Fascinating idea that may shine more relevant as archaeological findings continue to craft various narratives of the Bible’s origins in the ancient near east
I speculate that Babylon is in Eden. What historians say about Babylon as a kind of paradise justifies it. The city is within the Rivers Tigris and Euphretes.
I have a few problems with this thesis. First, before agriculture humans ate very well. They were expert hunters and ate a highly nutritious meat based diet. Archeological evidence shows that although agriculture allowed for the creation of cities with much larger concentration of populations, nutrition based on agriculture was vastly inferior to the pre-agricultural diet. Second, cave paintings and other evidence points to the fact that pre-agricultural humans had a deep spiritual life. It is not true that humans had no time for a spiritual life; in fact, the amount of time necessary to hunt and gather enough food to live was not that great, and there was a lot of "free time" for humans to contemplate. Post agriculture, the vast majority of humans worked much harder. What was created, however, was a rich elite that did not have to work. These were the courts of the kings, the upper classes and slave holders. Are these the spiritual masters that were necessary to contemplate the existence of G-d?
I disagree with your line of thinking. Nothing he said insists pre agriculture humans were not spiritually inclined. On the contrary, primitive versions of deification were essential to humans or their predecessors making sense of life. The sun, rain, etc.- but I believe his point is rather that in order to come to the highly stable and penultimate conclusion that none of the entities that seem to impact existence are in fact worthy of worship, it would require a stability and predictability that did not exist when we were in the hunter-gather stage. My view is that it requires massive iteration from several civilizations for us to arrive at the point that we understand that G-d is transcendent and yet, has “opinions” within the human moral-social life.
Love it!
Thank you Jeremy!
Fascinating idea that may shine more relevant as archaeological findings continue to craft various narratives of the Bible’s origins in the ancient near east
I speculate that Babylon is in Eden. What historians say about Babylon as a kind of paradise justifies it. The city is within the Rivers Tigris and Euphretes.
בין נהר פרת ונהר חידקל
על ההר מיתמר דקל
ובדקל בין עפאיו
תשכן לה דוכיפת זהב
I have a few problems with this thesis. First, before agriculture humans ate very well. They were expert hunters and ate a highly nutritious meat based diet. Archeological evidence shows that although agriculture allowed for the creation of cities with much larger concentration of populations, nutrition based on agriculture was vastly inferior to the pre-agricultural diet. Second, cave paintings and other evidence points to the fact that pre-agricultural humans had a deep spiritual life. It is not true that humans had no time for a spiritual life; in fact, the amount of time necessary to hunt and gather enough food to live was not that great, and there was a lot of "free time" for humans to contemplate. Post agriculture, the vast majority of humans worked much harder. What was created, however, was a rich elite that did not have to work. These were the courts of the kings, the upper classes and slave holders. Are these the spiritual masters that were necessary to contemplate the existence of G-d?
I disagree with your line of thinking. Nothing he said insists pre agriculture humans were not spiritually inclined. On the contrary, primitive versions of deification were essential to humans or their predecessors making sense of life. The sun, rain, etc.- but I believe his point is rather that in order to come to the highly stable and penultimate conclusion that none of the entities that seem to impact existence are in fact worthy of worship, it would require a stability and predictability that did not exist when we were in the hunter-gather stage. My view is that it requires massive iteration from several civilizations for us to arrive at the point that we understand that G-d is transcendent and yet, has “opinions” within the human moral-social life.