The Kingdom of God Reimagined: Experiencing and Nurturing the God inside Us

By Ann Lorac

As a unique and intelligent survey of religious thought, this one-of-a-kind book about faith by Ann L. Lorac strives to engage the reader in critical religious thinking (the other CRT) as opposed to herd-mentality religious conformity. The book also reveals how one can attain personal non-religiously-aligned spiritual empowerment.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Palmetto Publishing
• Release date: Jan 26, 2023
• ISBN: 9798885903073

Ann Lorac

Ann L. Lorac recently relocated from the West Coast to the East Coast after retiring from the health care industry. As an ex-Catholic, she has found a unique alternative to spiritual fulfillment which requires a holistic approach to inner peace. She enriches her life through social activism and quiet individual acts of compassion.

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The Kingdom of God Reimagined

Charleston, SC

www.PalmettoPublishing.com

The Kingdom of God Reimagined

Copyright © 2022 by Ann L. Lorac

All rights reserved

No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval

system, or transmitted in any form by any means–electronic,

mechanical, photocopy, recording, or other–except for brief

quotations in printed reviews, without prior permission of the author.

First Edition

Hardcover ISBN: 979-8-88590-305-9

Paperback ISBN: 979-8-88590-306-6

eBook ISBN: 979-8-88590-307-3

This book is dedicated to Papa RoN, whose Christian faith has given him the ability to cope with life’s endless struggles. The intention of this work is not to disparage one’s faith but to encourage the reader to understand it.

The Kingdom of God contains a fictional biography. There are parallels to the New Testament; however, they exist independently and do not intend to represent events in the New Testament. Characters in this narrative do not represent biblical characters; however, similarities in name and circumstance may occur. Conversations may have parallels to the New Testament, but it is solely the expression of the author. Also, dialogue in the narrative does not reflect a first century Jewish speaking dialect which is unknown. The author has used contemporary language to express the intent of the character’s thoughts. Yehoshua, which is a Jewish male name, represents the main protagonist in this narrative. He does not represent the divine incarnation of the Christian God. Religious views of characters in the narrative express similar views to those in Judea and other parts of the Levant in the first century and are not representative of the author’s religious views.

I wish to acknowledge friends who revealed literary faults and acquaintances who identified historical errors in this work.

Copyright © July 2022 Ann L Lorac

Table of Contents

Prologue

Part I

A Brief Religious History of the Levant

1.Paleolithic Era to Bronze Age

Spirit Worship

Goddess Worship

Catalhoyuk

The Emergence of a God and Goddess Society

Myths, Superstitions, Omens, Vows, Child Sacrifices, and Parasites

2.Late Bronze Age and Iron Age to 1 BCE

Quality of Life

Transformation to Monotheism

The Discovery of Metals and the Beginning of Competitive Metallurgy

The Building of Empires

The Treatment of Women in the Iron Age

Warfare in the Iron Age

Wealth of Iron Age Kings

Wealth in the Houses Where the Gods Dwelled

Nebuchadnezzar, King Solomon and the Wealthy

The Roman Culture

Herod

The Jewish Temple

Sin, Guilt, and its Manifestations

Hillel and Pilate

Part II

The Message of Christ Reinterpreted

3.Sociological Setting in 1 CE

Collective Cultures

The Jewish Diaspora

The Rise of a Fluid Economy

4.Interpretations and Distortions of Yehoshua’s Message

Yehoshua’s Spiritual Message

Yehoshua and Buddha

Divinity Verses in the NT That Suggest Inclusion by the Christian Community

Christ the Divine Healer

Paul’s campaign to a new God

The Gospel of John Furthers Christ’s Divinity

The Kingdom of God

5.The Gospel of Thomas and Mary Magdalene

The Gospel of Thomas

The Gospel of Mary Magdalene

6.Christian Meditation, The Lord’s Prayer, and the Son of Man

Christian Meditationists

The Lord’s Prayer

The Son of Man

7.The Sermon on the Mount and Parables

What the Sermon on the Mount Teaches

Sermon on the Mount Synopsis

Parables

Part III

The Misinterpretation of Yehoshua’s Message and The Evolution of the Christian Church

8.Early Church through Age of Reason

Early Christian’s Distortion of Yehoshua’s Message

The Holy Roman Empire, Reformation, Counter-Reformation, and Great Awakening

9.Christian Modernism

The Liberal Religious Movement

Diversity of Christian Churches and Bible Renditions

Abuse in the House of God

Christianity’s Contemporary Dilemma

End Times Prophecies

Part IV

THE KINGDOM OF GOD

Narrative of a Jewish Spiritual Teacher and Healer

10.Birth, Journey to Egypt, Return to Jerusalem

11.Teen Years as a Temple Student

12.The Teacher

13.Ministry in Galilee

14.Return to Jerusalem

15.Imprisonment

16.Crucifixion, Burial, Disillusionment

Part V

Epilogue: Finding the Kingdom of God within You

Finding the Kingdom of God within You

Reference List

Prologue

I

n this work, the historical Levant is defined as present-day Italy, Greece, Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Israel, and Palestine. NT will refer to the New Testament and OT, the Old Testament. God, gods, goddesses, or bible will not be capitalized except in dialogue or quotes. Gentile will refer to any non-Jew. When Christ is associated with his contemporary Jewish culture, he will be referred to by his Jewish name, Yehoshua which is a derivative of Joshua. When he is associated with the NT, Christian community, or in another Christian context, he will be referred to as Christ or Jesus.

The first section of the book gives a brief view of religious development in the Levant from the Neolithic period to the Iron Age. In the second section, a unique interpretation of Christ’s religious philosophy is highlighted with select scripture reinterpreted by the author. The third section offers a historical critique of the Christian church to the present including the church’s distorted version of Christ’s message. The fourth section is a fictional biography of Yehoshua ben Josef, a Jewish priest and rabboni (teacher). The fifth section explains the true concept of the kingdom of God and how anyone can access it.

The initial purpose of this book was to discover, through research, who influenced the man the Christians call Jesus. Was it his mother, Mary? Was it his father, Joseph? Perhaps Elisabeth, his mother’s cousin, or her son, John the Baptist? The Bible is the only source of information about Christ and it is silent on his formative years which are the most important in one’s life. The author’s quest became not only who influenced him, but who was he?

Dialogue of Christ in the synoptic gospels, 55 CE, is concise and more bullet point without much emotion. Dialogue of Christ in the Gospel of John, 90 CE, contains elaborate sentence structure, emotionality, and appears to persuade an audience of Christ’s divinity. In 90 CE, Gentiles had become that audience interested in worshipping Christ. What happened in the thirty-five years between the synoptic gospels and the Gospel of John to cause a transformation of the Christ-persona and shift in his audience? The book reveals the first Jewish-Roman war, 66–67 CE, as the biggest factor, along with two other Jewish-Roman wars.

This author believes Christ was a learned scholar with many great teachers. A more accurate portrayal of him is in the Gospel of the Nazarenes, in response to a question asked by his family: Shall we all go to be baptized by John? His iconic reply is Where have I sinned that I should be baptized by him, unless what I have just said is sin? Instead of joining the ritual, he questioned the significance of it. He didn’t say I don’t agree with baptism or Why do this? Instead, he asked, Where have I sinned that I need to be baptized? He wanted them to give him proof of the need. At the end of this statement, he added, unless what I just said is sin. In other words, am I sinning now by questioning the necessity of baptism? Apparently, Christ not only didn’t think baptism was necessary, but may not have been baptized. He rebuked Judaism’s concept of sin as innate in humans and the need for repentance by saying, Where have I sinned? He challenged a basic tenet of Judaism in one sentence and even asked his audience to supply the rebuttal. This is an example of brilliant polemic debate that leaves one wondering if Christ was a Jewish jurist. Other instances of his progressive religious thought are uncovered in the book.

By discarding the view of man as innately sinful, Christ proved to be unconventional. This work touches on the origins of the sinful man concept, the need for absolution before god, and its continual religious thread throughout history to the present. The idea of strict binary concepts for human behavior, good versus evil, is reflected in the archetypes of the Levant. Moses was the hero; pharaoh was the villain. Abel was the good son; Cain was the bad. The pattern resulted from an extreme belief in god as the eternal good and the devil as the eternal bad. Every nation in the Levant had a valiant soldier archetype. King David was not only a soldier but a king and a priest, also. He personified three archetypes in one individual.

The crucified savior is also an archetype. The World’s Sixteen Crucified Saviors: Or Christianity before Christ alludes to similarities of various religious saviors in different civilizations. They all included a virgin birth, son of god identity, persecution, crucifixion, and resurrection. Osiris (Egypt, 1700 BCE), Thammuz (Syria, 1160 BCE), Mithra (Persia, 600BCE), and Quirinus (Rome, 506 BCE) are a few of these rising saviors (Graves, 2007). Christians and some Jews believed Christ was a crucified savior after his crucifixion. The manner in which he died was the most influential factor in this belief.

Actually, Christ personified a teacher archetype. He believed his purpose in life was to teach a progressive approach to god with compassion and tolerance to others. It’s the author’s opinion that Christ was a human being with no deity attributes before he was born, during his life, or after he died. Shifting away from his divinity role changes his religious philosophy. Instead of proclaiming himself to be a savior of the Jews, he taught them how to attain salvation for themselves. The kind of salvation he taught was not in heaven after death as today’s Christians believe, or a resurrection of the golden days of King David as Yehoshua’s Jewish contemporaries believed, but salvation from life’s tribulations here on earth. In other words, he taught them how to overcome anger, depression, temptation, abuse, and lack of faith. He taught the Jews to have faith in themselves and to cope with life’s struggles through meditative prayer.

Women also had archetypes. Eve was the femme fatale and Mary Magdalena the harlot. When depicting the licentiousness of the Roman Empire in the Book of Revelation, its author used the term whore of Babylon. Asherah was a Canaanite, pre-Jewish goddess called the mother goddess. But Asherah’s reign would eventually end. This work links the decline of the nurturing mother-goddess archetype to the rise of an all-powerful male god archetype coinciding with the rise in an all male metallurgy profession and the dehumanization of the female. Because of new metal extracting, forging, and producing techniques, the manufacture of weapons enabled war to unfold on a grand scale never before seen in the history of the Levant.

A monotheistic authoritarian male god was the pinnacle of male power replicated in government and family. This all-male power triumvirate started in the Levant’s age of metals. It reinforces conforming to religious identity, national identity, familial identity, social identity, and finally, self-identify. These identities were part of the Levant’s ingrained societal norms that created a biased reality. The more domineering the male god, the more women and children were marginalized, without legal, financial, or familial rights.

To Peter Berger, culture and social roles have expectations and predictability that established religions don’t. In The Sacred Canopy, he believes religion exists outside culture. It reinforces the continuation of the dominant will of god over humanity. He also believes this old, outdated concept of the predestined will of god throughout society and government thwarts contemporary society from moving forward (Berger, 1990). In the Levant, state religions existed. Religion was embedded in the culture. Every nation-state had its own gods, language, customs, and laws. It was insulating and tribal. Perhaps it’s easy to slay other nations if one doesn’t identify with them. Today, the ongoing negative effects of tribalism in nations continue. In the Middle East and developing Muslim countries, minds of the masses are continuing to be stifled with women and children affected the most. Since lifestyles haven’t changed, millions continue to live with the same repressive religious and societal norms that their forefathers did for thousands of years.

A biased form of capitalism, which favored the wealthy, was the economic system in the Levant in 1 CE, with about 90 percent of the people at subsistence level and 10 percent owning all the wealth. As usual with a case of wealth disparity, humans were not valued equally. According to the Hittite laws, the fine for slicing off a slave’s ear was three shekels of silver. Since unskilled laborers were paid ten shekels a year, the price would be equivalent to 2.5 months’ wages for an unskilled worker. If the slave owner committed the act, he was not prosecuted as slaves were not defined as people. Not until 533 CE with the Code of Justinian could the slave owner be punished for killing his slave.

Females contributed extensive labor but were subordinate in a male dominate society that abused them sexually, emotionally, verbally, and physically. For millennia, the male god has been internalized in men allowing them a long list of perceived entitlements. This was very pronounced in the Levant and men justified female abuse by believing their male god gave them the right to do so because female self worth was valued less than a man’s. Historical chronicles of contributions by women are sparse to nonexistent. Let readers of this book ascertain for themselves the life a woman had and the degree of suffering she endured.

There will soon be no more priests…a new order shall arise and they shall be the priests of man (each individual shall be his own priest)…churches built shall be churches of men and women (the church will be the men and women themselves)…they shall find their inspiration in real objects (life around them)…not…to defend the immortality of God.

—Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, 1855

Part I

A Brief Religious History

of the Levant

Chapter One

Paleolithic Era to Bronze Age

M

ircea Eliade (1907–1986) was an author, philosopher, and religious historian. He theorized that religion is the basis for man’s concept of reality. Actually, ancient man’s reality was the basis for his concept of religion. Formidable spirits represented formidable nature. When early human lifestyles evolved, the gods evolved also. As humans congregated into new societies, old gods died and new ones were born.

Spirit Worship

Today, man lives in a dead environment. Walls and ceilings are composed of plaster. Floors are wood, tile, vinyl, or rug. Tables, couches, chairs, beds, appliances, lamps, and TVs are manufactured from earth’s metal, marble, and wood along with man-made plastic and fiber. Motionless, they wait to be used. Humans are in control of their manufactured world. But for 99 percent of his life, Homo sapiens lived outside with nature, which was alive and uncontrollable. Unpredictability created stress, which made life unbearable. Will the earth shake? Will fire spill from the mountaintop? Will noise thunder from the sky? Will lightning bolts be hurled down to the earth? Will the rivers swell and spread over the land when too much water falls from the sky, or will the earth become dry and barren when there is none? Will snakes, lions, crocodiles or wolves eat me? Perhaps death will come from poisonous plants, abscessed cuts, broken limbs, or other malaise that I do not understand. Nature was formidable.

To relieve fear, early humans anthropomorphized. The earth was home to a myriad of spirits. Their power depended on the amount of destruction that took place in nature. Now early humans understood why their environment hurt them: the spirits were angry. Spirits were responsible for all of life’s bewilderment. The ground itself, rocks, soil, mountains, trees, air, and water, besides animals in the Levant, including leopards, cheetah, wolves, and brown bears, harbored spirits poised and ready to injure human inhabitants. Now there was justification for pain and suffering created by nature: the spirits sought revenge for man’s encroachment upon them.

Neuroscience research has shown that similar brain regions are involved when we think about the behavior of both humans and non-human entities. (Nauert, 2018). This may indicate that early humans transferred their reaction to an experience with an animal or force of nature to that animal or force of nature. The error is that their interpretation was subjective, not objective. A person sees the world through the narrow subjective lens of himself. If the wind is blowing severely, causing chills with goose bumps, one feels the wind is angry. On a warm, sunny day, the sun is friendly and nurturing to us. Early Homo sapiens were controlled by nature. Anthropomorphizing was a way to understand the world around them.

When one saw a snake, scorpion, or wild animal, a recitation was most likely offered to the spirits to prevent a fatal bite. Superstitious practice, along with sacred artifact collection and jewelry, gave early humans reassurance the spirits would protect them. If one was bitten or attacked, shamans who had knowledge of healing herbs were consulted. Perhaps intense and noisy group incantations to chase out evil spirits were chanted over the sick and dying. As early farming societies arose, those daily superstitious rituals were handed down and preserved as religious practices. Today, many religions continue to offer prayers at specific times during the day. Perhaps saying grace before a meal originates from a Neolithic tradition in which early humans asked the spirits to make their foraged food safe to eat. Death occurred from ingesting poisonous plants.

Nauert also believes humans feel a moral responsibility to care for anthropomorphized objects, including the land itself. Early humans became custodians of the land out of fear, not wanting retribution from the spirit world. This custodial theme became ingrained in the Bronze Age proto-Jewish Canaanite covenant between god and Abraham. Coming from Ur Kasdim in southern Iraq, Abraham decided to settle on a choice piece of realty in Canaan. Abraham rationalized god wanted him to have it with the condition that he and his descendants care for it.

Blood was recognized to be a life force. When Homo sapiens made a kill, the power of the animal was acquired by blood rituals. It probably involved drinking blood and smearing it on the body, believing power from the animal was transferred to humans. Blood association became a powerful religious symbol for millennia. It became embedded not only in four thousand years of Jewish tradition continuing to the present but in all of the Levant’s ethnic religions. For it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul (Lev 17:11 KJV). It also is the crux of a two-thousand-year-old Christian belief. In whom we have redemption through his [Christ’s] blood, (Ephesians 1:7 KJV).

When disease, pestilence, drought, flood, prolonged freezes, scorching heat, volcanoes, and earthquakes made life unbearable, human sacrifices were made to appease the spirits. Primitive humans thought blood sacrifices restored order in a world out of balance because of man’s transgressions against nature. The idea evolved into sins against the gods as cities formed and spirits became gods. Blood sacrifice of animals took place for millennia and is still practiced today on a smaller scale. In Christ’s era, priests created a lucrative business selling doves, lambs, or other animals to the Jews for sacrifice to the temple in Jerusalem for alleged sins they committed.

Goddess Worship

The goddess was worshipped in the Pleistocene Age. Carved from stone, the Acheulian goddess fits into one’s palm. It was found in Germany and dates to 750,000–200,000 BCE. The Neolithic era, 12,000–6,500 BCE, was the age of the goddess. Most of the 144 goddess statues found date to 26,000–21,000 BCE. Perhaps more existed but were destroyed in subsequent ages with the emergence of a dominant male god. Seated with her legs tucked under massive thighs, large and drooping breasts sat on top of a rotund stomach that dominated the sculpture. Usually the vulva was etched into the rock. Many have hands over the breasts or arms folded under the breasts. The head is small and undifferentiated, as are the arms and legs. Emphasis on the reproductive organs alludes to their sociological significance. Male god statues from this time have also been found throughout the Levant but not in abundance like the goddess statues. Fertility goddess artifacts have been discovered from this period in every major civilization around the world by archaeologists.

Why would the first divine being conceived by man be a goddess? Estimates of the number of Homo sapiens in the world in 130,000 BCE were one hundred to three hundred thousand with one-tenth of that number reproducing. Of those who reproduced, one-quarter of the infants died, while one-half of those who lived didn’t reach puberty. The most important reason for goddess worship was reproduction. More children meant bigger clans, a bigger workforce, and comfort in numbers. This may be the reason that the worship of woman as life bearer was regarded highly.

The goddess was revered during the great empires of Egypt (Isis), Mesopotamia and Babylon (Ishtar and Astarte), and the Canaanites (Asherah). By 5000 BCE, she was demoted by more powerful male gods but continued to be venerated. The Roman Empire worshipped her until its citizens converted to Christianity in 200 CE. For approximately 750,000 years, she held the position of most powerful deity far longer than the male god of western civilization. The Madonna and child are borrowed from Isis holding her son Horus on her lap. Today in many countries, the adoration of the Virgin Mary is seen as an extension of the fertility goddess.

Catalhoyuk

Catalhoyuk was a proto-city dating from 7500 to 6400 BCE. The Catalhoyuk settlement unveiled a society that did not devalue a woman, because the goddess presided over most aspects of daily living. It was a society in which sex is relatively unimportant in assigning social roles (Hodder, 2005). In other words, males and females enjoyed equality in all professions, which suggests the sexes were social equals without discrimination. There have been found numerous goddess statues, including the famous opulent goddess seated between two large wild female cats. Many painted murals of males in various hunting scenes have also been found. Hodder divulges that there was no evidence of a status or power difference between the sexes. Hodder also states, We see…no evidence for either patriarchy or matriarchy. The settlement lasted for 1,100 years and had a population of five thousand to seven thousand before it was abandoned. When it resumed in 4000 BCE, the Copper Age, the new city was more elaborate and sophisticated than the older one. It was strictly patriarchal with a king, familial male hierarchy, and many dominant male gods.

Scientists are debating its decline. A professor of anthropology believes the failure of growth at Catalhoyuk is due to the lack of a male-dominated society such as those that occurred two thousand years later. The development of more sophisticated metallurgy techniques had not been invented, although copper mining with utilization as tools and jewelry was established. There are other factors to consider such as climate change or drought. Also, overgrazing, which scientists now believe influenced the desiccation of the Sahara, might have played a role in the demise at Catalhoyuk. If food yields dropped, thousands could not be fed. Slowly, small familial groups left the settlement, abandoning it completely over time. That it existed at all and for so long is a magnificent achievement for a simple goddess-centered society.

The Emergence of a God and Goddess Society

Hunters and gatherers became herders and farmers. With an increased understanding of the world around them, they began to master their environment and separate themselves from it. In a parallel fashion, spirits evolved into human forms that dominated nature. Spirits were also separating themselves from the nature they dominated. As human relationships included more social interaction, their gods became more human, socializing with other gods. New gods and goddesses reflected the transformation of industry. If early humans anthropomorphized nature, Copper and Bronze Age humans anthropomorphized their fledgling society of crafts. Ninkasi was the Sumerian beer god, Siduri the Mesopotamian goddess of wine and beer; Gibil, god of smelting. Ki was the Mesopotamian earth goddess, while Demeter was the goddess of farming and Dumuzid the god of herding. Enki was the male god of fertility.

When the ice age receded by 12,000 BCE, man ceased to be nomadic. Many chose to live along the fertile Nile, Tigris, and Euphrates rivers. Grain was cultivated, such as wild oats, barley, and lentils in 10,000 BCE. Domestication of animals started with wolves in 10,000 BCE, followed by sheep and goats from 9000 to 7000 BCE. The first woven cloth was produced in 7000 BCE, and oxen were domesticated in 4000 BCE. Aurochs were captured and became a cattle breed. Wild boars were captured and bred, also. Farming enclaves began to appear around coastal rivers, lakes, and streams.

Neolithic sites in the Aegean Sea signal…process of dispersal, adoption and integration (of cultivated grains and domesticated animals). Study of ancient DNA has shown…domestic goats arrived in S. France by 7,300 BCE, suggesting their dispersal out of the Near East (Zeder, 2008).

This is strong evidence of a mutually stable exchange relationship under the goddess’s reign throughout the Levant from 8300 to 4500 BCE, stretching into Southern Europe. Emmer wheat, einkorn wheat, hulled barley, peas, lentils, bitter vetch, chickpeas, and flax were developed about 9500 BCE. In 13,000 BCE, residues of beer fermentation were discovered near Haifa, Israel. In 4000 BCE, wine was made from domesticated grapes. Woolen clothes were woven in 3500 BCE from domesticated sheep with primitive looms (Mr. Dowing, 2018). In the age of the goddess, Northern Africa, the Levant, the Mediterranean, and Southern Europe were engaged in a cooperative economy and lifestyle. Taking into consideration the diversity of language, culture, and religion in such a huge swath of territory, one marvels at the seeming absence of large-scale warfare, conquest, and ruthless domination that characterized the male god of the Iron Age.

The Sumerian civilization formed cities in 4000 BCE along the Nile and the Tigris-Euphrates Rivers. At its height, Uruk was a major metropolis with forty thousand to eighty thousand inhabitants. In the approximately two thousand years following Catalhoyuk, inhabitants increased tenfold, from eight thousand to eighty thousand. Two thousand years is a long time for creative minds and their inventions, which found solutions to problems of aggregated living in large numbers. Living in homes made of bricks, mud, or marsh reeds, inhabitants constructed more elaborate pyramids-temples to their gods, called ziggurats, that had terraced gardens at different levels. Because humans built sophisticated family dwellings, similar ones were built to their gods. These worship sites equaled the striking palaces of the kings. As the standard of living rose, the gods and goddesses were also elevated to elaborate houses of worship.

Women still had a voice and filled important skilled positions and social roles in Sumeria from 5000 to 3000 BCE. Sumerian women could own property, run businesses along with their husbands, become priestesses, scribes, physicians and act as judges and witnesses in court (Rank, 2018). Women enjoyed nearly equal rights and could own land, file for divorce, own their own business, make contracts in trade, and the early brewers of beer and wine; as well as, healers in the community were initially women (Rank). But were women truly equal to men in the Neolithic era? Probably not. Perhaps, they were allowed more freedom because there was a need to fill newly created professions. As the population increased, burgeoning entrepreneurship filled a public need for manufactured goods.

Sometime between 2000 and 1000 BCE, the concept of fertility changed. It was controlled by the male and his god, not the female and her goddess. As the population rose and the wealthy men acquired a multitude of wives, there was a need for a male fertility god to help impregnate them. With a growing population, a woman and her fertility goddess were devalued. Male prestige was measured in sperm count. With hundreds of wives to chose, men controlled procreation. A man’s virile yardstick was denoted by how many children he bred. With the thousands of wives a king acquired, one can only imagine the number of children he propagated. A clue is offered by an online article that counts down from fifteen men to the male who fathered the most. Genghis Khan came in first with over 1,000. A Moroccan sultan came in second with 888 (Landry, 2017). Being born in the twelfth and seventeenth century, respectively, demonstrates how long extreme polygamy persisted and female rights to her own reproductive process were taken from her. The female was not only stripped of her sacred motherhood role but became dehumanized by a growing male-dominated economic sector.

When the Burney Relief was created 1800-1750 BCE, acknowledged as the Mesopotamian goddess Inanna, respect for the female and the goddess had vanished. The rotund fertile stomach and the large lactating breasts are gone. The model who posed for this carving was a teenage girl with firm smaller breasts and a small waist. With a stellar nude body, one feels the sensual seduction of a goddess-temptress. It may be the first pornographic stone carving. The popularity of the old Mesopotamian fertility goddess, Ninhursag, declined. Inanna was the goddess of sexual passion, love, and war. Ninhursag created life, while Inanna destroyed it. Inanna embodied an emerging dominant male concept of the female as a sexual arousal partner. As goddess of war, prayers were offered to her for victory. Perhaps warriors appealed to the goddess’s maternal and nurturing instincts. But the most notable divinity of war was not a goddess but a male god, the Iron Age monotheistic god.

Myths, Superstitions, Omens, Vows,

Child Sacrifices, and Parasites

The Neolithic Jewish Cain and Abel (Babylonian Dumuzi and Enkidu, Sumerian Emesh and Enten) may be a true account handed down through folklore. Cain cultivated grain, while Abel raised sheep. The aging father couldn’t decide to whom he should give his inheritance. Cain was the older and by rights should get the inheritance, but their father liked Abel more, so he decided to let the fertility goddess decide. Herders and farmers have been at odds with each other since animals and grains have been domesticated and cultivated. Herders resent fencing around grain fields, which prevents their herds from wandering the pastures freely. Farmers resent the intrusion of cattle or sheep eating and trampling their labor-intensive grains. The result of the story is Cain kills Abel in a jealous rage when Abel’s offering was accepted, whereas the grain offering was rejected.

How did the ancients decide who won? When one believes in gods and goddesses, one hears and sees them. It’s power of suggestion. The same is true of angels, devils, evil spirits, and demons. Any occurrence of nature could be misconstrued as an embodiment of a sign from a god or goddess. It could be a bird landing on a limb, the cry of a wolf in the night, the sun abruptly hiding behind the clouds, or the sudden fury of the wind. The more unknowledgeable a person, the more superstitious that person is. Superstition was widespread in the Levant for millennia. It was first chronicled around 3000 BCE by cuneiform texts that included extensive omens and laws, but one can make the assumption that it had prevailed much longer in unwritten history.

If ancient humans believed the gods controlled every aspect of their lives, they had to placate them. If one had acquired fortune, prosperity, a large family, and good health, it was commonly believed that the gods favored that person. On the other hand, professional failures, divorce, family deaths, or ill health were all due to falling out of favor with the gods. If one’s fate is controlled by the unseen gods, a visible king on earth also had absolute power over his subjects. Democracy for the masses didn’t exist. They lived in a world in which god and the king were the sole totalitarian forces in their lives.

According to the Mesopotamian worldview, every living entity or object on earth and in the heavens had a specific place willed by the gods, who orchestrated all their interrelated events. That concept makes sense when one realizes that Neolithic man was limited physically in how far he roamed and what resources he had available with the primitive tools he had. To ancient humans, it seemed as if the gods divined a specific niche for him in the world. In the Bronze Age, those who became diviners were tasked with interpreting that godly will. An omen is a communicative sign sent by an angry god to one who has divine interpretation (Annus, 2010). Mesopotamia compiled a text of all celestial omens and viewed it as god’s laws. The omen compendia and their commentaries represented both speculative sciences and the most valuable practical means for predicting what was about to happen. (Annus).

In the Babylonia compendia, angry gods might destroy mankind for various reasons, one of which was the amount of noise the city inhabitants made. Apparently, as with any neighbor who is subject to party revelers late at night, their noise tolerance and that of the gods were identical. Other omens were interpreted by unusual occurrences such as wild animals roaming in the city and statues moving. With hot weather and drought conditions, a wild animal might migrate to find water and food, losing his fear of humans and their habitats. Likewise, during an earthquake, statues might wobble. From the gods came blessings in times of prosperity or curses in times of disease, famine, and war. It is reasonable to assume that the angry-god concept was endemic for millennia in the Levant.

The ancients also believed the gods spoke through the casting of lots. Jonah 1:7: A fierce storm at sea made sailors cast lots to determine who was responsible. It was a game of chance with guilt assigned to the person who has drawn the short straw or other item which was different from the rest. The losing person usually lost his life. Moses allocated land to his sons by casting lots. The apostles of Christ cast lots to determine who would replace Judas as the twelfth apostle. Lots were cast by Roman soldiers for Christ’s clothes. The casting of lots held the fate of a man’s life when no other information was available and he was accused of a crime. Lots were cast to determine his guilt, and they were cast to determine when a condemned man must die. Many died because of this superstitious practice.

There are two Adam and Eve stories in the Hebrew Bible. The first portrays primeval man and woman without being tempted. Adam and Eve of the second story faced temptation, and this was similar to the Babylonian version of the story of Adapa. God Ea granted mortal Adapa wisdom and knowledge. Not to be outdone, god Anu decided to grant him immortality. If that happened, Ea speculated, he would be just like the gods. So Ea foiled Adapa’s attempt to gain it. In the Old Testament, the serpent said to Eve, For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened and ye shall see as gods, knowing good and evil (Genesis 3:5 KJV).

Is differentiating between good and evil becoming godlike? Early man had a dilemma: he felt guilty for his ability to think and reason. In his mind, he stole that ability from the gods. This is an oral story handed down for millennia. Humans appeased the gods by blaming themselves for having sinned against them. Was original sin, passed to the Christians through Judaism, the price humanity had to pay for gaining knowledge about the world? Ea got it wrong. Knowledge doesn’t make one godlike. It makes one more human. It is the acquisition of too much wealth and power that makes one view himself as a god.

What is the significance of the snake in the Adam and Eve story? The Minoan snake goddess was known throughout the Levant. Canaanites worshipped her. Living in close proximity to other ethnicities, the Jews probably adopted their gods. If one is sick, it is obvious that person will light incense at any altar for relief. The Jewish narrative in Genesis was written to depict a Neolithic garden of Eden. Regaining their freedom from Babylonian captivity (539 BCE), Jewish priests wanted a reemergence of Jewish identity without outside influences. The Minoan snake goddess was one of them. Jews finally removed the snake goddess and fertility goddess from their culture by demonizing it. The void was filled by a strong patriarchal god who had no rival. Actually, the snake goddess was a harvest protection symbol in Neolithic times. Putting snakes inside grain warehouses ensured the mice would not eat it.

According to Rachael Brown, some women had a great influence on humanity with their exceptional courage and intelligence. Enheduanna (2285–2250 BCE) was a princess and one of the first known female poets who became the high priestess of Ur. The Mesopotamian city-states of Sumer had queens who ruled. The Egyptians had women pharaohs, but they, like the others, ruled in a male-dominated environment and were easily displaced by a male rival: Mer Neith (2970 BCE), Sobekneferu (1806–1802 BCE), Hatshepsut (1478–1458 BCE), and Nefertiti (1353–1336 BCE) (Brown, 2016). These are Bronze Age femme fatales. By the Iron Age, the influence of the goddess and the female was over. Cleopatra (51–12 BCE) was the exception. It was Julius Caesar who propelled her to fame by dethroning her brother in hopes of a Roman-Egyptian alliance.

In these stressful times, a son or infant of a chieftain was occasionally sacrificed in conjunction with a vow to god for deliverance from one’s enemies. Kings bartered with a gigantic male god living out of sight somewhere on the mountain tops in the same manner they bartered with other kings. If a god would let the chieftain win an important battle, the king might sacrifice his next newborn or oldest son to a god. A polygamist king could afford to sacrifice one of his offspring. As usual for this time period, it was the mother of the sacrificial victim and the victim itself, if old enough to understand, who suffered.

King Jephthah, in Judges 11:30–31 from the Old Testament KJV, said And Jephthah vowed a vow unto the Lord, and said, If, you shalt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into my hands, then shall it be that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me…I will offer it up for a burnt offering. His sacrificial victim happened to be his daughter, his only child. The king of Moab sacrificed his eldest son, who was to reign after him, to thwart aggression from three different armies, including the Israelites. Then he took his eldest son that should have reigned in his stead and offered him for a burnt offering upon the wall (2 Kings 3:27 KJV). It was probably a wide fortified city wall in which the king of Moab (735–715 BCE) sacrificed his son for the life of his people. The king of Moab wasn’t Jewish, which points to the fact that human sacrifice was endemic throughout the Levant at this time. The Jewish King Ahaz (874–853 BCE) sacrificed a son also.

The Tophet, located in the Valley of Gehenna was a place near Jerusalem where it is believed that children were burned alive to the god Moloch Baal (Levenson, 1998). This was no isolated example by the Jewish nation but reflects the type of extreme sacrifice that the leaders of all different ethnicities thought they had to perform to save their kingdom and power from devastation. In Genesis 9:5 KJV, it is implicit that god demanded human sacrifice: And surely your blood of your lives will I require…at the hand of every man’s brother will I require the life of man.

Desperate times require desperate measures. Abraham perceived the sacrifice of his son was diverted by an angel. These high-ranking tribal leaders bartered with god believing he was a flesh-and-blood giant walking unseen on earth. Perhaps Abraham confided in god that he would give his son in sacrifice if he and his people arrived in Canaan, safely. What might have stopped him was his conscience that told him not to kill his son. He interpreted it in the form of the wind or other signs in nature as coming from god.

Death was constant and relentless. With life expectancy at twenty to thirty, one felt fated to a divine destiny over which there was no control. Because of a short life expectancy, women were married early to get the full benefit from their reproductive years, and boys became men in their early teens to maximize work-productive years before early death. There was drought from dry-land farming and waterborne diseases in the summer. Malaria from mosquitoes, as well as viral, bacterial, and protozoan infections from drinking water close to communal garbage dumps were a few of the hazards of life. Of the one million species of worms in existence, many infected humans in the Levant. Flukes were also common and invaded the body through cuts on the feet as the person walked barefoot in water. The worm would enter the bloodstream and travel to different parts of the body, damaging the liver, intestine, and bladder (Michell, 2016). The fiery serpent of the Old Testament was a guinea worm caused by infected water. Drinking contaminated water could cause giardia worms, protozoan parasites, pinworms, or tapeworms. These maladies caused abdominal pain and discomfort. Walking barefoot or working in water barefoot, a person could acquire hookworms.

The schistosomiasis parasite enters the victim’s bare feet through water infected from human and animal feces. The analysis of mummies revealed many different parasites inhabiting the same person. Cardiopulmonary disease was caused by the fumes of indoor cooking without ventilation. Pulmonary disease affected those who worked in mines and traveled through sand storms in the desert. Egyptians had kidney stones, and those who lived in nature received snake and scorpion bites (Butrous, 2020). People were reminded by religious leaders that god had brought these tribulations upon themself because of disobedience to god.

Chapter Two

Late Bronze Age and

Iron Age to 1 BCE

Quality of Life

I

t is an understatement to say disease, infections, and parasites were present in the Levant during the evolution of cities, which grew into nations. Everyone was affected in some way, which was reconciled with a fatalistic view of life as the will of the gods. Disease has been responsible for the Bronze Age collapse, end of the Hittite empire, Egypt’s withdrawal from the Levant and the fall of the Western Roman empire (Norrie, 2016). Staphylococcus and tetanus from cuts were often fatal, as were abscesses. Childhood infectious diseases included whooping cough, diphtheria, and measles. Polio, dysentery, typhoid fever, and tuberculosis were present along with two other killers, smallpox and bubonic plague. Longevity in the Neolithic era actually decreased. Ironically, Paleolithic man and woman averaged thirty-three years, while Neolithic man and woman lived to about twenty-eight. Bronze and Iron Age males and females, along with classical Greece males and females, only lived to their mid twenties. Life expectancy.

Priests were the protectors of public health, and although they weren’t considered doctors, they were knowledgeable about medical diseases, especially contagious diseases. They had the authority to quarantine a person. Bathing rituals were performed with the washing or burning of clothes and utensils and smoking of dwellings. Leprosy, a bacterial disease, was common. People contracted dysentery from bacteria-laden drinking water. Scabies, an itchy irritant, was due to mites from animals. It was high risk for acute respiratory failure, cardiopulmonary arrest, and pneumonia. Scabies will not go away unless treated with topical medications. The first-century population might have had an herbal treatment, but recovery rates have not been documented. Deafness was caused by sand and wax in the inner ear.

Transformation to Monotheism

The Migdol temple (near the Sea of Galilee) had eight hundred years of sporadic worship between 1650 and 850 BCE. From that time, archaeologists unearthed hundreds of artifacts, which points to a shift from polytheism (many gods and goddesses) to monolatrism (dominant god with lesser gods and goddesses) (Saldana, 2008). Each ethnically diverse community had its own dominant god, such as El in Canaan, Hadad in Ugarit, Milkomin in Amman, Chemosh in Moab, Qos in Edom, and Yahweh in Israel. As cities were unified into small ethnic nations under one king, their gods unified under one dominant god. It happened among all ethnicities in the Levant at the same time. Abraham is reported to have smashed idols his father made for the temple but left the one dominant idol standing. When asked who had done this, Abraham replied the dominant statue did it. This is significant because it’s a shift between those progressives who believed in monotheism and those conservatives who continued to believe in monolatrism.

A powerful clan leader, thought to be chosen by god, was anointed by priests and ruled as king. Centralization of small rural villages and a few major cities occurred under one king. The same structure occurred in heaven as one male dominant god reigned supreme with lesser gods around him. Scholars believe the first commandment of Moses implied monolatrism: I am the Lord, your god, thou shalt have no other gods before me (Exodus 20:3). It is interpreted that the dominant god didn’t forbid the worship of other gods; he just didn’t want them to be before him. Monolatrism.

Again, one sees a correlation between emerging social roles and the metamorphosis of the gods. From spirit worship to polytheism to monolatrism to monotheism. All other kings were not as powerful as a king who controlled an entire empire. Other gods were not as dominant as the alpha Iron Age god. Man had sufficiently mastered his environment and was triumphant. Now, the age of the great civilizations would flourish. Because of iron weaponry, one nation could conquer the entire Levant. The Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Hittite, Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Greek, and Roman empires, with strong military forces, conquered weaker nations. One conqueror for the known world became one god for the unknown world.

With shipbuilding improvements, the Egyptians became good seafarers, but the Phoenicians, living along the Mediterranean, were the best. The spread of urban trading networks and their extension along the Persian Gulf and the Eastern Mediterranean created a complex molecular structure of regional foci…There was a series of interacting players including Mesopotamia, Egypt, Syria, the Hittites and the Minoans Trade Routes. Overland caravans carved out trading routes with China and the East along the Silk Road. Rich trading cities sprang up, creating much wealth for the cities and their merchants. The Levant acquired wealth as the middleman for trading from Africa and the East to Greece, Rome, and Eurasia.

The Discovery of Metals and the Beginning of Competitive Metallurgy

In Exodus 35:5, there is mention of brass: An offering of the Lord; gold, silver and brass. Smelting copper and zinc creates brass, which is a hard metal. The Levant traded in metals beginning in the Bronze Age. A major source of desirable metals was the Iberian Peninsula, which includes Spain, Portugal, and southern France. Although iron was very abundant, it had a high smelting point, 2,800 degrees F. The smelting furnaces revved up the heat to forge it with hand-pumped bellows and hardwood. Technology for this was acquired about 1200 BCE. Because of the intense labor of early mining, which was an all-male profession, one can understand the ancient male mind who saw these advances in metallurgy as coming from an all-powerful male god who gifted the metal and these processes to them.

With the evolution of forged iron, which was the strongest known substance at that time, kings demanded superior weapons for greater military strength. The spoils of war included the personal wealth of the vanquished king, mineral rights to his territories, professionals, women for prostitution, and slaves. With new smelting advances, each nation guarded its technology. Skilled metallurgists were highly prized. Hardwoods from Africa burned at hotter temperatures, with slaves employed to pump bellows for oxygen. Once a crucial temperature was reached, the metal was pounded into weapons or hand tools.

Jordan had metallurgy sites, while the Egyptians mined copper from the Sinai and the Dead Sea. The Edomite kingdom had copper mines. The Island of Cyprus was rich in copper; in fact, its name is derived from the word. The Mycenaeans, 1600–1100 BC, had European trading partners, as copper axes made in that region were discovered in Sweden.

"7,000 parts per million of copper, just in the small sample I’ve taken. That’s nearly 7,000 times more than is safe to be in the soil…I can see extremely dangerously high levels of lead, zinc, arsenic…just on this one tiny spot...Imprisoned in