Time Is The Escort of Wisdom
The past is massive. So much so that we tend to shrink it to manageable sized sound bites. For example we often think of human development as happening in a straight line. That is, different cultures divided by thousands of miles and separated by light years of diverging thoughts all arriving at the ultimate conclusions at about the same time.
Closer analysis reveals that in the big picture there are similarities related to human development but that doesn't mean they were anywhere near being alike. In our western world (think of that as Asia Minor, Europe, and much later the Americas) religious and scientific development has its key roots in Greek/Roman and Jewish cultures. Theses cultures come clashing together when the church, harmless as a dove but wise as a serpent (Jesus' words not mine) slithered into the Roman Empire.
About the time the earliest Greeks were beginning to “philosophize” on the origins of the universe the Israelite were exiles in far away Babylon. The Babylonian culture presented its on conflicts as the very different people of Abraham and Moses attempted to remain a distinct society clinging to their traditions and wisdom. It was in this conflictual time that the earliest stories took written form in defense of a Hebrew conceptualization of God.
In response to popular Babylonian accounts of creation replete with the violent warring of gods over the property of existence, the Hebrew God unfolds creation in a manner that is rather peaceful and thus brings order to chaos. This God does not do battle but rather walks in the peaceful garden in which all of creation is consecrated as 'good' and blessed. By comparison to the Babylonian accounts these stories of Genesis were unique in their depiction of God. However, they were more primitive by the cultural standards being exhibited along the Mediterranean.
Though very different still there is thread of human thinking evolving toward very similar paths aimed at answering the big questions, “Why are we here and why is the world the way it is?” Clearly the dominant power would be the way of the Greek/Roman societies as they would eventually emerge to dominate and because of this domination would eventually draw the disciples of Jesus into that more sophisticated world.
But just because their world was more sophisticated by what we now deem as modern—seeing as how we are the product of this development and to which we owe most of our current thinking—does not mean that the more primitive way of expressing theology did not have great value or, more importantly, truth. Nor does it mean we must jettison modern thinking and enter the more primitive in order to explore the meanings and truths found by there.
Let me get another cup and when I get back we can look closer at what the ancient Jewish theologians were doing as their part in what eventually become dominant western thinking.
Closer analysis reveals that in the big picture there are similarities related to human development but that doesn't mean they were anywhere near being alike. In our western world (think of that as Asia Minor, Europe, and much later the Americas) religious and scientific development has its key roots in Greek/Roman and Jewish cultures. Theses cultures come clashing together when the church, harmless as a dove but wise as a serpent (Jesus' words not mine) slithered into the Roman Empire.
About the time the earliest Greeks were beginning to “philosophize” on the origins of the universe the Israelite were exiles in far away Babylon. The Babylonian culture presented its on conflicts as the very different people of Abraham and Moses attempted to remain a distinct society clinging to their traditions and wisdom. It was in this conflictual time that the earliest stories took written form in defense of a Hebrew conceptualization of God.
In response to popular Babylonian accounts of creation replete with the violent warring of gods over the property of existence, the Hebrew God unfolds creation in a manner that is rather peaceful and thus brings order to chaos. This God does not do battle but rather walks in the peaceful garden in which all of creation is consecrated as 'good' and blessed. By comparison to the Babylonian accounts these stories of Genesis were unique in their depiction of God. However, they were more primitive by the cultural standards being exhibited along the Mediterranean.
Though very different still there is thread of human thinking evolving toward very similar paths aimed at answering the big questions, “Why are we here and why is the world the way it is?” Clearly the dominant power would be the way of the Greek/Roman societies as they would eventually emerge to dominate and because of this domination would eventually draw the disciples of Jesus into that more sophisticated world.
But just because their world was more sophisticated by what we now deem as modern—seeing as how we are the product of this development and to which we owe most of our current thinking—does not mean that the more primitive way of expressing theology did not have great value or, more importantly, truth. Nor does it mean we must jettison modern thinking and enter the more primitive in order to explore the meanings and truths found by there.
Let me get another cup and when I get back we can look closer at what the ancient Jewish theologians were doing as their part in what eventually become dominant western thinking.
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