I have often heard Christians describe Eastern religions (Taoism/Confuscism/Buddhism/Jainism) as "Atheist religions" since they do not worship any kind of a personal God, like the God of Abraham, Allah, El, Jesus).
What about Hinduism, a religion, cobbled together out of all the Vedic religions along with the folk Gods of 300 different regions of the Indian peninsula/Himalayas.
They have a different God for every person in America. My favorite is Ganesh.
So relative to a Hindu, a Monotheist is 3,000/3,001 percent atheist.
I don't know of any Buddhist/confucian, Taoist or Jain who called him/her-self an atheist or a Nihilist.
They all agree that there is/was a source of life on Earth which wS harmony, ordered, like music.



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 05/19/2019 11:23PM by schrodingerscat.

Uh oh. Sounds like you might be coughing up a hairball again.

Uh oh !
Here we go again.

Taoism and Confucianism are not Vedic religions.

The term dates back to the earliest stages of the Indo-European intrusion into Iran and India, so perhaps 2000 BCE. Those peoples were part of the same religious continuum; they had the same deities although the one community's gods were the other community's demons and vice versa. If you read the Rig Veda (notice the word "Veda"), you'll read both about a sense of universality and about specific gods. That and the other Vedas describe that pantheon.

What happened was that over time the gods lost significance and the universal reality gained importance to the point where the atheistic Vedic religions developed: Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. In some forms of those religions gods (Tibetan Buddhism, for example) remained important, but the mainstream faiths were close to, and sometimes completely, atheistic.

So the answer to your question is three-fold. The original Vedic religion was polytheistic. The later Vedic religions were atheistic. Taoism and Confucianism and other Chinese were not Vedic because they were not in the Indo-European family.

That in turn raises some interesting secondary questions. Was there any significant influence from the Aryan faiths into the Chinese? Some scholars believe there was a slight influence through contacts in Central Asia (people buried in Xinjiang Province, the Tocharians, were Indo-Europeans) and that contributed the Taoism in particular, but that is not firmly established.

Another interesting point is that the independent evolution of atheistic religions in India and in China suggests that humans do not necessarily need to personalize the supernatural. There definitely were folk religions with lots of local gods in China, but like India there were atheistic alternatives fairly early. It's also intriguing that by about 600 BCE the same sort of phenomenon was occurring in Greece, where another Indo-European people were moving from the classical pantheon toward a notion of a single cosmic reality. Some of the Greek texts from that period are are so close to the Indian documents that it is sometimes hard to tell them apart.

Shinto isn't Vedic either.

"Was there any significant influence from the Aryan faiths into the Chinese?"

A more pertinent question might be whether they share some common ancestry rather than mutal influence. The obvious common influence - like you say is from central Asia, which aeems to have sent wave after wave of invaders into China and the Middle East (Europe too) every time there has been a downturn in the climate.

I have heard people discuss whether Taoism has some kind of Indian origin, but I think that's unproven.

I guess some of these influences date so back so far we'll never know.

I find the Indian hypothesis about Taoism interesting in part because there was a story in more than one early text saying that Laozi came from the Southwest of China, where there may have been some influence through what we call Burma and Bangladesh. But that would have been something in the air rather than a direct connection. And the theory is largely speculative.

There is little to indicate contact with the early Taoists through Central Asia. The possibility there is more that the notion of "Tien," or a unitary cosmos known as "heaven" and common to all major Chinese faiths/philosophies, owed something to Indo-European influence through Central Asia. But it is important to remember that the Indo-Europeans were not established even in India and Iran until 2000-1000 BCE and the presence in eastern Central Asia was more dilute and later than to the West. Nor is there any evidence of linguistic borrowing from Indo-European tongues.

So the influence, which I think may well have occurred, would have been pretty marginal. Surely nothing remotely similar to what happened when Buddhism entered China.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Taoism and Confucianism are not Vedic religions.
>
> The term dates back to the earliest stages of the
> Indo-European intrusion into Iran and India, so
> perhaps 2000 BCE. Those peoples were part of the
> same religious continuum; they had the same
> deities although the one community's gods were the
> other community's demons and vice versa. If you
> read the Rig Veda (notice the word "Veda"), you'll
> read both about a sense of universality and about
> specific gods. That and the other Vedas describe
> that pantheon.
>
> What happened was that over time the gods lost
> significance and the universal reality gained
> importance to the point where the atheistic Vedic
> religions developed: Hinduism, Buddhism, and
> Jainism. In some forms of those religions gods
> (Tibetan Buddhism, for example) remained
> important, but the mainstream faiths were close
> to, and sometimes completely, atheistic.
>
> So the answer to your question is three-fold. The
> original Vedic religion was polytheistic. The
> later Vedic religions were atheistic. Taoism and
> Confucianism and other Chinese were not Vedic
> because they were not in the Indo-European family.
>
>
> That in turn raises some interesting secondary
> questions. Was there any significant influence
> from the Aryan faiths into the Chinese? Some
> scholars believe there was a slight influence
> through contacts in Central Asia (people buried in
> Xinjiang Province, the Tocharians, were
> Indo-Europeans) and that contributed the Taoism in
> particular, but that is not firmly established.
>
> Another interesting point is that the independent
> evolution of atheistic religions in India and in
> China suggests that humans do not necessarily need
> to personalize the supernatural. There definitely
> were folk religions with lots of local gods in
> China, but like India there were atheistic
> alternatives fairly early. It's also intriguing
> that by about 600 BCE the same sort of phenomenon
> was occurring in Greece, where another
> Indo-European people were moving from the
> classical pantheon toward a notion of a single
> cosmic reality. Some of the Greek texts from that
> period are are so close to the Indian documents
> that it is sometimes hard to tell them apart.

I was just listening to this lecture, by Dr. Wesley Cecil, who refers to Zorastrianism as Vedic linguisticaly and metaphysically, but Taoism and confucianism as non-metaphysical religions.

https://youtu.be/lZUksUSXH94

That makes sense to me. Confucianism and Taoism have absolutely nothing to say about an afterlife or a soul or a God. They are about ordering society and creating internal and external harmony in this life.

The Indo-Iranian religions are very different. They evolved at roughly the same time a unitary vision of reality: monotheism in Zoroastrianism and nirvana in India. Zoroastrianism's concept of one God then inspired Judaism through the (shared) captivity in Babylon. Meanwhile the Greeks were moving from a pantheon toward monotheism on their own; individual philosophers started talking about God rather than the gods, and that God was impersonal and deistic.

The theme in all these cases, or "a" theme in all these cases, is the human need for a sense of meaning in life and continuity after life. That's why Confucianism and Taoism remained elite religions. The commoners were always more concerned with life and gods, and when Buddhism entered the country they flocked to it and Taoism died out while Confucianism continued to dominate the court and the elite. Further West, the Indian traditions managed to keep popular interest because despite their rejection of gods, they described a process of endless life and a path to eternal happiness.

Judaism was sort of a hybrid of the physical and metaphysical. it offered meaning and eternity but through a cold, distant, male God who seemed (and doctrinally was) unapproachable. So the Canaanites and later the Samaritans never fully bought into it. They might have accepted YHWH in philosophical terms, but they also needed their local fertility goddesses to assuage their anxieties about family, weather, farming, etc. That is why the Mystery Cults were so powerful during the Roman period and why Mary and the saints later grew so pronounced in Catholic Europe. Like Boddhisattvas, they serve as a bridge to the distant God.

History thus suggests that for most people most of the time, religions that make life and the world seem palatable are extremely attractive. In a sense the modern Western trend towards irreligiosity is an experiment regarding whether people are willing and able over the longer term to live life agnostically or atheistically.

>>and why Mary and the saints later grew so pronounced in Catholic Europe. Like Boddhisattvas, they serve as a bridge to the distant God.

I would agree with that. Several of my Catholic friends told me that they pray to Jesus, or Mary, or to a given saint. I think they feel a more personal connection to them.

schrodingerscat Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> I don't know of any Buddhist/confucian, Shinto,
> Taoist or Jain who called him/her-self an atheist
> or a Nihilist.

Shintoism is full of gods, so the point isn't in doubt there.

While believers in the Vedic traditions would not describe themselves as atheists (they wouldn't even address the issue), they most definitely are nihilists albeit in the positive sense of the word. They firmly believe in an ultimate and meaningful reality, so they are not Western nihilists. But they believe the visible and tangible universe is an illusion and the source of suffering, so freeing oneself from that realm is liberation.

Recall that the meaning of "nirvana" is extinguishment, the extinguishment of the individual identity.

Atheists are recorded as having existed in ancient India and ancient Greece, but I think these were fringe movements and individuals.

Buddhism has a strange relationship with gods. Some forms seem to involve them heavily, while others largely dispense with them.

There are a few godless religions around today in the west. They tend to take the form of "self-help" groups (Scientology, NXIVM etc), hard left/right political movements, and pyramid marketing schemes.

"Recall that the meaning of "nirvana" is extinguishment, the extinguishment of the individual identity."

Or individual identity ia an illusion to begin with.

Jordan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Or individual identity ia an illusion to begin
> with.


I believe science could verify this.

"It's a sad man who has to fake all his illusions."
-- Judic West, at the Bat Mitzvah of the adopted daughter of the Earl of Whelch's School Aide

Young Judic gets around.

I've never been convinced that Hinduism is an actual religion so much as just a form of shorthand for Indian (and SE Asian) beliefs which happen to share the same geography. I consider Jazz a bit meaningless as a name for similar reasons.

The main western equivalent I believe is Roman Catholicism which manages to keep an intellectual element side by side with cults of saints and angels which are quasi-gods, and then there are simple folk Catholicisms which have little to do with the Vatican. I see this two/three tier thing occurring in Hinduism - intellectuals, devotional cults and primitive nature worship all being put under the same moniker.

IMHO Hinduism is probably similar to what might have happened if Europe had not gone monotheistic. I point this out to pagans, and also Shinto (which isn't Vedic).

Looks like another bogus effort to equate Atheism with nihilism.

For those who may not know:

I was raised Hindu/Vedanta (Hollywood Vedanta Temple), I am a Jew (my conversion to Judaism took place about thirty-five years ago)....and I came here, to RfM, as the result of a Google search for a fact I needed (I am a writer), in 2002. I have been here ever since.

From a Jewish (and Christian) perspective, this question can probably best be answered by turning the periscope around 180 degrees. This is what Jewish academic authorities say:

[All biblical references in this post are to the Masoretic ("Jewish") text.]

Begin with Abraham in the Bible. After Abraham's wife, Sarah, died, Abraham (Genesis, Chapter 25), "took another wife" (who appears to have been his concubine before, during his marriage to Sarah), and the name of his new wife was Keturah.

Keturah is a very interesting biblical character: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keturah
She had six sons, and those sons became the fathers of sons (this will become important in what we are talking about now).

While Abraham was alive, according to Genesis (Chapter 25), Abraham gave his eldest son (Sarah's son, Isaac) "all that he had unto Isaac."

THAT sentence in Genesis is directely followed by the following sentence: "But unto the sons of the concubines, that Abraham had, Abraham gave gifts; and he sent them away from Isaac his son, while he yet lived, eastward, into the east country."

Jewish authorities say: the text plainly says that Isaac had already received "all that [Abraham] had"--so how could Abraham be giving "gifts" to other sons when he had already given all of his property away?

And the [Jewish] answer is: Abraham's sons other than Isaac received INTELLECTUAL gifts, not three-dimensional objects like stock animals, or properties like real estate.

Where is this "eastward, east country" place that Abraham sent them to?

Jewish authorities say: The greater area in and around what we now know as the Indian subcontinent.

In other words, Abraham's sons (other than Isaac, who "stayed home") became ancient missionaries for Jewish religious and spiritual beliefs, and those "gifts" became one of the foundations of what, in later years, would be known as Hinduism. (There were many local religions already in place, and India would be invaded on a continual basis by other cultures, so Hinduism would eventually take the form of an amalgamated "religion" made up of many different streams of thought, but with a strong Jewish component.)

Change of subject:

Hebrew (like Semitic languages in general) is built on a three-consonant-root system. Those "roots" are used to create numerous other words which, in some way (may be esoteric at times), are related to the meaning of the original root "word."

If a Jewish scholar analyzes the names of Hindu deities using this system:

Abraham (root is B-R-M)=Brahma (Hindu god).
Jokshan (K-SH-N)=Krishna (Hindu god). (Jokshan was the son of Abraham and Keturah). ("SH" is a single consonant in Hebrew.)
Sarah (Abraham's deceased wife)=Sarasvati (Hindu god; wife of Brahma).
Sheba (Abraham's grandson)=Shiva (Hindu god).

http://www.jewfaq.org/root.htm

This would also answer why I, personally, have found so much commonality in Hinduism and in Judaism. The big commonality is that the Hindu concept of Brahman (MUST have the "n" at the end, otherwise it is the personal name of the Hindu God mentioned above) is identical with the Jewish concept of Ein Sof ("without end," more or less), and BOTH Jews and Hindus agree that they are talking about the "same" thing, regardless of whether that "thing" is referred to as Ein Sof, or as Brahman.

I can tell you that there are times when I don't understand what Judaism, OR what Hinduism, is "saying" about a particular topic, and I can look it up in the other one, and from the OTHER one, I am usually able to find a better understanding of the one I began with.

I know this seems ludicrously absurd (Judaism is well known as "the" ancient monotheistic religion, and Hinduism has literally countless gods and goddesses), but it does at least appear to be true.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 05/19/2019 07:30PM by Tevai.

I think the history sounds "ludicrously absurd" because we know the origins of Hinduism and of Judaism. We know that the original monotheism was Zoroastrianism and the Bible itself refers obliquely to the Iranian influence on the emergence of monotheism in Judaism. We also know that the Book of Job was lifted directly from the Avesta and that the second half of the Book of Daniel was likewise lifted from the Iranian literature--that's why the Higher Critics removed it from the Christian Bible after the Enlightenment.

But your idea is not at all absurd in psychological terms. There are mystic elements of all faiths, and mysticism develops as a way to understand the cosmos when actual history fails to conform to religious precepts. Jews were pushed from country to country, killed frequently, and eventually their role as God's chosen only made sense in metaphysical terms. India made similar accommodations, as later would the Sufis. And India likewise conquered China in the form of metaphysical Buddhism.

So it doesn't surprise me at all that ancient religions with people who are both steeped in religious education and worldly enough to know how power works would end up at very similar places.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I think the history sounds "ludicrously absurd"
> because we know the origins of Hinduism and of
> Judaism. We know that the original monotheism was
> Zoroastrianism and the Bible itself refers
> obliquely to the Iranian influence on the
> emergence of monotheism in Judaism.

I wasn't thinking about "original" monotheism exactly, but rather my reading audience here. (The First Commandment of Writing is to know who your intended audience is, and to write "to" that audience.)

I grant that Zoroastrianism predates Judaism, and that Zoroastrianism was the original monotheism.


> But your idea....

This is most definitely NOT "my idea." I just learned this (from an article about Keturah, written by a Jewish academic or rabbi) fairly recently (in the past year or so). The article was written for a Jewish audience, but the content certainly was compelling to me with my Hindu/Vedanta background.

Thank you for your thoughtful response. :)

Not at all. I love it when you write about your religion(s).

The idea of Jewish "pollination" of Indian religion goes both ways, as you know. There are lots of people who think that during the years ignored by the gospels Jesus traveled to India and learned from masters there, then returned to Palestine to teach what became Christianity. The idea seems unpersuasive given that we know roughly the same metaphysical ideas were circulating throughout the Middle East (and arising in the Mystery Cults) at Jesus's time and informed other Jewish sects including the Essenes.

All religions, like all philosophies and all art, is syncretic. The majority of the ideas are present in the milieu in which an innovator works. It is more often than not his/her particular mixture that becomes a new faith. There is very little that springs fully formed from the brow of Jove.

There is a tendency among more chauvinistic Indians to think that they invented everything. They put their Chinese, Scottish and Russian equivalents into the shade that way.

It is not uncommon for them to say that all languages descend from Sanskrit or that all religions originate in India. It's a bit more complicated than that of course, and these people would sooner die than admit India has been at the receiving end of culture as well.

These people also think flight, electricity, atomic bombs and telephones are all Indian inventions.

Jordan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> These people also think flight, electricity,
> atomic bombs and telephones are all Indian
> inventions.

I don't know about electricity and telephones, but flying machines (vimanas) and nuclear weapons/nuclear war, are both described in pretty good detail in the ancient Indian texts (Vedas, Mahabharata).

https://www.gaia.com/article/do-hindu-texts-describing-the-flying-vimanas-also-detail-a-nuclear-war

This type of narrow minded Indian is something of a running joke even within India. Unfortunately, this group has gained a lot of power there in the last while and are modifying the education system to mold children's minds (a trick similar to what a certain political group is up to in the west just now).

These people would spit teeth rather than admit anything was not Indian. Christianity and Islam - of Indian origin. Every language on Earth - of Indian origin. Any form of tech - Indian. It's as if no one else else ever had an original idea! I suspect it's a form of overcompensation for having been invaded so many times. They're as bad as the Afrocentrists who think everything is African - and some whites pander to that due to unconscious shame over what their ancestors did to Africa.

The major collective influence on Eurasian culture seems to be the Central Asian plate rather than India. It was a pretty barbarous place but introduced some innovations such as horse riding and chain mail to the various peoples. The ancient European and Chinese annals seem to relate waves of tribes migrating towards the coasts and attacking more civilized areas right up into the medieval period. The Indo-European languages probably originate among such peoples. Later invaders spoke Turkic languages. A lot of this is euphemistically called the Silk Road, but it was probably as much to do with invasion and bandits. Even ancient Greeks and Romans managed to traverse this region.

Jews and Hindus have shared a few things in common, such as a clerical class which has successfully taken over almost every aspect of personal life. I'm not completely taken with your etymologies but I do find BRHM a atriking similarity.

Part of me wonders if the Jews started as some nomadic caste which got loose of India as the Romany (Gypsies) did. But the other part of me just sees a lot of interconnection. India, Persia and Europe were conquered by people speaking related languages - even today their peoples speak these... Given that the Middle East was sandwiched between Indo-European speakers, you would expsct some influences. I believe the Hittites were IE speakers, and the Persian rulers of Israel would have been too.

How far do we want to take this though? Vedic names appear in the Book of Mormon. Rama is all over the place - Cumorah, also known as the Hill of Ramah or RMH. Note also MoRMon. RaMeumpton - presumably the stand dedicated to Rama.

Going the other way, Hanuman the monkey god, has a name which could be straight out of the BoM. Hanuman, Helaman...

Jordan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Part of me wonders if the Jews started as some
> nomadic caste which got loose of India as the
> Romany (Gypsies) did.

We know the genetics--the Hebrews were Canaanites--and the linguistics--the Hebrews were Canaanites--and the archaeology--the Hebrews were Canaanites--so there is no question of their having migrated from India. The same things that identify the Roma as Indians identify the Hebrews as not Indians.


------------------
> But the other part of me
> just sees a lot of interconnection. India, Persia
> and Europe were conquered by people speaking
> related languages - even today their peoples speak
> these... Given that the Middle East was sandwiched
> between Indo-European speakers, you would expsct
> some influences.

The main influence was when the priestly class was in captivity in Babylon, where they met the priestly class from Persia--who were also in captivity in Babylon. That's when the germ of Judaism developed. The Philistines were also Indo-Europeans, and a lot of their stories and even written formulations ("the high shall be made low and the low shall be made high") come from that source.


----------------
> I believe the Hittites were IE
> speakers, and the Persian rulers of Israel would
> have been too.

Yes, but the Hittites were gone a millennium before the Hebrews emerged as a nation. Interestingly, Colin Renfrew believes the Indo-Europeans may have originated in Anatolia and spread with agriculture from that location. His theory has gained a lot of support over the last 20 years.


----------------
> How far do we want to take this though? Vedic
> names appear in the Book of Mormon. Rama is all
> over the place - Cumorah, also known as the Hill
> of Ramah or RMH.

Moroni and Cumorah came from the Comoros Islands (capital: Moroni) as relayed to New England through Captain Kidd stories. There's no need to reach for India.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/19/2019 08:03PM by Lot's Wife.

I thought Joe senior got ripped off by his partner in the Ginseng business there. Or where he was told the ship went down. It’s what plunged the Smith family into poverty.

Jordan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Jews and Hindus have shared a few things in
> common, such as a clerical class which has
> successfully taken over almost every aspect of
> personal life.

I am assuming that you are using the word "clerical" as from "cleric," and not "clerk."

Other than right-of-center Jews (who have historically, and most certainly for the past few centuries have been, right-of-center observant, especially the Haredi), I disagree with what you are saying here. Most Jews are not "Orthodox"-type observant, even when they identify as "Orthodox."

There are estimated to be about 15 million Jews in the world. Of this number, about two million Jews are actually, Haredi-type, "ultra"-observant, with about two million others who identify as far-right, but aren't actually all that observant compared to that segment of the Jewish spectrum (many Sephardim are in this group).

Other than the Haredim (ultra-Orthodox), however, what do you mean? Most Jews everywhere on the planet are kind of mainstream, within whatever are the local population groups.

> I'm not completely taken with your
> etymologies but I do find BRHM a atriking
> similarity.

These are certainly not MY etymologies--I copied them from the article I read, onto a Post-It, and put that Post-It into my own Genesis, Chapter 25. The authors of that article are (presumably) the ones who did the etymologies.


> Part of me wonders if the Jews started as some
> nomadic caste which got loose of India as the
> Romany (Gypsies) did.

There was obviously some roaming around that Jews (and pre-Jews) did in ancient times, but Genesis 25 refers to a specific "assignment," given by Abraham to his sons born by his wife Keturah.

Mostly, in those times, I have always assumed that Jews were of mostly Canaanite stock. (I can't remember what I was taught during my conversion-to-Judaism classes. I know this was covered, but that was a long time ago.) By the time the Common Era had begun, though, Jews were familiar over great swaths of the world. (Still are. Whole communities, at their request, have been in the past, and are in the process of being right now, brought to Israel to reestablish their place among the Jewish people. The current list from Kulanu, a New York-based organization whose goal is reuniting "lost" Jewish communities with the whole of the Jewish people, is astounding--at least, it certainly was to me, when (very recently) I became aware of this organization and what it is doing.

https://kulanu.org/


> But the other part of me
> just sees a lot of interconnection. India, Persia
> and Europe were conquered by people speaking
> related languages - even today their peoples speak
> these... Given that the Middle East was sandwiched
> between Indo-European speakers, you would expsct
> some influences. I believe the Hittites were IE
> speakers, and the Persian rulers of Israel would
> have been too.

Also true.


> How far do we want to take this though? Vedic
> names appear in the Book of Mormon. Rama is all
> over the place - Cumorah, also known as the Hill
> of Ramah or RMH. Note also MoRMon. RaMeumpton -
> presumably the stand dedicated to Rama.

Remember that Joseph Smith (I think! It was SOMEONE like Joseph Smith in Mormonism!) studied ancient Hebrew with a rabbi. Smith would have known ALL ABOUT three-letter-roots! He was paying a rabbi for instruction in them!


> Going the other way, Hanuman the monkey god, has a
> name which could be straight out of the BoM.
> Hanuman, Helaman...

Good observation, and one that would never have occurred to me. Kudos! :)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/19/2019 10:58PM by Tevai.

My view of the ancient Jews/Hebrews (as opposed to contemporary ones - a whole different story) is that their origins are much more complex than the OT/Tanakh says although there are hints. I suspect they are a combination of:

* A nomadic people - this would tie in with the stories of Abraham and Moses traveling for years on end. Something like the Bedouin. (The Book of Mormon picks up on this big time). They probably wandered up and down the Fertile Crescent, maybe herders, maybe traders.

* An indigenous people - there was far more Canaanite intermarriage than they would admit to.

* Refugees from ancient Egypt - probably escaped slaves and outlaws etc - this is hinted at by the Moses story (Moses means Egyptian) and the Joseph narratives.

* Various invaders. In this region there were a lot. Some people say Jerusalem was the most frequently besieged city on Earth. These would include Hittites, Greeks, and the ancestors of the Arabs. Some invaders stay, and some, I'm afraid to say rape. In modern times we saw this with armies in Europe.

* People coming from/returning from Babylon, the eastern Persian empire. The Adam, Noah and Esther (Ishtar) stories seem to come from here.

The Egyptian and Babylonian Empires seem to have been major influences. The Semitic languages are supposed to have originated in the region of Babylon I think.

T said:
>Jewish authorities say: the text plainly says that Isaac had already received "all that [Abraham] had"--so how could Abraham be giving "gifts" to other sons when he had already given all of his property away?
>And the [Jewish] answer is: Abraham's sons other than Isaac received INTELLECTUAL gifts, not three-dimensional objects like stock animals, or properties like real estate.


This strikes me as a real eye-roller work around. The text contradicted itself so that's what they came up with? Abraham's "intellectual" gifts like conmanship and mental illness? What on earth gave them the impression Abraham was smart? It seems according to (insert any) Rabbi quote all the Jews are above average! :-)

dagny Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> T said:
> >Jewish authorities say: the text plainly says
> that Isaac had already received "all that
> had"--so how could Abraham be giving "gifts" to
> other sons when he had already given all of his
> property away?
> >And the answer is: Abraham's sons other than
> Isaac received INTELLECTUAL gifts, not
> three-dimensional objects like stock animals, or
> properties like real estate.
>
>
> This strikes me as a real eye-roller work around.
> The text contradicted itself so that's what they
> came up with? Abraham's "intellectual" gifts like
> conmanship and mental illness?

First: This is the way Jewish texts are often written....and then argued, among those learned in Jewish texts and laws. Kids growing up in Jewish homes and communities begin to learn how to do this at fairly young ages. This kind of analysis (whether it involves legal matters, or what time a child is supposed to go to bed), this is one of many components of Jewish culture.

Secondly: I don't understand where "conmanship" and "mental illness" come into this discussion. Please explain, so I know what you are talking about.


> What on earth gave them the impression Abraham was smart?

I don't know of any instance where anyone thought Abraham was dumb. Why would you think he was less-than-average intelligent when compared to others living in that time and in that place?


> It seems according to (insert any) Rabbi quote all the Jews
> are above average!

In ancient times, Jews (as was true of many peoples who lived at that same time) were developing intellectually. Part of that development is both explicit, and implicit, in the texts, and the other parts were the in-process development of general Jewish culture.

I am fairly confident that Jews had the same Bell Curve spread back then as is true now.

I don't understand "(insert any) Rabbi"--because no rabbi would ever say that "all Jews are above average" because this is not true. There are, and always have been, mentally-challenged Jews in all generations, and many Jewish communities around the world are not (on average) as [smart] as are middle- and upper-middle class Jews (particularly Ashkenazis) in westernized, well educated, industrialized countries.

The Jewish communities who do tend to have (on average) above-local-average IQs are usually the beneficiaries of many generations of Jews who have consciously selected mates according to intelligence and intellectual accomplishments, who have had better diets than Jews not as fortunate, and who have lived under [at least comparatively] better, healthier, and safer conditions than many other world peoples have had to put up with. Add in the cultural expectation (akin to the expectations of Asian parents and families) that everyone WILL work extremely hard in what amounts to academic and business achievements (regardless of which era this takes place in), and the results of Jewish culture will obviously be similar to what anyone can observe in many Asian cultures--although the "kind" of intelligence involved is different. Taken together, as a single group (and not as individuals), Jews tend to excel in verbal intelligence, and Asians tend to excel in spatial intelligence.

(Obviously, there is considerable crossover in real life: there are Jewish scientists and mathematicians, and Asian writers, attorneys, and creators of artistic productions.)

Is this what you were asking about?

I feel at a loss here because I don't understand.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/20/2019 02:44AM by Tevai.

About Abraham, just the highlights here about hearing God all the time, almost sacrificing his kid, deciding he HAD to take a handmaiden are no different than what many other religious figures have pulled.

JS didn't do anything new. He was just another conman or psychopath talking to god, justifying his actions as the leader. I don't find the stories about Abraham admirable at all.
That's all I was referring to: Prophets are conmen or self deluded and there is no reason to think the Jewish ones were special, IMO.

Why not just admit the text had probably had conflicts or errors instead of making up things to argue about? I know Jews seem quite proud of that part of their culture, but it strikes me as borderline dishonest some of the time. We've talked about this before so really, nothing to add.

It was intended to be a Lake Wobegon joke that all the children are above average. That was why the happy emoticon was there.

My guess as to an interpretation of that verse (I'm confident this is one of the many ideas explored by Jewish scholars) is based on the way nomadic societies function. The reason clans or tribes maintain an alliance in war is the distribution of "gifts" from the leader. The day the leader stops distributing booty, the federation breaks up as the constituent parts go their own way. When a chieftain approaches death, one son is chosen as successor and the others are given "gifts" in the coin of territory, animals, etc. The successor then gets everything that remains, including the best territory, the title of chieftain, and the personal relationships with other tribes.

Applying that to the Biblical text, Abraham would have sent his non-successor sons to specific territories with substantial wealth and then have given the homeland and title to Isaac. In effect, the "gifts" would have been costs and the net balance would have gone to Isaac. This interpretation makes sense to me because the canonical text portrays Abraham as a nomadic chieftain with extensive relationships with other tribes who sent his secondary sons to distant places and then gave everything else he had to Isaac.

I did not think about the way nomadic societies function because I know very little about them. (The sum total of my knowledge of nomadic societies is about the Khoisan in South Africa, so even this knowledge--for which I thank the University of South Africa--would be substantially misleading in this present discussion.)

I thank you very much for including this, because although this likely has been discussed within Jewish learning groups from time to time, I do not ever, personally, recall it being mentioned.

I will not forget this as something to include in my thinking in the future, and I thank you, Lot's Wife.

No thanks necessary. I benefit from your insights all the time, and your patience, and your interpersonal wisdom.

Regarding the subject of nomadic political and economic organization, it always strikes me as an essential perspective on the very early Hebrew material. Whether one believes in the narrative literally or thinks it is an amalgamation of tales from the various cultures and places, as I do, the stories about Abraham are definitely desert tales and hence nomadic. The tribal confederations, Jethro, Melchizedek, sending one brother to the east of the Jordan River and the other to the west: these all make more sense if conceived as solutions to the problem of managing herds in regions with limited water and grasslands. So too the sojourn in Egypt and some other episodes.

The same is true of the long lists of "begats." To sedentary people that stuff sounds dry and meaningless, yet to nomadic peoples whose survival depends on personal relationships and historic alliances, family history is a vital matter. You accordingly see the same sorts of pedigrees in oral histories from the Central Asian steppe and among early Arab writers. Historians like Ibn Kaldun would not imagine writing without including those facts, which are sometimes the keys that unlock otherwise impenetrable events.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/20/2019 02:20AM by Lot's Wife.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> Applying that to the Biblical text, Abraham would
> have sent his non-successor sons to specific
> territories with substantial wealth and then have
> given the homeland and title to Isaac.

If they got substantial wealth, I would not call that an intellectual gift (whatever that means).

Maybe I can buy your clarification if that is what Tevai meant.

Intellectual property to me could imply creative thought (e.g. trademarks) of the time.

Intellectual gifts does not mean the same as intellectual property gifts to me.

My point is, why not just take the verses at face value instead of the elaborate "interpretations" which smack of apologetics. We don't know exactly what was given so why make stuff up.

Tevai, I know you don't agree with my views of course.

I'm not trying to refine Tevai's interpretation but to present a different one. The way rabbis work, exploring every possible explanation, I'd suspect that others have considered what I'm saying before.

A lot of these questions have no definitive answers. A text so old, moreover one that likely represented a summary of older oral histories, is bound to be a skeleton whose meaning requires fleshing out. The exercise of thinking these things through is itself enlightening as well as, for believers, a form of meditation even if all solutions to the puzzle are inevitably tentative.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I'm not trying to refine Tevai's interpretation
> but to present a different one. The way rabbis
> work, exploring every possible explanation, I'd
> suspect that others have considered what I'm
> saying before.
>
> A lot of these questions have no definitive
> answers. A text so old, moreover one that likely
> represented a summary of older oral histories, is
> bound to be a skeleton whose meaning requires
> fleshing out. The exercise of thinking these
> things through is itself enlightening as well as,
> for believers, a form of meditation even if all
> solutions to the puzzle are inevitably tentative.

Yes!!

dagny Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> If they got substantial wealth, I would not call
> that an intellectual gift (whatever that means).

What it means is concepts and knowledge--the things human societies learn as they continue through time. In this context, it "could" contain whatever were the intellectual beginnings of the Ein Sof/Brahman concept, whatever knowledge had been acquired about human anatomy and physiology, information about medicinal herbs, or acquired practical knowledge (as the only example I can think of: eating uncooked or rare pork can lead to the disease we, in contemporary times, call trichinosis). It could also include any mathematics, or astronomical knowledge or observations, that had been acquired by that time, or building techniques for structures more permanent than tents.

Throughout history, and until fairly recent centuries, what Jews have most "had" (the "suitcase" Jews carry with them from place to place, whether that migration is voluntary or forced) is intellectual concepts and knowledge. It has always been knowledge that can make other people's lives better in some way (how to build a better privy than the ones being built in the "new" area), or can prompt their new neighbors to think in new ways.

> Intellectual property to me could imply creative
> thought (e.g. trademarks) of the time. Intellectual gifts
> does not mean the same as intellectual property gifts to me.

Since the ancients did not have trademarks, this is not a consideration in biblical texts. There was certainly a body of knowledge and expertise (in areas like plant knowledge, agriculture, etc.) which COULD be transmitted to other people in other places.


> My point is, why not just take the verses at face
> value....

Except for the genealogies and perhaps a portion of the historical facts, the biblical texts were not WRITTEN at face value. There are "layers" (my word) of information within the written word. (This is why "one letter," or something similar, would be used within a verse instead of a more common letter--when this happens, there is INFORMATION being included.) Think of WWII radio broadcasts, where the surface of the broadcast (weather data or whatever) was perfectly factual and made perfect sense....but, to those operating underground in the relevant areas, multiple data points were being transmitted: information, warnings of impending actions by enemy forces, etc.) There are parts of the Old Testament which were, to some extent, written this way, which is why "this" word was substituted for what was usually "that" word.


> ....We don't know exactly what was given so why make stuff > up.

From what has been discovered (both pre-1948 and post-1948, when Israel became a state) the fragments of ancient manuscripts HAVE been what the Hebrew Bible says. There are other ways of verifying factual data: archaeological digs and what they find, ancient Egyptian records, Babylonian records, etc. No one is "making stuff up" when it comes to the Jewish texts.

[EDITED TO ADD: There are anomalies, though--and some of them are important. For example: archaeologists in Israel may find the remains of a specific ancient community cited in the texts, but the remains are in the "wrong" date level according to what was written in the biblical report, or they may be located in the "wrong" place. Similar discoveries have been made which question some biographical data in the biblical texts.]


> Tevai, I know you don't agree with my views of
> course.

Irrelevant. We're talking, and this is what is important.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/20/2019 02:26PM by Tevai.

schrodingerscat Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I have often heard Christians describe Eastern
> religions (Taoism/Confuscism/Buddhism/Jainism) as
> "Atheist religions" since they do not worship any
> kind of a personal God, like the God of Abraham,
> Allah, El, Jesus).


Sure why not


> What about Hinduism, a religion, cobbled together
> out of all the Vedic religions along with the folk
> Gods of 300 different regions of the Indian
> peninsula/Himalayas.

What about them


> They have a different God for every person in
> America.

Do they have any for themselves though?

Couldn't resist.

> My favorite is Ganesh.

Remover of obstacles. One of the most popular ones over there.

> So relative to a Hindu, a Monotheist is
> 3,000/3,001 percent atheist.

Yeah no it doesn't work like that

Most "Hindus" (the term itself is porblematic so we'll let that slide) might be called henotheist, i.e. they recognize or allow for the existence (or possibility) of any number of deities, but only feel drawn to one particular one or a related group of deities. Most Indians are thus called Shaivite (Shiva), Vaishnava (Vishnu/Krishna), for instance. IIRC those are the two big divisions.

Like most non-monotheists (I like this term better than pagan or polytheist), they may occasionally work with other deities for specific purposes or needs, e.g., to take Ganesh above, the remover of obstacles, he may be called upon when one faces a particularly difficult challenge. Musicians may work with Sarawsvati, goddess of music. And so forth.

Few if any Hindus would just dismiss other deities out of hand or specifically deny their existence, even if they don't worship them themselves.

ISKCON (Intl Society of Krishna Consciousness) is a special case. Suffice it to say it is a modern group, formed in the 20th century, and its extreme emphasis on Krishna to the exclusion of all else is not typical of Hinduism.

> I don't know of any Buddhist/confucian, Taoist or
> Jain who called him/her-self an atheist or a
> Nihilist.

True. Also, Buddhist doctrines take GREAT pains to distinguish its teachings from nihilism, because that was considered a potential side effect of following Buddhist teachings. The "Middle Way" makes a very clear point of following the "razor's edge" between essentialism/eternalism on the hand and nihilism on the other hand.

Anyway, nihilism is considered a defect or error in Buddhism and something to be avoided. They make some good logical arguments for their case but too much to go into here and I've forgotten a lot of what I studied years ago. Suffice it to say whatever argument you've thought of, some Buddhist philosopher already considered it a thousand years ago.

> They all agree that there is/was a source of life
> on Earth which wS harmony, ordered, like music.

Sure, you could say that.

It's interesting to me to see the ways religions develop. For example, the Abrahamic religions started with There Are Gods and transitioned to These Are Our Gods (and They're Better Than Yours), to This Is Our Favorite God, to Our Favorite God Is The Only Real God and All The Others Are Fake. Other religions started with There Are Gods and transitioned to The Gods Aren't All That Important, to Forget the Gods and Focus On the Bigger Picture.