WHY YOUR MORALITY IS MY PROBLEM: modern holdovers from ancient theology
James Dobson, founder of the ultra-conservative Focuson the Family organization, reputedly saidof the 2012 Sandy Hook mass shooting, “I think we have turned our back on theScripture and on God Almighty and I think He has allowed judgment to fall uponus.”
As heartless as that sentiment sounds today when addressingthe murder of 20 first-graders (and 6 adults) at an elementary school, it reflectsa once-common theology that emerged about four thousand years ago in theancient near east (ANE*), then bled into the Mediterranean basin and developedan astonishingly long half-life. It’s why some Christians (et al.) are so,so concerned with what their neighbors are doing behind closed doors. Or ontheir front lawns with all those Pride flags.
In some ways, ANE and Mediterranean religion had a lot incommon, being traditional and focused largely on sacrifice/action (orthopraxic).Over time, some orthodoxic religions also arose in that area. So, first, let’sdo some quick defining.
Orthopraxic religions focus on what one DOES,not what one believes. Performing the sacrifice correctly, honoring thegods/ancestors appropriately…that’s how one shows piety. Infringing againstpurity laws or other affronts to the gods (impious actions) can resultin expulsion from the community. Fights over correct practice can leadto schism in a community.
Orthodoxic religions focus on what one BELIEVES.Thus, they need some form of authoritative text to determine what IS rightbelief, resulting in the emergence of a canon (e.g., Zoroastrian Avesta,Jewish Tanakh, Christian New Testament, or Muslim Qur’an).In Orthodoxic religions, wrong beliefs (heresy) can result in expulsionfrom the community. Fights over correct belief can lead to schism in acommunity.
(There’s yet a third focus, orthopathic, but that largelydoesn’t apply here. “Orthopraxic” can also apply to ethics-based religions, buthere, it applies to ritual/cultic behavior.)
Most religions have elements of all three, but it matterswhere the weight falls. Yes, religions can emphasize two sides of the triangle moreheavily, less on the third, but even then, one point will be the chiefmeasurement of devoutness among followers. This also help us understand why tworeligions might not understand each other very well sometimes. They’retrying to impose one set of “What religion is for” ideas on another, withentirely different assumptions.
The religions of the ANE and Mediterranean had much incommon in terms of the purpose of religion: to maintain the health of acommunity. This depended on the piety of that communities’ members. Their godsweren’t moral in the modern sense, but could be jealous, fickly, and petty.
Why were they gods then?
Because they were immortal and more powerful.
Yet an important difference between (many) ANE andMediterranean religions were the concepts of sin and “mesharum” (divinejustice/equilibrium). If the latter existed (sorta) in Mediterranean society,“sin” really didn’t. Impiety differs as it can include ritual matterstoo. So, if murder (especially kin murder) created uncleanness anywhere andis a moral/civil matter, menstruation and sex also created uncleanness,but were not moral/civil matters defined as “bad.” So “unclean” ≠ “sin.”
To be unclean is a matter of cultic purity, differentfrom moral purity. Yes, ANE religions also had ritual uncleanness, to be sure.And yes, some things that make one unclean also have intimations of “badness”without being so extreme as murdering someone. Yet I want to underscore thedifference because it’s very real and too often ignored/misunderstood/unfairlyconflated.
Many Mediterranean religions did not have “sin,” justunclean and impious. MORAL/ETHICAL matters were dictated by civil law andlater, philosophic discussion. Not religion. Yet in the ANE, moral infractions wereaffronts to mesharum (divine order) and were therefore a religiousmatter. This oversimplifies, but smash-and-grab works for now. We findactions (like iconoclasm) in the ANE that didn’t often apply in theMediterranean. (Iconoclasm is the deliberate theft, or in extreme cases,destruction of religious icons or structures.)
Yet what both groups shared was a sense that the godshad, well, “bad aim.” If people in a community were impious and/or sinful,that might draw the ire of the gods. Plagues were often seen as divineretribution for the impiety and/or sin of one or more members of that community,but not necessarily all of them. This led to the exile of impious individuals,as well as the ANE “scapegoat” ritual, et al. (If you’re familiar with the plotof the Iliad, Apollo punished the entire Greek army for the impiousactions of Agamemnon.)
I could DIE from your impiety/sin committed in mytown/community.
That makes your morality my business.
In addition, especially in the ANE, war on earth wasbelieved to reflect war in heaven. Gods had cities and peoples, not the otherway around. They chose you, you didn’t god-shop—hence Israel as a “chosenpeople.” Well, yeah, pretty much every ethnic group was chosen by some god(s).But as a result, if your side lost in a war, then—theoretically—your gods wereweaker. Maybe you should go over and start worshiping their gods. Yet thatdidn’t sit well with most groups, so by the Middle/Late Bronze Age, we see anemerging idea that my god isn’t “weaker” than yours, rather my general “setforth without the gods’ consent,” or my god permitted the other god(s)to win for whatever reason…usually due to sin or a lack of piety among his (orher) people. Of course we find this in the prophetic literature of the HebrewBible, but it’s in a lot of other ANE literature too. Nabû or Marduk didn’t lose, they “wentto live with” Ashur for however many years—although the winning side willportray the victory as Nabû and Marduk traveling to Nineveh to bow before (e.g.,submit to) Assur.
Again, this is simplified, but we don’t see this sort oflanguage used in Greece where Hera would bow to Athena because the city-stateof Athens defeated Argos, even if, as promachos (foremost in battle),Athena might be expected to win in any conflict between the two (as inEuripides’ Children of Herakles). Hera is still queen of the gods, and—evenmore—these are shared deities. We also don’t see it because notions of“sin” don’t apply and only a handful of wars were ever called “sacred”—all ofthem concerning Delphi and cultic purity. At least one of those is mythical,the second probably didn’t happen, and the third (which certainly didhappen) was labeled “sacred” only by one side. Greek gods just weren’t seen touphold justice the same way. Roman gods were more concerned with such things, butstill not as we find in the ANE.
Ergo, the ANE faced the problem of theodicy: ifgod/the gods are good/just, why does tragedy happen?
Early explanations for tragedy were simple: those who suffermust have earned their suffering, sometimes referred to as DeuteronomicTheology: “good things happen to good people”/“bad things happen to bad people”(and maybe their neighbors too, by chance).
Pushback against this notion emerged around the same time amore nuanced view of loss in war emerged. People began to ask the corollary:“Why do bad things happen to good people?”
The (c. 1700 BCE)Mesopotamian Ludlul bēl nēmeqi (The Poem of the Righteous Sufferer)attempted an answer. About a thousand years later (600s-500s BCE), the Jewish Book ofJob took it on as well. In both, the protagonist asks, “Why doesMarduk/Yahweh punish me when I’ve been a faithful servant?” Both protagonists werepreviously wealthy/powerful, which was seen as divine approval. Losing thatwealth/health suggested they had offended their god (and are being punished). Yeteach one claims he did not sin—so why?
The answer in both works is similar: there’s not really ananswer. Marduk restores Šubši-mašrâ-Šakkan, who ends the poem with a prayer ofthanksgiving. Job has a chat with Yahweh, who essentially tells him, “You’re ameasly mortal, don’t question me.”
The KEY element in both, however, isn’t the answer, butthe assertion that a good person can suffer. They didn’t earn it; it justhappened. They remained good and, eventually, their god restored them to theirprior station, and then some.
Ergo, if you’re suffering, just be patient. Don’t curse Godand die. (As Job is advised to do.)
Today, we may find such an answer wanting but need torecognize it for an advancement on the theology of tragedy.
Some, however, get stuck in these time-locked answersbecause they can’t allow their religion to grow. Or rather, they can’tacknowledge that their religion/theology evolves over time, because if itevolves, it wasn’t perfect from the beginning. And that challenges theirunderstand of their god.
Yet the real fly in the ointment is the notion of aperfect and infallible canon.
This brings me back around to what a canon is. It just means“an authoritative text,” but how that text is understood has nuances.INSPIRED ≠ INFALLIBLE. Most all followers of a canonical text believe it’s inspiredby God, but not all (or even most) believe it’s infallible. (Islam isits own category here, note.) That creates some problematic GRAYS.
If it’s only inspired, written by humans with human foiblesand history-locked understandings, interpreting it becomes complicated and canlead to disagreements. Taking a literalist view sweeps away the messiness. “Godsaid it; I believe it; that settles it!” Black-and-white.
Those who believe in Biblical literalism/inerrancy (whichincludes a good chunk of conservative Christian Evangelicals and all Fundamentalists**)will argue ALL the Bible is true. If it’s written by God, it must be perfectfrom the get-go. Thus, a clash is created between simpler versus more nuancedviews: Deuteronomy vs. Job. If an earlier view must be as true as any later one,that reduces everything to the most elementary version. It can’t evolve/grow up,yielding what feels to most like a very archaic (and often harsh) worldview.
In any case, both the traditional orthopraxic and orthodoxicreligions of the ANE/Med Basin believed God/gods punished people who offendedthem. AND these punishments might “spill over” onto family andneighbors.
Ancient divine collateral damage.
Ironically, this is WHY early Christians were prosecuted bythe pagan (e.g., traditional) Roman and Greek religious establishments.Christian failure to participate in common civic religious cult could earndivine ire. For their first two/two-and-a-half centuries, Christianity waslabeled a religio illicta (illegal religion)—in part for “failure toplay well with others.” E.g., make sacrifices to the appropriate Greco-Romandeities. Thus, when disaster struck, a scapegoat was sought. Thoseantisocial Christians are to blame! They don’t sacrifice to the gods and so,offended XXX god, who is now punishing ALL of us with YYY.
Classic ancient religious thinking, but it’s one reason Ifind current conservative Christian opposition to Teh Gays, trans folks, etc., enormouslyironic. The persecuted have become the persecuting.
I want to emphasize that large sub-groups of Jews, Christians,and Muslims have evolved past such theologies. Yet others have not andstubbornly cling to ancient mindsets. That’s why they argue the mere presenceof LGBTQI+ people will bring down the wrath of God on ALL.
Talk of “grooming” and “protecting children” is just anattempt to make palatable a belief they know won’t fly with most people, whothey consider deluded by The World (e.g., the devil). Trickery is thereforerequired. As they’re deeply afraid themselves, they understand fear and use itto motivate others. Many are perfectly happy to make their beds with “unbelievers”long enough to get their agendas passed. God will forgive them.
This, too, is rooted in ancient ideas (discussed above) wherebya people’s own god might employ the enemy to punish them (or others). Thus, asinful person can be utilized on the way to righteous ends because the victoryof God wipes away all else. Using the enemy to effect God’s will just proves thatGod is in final charge of everything after all. It’s the ultimate PWN.
I hope this helps to explain where these ideas come from,how they originally emerged, and why a subgroup of people still cling to them.
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* While Egypt influenced the ANE, as well as Greece andRome, and is often shoehorned into the ANE, I consider Egypt as NE Africa. It deservesto be treated on its own, or in relation to neighbors such as Kush.
** Fundamentalists and Evangelicals tend to be equated butare not the same. Also, not all Evangelicals are conservatives (although allFundamentalists are, by definition). Enormous variation exists betweenChristian denominations, which range from ultra-conservative to (surprise!)ultra-liberal. There is as much of a hard Christian Left as thereis a hard Christian Right. We just tend to hear far less about them.
