turn fathered Esau and Jacob. With the double name of Jacob and Israel, Jacob in turn fathered twelve sons. From these twelve sons came the entire people of Israel, also known as the Hebrews.

Jacob and his twelve sons went down into Egypt. In time they were enslaved by a wicked king. After four hundred years Yahweh decided to rescue them. He chose a Hebrew named Moses to lead them back to Canaan. Two million strong, the Hebrews departed Egypt to march to the Promised Land. Along the way they stopped at Yahweh’s mountain, Mount Sinai. There Yahweh gave them rules and regulations to live by. After forty years they reached Canaan. Moses died. His successor, Joshua, led the Hebrews across the Jordan River and conquered the land in one fell swoop. The Hebrews settled down on the land and began to worship the gods of Canaan. An angry Yahweh punished them with disunity and enemies. The worst enemy was the Philistines. In time, the Hebrews united under the shepherd king David, defeated the Philistines and became an independent nation.

This is the biblical story of the origins of the Jewish people. Wherever Jews and Christians are to be found, this story is popular and familiar. It is so popular and so familiar that it has been incorporated into the patriotism and the holidays of the Jewish and Christian worlds.

While the story may be familiar, charming and even inspirational, it suffers from a major problem. It is simply not true. There is no evidence—beyond the text of the Bible—that most of these events took place, or that most of these people really existed.

If I tell you a story about a man named Uncle Sam who had fifty children named Massachusetts, Virginia, Missouri, California… you would laugh at the absurdity of the tale. But when a similar story appears in the Bible about Abraham, who is described as the ancestor of many nations, millions of people abandon their reason and embrace its credibility. Biblical tales are not so much descriptions of real events as they are propaganda for political and religious arguments which took place many centuries after the presumed events took place. If they have historical value, it is because they are clues to what was going on in Jewish life at the time the author of the story lived. The story of Abraham has less to do with 1800 BCE, when Abraham presumably lived, than with 700 BCE when his story was created.

Biblical mythology revolves around the central figure of Yahweh, a god whose devotees claim that he is the only God worthy of the name. In the biblical narrative, Yahweh precedes the Jewish people and is responsible for their formation through his covenant treaty with Abraham. He continues to manage the Jewish experience through thick and thin. Even when the Jews misbehave, he does not abandon them. According to the biblical writers, Yahweh and the Jewish people have been together from the beginning of Jewish history.

But, in reality, Yahweh, as a popular God, did not show up until much later. Even when Moses and David appeared, it seems that they spent much of their religious time with many gods other than Yahweh. The same is true of their Israelite contemporaries. The early history of Israel is a time of comfortable polytheism in which the life of the Hebrew shepherd and farmer was tied up with the gods of the Canaanites and other Semitic neighbors. Yahweh was around, but he was competing with other members of the pantheon for Jewish attention. The Hebrews were as yet unaware of an exclusive intimacy.

For almost five hundred years, the Jews grew up as a nation without Yahweh at the center. More important to their early story was the place where they lived, the neighbors they had and their own struggle for survival. The Jews, like all other people, have a human context for their birth.

Mythology is the story of the gods. If you believe that the gods intervene actively in human affairs, then mixing mythology with history is a valid enterprise. But if you do not, the mixing becomes an obstacle to the discovery of truth.

What would Jewish history be like if the mythology were fully dismissed? Over the last two hundred years many scholars have attempted to deal with the Jews as a natural phenomenon.¹ Some of them were Bible critics, some of them were secular historians, some of them were archeologists—all of them were united by their commitment to science as the best method for the discovery of the truth. Science simply means responsibility to the evidence of controlled investigation. Supernatural powers, supernatural beings and supernatural purposes have no place in the scientific perspective.

Over the last two centuries a great deal of evidence has been accumulated to create an alternative Jewish story. The origins of the Jewish people, the origins of the Bible, the evolution of priestly Judaism, the development of Talmudic Judaism, the realities of Hellenistic Jews, the emergence of antisemitism, the adaptation of the Jews to the Christian and Muslim worlds—all of these important chapters in Jewish history which have been distorted by the lenses of mythology and theological apologetics—now have alternative stories. In some ways the new alternatives are less romantic because the gods have been reduced to ideas in human minds and their passionate and whimsical agendas are absent from the tale. In other ways the new stories are more interesting and exciting because they are not merely the repetition of familiar religious doctrine. Flesh and blood people of the narrative are no longer the passive victims of divine manipulation, but rather the authors and creators of the events themselves.

It is not true that the real history of the Jews has been around for a long time and has been available to anyone who wants to study it. The real story of the Jews is only now emerging and confronts resistance from the defenders of the tradition. Since so many traditional stories have been woven into the fabric of Jewish, Christian and Muslim holidays, literature and symbols, many people who are open to scientific change in less emotionally charged areas of their lives offer stiff opposition to this new telling of the Jewish experience.

The new history is full of surprises. It may be the case that the Patriarchs and Matriarchs are purely legendary. It may be the case that the Exodus from Egypt is a theological fabrication. It may be the case that the fundamental cultural influence on early Jewish life was not monotheistic and Mosaic but polytheistic and Canaanite. It may also be the case that the biblical prophets recommended a life style that was profoundly at odds with the economic and social direction of Jewish history. In fact, the sacred literature of the Jews was unsympathetic, from the beginning, to the mercantile role of the Jews in Western history.

Jewish history is tied up with the theology of three very powerful religious systems. Judaism and Christianity, and Islam to a lesser degree, cannot separate their sacred events from Jewish events. The Jews, as the Chosen People, are beyond the normal patterns of human development. Jewish experience, as a theological lesson, is a witness to supernatural power and divine intervention. In the religious context, Jews become more than Jews. They become agents of God, sustained by mysterious forces that can neither be described nor scrutinized. For millions of believers, Jewish history is more than history. It is divine revelation.

Many historians have difficulty dealing with the Jews as a normal people who function in the natural world in which most other nations seem to exist. Because the mythology of the Bible is so familiar to the reading public, mythical figures like Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are simply accepted as real. If the mythology were Chinese, an objective and skeptical approach would be more easily accepted. There is a tendency in the Jewish and Christian worlds to defend the indefensible because the indefensible is our very own.

Traditional history may be a denial of what the Jews really were and are. Monotheism and the Chosen People idea may not be the most important beliefs that defined Jewish power and suffering. Ideology and faith may not be the major reasons why Jews were assaulted and persecuted. The Jews have been, and continue to be, a provocative people. Jewish apologetics is comfortable attributing that provocation to superior religious and ethical ideas. But modern antisemitism has given the lie to this interpretation. The economic role of the Jew may have been more important than the theological one. The patriarchal, priestly and prophetic periods of Jewish history may not be the Golden Age of Jewish achievement. The present age may be an alternative candidate.

The contemporary Jew-hater is not provoked by Jewish monotheism and Jewish ethics. He is provoked by the economic power which he attributes to the Jews and by the modernist ideas (atheism, secularism and Communism) which he accuses the Jews of fostering.

The economic role of the Jews in Western history is not a role that makes Jews comfortable, especially because the power of the Jews has been exaggerated. Jews are more comfortable with shepherd ancestors like Abraham and Isaac than with craftsmen, merchants and moneylenders. But shepherds had very little to do with most of Jewish history—and merchants and money were omnipresent. It may be the case that the Jews, as the precursors of capitalism and an urban society, may be more important than the Jews as the inventors of a new theology. If we shift our focus, then, the ancient period of Jewish history may turn out to be the prelude to more dramatic accomplishments. Modern times, with all of its problematic antisemitism, may emerge as the heyday of Jewish significance.

As you will see, the narrative that follows is a very different history of the Jews.

¹ The first familiar Jewish historian to provide a secular view of Jewish history was the German Jewish historian Heinrich Graetz (1817-1891). Although his early history of the Jews retains a traditional perspective, he removes God as the active designer of Jewish events. Graetz was one of the prominent figures of the Jewish Haskalah, a movement that sought to transform Jewish studies by utilizing a secular and scientific perspective. See Heinrich Graetz, History of the Jews (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1898).

CHAPTER I

BEGINNINGS

THE ETHNIC CONTEXT OF HEBREW ORIGINS

The Jews had no clear beginning. They were not an independent entity, unconnected to the people and places around them. They were the children of Western Asia, of all the early civilizations that found their home there. They were Semites, sons and daughters of the desert, whose mother culture featured nomads, sheep and goats.

Before there were Jews, there were thousands of years of human civilization and millions of years of human evolution. Before there were Jews, dozens of nations walked on the stage of the world, presented their stories and faded away. Before there were Jews, the human race had developed functioning societies with rules and regulations for human behavior that closely resemble the traditional morality we know today. If the Jews had never existed, the world would have managed to discover love and justice—and to develop religions with one and only one God.

The Jews did not emerge from nothing. They were the product of a complex setting which had already produced many other nations. The Egyptians, the Sumerians, the Babylonians and the Assyrians were already present in the Near East when the Jews arrived. They had old, powerful cultures. They left their imprint on all the smaller nations around them, including the Jews.

AGRICULTURE

Some one hundred thousand years ago homo sapiens left the African homeland and migrated to Europe and Asia. The big brain of this African primate provided the ingenuity and technology which this change demanded for human survival. Hunting, fishing and food gathering were not easy in the harsh setting of the Ice Age.¹ Life was short. Nature was often stingy and cruel. Feasting alternated with famine.

About ten thousand years ago (a mere drop in evolutionary time) homo sapiens began the cultivation of plants for food. Farming was different from food gathering. Finding wheat was different from growing wheat. Farming was a deliberate attempt to manufacture food in the same way as one would manufacture tools and weapons. It was a revolutionary step in the evolution of human culture.²

Farming came in two forms. The primary form was the cultivation of grain, vegetables, and fruit-bearing trees. The second form was the cultivation of meat or animal food through the domestication and herding of mammals and birds. Peasants and shepherds were both farmers. Both devoted the majority of their time to the cultivation of food. The cultivation of grain most likely preceded herding. But we are not sure.

What is certain is that both activities transformed the lifestyles of their participants. Humans came down from their hillside caves to river valleys where they could find water and flat places. They settled down on the land and built their own shelters. The feast and famine of the hunting culture were replaced by scheduled work and scheduled eating. The manufacture of food vastly increased the food supply and the population which fed on it. For purposes of defense and cooperation, communities emerged in the form of villages. New stone tools were developed to work the land to process the food. Material possessions in the form of houses, furniture and farm implements now emerged.

The social structure of human existence was radically altered. Farming and herding required labor. The easiest way to produce cheap labor was to bear children. The new food supply fed the new labor and the new labor worked to increase the food supply. Producing children became an indispensable part of agriculture. A social arrangement called the family now emerged, which promoted reproduction, arranged for the rearing of children and motivated child labor to work. The reward was the promise of inheriting land and material possessions. The family was more than temporary male and female bonding. It was an elaborate array of lifelong connections which made agriculture possible. Being a mother or father, son or daughter, sister or brother, was more than a biological reality. It was a social role with powerful attachments and expectations. Manufacturing food and manufacturing children made the jobs of both men and women very different.

The family came in two varieties. The oldest was the matriarchal family. Before humans understood the connection between sexual intercourse and conception, only the role of mother existed. Men offered support to the children of their sisters. After the discovery of paternity, the patriarchal family appeared in the human drama.³

An alternative to growing food was stealing food. This possibility was the foundation of war. Stealing food also meant the opportunity to steal land, wealth, women and labor. The stealing of women had already existed in the hunting culture. But in the more complex and more affluent agricultural world, disorganized raiding turned into organized plunder.

The professional warrior emerged. Armies and the military lived off the land and the wealth that others had created. Ultimately warriors were everywhere. Even communities that were not interested in plunder needed warriors to defend themselves against communities that were. The technology of farming and the technology of war now evolved side by side. The male bonding which had enabled hunters to cooperate in their search for game took on a new function in the pursuit of war.

War transformed the agricultural world. It introduced the distinction between conqueror and the conquered, the ruler and the worker, landowner and the peasant. Class distinctions arose and were reinforced by custom and vested interest. War also created the institution of slavery. Prisoners of war were turned into armies of slaves who now provided the cheap labor that expanding agriculture needed. The hierarchy of power and property grew more and more complex.

In time the warrior class developed its own social structure. Families were united into clans and clans into tribes. Both offensive and defensive action required larger social units than the extended family provided. Both clans and tribes modeled themselves on the patriarchal family. Fathers turned into chiefs, and chiefs turned into kings. Often when families and clans merged they would choose an imaginary shared ancestor, who would turn the merger into a family connection.⁴

Life on the land became more complex. Conquerors built fortresses for defense and intimidation. Sometimes the defenders built their own bastions. The tops of hills were natural places to build these enclosures. Around these enclosures developed markets for trade. As agricultural wealth increased, more and more people were freed from making food and turned to crafting pots and clothing, furniture and bricks. As class distinctions emerged, artisans created jewelry, costumes and headdresses to indicate the status of their owners. The pressure of a larger population in a small area invited more streets and more enclosed walls. A fortress turned into a city.

The growth of a commercial and trading class prompted the keeping of records. The keeping of records demanded a system of writing. Stone, animal skins, woven reeds and clay became the material for inscription. Symbols denoted whole words or parts of words. Writing could be used for more than counting. It could tell stories, honor the living and praise the dead. Speech turned into something visual and took on a reality all its own.

Given evolutionary time, the world of agriculture transformed the face of the world quickly. Farming was a revolutionary new way to enhance human survival. Not until the industrial revolution would a change of equal power emerge. The agricultural revolution radically altered human existence.

RELIGION

The new world of agriculture and herding depended on the family. This social institution provided nurturing, security and survival. But it was also the foundation for another human activity which is now called religion.

In the history of humanity, religion is not a trivial pursuit. Enormous amounts of time, energy, talent and wealth are expended in the service of the gods. Whether the gods are real or not is secondary to the fact that religion is real.

The heart of traditional religion is the worship of the gods. Worship includes reverence, devotion, appeasement and obedience, the kind of respectful action that children direct toward parents in an agricultural world. Gods are like powerful parents who can choose to help us or harm us. In the ancient world they were as real to people as the sun, moon and trees. People living as families imagined that the whole world was organized as a family. Fathers and mothers were everywhere. Clans had father-elders. Tribes had father-chiefs. Nations had father-kings and the universe had father-gods.

The worship of ancestors was the beginning of religion. Dead ancestors took on ghostly bodies and became living spirits. They did not abandon their children. They offered the reassurance that strong parents and grandparents did. Like their human counterparts they required both attention and reverence. They were also judgmental, rewarding and punishing and turning vengeful when they were neglected. Pleasing ancestors was no different from pleasing fathers and mothers. It was a mixture of fear and love. Safety and security were inconceivable without the help and intervention of the ghosts.⁵

The world of ancestral spirits turned nature into a society of friendly and unfriendly spirits. Time increased their number and their anonymity. Every place and event was attached to one of them. Winning their favor and appeasing them were necessary for survival. Invaders and conquerors brought their own family spirits. But they also had to contend with the unfriendly ancestors of the people who preceded them. Rejected spirits became demons, a reminder of all the anger and resentment that war and conquest brought.

Just as the ancestral spirits of the conquered were demoted, the ancestral ghosts of the conqueror were elevated. They turned into gods. As social organization became more complex, embracing class distinctions and specialization, the gods imitated human development. The universe was transformed into a domain of specialists, each one assigned a role in the government of nature as though nature were a city-state administered by super-powerful humanoid officials. The government of the world mirrored the government of people. The most important department was fertility—human, animal and vegetable.

Like revered parents, the gods had to be fed, sheltered and honored. The food of the gods was called sacrifice. The praise of the gods was called worship. The home of the gods became a temple. The servant of the gods became a priest. As human settlements expanded in size, the gods expanded in power. Father and mother gods turned into king and queen gods, with all the royal pomp and ceremony that monarchy demands. Along the way rich devotees, foreign tribute and wartime plunder filled the temple treasury. Stories of the gods filled the temple library. The fear of the gods divided all things into sacred and profane, into objects and places possessing divine power and ordinary things.

Temples turned into shrines. Pilgrims traveled long distances to visit the gods. Shrines were surrounded by markets. Like fortresses, they evolved into cities. Much of the public and private wealth was given over to the gods and their priest servants. The gifts were appropriate, since nothing good could happen—nothing bad could be avoided—without the intervention of the gods.

Priests competed with warriors for power and status. Sometimes the two roles were combined into one person. Priest-kings abounded, offering themselves as mediators between the gods and men. Because of their divine connection, they, too, became worthy of worship. In time, painters and sculptors created images of the gods which were also sacred and which adorned the temples, public places and private homes. The service of the gods took up more and more time—and wealth. The servants of the gods became richer and richer.

Religion sponsored many new professions. There were the priests who managed the houses of the gods and brought them their food. There were the prophets who served as the mouths of the gods, communicating their will to the people and also transmitting the requests of the people to the gods. There were the saints, holy men and women who possessed divine power, foresaw the future and performed miracles. There were the scribes who recorded the words of the gods, read them aloud to people and interpreted them. There were the performers and dancers who acted out the stories of the gods at public celebrations. There were the poets, painters, sculptors and musicians who celebrated the glory of the gods through their talents. A mound of vested interest arose from religion which was supported by popular conviction. As time passed, people came to see themselves as primarily the servants of the gods, created by the gods for that specific purpose—in the same way that parents created children to serve their needs.

Since the service of the gods could not be separated from the service of the dead, temples and tombs were not easily distinguished, especially the tombs of kings and queens. Burial mounds contained all the necessities of life after death. Furniture, household utensils, jewelry and vestments were all provided for the comfort of the dead. In some places more wealth was given to the dead than was shared with the living. The fear and reverence of parents and leaders extended to the grave. If, indeed, the primary motivation of people is survival, then religion was seen as the primary way to guarantee that survival. For people long ago the spirit world was as real as the material world of everyday life. In fact, for most believers, they could not even make the distinction.

CIVILIZATION

Around six thousand years ago cities emerged in substantial numbers in Western Asia and in the nearby valley of the Nile River. Cities usually began on the tops of hills, either because they were fortresses that needed to be defended or because they were shrines that needed to be closer to the gods who resided in heaven. Whether fortresses or shrines, their visible presence made them centers of protection, intimidation and control.

The culture of cities is called civilization. Before the world of agriculture was rich enough to sponsor cities there was no civilization. Cities radically changed the farming and herding cultures on which they depended. They were congregations of people who did not have to grow their own food and could devote their time to other activities. Inhabitants of cities were full-time warriors and priests. They were artisans who made weapons, clothing and jewelry. They were merchants who traded food and manufactured goods. They were domestic servants and slaves who maintained the food and houses of the rich. They were the rejected poor who had no land and family and who survived by begging.

The buildings of cities were squeezed one against the other. The need for encircling walls limited space and created both intimacy and danger. Unlike farms and villages, cities were an environment totally different from the one in which humans had evolved. No instinctive behavior was available to guide urban survival. The novelty of the urban challenge often produced disaster. But it also stimulated inventiveness and innovation. Since cities were centers of accumulated wealth they had the resources to make improvements.

Accumulated wealth was not evenly distributed. Warriors and priests controlled most of it. For the poor, city life was harsh and dangerous. For the middle class, artisans and merchants, there was the stimulation of work and trade. For the upper classes of military rulers and clergy there was leisure. Leisure culture promoted the fine arts and the cultivation of beauty.

Every city featured a government which controlled the countryside. This city-state was created either through conquest or through a defensive alliance against external enemies. In time city-states fought other city-states. Conquest produced larger political units which were called nations. People began to develop multiple identities. Their strongest identity was local, a connection with village and clan, but broader identities were evolving.

Trade reinforced broader identities. Roads were built. Markets developed. Manufacturing was directed to distant as well as local buyers. Caravans moved from city to city. The changing economy produced both diversity and the presence of strangers. The awareness of other cities and lands became part of public knowledge. Trade forced people to contemplate a peaceful alternative to war.

The technology of a developing agricultural world started with polished stone and added copper and tin. The age of metals provided more strength and more flexibility to tools and weapons. It also enhanced the options for artistic expression. Wealth in metals, including silver, gold and iron, were now added to the old wealth in wood and stone. But each new change challenged the authority of the ancestral spirits and gods. Religion was essentially conservative, feeding on the approval of the past. If the ancestors knew only stone, then the use of metal became suspect. The most sacred objects and substances were those first used. Innovation had to prove that it was old in order to be accepted. Time and ingenuity usually managed to trace what was new back to the distant past where it could enjoy the endorsement of ancestors.

The first civilizations may have evolved in Western Asia and in the adjacent Nile Valley. This area of the world presented many challenges.⁶ After the last invasion of ice withdrew, the climate radically changed. The rains disappeared, except in the northern mountains. What was wet now became dry. The green earth turned into desert. Most of the land became unfit for human habitation. The sands of Egypt and the wasteland of the Syrian Desert became a part of a desert belt that encircled the earth at this latitude.

Two rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates, flowed out of the northern mountains and rushed in a southeasterly direction to the Persian Gulf. Until modern times both rivers overflowed their banks after the rains came to the mountains and covered the dry earth with fertile mud. If flood waters could be channeled, the land between the lower Tigris and Euphrates could be turned into a farmer’s paradise, a virtual Garden of Eden. Even without rain southern Mesopotamia became a place of agricultural opportunity.

The center and south of Western Asia are somewhat flat. But the far north is covered with mountains. In the days before agriculture, when humans hunted game, people preferred to live in the mountains where they enjoyed the protection of caves. But as the dryness of the climate increased, restricting the abundance of game, people left the mountains for the more vulnerable plain. Because edible grasses were not readily available, it became necessary to cultivate them where it was possible to do so. Ironically, the desert may have been the stimulus for the beginning of agriculture.

Immediately to the west of Western Asia—and historically part of it—lay another mighty river. The Nile rises in Central Africa and flows through the desert to the Mediterranean Sea. Before the Aswan Dam [completed in 1970], the river overflowed its banks in July, and created an oasis of fertile mud for one mile on either side of its stream. At its mouth there gradually emerged a marshy and muddy delta that could be turned into a place of agricultural development. This delta corresponded roughly to the very wet and marshy mouths of the Tigris and Euphrates. Again the challenge of the desert may have been the trigger for turning hunters and gatherers into farmers.

Between the Euphrates and the Nile lies the northern edge of the Rift Valley. A rift is a tear in the earth’s surface brought about by the confrontation of moving tectonic plates below the surface. The Rift Valley begins near the northern mountains, passing south through the Red Sea, crosses over to eastern Africa and disappears in what today is southern Tanzania. It is a deep cut with ridges of mountains on either side, and with earthquake instability in the center. The Jordan Valley is part of the Rift, as is the Sea of Galilee, the Dead Sea and the dry river bed we now call the Arava. Had the break been completed Palestine would have been separated from Asia and would have drifted off as part of Africa.

Water came off the sides of the mountains and filled the trough of the cleft. The desert heat made most of it evaporate and turned the water of the Dead Sea into a salt lake. But the valley had places where plants could grow. Some experts think that the Jordan Valley, with its special challenges, was the place where agriculture began—and the site of Jericho was the place where the first city was created. Even if Jericho was not the first, it was almost the first.⁷

The valleys of the Nile, the Tigris and Euphrates and the Rift may have been the settings of the first agriculture, the first cities and the first civilization. Into these valleys came people from the northern mountains of Anatolia, the eastern mountains of Iran, and the southern mountains of Ethiopia and Arabia. When they arrived they were not aware that they would one day coalesce and form nations out of tribes and clans. They did not realize that they were connected linguistically and ethnically to many people who shared their neighborhood. Time merged vulnerable groups, created shared ancestors and gods, provided them with friends and enemies, cultivated their land and cities and bestowed on them a sense of national identity.

EGYPT

In the mountains of east Africa lived a collection of clans and tribes who farmed both grain and animals. Their original home may have been southern Arabia, just across the Red Sea. They shared a common language. Today they are called Hamites,⁸ even though that name was unknown to them. In time harsh environments and opportunity persuaded them to move. Some headed westward into the grasslands of Africa. Others followed the Nile northward as it snaked through the desert.

At the mouth of the Nile, in the delta land, there already lived people who had come from western Asia. They, too, were farmers and herdsman. While the Hamites had narrow skulls, almond eyes and brownish skin, the delta people had broader skulls, rounder eyes and lighter skin. In time the confrontation between the two people produced two kingdoms. The delta nation became Lower Egypt. The river nation became Upper Egypt. The dividing line between the two kingdoms was the site of modern Cairo. War between the two nations prevailed. Around 3000 BCE the forces of Upper Egypt were victorious. A new nation, with two distinct parts, was created.

Upper Egypt was shaped like a thin snake of fertility hedged in by the relentless desert. People lived along the river. The country was a layer cake of tribes, each one living either above or below the other. Since they all depended on the water of the river, controlling the river generated continuous arguments and perpetual war. Unification came about, not only because of shared danger from delta people, but also because warfare and the economic necessity of cooperation were bound to produce a successful conqueror, unifier and king.

In both Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt the hunting past of the settled people was revealed in their religion. Clans and tribes identified their ancestors with sacred animals and portrayed their gods in animal form. The sacred falcon, ibis, cow, crocodile and cat revealed the reverence which a former hunting age still gave the animal kingdom.

But the cult of the dead dominated religion, especially the worship of former kings who were elevated into gods. The Pharaoh was the absolute master of a unified Egypt. He owned all the land and all the people. A combination of both warrior and divine priest, he was a powerful example of how the family model and authoritarian parents were the easiest way for people to understand the role of the state. The monarchy became the symbol of national unity. Religion and patriotism became inseparable.

The tombs of the kings and their attached temples became the landscape markers of the Egyptian world. The pyramids at Giza testify to the amount of national wealth that was poured into the construction of royal mausoleums—and to the stimulation of technology that religion provided. Both religion and war have ironically triggered technological development.⁹

From 3000 to 2000 BCE, successful agriculture produced a wealthy ruling class of warriors and priests. Fortress and temple cities rose along the Nile. Bureaucratic interventions tamed the waters of the annual flood and channeled them to useful irrigation. Artisans and merchants manufactured and traded ordinary goods and items of extraordinary beauty. Pots and jewelry, furniture and cosmetics—all found their place in the market. The new wealth freed more and more people to do something other than growing food. Miners for the mines, soldiers for war and teachers for the rich emerged. A high culture, built around the court of the Egyptian king, developed a formal style of ritual and ceremony appropriate to a god.

Around 2000 BCE the stability of Egypt was interrupted. Internal rebellion and foreign invasion disrupted the power of the central government. Many of the provinces became independent, their governors now refusing allegiance to the Pharaoh. The management of the river was threatened. New kings invented new governments in a desperate attempt to preserve Egyptian unity. Stability alternated with civil war. The arrival of Semitic nomads from Western Asia in the delta (c. 1650 BCE) led to the foreign conquest of Lower Egypt. For the first time an external enemy with a foreign culture forced the Egyptians to define who and what they were. Out of that encounter came an intense Egyptian patriotism and a hatred of the shepherd culture.

Egyptians were farmers and agriculturalists. Their clothing was linen, made of river reeds. Their food was bread. They were mainly vegetarians. Their heads were shaved. The Semitic invaders were very different. Their clothing was wool, the covering of their sheep. Their food was meat, a carnivorous diet modified by a few vegetarian touches. Their heads were covered with hair. Confrontation between the two cultures was inevitable.¹⁰ Ultimately the Egyptians found the will and the power to rebel against their conquerors and drive them out of Egypt (c. 1510 BCE). But the Egyptian hatred of Semites became intense. Semites would, in time, return the hostility.

The greatest period of Egyptian power followed the defeat and expulsion of the Semites (1570-1200 BCE). A powerful monarchy created a powerful army which now swept into Western Asia. What are today Syria and Israel fell into Egyptian hands. Roles were reversed. The Semitic conquerors became the conquered. Between 1500 and 1100 BCE the western Semites were drawn into the Egyptian orbit. A new empire was born. The center of the empire was the city of No-Amun (Thebes) on the upper Nile. There the king, the primary warriors and the priests of the national god, Amun, held sway. Enormous wealth provided elaborate tombs for both royalty and aristocracy. War and trade triggered new technologies for fighting and farming. National pride elevated Amun to the chief of the gods and paved the way to monotheism.

But new power and new wealth also brought internal feuding. The priests wanted more power than the king wanted to give them. Clergy and monarchy struggled for dominance. One king, Amenhotep IV (1377-1358 BCE), repudiated Amun and his priests and attached himself to the cult of Aten, a rival god. He changed his own name to Akhenaten, harassed the old priesthood, and even moved his capital to another place. In the end, he was defeated by his enemies. The warriors and priests came together in a powerful alliance. Amun was restored.¹¹

This power struggle revealed the fatal flaw of Egypt. The priests were too powerful. The cult of the dead was too costly. Religion was consuming too much of the national wealth. But the decline of the nation would take many centuries. Egypt was still powerful when the Jews began.

MESOPOTAMIA

The Tigris and Euphrates rise in the northern mountains of Western Asia. On their way to the Persian Gulf, they enclose a fertile valley of silt brought by the waters from the mountains. In the middle of the desert, a dramatic agricultural opportunity emerged.

This fertile flat land was empty of people for a long time. In hunting times, humans preferred the safety of the northern mountains where big game was also available. But the warming of the earth changed everything. The lack of water depleted the game and made hunting less successful. Grasses from the edges of the desert provided the first grain. The open plain to the south invited human habitation (c. 10,000 BCE). Perhaps necessity stimulated the cultivation of the first grasses for food. Agriculture was born. The population increased. Water was borne through man-made channels to make the crops grow. The empty plain turned into a human food basket. An abandoned space became the mother of civilization (6000 BCE).

It is not known who the first people there were, nor is their language known. But it is known that a talented people arrived in Mesopotamia before 3000 BCE, just around the time when Egypt was first uniting. They were called Sumerians. It is believed that they came from the mountains to the east. They settled down in the lower valley close to where the Euphrates and the Tigris now come together before flowing into the Persian Gulf.

The lower valley was a land of waterways and mud. It was a natural laboratory for silt turning into solid earth. If tamed and cultivated, it could become a place of enormous wealth. Human habitation came last to this part of the valley, but the economic potential was greater than in the land to the north.

The Sumerians were united by language and ancestral memory, but they were divided into many