Article titled "Moses, Suffering, and the Burning Bush: Encountering the Original Face of God" by R. Boaz Johnson
Copyright, Covenant Companion magazine (If you share this article, please post this info on it, so people know where it comes from.)
A FEW YEARS AGO SCHOLARS OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY argued that religions and the concept of the divine followed the evolutionary pattern. During the initial stages, it was argued, the primitive human beings came up with an idea of the divine called animatism. This was the worship of numerous natural forces. This was followed by animism--the idea that there is a god in everything, in every molecule. This is also called pantheism.
The next stage in the development of religion was polytheism--the worship of many gods and goddesses. As the theory went, monotheism (the worship of one God) evolved from polytheism.
There was one major problem, though. Archeological findings did not match with this evolutionary pattern. Instead archeologists found that the earliest human beings worshiped one God. They were not animatists or animists. They were monotheists. In fact, polytheism and animism are actually corruptions of the original idea of one God. This gradual corruption of religion took shape approximately between 2,000 and 1,500 BC. This was a WORLDWIDE PHENOMENON.
A study of Egyptian texts from this period shows this process of degeneration. The writers of the Old Testament also bear witness to this degeneration of religion. They show that polytheism was a corruption of the original religion, the worship of one God.
The next part deals with Egyptian religion and the various gods and goddesses. Rather than typing the whole article, I think I'll just make some references to the rest of it.
Ptah was the god of magic and miracles. The priests and priestesses did their magic by the power of Ptah.
Pharoah claimed to be the god Horus, who emerged out of the river Nile to rule Egypt.
Out of this darkness, Moses encountered the original face of God, which is of course, monotheism.
Perhaps this will stir up some conversation ...
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Comments: 3
this is interesting
Yes, I think we've gotten so accustomed to hearing about the Creation versus Evolution schools of thought that we forget that religion and science are both creations and evolutions themselves. I like Henri Bergson's more intuitive way of looking at things in his Creative Evolution. He simply states that life transcends intellect, and that any kind of interpretation of life has to incorporate the romance of the singleness of function with the complexity of organ. The eye has only one function but the eye itslef is made up of a multiplicity of parts. Understanding can be best derived from the intuition rather than dissecting everything into individual components until you've lost all sense of what it was you were initially attempting to describe.
The beauty of Boaz's descriptions of religion, as Bergson's descriptions of science, are that they are so simple and easy to understand, without demanding a sacrificial giving up of the reader's intelligence.
I believe we have a major find here, an evolution in human thought and expression that is outstanding. Boaz is finding ways to explain the complex operations of God through the simple functions of the powers of One. I don't find a lot of dogma or wasted space here. He gets straight to the point in a very short order.
Eastern thought has always intriqued me. Ageless Body and Timeless Mind type writings confuse me with its mysticism about how we can control our moods and such. But of course all of that is sort of theoretical knowledge that is based on clinical trials and such that don't get any mention, making it sound as if it is all mental science. If on the other hand you listen to an indian physician speak on body cycles and the specifics of getting regular rest, not watching tv or having bright lights turned on before bedtime to get better sleep, natural brain chemicals that promote rest (I forget the name) and tryptophan from turkey meat, it all starts making sense.
Boaz has benefited greatly from being born in India.