Ideas: A History of Thought and Invention, from Fire to Freud

by Peter Watson

This is perhaps the most important lesson we can learn from a history of ideas: that intellectual life–arguably the most important, satisfying and characteristic dimension to our existence–is a fragile thing, easily destroyed or wasted.

the three ideas I have settled on as the most important, and which determine the book’s ultimate structure and thesis, are these: the soul, Europe, and the experiment.

It is now known that the basic mutation rate in DNA is 0.71 per cent per million years. Working back from the present difference between chimpanzee and human DNA, we arrive at a figure of 6.6 million years ago for the chimpanzee–human divergence.5

This complex structure, in which people were required to predict the behaviour of others in social situations, is generally regarded as the mechanism by which consciousness evolved. In predicting the behaviour of others, an individual would have acquired a sense of self.

Anthropologists distinguish three requirements for religion: that a non-physical component of an individual can survive after death (the ‘soul’); that certain individuals within a society are particularly likely to receive direct inspiration from supernatural agencies; and that certain rituals can bring about changes in the present world.69

For archaeologists, the term ‘civilisation’ generally implies four characteristics–writing, cities with monumental architecture, organised religion and specialised occupations.

For most archaeologists, however, humans’ ‘greatest idea’ is a far more down-to-earth practical notion. For them, the domestication of plants and animals–the invention of agriculture–was easily the greatest idea because it produced what was by far the most profound transformation in the way that humans have lived.

Pottery, as we have seen, was the first of five new substances–the ‘cultures of fire’–which laid the basis for what would later be called civilisation. The other four were metals, glass, terra-cotta and cement.

In the classical definition, civilisation consists of three or more of the following: cities, writing, the specialisation of occupations, monumental architecture, the formation of capital.2

First, there are the particular circumstances of the Israelites in Palestine.70 They were a small tribe, surrounded by powerful enemies. They were continually fighting, their numbers always threatened. The ark of Yahweh (the portable altar), in its house at Shiloh, seems to have formed the general meeting-place for Hebrew patriotism. Containing the golden calf (i.e., the bull), the ark was always carried before the Hebrew army. There was thus just one god in the ark, and although Solomon (tenth century BC) built temples dedicated to other Hebrew gods, which remained in existence for some centuries, Yahweh became in this way the main deity.71 For generations the two tiny Israelite kingdoms maintained a precarious independence between the great empires of Egypt and Mesopotamia. Beginning in the eighth century BC, however, this balancing act broke down and they were defeated in battle, first by the Assyrians, then by the Babylonians. The very existence of Israel was at stake and, in response, ‘there broke out an ecstasy of enthusiasm’ for Yahweh. In this way was generated the ‘Age of the Prophets’, which produced the earliest masterpieces of Hebrew literature, designed to shock the sinful Israelites into compliance with the wishes of their god, Yahweh who, by the end of this period, had become supreme. ‘Prophet’ is a Greek word, meaning one who speaks before the sacred cave of an oracle.72

Jewish faith beginning

Since the Vedas date to between 1900 and 1200 BC, at least, the Gathas cannot be very much younger. However, while the Vedas were still set in the heroic age, with many gods, often acting ‘with the same nature as men’, and sometimes with great cruelty, Zoroastrianism was very different.93 Zoroastrianism has one origin in the third millennium BC with the migration of the peoples known to archaeologists, pre-historians and philologists as the Indo-Aryans. As was mentioned above, there has been much debate as to where these people originated: from the region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, between the Caspian Sea and the Aral Sea, in the lands around the Oxus river, north of Persia, as Iran then was, the so-called BMAC complex (Bactria Margiana Archaeological Complex, essentially northern Afghanistan), even the Indus valley. What seems more certain is that they split into two groups, one–furthereast–giving rise to the Vedic religion, which developed into Hinduism (see below, page 115); and the second, further west, giving rise to Zoroastrianism. Certain aspects of Zoroastrianism appear to have developed from the cult of Mithras. Mithras, said to have been born out of a rock and often associated with bull sacrifice, appears first in the historical record on an inscription found at Boghazköy in eastern Anatolia, and dating from the fourteenth century BC. The inscription commemorates a treaty between the Hittites (whom we have already encountered, in an earlier chapte...

The crucial importance–and the mystery–of Zoroastrianism lies partly in its introduction of abstract concepts as gods, and partly in its other features, some of which find echoes in Buddhism and Confucianism, and some of which appear to have helped form Judaism, and therefore Christianity and Islam. According to Friedrich Nietzsche, Zarathustra was the source of the ‘profoundest error in human history–namely the invention of morality’.96 Zarathustra envisaged three types of soul: the urvany, that part of the individual which survived the body’s death; fravashi, who ‘live the earth since the time of their death’; and daena, the conscience.97 Either way, Zoroastrianism may well have been the fundamental set of ideas that helped shape the world’s major faiths as we know them today.

The name of paradise in the new religion was garo demana, or ‘House of Song’, and there are ancient accounts of shamans reaching ecstasy by singing for long periods of time. The House of Song was in theory open to all in Zoroastrianism, but only the righteous actually got there. The road to the beyond passed over the Cinvat Bridge where the just and the wicked were divided, sinners remaining for ever in the House of Evil.104 The idea of a river dividing this world from the next is found in many faiths, while the idea of a Judgement became a major feature of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. In fact, life after death, resurrection, judgement, heaven and paradise were all Zoroastrian ideas first, as were hell and the devil.105 One verse of the Gathas says that the soul remains close to a person’s body after death, but after three days a wind arises. For the righteous it is a perfumed wind which quickly transports the soul to ‘the lights without beginning, paradise’, but for others it is a cold north wind, which drives the sinner to the zone of darkness.106 Note the delay of three days.

The Israelites had been taken into captivity in 586 BC, by the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzer. In 539, however, Babylon was captured by Cyrus, a Persian king who had also defeated the Medes and the Lydians. He and his followers spread Zoroastrianism throughout the Middle East. Cyrus freed the Jews and allowed them back to their homeland. It is no accident, therefore, that he is one of only two foreign kings to be treated with respect in the Hebrew scriptures (the other is Abimelech, in Genesis 21). It is no accident that Judaism, and therefore Christianity and Islam, share many features of Zoroastrianism.

The Buddha was not a god and he was not really a prophet. But the way of life that he came to advocate was the result of his dissatisfaction with the development of a new merchant class in the towns, their materialism and greed, and with the local priesthood, their obsession with sacrifice and tradition. His answer was to ask men to look deep inside themselves to find a higher pur...

The Greeks are generally known for their rationalism, but this tends to obscure the fact that Plato (427–346 BC), one of their greatest thinkers, was also a confirmed mystic. The main influences on him were Socrates, who had questioned the old myths and festivals of the traditional religion, and Pythagoras, who, as we have seen, had decided ideas about the soul, and who, in addition, may have been influenced by ideas from India, by way of Egypt and Persia.

His own ideas, outlined in The Symposium and elsewhere, were to show how love of a particular beautiful body, for example, could be ‘purified and transformed’ into an ecstatic contemplation (theoria) of ideal Beauty. Plato thought that the ideal forms were somehow hidden in the mind and that it was the task of thinking to discover and reveal these forms, that they could be recollected or apprehended if one considered them long enough. Human beings, remember, were fallen divinities (an idea resurrected by Christianity in the Middle Ages) and so the divine was within them in some way, if only it could be ‘touched’ by reason, reason understood as an intuitive grasp of the eternal realm within. Plato didn’t use the word nirvana but his pattern of belief is recognisably similar to that of the Buddha, leading men back within themselves. Like Zarathustra, for Plato the object of the spiritual life was concentration on abstract entities. Some have called this the birth of the very idea of abstraction.

His main concern was an ethical life, facing the problem of how men can live together. This reflected China’s transition to an urban society. Like the Buddha, like Plato and like Aristotle, he looked beyond the gods, and taught that the answer to an ethical life lies within man himself, that universal order and harmony can only be achieved if people show a wider sense of community and obligation than their own and their family’s self-interest.130

The tao is conceived of as responsible both for the creation of the universe and its continued support (as with the primal sacrifice in the Vedas). The way can only be apprehended by intuition. Submission is preferable to action, ignorance to knowledge.

In all cases, then, we have, centring on the sixth century BC, but extending 150 years either side, a turning away from a pantheon of many traditional ‘little’ gods, and a great turning inward, the emphasis put on man himself, his own psychology, his moral sense or conscience, his intuition and his individuality. Now that large cities were a fact of life, men and women were more concerned with living together in close proximity, and realised that the traditional gods of an agricultural world had not proved adequate to this task. Not only was this a major divorce from what had gone before, separating late antiquity from ‘deep’ antiquity, it also marked the first split that would, in centuries to come, divide the West from the East. In all the new ethical systems of the Axial Age, the Israelite solution stands out. They, as we shall see, developed the idea of one true God, and that history has a direction, whereas with the Greeks and in particular with Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism, the gods stood in a different relation to humans as compared with the West. In the East the divine and the human came much closer together, the Eastern religions being commonly more inclined to mysticism than Western ones are. In the West, more than the East, the yearning to become divine is sacrilege.

Sum

There are two principal aspects to that legacy. One is that the Greeks were the first to truly understand that the world may be known, that knowledge can be acquired by systematic observation, without aid from the gods, that there is an order to the world and the universe which goes beyond the myths of our ancestors. And second, that there is a difference between nature–which operates according to invariable laws–and the affairs of men, which have no such order, but where order is imposed or agreed and can take various forms and is mutable. Compared with the idea that the world could be known only through or in relation to God, or even could be known not at all, this was a massive transformation.

Homer’s two great epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, are often described as the earliest literature, the ‘primary source’ from which all European literature derives, the ‘gateway’ to new avenues of thought. Between them they contain around 28,000 lines and preceding their appearance and for hundreds of years following them, ‘there is nothing remotely resembling these amazing achievements’. Homer’s genius was recognised in Greece from the very beginning. Athenians referred to his books the way devout Christians nowadays refer to the Bible, or Muslims to the Qur’an. Socrates quoted lines from the Iliad when he was on trial for his life.8

Though he had no shortage of enemies, Pericles was one of Greece’s greatest generals, among its finest orators and an exceptional leader. He installed state pay for jurors and council members, completed the city walls, which made Athens all but impregnable and, unusually for a military man and a politician (though this was the Athenian ideal), took a great interest in philosophical, artistic and scientific matters. His friends included Protagoras, Anaxagoras and Phidias, all of whom we shall meet shortly, while Socrates himself was close to both Alcibiades, Pericles’ ward, and Aspasia, his morganatic wife. Pericles rebuilt the Parthenon, which provided employment for countless craftsmen and helped to kick-start Athens’ golden age.

In their comparison of early science in ancient Greece and China, Geoffrey Lloyd and Nathan Sivin argue that the Greek philosopher/scientists enjoyed much less patronage than their contemporaries in China, who were employed by the emperor, and often charged with looking after the calendar, which was a state concern. This had the effect of making Chinese scientists much more circumspect in their views, and in embracing new concepts: they had much more to lose than in Greece, and they seldom argued as the Greeks argued. Instead, new ideas in China were invariably incorporated into existing theories, producing a ‘cascade’ of meanings; new notions never had to battle it out with old ones.17 In Greece on the other hand there was a ‘competition in wisdom’, just as in sports contests (sport was itself seen as a form of wisdom).18 Lloyd argues that there are far more first-person-singular statements in Greek science than in Chinese, much more egotism, individuals describe their mistakes more often, their uncertainties, and criticise themselves more.19 Greek plays poked fun at scientists and even this served a useful purpose.20

Socrates also turned away from scientific observation and concentrated more on what might be achieved by raw thought. However, he never wrote any books and what we know about him is largely due to Plato and to Aristophanes who portrayed Socrates, unflatteringly, in two plays. He is remembered now primarily for three reasons: his conviction that there is an eternal and unchanging ‘absolute standard’ as to what is good and right, the belief that all nature works towards a purpose, which is the apprehension of this ‘standard’; that to discover this standard one must above all know oneself; and his ‘Socratic method’ of questioning everything and everyone he came across (‘the unexamined life is not worth living’).

he was obsessed–as were Homer and the tragedians–by hubris. He thought that all men who ‘soared high’ must be tainted by an arrogance that would provoke the gods.77

Herodotus

In classical art, two things go together. There is first the sheer observation of the natural world, from the finest points of anatomy and musculature to the arrangement of flowers in a nosegay, the expressions of horror, lust or slyness, the movement of dogs, horses or musicians, much of it not lacking a sense of humour either. There was a down-to-earth quality about all this, and a growing mastery over the materials used. This is most clearly shown in the way drapery is handled in sculpture. Greek sculptors became masters in the way they represented clothing in stone, the way it fell, so as to both conceal and reveal the human form underneath. (The figure of a woman touching her sandal from the temple of Athena Nike, in the Acropolis, is a superb example.) But, beneath and beyond this observation and realism, there was a restrained quality, a serene harmony of the figures, a ‘bridled passion’ which the Greeks valued because it epitomised their achievement–the discovery of the intellect, or reason, as a way forward.87 This restraint is sometimes misconceived as an emotional coldness and, certainly, in the centuries which followed, ‘classicism’ and ‘romanticism’ have often been contrasted, as opposing forms of sensibility. But this is to misconceive the Greeks, and classicism. They made a distinction between techne, what artists knew, and sophia, what poets and musicians knew, but they were not passionless. One of Phrynichus’ plays, The Taking of Miletus, made the Athenian...

here is perhaps the best answer to those who attacked Allan Bloom and his like for championing the achievements of ‘dead, white, European males’ in a small city-state 2,500 years ago. These are the words of the German historian of science Theodor Gomperz: ‘Nearly our entire intellectual education originates from the Greeks. A thorough knowledge of their origin is the indisputable prerequisite for freeing ourselves from their overwhelming influence.’106

For them, this misfortune was in many ways cataclysmic. As Paula Fredericksen has observed, one conclusion the Jews could have drawn from their predicament, ‘and perhaps the most realistic’, might have been that their God was in fact much less powerful than the gods of their neighbours. Instead, the Jews drew the diametrically opposite conclusion: her misfortune confirmed what the prophets had foretold, that she had strayed too far from her covenant with Yahweh, and was being punished. This implied that a major change in Jewish behaviour was needed, and exile provided just such a breathing space.3

It was in exile that much of Judaism came into being, though present-day Judaisms have evolved as much as, say, Christianity has developed beyond its early days. (The Judaism that we know today didn’t become stabilised until roughly AD 200.) The most important change was that, lacking a territory of their own, or a political or spiritual leader, the Jews were forced to look for a new way to preserve their identity and their unique relation with their God. The answer lay in their writings. There was no Old Testament, or Hebrew Bible, as we know it, as the Jews went into exile. Instead, they had a collection of scrolls containing civil law, they had a tradition of the Ten Commandments, they had a book of other religious laws, said to have been compiled by Moses, they had such scrolls as the Book of Wars, and they had the sayings of their prophets and their psalms, which had been sung in the Temple.4

It was only now that the Sabbath, which had been referred to in Isaiah, took on a new significance (this is inferred because records show that the most popular new name at this time was ‘Shabbetai’). Shabbatum, as was mentioned in an earlier chapter, was originally a Babylonian word and custom, meaning ‘full moon day’, when no work was done.6 There is even some evidence that the idea of a ‘Covenant’ with God derives from this time of exile. It is reminiscent of an old idea in Zoroastrianism and, as we shall see, the man who eventually freed the Jews from exile, Cyrus the Great, was a Zoroastrian.

in 539 BC, an alliance of Persians and Medes, put together by Cyrus the Great, founder of the Achaemenid (greater Persian) empire, conquered the Babylonians. Besides being a Zoroastrian, Cyrus was very tolerant of other religions and had no desire to keep the Jews captive. In 538 they were released (though many refused to go, Babylon remaining a centre of Jewish culture for a millennium and a half).8

This first and all-important reference is generally agreed to have been made by Ezra, a priest well-connected in Babylon. He too had been an official at the Persian court in Mesopotamia and he arrived in Jerusalem in 398 BC, ‘with a royal letter of support, some splendid gifts for the Temple and a copy of the law of Moses’.10 It is only now, according to scholars like Lane Fox, that ‘we find for the first time “an appeal to what is written”’. We conclude from this that an unknown editor had begun to amalgamate all the different scrolls and scriptures into a single narrative and law. Whereas there was an agreed form of Homer in Greece by, roughly speaking, 300 BC, the Hebrew scriptures (the Old Testament for Christians) was not fully formed in Israel until about 200 BC, when figures such as Ben Sira, the author of Ecclesiasticus and the first Jewish author that we know by name, refers to the ‘book of the covenant of the most high god, the law which Moses commanded’.11 As was mentioned earlier, the idea of a covenant with God, such a central element in Judaism, may have been adapted from Zoroastrian beliefs in Mesopotamia. After exile, the covenant that dominated Jewish life the most was with the book, which in turn meant that great effort was made to ensure there was strict agreement on what went into it and what was left out. The Jews had to establish a canon. So began the first steps toward the compilation of the Bible, arguably the most influential book of all time.

The development of the scriptures had an effect on the Jews which set them apart from, say, the Greeks and, later, the Romans. In Greece, the fifth, fourth and third centuries BC saw the development, as we have seen, of philosophy, critical thinking, tragic drama, history writing, and a trend to less and less religious belief. In Israel it was the opposite: as people learned to read, and to take pleasure in the book, they made more and more of it. Since so much of it was prophecy, rather than mythology, or observation (as in Greece), there was huge scope for interpreting what, exactly, the prophets had meant. Bible commentaries proliferated and with them a general level of confusion as to the real meaning of the scriptures. Many scrolls of scripture were regarded as sacred, especially the early ones that contained the name of God, YHWH. Later texts excluded this name, for fear that gentiles might use it in spells. Not mentioning the name also implied that God could not be defined or limited.14

The division of the scriptures into verses and chapters was not in the minds of the original authors, but were later innovations. Verses were introduced in the ninth century, and chapters in the thirteenth.

For example, scholars now believe that the Torah was made up of four ‘layers’, compiled towards the end of the fourth century BC (i.e., post-exile). This is deduced because, although the book of Genesis comes first in the Bible’s scheme of things, the earliest books of the prophets, set in the mid- to late eighth century BC, although they describe many experiences of the early Israelites, make no mention whatsoever of the Creation, Adam and Eve or (for Christians) the Fall. Such evidence of writing as has been found, by archaeologists at seven sites in Judah and dating to earlier centuries, is invariably economic material (deliveries of wine or oil), or associated with government or administrative matters. In addition, the Theogony of Hesiod (c. 730–700 BC) contains some ideas that overlap broadly with Genesis. For example, in the Theogony, Pandora is the first woman, created out of man, just as Eve is in the Bible.

The historicity (or otherwise) of the early parts of the Hebrew scriptures are also called into doubt by the fact that there is no independent corroboration for any of the early figures, such as Moses, although people alive when he is supposed to have lived are well attested. For example, the Exodus, which he led, is variously dated to between 1400 and c. 1280 BC, at which time the names of Babylonian and Egyptian kings are firmly established, as are many of their actions. And many identifiable remains have been found. Yet, the earliest corroboration of a biblical figure is King Ahab, who battled the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III in 853 BC.

An even more serious undermining of the Bible’s authority has come, however, from the general realisation, as archaeology has developed, that a world that is supposed to be set in the Bronze Age–say, c. 1800 BC–is in fact set in the Iron Age, i.e., after 1200 BC. Place names in the Bible are Iron Age names, the Philistines (Palestinians) are not mentioned in other, extra-biblical texts, until around 1200 BC, and domesticated camels, though mentioned in the Bible as early as chapter 24 of Genesis, were not brought under human control until the end of the second millennium BC.21

The significance of this is that it supports the view that the Bible was first assembled by Jews returning from the ‘second exile’ in Babylon (the ‘first’ being in Egypt), who compiled a narrative which was designed to do two things. In the first place, it purported to show that there was a precedent in ancient history for Jews to arrive from outside and take over the land; and second, in order to justify the claims to the land, the Covenant with God was invented, meaning that the Israelites needed a special God for this to happen, an entity very different from any other deity in the region.23

The inconsistency is (partly) explained by arguing that there are two principal sources for the early books of the bible, what are called E, or Elohist, after the name he used for God, and J, for Yahwist (partly explained because one would have expected a later editor to have ironed out the differences). E is regarded as the earlier source, though the material derived from E is less than from J. At times, J seems to be responding to E. These early sources date mainly from the eighth century BC, though some scholars prefer the tenth. It is the J source that refers to a special relationship between God and the Jews, but there is no mention of a covenant concerning the land. This is why the covenant is thought to be a later invention of the sixth century when, during exile, the Jews became aware of Zoroastrian beliefs in Babylon.31 The third author of the Torah is known as P, for ‘Priestly’, who (perhaps; some scholars doubt it) pulled E and J together but also added his own material, mainly the laws for rituals and tithes. P also used Elohim, not Yahweh.32

An even bigger gulf existed between the history of Herodotus and Thucydides and the Hebrew scriptures. Herodotus does allow for miracles and Thucydides sees ‘the hand of fate’ behind events; however, whereas the Greeks researched their books, visited actual sites and interrogated eyewitnesses where they could, and whereas they regarded men as responsible for their actions, in both victory and defeat and, in Thucydides’ case certainly, allowed little or no role for the gods, the Hebrew Bible is almost the exact opposite. The writings are anonymous, they show no signs of research–no one has travelled to see anything for themselves, or made any attempt to compare the Hebrew stories with outside, independent authorities. The Hebrew scriptures aim to tell the entire history of the world, since creation, treating distant events in much the same way as more recent happenings.

Some of the texts were ‘borrowed’ from earlier writings. Proverbs, for instance, was taken in disguised form from an Egyptian work, The Wisdom of Amenope.

Where Job is special is in two aspects. For a start, there are more than a hundred words in it that occur nowhere else. How the early translators dealt with his predicament has always baffled philologists. But the book’s true originality surely lies in its examination of the idea of the unjust God. At one level the book is about ignorance and suffering. At the outset, Job is ignorant of the wager God has had with Satan: will Job, as his suffering multiplies, abandon his God? Although we, the reader, know about the wager, while Job does not, this does not necessarily mean that we know God’s motives any better. The book is really about ignorance as much as it is about evil: what we know, what we think we know, what–in the end–we can know.48

What is the place of faith in a world where God is unjust? Who are we to question God’s motives?

The problem for the Jews was that, despite the success of their religion (as they saw it), their central political predicament had changed hardly at all. They were still a small people, uncompromisingly religious, surrounded by greater powers. From the time of Alexander the Great onwards, Palestine and the Middle East were ruled variously by Macedonians, the Ptolemies of Egypt and the Seleucids of Syria. Each of these–and this is the crucial factor–was Hellenistic in outlook, and Israel became surrounded by cities, poleis, where, instead of the synagogue and Temple (as was true of Jerusalem), the gymnasium, the theatre, the lyceum, the agora and the odeum were the main cultural institutions. This was the situation in Tyre, Sidon, Byblos and Tripoli and as a result the towns of Samaria and Judaea were regarded as backwaters. This cultural division succeeded only in driving the more orthodox Jews back on themselves. Many retreated to the desert, in search of a ritual purity which they felt was unobtainable in cities, even Jerusalem.

For orthodox Jews, however, this was pagan barbarism at its very worst and it was confirmed when Antiochus Epiphanes began a series of measures designed to promote Hellenisation and aid the reformers among the Hebrews in Israel. He dismissed the orthodox high priest, substituting a reformer, he changed the city’s name, to Antiocha, he built a gymnasium near the Temple and took some of the Temple funds to pay for Hellenistic activities, such as athletic games (which, remember, were themselves religious ceremonies of a sort). Finally, in 167 BC, he abolished Mosaic law, replaced it with Greek secular law, at the same time demoting the Temple so that it became merely a place of ecumenical worship. This was a move too far for the Hasidim (= pious). They refused to accept these changes and they opposed Antiochus with a new tactic: religious martyrdom. For a quarter of a century, there was bitter religious conflict which resulted, for the time being, in victory for the Hasidim. Not only did the Jews win back their independence, including their religious independence, but the idea of reform was also discredited. From that time on, ‘The temple was more sacrosanct than ever, fierce adherence to the Torah was reinforced and Judaism turned in on itself and away from the Greek world. The mob now became an important part of the Jerusalem scene, making the city, and Judaea as a whole, extremely difficult to govern by anyone…The intellectual freedom that characterised Greece and the Gree...

The Messiah (mashiah) was an important factor in apocalyptic eschatology. There are some thirty-nine references to such a figure in the Old Testament where, to begin with, the term means king. ‘Jewish tradition gave pride of place to the expectation that a descendant of David would arise in the last days to lead the people of God…A human descendant of David would pave the way for a period of bliss for Israel.’61 At this time, the Israelites would return to the vegetarian diet they had at the Creation.62 This Messiah figure was not a supernatural phenomenon at first; in the Psalms of Solomon (Apocrypha), for instance, he is a man like other men–there is no doubt about his humanity.63 The Messiah only became supernatural because the political situation of the Jews deteriorated, became ‘so bleak that only a supernatural act could rescue them’.64

Herod agreed with many sophisticated people that Palestine was backward and could benefit from closer acquaintance with the Greek way of life. Accordingly he built new towns, new harbours, new theatres. But he headed off the kind of revolt that Antiochus Epiphanes had provoked by a massive rebuilding of the Temple. This began in 22 BC, and took forty-six years to complete, meaning that the great Temple was under construction throughout Jesus’ life. The scale of works was impressive. It took two years just to assemble and train the workforce of ten thousand. A thousand priests were needed to oversee the workforce, because only priests could enter restricted holy areas. The finished Temple was twice the size of what had gone before (about twice as high as what can be seen today on what Jews call the Temple Mount). It was a colourful and exotic place. There was a vast outer courtyard, open to all, where money-changers had their stalls and where they exchanged coins from any currency into the ‘holy shekels’ needed to pay Temple fees. (It was these money-changers to whom Jesus would take such exception.) In this outer section, there were large signs in Latin and Greek which warned non-Jews that they risked death if they went further. Beyond the outer courtyard was a series of smaller ones for special Jewish groups, such as women and lepers. The inner courtyard was open only to male Jews. The Temple was always crowded and busy. In addition to the thousands of priests who worked ...

The Temple was an impressive site. But under Herod the Jews were no happier in their skin, Palestine was still a client state, and orthodox Judaism still as uncompromising as ever. In AD 66, seventy years after Herod’s death, the Jews revolted again, and this time were put down with such vehemence that his magnificent Temple was completely destroyed and the Jews were sent away from Palestine for two thousand years. Between Herod’s death and the destruction of his Temple, there occurred one of the most decisive, yet mysterious, events in world history: the advent of Jesus.

the gospels are inconsistent and contradictory, or that Paul’s writings–letters mainly–predate the gospels and yet make no mention of many of the more striking episodes that make up Jesus’ life. For example, Paul never refers to the virgin birth, never calls Jesus ‘of Nazareth’, does not refer to his trial, nor does he specify that the crucifixion took place in Jerusalem (though he implies it occurred in Judaea, in 1 Thessalonians 2:14/15). He never uses the title ‘Son of Man’ and mentions no miracles Jesus is supposed to have performed. So there is, at the least, widespread scepticism about the details of Jesus’ life.71