GOD - A BIOGRAPHY

EARLY LIFE AND CAREER (WIKIPEDIA STYLE)

Last time we romped through thousands of years of cultural and religious history and became amazed at Zarathustra’s big idea – revealed to him by the good god Ahura Mazda, that there is a Cosmic War between Ahura Mazda and the evil god Angra Mainyu, that each individual has a part to play in this war, that the war will end soon and there will be an eternal time of bliss.

Now let’s take in further vast time frames, cast our eyes over great civilizations, and imagine, because I know you can, being a Judahite in exile in Babylon, weeping by its waters, remembering Zion, and edging towards the forging of the world’s first proper omniscient, omnipotent, only God.

Kia Ora tatou and welcome to Ending the Cosmic War by me, Karen Effie.

Monotheism is the idea that only one God exists and there is no other god. Zarathustra had a crack at this, but his writings and those that followed are a bit vague about whether or not there was one perfect creator god and then Ahura Mazda and the evil twin Angra Mainyu followed, or that Ahura Mazda was the only god and Angra Mainyu was created afterwards. As Zoroastrian developed, the Immortals, divine beings who had been the good deities of the previous religion, were often worshipped because they were a bit more relevant and approachable. Monotheism devolves, as it were, into polytheism, many gods, perhaps with one god at the top.

There are other ways of doing this one god thing. You could try, there are lots of gods but I like this particular god because they are my tradition or culture or associated with my land. But your gods are fine for you. The Romans were a bit like that. They were promiscuous with their deities. They took on the gods of the cultures they conquered, and a melange of deities emerged over time and place. Or you could try, there are lots of gods, but my god is better than yours. Like my dad can beat your dad. Or you could try, there are lots of gods, but your gods have no power, only my god has any power, my god rules heaven and earth. Or you could try, there is only one god, period. Other gods are false gods, or demons.

The most monotheistic of the major religions is Islam, where that fact that there is only one god is recited daily by believers, in case there was any doubt, because originally there was.

Monotheism has its risks. One of the causes of the fall of the Babylonian civilization was the last king’s preoccupation with the moon god. He moved house to be nearer the moon god’s traditional place of worship, offending almost all of the royal court. The priests and notable worshippers of other gods were also offended. Gods is politics. This ruler lost his grip on the kingdom because he did not take that into account. Monotheism is also risky because of the long association with rulership and the cosmic order. Rulers often represent the cosmic order, and they need to juggle the needs of all of the gods and the priests and devotees of those gods, or the cosmic order is upset, and hell quite literally breaks loose. Gods are a difficult bunch. They all need attention, and if the state religion becomes monotheistic, you need to work out what to do with the leftover gods, who will be unhappy with you. So when one god takes over, old gods become absorbed into the new god, or become demons, or gradually diminish.

This is important for our purposes because the Cosmic War is fought between one good power and one bad. One all-good god and one devil. It is theoretically possible to have multiple good gods vs multiple bad gods, but it has not happened like that historically. I suspect that whole armies of gods would become too diffuse, and you would end up with more nuance than the Cosmic War could manage. You can’t have gods that are mostly good but make mistakes sometimes, or bad gods that lapse into virtue at times. Then you end up with Good Omens series two and the Cosmic War just ends.

The topic of how we got God, the actual one and only creator of the universe who is omniscient and omnipotent, is a huge and serious one, so as usual I will romp through it in a couple of minutes.

Let’s start with Yawheh, the God of the Israelites. Yahweh may have come to the area  of Canaan with the first Israelites. He was a storm god at first. There is an important Story among Middle Eastern and European early gods and it goes like this:

There are many gods, a divine assembly, and there is an old, wise, male god at their head. A terrible monster arises from the sea. The old, wise god can’t kill the sea monster. A younger male god, often a storm god, offers to kill the sea monster. Sometimes after several attempts, and sometimes with the help of the elder god or other forces, the young male god kills the sea monster, and is rewarded with a temple and many divine names. The sea monster is often a figure of primal chaos. This struggle between the divine assembly and the sea monster is often called chaoskampf, a struggle against chaos. When the sea monster is destroyed, the cosmic order is expressed. There are even older versions of this Story that come up in the Rig Veda, among the Indo-Iranian people. And older again, as a version can be reconstructed from what we know of Proto Indo-European religion. When dragons appear in fairy tales, they are remnants of these older Stories.

Yahweh was one of these young, male storm gods. Storm gods are often a mixed blessing. Storms are destructive and violent, but they can also bring new life. If it the rainstorms that bring life to the Nile River and enable ancient Egypt to flourish, for example. Yahweh was a warrior god. He battled sea monsters. He fought up to his knees in the blood of his enemies. He possibly had a wife. He had a longstanding rivalry with Baal, the Canaanite version of himself, I mean he really hated on Baal. A lot of humans got in the way of that one. He made demands of the Israelites, that they worshipped him alone, and that they took his advice in battle. He was corporeal, a great kingly figure, like the ideal man of his age. He was as I described earlier, a god who was a Big Person. The title of this article is deliberately reminiscent of a Wikipedia article, because this is about the biography of God.

Yahwistic religion was always influenced by other religions of the area, especially the nearby Canaanites. Yahweh himself over time became gradually more important. He went from one of several gods worshipped by the Israelites, to the only God, a jealous god who wanted to be worshipped alone. His consort, Asherah, dropped out of the picture. Yahweh kind of absorbed Baal, in a hostile takeover, and then became mixed with the Caananite version of the old wise male god, El. This is why earlier versions of Yahweh have him as the young warrior king, and later versions have him as an old, white-bearded, wise man who heads the divine assembly of beings, and gives advice for living. By now, Yahweh was doing the duty of several gods. He was gradually becoming the only god, not just our god, but the best and most powerful god, the only god we need.

Then the Israelites were exiled to Babylon. You could say that they went to Babylon as Yahwehists, and came back as Jews. It was during the exilic period that Judaism as a whole, world religion was formed. Given that the lands of the Israelites was always small, often subject to one empire or another, always under the harrow, the making of a religion as influential and just plain deep as Judaism, has always been remarkable.

Babylon was not so awful for many Jews. The archaeological and non-Biblical records we have show that many Jews just got on with life in exile, that some of them became influential and trusted by the Babylonians, and quite a lot of them chose to stay when the exile ended. In fact, some of them moved further into the Persian Empire after the exile was over and the Jews were allowed to return to the Holy Land.

Those who struggle with exile were the religious elite. Which makes sense, because they had lost the most. They were the ones who were weeping by the rivers and remembering Zion, while others were just absorbing themselves into the general, multicultural mix that was Babylon. The elite priests and prophets forged Judaism according to its uniqueness. They perceived the exile as a threat to their whole identity, and so they sought to remember that identity and build it up.

During the time of the exile, the Jews came into contact with many other cultures and ideas, including the Persians and their Zoroastrianism. It is clear that Zoroastrianism had some influence over the development of Judaism as a monotheistic religion, although less clear how much that influence was. So the exiled Jews developed ideas, about the end of the world, about an afterlife, about individual salvation, all the elements we need for the Cosmic War.

It was not always an easy fit. Zoroastrianism dealt with theodicy, the problem of evil, by dualism. This was closer to the demon-haunted world of the Mesopotamians, or the Indo-Iranians, for that matter. If there was a problem, it was because of an evil external to humans. Sickness and death? Demons. People being really mean to you? Demons. Headache? A special Mesopotamian headache demon. In Zoroastrianism, good and evil were entirely decoupled. Angra Mainyu presided over armies of demons. Ahura Mazda was the good god who had created the universe, and would win the cosmic war in the end, but for now, during the time called the Mixture, Angra Mainyu was having his time in the sun. The idea of true monotheism did not work for the Zoroastrians. How could a perfect, omnipotent and omniscient God who created everything, create and sustain evil? Where was evil supposed to come from? How can the obvious and true issues of injustice and suffering be assuaged if they are caused by God? This issue of theodicy is one that theologians and philosophers work with today. Our ancestors were no fools. And from the Jewish point of view, how could the God who ruled the universe, who loved and supported their people, create some sort of evil twin like Angra Mainyu?

Remember. Remember who we are. Remember where we came from. Remember how we were powerful, how we conquered and destroyed, how wise our judges and kings were, how strong our lineage. How do we know who we are now? By our uniqueness. By what we do and how we act. By what we eat and what we don’t eat, and the calendar we observe. By how and who we worship. We are not like those around us. We are chosen by our god and tested in the fire of his love. Ours is not just the god of Israel, ours is the God of the universe, the creator, who will exist beyond the universe itself. And we can know God, because God loves us and teaches us. God has made a covenant with us. If we are faithful to God, we will be protected and prosper. Wherever we are, and whatever terrible things happen to us, and there will be many, God will always be God. Unchanging, exalted, transcendent and imminent both, our God.

Gods have always been portable. As groups of people moved around in the ancient world, they took their gods with them, and those gods changed and merged with other gods, and got new names and new characteristics. But the Jewish Yahweh was different. Disasters for the Jewish people were tests of collective faith. They knew if they stayed true, they would be rewarded, but that Yahweh also punished them for faithlessness. Usually, if disaster struck, it was evidence of the ineffectiveness of the god. But for the Jews, it showed that Yahweh was the ruler of the whole cosmos, that Yahweh was able to use the enemies of Israel to punish and instruct.  Wherever the Jews went, and remember they had so often been a subject people, and would continue to be, and whatever terrible tribulations they faced, and as we know they faced many, Yahweh would always be there for them and always be Yahweh, unchanging, omnipotent, and committed to the Jewish people. The memory and hope of Israel would always be with them, remembering the past would be hoping for the future. The future would be a return to Israel, the restoration of the Temple in Jerusalem, and peace for all humanity. Judaism was not quite monotheistic at this stage, but it was a big nudge in that direction.

I want to say something here about history as linear. Some cultures see grand cycles in history. The cultures of the Indian sub-continent have cycles of an original golden age, degeneration of society over time, the collapse of society, a catastrophe, and the cycle begins all over again. This takes millions of years. The Zoroastrian/Jewish/Christian/Islamic view of history looks linear. It starts with an ideal creation, then a break with God and what might have been divine destiny were in not for the sin of humans, or the meddling of evil forces, then a degeneration over time, and then the end of the world. But it is not linear. It is a circular return plot. After the end of the world, there is paradise, where humans live in their best state for ever with God.

So now we have the makings of the Cosmic War. We have something approaching monotheism. We have a dualistic system with an all-good God, and an adversary who had been there from the beginning. We have a Story about a creation that was good, but was tainted by the adversary, and we are now in a period where there is sin and injustice. Soon, this will end. There will be a catastrophe, and a final battle between good and evil. Then we return to the paradise we started from. All the characters are in the wings, getting ready to go on stage. A great saviour hero is giving his armour a final polish. Virtuous rebels are in a huddle. The last world emperor is putting on his orange-tinted makeup. Satan and Antichrist are sharing a bong.

Enter Christianity.

For reading, I recommend Mark S Smith’s ambitious work “The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel”. It is strange to us to think of God having a biography, but God does. Also, for fun, “God, an Anatomy” by Francesca Stavrokopoulou.

Thank you for your company, if you are still with me this far. It’s been a long trip already! I look forward to your company next time. Ma te wa.