History
oliver geraghty
conclusions in the deaths of Jesus, Caligula and others.
Judaism and Christianity have made the modern world.
Bronze age gods had an appetite for child blood.
The blood sacrifice, our greatest taboo, strengthened commitment and was the
mark of male supremacy.
Under a structure of law and justice, there were many arbitrary rules and
restrictions. Justice extended to slaves and strangers.
Male dominance and justice gave Jewish women, who by definition could not be
oppressors, great and stabilising influence.
A fortress, rock upon rock, designed in savage times to exclude outsiders
and control insiders. Because exclusion clashes with human nature and
justice, there is an emphasis on kindness to strangers.
All countries are sacred, but a small confederation of tribes at the
crossroads of empires needs to make theirs holy.
In very hard times, there was an idea of atonement through suffering and the
mythological defeat of Egypt could no longer sustain. The Jewish god became
the god of all the world. There was already a god of all the world in
Persia. Owning the god of all the world is a giant boost, but a problem if
others take the claim seriously.
Jewish colonies in Rome and other places, on their best behaviour, must have
impressed thoughtful observers.
An attractive religion of law justice and family, but rule, blood and land
bound was ripe for takeover.
Christianity was born in the modern world with Greek ideas and Roman sexual
equality. There were no dietary restrictions and the contract was
painless and equal. There was instant acceptance and forgiveness,
irrespective of status or previous relationships. The centre was no longer
the family, but the individual. There was little or no ritual requirement
and no whole-life commitment.
To balance these freedoms, there was an imaginative, omnipresent Roman-style
hell for trivial offences and thought crime. One of the pleasures of the
saved was a seat in the stands to enjoy the tortures of the eternally
dammed.
The genitals are taboo in all branches of Judiaism and control was exerted
through great sexual repression with the cult of the virgin mother and son
and the extension of the idea of abomination. Language supports this; sex
is an abrupt ugly word that could be shouted to bully a dog, and ssssexssss
hisses for itself.
To be the new chosen people, the old ones had to be dispossessed.
The central event and symbol of Christianity is not the resurrection, but a
sickingly brutal execution, which has been preceded by torture, as the
result of an evil plot by vile jealous people. Together with the given
character of Jesus, this may arouse the self- righteous anger of the lynch
mob.
The emphasis on love gives total moral authority and therefore
justification. The god of love runs the most impressive eternal torture
chamber. Love is special and personal but when it is perverted to expected
and general (i.e. god and country) it becomes a monster. There are very
strict limits to the bad things we will do for profit or revenge, but love
knows neither limit nor reason.
The tolerant Romans were merely offended by Jewish contempt for their gods,
but an intolerant, aggressively recruiting version of Judaism was seen as a
threat to Rome's traditions and gods. Anybody could be a Christian and they
thrived on martyrdom. Rome learned helpless rage and religious intolerance,
the stage was set.
Islam, a product of tougher times than Christianity, but easier ones than
Judaism, required the blood sacrifice and whole-life commitment but was less
rule bound than Judaism and less divisive than Christianity. Tolerance
comes from inner strength.
Individuality and pressure (internal or external) are a forcing-ground for
new ideas. Christian culture has been on the front line and paid the
price.
Judaism is a country of the mind; Christianity and Islam are empires of the
mind, the successor states to the Roman empire.