The Middle East is well-known for being both the cradle of civilizations and the tinderbox of a fair amount of international war mongering. History books record thousands of natural deities invented and worshipped by Assyrians, Babylonians, Hittites, Egyptians and Canaanites to secure their safety and well-being in uncertain times. They also provide evidence showing that Zoroaster, Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, Baha’u’llah and their followers had overwhelming visions, endured extreme suffering, won valiant physical or mental battles and occasionally ignited great fanaticism to convince remaining other-believers around them that their God was the only true God and that they were their legitimate representatives on earth. Their interventions made growing numbers of followers and believers more morally conscious, more egalitarian, more courageous, more socially just and more inclusive in some ways. On the other hand, they also weakened interest in ritual, diminished focus on the natural environment and its seasons, made their adherents more apocalyptic in outlook, less tolerant to other people’s ideas and less inclusive in other ways. In this blogpost, Martin de Jong will argue that the spread of monotheistic religions in their early stages intended to build bridges across tribal divisions at the local scale, but that modern narrow interpretations of monotheism as personal identities risk bringing new tribal divisions at the global scale.
Whose God in this wicked 21st century?
On the November 6th and 7th 2024, Amsterdam made it to international headline news again. Ajax played Maccabi Tel Aviv and cashed in an attractive 5-0 victory. But what raised many eyebrows was rather that Israeli fans chanted discriminatory anti-Arab slogans in public places and set Palestinian flags on fire. What was even more conspicuous on frontpages was how Dutch locals of various colors targeted Jews for physical assaults as revenge. Apparently, the open nerves of a Middle Eastern conflict can reach as far as thousands of kilometers away from the war zone. In the aftermath, making distinctions between Israel and Judaism, Arabia, Palestina and Islam turned out to be as crucial for conceptual clarity and fairness as it was practically and emotionally unfeasible. We cannot rule out the possibility that some even avoided being nuanced on purpose. Although tensions in the Middle East and in European cities are clearly about more than religion alone, the exclusionary nature of believing in and defending against others the Right God and a surrounding set of lifestyle practices is an undeniable element in them. With the holy land acting as the central nexus in a global religious nervous system and its capital city Jerusalem considered one city for three monotheistic religions it is a tough job for the rest of the world not to align itself with the one or the other in this intractable lethal struggle. To a certain extent, monotheistic religions as practiced in the 21st century have become a great divider of souls, an exclusionary force. This is not how they began their lifeline though. When Zoroaster, Moses, Jesus, Mohammed and Baha’u’llah started their monotheistic missions, their objective was to convert and include people into revelations and belief systems that would overcome petty tribal divisions and provide justice to the vulnerable, not to generate them. How did that all happen?
A pantheon of scary monsters and super creeps
The Middle East predating monotheism was a messy region. It was a vast territory filled with many tribes some of which lived in fertile areas where agricultural produce abounded and early-day cities embellished with pyramids and ziggurats consisted of dozens of thousands of inhabitants, while other less populous ones lived in deserts and mountains and fed themselves on subsistence farming and foraging. Societies, especially the more prosperous ones, were highly stratified. Life was vibrant, but far from just and depended to quite a large extent on the forces of the natural environment and climatological circumstances. Luckily, there were gods and goddesses whose support could be implored to offer good harvests and rainfall at the right times in the right quantities. That was helpful, or so people thought. There were distant sky gods, warm earth goddesses, whimsical weather gods, unpredictable fertility goddesses, ruthless war gods, locally bound city gods, home-bound house goddesses and many more. There were hundreds, if not thousands of them across the region, with different sub-regions and tribes prioritizing different hierarchies among these gods and goddesses and kings and priestesses burdened with the task of conducting elaborate appeasement rituals, providing votive offerings and maintaining temples and shrines in their proper state to please them. But invariably even though they did not worship them they recognized and honored the gods of their close and distant neighbors.
Suspiciously anthropomorphic
Although these gods and goddesses were deemed crucial for people’s survival and well-being, their conduct could not always be described as divine or even honorable. Sometimes gods would brawl with each other in their anthropomorphic heavens rather than receive sacrifices as they should, they would eat or drink too much beer or sleep with their siblings, children or even attractive humans and then create new monsters, half-divine half-human, who would end up in mythological stories preserved for us in ancient stone tablets. Some historical kings over time transfigured into gods and some goddesses found opportunities to appear on earth as eye-blinding queens. The ancient pantheon was lively, colorful, closely connected with the surrounding natural geography and the returning seasons, occasionally suspiciously reminiscent of human nature, adjusted to perceived relevant tribal needs, far from always benign but ultimately always taken seriously by their worshipping communities. Boundaries between the natural and supernatural were not easy to draw and since the various deities were normally specialized in serving a few tasks and served these functions imperfectly, it was fine to have a personal preference for one or a few deities but essential to maintain the support of many more. In fact, it was clever and commonly prized also to praise even those of adjacent tribes and nations. If it did not help, it would at least not hurt. Had Zoroaster, Moses, Jesus, Mohammed or Baha’u’llah or the Deities they proclaimed to adore wished to join this polytheistic pantheon, they might have had a good chance of achieving that, but this is not what they chose to do.
Seers and their One and Only, Parts 1-2-3
Religious innovation has never been a one-off event. In the case of monotheism, there have been at least five decisive moments in Middle Eastern history where socio-economic turmoil, climatological instability, moral corruption and military destruction have led valiant visionaries to stand up determined to challenge the existing order. Zoroaster in ancient Persia is presumed to have called into question the validity of all Hindu deities and unmask them all as deceptive demons except One: Ahura Mazda, the Lord of Wisdom. He sought and found royal protection for the further dissemination of his teachings from King Vishtaspa and managed to collect many followers. His political power did not suffice to turn Zoroastrianism into a global standard, but it is still practiced by a few thousand in Iran and tolerated there. In territories much further west, Moses faced a similar challenge: how can I and my brother Aron execute the orders issued by our war and weather god Yahweh and get the people of our tribe to accept ‘Him That Is’ as their single true God? How can we invade and conquer the land of milk and honey He has promised us? Although his people often proved obstinate in refusing to kick the bad habit of honoring the fertility and storm god Baal and his sister Anath popular among other Canaanite worshippers, he eventually made his case and is now seen as the founder of Judaism. Third in the line of monotheistic seers, and widely heralded in advance by John the Baptist, also born in the very heart of this holy land was Jesus. His initial task was not, as that of his predecessors, to eliminate polytheistic rival tribes and prove the futility or evil of their deities, but rather to loosen up and humanize rules of religious practice within the Judaist faith in which he himself grew up. It proved hard for him and his disciples to convert the original Jews in their own lands or overhaul Roman domination sur place. But one of them, the former Christian hunter Saul who later saw the light and became fervent convert Paul, ended up making impressive journeys across the Mediterranean. There he and future generations of Christians acquired a great many followers among the polytheistic Greeks and Romans, with Constantine and Theodosius eventually turning the Roman Empire into a fully Christian one. Northern European tribes with their Celtic and Germanic gods and goddesses were won over a few centuries later, by word of mouth as well as by force.
Seers and their One and Only, Parts 4-5
At first sight, Prophet Mohammed’s mission resembled that of Moses. He grew up on the Arabian Peninsula, where in contradistinction to many other parts of the Middle East polytheism was still the most common religious practice. Similar to Zoroaster, Moses and Jesus, he had impressive visions of al Lah (the God) and decided that it was time for his native Makkah to modernize, evict all other gods and goddesses including Al-Lat, Al-Uzza and Manat from the Kaaba and adopt monotheism. He collected important inspiration from angel appearances, personal experiences and stories about the Jewish and Christian faiths and eventually transformed them into a new Divine Revelation updating and perfectioning previous ones. Rightly guided khalifs Abubakr, Umar, Uthman and Ali and later dynasties ensured that this revised monotheism came to reign supreme from Morrocco to Indonesia. Finally, although Mohammed is generally seen as the final Seal of the Prophets, 19th century Islamic Persia saw the emergence of a new manifestation of God named the ‘Bab’’ who announced the coming of a new prophet for a new age: Baha’u’llah. While the Bab, who had much the same role for the new Bahai religion as John the Baptist had for Christianity, was executed by the Persian regime for becoming too popular and deviating from orthodox Islamic recipes, Baha’u’llah continued to spread their peaceful message that each age has its own prophet updating earlier Divine Revelations of the One. His admonition for all religions to unite rather than divide attracted many people but was ultimately rejected as blasphemous by Ottoman Sultans leading to his virtually permanent house arrest. Their Bahai religion still exists and is practiced by a few million as a minority religion in various countries, but in its creative destructive homeland Persia they are a badly and sadly discriminated-against religious minority.
The exclusive inclusive Deity
The widespread adoption of monotheism was a revolutionary religious innovation. Previously tribal life was characterized by many people worshipping many deities with kings/queens and priests/priestesses judging their respective merits on utility and popularity rather than equality and justice. The new claim resulted in a profound moral transformation: God was said to include everybody equally and thoroughly as part of His Own Community as long as they adopted Him as exclusive Deity. People could count on a profound personal bond with moral support, clear guidance on how to live one’s life, authoritative Holy Books and the magnificent prospect of an afterlife. Monotheism was thus inclusive for all those who decided to join and helped overcome intertribal rivalry, at least in the short run. It systematically weeded out irresponsible ‘divine’ conduct such as conflicts between deities over trivial matters, gods taking their brides by force, silly drinking orgies and naïve reliance on some ancient rituals no long deemed decent or effective. And still, the adoption of the monotheistic belief systems did not occur in a vacuum.
Evolution cloaked as revolution
Relics of a pagan past could clearly be observed in all of them: the Gathas cannot help attacking various Hindu gods and goddesses to make their own spiritual points. The Torah mentions a variety of Canaanite deities whose worshippers and temptations should be battled at all times. Christian proselytizers managed to overturn Europe but ‘betrayed’ the dietary and family rules mentioned in Abraham’s covenant to win over the pagans. Protestant Christianity and Orthodox Sunni Islam also went through various waves of iconoclasm to attack images of local saints often reminding us of ancient deities now clearly placed below the One in the new hierarchy. The Qur’an refers to a few pre-Islamic Arabian deities which would most definitely lead rightful followers the wrong way, much along the same lines as the Torah does. Both John the Baptist in Christianity and the Bab in Bahai emerged as the announcers of the messengers of their own monotheistic religions but were born and seen respectively as an Essene-style Jew and Twelver Shia Muslim in their lifetimes. Finally, the very logic in the Bahai faith that with every new prophet comes new Divine Wisdom for a new age obviously replicates a Muslim line of thought of spiritual progress through time. The Ark, Tabernacle, Christmas tree, Basilica and Kaaba all had a pagan existence prior to the monotheistic religion in which they grew big. Monotheism may have been revolutionary in its spiritual consequences and in unifying its followers, its adoption and spread inevitably followed evolutionary patterns: it incorporated and processed elements that long preceded it, mutated them into new forms for the new ages and multiplied itself into various subcurrents that did not always live peacefully next to each other. Humans will be humans, and tribalism always lurks around the corner in a new cloak.
Tribalism with a vengeance
If physical violence and psychological abuse agonized Amsterdam in 2024 and has taken countless lives in the holy land in the past decades, it is not farfetched to see those events as a modern excrescence of dehumanizing tribal rivalry. This current day version is not local and ethnicity-based as its ancient polytheistic version was, but rather one driven by religious faultlines of mutual exclusion. In the old days of polytheism, the rise of monotheistic belief systems could help new adherents loosen the stifling ties of their ethnic communities and join a new universalistic faith which brought them an additional inclusive identity of all equal before the Supreme Being. In a 21st century where monotheism has become the dominant religious standard in Europe and the Middle East, we experience how some people have allowed their religious beliefs to coincide with their personal identity. The more believers from different monotheistic religions undergo this change, the higher the risk that they end up standing as tribal blocks against each other. They may all be deriving their inspiration from the One, but if they believe the One of the other to be a different One than their own, conflict is not far. Tribalism has returned at a global scale.
Both the One and the Other
It need not be this way. While monotheistic orthodoxy has us believe that God created humans in line with His own spiritual features, ancient deities were indeed remarkably person-like, so much so that one might be tempted to claim that it was humans who created their gods in their own image rather than the opposite. Their anthropomorphism may have been spiritually misguided and their sincere credulity that they can appease forces of nature with precious donations is unlikely to inspire us profoundly these days. Such polytheistic narratives will easily be referred to as the realm of ‘mythology’, mere stories without much spiritual significance. Still their multiplicity, versatility, playfulness and tolerance can be relevant to us today. The presence of various deities to cover various natural phenomena, social events or personality traits can boost the evolution of porous and variegated identities. Adherence to one God, one religion or one lifestyle can be an important aspect of anybody’s being, but it can and should never be the only defining feature. Humans can develop diverse aspects of their own essence and evolve into mentally richer and more empathic creatures, as their Gods are. If history has evolved humans to see the many as the One, it may well help us now to see the many in the One? Intertribal warfare is our enemy, not the God(s) of others.
- Professor
