August 8th, 2020
I finished reading 1 Chronicles last night and am currently reading through Before Philosophy: The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man by Henri Frankfort. It’s basically about the formation of a proto-philosophy in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia and is fairly difficult to get through so far. I finished the three Egyptian chapters and started the first of the three Mesopotamian chapters. Something that I was thinking about reading while reading the chapters on Egypt was 1) this is hard and I’m not sure how to integrate it into everything I’m learning about the Bible and 2) this idea that we should not look to the Bible to inform our laws (or at least the old testament). The main takeaway from the chapters on Egypt was that in the southern region, the wind was the supreme deity and in the northern region, the sun was the supreme deity. The Sun deity eventually became the supreme deity over the North and South and the King was the supreme deity / the supreme deity in human form. The laypeople of Egypt didn’t see the gods as separate from themselves but rather a part of their very existence (e.g. the sun god is born at sunrise and gives life to the animals, men, and plants, travels in an arch over the sky, and dies at sunset; we don’t know if he will survive the journey through the underworld in the primordial waters underneath the earth where he has to fight the monsters of the deep and we must perform certain rituals to give him strength so he may be reborn). With the Nile behaving very predictably and the relative isolation of the region, there is a certain amount of order that exists in ancient Egypt and there begins to flourish a sort of individualism among the laypeople, but through the conquest of other people which enriched the priests and conquest by others which undermined law and order, the laypeople began to become disillusioned and were not able to develop their ideas about the relationship between the individual and god or the individual and community further. This section concludes that there has been no lasting impact from ancient Egypt on the realms of science, theology, or rationalism. I know that there are some Egyptian influences in the Bible, and through a quick Google search, it seems there are not many. Suffice it to say, the world of ancient Egypt while awe-inspiring to classical peoples as well as today, did not have a lasting impression on western civilization aside from being a curiosity.
Thinking and writing about this made me think about something which I eluded to earlier, but it inevitably led me to YouTube where I watched a few videos on Jewish fundamentalism in Israel, The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, and religious fundamentalism in general. The video that made me remember that I was writing a post was the following about fundamentalism and globalization. Suffice it to say, religious fundamentalism has been on the rise and obviously that is a problem (that video is from 2010, so a little outdated, but I was only 16 at the time, can you blame me for not being aware or interested?). I suppose a part of the reason for my exploration of the Bible and the surrounding context, culture, and history is to somehow be able to disprove fundamentalist thinking. I’m reminded of another video on fundamentalism that talks about the issues with fundamentalism that I’ve linked to before (this video is even older, from 2008; I was just finishing middle school!). I think a reason that I feel so strongly about this is that I’ve seen the flaws for most of my life. I believe I stated in a previous post that I felt alienated growing up because I found it hard to believe in the story of creation or that of the flood. Fundamentalism not only makes it difficult to function in an increasingly complex and integrated global society but at it’s worst it breeds hatred and violence from people on both sides. I think I feel I have a moral obligation to call out the more fundamentalist and literalist viewpoints when I see them to prevent this negativity. Since I will most likely only operate in the Christian sphere I think it is safe to say that I will stick to that sphere and not comment on other faiths. I think I can make a general statement that any Christian that looks to the old testament for a source of their morals is deeply flawed and should be called out as such. Similarly, I think that basing your political views on what is in the Old Testament is flawed and I think it should not be done. In conclusion, this idea about a moral obligation to combat fundamentalism is becoming more apparent in myself, however, I don’t want to go against Christian teachings as a whole. I still believe in the moral lessons that I learned as I child and I want to be able to raise my children to have a good Christian foundation, albeit the right Christian foundation. Once I get to the New Testament I’m sure I will find things that resonate more with me.