Comparative Religion-Analytical Essay

 
 

Required Resources
Read/review the following resources for this activity:

• Textbook: Chapter 8, 9, 10
• Lesson
• Minimum of 6 scholarly sources (at least 2 for Judaism, 2 for Christianity, & 2 for Islam)

  Please review criteria for scholarly sources. 

Instructions
In a short essay, complete the following:

• Explain the historical relationship between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. What are their geographical connections? What are their historical timelines?
• Analyze the historical relationship between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam in order to make an argument about the similarities and differences between the three religions. Select one main example from the following list on which to focus your comparison: the nature of God, the nature of Jesus, Holy Books, or Salvation. Your analysis should span multiple paragraphs and utilize specific examples.
• Conclude by examining the current relationship between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam today. How has globalization influenced or affected the current relationship?

Your paper should include an introduction and thesis that clearly states your central claim, thoughtful examples and analysis in your body paragraphs, and a conclusion to finalize your thoughts.

Writing Requirements (APA format)

• Length: 1200-1400 words (not including title page or references page)
• 1-inch margins
• Double spaced
• 12-point Times New Roman font
• Title page
• References page (minimum of 6 scholarly sources)

Grading
This activity will be graded based on the Written Assignment Grading Rubric.

Weekly Objectives (WO)
WO4.1, 4.2, 6.11-6.13, 7.3

Resource: 

 

Molloy, M. (2013). Experiencing the world’s religions (6th ed.). New York City, NY: McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

CHAPTER 10

ISLAM

FIRST ENCOUNTER

You are in Malaysia, on your way south to Singapore. A friend has recommended that you visit the modern national mosque in Kuala Lumpur. Your first try is unsuccessful because the mosque is closed for midday prayer. After two hours at a nearby museum of Islamic art, you return to the mosque. You leave your shoes at the bottom of the stairs and walk up into the building.

The mosque is extraordinary. You are amazed at how well the traditional Islamic love of geometrical design has been adapted to modern architecture. The marble floors reflect the colors of the stained glass above and the movement of the many visitors walking toward the main prayer area.

As you approach the core of the mosque, you notice a sign on a rope indicating that only Muslims are allowed to enter. You overhear some Chinese visitors explain to a woman at the rope that they are Muslims. She directs them in. You come up behind them, just to get a better look. The large space is carpeted, and people are prostrating themselves in prayer. You and the woman begin to talk.
Page 408“My name is Aminah,” she says. “I’m an elementary-school teacher. Right now school is not in session, so I volunteer my time here.” Aminah is dressed in a floor-length blue robe with a full head covering. Only her face and hands are visible. “Do you have any questions?” she asks.

From what you have seen on the streets of Kuala Lumpur, you know that Aminah is conservatively dressed. So you ask the obvious question: “Why do you dress as you do?”

“I expected that,” she says with a smile. “So many westerners want to talk about clothes.” You look down, slightly embarrassed to be just another westerner with an obvious question.

“The way I dress makes me feel safe,” she says. “For me it’s comfortable. It reminds me that within Islam, women are protected.”

You look a bit doubtful.

“Yes, I know,” she continues. “It is possible to be too protected. Fathers and uncles and brothers sometimes make it their career to watch out for you, and that’s not always welcome.” You both laugh. “And sports can be difficult if one is all covered up. But we’re working on it.”

Aminah has finished her duty and is replaced by a man standing nearby.

“What about arranged marriages, especially of very young women?” you ask her. “And what about women being kept from education in some Muslim countries?” You ask these things just for the sake of argument, as you both begin to walk toward the exit.

“Things like that are cultural,” she says. “There are many old traditions that are not a part of true Islam, and they can be changed. A whole new kind of modern Islam is developing, especially here in Malaysia, and the roles of women are widening. You know the saying, ‘Do not judge a book by its cover.’ What you see of women like me may look traditional, but it’s a disguise. Inside, we’re modern. Come back again in ten years and you will see it even more clearly.”

Together you go down the steps in front of the mosque to a little kiosk. Aminah reaches into a drawer there.

“I want you to have this,” she says, as she hands you a blue book with gold writing on the front. “You can find all you need to know here. After you read it, maybe you can give us fresh ideas for a new, modern type of Islam.”

You look down at the book. Printed in both Arabic and English, it is a copy of the Qur’an.
As you wait for a taxi, you wonder about the Qur’an. Who wrote it? What does it say about

Muhammad

? And does it say anything about other religions? What does it say about women? As you climb into your taxi, you decide to start reading your new book that evening.
Page 409

THE LIFE AND TEACHINGS OF MUHAMMAD

Muhammad

1

 

(570–632 ce) was born in Mecca, in what is today Saudi Arabia (see 

Timeline 10.1

, p. 410). Much of what we know about him comes from his sermons and revelations in the Muslim sacred book, the 

Qur’an

 (“recitation”), and from the 

hadiths

 (also spelled ahadith; “recollections,” “narratives”), the remembrances of him by his early followers.

Timeline of significant events in the history of Islam.

In the days before Islam arose, the religions of the Arabian Peninsula were Judaism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism (which we’ll discuss later), and traditional local religious practices. These local practices included worshiping tree spirits, mountain spirits, tribal gods, and jinni (the origin of the English word genie)—capricious spirits that were thought to inhabit the desert and even to enter people. The supreme god Allah was an object of faith but not of worship. Allah “was the creator and sustainer of life but remote from everyday concerns and thus not the object of cult or ritual. Associated with Allah were three goddesses, his daughters: al-Lat, Manat, and al-Uzza,”

2

 goddesses related to nature, the moon, and fertility.

At the time of Muhammad’s birth, Mecca was already a center of religious pilgrimage. Located in Mecca was a black meteorite that had fallen to earth long before Muhammad’s time. It was venerated because it was believed to have been sent from heaven. A squarish shrine had been constructed to contain it, called the 

Kabah

 (“cube”).

3

 By Muhammad’s day, as many as 360 religious images of tribal gods and goddesses had been placed within the Kabah, and tradition tells that twenty-four statues, perhaps associated with the zodiac, stood around the central square of Mecca. By Muhammad’s time, yearly pilgrimages to Mecca were already common, and a four-month period of regular truce among the many Arabian tribes was kept in order to allow this.

Muhammad’s grandfather, Abd al-Muttalib, played an important role among the Quraysh, the dominant tribe of Mecca, and is even thought to have been custodian of the Kabah. Muhammad’s father died not long before Muhammad’s birth, and his mother seems to have died when he was just a child. Muhammad then went to live with his grandfather, and after his grandfather’s death two years later, he lived with his uncle, Abu Talib.

4

As an adult, Muhammad worked as a caravan driver for a widow named 

Khadijah

,

5

 who had inherited a caravan company from her deceased husband. The friendship between Khadijah and Muhammad grew over time. They married in about 595 ce, when Muhammad was 25 and she (tradition says) was about 40.

6

 This marriage brought financial, spiritual, and emotional support to Muhammad; Khadijah proved to be his mainstay until her death. Together they had about six children. But sadly no boy survived into adulthood to become Muhammad’s hereditary successor. After Khadijah’s death, Muhammad remarried a number of times. It is possible he married several of his wives out of compassion, because in his society widows of soldiers often needed a husband for financial support and legal protection.

 

Page 410 From his travels as a caravan worker, Muhammad undoubtedly learned a great deal about several religions, including the differences within and among them. Although the monotheistic religions of his region shared a belief in one High God and emphasized the need for morality, there was much disagreement as well. Jews and Christians disagreed about the role of Jesus and the nature of God. Christians disagreed with each other about the nature of Jesus. Jews and some Christians forbade image-making, although most Christians allowed it. And another major influence, the Persian religion of Zoroastrianism, so emphasized the moral struggle in human life that many people saw the world as being subject to two cosmic forces—good and evil.

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As a religious person, Muhammad spent time pondering and meditating. To do this, he frequently went to caves in the hills surrounding Mecca that had long been used for prayer. When he was 40, during a religious retreat in a cave at Mount Hira, he received his first revelation, as recorded in the Qur’an. A bright presence came to him and held before his eyes a cloth covered with writing. It commanded three times that he recite what was written there:

Recite in the name of the Lord who created—created man from clots of blood.

Recite! Your Lord is the Most Bountiful One, who by the pen taught man what he did not know.

Indeed, man transgresses in thinking himself his own master; for to your Lord all things return.…

Prostrate yourself and come nearer.

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At first, Muhammad doubted the nature of this revelation. Could it be madness or hallucination or some kind of demonic apparition? He confided in his wife Khadijah, who knew him well and encouraged him to accept his experience as a true communication from God. He became convinced that the bright presence was the angel Gabriel, and when further revelations came to him, Muhammad began to share them with his closest friends and family members—particularly his wife, his cousin Ali (600–661), and his friend, Abu Bakr (573–634). These were the first 

Muslims

, meaning “people who submit” to God (Allah).

When Muhammad began to proclaim his revelations more openly, he was not well received. Much of Muhammad’s message was unthreatening—he urged kindness and taking care of the poor and weak. But Muhammad also insisted that there was only one God to worship. The revelations forbade the worship of other gods and demanded the destruction of statues and images. Muhammad also denounced usury (lending money at exorbitant rates) and the failure to make and keep fair contracts. These messages threatened businesspeople, particularly those involved in the pilgrimage trade, because the revelations denounced both common business practices and the multiple tribal gods whose images were kept in the Kabah. In 615 ce, some of Muhammad’s followers fled for safety to what is today Ethiopia. In 619 ce, Khadijah died. When Abu Talib, Muhammad’s protective uncle, died soon after, Muhammad became concerned for his own safety. He and the rest of his followers considered eventually leaving Mecca.

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During this stressful time, Muhammad, in 620 ce, experienced himself being carried to Jerusalem and ascending from there into paradise. In this experience, called his Night Journey or Night of Ascent, the angel Gabriel guided him upward. As Muhammad ascended toward the highest heaven, he encountered angels and the great prophets of the past, including Abraham and Jesus, and at last entered into the presence of God. Muslims disagree about whether this event constituted a personal vision or an actual physical ascension from Jerusalem. Regardless, artistic tradition treats Muhammad’s experience as a physical and bodily ascent from the city of Jerusalem.

8

 He is pictured being carried on the back of the celestial steed Buraq, surrounded by flames and flying through the sky. This experience confirmed for Muhammad his vocation as a prophet and messenger of God.

Persecution of Muhammad and his followers in Mecca intensified. At the invitation of leaders of Yathrib, a city about three hundred miles to the north, Muhammad and his followers finally left Mecca in 622 ce. Muhammad’s migration is called in Arabic the 

Hijra

. The word means “flight” or migration,” and the occurrence is a central event in Islam. It marks (1) the point at which Muhammad’s message was favorably received and (2) the start of the Islamic community (umma). For these reasons, the Muslim calendar dates the year of the Hijra as year 1. (In the West, dates according to the Muslim calendar are given as AH—anno Hegirae, Latin for “in the year of the Hijra.”)

Muhammad’s initial success in Yathrib was not complete. Jews there allied with his political enemies and rejected his beliefs because he accepted Jesus as a prophet and disputed the completeness and correctness of the Hebrew scriptures. Muhammad eventually banished or executed these enemies, and over time he gained control of the city. In Yathrib he set up the first Islamic 

mosque

 (masjid), where many early rules about worship and social regulation were worked out. Yathrib is now called Medina (madinat an-nabi, “city of the prophet”). Along with Mecca and Jerusalem, Medina has become one of the three most sacred cities of Islam.

In spite of his success in Yathrib, Muhammad’s goal was always to return to Mecca, the religious center of Arabia. In a battle in 624 ce at Badr between citizens of Mecca and Yathrib, Muslim soldiers triumphed against great odds. There were skirmishes and threats and a tentative treaty over the following few years until, finally, Muhammad returned as the victor in 630 ce to Mecca, where he then took control of the city, destroyed all images in the Kabah and marketplace, and began to institutionalize his religious ideals.

Muhammad extended his control over further territory in Arabia; at the time of his death, he was planning to spread his religion into Syria. In his final sermon, he opposed merely tribal loyalties and preached the brotherhood of all believers. Muhammad died in Yathrib in 632 ce.

Muhammad viewed himself, as did his followers, as the last of the long line of prophets who transmitted God’s word to humanity. He did not consider himself to be divine but simply an instrument in the hands of God, a messenger transmitting God’s will to the human world. Muslims view Muhammad as a man who showed perfection in his life, and they revere him as an ideal human being, a model for all believers.

 

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ESSENTIALS OF ISLAM

Islam

 literally means “surrender” or “submission,” indicating wholehearted surrender to God, and a Muslim is one who submits to God (Allah). The words Islam and Muslim are related to several words for peace, such as the Arabic salam and the Hebrew shalom. They suggest the inner peace that is gained by surrendering to the divine. The word Islam also connotes the community of all believers, suggesting inclusion in a large family. As the Qur’an states, “the believers are a band of brothers.”

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At the heart of Islam is a belief in an all-powerful, transcendent God who has created the universe and who controls it down to the smallest detail. Islam is thus a cousin to the other monotheistic religions of Judaism and Christianity, and all three religions worship the same God. It is possible, however, that the notion of God’s power and transcendence receives the greatest emphasis in Islam. Some observers have commented that in Islam, prostration of the entire body during prayer fittingly indicates a belief in divine power and the believer’s submission to it. Prostration is compared to other characteristic prayer postures, such as kneeling (common in Christianity) and standing (common in Judaism). The physical posture of prostration illustrates well the Muslim attitude of total surrender to God.

Muslims refer to God as Allah. The word is a contraction of al (“the”) and ilah (“God”) and simply means “the God” or “God.” (The Arabic word Allah is related to El, the general Hebrew word for “God.”) Muslims explain that the word Allah is not the name of God—it simply means “God.” It is said that Allah has ninety-nine names, among which are “the Merciful,” “the Just,” and “the Compassionate.” These names demonstrate that Allah is not abstract—not just an impersonal force—but has characteristics of a personal being. In the Qur’an, Allah describes himself as personal and caring, as well as all-knowing, all-seeing, and all-powerful. Allah, because of this personal nature and the attribute of power, is referred to in Islam in “male” terms, although, strictly speaking, Allah has no gender.

It is sometimes hard for non-Muslims to understand the Muslim notion that God is omnipresent and controls every detail of life. The name of God is invoked in daily conversation, particularly in the frequently used phrase, “if God wills.” People are called to prayer several times a day by a 

muezzin

, a chanter who announces that Allah is great, greater than anything else. The chanted voice suggests that God is as active in the world as sound is active in the air, unseen but present. Some visitors to Muslim countries have remarked that people there live in a shared belief in God as easily as fish live in water or birds fly in air. God’s active, present reality is taken for granted.

In Islamic belief, God has spoken repeatedly through human beings—prophets—revealing his mind and will. Muslims believe that divine revelation began just after the creation of the human race, when God spoke to Adam and Eve. It continued to occur, as when God spoke to patriarchs and prophets such as Abraham (Ibrahim) and Moses (Musa). Islamic belief also thinks of Jesus (Isa) as a prophet of God, although Muslims reject both the notion of Jesus’s divinity and the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. Muslims believe that both Judaism and Christianity express true revelation from God but that in various ways those religions have contaminated God’s word with human misunderstanding. It was Muhammad, Muslims believe, who freed the divine message from human error and offered it, purified, to all people. Because he is considered the last and greatest figure in the long line of prophets, Muhammad is called the “seal of the prophets.”

Page 415Muslims trace their ancestry back to Abraham, the same patriarchal ancestor of the Jews, and to his son Ishmael (Ismail). Ishmael (as discussed in 

Chapter 8

) was conceived by Abraham and Hagar, who was a maid to Sarah, Abraham’s wife. When Sarah, at an advanced age, became pregnant and gave birth to her son Isaac, Hagar and Ishmael were forced to leave Abraham’s care, purportedly because of Sarah’s jealousy. They survived in the desert only because an angel revealed to them a source of water, which Muslims believe was found near Mecca.

Muhammad learned about Judaism from the Jews who lived in Arabia. He also absorbed and considered religious elements from Christianity and Zoroastrianism—religions that share with Islam a belief in the soul, bodily resurrection, a final judgment (the Day of Doom), and an afterlife of hell for the wicked and paradise for the good.

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 All three religions also share with Islam a belief in angels and devils, who can have influence on human beings. Indeed, there are numerous similarities between Islam and other religions, and non-Muslims might speculate that Muhammad was influenced by these religions. However, Muslims hold that Muhammad’s religious ideas came directly from God.

The overall worldview of Islam (as with the other three religions) is highly dramatic. Muslims believe that good and evil forces are in constant battle and that life on earth is filled with choices that lead to the most serious consequences. This conception goes hand in hand with the overall emphasis of all Western prophetic religions on morality. Religion is viewed as a strongly ethical enterprise; one of its most important purposes is to regulate human life. This moral emphasis appears clearly in the essential Five Pillars of Islam, which we will now consider.

The Five Pillars of Islam

All Muslims must accept and practice the following Five Pillars, so called because they support one’s faith. The Five Pillars are mentioned in the Qur’an.

Creed (Shahadah)
 “There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger.” This single sentence, when recited with belief, makes a person a Muslim. It is the first sentence whispered into the ears of a newborn infant; it is recited daily in prayer; and it is written in Arabic inside the domes of mosques and over people’s doors everywhere in the Islamic world.

 

Muslims are called to prayers five times each day. At this Cairo mosque, men pray on the left, in front of an arched niche called the mihrab, which points to Mecca. Women here stand to the right of the minbar, a pulpit from which an imam may preach.

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The most noticeable quality of the Muslim creed is its simplicity, for it emphasizes that there is only one God and that God is a unity. As the Qur’an says, “Your God is one God. There is no God but him.”

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 The simplicity of the creed is in deliberate contrast to the rather long and complicated creeds of Christianity, and within it is a rejection of several Christian notions. It rejects the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, which Muslims see as a belief in three gods. It also rejects the idea that Jesus was divine or that any human being can be divine. It emphatically does not see Muhammad as a divine or supernatural figure but specifies his role as God’s prophet and messenger.

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Prayer (Salat)
 Devout Muslims are called on to pray five times a day: before dawn and at midday, midafternoon, sunset, and nighttime.

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 Times for prayer are announced by a muezzin, who calls out from the top of a tower called a 

minaret

. (Nowadays, recordings of the call to prayer are often played over loudspeakers.) The muezzin’s call to prayer begins with Allahu akbar (“God is supreme”),

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 and it continues, “I witness that there is no God but Allah; I witness that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah; hasten to prayer.” In towns and cities with many mosques, the call to prayer comes from the most prestigious mosque first and is then followed up by other mosques.

 

Page 417Before prayer, the individual is normally expected to perform a ritual purification with water, washing the hands, arms, face, neck, and feet. If water is unavailable, purification may be done with sand.

Those who pray face toward Mecca—inside a mosque the direction (

qiblah

) is indicated by a special arched niche (

mihrab

). In the earliest days of Islam, Muslims faced Jerusalem for prayer, but later revelations received by Muhammad in Yathrib changed this direction to Mecca. The Qur’an directs: “Turn your face toward the holy mosque; wherever you be, turn your faces toward it.”

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 When several people are praying together, one person acts as the leader, standing at the head of the group in front of the mihrab. Passages from the Qur’an and other prayer formulas are recited from memory in Arabic, accompanied by several basic bodily postures: standing, bowing, prostrating, and sitting. Each time of prayer demands a certain number of sets (rakas) of prayers: two at morning prayer, three at dusk, and four at the other times of prayer.

Friday is the day of public prayer. On other days, people may pray privately, at home or at work or in a mosque. Originally, the day of public prayer was Saturday, following the Jewish practice; but Muhammad received a revelation that public prayer on Friday was God’s will. In most Muslim countries, public prayer is performed at midday on Friday. Usually only men perform public prayer at a mosque, while women ordinarily pray at home; but where women are allowed to pray with men at a mosque, they are assigned their own area, separated by a curtain or screen or located in an upstairs gallery. The Friday service usually includes a sermon by a religious leader. Although Friday is a day of public prayer, it is not necessarily a public day of rest. In many Muslim countries, offices are open on Fridays, and because of European colonial influence, the public day of rest is Sunday. Some Muslim countries, however, recognize Friday as the weekly day of public rest.

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Charity to the Poor (Zakat)
 Muhammad was troubled by injustice, inequality, and poverty, and the demand that people give to the poor was a part of his overall vision of a more just society. Islamic practice demands that believers donate certain percentages of their total income, herds, and produce from fields and orchards each year to the poor. This is not a tax on yearly income but rather a tax on all that one owns. The percentages vary, depending on what is taxed, but are commonly about 2.5 percent. Nowadays, government involvement in this taxation varies among Muslim countries. (In industrialized countries, government taxes commonly pay for systems of welfare, disability, social security, and other forms of assistance. This is a fairly recent phenomenon, however, that is practical only in money-based economies. Nonindustrial societies, which often use barter instead of money, depend much more on voluntary care for the poor.) In addition to established yearly donations, a good Muslim is expected to perform isolated acts of generosity and charity for the poor when such acts are called for in everyday life.

Fasting during Ramadan (Sawm)
 To fast means to abstain from food for a specified period of time. The purpose of fasting is to discipline oneself, to develop sympathy for the poor and hungry, and to give to others what one would have eaten. Fasting is thought to be good for individual spiritual growth, and it is also an important bond that unites Muslims during the period of shared fasting known as 

Ramadan

.

Ramadan, the ninth month of the Muslim calendar, is the period during which Muhammad first received his revelations. Fasting during this month, followed by a feast of celebration at the month’s end, is considered a fitting way to remember this special event. During the month of Ramadan, devout Muslims avoid all food, liquid, tobacco, and sex from dawn until dusk. Exceptions are made with regard to food and drink for travelers, pregnant women, and the sick, but these people are expected to make up the days of fasting at a later time.

Because Islam follows a strictly lunar calendar, Ramadan occurs at a slightly different time each year, as measured by a solar calendar of 365 days. Twelve lunar months equal only 354 days; thus, Ramadan begins 11 days earlier each year than in the previous year. As a result, Ramadan can fall in any season. When Ramadan falls in winter, when the days are cool and short, it involves the least discomfort. But when the month of Ramadan falls in the summer, fasting can be a great hardship; when evening finally comes and the day’s fast is ended, water and food seem miraculous.

We should note that periods of abstinence are common in many religions. The Christian observance of Lent, for about a month before Easter, is a well-known example, as is the Jewish practice of fasting on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, in autumn.

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Pilgrimage to Mecca (Hajj)
 Pilgrimage—a religious journey by a believer to a sacred city or site—is a common practice in many religions. Besides fulfilling religious demands, pilgrimage offers other, less obvious rewards. It allows people to travel and experience new sights, brings people of different backgrounds together, and engenders a sense of unity. Best of all, it becomes a powerful symbol of an interior journey to the spiritual goals of new understanding and personal transformation. All Muslims, both men and women, unless prevented by poverty or sickness, are expected to visit Mecca at least once in their lifetime. Because Islam is central to the nature of Mecca, only Muslims may visit the city.

Page 420Pilgrimage to Mecca, or 

Hajj

, was already a practice before Muhammad was born, possibly because worshipers wanted to visit the mysterious black meteorite that had fallen in the area. Muhammad, following divine revelation, continued the practice of pilgrimage to Mecca. He also continued many earlier aspects of that pilgrimage—including veneration of the black meteorite. Although this veneration might seem to contradict Muhammad’s call for pure, nonidolatrous worship of the One God, the meteorite was thought of as a special gift from God. It was also connected with Abraham and even with Adam, who are said to have venerated it, and with the angel Gabriel, who was thought to have carried it to earth.

Because the present-day form of pilgrimage offers many deeply emotional experiences for believers, it deserves special description.

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 Contemporary pilgrims generally arrive by plane at Jiddah, the port city on the west coast of Saudi Arabia. In earlier times, people came by more romantic (and dangerous) methods—by boat or camel caravan. Air travel, however, has enabled people to come in great numbers. In the past, about thirty thousand people visited Mecca each year; now more than two million people make the journey. In earlier days, the pilgrimage took months or even years. Some pilgrims died along the way, particularly when the special month of pilgrimage fell in the summer. Often it was the only long trip a person might ever take from a home village. Despite the enormous number of pilgrims, returning home as a hajji (male pilgrim) or hajjiyah (female pilgrim) still confers much prestige.

Muslims distinguish between the “greater pilgrimage,” which is made only during the special month of pilgrimage (dhu’l-Hijjah), and the “lesser pilgrimage,” which can be made at other times of the year as well. The lesser pilgrimage consists simply of a visit to Mecca and nearby holy sites. The greater pilgrimage, which is described in the following paragraphs, adds several days of arduous travel and ritual in the plains beyond Mecca. A trip to the city of Medina is often included.

Pilgrims first come to Mecca and are expected to arrive by the seventh of the month for the Hajj. For men there is special clothing, called the robe of Abraham, consisting of two pieces of white, seamless cloth. One piece is worn around the waist and lower body; the other covers the upper body and the left arm. (Women have no special clothing, but many dress in white. They do not veil their faces when they are participating in the pilgrimage.) The uniformity of clothing for males emphasizes their basic equality before God. In addition to the robe of Abraham and special prayers, all pilgrims are expected to refrain from sex, violence, and hunting. (It is easy to see how these pilgrimages and the associated practices drastically reduced intertribal warfare on the Arabian Peninsula.)

After settling into their hotels or hostels, pilgrims proceed to the Grand Mosque. Inside the huge rectangle of the mosque area is a large courtyard, open to the sky. The four sides of the courtyard consist of pillared colonnades, which open out onto the central area and offer shade. At the center of the courtyard is the Kabah shrine. It is a building approximately 50 feet high and 40 feet wide and deep. (Its metric dimensions are approximately 15 meters high and 12 meters wide and deep.) The building is covered with a black cloth, remade every year, whose edges are embroidered in gold with words from the Qur’an. The interior of the Kabah is empty and is entered only by caretakers and dignitaries, who ritually cleanse the interior with rosewater. The black meteorite, known as the Black Stone, is embedded in one external wall of the building and is visible on the outside from the courtyard.

 

Tens of thousands of Muslim pilgrims move around the Kabah, the great cube in the center of Mecca’s Grand Mosque.

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After ceremonially purifying themselves with water, pilgrims immediately walk counterclockwise around the Kabah seven times. As they pass the eastern corner, they kiss or salute the Black Stone, which extends from the shrine about 5 feet above the ground. Today the Black Stone is surrounded by silver and has become concave from being touched and kissed over the years by so many millions of people.

Pilgrims reenact important events in the life of Abraham, their forefather. Islam holds that Hagar and Abraham’s son, Ishmael, lived in the region of Mecca and that Abraham visited them here. Muslims believe that Abraham was asked by God to sacrifice his son Ishmael—not Isaac, as Judaism and Christianity teach—and that the near-sacrifice took place in Mecca. In their actions, they relive Abraham’s spiritual submission as a means of emulating his close relationship to God.

After walking around the Kabah, pilgrims ritually recall Hagar. A long covered corridor nearby connects the two sacred hills of Safa and Marwah, which the Qur’an calls “signs appointed by Allah.”

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 Between these two hills Hagar is believed to have searched desperately for water for her son Ishmael. Pilgrims walk speedily seven times along the corridor (the Masa), reenacting Hagar’s thirsty search. They drink from the well of Zamzam in the mosque area, which is believed to be the well shown to Hagar by an angel.

 

Muslim children have a special perspective on Hajj pilgrims.

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On the eighth day of the month, after another visit to the Kabah, pilgrims go to Mina, a few miles outside Mecca, where they pray through the night. The next morning, the ninth day, they travel to the plain of Arafat, about twelve miles from Mecca, where Muhammad preached his final sermon. At noon they hear a sermon and stand all afternoon in prayer, exposed to the sun. The day of prayer at Arafat is often crucial to the experience of exaltation that the pilgrimage experience can bestow. That night is spent outdoors at Muzdalifa, halfway between Arafat and Mina.

The following day, the tenth of the month, is called the Day of Sacrifice (

Id al-Adha

). Pilgrims return to Mina, where they throw small stones at three walls, a ritual that recalls how Abraham responded to a temptation: when a demon tempted him to disobey God’s command to sacrifice his son, Abraham threw stones at the demon and drove it away.

Pilgrims then select for themselves and their families one animal (sheep, goat, cow, or camel) to be sacrificed to reenact another important event in Abraham’s life: after showing his willingness to sacrifice his son Ishmael to God, Abraham was divinely directed to substitute a ram for his son. The slaughtered animal is then cooked and eaten. Any meat that is left over is processed and given to charity. (This act of animal sacrifice is carried out throughout the Muslim world at the same time during the month of pilgrimage.) After the sacrifice, the men’s heads are shaven, the women’s hair is cut, and all fingernails and toenails are trimmed to signify a new, purified life and a return to ordinary activities. Pilgrims then return to Mecca to again walk around the Kabah. Although this concludes the essential ritual of the Hajj, many pilgrims go on to visit Medina to honor the memory of Muhammad, who is buried there.

Additional Islamic Religious Practices

Islam aims at providing patterns for ideal living. Controls and prohibitions are imposed not to signify a love of suffering but to increase social order and happiness. Where outsiders might see only limitations, Muslims see instead the benefits that sensible regulations bring to individuals and societies. People who visit Muslim cultures often comment on the rarity of crime and the sense of security that people regularly feel on city streets.

Although it is strict, Islamic practice also values pleasure and happiness in this world. Believers must fast during the daylight hours of Ramadan; but when night comes, families gather to enjoy a good meal together. The same general attitude applies toward sexuality. Although sex is regulated, Muslims do not value celibacy. Muhammad was no celibate and opposed celibacy as being unnatural. In this regard, Muslims are puzzled by Jesus’s never having married and by the religious ideal of monasticism. It is within this framework of an ideal society that we should view some of the prohibitions of Islam.

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Rituals and Celebrations

THE ISLAMIC RELIGIOUS CALENDAR: FESTIVALS AND HOLY DAYS

L

ike other religions, Islam has developed a sequence of religious festivals and holy days. The main observances follow.

· The Day of Sacrifice, or Id al-Adha, is celebrated during the month of the Hajj (the twelfth lunar month). The head of every Muslim household is expected to sacrifice (or to pay someone to sacrifice) a sheep, goat, cow, or camel to recall Abraham’s sacrifice of a ram in place of his son. The meat is cooked, eaten by the family, and shared with the poor.

· The Day of Breaking the Fast, or 

Id al-Fitr

, is observed just after the month of Ramadan (the ninth lunar month) has ended. People have parties and often visit the graves of ancestors. Sometimes the festival goes on for three days.

· During Muharram (the first month of the Muslim year), believers remember the migration of Muhammad and his followers to Yathrib (Medina). For the Shiite branch of Islam, found primarily in Iran, Iraq, and Pakistan, the month has additional significance because it is associated with the death of Hussein, the son of Muhammad’s son-in-law Ali. The first nine days of the month are solemn, and on the tenth day the devout reenact publicly the assassination of Hussein. Plays and processions vividly recall his death, sometimes with devotees cutting themselves and crying aloud during processions in the street.

· Muhammad’s birthday occurs on the twelfth day of the third month of the year. In some countries it is a public holiday, and in some regions the whole month is given to celebrating and reading religious texts.

· Birthdays of other holy men and women are variously marked by devotees in different regions and groups. Shiites observe the birthday of Ali; religious communities honor the birthdays of their founders; and the birthdays of regional saints are celebrated locally.

Dietary Restrictions
 The Qur’an forbids the consumption of pork and wine. Both Judaism and Islam view the pig as a scavenger animal, whose meat can transmit disease. Wine is forbidden because of its association with violence and addiction. Although only wine is forbidden in the Qur’an, Islam has interpreted that prohibition to include all alcohol.

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Prohibition against Usury and Gambling
 Charging interest on loans is not allowed. We might recall that in Muhammad’s day money was lent at very high rates of interest, which impoverished and exploited the borrower. (Some Muslims today get around this prohibition by charging a “commission” for making a loan, although the loan itself is officially without interest.) Gambling is forbidden because it is considered a dangerous waste of time and money, as well as a potential financial risk for gamblers and their families.

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Circumcision
 Male circumcision is a religious requirement in Islam, although it is not actually demanded by the Qur’an. Circumcision at about age 7 or 8 is common. In circumcision, a small amount of loose skin (called the foreskin) is cut off from the end of a boy’s penis. (We might recall that Jews circumcise boys on the eighth day after birth. Circumcision is also common among many Christians, although for them it is not a religious commandment; and it occurs frequently in native religions.) Explanations for the practice of circumcision vary. One is that the practice shows submission to the role of God in human procreation. Another relates to reasons of hygiene; in a hot climate, where daily bathing is not always possible, circumcision might have served as a preventive measure against infection. Perhaps both are true. In Islam, however, it is also done in imitation of Muhammad, who was circumcised.

In some primarily Muslim countries, particularly those in eastern Africa, Muslim girls are also circumcised at puberty. The act involves the removal of part or all of a girl’s external sexual organs. A common explanation is that it decreases sexual desire in the circumcised young woman, helping her to remain a virgin before her marriage and to be faithful to her husband afterward. Non-Muslims in the West commonly criticize the practice as being repressive and dangerous; but some traditionalists see it as a valuable initiation rite and a preparation for marriage. In any case, we should recognize that it is not a Qur’anic command, nor does it have the same religious authority as does male circumcision.

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Marriage
 In Islam, marriage is basically a civil contract, although a certain amount of ritual has grown up around it. In traditional Muslim societies, marriage is arranged by the parents and formalized by a written contract. Usually the bridegroom’s family makes an offer of money or property to the family of the bride as a part of the contract. The marriage ceremony, which often is held at home, is essentially the witnessing and signing of the contract. A passage from the Qur’an might be read, and there is usually a feast following the signing of the contract. Marriages can be annulled for serious reasons, and divorce is possible and can be initiated by a wife as well as by a husband. Neither annulment nor divorce, however, is frequent. After marriage, a woman takes on a new, more responsible role. As a wife she has left the protection of her father and is now the legal responsibility of her husband.

Death Rituals
 The general simplicity of marriage ceremonies is also characteristic of death and funerals. Prayers from the Qur’an are recited for the dying person, and after death the body is buried in a plain white shroud. Ideally, for a male who has made the pilgrimage, the shroud is the white robe of Abraham that he wore in Mecca. The face of the deceased is turned toward Mecca at the burial, and the headstone is usually an undecorated stone marker, which signifies equality of all people in death.

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Two women view a weaving with verses from the Qur’an during an exhibition at the Imam Khomeini Grand Mosque in Tehran, Iran.

Page 425

Scripture: The Qur’an

The name Qur’an (Koran) means “recitation” and recalls the origins of these sacred writings in the sermons of Muhammad. The name also suggests the way in which the Qur’an is best communicated—by being recited. Although the Qur’an has been translated into many languages, only the Arabic version is considered to be fully authoritative. The beautiful sounds of the original are considered a part of its nature and are essential to its spiritual power.

The Qur’an is believed to be of divine origin, for it is God’s Word, which was revealed to Muhammad during the approximately twenty years from his first revelation in 610 ce until the end of his life. Disciples memorized and wrote down the words of Muhammad’s revelations, but after his death, when people became concerned that variations would arise and spread, it was thought necessary to establish a single authorized version. Tradition holds that this work was begun by Abu Bakr, Muhammad’s first successor, or 

caliph

 (khalifa, “successor”), and that the work was finished in the caliphate of Uthman, which ended in 656 ce. However, recent scholars question this tradition, and the emergence of the authorized edition is now seen as more complex than was formerly thought. The authorized edition that did emerge became the basis for all later copies.

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There is a repetitive quality about the Qur’an—common to memorized material—due largely to the fact that the Qur’an is not a carefully constructed argument divided into segments, nor is it a series of stories. Rather, it is a body of sermons and utterances that repeats images and themes in a natural way.

The Qur’an covers a wide variety of topics and discusses figures who are also found in the Jewish and Christian Bibles: Adam, Eve, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David, Solomon, Jesus, Mary, and others. It also gives practical admonitions about everyday life—about property rights, money, inheritance, marriage, and divorce. It refers to events in the life of Muhammad and to specifically religious beliefs and regulations—angels, divine judgment, fasting, and the pilgrimage. The topics and types of material are often blended together.

 

Page 426The Qur’an has 114 chapters, or 

suras

. Each sura has a traditional name, derived from an image or topic mentioned in it, and many of these names are evocative: “The Elephant,” “Light,” “Dawn,” “Thunder,” “The Cave,” “Smoke,” “The Mountain,” “The Moon,” “The High One.” The order of the suras does not reflect the exact order in which they were revealed. Except for the first sura, which is a brief invocation, the suras are arranged by length, from the longest to the shortest. The last chapters are extremely short—and the easiest for beginners. In general, the placement of the suras is, in fact, in reverse chronological order, with some intermixture of periods. The short suras are probably the earliest teachings of Muhammad, while the long ones are the products of his final years, when the details of Islamic life were being revealed to him. The suras of the Qur’an have been compared to leaves that have fallen from a tree: the first-fallen leaves are on the bottom.

The Qur’an has profoundly affected Islamic art. Indeed, some handwritten copies of the Qur’an are great artworks in themselves, often filled with gold letters and colorful geometrical designs. Because Islam generally prohibits the making of images, artists have developed the most wonderful calligraphy to record the sacred words of the Qur’an.

Frequently the words of a phrase from the Qur’an are also cunningly interlaced to make integrated designs, which are used to beautify mosques and religious schools (madrasas, medersas). On buildings, passages from the Qur’an are carved in stone or wood or set in mosaic. Of the many writing systems in the world, cursive Arabic, with its wondrous curves, is possibly the most visually beautiful of all. The fluid form of this writing is suggested nicely by the French word arabesque, which has entered the English language to describe a pattern of interlacing lines that are curving and graceful.

The repetition of phrases and images from the Qur’an is comforting to Muslims, who have heard them recited aloud in daily prayers and in sermons since childhood. Passages are recited regularly on the radio, particularly during Ramadan, and in some countries are also broadcast on television. Present everywhere, every day, such phrases have a hypnotic resonance. Because Arabic is an especially beautiful language, chanting the Qur’an in Arabic is an art form, and some chanters have become famous for the beauty of their voices and their interpretation of Qur’anic material.

 

At this Qur’anic school in Sudan, students copy and recite Qur’anic verses until they are memorized. The writing boards are then cleaned, and the process is repeated with new verses.

Page 427

THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF ISLAM

Because his sons had died in infancy, Muhammad died without a clear hereditary male successor.

22

 He apparently had not appointed anyone to succeed him,

23

 and the result was confusion and an unclear line of succession—a fact that ultimately created significant divisions in Islam, whose effects remain today.

Muhammad had asked Abu Bakr, his friend and the father of his youngest wife, to be the principal leader of prayer. Because of this position, Abu Bakr was recognized as the first caliph. When Abu Bakr died two years later, he was succeeded by Umar, the second caliph, and followed by Uthman, both of whom were assassinated. The fourth caliph was Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law, Ali, the husband of his daughter Fatima. Ali was also assassinated, and his opponents, who ruled from Damascus, assumed control of Islam in 661 ce. This period marks the first and most significant division of Islam, which broke into two factions, Shiite and

Sunni

(which we will discuss shortly).

The earliest stage of growth of Islam came during the time of the first four rulers, called the orthodox caliphs. These men had been close to Muhammad, and their home was Arabia. A major change occurred, however, as Islam spread outside Arabia. From an early, deliberate simplicity, Islam would now become more urbane and complex.

In the name of God

The Compassionate

The Merciful.

Praise be to God, Lord of the Universe,

The Compassionate, the Merciful,

Sovereign of the Day of Judgment!

You alone we worship, and to You alone we turn for help.

—Opening (Al-Fatihah) of the Qur’an

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Expansion and Consolidation

Islam arose at a time that was congenial to the growth of a new political and religious power. The Byzantine Empire, ruling from Constantinople, had fought repeatedly with the Persian Empire, and both were weakened by the effort. Areas theoretically controlled by the Byzantine emperor, such as regions of northern Africa, were far away from the capital.

The weakness of the Byzantine and Persian Empires—and what Muslims believe was divine purpose—helped Islam quickly expand into their territories. Islamic armies took Syria in 635 ce and Persia in 636 ce. They began to move westward, taking control of Egypt in about 640 ce. The success was intoxicating. Islam spread across most of northern Africa over the next seventy years, and it spread across the Red Sea and Indian Ocean from Arabia to eastern Africa (

Figure 10.1

).

 

FIGURE 10.1 Map of the Islamic world today.

Page 428

Islamic forces entered Spain in 711 ce, when a Muslim general named Tariq landed in the south—the name of Gibraltar (“mountain of Tariq”) recalls this event. In fact, Muslim forces might have spread Islam through much of western Europe if they had not been stopped in southern France by the Christian forces of Charles Martel, the grandfather of Charlemagne, in 732 ce at the Battle of Tours.

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 This battle—just a hundred years after the death of Muhammad—was one of the defining battles of world history.

Although Islam was stopped from expanding northward, Islamic rulers remained in Spain for nearly eight hundred years, with capitals in Córdoba and Granada. Many remember the Islamic period in Spain with nostalgia and longing, for it is universally thought to have been a paradise-like time, when the arts flourished and Muslims, Jews, and Christians generally lived together in harmony. The only other significant incursion into the West in these early centuries was into Sicily, where Islam was a force for about two hundred years.

 

Page 429From 661 ce to 750 ce, Islam was controlled by the Umayyad dynasty—a period called the Damascus caliphate (the caliphate was now hereditary). During this period Islam adopted elements—from architecture to cuisine—that were introduced to Syria by the Roman Empire. It also adopted and refined the administrative and military apparatus of a political state. This fruitful contact with Roman-influenced Syria is just one example of the genius that Islam has shown in absorbing elements from other cultures and giving them new life.

Control of Islam shifted to Baghdad in 750 ce under the Abbasid dynasty—a hereditary line that claimed connection to Muhammad. It is often thought that this period, also known as the Baghdad caliphate, which did not end until 1258, was the golden age of Islam—its cultural peak. Just as the Umayyads had adopted Roman-inspired elements from Syria, so the Abbasids adopted much that was Persian—music, poetry, architecture, and garden design. Classical Greek texts on philosophy, science, and the arts were translated into Arabic. Under the influence of Indian artists, Islam relaxed the prohibition of images in court art, and miniature paintings and drawings of dazzling images were created. Baghdad became a world center of civilization and taste.

Islam continued to spread eastward into non-Arab cultures, and Arab domination of Islam waned as Islam spread to present-day Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, northern India, and Bangladesh. Islam also spread into western China, where millions of Muslims still live today.

After the Mongols invaded and sacked Baghdad in 1258, the political center of Islam shifted to Egypt. Then in 1453, Muslims captured the ancient Christian capital of Constantinople, making it the center of the Ottoman Empire as well as of the Muslim world until 1921, when the Ottoman Empire ended. During this long period Islam spread, primarily through trade, to Southeast Asia—to what is today Malaysia, southern Thailand, and Indonesia, which presently has the largest Muslim population of any country in the world. Islam also spread to Mindanao, the southernmost island of the Philippines.

 

Page 430

Because of the great size of Islamic territory—a span from Morocco and Spain to Indonesia and the Philippines—completely centralized control was impossible. Thus, secondary centers, which were sometimes totally independent caliphates, were established. In Spain, the cities of Córdoba and, later, Granada became local political capitals, until Muslims were expelled from Spain in 1492. In India, Delhi became the center of the Muslim Mughal (Mogul) Empire until the British took control of the subcontinent. The fiction of a single caliph ruling all of Islam, however, was kept alive until the Ottoman caliphate in Turkey was dissolved in 1924. (Some contemporary Muslims would like to see the caliphate revived.)

The Shiite and Sunni Division within Islam

Over the centuries of its growth, Islam has experienced several divisions. The most significant division is between the Shiites and Sunnis. Today about 10 to 15 percent of Islam is Shiite, and the remaining majority is Sunni (

Figure 10.2

). The division began as a political argument over who should succeed Muhammad, but it has widened over the centuries into a division over belief, practice, and general religious approach.

FIGURE 10.2 Branches of Islam.

The real argument over succession centered on different conceptions of the caliphate. Some thought that it should be held by a man of Muhammad’s tribe (the Quraysh), someone chosen by his peers as being the person who was strongest and most capable of governing. This was a fairly practical notion of leadership. Others, however, saw the caliph as a spiritual leader, and they believed that God gave the spiritual power of the caliph only to those males who were descended directly from Muhammad’s immediate family.

Shiite Islam
 

Shiites

 derive their name from the word shia, which means “faction”—namely, the group who followed Ali, the son-in-law and cousin of Muhammad. We might recall that most early Muslims accepted the legitimacy of the first four successors of Muhammad (Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali). Some early Muslims, however, held that Muhammad had assigned Ali to be his first successor, but that a series of political and religious intrigues had initially kept Ali from the caliphate. These disagreements led to further arguments during the period of Uthman and continued even into Ali’s eventual caliphate. Muawiya, leader of the Umayyad clan, rejected Ali’s leadership, but when arbitration declared Ali to be the legitimate leader, Ali was assassinated. Following Ali’s death, some believers held that succession rightfully belonged to his two sons, Hassan and Hussein. Ali’s first son, Hassan (625–669), renounced his rights to succession; he was poisoned nonetheless by enemies. Ali’s second son, Hussein (626–680), fought against Umayyad control but was killed and beheaded after being defeated in 680 ce at the Battle of Karbala, in Iraq. Hussein’s death allowed the Umayyad dynasty to maintain control for a hundred years, but it also created strong opposition, which became the Shiite movement. Shiites, who trace Muhammad’s line of succession from Ali to Hussein, see Hussein as a martyr whose heroic death is a redeeming sacrifice that invites imitation. His burial site at the main mosque of Karbala in Iraq is considered a major holy place and, for Shiites, a center of pilgrimage.

 

Shiite pilgrims gather in Karbala, Iraq, on the fortieth day after the anniversary of the killing of Imam Hussein, grandson of Muhammad. His death occurred in 680 ce.

Page 432

Shiite Islam believes that the legitimate succession was hereditary, descending from the immediate family of Muhammad. Most Shiites believe that a God-given, hereditary spiritual power, called the Light of Muhammad, has been passed to a total of twelve successors, or 

Imams

. For them, the first legitimate Imam was Ali. The line ended with the disappearance of the last Imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi, about 900 ce. According to tradition, he did not die but entered a hidden realm from which he works by guiding Shiite scholars and leaders. Some Shiites believe that he will emerge from this state in the future to help restore Shiite Islam and that his reappearance in the world will usher in a messianic age, heralding the end of the world.

There are several divisions within Shiite Islam that differ on how many Imams there were and on the exact line of succession. Most Shiites believe in twelve Imams, as previously mentioned, and thus are sometimes called Twelvers—Ithna Ashariya. But members of one group, the Ismailis, are often called the Seveners because they disagree with the Twelvers about the identity of the seventh Imam; they trace descent from Ismail, whom they consider to be the seventh Imam. Disagreement over the fifth Imam produced a division called the Zaydis (named after Hussein’s grandson, Zayd ibn Ali). They are commonly known as the Fivers and live predominantly in Yemen. The Alawites in Syria are an unusual group, whose practice has apparently been influenced by other religions. They believe in reincarnation and, in addition to Muslim holidays, they celebrate Christmas and Epiphany. Smaller groups also exist, some of which (such as the Druze of Lebanon) are not considered orthodox Muslims.

Shiite Islam has been attractive to non-Arab Muslims, who have sometimes felt that they were relegated to an inferior role in a religion whose origins were in Arabia. Iran is the center of Shiite Islam because of its large Shiite population. But Iraq is the spiritual home because of the connection with Hussein.

 

Page 433Sunni Islam Sunni (or Sunnite) Islam, the other great division of Islam, takes its name from the word sunna (“tradition,” “example”). The name refers to the entire body of traditional teachings that are based on the life and teachings of Muhammad, as given in the Qur’an and the authoritative hadiths.

Sunni Islam developed to some degree in response to the claims of Shiite Islam. Because Sunnis accepted the legitimacy of the orthodox caliphates, they were compelled to develop a religious, political, legal, and cultural system that was consistent with their beliefs. The system included the caliphs, who were thought to rule in God’s name; the Qur’an and hadiths, seen as expressing God’s will; the schools and scholarly debate that interpreted the Qur’an and hadiths to apply to everyday life; and the scholars who carried on this debate. Traditional Islam does not separate political life from religious life; it aims to create a public life that is shaped by the Qur’an. Although scholarly debate has been a tradition of Shiite Islam, it is central to the ideology of Sunni Islam, which has often been distinctive in its openness to reason and practicality.

Sunni Islam does not have the clear divisions that we see in Shiite Islam. However, it does have its own divisions. Like any large-scale human development, Sunni Islam has generated interpretations of Islam that run the spectrum from ultraconservative to very liberal. We will speak briefly of the most important ones here and then return to them at the end of the chapter, when we discuss Islam in the modern world.

Page 434One division that is frequently spoken of today is the Wahhabi sect, a conservative movement. It is named after its founder, Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab (c. 1703–1791), who was born in Medina. The movement began in Arabia in the eighteenth century, experienced several declines, and underwent a revival in the past century. Its influence is now spreading throughout the Sunni world.

The Wahhabi movement arose from a desire to return to an ideal purity that was thought to have existed in early Islam. The Wahhabi movement emphasizes doctrinal orthodoxy, and the name that Wahhabis themselves use for their movement may be translated as “monotheism.” Muhammad, as we know, opposed polytheism and emphasized that worship be reserved for God alone. A continual struggle, therefore, goes on in Islam over the veneration of deceased teachers, leaders, and holy persons. Should they have shrines or special tombs? Should memorial days be celebrated for them? Should they be prayed to or referred to in prayer? The Wahhabis have opposed veneration of deceased people, no matter how saintly, saying that such veneration takes away from the unique worship of the One God. Thus Wahhabis do not even celebrate the birthday of Muhammad, and some oppose visiting his burial place in Medina. (Wahhabis earlier destroyed the shrines built to honor Muhammad and his companions.) The Wahhabi movement also has a strongly moral dimension. Among its goals are simplicity, modesty, separation in public of males and females, and strict prohibition of alcohol.

Another reform movement began in India in 1867. The Deobandi movement is named after the town of Deoband, about ninety miles north of Delhi, where the first school was established. This sect resembles the Wahhabis in its emphasis on a simplified Islam: veneration given solely to God, rejection of devotion to saints, and strong differences between male and female social roles. But it gives great attention to the importance of Muhammad and his early companions, who are thought of as role models for Muslims. It argues that education should be entirely religious—it should be based only on the Qur’an and hadiths. Thus it opposes education in business and modern science.

These fairly stern movements have come into existence because Sunni Islam encompasses so many countries and millions of individuals with varied degrees of commitment. Within the immense numbers of Sunnis—who make up almost 90 percent of all Muslims—many are simply “cultural Muslims.” They have been born into the faith but pick and choose the customs that they wish to follow. The most devout visit a mosque daily and follow all requirements about prayer, charity, and fasting. Others would call themselves moderate Muslims, attending the Friday prayer and doing some daily prayer, but not being otherwise involved. Some limit their practice to prayer at a mosque only on major festivals. Most observe the fast of Ramadan strictly, but some do not. Hence, the appeal of reformers. (We see something similar among Christians who attend church only at Christmas and Easter, or among Buddhists whose religious practice is confined to attending funerals.)

Page 435Another common pattern in some Sunni regions is the blending of Islam with older, local elements. One striking example is the traditional form of Islam in Indonesia, which is blended with Indonesian Hinduism and includes ceremonies to honor spirits of nature. A news article described one typical service on the island of Java.

“In the name of God, the compassionate, the merciful,” the turbaned priest begins in the orthodox Muslim style. … As the annual labuhan ceremony unfolds, he blesses the various offerings the Sultan of Yogyakarta has prepared for Loro Kidul, the goddess of the surrounding seas: silk, curry, bananas, hair and toenail clippings. The goddess, apparently, will be pleased with these items when they are carried in procession to the sea and thrown in, as will another local deity, who receives similar gifts tossed into a nearby volcano.

26

Clearly, this service—which resembles ceremonies that one might also see in Hindu Bali—owes much to the nature worship and Hinduism that preceded the coming of Islam.

Similar blendings can be found in many countries—particularly those that are away from the centers of orthodoxy, such as in western Africa and Southeast Asia. For many people, Islam is a veneer over much older practices. All mixed forms of Islam, however, can be—and often are—the object of reformers’ criticism.

Liberal movements have also regularly emerged, although they have not yet coalesced into a clearly defined sect. Perhaps this is because they have spread largely from books espousing their ideas. These movements argue that Muhammad was a humanitarian reformer and that he himself would reinterpret his insights in light of modern needs. The liberal movements urge, in addition to religious studies, the study of science and business. They point out the early achievements of Islam in medicine, astronomy, and other sciences, and they encourage the continuation of this type of achievement. Perhaps the most influential of these liberal developments has been the Aligarh movement. Its founder, Sayyid Ahmad Khan (1817–1898), began a college at Aligarh, in India, which he devoted to principles of modern education. His ideas, promoted widely by his books and disciples, remain influential. Such ideas inspire like-minded groups in many countries.

Because Mecca is located in Saudi Arabia, it is one center of power in modern Sunni Islam. This (and the influence of a reformist movement) has meant that the government of Saudi Arabia expects its country to be a model of proper Muslim belief and behavior—as tourists and foreign workers who have been forbidden from importing alcohol have sometimes been shocked to discover. This has also led to occasional friction, particularly with Iran, which reflects the long-standing differences between Sunni and Shiite points of view.

Another center of power in the Sunni world is Egypt. Its universities, particularly Al-Azhar in Cairo, give it prestige as an interpreter of Islam; and its large Muslim population makes it politically important in the Muslim world.

Page 436SUFISM: ISLAMIC MYSTICISM

Islam began as a rather austere religion. But as it moved beyond Arabia, Islam came into contact with the luxurious lifestyle of the settled old cities in the Near East and northern Africa. The Umayyad dynasty, we recall, ruled Islam for one hundred years from Damascus, which even then was an ancient city. Damascus had become one of the most important cities in the eastern part of the Roman Empire, and it had retained its prominent role under the Byzantine Empire. The caliphate of Damascus simply carried on the aristocratic lifestyle already present.

Islam had contact not only with sophisticated city dwellers there, but also with the Christian monks and hermits who lived elsewhere in Syria and in Israel and Egypt. The monks’ simple lives made a great impression on Muslims, who seemed to desire something similar for Islam. Because Islam rejected celibacy as a religious ideal, the Christian model of monasticism could not be imitated exactly. What emerged, however, were lay individuals who cultivated the spiritual life on their own and groups of devotees loosely organized around charismatic spiritual leaders.

Sufism

 is the name of an old and widespread devotional movement—or group of movements—in Islam. The name Sufism is thought to derive from the Arabic word suf (“wool”), because early Sufis wore a simple robe made of common wool. It is possible that this type of ordinary cloth was not only practical but also a visual statement opposing needless luxury. Sufism has been a religious movement that values deliberate simplicity.

But Sufism was not only a reaction against superficial luxury. The movement also grew out of a natural desire to do more than the merely formalistic. As Islam defined itself further, establishing religious practice in even the smallest areas of life, it was possible for some people to think that “keeping the rules” was all there was to being a good Muslim. Sufism, however, recognized that it is possible to “go through the motions” but to leave the heart uninvolved. As a result, Sufism sought the involvement of emotions. Because of this it has been called “the heart of Islam.”

Sufi Beliefs

The core of the Sufi movement is its mysticism—its belief that the highest experience a person can have is a direct experience of God. Sufism holds that an individual can, on earth, experience God “face to face.” Moreover, it teaches that experiencing God is the whole purpose of life, not something that has to wait until after death.

Sufi mysticism was encouraged by several religious movements that had been active in Egypt and Syria long before Sufism arose in the seventh and eighth centuries ce. One was Neoplatonism, a mystical philosophical school that began in Alexandria in Egypt with Plotinus (c. 205–270 ce). Plotinus’s work The Enneads spoke of the emergence of the entire cosmos from the One and the journey of the soul as it returns to its divine origin. Another movement that influenced Sufism was Gnosticism, which similarly saw life as a spiritual journey. Gnosticism produced its own literature and interpreted other religious literature symbolically. Christian forms of Neoplatonism and Gnosticism flourished in Syria not long before the Umayyad period and produced such books as The Divine Names and The Mystical Theology by Pseudo-Dionysius, who is thought to have been a Syrian Christian monk of the sixth century. It is also possible that influences from Hindu mysticism, coming from India into Persia, were behind a great flowering of mystical poetry.

Page 437

To God belongs the east and the west. Whichever way you turn, there is the face of God.

—Qur’an

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Sufis saw in the Qur’an a number of passages that invited mystical interpretation. These became their favorites. A beloved passage says that Allah is so near to every human being that he is even “closer than the jugular vein.”

27

 Another favorite passage says, “Whether you hide what is in your hearts or manifest it, Allah knows it.”

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The image of Muhammad also took on new meaning. To the Sufis, Muhammad was himself a mystic. He lived a life of deliberate simplicity, sought God, and had profound revelations. Because he submitted himself so fully to God’s will, in his Night Journey he was carried up to the highest heaven, where he spoke with God as one friend speaking to another friend. This event, the scholar A. J. Arberry remarks, “for the Sufis constitutes the Prophet’s supreme mystical experience and an example which they may aspire to follow.”

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One of the great early Sufi saints was Rabia (c. 717–801 ce), who left behind ecstatic writings that speak of God as her divine lover. She is famous for her statement that she sought God not because of fear of hell or desire for heaven but simply for himself alone. In other words, she sought God not for her sake but for his.

Sufis have commonly spoken about the sense of loss of self (

fana

, “extinction”) that occurs in mystical experience: when the self is gone, all that remains is God. Some Sufis have spoken about this experience in language that has been shocking to the orthodox—their mystical descriptions seeming to weaken the distinction between God and his created world, which is strong in orthodox Islam, and even seeming to embrace pantheism, the belief that everything is God. The Persian mystic Abu Yazid (d. 875 ce), when he was in ecstasy, is reputed to have said, “Glory be to me—how great is my majesty.”

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 Al-Hallaj (d. 922 ce) was one of the most alarming Sufi figures; he publicly and repeatedly applied a name for God to himself, calling himself al-Haqq (“the Truth,” “the Real,” or “Reality Itself”). His comments were so shocking to his contemporaries that they executed him.

Sufis continued to come into conflict with religious authorities who feared that Sufi meeting places would supplant the mosques and that a vague command simply to love would replace the clearer, specific commands of traditional Islam. The veneration of both living and dead Sufi masters also seemed to the orthodox to be opposed to the traditional demand to worship God alone.

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Deeper Insights

ZOROASTRIANISM

Z

oroastrianism is a monotheistic religion that was once widespread in the Near East and Middle East. Although today it is a small religion, it was once a religion of millions, and its influence spread far beyond its home in Persia. Because other religions that originated in the same region share many distinctive elements with Zoroastrianism, there is lively debate about its role in their development and spread. Some see possible influence on the worldview of the Essenes (a semimonastic faction of Judaism), early Christianity, and Islam. New Year’s customs still practiced today in Iran certainly reflect Zoroastrian origins.

The prophet Zarathustra (or Zoroaster), the founder of the religion, was born about 650 bce in what is now Iran. Zarathustra was surrounded by the worship of nature gods, common to the Aryan religion, which was also practiced in India. As in Indian Vedic religion, the religion of Zarathustra’s culture involved the worship of gods at fire altars, the use of a ritual drink (haoma, like the Vedic soma), and a hereditary priesthood. Like the Buddha after him, Zarathustra was distressed by the sacrifice of animals at the fire altars and by the power of the priests.

At about the age of 30, Zarathustra experienced a vision that changed his life. He felt himself transported heavenward by a spirit he called Vohu Manah (“good mind”) into the presence of the High God Ahura Mazda (“wise lord”), a god associated in Zarathustra’s mind with cosmic justice. Like the calls of Isaiah and Muhammad, this revelation led Zarathustra to preach his new message. At first, Zarathustra was met with strong rejection, which he blamed on demons (daevas) and the satanic head of evil forces, Angra Mainyu (“wicked spirit”). Zarathustra’s bitter experiences deepened his sense that evil forces constantly oppose the forces of goodness. He was undaunted, however, and his preaching eventually converted an Iranian king, Vishtaspa, who used his power to spread Zarathustra’s new religion. Zarathustra condemned animal sacrifices, but he maintained the ceremonial use of the Aryan fire altar. Although fire was not to be worshiped, Zarathustra considered it to be symbolic of divine goodness. Tradition relates that Zarathustra died in his 70s, killed by invaders while praying at his fire altar.

What we know of Zarathustra comes from the most ancient part of the Avesta, the Zoroastrian scriptures. They teach of a High God, Ahura Mazda, who expresses himself through good spirits whose names are virtues. Whether these spirits are simply aspects of Ahura Mazda or independent beings is unclear. The most important is called Spenta Mainyu (“holy spirit”). Others, for example, have names that mean “power,” “devotion,” “immortality,” and “obedience.” (We find some tantalizing similarities in the Jewish mystical literature of the Kabbalah, in Gnosticism, and in some New Testament letters. See 

Chapters 8

 and 
9
.)

Although Zoroastrianism is ultimately monotheistic, it sees the universe in morally dualistic terms. Forces of good are in perpetual conflict with forces of evil—a conflict that mysteriously began at the start of time. Each person is involved in this cosmic struggle and thus must make moral choices between good and evil. Good actions include telling the truth and dealing honestly with others—in the Avesta, good actions include cultivating farmland and treating animals kindly. There is a belief in divine judgment and in an afterlife of reward or punishment, which begins at death, when each individual’s soul must cross a bridge that can lead to paradise. If the individual has been good, the bridge is wide and the journey to paradise is easy; but if the individual has been evil, the bridge becomes so narrow that the soul falls into the depths of hell.

Zoroastrianism also presents an apocalyptic vision of the end of time: when the world comes to an end, there will be a resurrection of all bodies and a great general judgment; at this time the world will be purified by fire, which will punish the evil but leave the good untouched.

Zoroastrianism has long been a highly ritualistic religion. At the center of its worship is the fire altar, where priests dressed in white attend an eternal flame. To keep the flame from impurity, an attendant must wear a white cloth (padan) that covers his nose and mouth. Believers who come to pray take off their shoes and touch the door frame reverently.

The central festival is NoRuz, a New Year’s festival that is held at the time of the spring equinox, on or near March 21. It is celebrated not only by Zoroastrians but also by Iranians of many faiths, who do spring cleaning, wear new clothing, and eat festive meals. Jumping over outdoor fires is a unique practice—it is thought to bring health during the coming year. Because seven is a sacred number, people create side tables at home with seven ritual items, many of which are symbolic of new life. These may include new green shoots of wheat, colored hardboiled eggs, garlic, wine or vinegar, candles, a mirror, and a bowl of goldfish. Meals made of seven other foods, such as apples, pudding, dried fruit, and pastries, are also eaten. These groups of seven originally recalled Ahura Mazda and the six Holy Immortals, the spirits through whom Ahura Mazda expresses himself.

 

Iranian Zoroastrians celebrate the midwinter “feast of fire,” Jashn-eh-Sadeh.

Page 439Contemporary Zoroastrianism is threatened by its dwindling numbers. Although Zoroastrianism was once the widespread state religion of Persia, only about fifty thousand Zoroastrians live in Iran today. Large numbers moved to India more than a thousand years ago, where they settled in Mumbai (Bombay) and created their own distinctive culture. In India they are called Parsees (“Persians”) and number about a hundred thousand. Because of their regard for education and hard work, their contributions to science, industry, and music in India have been extraordinary. As a result of recent emigration, perhaps another fifty thousand Zoroastrians live in large cities in North America, England, and Australia.

 

Kashmiri Muslims in Srinagar, India, pray at the shrine of Sufi saint Sheikh Dawood, who preached Islam to the region over three hundred years ago.

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Al-Ghazali and Sufi Brotherhoods

The conflict was softened by the life and work of the scholar al-Ghazali (or al-Ghazzali, 1058–1111). Al-Ghazali was a renowned professor in Baghdad who adopted Sufism. In his autobiography he says that despite the respect his job gave him, he was deeply unhappy. What he was doing did not seem important to his own spiritual life. He was torn between leaving his post and staying on in comfort. At last, he followed an inner voice that demanded that he go “on the road.” He did this for more than ten years, traveling in Syria and Arabia and living simply. He eventually returned to Baghdad and formed a brotherhood of Sufis, but he insisted on keeping orthodox law and practice as well. His blend of Sufism with traditional practice, his later books on Sufism, and his scholarly reputation made an indelible mark on Islam. He explained that the Sufi language of “extinction” (fana) is metaphorical, which he compared to “the words of lovers passionate in their intoxication,”

32

 or to a diver lost in the sea.

33

 His explanations of Sufism and his prestige gave a legitimacy to Sufism that it had not had before. Sufism and orthodoxy no longer needed to run like parallel lines, never meeting. Now they could enrich each other.

After al-Ghazali, more Sufi brotherhoods were founded and their techniques became slightly more institutionalized. Disciples gathered around a master. The disciple—in Arabic called faqir and in Persian darwish, meaning “poor”—would learn a distinctive spiritual discipline (tariqa) from the shaykh, a Sufi expert. Often a master and his disciples lived in a compound of many buildings, and the life was semimonastic. Laypersons could also be associated with the religious order, even while living an outwardly secular life.

34

Many Sufi orders emerged and spread widely. One of the most famous was the Maulawiya (in Turkish, Mevlevi), founded by Jalal-ud-Din Rumi (1207–1273). Born in Persia, Rumi eventually settled in what is today Turkey. Rumi’s exquisite poetry is now well known beyond the Muslim world. His great work is called Mesnevi (or Mathnawi). The Maulawiya order became famous for its type of circular dance, which Rumi asserted could assist mystical experience. (The English phrase whirling dervish refers to a member of this order, and the Mevlevi dance is still performed in Konya, where Rumi lived, and in other places.) Among other orders to emerge, with different emphases, were the Qadiri, Suhrawardi, and Naqshbandi.

 

Page 441Sufi Practice and Poetry

Sufism has incorporated many techniques to encourage spiritual insight, some possibly derived from Hindu yoga or from Christian monastic practice in the Near East. One technique involved jerking the head to encourage an upward flow of blood during prayer. Two other techniques were deep, regular breathing during meditation and the repetition of the ninety-nine names of Allah (

dhikr

), sometimes counted on a rosary, to enable a constant remembrance of God. Some groups used music and others used spinning or dancing in circles or occasionally ingesting wine and psychedelic plants to alter consciousness.

Sufism has also used poetry in the same allegorical and symbolic ways. When read one way, a poem might resemble the lyrics of a romantic song. Read another way, the same poem might suggest a longing of the spirit for God, a search for God, or the ecstasy of final union with God. Sufism has inspired some of the world’s greatest poets, as famous in the Muslim world as are Shakespeare and Goethe in Western countries.

Page 442Until recent decades, only one Muslim poet was well known in English-speaking countries. Omar Khayyám (c. 1048–1122), who was also an astronomer and mathematician, gained fame in the West from a late Victorian translation (by Edward FitzGerald) of the long poem The Rubaiyat. Many people are familiar with “a loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou,” which is paraphrased from the poem and brings to mind a romantic picnic. But a Sufi could interpret a loaf of bread symbolically as the depth of ordinary reality, the jug of wine (intoxicating but suspect) as ecstasy, and “thou” as the divine Thou—God. Through modern translations, many great Sufi poets, such as Rumi, Hafiz (c. 1325–1390), and Jami (1414–1492), are gaining recognition.

There is a warmth about Sufism that appeals to the ordinary layperson, and some Sufi groups have served as fraternal societies, providing comfort to those in distress, helping the poor, and even burying the dead. Sufism’s characteristic warmth and practicality helped Islam spread to countries far from its place of origin, such as Malaysia and Indonesia.

The Sufi connection with common people, however, has sometimes made the orthodox think of Sufism as a superstitious folk religion. Although mosques are plentiful and visible in the Islamic world, Sufi meeting places are hard to find, as are individuals who will actually admit to being Sufis. Luckily, however, Sufism has been buoyed in recent years by a growing appreciation for Sufi poetry and practice.

PERSONAL EXPERIENCE

Ramadan in Morocco

During my first trip to Europe as a college student, I found myself spending a very cold February in “sunny” Spain. No one had told me that snow falls in Madrid. But there it was, pure, white, everywhere. As I trudged through Plaza Mayor one night, looking at my breath and feeling ice in my veins, I realized that if I were to survive, I had to go south—quickly.

I took a train from Madrid, then a ferryboat across to Morocco, and finally a bus inland. At first the land was sandy, dry, and flat, but soon the countryside grew greener, with small hills and low trees. I saw children watching over flocks of sheep, and donkeys pulling carts and carrying food on their backs. Animals seemed to be as much a part of everyday life there as cars are in Los Angeles. As I traveled south, Morocco appeared to be much like Spain, except that many of the men were dressed in long, hooded robes, and I could hear the call to prayer regularly during the day and early evening.

I reached Fez at the beginning of Ramadan. Old Fez is a traditional, Islamic-style city on a hill, brimming with mosques, shrines, and medersas (religious schools). Its streets, just wide enough for two people to pass, twisted and curved. Mules laden with saddlebags rushed past, their drivers yelling, “Balek!”—“Watch out!” On each side of the narrow streets, tiny shops sold fruit, vegetables, sweets, spices, perfumes, robes, brass, and leather. All kinds of fruit were piled high; spices were arranged in neat pyramids of red, yellow, and orange; and sweet desserts made of honey and almonds were heaped in thick stacks. People were buying for the evening meal that would end the day’s fasting, but I never saw anyone eat or drink during the daytime. In the evening, the recitation of the Qur’an could be heard loudly, coming from radios placed in shops and on windowsills.

 

The owner of this shop reads from the Qur’an as he awaits pilgrims who might buy his spiral candles. Note the black mark on his forehead, the result of repeatedly touching his forehead to the ground during prayer.

Page 443

Many shops sold spiral candles with paper decorations on them, meant as offerings at shrines. At a shop where I stopped to buy a candle, the old owner was reading a copy of the Qur’an. I was hesitant to disturb him, but then two young customers came and helped. They each bought a candle, too, then introduced themselves. Moulay and Noureddine were students in Casablanca and were in Fez on vacation. Moulay was Berber, a member of the native tribal people of Morocco, and his parents lived in the north, near Oujda. Noureddine was Arab, from Ouarzazate in the south. He told me proudly that his name (which he pronounced nur-deen’) means “light of religion.” The two friends were making a pilgrimage together to the main religious sites of Fez, Meknes, and places in central Morocco. Soon their pilgrimage would end with a visit to the shrine of the saint after whom Moulay was named, in the hilltop town of Moulay-Idriss. They invited me to join them, and I accepted gladly.

All along the way we talked about religion—about my beliefs and theirs. They explained that their way of practicing Islam was not strict. They did not pray at all the times of daily prayer, and they did not keep all the customs. But, they told me, they prayed at the public prayer on Fridays, and they kept Ramadan. I could see that: they rose before dawn to eat and would not eat or drink again till after sunset. They kindly encouraged me to eat whenever I was hungry, thinking I must be weaker than they were. “You have no practice in fasting,” Noureddine explained. They recommended, however, that during the day I not let others see me eat the bread and oranges or drink the water that I carried in my shoulder bag.

From our conversations, I discovered that Moulay and Noureddine were both interested in Sufism. Commenting on its teachings, Moulay said, “Allah is not something always clear and certain, like a tree or a mountain, that you only have to look at to see. Allah is a reality that you have to look for and discover for yourself. The word Allah is an invitation, like an invitation to a meeting or a party. You don’t quite know what will happen until you go there yourself. I practice my religion to see what will happen. I think you have to do it in order to know it.”

Page 444

Deeper Insights

THE MEANING OF MUSLIM NAMES

M

uslim names, mostly from Arabic, can sound exotic to some Western ears. But their meanings frequently involve everyday virtue and beauty. Many refer to religion, particularly by making reference to Allah or by recalling the names of Muhammad or of his wives, children, and companions. Some names are used for females, others for males, and some have both male and female forms (whose spellings may vary). Among the most common names are these:

· Abdul: “servant [of God]”

· Abdullah: “servant of Allah”

· Afaf: “modesty”

· A’ida: “returning”

· A’isha: “generous” (name of a wife of Muhammad)

· Amal: “hope”

· Amin (m.), Aminah (f.): “faithful”

· Barak (Barack): “blessing”

· Hassan: “lovely”

· Hussein (Husayn): “lovely”

· Iman: “belief”

· Jamal: “beauty”

· Jamila: “beautiful”

· Kareem (m.), Kareema (f.): “generous, noble”

· Khalid: “eternal”

· Latifah: “gentle”

· Leena: “tender”

· Mahmoud: “praised”

· Mustafa: “chosen”

· Noor: “light”

· Nurdeen: “light of religion”

· Rasheed (m.), Rasheeda (f.): “wise”

· Saleem (m.), Saleema (f.): “safe, whole”

· Shafiq: “compassionate”

· Shakira: “grateful”

· Shareef: “noble”

· Tareef: “rare”

· Waheed: “unequaled”

· Zahir (m.), Zahira (f.): “shining”

Noureddine pointed to some boys on the road who were riding bicycles. “Maybe it’s like that,” he said. “You don’t know how to ride a bicycle until you do it. In fact, it looks a little crazy. It even looks impossible. But when you do it, it works, and you get where you need to go.”

Our first vision of Moulay-Idriss was from a distance: a white town at the top of two steep hills. “They say it’s shaped like a camel’s back,” said Noureddine. When we arrived, the town was mobbed with people. Luckily, we found a small place to stay and left our things there. We then walked down to the entrance to the shrine, the burial site of Moulay Idriss I (d. 791 ce), a descendant of Muhammad and an early Muslim ruler of Morocco. My friends bought colorful green candles, decorated with cut paper, and asked me to wait for them. They went up a long corridor and disappeared; a small sign high up on the wall said, “No entry for non-Mussulmans.” I passed the time observing people’s faces and their clothing. One thing that struck me was how differently some of the women were dressed: their faces were modestly veiled, almost to the point of being entirely covered, yet their gowns attracted one’s attention because of their bright colors—purple, red, yellow, chartreuse.

Page 445When my friends returned, they took me up a seemingly endless flight of stairs to the top of the town. We looked down on square towers with roofs of green tile and across to the beautiful green mountains beyond. “That is the shrine down there,” Moulay said, “but I’m sorry you cannot go inside.” Noureddine smiled but looked serious. Then he had an idea. He asked me, “Wouldn’t you like to become a Muslim, too?”

ISLAMIC LAW AND PHILOSOPHY

Islamic thought focuses on both practice and belief. It asks, How should I live my life according to God’s will, and how am I to understand and relate to God? Over the first five hundred years of Islam, these questions were debated intensely, and some basic principles were acknowledged. Islam also recognized that there could be reasonable disagreement. Thus, various schools of opinion emerged.

Because the Qur’an does not give specific laws for every possible human situation, Muslims have found it necessary to discuss how to interpret the Qur’an. Muslims believe that the Qur’an offers principles for correct guidance in all of human life; but rules for specific instances have to be worked out by considering parallels and utilizing those basic principles.

The Qur’an is, of course, the primary authority. Also authoritative are the hadiths—remembrances of Muhammad’s words and actions. The most important collection is that of al-Bukhari (died c. 870), which contains almost three thousand hadiths. The use of hadiths enlarged the body of material that could be drawn on for guidance, but it also created problems of its own. Disagreement about which hadiths were genuine prevented their universal acceptance. Also, even apparently worthy hadiths showed inconsistencies. Islam has a long history of scholarly debate. Over the centuries (from the eighth century on), four major schools of Islamic law have emerged in Sunni Islam and three schools in Shiite Islam, each school differing on what it has looked to as an authoritative guide for making judgments on particular cases: On what grounds may a wife request a divorce? Can a village without a mosque be taxed and forced to build one? How many witnesses are necessary to legitimize a marriage? and so on. In arriving at decisions, scholars have relied on a variety of things: the Qur’an (which has been interpreted both literally and symbolically), the hadiths, logic, precedents, analogy (qiyas), the consensus of early jurists, and the decisions of religious scholars.

Islamic Law and Legal Institutions

Islamic law, called 

Sharia

 (also spelled Shariah), is the entire body of laws that guides the believer in this life. The legal ideal of Islam is different from what is now considered the norm in many countries. Most modern industrialized countries expect laws to reflect a kind of civilized minimum, something that all citizens, of any background or belief, can be expected to accept and obey in their public life. Often these laws have a distant religious background or origin, but they are framed for very diverse populations and are deliberately secular in nature. In everyday life, we often hear a distinction made between church and state. In industrialized countries, the two realms—secular and religious—generally exist somewhat apart.

Page 446The traditional Islamic ideal, however, does not separate religious and secular spheres, and this ideal is the subject of intense argument in strongly Muslim countries today. In the traditional Islamic ideal, laws bring everyday life into ever-closer harmony with the regulations of the Qur’an and traditional teaching.

Traditional Islam is theocratic, seeking the “rule of God” in all aspects of everyday life, for in its view there is one God and one correct religion. Nature is orderly because it follows the laws of God spontaneously—for example, gravitation governs the movement of the planets and the change of tides. Similarly, in Islamic thought God presents human beings with laws of human order. There cannot be different sets of laws for different human beings; otherwise, chaos would ensue. The laws of God must be obeyed not only because they are his commands but also because they lead to human fulfillment.

Of course, this ideal of a single religion guiding an entire society has rarely been attained. Muhammad himself recognized that there must be exceptions. Although he demanded that people who followed tribal folk religion convert to Islam, he was more lenient toward Jews and Christians. In fact, he allowed Jews and Christians to continue their own laws and practices (although they were charged a special tax for this right). In Muhammad’s eyes, Jews and Christians were “people of the book” and were thus considered as followers of the same general “religion of Abraham” as were Muslims—although living at a less perfect level.

Some governments, such as that of Iran since 1979, have imposed a theocratic rule. There and in a few other strongly Muslim countries, the rules of the Qur’an and the rulings of religious scholars have had great political power. Although Islam does not have an official clergy, it does have religious specialists and scholars (ulama, mullahs) who have various levels of influence, both religious and political.

Islamic Philosophy and Theology

Many profound questions emerged quite naturally as early thinkers began to consider the basic beliefs of Muhammad and of Islam. One of the first questions regarded intellectual investigation itself. Is a good Muslim allowed to question religious topics? Does the philosophical study of religion (kalam, “theology”) hurt a person’s spiritual life, or can it deepen it? Do faith and reason contradict each other, or can they coexist happily?

In theory, there is a distinction between philosophy and theology. Philosophy considers all questions by the light of reason alone, without making use of religious revelation. Theology, however, mixes philosophy and religion, for it uses philosophy to investigate religious doctrines. In reality, pure philosophy is rather difficult to find, for the religion of a surrounding culture will inevitably color both the questions and the methods of its philosophers. This happened frequently, as we will see, from the beginning of Islam.

Page 447Early thinkers posed important questions that had to be addressed. Some questions were simply intriguing, but others presented serious philosophical problems. For example, the Qur’an calls God both just and merciful. But how is it possible to be strictly just and also to be really merciful? Doesn’t one virtue exclude the other? Or a second question: If God is truly all-powerful, how can a human being really be free to make a choice? Doesn’t God make everything happen? And even when human beings think they are acting by their own choice, isn’t God really doing the choosing? Or another question: If God is all-loving, why does he allow bad things to happen? Wouldn’t an all-loving God prevent evil things from happening in the world? The list of many similar questions goes on.

Some philosophical questions arose early as a result of studying the Qur’an. Others, however, emerged as Islam encountered the philosophies and religions of its neighbors, such as when Greek philosophical works were first translated into Arabic and were then taught in the great schools of Baghdad, Córdoba, and Cairo. Aristotle, for example, taught that the universe was eternal. But didn’t this conflict with the Qur’an’s vision of God as creator of the universe? Further questions arose when Islam moved into India and had contact with a monistic Hindu spirituality. Certain schools of Hindu thought taught that everything, ultimately, was God. But didn’t this conflict with the Muslim notion that Allah, as creator, is different from his creation?

In general, there have been two philosophical poles within Islam. The more liberal view values reason and maintains that everything can be examined intellectually. It argues that human beings are basically free and that reason is a God-given gift that illuminates and complements faith. The other, more conservative view is suspicious of reason, which it sometimes sees as an expression of false human pride. It therefore values intellectual submission, believing that ultimately neither God nor anything else can be explained fully by reason. It tends to see the entire universe, including human lives, as being strongly determined by God. Like a pendulum, the history of Islamic thought has swung back and forth between these two poles.

The value that Islam has placed on philosophical reasoning appears in the works of two Muslim thinkers who are considered prominent figures of world philosophy. They are Ibn-Sina (980–1037) and Ibn-Rushd (1126–1198), known in medieval European philosophy by their Latin names Avicenna and Averroës, respectively. Because of their interest in medicine and the natural sciences, as well as philosophy, they thought that using reason to explore nature would give insight into nature’s Creator.

Perhaps the most influential philosophical formulations, however, were more conservative. They came from al-Ghazali (mentioned earlier) and his intellectual disciple al-Arabi (d. 1240). Both rejected rationalism. Defending the conservative approach, al-Ghazali wrote two influential books: The Incoherence of the Philosophers and The Revival of the Religious Sciences. In these books he showed the inconsistency of several philosophers who had based their thought on Aristotle’s. He criticized philosophy for generating arguments and false pride, and he distanced himself from both rational theology and legalism. The elements that he considered to be the core of religion, instead, were direct religious experience and submission of the heart to God—ideals attainable by anyone, not just by philosophers.

Page 448Al-Arabi continued this line of thought, but, influenced also by Sufism, he moved even further in a mystical, monistic direction. For him, all apparently separate realities were images of God, and all activity was ultimately the activity of God.

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 Submission to God meant a lived awareness of God’s active presence in all things.

ISLAM AND THE ARTS

Islam has had a unique influence on the arts. Its prohibition of much figural art, its love of the chanted word, its weekly public worship, and its focus on the Qur’an have channeled the inspiration of its artists in intriguing directions and helped create works of great imagination.

This mosque displays the genius of Islamic architecture, which attempts to hint at heaven, even here on earth.

Architecture

Perhaps the greatest art form of Islam is its architecture. When we think of Islam, we envision tall towers and immense domes. It takes only a few visits to Islamic destinations to sense the architectural genius of Islam, whose uniquely shaped spaces express beauty in what is vast and empty.

Islamic architecture expresses itself most importantly in the place of public prayer, the mosque (masjid, meaning a space for prostration). Because a mosque can be any building or room where Islamic prayer is offered, its design can be quite simple, as it is in villages or in cities where the Muslim population is small. Grand mosques, however, provide greater opportunity for artistic attention. Some of the finest examples are the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, the Sultan Ahmet “Blue Mosque” in Istanbul, the former grand mosque of Córdoba, and the Hassan II Mosque of Casablanca.

 

Cairo’s skyline provides multiple examples of Islamic architecture.

Page 449A mosque has at least one formal entry to the compound, where shoes are to be taken off and left outside. Because purification is necessary before prayer, there is at least one fountain inside the compound for washing one’s hands, face, neck, and feet. There is a high pulpit indoors or outdoors for sermons—although as an act of humility the speaker does not stand at the very top. Worshipers stand and prostrate themselves in rows, facing the mihrab (the special marker that indicates the direction of Mecca). The floor is usually covered with rugs or mats. Frequently, there are covered porches for protection from the sun and rain. Other wings or buildings—used for schoolrooms and libraries—are often a part of the complex. Outdoors there is also usually a minaret—a tall tower, either round or square, from which people are called to prayer. Although only one minaret is needed, there are frequently two; in grand mosques there might be four or even six. Inside the minaret is a staircase, which leads up to a balcony near the top, from which the muezzin can chant his call.

Most styles of religious architecture in the world emphasize ornamentation, but the aesthetic principles of Islamic religious architecture are more austere. This simplicity enhances one’s appreciation of space and balance, particularly in the mosque and its attendant structures.

The value of empty space is one of an art student’s first lessons; the blank spaces in some paintings and drawings may at first seem to have no function, but the student learns that the empty space actually acts in harmony with whatever is depicted. The space gives rest to the eye and directs the viewer’s focus. In art this necessary emptiness is called negative space. In architecture, negative space is the space above or beside or around a building. The building shapes the space within and without, and both the space and the building work together to balance each other. Large mosques especially demonstrate a skillful use of negative space, such as in the shaped space between a dome and a minaret.

 

This Cairo dome was constructed of stone inlay and wood. Some art historians see Islam’s fascination with complex designs as an outgrowth of the prohibition against the portrayal of persons in religious art.

Page 450Because many mosques, particularly in dry climates, have extensive open courtyards, the negative space of most importance is the sky. It is beautifully balanced and complemented by the columns, arches, and walkways below. Other types of mosques, particularly in wetter climates, are almost entirely enclosed, frequently covered with one or more domes. But even inside, a person can experience the beauty of negative space—especially in the large mosques of Turkey, which are primarily domed buildings. A vast dome, although it shelters one from the sky, is itself like the sky in its feeling of expansiveness. The internal and external shaping of space also helps one experience the divine, for in Islam space is an important symbol of God, invisible but present everywhere.

In Islamic architecture, balance is another important feature, especially as it relates to the use of color. Perhaps because Islam spread throughout hot, sunny regions, most of its architecture is white, to reflect the sunlight. White is balanced by black, particularly in the dark shadows that are created by windows and doors, covered porches, and colonnades. Sometimes, too, alternating lines of black and white are painted on walls for decorative effect.

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 This white-black contrast is a fundamental theme of much Islamic architecture. A second color scheme contrasts blue with gold, often in the form of ceramic tiles on domes, where the dome is covered in one color and its base in another. (Good examples are the golden Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem and the blue domes of Isfahan in Iran.) The blue can vary in shade from sea-blue to blue-green. The Islamic tendency toward a blue-green palette is suggested by the original meaning of the word turquoise, which in French means “Turkish.”

Page 451Fine Art

To talk of “Islamic art” might seem a contradiction in terms, owing to the Muslim prohibition against making images of human beings or animals. Nonetheless, Islam has a rich tradition of pictorial art.

Paradise as a Theme in Art
 One theme that seems to have inspired much Islamic art—in addition to architecture and garden design—is the theme of paradise. In the Qur’an and the Muslim imagination, paradise is quite concrete and sensuous. It is not just a heaven of diaphanous angels, singing hymns and resting on wispy clouds. Paradise is more like a fertile oasis or an enclosed garden. The Qur’an repeatedly says that paradise is “watered by running streams.”

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 Wildflowers are at our feet, and we sit under date palms and other fruit trees, whose fruit is ready to be eaten.

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 In the afternoon, we feel cooling breezes. Paradise is safe, too. (Literally, the word paradise, from Middle Iranian, means “build around.”) We can stay outdoors in this garden, enjoying nature without fear.

This image of paradise in Islamic art often appears in symbolic form in the prayer carpet. Although the prayer carpet is not usually recognized as religious art, it is to Islam what stained-glass windows are to Christianity. Both are objects of contemplation for people at prayer. Interestingly, both manifest the same fundamental color scheme—every shade of red and blue. A major difference between the stained-glass window and the prayer carpet is that the latter does not depict human images. Instead of portraying figures of saintly persons, prayer carpets often contain a symbolic image of the garden of paradise. At the center of the carpet might be a stylized fountain that sends water in straight lines to each of the four directions and then around the entire border, the four sides of the border representing the walls of the garden. The rest of the carpet might be filled with stylized flowers. To walk into a large mosque where immense carpets are laid out side by side, such as the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, gives the feeling of entering a magical garden.

The paradise theme is carried over in Muslim architecture as well: slender pillars resemble the trunks of trees, and arches that come to a point suggest adjoining tree branches. Ceilings often suggest a night sky full of stars: blue ceramic tiles may form a backdrop for golden six-pointed stars, clustered in complex patterns. Or delicate wood and plaster stalactites hang from the ceiling, suggesting light coming from heaven. The paradise theme is sometimes evident in and around mosque buildings, shrines, palaces, and even homes. It may express itself in fountains and narrow canals, in a grove of orange trees, in a garden full of fragrant plants (such as rose and jasmine), or in a decorated porch from which one can enjoy the sights and sounds of the garden.

The Islamic love of the Qur’an often continues the theme of paradise. The words of the Qur’an are symbolically the sounds of heaven: they are the voice of God, heard not only by human beings but also by angels. In spoken and chanted form, they fill the air and remind us of God and paradise. In written form, they decorate the domes, doors, walls, and windows to remind us of the divine presence. The care and beauty that are lavished on handwritten copies of the Qur’an extend the sense of paradise: because the Qur’an is the book of God’s speech, to open the Qur’an is to psychologically enter God’s presence. Thus, beautiful writing has become an integral part of the Islamic art of creating paradise on earth.

 

The reflected window in the Hassan II Mosque of Casablanca shows how Islamic artists can create a paradise in the worshiper’s imagination.

 

The Generalife gardens, constructed when Granada was the center of Islamic power in Spain, illustrate the Muslim ideal of paradise.

Page 453Despite what has been said about the Islamic love of simplicity, Islamic art, particularly in manuscript writing and illustration, demonstrates an appreciation for ornamentation. Extremely fine, handwritten copies of the Qur’an feature pages surrounded by filigree. Similarly, geometrical designs on doors and walls create an effect of hallucinatory complication. Although Islamic ornamentation is complex, it is usually also subtle, allowing the eye to wander and inviting the mind to lose itself in the experience. Because many geometrical designs have no visual center, experiencing them can be like looking at stars or waves, inducing a gentle ecstasy.

Exceptions to the Prohibition against Image Making
 The prohibition against image making has been widely observed in Islam, but there have been three important exceptions. One is the imagery surrounding Muhammad’s Night Journey—his ascent to the highest heaven. As shown by many Muslim artists, Muhammad rises through the air on his human-headed horse Buraq. Both are surrounded by golden flames and by hovering angels. As a bow to the Muslim prohibition against image making, however, Muhammad’s face often appears as a rather ghostly blank space.

Page 454The second exception to image making is a whole category of art—Persian miniatures. (This tradition was continued in Turkish and Indian Mughal art as well.) Influenced by artistic traditions from nearby India, the Persian court commissioned innumerable small paintings of its personages and its activities—rulers on horseback, picnicking courtiers, and lovers enjoying the afternoon in a garden pavilion. The topics are usually secular, but the treatment has that same hallucinatory quality—evoked by complex designs—that we see in Islamic mosaic, stucco, and woodwork. Thousands of tiny flowers seem to carpet the meadows, and tens of thousands of leaves cover the trees. The eye becomes lost in infinity.

The third exception to image making belongs to the realm of folk art. Pilgrims who return successfully from Mecca have a natural pride in their accomplishment, as have their families. Often they will make or commission a picture of their pilgrimage on the way to or from Mecca—nowadays looking happily out of an airplane. Sometimes this picture is even placed outside the house near the front door, where it cannot be missed.

Over the past century, the prohibition against making images has begun to break down. Statues are still not made, but photographs are common, often of religious leaders and family members. It is even possible nowadays to see carpets and wall hangings woven with recognizable human figures.

ISLAM AND THE MODERN WORLD

Modern life presents great challenges to traditional Islam. Industrial work schedules make daily prayer and other religious practices difficult; women are demanding total equality with men and complete independence; and individualism is weakening family ties and social responsibility. Islam is being pulled in many directions.

Islam and Contemporary Life

Soon after its beginnings, Islam became and remained a world power for about eight hundred years. During that period, Islamic universities—in Baghdad, Córdoba, and Cairo—were among the great centers of learning and scientific investigation in the world. Islamic cities were centers of civilized living. Islamic strength contrasted with the general weakness of western Europe: the Roman Empire had ceased to exist in the West by the late fifth century, not long before Muhammad was born. Ruling from Constantinople, the Byzantine emperors continued the Eastern Roman Empire in weakened form. Islam’s last great military victory was the conquest of Constantinople, and thus of the Eastern Roman Empire, in 1453. Islam continued to spread and consolidate eastward, as far as Indonesia and the Philippines, but after that its expansion slowed.

Page 455Toward the end of the fifteenth century the pendulum of power swung in the opposite direction. While Islam became fairly settled in its territory, western Europe began to expand its control. Significant turning points were Columbus’s journeys to the New World, beginning in 1492, and Vasco da Gama’s journey around Africa and his arrival in India in 1498. These explorations changed the patterns of trade. Before then, trade was conducted primarily by land routes, which were frequently controlled by Muslim rulers. Now journeys could be made by ship, a form of travel that greatly enlarged the opportunity for travelers to influence others. These journeys were just the beginning of powerful waves of expansion by European traders, soldiers, political figures, and Christian missionaries. Coupled with circumnavigation were the growth of scientific understanding during the European Renaissance of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the Enlightenment of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and the development of technology during the Industrial Revolution of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. As Islamic and European cultures came into more frequent contact with each other, their differing values and social ideals led to conflict. Beginning in the twentieth century, the industrial world’s growing dependence on oil—much of it from predominantly Islamic nations—has created a new shift in economic and cultural balance.

In the twenty-first century, Islamic women’s attire—often assumed to be mainly dark robes—sometimes includes colorful headscarves. These women pause during a Sunday stroll in Istanbul.

Page 456

Islam and the Roles of Women

Recent decades have seen increased focus on the roles of women in Islam. There are different ways to view women’s roles in Islamic society. On one hand, traditional Islam protects women and emphasizes their important place in caring for home and family. On the other hand, women’s work has been restricted to domestic settings, thus keeping them from reaching their full human potential. We should begin by trying to understand Muhammad’s views, and then we can go on to examine the situation today.

Before the time of Muhammad, restrictions on females in Arabia were severe. Unwanted female babies could be buried alive or left to die. Women were often treated as property, being bought and sold, and men could take as many wives as they wished. Women often could not initiate divorce, and sometimes they had little right to own land or money. Seen against this background, some of Muhammad’s views can seem quite liberal. For example, the Qur’an forbids infanticide. It gives women the right to initiate divorce. Women may own money and property. And religious duties are demanded of women and men alike. Thus it has been argued that Muhammad did a great deal to improve women’s individual rights.

Today, however, what some see in Islam as protection of women, others see as repression. Women’s attire is a good example. In Muhammad’s day, women were required to dress modestly and in a way that protected them from any possible scrutiny from male visitors. But since that time, extreme forms of veiling have emerged in some countries, where women must be entirely covered when they are outside the home; even their hands are to be covered with gloves and their eyes with cloth mesh.

The meaning of the veil, however, is not always a conservative one. Although the wearing of a headscarf has long been imposed in Iran, head covering is not required in all Muslim countries. In fact, in some societies with more lenient dress customs, women are now adopting the veil, such as in Turkey, Egypt, and Malaysia; these women claim that covering one’s head can be a liberal assertion of female power and personality. In western Europe, the optional wearing of the veil is strongly debated by legislators, who see secular-religious neutrality being questioned.

Related to clothing requirements, in some cultures women are not allowed to go outside their homes without a companion, and they may not travel abroad without male permission. Critics point out how limiting these and other restrictions are for women, making it difficult for some to go to school, participate in certain sports, or even seek various kinds of employment.

Women are rebelling, however. Some examples are quite newsworthy. In Saudi Arabia, where women generally have not been allowed to drive cars, some women have begun to drive in public demonstrations, demanding changes in the law—which will certainly come. Women have also been denied the right to vote in Saudi Arabia, but this has been challenged and will soon change.

Another potential area of reform is the mosque. Traditionally, women have been limited to praying at home or in the mosque in a special area reserved for women. Only men have led public prayer. But these restrictive practices are now being questioned. In several countries, women have joined men in the main prayer area of mosques, and a few have led public prayers.

Page 457Some of the influences behind women’s questioning of Islam are images and ideas presented via film, television, travel, international education, and the Internet. Most popular films and television programs, for example, are not produced in predominantly Muslim countries. Instead, they come from North America, South America, Europe, and China, and they depict cultures in which women drive, dress according to their own personal preference, exercise political power, and have control over money and property.

In addition, tourism and employment opportunities bring non-Muslims, along with their non-Muslim practices and values, into traditionally Muslim societies. For example, the demand that women not drive in Saudi Arabia has fueled the need for personal drivers. There are now more than seven million foreigners living in Saudi Arabia, many of them working as drivers and domestics. Dubai and Abu Dhabi also have attracted large populations of foreigners for business employment.

Although the Internet, entertainment industry, tourism, education, and migrant employment serve as challenges to traditional Muslim societies, they also provide sources for new ideas and a means of global communication. While some Muslim people seem to be presenting an assertive, conservative face, others appear to be open to absorbing ideas from other cultures. Both non-Muslims and Muslims will be affected by this intercultural exchange.

The Challenge of Secularism

The most difficult of the Western models for Islam to accept is secularism. The word secularism comes from a Latin word for “world” (saeculum) and implies a focus on this world, without reference to values or entities beyond this world. Secularism seeks to create political institutions that are independent of any established religion.

Secularism is not necessarily antireligious. In its political form, it actually developed in part for religious reasons—to avoid religious fights and to enable all religions to flourish. The point of the secular model was not to destroy religion but to allow all religions to exist without hindrance from any one religion or from government. But secularism is based on a governmental system of laws, courts, and legislatures that operate independently from any religion. That ideal of independence from religion has caused dismay in many Islamic countries.

Science has also promoted secularism. Although investigators such as Isaac Newton (1642–1727) once looked into the properties of light in order to better understand the nature of God, scientists nowadays rarely carry on their work in this spirit. Science pursued for its own sake has led to a view of the universe that does not include God, as either its creator or its moral guide. In this worldview, God is not necessarily excluded but is simply not mentioned. (To appreciate this fact, look for the word God in a textbook on biology, chemistry, or physics.) But Islamic tradition holds that to view the universe apart from God is to live without God.

Page 458A Range of Solutions

One of the great challenges for Islam, therefore, has been to adopt from the West what is obviously useful, to avoid what is dangerous, and to continue holding on to what it thinks valuable. There are a variety of intriguing solutions to this challenge—a few are extreme responses, but the majority are attempts at compromise. Yet change can happen quickly.

Turkey arrived at the most clearly secular solution. For centuries, Islam had a caliph, God’s representative on earth, who united in himself religious and political power. As we discussed earlier in the chapter, the last caliphate existed for centuries in Istanbul. But in 1924, trying to build a modern country, Kemal Atatürk (1881–1938) dissolved the caliphate and created a new secular nation, modeled after the European pattern. He replaced the Arabic alphabet with the Roman alphabet for writing Turkish; he created a legal system independent of Muslim religious authorities; and he set up a democratic form of government that allowed women to vote. In his desire to Europeanize, he even outlawed men’s wearing the fez (a traditional round hat) and women’s wearing the veil, and he encouraged European styles of clothing. Turkey has generally held onto its secular vision, which has especially been promoted by the military. But this secular approach is now being questioned and changed as conservative politicians come into power.

At the other end of the spectrum is Saudi Arabia. When Saudi Arabia was declared an independent nation in 1932, the Qur’an was named the constitution of the country and the strict Wahhabi interpretation of Islam became dominant. There are no movie theaters, and alcohol is forbidden. Women must be covered by the cloaklike abaya in public, and they go to their own schools, separated from men. Religious police (mutawa) ensure conformity to these rules. Because of Saudi Arabia’s influence and wealth, the Wahhabi interpretation of Islam is spreading in many countries, particularly in those where Saudi citizens and government agencies finance religious schools.

Iran, because it no longer has a king (shah), is even more clearly a theocracy. It has been influential in the Muslim world as a modern attempt to create an Islamic state. The situation was once quite different. For decades, Iran seemed to be moving inexorably toward westernization. All this ended when an exiled mullah, the Ayatollah Khomeini, returned to Iran in 1979 and Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, in turn, went into exile. Iran rapidly became a Muslim theocracy. A new constitution was written by the religious authorities, who also held a majority of the seats in the legislature. Khomeini had a new post created for himself as “legal guide,” from which he could oversee and validate all legal and political developments. Mosques became centers of civil as well as religious activity; women were forced to veil themselves in public; and alcohol was strictly forbidden. Iran thus became a fully Muslim state.

Page 459Most countries that are primarily Muslim, however, lie uncomfortably between the two poles of secular government and theocracy. Increasingly, conservative Islamic groups nudge them in the direction of becoming Islamic states. Liberal movements in Islam are accused of giving in too much to modern secular thought and abandoning Islam. Consequently, countermovements, sometimes violent, have arisen; they attempt to create a path that makes Islam relevant and active in the modern world.

Egypt is typical of those countries that have to work out a compromise, partly out of necessity. At least 10 percent of its population is Coptic Christian, and Jews and Greeks living primarily in Alexandria play an important role in Egyptian shipping and business. Moreover, because Egypt is dependent on foreign tourism for its economic survival, it has at least a limited acceptance of alcohol in tourist hotels. The Egyptian government has generally recognized that solely Islamic laws would not work well for everyone. However, fundamentalist groups (such as the Muslim Brotherhood) offer a different vision—of an Egyptian Islamic state, governed by Sharia. Because they believe that tourism brings influences that are considered corrupting, these groups tolerate or even sponsor attacks of the sort that have sometimes been made on tourist groups.

In many countries the debate is becoming broader and the volume is rising. In India, conflict between Muslims and Hindus has broken out frequently, particularly over the status of Kashmir (which is predominantly Muslim but ruled by India) and about mistreatment of each group by the other. The destruction of a mosque at Ayodhya by Hindus in 1992 became a flashpoint. Mob violence at the time caused the death of about two thousand people, and another thousand people were killed in 2002.

In Pakistan, the government tries to find a balance between official tolerance of all religious groups and support for Qur’anic schools, some of which preach extreme fundamentalism. The population of Pakistan is both Sunni (77 percent) and Shiite (20 percent), and there is a small but important minority of Christians, Hindus, and Parsees (Zoroastrians). Unfortunately, attacks on mosques and churches are increasing.

In Indonesia the fundamentalist view is in conflict with the Western influence that comes from tourism and business. (Bombings at a bar in Bali in 2002 and a hotel in Jakarta in 2003 were violent responses.) It is also in conflict with the traditional Indonesian form of Islam that blends Islam with Hinduism and native religions. Reformers (sometimes called santri) oppose the traditional practitioners (abangan), and they criticize traditional Indonesian practice as impure. Some of this reformism is also caused by the fact that great masses of people can now make the pilgrimage to Mecca; they learn there that their own form of Islam is considered to be imperfect.

The conflict between two visions—of a fairly secular government and of an Islamic state—has been clearest in Afghanistan. The country was taken over in 1996 by the puritanical Taliban. The core of their movement was made up of students from Deobandi schools in Pakistan. (Taliban literally means “seekers of truth”—religious students—but we should note that the Taliban’s views are even stricter than those of the founders of the Deobandi school itself.) The goal of the Taliban is to create the world’s purest Islamic state, and they follow their own strict interpretation of the Qur’an. Taliban regulations about gender forbid men to cut their beards; women are restricted solely to domestic roles. When the Taliban took control in Afghanistan in 1996, women were no longer allowed to work outside the home, they had to be totally covered when in public, and when away from home they were to be accompanied by a male relative.

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 The Taliban forbade all nonreligious music. Films, television, e-mail, and the Internet were banned. Public executions and amputations were performed in soccer stadiums. The Taliban were subsequently ousted from power by Western forces in 2001, but the movement eventually regrouped and remains active in many parts of the country.

Page 460Other countries that are being pressed by mostly conservative Muslim groups are the Philippines, China, and Malaysia. In the Philippines, Muslim groups are fighting for the independence of Mindanao, the large southern island, which is home to almost five million Muslims. In China, the majority of its twenty million Muslims live in the western province of Xinjiang; and of the more than thirty thousand mosques of China, more than two-thirds are in that province. On one hand, Islam has gained official respect as a legal religion of China, and Muslims have been granted legal rights to practice their religion. (For example, time off to make the pilgrimage to Mecca is coordinated with work schedules.) On the other hand, the Chinese government is vigilant against Islamic independence movements—particularly after protests and bombings in Urumqi between 1996 and 1997. There are also claims that non-Muslim Han Chinese are being encouraged to relocate in the western part of the country in order to dilute the power of the Muslim population there. At one time constituting only 4 percent of the population in Xinjiang, non-Muslim Han Chinese now make up 50 to 60 percent of its people. Elsewhere throughout the country, the Chinese government tightly controls mosques and Islamic religious training.

Malaysia is perhaps the most successful of all predominantly Muslim countries in integrating Islam with the modern industrial world. Malaysia is now the tenth-largest trading nation in the world, and its national income has gone up every year for the past thirty years.

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 Its educational system is excellent, corruption has been controlled, private property is protected by law, and the courts are generally trusted. About a quarter of the population is Chinese and 8 percent is Indian, and the government works actively to minimize racial and religious conflict. Emphasis is placed on passages from the Qur’an that support private property, women’s rights, and tolerance. There is also a system of affirmative action in place for Malays. However, religious groups are gaining success in promoting the wearing of the headscarf by Muslim women, the keeping of the fast during Ramadan, and other Islamic practices.

Page 461

Conflict in Religion

SUNNI VERSUS SHIITE: WHY THE CONFLICT?

S

unnis and Shiites, the two dominant branches of Islam, share the Qur’an, the Five Pillars of Islam, and many articles of faith. Yet, as we know from contemporary news reports, conflict between the two groups is common.

The division arose when Sunni forces killed Hussein, Muhammad’s grandson. Shiites viewed Hussein’s assassination as the denial of his rightful place as successor to Muhammad, and they saw his death as the heroic death of a martyr. As a result, veneration of Hussein and of his father Ali has become a major characteristic of Shiite practice.

Although Shiites and Sunnis share many essential elements of faith, over the centuries some of their beliefs and practices have diverged. For example, Shiites and Sunnis differ not only in their interpretation of many passages of the Qur’an but also over which sayings of Muhammad (hadiths) are authoritative. There are also major differences in ritual. Shiites normally combine some of the daily prayers, praying three times a day rather than the five times a day typical of Sunni Muslims. When engaged in ritual prayer, Shiites lower their foreheads to a small prayer stone on the floor and hold their arms at their sides, rather than crossing them in front of the body, as do Sunnis. More significantly, Shiite prayer explicitly invokes the figure of Ali. Also, Sunni and Shiite periods of prayer and fasting may begin and end at different times. The many differences have led the two groups to worship at different mosques. (Shiite places of prayer are often called husseiniyahs rather than mosques.)

The two branches differ over important religious laws, particularly those regarding marriage and inheritance. Smaller differences abound as well. Shiites often have pictures of Hussein in their cars and homes, and they regularly name their children after Ali, Hassan, and Hussein.

Distinctive Shiite rites appear at New Year’s, when Shiites ritually mourn for Hussein, whose death occurred during the first lunar month of the Muslim calendar (Muharram). This mourning period (Ashura) reaches its peak on the tenth day of the new year, when men perform public reenactments of the Battle of Karbala. Dressed in black, with red and green headbands, devotees walk in procession, beating their chests. Others go shirtless, flogging themselves with chains and metal whips and cutting themselves with swords and knives to draw blood. In this way, they recall and imitate Hussein’s tragic death.

Veneration of Ali and his sons, Hassan and Hussein, thus marks Shiite Islam. (A common Shiite saying, for example, is “God, Muhammad, Ali.”) Some Shiites even hold that Ali was sinless. Sunnis, however, see this veneration as being too close to worship of a mere human being. Thus Sunnis prohibit veneration of Ali or of his sons. Because Sunnis so emphasize the absolute uniqueness of God (tawhid) alone, they see Shiites as dangerous heretics. By opposing them, Sunnis seek to assert pure Islamic belief in the one God.

Islam in the West and Beyond

Islam has begun to spread to the West through immigration and conversion. It has spread to England, Canada, and Australia through emigration from some former British colonies, particularly Pakistan and India; and many French cities have large populations of emigrants from Algeria. Large cities in North America have also attracted Muslim emigrants, particularly from Iran, Lebanon, and Africa; for example, there are now more than 300,000 Muslim émigrés from Iran living in Los Angeles. Islam is also spreading in Chicago and Detroit, cities with special appeal to minorities.

Because of its simplicity and strong moral guidance, Islam has been successful in attracting converts in places far away from traditionally Muslim regions. For example, Koreans who worked in the oil fields of Saudi Arabia have taken Islam back to South Korea. It is also growing strongly in sub-Saharan Africa, where it is attractive to some converts because it is a way of expressing a deliberate rejection of Christianity, which many people associate with European exploitation. Islam is also attractive in sub-Saharan Africa because of its acceptance of the traditional practice of polygamy.

 

Wherever there were trade routes in Africa and Asia, Islam has left its mark. This mosque in Xi’an, China, is still in use today.

Page 462Some relatively new forms of Islam have emerged that are not as inclusive as orthodox Islam, and their relation to mainstream Islam has occasionally been questioned. The movement known at first as the Nation of Islam, for example, was begun as an Islamic religious movement meant exclusively for African Americans. Its founders were Wali Farrad Muhammad (W. D. Fard, born c. 1877; he mysteriously disappeared in 1934) and his successor Elijah Muhammad (Elijah Poole, 1897–1975), who set up the first centers of worship in Detroit and Chicago. The Nation of Islam, whose members are known as Black Muslims, attempted to bring pride to African Americans by instilling the virtues of thrift, hard work, education, and self-defense. It created an organization for young men, called the Fruit of Islam, and one for young women, called Muslim Girls Training.

The Nation of Islam’s original vision was anti-white, but this emphasis has softened due to the preaching of one of its most important members, Malcolm X. Under Wallace Deen Muhammad (1933–2008), the son of Elijah Muhammad, the Nation of Islam renounced its purely racial basis, changed its name to the American Muslim Mission, and worked to integrate itself into mainstream Sunni Islam.

A follower of the early views of Malcolm X, Louis Farrakhan (b. 1933) has attempted a revival of the Nation of Islam, particularly through preaching the values of hard work and social responsibility. Marches organized by him and his followers in Washington have been successful ways to generate self-pride and political activism among African Americans.

It is hard to predict the development of Islam in the future. One possibility, encouraged by liberals, involves the gradual emergence of modern democratic states, with elections, written constitutions, and a guarantee of individual rights.

At the other end of the spectrum are those who would like to spread a very conservative vision of Islam. Some of these voices seek to install a single caliph once again all over Islam. Best known for its conservatism is al-Qaida (also spelled al-Qaeda, meaning “base” or “foundation” in Arabic.) Begun in the late 1980s, it grew into an international movement that encouraged anti-Western activity in many regions. Whether it is carefully structured or loosely organized is a matter of debate. The death of its founder, Osama bin Laden (1957–2011), weakened it, but its adaptability allows it to take new shape in many countries.

Page 463

Contemporary Issues

ISLAMIC ECOLOGY

I

slam began in a desert region, where water is highly prized. We see the high value given to water in the Qur’an. Paradise, which is frequently spoken of, is described as a garden full of flowing water. Islamic religious practice also uses water in several ways. A ritual washing is necessary before daily prayer. And when pilgrims visit Mecca, they expect to drink from the Well of Zamzam in the Grand Mosque area.

Traditional teachings say that people should share water and not waste it, and that people have a right to the water they need.

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 The Qur’an contains many principles that fit in well with this notion. One of the most important is the rejection of waste: “Allah loves not the wasters.”

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 This Qur’anic statement applies not just to water but also to food, trees, and animals.

With the assistance of several secular organizations, Islamic leaders have begun to identify twenty-first-century goals. Some goals are quite visionary, including the ideal of publishing the Qur’an only on recyclable paper—creating so-called green Qur’ans. Additional goals are the establishment of a television channel dedicated to teaching conservation; the creation of model environmental cities, Medinah being the first; and the establishment of an international prize for environmental work. And there is one last goal: making the pilgrimage to Mecca truly an environmental model.

Conservative Islamic groups are becoming increasingly influential in the policy making of their governments. Because the Qur’an contains a great many specific laws about such things as property rights, marriage, divorce, and sanctions for crimes, some Islamic groups wish to replace the laws of their country with Qur’anic laws (Sharia). Saudi Arabia has followed Sharia since its beginnings in 1932, and the establishment of a Muslim theocracy in Iran in 1979 has encouraged people to seek the introduction of Sharia elsewhere—particularly in Algeria, Egypt, Sudan, Nigeria, and Pakistan. Increasingly we will see a struggle between those who wish to have a secular system of laws, modeled at least to some extent on Western practice, and those who wish to follow Sharia instead.

This struggle is actually part of a larger struggle between fairly different cultures, and conflict perhaps will be inevitable. As we have already seen, Islam has several important areas in which it differs strongly from mainstream European and American culture. Public prayer must be performed on Friday, which is a workday in Western countries. Interest on loans is forbidden—a demand that opposes a cornerstone of Western business practice. Wine (as well as other alcohol) is forbidden; whereas in traditional Western cuisines wine or beer plays an important role. Meat eaten by Muslims must be halal (slaughtered according to religious rules). Gambling is forbidden.

An intractable problem that adds fuel to the conflict is resentment within the Muslim world over the Palestinian issue. Muslims are distressed by the ever-increasing number of Palestinians living in poverty, the land that Palestinians lost when Israel was created in 1948, Israeli control of the West Bank, and the lack of a Palestinian state. There can probably be no peace until the Palestinian issue is resolved. Resentment has led to regular clashes and bombings, both in Israel and beyond, and those countries that are perceived as supporting Israel have become targets.

 

Page 464The religious and cultural conflict is further exacerbated by the fact that Islam is often embraced for political reasons. We must recall that virtually all Muslim regions were once colonized by European powers. Colonization began when the British began to take over India in the eighteenth century and Napoleon invaded Egypt (1798). During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, France colonized Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Lebanon, and Syria. At the same time, England colonized Libya, Egypt, Jordan, India, and Malaysia; and the Dutch took Indonesia. Muslims in once-colonized countries will quite naturally utilize Islam to emphasize their own national identity.

Yet this conflict is no longer a matter of enemies looking at each other from opposite, distant trenches. Islam is already a major religion in Europe and North America. At least five million Muslims now live in France, making up one-tenth of the population, and France has at least 1,500 mosques. It is estimated that by the end of this century, Muslims will make up one-third of the French population. In England there are perhaps two million Muslims today, with about 600 mosques. A large minority of Germans, whose parents came from Turkey, are Muslim. In the United States, the size of the Muslim population is uncertain but is estimated to be at least five million. That population will be increasingly influential.

Approaches to reducing conflict vary. In England, the emphasis is on accepting differences as legitimate forms of multiculturalism. In France, the official approach has been to maintain a secular ideal and force people to assimilate to that (one topic of debate concerns the wearing of the headscarf by girls in public schools). The approach in North America, though less clearly formulated, seems to be closer to the British model.

Page 465

Conflict in Religion

JIHAD AND THE MODERN WORLD

T

he word 

jihad

 in Arabic means “strive” or “struggle.” Two types of jihad are called for in Islam. The first is individual; it involves the personal daily struggle to live virtuously. The second is public; it is the attempt to establish in all of society the Islamic ideals of truth, justice, and morality. When the word jihad is used, the second meaning is the more common, but we should also be aware of the first meaning. Jihad, because of its importance, has sometimes been called “the sixth pillar of Islam.”

Believers in Islam generally agree about their obligation to spread the Muslim view of justice and truth. However, Muslims disagree on exactly which elements to emphasize and where and how to spread their faith. Disagreement particularly exists around the use of force. Muhammad was a fighter and at times played the role of a military general. He endorsed the use of force when he thought it necessary. We do not have to read far in the Qur’an to realize that it urges believers to fight for their beliefs. “Fighting is obligatory for you, much as you dislike it”

43

 and “Fight for the cause of God and bear in mind that God hears all and knows all.”

44

 Yet we also find passages in the Qur’an that command tolerance of other religions, such as this famous passage: “There shall be no compulsion in religion.”

45

Clearly, the general principles that guide Islamic life already present a way of living (Sharia) that is quite different from the ordinary secular life of non-Muslim societies. A further difficulty arises because the Qur’an presents a rather detailed system of punishment and legal practice (hudud) that differs from much contemporary legal practice. For example, adultery is considered a serious public offense, to be punished by public whipping; and robbers are to be punished by the amputation of limbs. Of course, many devout Muslims do not want the laws of Sharia and hudud to be imposed on their societies; however, conservative Muslim groups in some countries, as mentioned earlier, are working toward just such a goal. Some believers even approve violent means to achieve their traditionalist agendas. (For example, there have been explosions in Indonesian markets where pork was being sold; barbers have been killed in Pakistan for removing men’s beards; and some teachers in Afghanistan who have taught female students have been killed. These are, however, exceptional cases.)

Of the world’s more than one billion Muslims, most are moderate. They recognize that in a multicultural world, tolerance of all religions is necessary. Many Islamic rulers are now trying to create policies that retain Muslim ideals and at the same time teach tolerance. Saudi Arabia has begun to sponsor conferences that explore ways to encourage moderation and to discourage extremism. But can the devout Muslim accept the moral and religious differences in the modern world yet still be faithful to the ideals of Sharia and jihad? This is the challenge that Islam, one of the world’s largest religions and social forces, is facing today.

Adding to the complexity is an uncertainty: the role that popular culture will play in the cultural and religious mix. Popular culture is spreading everywhere. There have been attempts to shut it out, of course. Countries that have tried hardest include Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Afghanistan. Muslims in Europe and North America, of course, are inundated with popular culture. It is already changing the way young people act, dress, and entertain themselves. Those in the entertainment industry may ultimately have the greatest influence on the future of Islam.

The most recent case of conflict is perplexing. The Arab Spring, so named because it flowered in the early part of 2011, would seem to be a liberal upsurge, because it has ended the control of dictators in several countries, including Libya and Egypt. At the same time, it has brought conservative elements to the fore—groups, for example, that seek to overturn laws that have empowered women to vote, own property, institute divorce, and have custody of their children. The Arab Spring is raising many questions—about democracy, political control, women’s rights, and the treatment of religious minorities. How it will end is unclear.

Page 466Some people focus on the differences between traditional Islamic culture and the dominant cultures of Europe and North America. They fear the conflicts that will necessarily arise. Yet religions show a strong tendency not only to change over time, but also to change radically when they enter new cultures. Those who are fearful about the ability of Islamic and Western cultures to mix should reflect on the religious blending that has already occurred since the Middle Ages. Scholastic philosophy owes its spread to the fact that many of Aristotle’s great works were first translated into Arabic and then later into Latin. Gothic architectural style is thought to have originated in the Muslim world, and Western mathematics, chemistry, and astronomy were all enriched by Muslim thinkers. We get a sense of the contributions of the Islamic world to many areas of our Western world when we consider some of the words that have come into English from or through Arabic. A good number of English words that begin with al come from Arabic (al means “the”): alcove, alchemy, and (ironically) alcohol. We might also note the number of words used in science. For example, the words algebra, algorithm, nadir, and zenith all have their origins in Arabic. But we also find Arabic origins in many names for foods: orange, lemon, lime, sugar, sherbet, syrup, and coffee. Other words with Arabic origins refer to objects that have added, in their own way, to human life: lute, lacquer, mattress, and magazine. The West has been greatly enriched by Muslim cultures.

These examples illustrate how enriching the exchange of cultural ideas can be. Yet there are elements of Western culture that orthodox Islamic societies will wish to avoid: alcohol abuse, gambling, high divorce rates, and urban violence. There will be regular debate about the roles and dress of women. And Muslim nations will continue to grapple with how much traditional Islamic law can be imposed on modern society. Particularly under pressure from conservative movements, Islamic countries will do what they can to oppose what they see as dangerous elements. In the long run, however, we should expect them to maintain long-standing practices—regular prayer, charity, the Ramadan fast, pilgrimage to Mecca, and the ideals of generosity and justice.

Reading BEAUTY LEADS TO GOD

The Turkish writer Fazil bin Tahir Enderuni (1759–1811) became famous for his poetry. Everything that is beautiful, he taught, brings an experience of the divine.

Beauty, wherever it is to be seen, whether in humanity or in the vegetable or mineral world, is God’s revelation of Himself; He is the all-beautiful, those objects in which we perceive beauty being, as it were, so many mirrors in each of which some fraction of His essential self is revealed. By virtue of its Divine origin, the beauty thus perceived exercises a subtle influence over the beholder, waking in him the sense of love, whereby he is at last enabled to enter into communion with God himself. Thus God is the ultimate object of every lover’s passion.…

Page 467So Love is the guide to the World Above, the stair leading up to the portal of Heaven; through the fire of Love iron is transmuted into gold, and the dark clay into a shining gem. Love it is that makes the heedless wise, and changes the ignorant into an adept of the Divine mysteries; Love is the unveiler of the Truth, the hidden way into the Sanctuary of God.

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TEST YOURSELF

1. Islam literally means “___________.”

a. sacred

b. holy

c. enlightened

d. submission

2. Muslims refer to God as ___________. The word is a contraction of two Arabic words that mean “the” and “God.”

a. Elohim

b. Salam

c. Allah

d. El Shaddai

3. The ___________ is the single sentence, when recited with belief, that makes a person a Muslim.

a. Salat

b. Shahadah

c. Ramadan

d. Hajj

4. Fasting is thought to be an important bond that unites Muslims during the period of shared fasting known as ___________.

a. Salat
b. Shahadah
c. Ramadan
d. Hajj

5. All Muslims, unless prevented by poverty or sickness, are expected to visit Mecca at least once in their lifetime in the religious journey (pilgrimage) known as ___________.

a. Salat
b. Shahadah
c. Ramadan
d. Hajj

6. The name Qur’an means “___________.”

a. successor

b. recitation

c. the book

d. the writings

7. ___________ was the father of Muhammad’s youngest wife and was recognized as the first Caliph.

a. Abu Bakr

b. Umar

c. Ali

d. Uthman

8. ___________ derive their name from an Arabic word that means “faction” and are the group that followed Ali.

a. Sunnis

b. Shiites

c. Sufis

d. Zaydis

9. ___________ take their name from the Arabic word for “tradition,” referring back to the entire body of traditional teachings that are based on the life and teachings of Muhammad, as given in the Qur’an and the authoritative hadiths.

a. Sunnis

b. Sufis

c. Shiites

d. Zaydis

10. Islamic law, called ___________, is the entire body of laws that guides the believer in this life.

a. Sharia

b. Faqir

c. Decalogue

d. Dhikr

11. “Although Islam is similar in many ways to Judaism and Christianity, its greatest difference from these religions is ___________.” What word or phrase would you use to fill in the blank? Explain your answer using information from the text.

12. Imagine you are writing a research paper about the relationship between Islamic architecture and Islamic understandings of God. Choose a one-sentence thesis statement that you might use to express your paper’s main argument about this relationship. Why would you choose this statement?

CHAPTER9

FIRST ENCOUNTER

You have come to Egypt to see its great sights: the Nile River, the pyramids of Giza, and the temples of Luxor. In front of your hotel in Cairo, near the Egyptian Museum, you arrange with a taxi driver to take you to the pyramids late one afternoon. The traffic is slow and the horn-blowing incessant. From the window you see a donkey pulling a cart full of metal pipes, a woman carrying a tray of bread on her head, a boy carrying a tray of coffee cups, and an overloaded truck full of watermelons, all competing for space with dusty old cars and shiny black limousines.

Your taxi driver is Gurgis, a middle-aged man with a short gray beard and a kind manner. He drives with the windows open and chats with drivers in other taxis along the way. As you near the pyramids, he says, “If you wait till dusk, you can see the sound-and-light show. Tourists love the green laser lights on the pyramids. I can eat my supper at Giza and take you back afterwards.” This sounds like an experience not to be missed. You agree.

Page 334You’d thought that the pyramids were far outside the city in the lonely desert, but now they are just beyond a Pizza Hut, a bridal shop, and blocks of shops and apartments. Apparently, the city of Cairo swallowed up the desert some time ago.

When the light show is over, it’s hard to believe that in that huge crowd surging out you will find Gurgis. Luckily, he finds you. “Come, hurry,” he says, and whisks you away. On the trip back across the river, you ask about his background.

“I’m a Copt, an Egyptian Christian” he says, “and I’m named after St. George.” To verify what he’s telling you, Gurgis holds up his left arm. In the dim light you see a little blue cross tattooed on the inside of his wrist. Before long, you learn about his birthplace (in Alexandria) and his relatives (in Saskatchewan). He tells you about his religion, Coptic Christianity.

“It is very old. The first bishop was St. Mark, who wrote the gospel. Our patriarchs follow him in a long line of patriarchs. We Copts are only about 10 percent of the population in Egypt, but our Church is strong.” Noting your interest, he tells you about other places you might like to go. He offers to take you to the old Coptic section of Cairo. “It’s along the Nile, not very far from your hotel,” he says by way of encouragement. You agree to meet in front of your hotel on Friday morning.

On Friday you visit three churches. There’s a lot going on because it is Good Friday, and all of the churches, already surprisingly crowded with worshipers, will be filled in a few hours for special services. Inside one church, a priest stands in front of the doors to the sanctuary, apparently explaining something to a crowd of listeners. At the last church you visit, you see a painting outside of Mary and Jesus on a donkey. Gurgis explains that the church marks the spot where the family of Jesus stayed when they visited Egypt. You are doubtful, but in the basement of the church, a large sign confirms what he tells you.

As you walk along the old street, heading out of the Coptic quarter, Gurgis tells you more about Copts. “The original Christian hermits were Copts,” he says with pride. “Our pope was a monk once, and he’s energizing Coptic life. Now he is even sending priests and monks to your country, too. I know there are some in New Jersey.”

Back at the entrance to your hotel, Gurgis makes another offer. Sunday he will be going to a Eucharistic service at St. Mark’s Cathedral. “The service will be very long, but it is beautiful. Would you like to go?”

“Wonderful,” you say. “But let’s sit near the door.”

“Fine,” he says. “There is more air there.”

On Sunday you and Gurgis drive to an immense domed church behind a gate. Large men in dark-blue suits, looking like bodyguards, stand along the walkway into the church. Inside, a huge purple curtain hangs in front of the main sanctuary doors. It has a winged lion sewn onto it. “That represents St. Mark,” Gurgis whispers. At the left of the sanctuary is a thronelike wooden chair. “That is the pope’s chair, the throne of St. Mark.”

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Deeper Insights

THE CHRISTIAN SYSTEM OF CHRONOLOGY: BC AND AD

T

he influence of Christianity is apparent in the European dating system, which has now generally been adopted worldwide. The Roman Empire dated events from the foundation of Rome (753

 

bce), but a Christian monk, Dionysius Exiguus (Dennis the Little; c. 470–c. 540 ce) devised a new system that made the birth of Jesus the central event of history. Thus we have “bc,” meaning “before Christ,” and “ad,” Latin for “in the year of the Lord,” anno Domini. The date selected as the year of Jesus’s birth may have been incorrect, and scholars now think that Jesus was born about 4 bce. (The historical facts given in Matt. 2:1 and Luke 2:2 about the year of Jesus’s birth are not compatible.) Also, the new dating system began not with the year zero but with the year one because there is no zero in Roman numerals. Because of the Christian orientation of this dating system, many books (including this one) now use a slightly altered abbreviation: “bce,” meaning “before the Common Era,” and “ce,” meaning “Common Era.”

The Eucharistic service begins, with incense and singing. There is no organ, but the choir uses small drums and cymbals. It is the Lord’s Supper, but in a form you’ve never seen before. At times you can only hear the priests, because the sanctuary doors are periodically closed and you can no longer see the altar. The service ends with communion. Through it all, the people—men on the left side, women on the right—are amazingly devout.

Back in your hotel, you think about what you have seen and heard. You know that the Lord’s Supper has something to do with the last supper of Jesus with his disciples. But what about the incense and the cymbals? How did the rituals originate? And how did monks and hermits come about in Christianity? You had heard of a pope in Rome, but never one in Egypt. How did this other pope originate? What thoughts, you wonder, would Jesus have if he were with you today? And finally, what will be the future of this Egyptian Church—and, in this changing world, of Christianity itself?

Shenouda III, the late Coptic patriarch of Alexandria, here celebrates a feast at St. Mark’s Cathedral in Cairo.

THE LIFE AND TEACHINGS OF JESUS Page 336

Christianity, which grew out of Judaism, has had a major influence on the history of the world. Before we discuss its growth and influence, we must look at the life of Jesus, who is considered its originator, and at the early scriptural books that speak of his life.

Before Jesus’s birth, the land of Israel had been taken over repeatedly by stronger neighbors. During Jesus’s time, Israel was called Palestine by the Romans and was part of the Roman Empire—but not willingly. The region was full of unrest, a boiling pot of religious and political factions and movements. As we discussed in 

Chapter 8

, patriots who later became known as the Zealots wanted to expel the Romans. The Sadducees, a group of priests in Jerusalem, accepted the Roman occupation as inevitable, yet they kept up the Jewish temple rituals. Members of a semimonastic movement, the Essenes, lived an austere life in the desert and provinces; for the most part, they deliberately lived away from Jerusalem, which they thought was corrupt. The Pharisees, a lay movement of devout Jews, preoccupied themselves with meticulously keeping the Jewish law.

Many Jews in Jesus’s day thought that they were living in the “end times.” They expected a period of turbulence and suffering and a final great battle, when God would destroy all the enemies of pious Jews. God, they believed, would then inaugurate a new age of justice and love. Some expected a new Garden of Eden, where the good people who remained after the Judgment would eat year-round from fruit trees and women would no longer suffer in childbirth. Most Jews shared the hope that the Romans would be expelled, that evildoers would be punished, and that God’s envoy, the 

Messiah

, would appear. The common expectation among the Jews of Jesus’s day was that the Messiah would be a king or a military leader who was descended from King David. (The name Messiah means “anointed” and refers to the ceremony of anointing a new king with olive oil.) Many held that the Messiah had been foretold in some of their sacred books—such as Isaiah, Micah, and Daniel—and they expected him to rule the new world.

Into this complicated land Jesus was born about two thousand years ago (

Timeline 9.1

). Traditional teaching tells of a miraculous conception in Nazareth, a town of northern Israel, and of a birth by the virginal mother Mary in Bethlehem, a town in the south not far from Jerusalem. It tells of wise men who followed a guiding star to the baby soon after his birth. The traditional portrait of Jesus, common in art, shows him in his early years assisting his foster father, Joseph, as a carpenter in the northern province of Galilee. It is possible that the truth of some of these traditional details—as it is regarding the lives of many other religious founders—may be more symbolic than literal.

 

Timeline of significant events in the history of Christianity.

 

The birth of Jesus is celebrated throughout Christendom. This painting of the nativity is in an Orthodox church in Bulgaria.

Page 338There have been many attempts to find the “historical Jesus.” Although artists have portrayed Jesus in countless ways, no portrait that we know of was ever painted of Jesus while he was alive. Of course, we can guess at his general features, but we cannot know anything definitive about the individual face or eyes or manner of Jesus.

Almost everything we know of Jesus comes from the four gospels of the New Testament. (

Testament

 means “contract” or “covenant,” and 

gospel

 means “good news.”) The gospels are accounts, written by later believers, of the life of Jesus. The gospels, however, tell very little of Jesus until he began a public life of teaching and healing. He probably began this public life in his late 20s, when he gathered twelve disciples and moved from place to place, teaching about the coming of what he called the Kingdom of God. After a fairly short period of preaching—no more than three years—Jesus was arrested in Jerusalem at Passover time by the authorities, who considered him a threat to public order. From the point of view of the Sadducees, Jesus was dangerous because he might begin an anti-Roman riot. In contrast, Jewish patriots may have found him not anti-Roman enough. From the Roman point of view, however, he was at least a potential source of political unrest and enough of a threat to be arrested, whipped, nailed to a cross, and crucified—a degrading and public form of execution. Death came from shock, suffocation, and loss of blood.

Dying on a Friday, Jesus was buried quickly near the site of his crucifixion shortly before sunset, just as the Jewish Sabbath was to begin. No work could be done on Saturday, the Sabbath. On the following Sunday, the gospels report, the followers who went to care for his body found his tomb empty. Some followers reported apparitions of him, and his disciples became convinced that he had returned to life. Forty days later, the New Testament says, he ascended into the sky, promising to return again.

Page 339This bare outline does not answer many important questions: Who was Jesus? What kind of personality did he have? What were his teachings? For the answers to these questions, we must turn to the four gospels. They are the core of the Christian New Testament.

Jesus in the New Testament Gospels

The four gospels are written remembrances of Jesus’s words and deeds, recorded some years after his death by people who believed in him. All the books of the New Testament are strongly colored by the viewpoints of their writers and by the culture of the period. Thus it is difficult to establish the historical accuracy of New Testament statements about Jesus or the words attributed to him. (Perhaps an analogy can clarify the problem: the gospels are like paintings of Jesus, not photographs.) In compiling our picture of Jesus, we must also recognize that the gospels are not a complete record of all essential information. There is a great deal we cannot know about Jesus. Nevertheless, a definite person does emerge from the gospels.

However obvious it may seem to point this out, Jesus believed and trusted in God, just as all contemporary Jews did. But while Jesus thought of God as creator and sustainer of the universe, he also thought of God in a very personal way, as his father. It is Jesus’s extremely special relationship to God that is central to Christianity.

Raised as a Jew, Jesus accepted the sacred authority of the Law and the Prophets (the Torah and the books of history and prophecy). As a boy, he learned the scriptures in Hebrew. He kept the major Jewish holy days common to the period, and he traveled to Jerusalem and its temple for some of these events. He apparently kept the basic food laws and laws about Sabbath observance, and he attended synagogue meetings on Saturdays as part of the observance of the Jewish Sabbath (Luke 4:16). It seems he was a devout and thoughtful Jew.

Nonetheless, one striking personal characteristic of Jesus, alluded to frequently in the gospels, was his independence of thought. He considered things carefully and then arrived at his own opinions, which he was not hesitant to share. Jesus, the gospels say, taught differently: “unlike the scribes, he taught them with authority” (Mark 1:22).

1

Perhaps Jesus’s most impressive characteristic was his emphasis on universal love—not just love for the members of one’s own family, ethnic group, or religion. He preached love in many forms: compassion, tolerance, forgiveness, acceptance, helpfulness, generosity, gratitude. When asked if a person should forgive up to seven times, he answered that people should forgive seventy times seven times (Matt. 18:22)—in other words, endlessly. He rejected all vengeance and even asked forgiveness for those who killed him (Luke 23:34). He recommended that we respond to violence with nonviolence. “But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who mistreat you. If anyone hits you on one cheek, let him hit the other one too; if someone takes your coat, let him have your shirt as well. Give to everyone who asks you for something, and when someone takes what is yours, do not ask for it back. Do for others just what you want them to do for you” (Luke 6:27–31).

2

 

This portrayal of Jesus and his followers is influenced by the Book of Revelation. The smaller sheep represent the Apostles.

Page 340

Although Jesus’s nonviolent, loving message has often been neglected over the centuries, it is spelled out clearly in the Sermon on the Mount sections of the New Testament (Matt. 5–7, Luke 6). In the world of Jesus’s day, which esteemed force and exacted vengeance, his message must have been shocking.

Jesus was wary of an overly strict observance of laws that seemed detrimental to human welfare. About keeping detailed laws regarding the Sabbath, he commented, “The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath” (Mark 2:27).

3

 He did not confuse pious practices, common among the Jews of his day, with the larger ideal of virtue. He disliked hypocrisy and pretense (Matt. 23:5–8).

From what we can see in the gospels, Jesus showed many human feelings. He had close friends and spent time with them (John 11:5), and he was disappointed when they were less than he had hoped for (Matt. 26:40). He wept when he heard of the death of one of his dearest friends (John 11:33–36).

Jesus urged simplicity. He recommended that people “become like little children” (Matt. 18:3). He liked directness and strived to go beyond details to the heart of things.

Much of Jesus’s advice is good psychology, showing that he was a keen observer of human beings. For example, we are told that as you give, so shall you receive (Matt. 7:2) and that if you are not afraid to ask for what you want, you shall receive it (Matt. 7:7).

Jesus showed an appreciation for nature, in which he saw evidence of God’s care (Matt. 6:29). But Jesus did not look at nature with the detached vision of a scientist. He knew scripture well but was not a scholar. As far as we know, he was not a writer, and he left behind no written works. He showed almost no interest in money or in business. In adulthood he probably did not travel far from his home territory, between the Sea of Galilee and Jerusalem. While he may have spoken some Greek in addition to his native Aramaic, he did not apparently have much interest in the Greco-Roman culture of his day.

Page 341Whether Jesus had a sense of humor is hard to know. The four gospels never mention that he laughed, thus giving him an image of solemnity. But some of his statements come alive when we see them as being spoken with ironic humor and even laughter (see, for example, Matt. 15:24–28). We do know that although he sometimes sought seclusion, Jesus seems to have enjoyed others’ company.

Jesus had many female friends and followers. He seems to have treated women as equals, and he spoke to them in public without hesitation. In one gospel he is shown asking a woman for a drink of water at a well (John 4). In another gospel he speaks with a Canaanite woman, whose child he cures (Matt. 15:21–28). We find repeated mention of the sisters Martha and Mary of Bethany as close friends of Jesus (see John 11). The gospels also speak of other women disciples, such as Joanna and Susanna (Luke 8:3). The gospels tell how women stood by Jesus at his crucifixion, even when most of his male disciples had abandoned him. And the most prominent among the female disciples was Mary Magdalene, who was the first witness of his resurrection (John. 20:11–18).

Some people would like to see Jesus as a social activist. He cared strongly about the poor and the hungry, but he apparently was not a social activist of any specialized type. For example, the gospels do not record words of Jesus that condemn slavery or the oppression of women. Perhaps, like many others of his time, Jesus believed that God would soon judge the world, and this may have kept him from working for a specific reform. Instead, he preached basic principles of humane treatment, particularly of the needy and the oppressed (Matt. 25).

For those who would turn Jesus into a protector of the family and family values, the gospels present mixed evidence. When asked about the divorce practice of his day, Jesus opposed it strongly. He opposed easy divorce because it meant that a husband could divorce his wife for a minor reason, often leaving her unable to support herself or to remarry. He stated that the marriage bond was given by God (Mark 10:1–12). And at his death, Jesus asked a disciple to care for his mother after he was gone (John 19:26). But Jesus himself remained unmarried. If Jesus had a wife, that fact almost certainly would have survived in tradition or been mentioned somewhere in a gospel or other New Testament book. Moreover, there is no mention anywhere that Jesus ever had children.

Indeed, Jesus spoke highly of those who remained unmarried “for the sake of the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 19:12).

5

 As an intriguing confirmation of Jesus’s unmarried state, it is now recognized that celibacy was valued by the Essenes, the semimonastic Jewish movement of that era, which may have had some influence on him.

6

 In any case, Paul—one of the most important of the early Christians and missionaries—and generations of priests, monks, and nuns followed a celibate ideal that was based on the way Jesus was thought to have lived. In fact, the ideal of remaining unmarried for religious reasons remains influential in several branches of Christianity today.

Do not judge others, and God will not judge you; do not condemn others, and God will not condemn you; forgive others, and God will forgive you. Give to others, and God will give to you. Indeed, you will receive a full measure, a generous helping, poured into your hands—all that you can hold. The measure you use for others is the one that God will use for you.

—Luke 6:37–38

4

Page 342The gospels mention Jesus’s brothers and sisters (Mark 6:3). Some Christian traditions have held that these relatives were cousins or stepbrothers and stepsisters, hoping thereby to preserve the notion of his mother Mary’s permanent virginity. But it is now widely accepted that Jesus had actual brothers and sisters who were children of his mother Mary and of Joseph. When we inspect his relationship to his family members, it seems that Jesus at times was alienated from them. They quite naturally worried about him and apparently wished he were not so unusual and difficult. But Jesus, irritated by their claims on him, said publicly that his real family consisted not of his blood relatives but of all those who hear the word of God and keep it (Mark 3:31–33). After Jesus died, however, because of their blood relationship with Jesus, his family members were influential in the early Church, and the earlier disharmony was downplayed.

The Two Great Commandments

What, then, was Jesus’s main concern? His teachings, called the Two Great Commandments, combine two strong elements: a love for God and an ethical call for kindness toward others. These commandments already existed in Hebrew scripture (Deut. 6:5 and Lev. 19:18), but Jesus gave them new emphasis by reducing all laws to the law of love: Love God and love your neighbor (Matt. 22:37–40). Being fully aware of God means living with love for all God’s children. Like prophets before him, Jesus had a clear vision of what human society can be at its best—a Kingdom of God in which people care about each other, the poor are looked after, violence and exploitation are abandoned, and religious rules do not overlook human needs.

It may be that Jesus’s emphasis on morality was tied to the common belief in an imminent divine judgment. This belief seems to have been a particularly important part of the worldview of the Essenes, who thought of themselves as preparing for this new world. It was also essential to the thinking of John the Baptizer (also called John the Baptist), whom the Gospel of Luke calls the cousin of Jesus. John preached that the end of the world was near, when God would punish evildoers. As a sign of purification, John immersed his followers in the water of the Jordan River. Jesus allowed himself to be baptized, and when John died, Jesus had his own followers carry on John’s practice by baptizing others. Whether Jesus shared John’s view of the coming end of the world is debated. Some passages would seem to indicate that he did (see Mark 9:1, 13:30; Matt. 16:28). This vision of impending judgment is called 

apocalypticism

. In the apocalyptic view, the Kingdom of God would soon be a social and political reality.

Whatever Jesus’s views about the end times, his focus was on bringing about the Kingdom of God in each human heart. This would occur when people followed the Two Great Commandments and lived by the laws of love. Some of Jesus’s closest followers were among those who seem to have expected him to be a political leader, wanting him to lead the fight against the Roman overlords to establish a political kingdom of God. But Jesus refused. The Gospel of John records him as saying, “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36).

7

 Instead of political violence, Jesus chose a path of nonviolence.

EARLY CHRISTIAN BELIEFS AND HISTORY

Page 343

The Book of Acts records that after Jesus’s ascension to heaven forty days following his resurrection, his disciples were gathered, full of fear, wondering what to do next. The Book of Acts then tells how the Spirit of God came upon them in the form of fire, giving them courage to spread their belief in Jesus as the Messiah. This first preaching of the Christian message has been called the Birthday of the Church.

The early Christian message was not complex. It is summarized in the 

apostle

 Peter’s speech in Acts 2, which says that God is now working in a special way; Jesus was the expected Messiah, God’s ambassador; and these are the “final days” before God’s judgment and the coming of a new world. Early Christian practice required those who believed to be baptized as a sign of rebirth, to share their possessions, and to care for widows and orphans.

The early Christian group that remained in Jerusalem seems to have been almost entirely Jewish and was led by James, called the Just because of his careful observance of Jewish practice. Being one of Jesus’s real brothers, James carried great authority. The Jewish-Christian Church, led by Jesus’s relatives, was a strong influence for the first forty years. Its members kept the Jewish holy days, prayed in the Jerusalem Temple, and conducted their services in Aramaic. The Jewish-Christian Church, however, was weakened by the destruction of the temple in 70 ce, and it seems to have disappeared over the next one hundred years. Meanwhile, the non-Jewish, Greek-speaking branch of early Christianity, led by Paul and others like him, began to spread throughout the Roman Empire.

Paul and Pauline Christianity

As the Jewish Christianity of Jerusalem and Israel weakened, Christianity among non-Jews grew because of the missionary Paul. Paul’s preaching in Greek, his energetic traveling, and his powerful letters spread his form of belief in Jesus far beyond the limits of Israel.

Originally named Saul, Paul was born of Jewish parentage in Tarsus, a town in the south of present-day Turkey. He was earnest about traditional Judaism and went to Jerusalem for study. At that time he was a Pharisee, and he was adamantly opposed to the new “Jesus movement,” which he saw as a dangerous messianic Jewish cult that could divide Judaism.

Page 344Paul, however, came to a new understanding of Jesus. The Book of Galatians says that he pondered the meaning of Jesus for three years in “Arabia” and “Damascus” (Gal. 1:17). In a more dramatic, later account, the Book of Acts relates that while Paul was on the road from Jerusalem to root out a cell of early Christian believers, he experienced a vision of Jesus. In it Jesus asked, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”

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 (See Acts 9, 22, 26.) After several years of study in seclusion, Paul became convinced that Jesus’s life and death were the major events of a divine plan, and that Jesus was a cosmic figure who entered the world in order to renew it. Consequently, as we will soon discuss, the focus in Paul’s thought is less on the historical Jesus and more on the meaning of the cosmic Christ.

In this fifteenth-century fresco, Noli Me Tangere, by Fra Angelico, Jesus appears to Mary Magdalene, the first person to see him after his resurrection.

Paul discovered his life’s mission: to spread belief in Christ around the Mediterranean, particularly among non-Jews, whom he found more receptive to his message. His use of the Greco-Roman name Paul, instead of his Jewish name Saul, shows his orientation to the non-Jewish world.

Page 345Paul’s missionary technique was the same in most towns. If the Book of Acts is correct in its portrayal of Paul’s missionary work, he would begin by visiting the local synagogue. There, Paul would use Jewish scriptures, such as the Book of Isaiah, to explain his own belief that Jesus was the Messiah whom Jews had long been awaiting. He was unsuccessful with most Jews, who generally expected a royal Messiah, not a poor man who had been publicly executed. And they sometimes treated Paul as a traitor, especially when he said that it was unnecessary to impose Jewish laws about diet and circumcision on non-Jewish converts to Christian belief.

Whether all Christians had to keep Jewish religious laws was a subject of intense debate in early Christianity. Christianity had begun as a movement of Jews who believed that Jesus was the expected Messiah, but it soon attracted followers who did not come from a Jewish background. Questions about practice led early Christianity to differentiate itself from Judaism, to define itself on its own terms. Did adult males who wished to be baptized also have to be circumcised? (Needless to say, adult male converts were not always enthusiastic about the practice of circumcision.) Did new converts have to keep the Jewish laws about diet? Did they have to keep the Jewish Sabbath? Should they read the Jewish scriptures?

Some early Christian preachers decided not to impose Jewish rules on non-Jewish converts, while others insisted that all Jewish laws had to be kept. The faction that insisted on upholding all Jewish laws, however, did not prevail. Ultimately, some elements of Judaism were retained and others were abandoned. For example, circumcision was replaced by 

baptism

 as a sign of initiation, but Jewish scriptures and weekly services were retained.

These efforts to define what it meant to be a Christian signaled a major turning point in Christianity. Paul’s conclusions, in particular, played a prominent role in shaping the movement. His views on the meaning of Jesus, on morality, and on Christian practice became the norm for most of the Christian world. This happened because of his extensive missionary activities in major cities of the Roman Empire and because he left eloquent letters stating his beliefs. Copied repeatedly, circulated, and read publicly, these letters have formed the basis for all later Christian belief.

Paul’s training as a scholar of Jewish law made him acutely aware of human imperfection. He wrote that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23).

9

 He came to feel, in fact, that external written laws, such as those of Judaism, hurt more than they helped; the imposition of laws that could not be fulfilled could only make human beings aware of their inadequacies. For him, Jesus came from God to bring people a radical new freedom. Believers would no longer have to rely on written laws or to feel guilty for past misdeeds. Jesus’s death was a voluntary sacrifice to take on the punishment and guilt of everyone. Human beings thereby found 

redemption

 from punishment. Believers need only follow the lead of the Spirit of God, which dwells in them and directs them.

 

The parable of the sower and the seed is an example of Jesus the teacher. This image is from the new St. John’s Bible, commissioned by the monks of St. John’s Abbey in Minnesota.

Page 346Thus Paul preached that it is no longer by the keeping of Jewish laws that a person comes into right relationship with God (

righteousness

); rather, it is by the acceptance of Jesus, who shows us God’s love and who was punished for our wrongdoing. What brings a person into good relationship with God “is not obedience to the Law, but faith in Jesus Christ” (Gal. 2:16).

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Despite his newfound freedom, Paul did not abandon moral rules. But his notion of morality was no longer based on laws that were imposed externally—and kept grudgingly—but rather on an interior force that inspired people to do good deeds spontaneously. The life of Jesus was for Paul a proof of God’s love, because God the Father had sent Jesus into the world to tell about his love. According to Paul, our awareness of God’s love will inspire us to live in a new and loving way.

Paul saw Jesus not only as teacher, prophet, and Messiah, but also as a manifestation of divinity. For Paul, Jesus was a cosmic figure—the preexistent image of God, the Wisdom of God (see Prov. 8), and the Lord of the universe. Jesus was sent into the world to begin a process of cosmic reunion between God and his human creation. 

Sin

 (wrongdoing) had brought to human beings the punishment of death. But Jesus’s death was an atonement for human sin, and the result was that the punishment of death was no longer valid. Jesus’s return to life was just the beginning of a process of eternal life for all people who have the Spirit of God within them.

The New Testament: Its Structure and Artistry

What we know of Jesus and early Christianity comes largely from the New Testament. The New Testament, which is also at the core of Christianity, is used in religious services, read regularly, and carried throughout the world.

God’s love has been poured into our hearts.

—Rom. 5:5

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The New Testament is divided into four parts: (1) the Gospels, (2) the Acts of the Apostles, (3) the Epistles, and (4) Revelation. The gospels describe the life and teachings of Jesus. Although we now know that the facts surrounding their authorship are complex, tradition has attributed the gospels to four early followers—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, who are called 

evangelists

 (Greek: “good news person”). The Acts of the Apostles tells of the initial spread of Christianity, although its historical accuracy cannot be confirmed. The epistles are letters to early Christians, primarily by Paul. The New Testament ends with a visionary book, Revelation, which foretells in symbolic language the triumph of Christianity. Altogether, there are twenty-seven books in the New Testament.

Page 347All the books of the New Testament were written in Greek, the language of culture and commerce in the classical Mediterranean world of the first century of the Common Era. The quality of the Greek varies; in the Book of Revelation the language is considered rough, while in the Books of Luke and Acts it is considered particularly graceful.

The Gospels
 We know of the life of Jesus primarily from the gospels, which are written in an extremely pictorial way. They are filled with powerful stories and images and have been the source of great inspiration for much later Christian art. Each of the four gospels is as unique in its artistry and style as would be four portraits of the same person painted by four different artists. The portraits would certainly be recognizably similar but also different in such details as choice of background, clothing, angle of perspective, and so on. The same is true of the “portraits” of Jesus that are painted in the gospels: each gospel writer shows Jesus in a different way.

Despite their differences, the first three gospels show a family resemblance in stories, language, and order. They are thus called the Synoptic Gospels (synoptic literally means “together-see” in Greek, implying a similar perspective). The synoptic writers show Jesus as a messianic teacher and healer sent by God. It is generally thought that the Gospel of Mark was written first, since it seems to be the primary source for the later Gospels of Matthew and Luke. The Gospel of John, however, is recognizably different and relies on its own separate sources. It is possible that all the gospels were originally written to be used as readings in religious services, probably in conjunction with complementary readings from the Hebrew scriptures.

The Gospel of Matthew is thought to have been written (about 75–80 ce) for an audience with a Jewish background. For example, it portrays Jesus as the “new Moses,” a teacher who offers a “new Torah.” In the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5–7), Jesus delivers his teachings on a mountain, just as Moses delivered the Ten Commandments from another mountain, Mount Sinai. The gospel also contains many quotations from the Hebrew scriptures, showing that Jesus was their fulfillment.

The Gospel of Mark is the shortest of the four gospels, which suggests that it is the oldest (written around 65–70 ce). This gospel contains no infancy stories and begins instead with the adult public life of Jesus. In the original version, it ends with an account of Jesus’s empty tomb. The account of Jesus’s appearances after the resurrection (Mark 16:9–19) is a later addition.

The Gospel of Luke (written about 85 ce) is filled with a sense of wonder, perhaps because it speaks repeatedly of the miraculous action of the Spirit of God at work in the world. It has been called the “women’s gospel” because of its many accounts of women, including Jesus’s mother Mary, her cousin Elizabeth, his follower Mary Magdalene, and disciples such as Joanna and Susanna. This is a gospel of mercy and compassion, with a strong focus on the underdog.

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Deeper Insights

THE BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

GOSPELS

Synoptic Gospels

· Matthew (75–80 ce)

· Mark (65–70 ce)

· Luke (c. 85 ce)

Non-Synoptic Gospel

· John (90–100 ce)

HISTORY

· Acts of the Apostles (c. 85 ce)

EPISTLES

Pauline Epistles (c. 50–125 ce)

· Romans

· 1–2 Corinthians

· Galatians

· Ephesians

· Philippians

· Colossians

· 1–2 Thessalonians

· 1–2 Timothy

· Titus

· Philemon

· Hebrews

Universal Epistles (c. 90–125 ce)

· James

· 1–2 Peter

· 1–3 John

· Jude

PROPHECY

· Revelation (c. 100 ce)

The Gospel of John stands by itself. The time of its writing is difficult to pinpoint. Traditionally, it has been dated quite late—about 90 to 100 ce—because of its apparent elaboration of Christian doctrines. But details that might have come from an eyewitness suggest that parts may have been written earlier. Because it views human life as a struggle between the principles of light and darkness, students of the Gospel of John have wondered whether it was influenced by one or more religious movements of the period, such as the Persian religion of Zoroastrianism (see 

12

 The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947 near Qumran has shown many similarities between the language of the Gospel of John and certain phrases found in the Qumran literature (for example, “sons of light and sons of darkness”). The Jewish origins of the gospel are now clear.

In the Gospel of John, the portrayal of Jesus is full of mystery. He is the 

incarnation

 of God, the divine made visible in human form. He speaks in cosmic tones: “I am the light of the world” (John 9:5). “I am the bread of life” (John 6:35). “You are from below; I am from above” (John 8:23).

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 Scholars frequently question the historicity of these exact words, seeing them more as representing the author’s vision of the heavenly origin and nature of Jesus.

 

On Christmas, Christians often display depictions of the birth of Jesus. Here, girls view such a depiction inside a Myanmar church.

349The central aesthetic image of the gospel is a ray of divine light that descends like a lightning bolt into our world, passing through and lighting up the darkness but ultimately returning to its heavenly source and enabling human beings to follow. Most people, the gospel states, do not really understand the truth; only those who have an open heart can see the true nature of Jesus as divine light. Water, bread, the vine, the shepherd, and the door are additional symbols used in the Gospel of John to indicate aspects of Jesus and his meaning for the believer. These symbols later became regular features of Christian art.

The Acts of the Apostles
 This book (dating from about 85 ce) is really the second part of the Gospel of Luke, and scholars sometimes refer to the two books together as Luke-Acts. It is possible that the single work of Luke-Acts was divided in two in order to place the Gospel of John after the Gospel of Luke. Just as the Gospel of Luke portrays Jesus as moving inevitably toward his sacrifice in Jerusalem, so Acts portrays Paul in a parallel journey to his final sacrifice in Rome. At the heart of both books is a single beautiful image of a stone, dropped in a pond, that makes ever-widening ripples. Similarly, the life of Jesus makes ever-widening ripples as it spreads in a growing circle from its origin in Jerusalem to the ends of the earth.

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The Epistles
 The word epistle means “letter” and is an appropriate label for most of these works, which were written to instruct, to encourage, and to solve problems. Several epistles are long and formal; a few are brief and hurried. Some epistles seem to have been written to individuals; some, to individual churches; and others, for circulation among several churches. And it appears that a few of the epistles were originally treatises (for example, Hebrews) or sermons (1 Peter).

The wide category of works called the epistles can be divided into two groups. The first includes those books that traditionally have been attributed to the early missionary Paul—the Pauline Epistles. The second group includes all the other epistles—called the Universal Epistles because they seem to be addressed to all believers. The genuine Pauline letters are the earliest works in the New Testament, dating from about 50 to 60 ce. The dating of the other epistles is debated, but some may have been finished as late as about 125 ce. Of the so-called Pauline Epistles, it is now recognized that Paul did not write several of them. However, writing in the name of a famous teacher after that person’s death was a common practice in the ancient world; it was meant not to deceive but to honor the teacher.

One factor that has made the epistles so much loved is their use of memorable images, many of which come from the Pauline letters. For example, life is compared to a race with a prize given at the end (1 Cor. 9:24); good deeds are like incense rising to God (2 Cor. 2:15); and the community of believers is like a solid building set on secure foundations (1 Cor. 3:9–17). Effective images also appear in the non-Pauline epistles: new Christians are compared to babies who long for milk (1 Pet. 2:2); and the devil is like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour (1 Pet. 5:8).

Occasionally, images of the Trinity include Mary, thereby bringing a female element into the representation of the divine. This depiction, with the Holy Spirit as a dove perched on the cross, stands in the middle of a Czech town square.

The letters are also interesting in their description of roles in the early Church. Thanks are given to many women for their help. Paul, for example, in various letters mentions quite a few: Phoebe, Priscilla, Tryphaena, Tryphosa, Julia, Junia, Evodia, Syntyche, Nympha, and Apphia. Phoebe is called a helper and was quite possibly an official deacon (Rom. 16:1). Nympha owned a house at which a community of believers met (Col. 4:15). In his letter to Galatians, Paul contributed to Christianity one of its greatest passages on equality: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28).

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Page 351The themes of the epistles vary widely, but they focus generally on proper belief, morality, and church order. The topics include the nature and work of Jesus, God’s plan for humanity, faith, good deeds, love, the ideal marriage, community harmony, Christian living, the conduct of the Lord’s Supper, and the expected return of Jesus.

Revelation
 This final book of the New Testament was originally written (around 100 ce) as a book of encouragement for Christians who were under threat of persecution. Through a series of visions, the book shows that suffering will be followed by the final triumph of goodness over evil. The last chapters show the descent of the New Jerusalem from heaven and the adoration of Jesus, who appears as a lamb.

The language of Revelation is highly symbolic, deliberately using numbers and images in a way that would make the meaning clear to early Christians but obscure to others. For example, the lamb (Rev. 14:1) is Jesus, and the dragon with seven heads (Rev. 12:3) is the empire of Rome, a city built on seven hills. The number 666, the mark of the beast (mentioned in Rev. 13:18), may be the name of Emperor Nero, given in the form of numbers. Although long attributed to the author of the Gospel of John, Revelation is plainly—because of stylistic differences—by another hand. Some of its images were seminal to the development of later Christian art—particularly the adoration of the lamb, the four horsemen of the apocalypse, the book of life, and the vision of heaven.

The Christian Canon

We should recognize that some of the books in the New Testament were not accepted universally for several centuries. Agreement on which books belonged to the sacred 

canon

 of the New Testament took several hundred years.

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Early Christians continued for the most part to accept and read the Hebrew scriptures, particularly those books—such as Genesis, Exodus, Isaiah, the Psalms, and the Song of Songs—that they saw as foreshadowing the events of Christianity. The New Testament books, therefore, were added to the Hebrew scriptures already in existence. Christians thought of the Hebrew scriptures, which they called the Old Testament, as being fulfilled by the Christian scriptures, which they called the New Testament. The Christian 

Bible

 thus includes both the Hebrew scriptures and the New Testament.

There is a whole spectrum of ways in which the Christian Bible is read and interpreted by Christians. One approach emphasizes the subjective aspect of the scriptures, interpreting them primarily as a record of beliefs. A contrasting approach sees the Christian Bible as a work of objective history and authoritative morality, dictated word for word by God. To illustrate, let’s consider how the two approaches interpret the stories of creation in the Book of Genesis. The conservative position interprets the six days of creation and the story of Adam and Eve quite literally, as historical records, while the liberal approach interprets these stories primarily as moral tales that express God’s power, love, and sense of justice. There are similar contrasts between the conservative and liberal interpretations of miracles (for example, the virgin birth) in the New Testament.

Deeper Insights

THE CHRISTIAN WORLDVIEW

T

he New Testament and later creeds help define the Christian way of looking at the world. Most Christians agree on the following elements.

· God Behind the activity of the universe is an eternal, intelligent power who created the universe as an expression of love. Traditional Christianity holds the belief that God is made of three “Persons”: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—together called the 

Trinity

. The doctrine of the Trinity is said to be a mystery beyond complete human comprehension, but it hints that the nature of God is essentially a relationship of love.

· The Father The loving and caring qualities of God are especially evident in the Father, whom Jesus constantly addressed. Although without gender, God the Father is frequently depicted as an elderly man, robed and bearded.

· Jesus Christ Jesus is Son of the Father, but equally divine. Because he is the visible expression of God, he is called God’s Word and Image. The life and death of Jesus on earth are part of a divine plan to help humanity. Jesus willingly took on the punishment that, from the perspective of justice, should fall on all human beings who have done wrong. Some forms of Christianity also teach that Jesus’s life and death redeemed a basic sinfulness in human beings called 

original sin

, which is inherited by all of Adam’s descendants. Jesus continues to live physically beyond the earth, but he will someday return to judge human beings and to inaugurate a golden age.

· The Holy Spirit The Spirit is a divine power that guides all believers. In art, the Spirit is usually shown as a white dove.

· The Bible God’s will and plan are expressed in the Bible, which was written by human beings under God’s inspiration. The Bible consists of the books of the Hebrew Bible—which Christians call the Old Testament—and the twenty-seven books of the New Testament.

· Human life Human beings are on earth to help others, to perfect themselves, and to prepare for the afterlife. Suffering, when accepted, allows human beings to grow in insight and compassion.

· Afterlife Human beings possess an immortal soul. Both body and soul ultimately will be rewarded in heaven or punished in hell. Many Christians also believe in a temporary intermediate state called purgatory, where less worthy souls are prepared after death for heaven.

These basic beliefs invite a variety of interpretation. In the first five centuries of Christianity, debate was frequent until these beliefs had been clearly formulated in statements of faith. In recent centuries, however, new and diverse interpretations of all aspects of Christian belief have emerged.

Most contemporary Christians hold a position that is somewhere in between the conservative and liberal poles of the spectrum. They believe that the Bible was inspired by God in its essentials, but they see it as requiring thoughtful human interpretation. Interpretation of the Bible has been and still is a major cause of conflict and division in Christianity; however, the debate has also been—and still is—a great source of intellectual vitality.

THE EARLY SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY

Christianity is a missionary religion. The Gospel of Mark tells how Jesus sent out his disciples in pairs to preach throughout the land of Israel (Mark 6:7). Then the Gospel of Matthew ends with Jesus’s command, “Make disciples of all nations” (Matt. 28:19).

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 In the following discussion, we will see how Christianity spread in stages: from being a Jewish messianic movement in Israel, Christianity spread around the Mediterranean; then it became the official religion of the Roman Empire; and after the end of the empire in the West, Christianity spread to the rest of Europe. (Later, we will see how it spread to the New World, Asia, and Africa.)

Page 353Paul’s eagerness to spread his belief in Jesus took him to Asia Minor (Turkey), Greece, and Italy. Tradition holds that Peter, one of the original twelve apostles of Jesus, was already in Rome when Paul arrived and that both Peter and Paul died there under the Emperor Nero about 64 ce. At that point, early Christianity was only loosely organized, but it was clear even then that some kind of order was necessary. Influenced by the Roman Empire’s hierarchical political organization, Christians developed a style of Church organization that has been called monarchical (Greek: “one ruler”). Population centers would have a single 

bishop

 (Greek: episkopos, “overseer”), who would be in charge of lower-ranking clergy.

In those days, before easy communication, a truly centralized Christianity was impossible. The bishops of the major cities thus played a significant role for the churches of the neighboring regions. Besides Rome, several other great cities of the Roman Empire became centers of Christian belief—particularly Antioch in Syria and Alexandria in Egypt (

Figure 9.1

). Because the bishops of these important cities had more power than bishops of other, smaller cities, four early patriarchates arose: Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. The word 

patriarch

 (Greek: “father-source”) came to apply to the important bishops who were leaders of an entire region.

FIGURE 9.1 Historical centers of early Christianity, with Paul’s journeys.

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Deeper Insights

GREEK AND ROMAN RELIGIONS AND EARLY CHRISTIANITY

I

f you are ever in Rome, be sure to take a walk from the Colosseum westward through the Roman Forum, along the Via Sacra (“sacred way”). Because the large stones of the ancient road are still there, you can easily imagine what it must have been like for a visitor to Rome in the first century ce. At the end of the Forum rises the steep Capitoline Hill, the ancient center of government and the location of a temple to Jupiter, the father of the Roman gods. You also will notice that just beyond the bare pillars are bell towers and crosses—signs that many of the Forum’s buildings were long ago turned into Christian churches.

From its Middle Eastern roots, Christianity grew and spread within the Roman Empire, where it displaced the established religions of the Greeks and the Romans—but slowly. In fact, Christianity did not become the official state religion until the end of the fourth century. And since Rome in classical times was the largest city of the world, religions from faraway lands had also found their way there. (Rome in the imperial period was a great crossroads, much like London or Los Angeles today.) Like the temples that survive as Christian churches, elements from many of these religions were absorbed into the new religion of Christianity.

Since some of their gods came from the same source, the classical religions of the Greeks and the Romans show many similarities. But their religions were made of layers and were constantly evolving. The earliest layers, existing before recorded history, came from the veneration of local gods and nature spirits—often worshiped at sacred wells, groves, and roadside shrines. The next layer came from an array of sacred figures that were brought to Europe about 2000 bce. The same pantheon appears in the Vedas, and some of these gods are still worshiped by Hindus today. Other layers were added when both the Greeks and the Romans absorbed gods from neighboring cultures. Great heroes of the past could be declared to be gods. Later, so could emperors. (One, when he thought that he was dying, is said to have amusingly remarked, “I think that I am becoming a god.”)

The Forum’s Via Sacra today leads the visitor past remnants of temples dedicated to Roman gods, often incorporated into later Christian churches.

355There were occasional attempts at creating a complete system of deities. We find one such attempt, for example, in the works of Homer. The Iliad and the Odyssey placed the major Greek gods on Mount Olympus, living in a kind of extended family under the care of the sky god Zeus. Later, the Romans borrowed those ideas from the Greeks. There were also attempts to bring statues of major gods together for worship in the same place. The Athenians put statues of their most important gods at the Acropolis—a fact that Paul noticed and mentioned when he preached in Athens (Acts 17:19–23). The Romans placed multiple temples in the region of the Forum, and then the emperor Hadrian created the circular Pantheon (Greek: pan, “all”; theos, “god”), which had altars for the deities that he thought most important. (Today the Pantheon—perhaps the most beautiful of all classical Roman buildings—is a Catholic church.)

Despite their speculative forays, Greek and Roman religions involved practices as much as doctrine. In the days when medicine was undeveloped, charms and auspicious ceremonies were highly valued. Hence ritual, carefully performed, was essential. Ceremonies were held on festival days throughout the year. Romans had about thirty major festivals and many lesser ones—most with specific purposes, such as defense, fertility, and good harvest. These were largely acts of public religion, performed for the welfare of the nation. Thus, it is not surprising that Christianity continued such practices in developing its liturgical year, anchored in Christmas (the winter festival) and Easter (the spring rite of new birth). Saints’ feast days, which were marked by special blessings and rituals, were similar to earlier veneration of the many gods.

Of great importance to the formation of Christianity were the Greek and Roman “mystery religions,” so named because initiates vowed not to disclose the details of their initiations and practices. These typically involved instruction, a purification rite, a sharing of sacred food or drink, and a revelatory experience. We see clear echoes in the early training of would-be Christians (the “catechumens”), in baptism, and in eucharistic rites.

As the Roman Empire expanded during the time of Jesus and early Christianity, it imported the exotic worship of gods from Asia Minor (Turkey), Persia, and Egypt. Among the first religious imports was worship of the goddess Cybele, “the Great Mother,” and Isis, a mother figure from Egypt. Such worship of goddesses undoubtedly influenced the growing Christian cult of Mary. From Persia came worship of the sun god Mithras, which practiced baptism in the blood of a bull and a ritual sacred meal. Evidence of worship involving Mithras has been found as far away from Rome as London.

As you end your walk along the Roman Forum, you may think of other parallels. Early images of a beardless Jesus, found in Christian burial chambers, resemble images of Apollo and Dionysus. The tendency to treat Zeus or Jupiter as the supreme god—as was shown by the great Temple of Jupiter that crowned the Capitoline Hill—may have helped convert the Roman Empire to monotheism. The ritual meal of Mithraism has echoes in the Christian Lord’s Supper—in fact, the ancient church of San Clemente in Rome is built upon a Mithraeum, a Mithraic place of worship.

The exact amount of Greco-Roman religious influence on Christianity’s evolution will never be entirely clear. But the influences we’ve reviewed remind us that all world religions were once new religions that were built, in many different ways, upon what came before them. At the same time, the ability of a new religion to adapt existing religions could help the new religion to be accepted and understood—as we see so well in the case of Christianity.

However, when serious questions arose about doctrine and practice, the early Church leaders needed some way to answer them. On the one hand, they could seek a consensus from all other bishops by calling a Church council—an approach that the churches in the eastern part of the Roman Empire held to be the only correct practice. On the other hand, they could designate one bishop as the final authority. The bishop of Rome seemed to be a natural authority and judge for two reasons. First, until 330 ce Rome was the capital of the empire, so it was natural to think of the Roman bishop as a kind of spiritual ruler, like his political counterpart, the emperor. Second, according to tradition, Peter, the head of the twelve apostles, had lived his last days in Rome and had died there. He could thus be considered the first bishop of Rome. The special title 

pope

 comes from the Greek and Latin word papa (“father”), a title once used for many bishops but now applied almost exclusively to the bishop of Rome. (It is also, however, a term still used for the Coptic patriarch of Alexandria.)

 

The desert monasteries at Wadi Natrun, outside of Alexandria in Egypt, date back as far as the fourth century. Some monks live in solitude as hermits in the desert, but each hermit must return to his monastery once a week.

Page 356The nature of papal authority and the biblical basis for it (Matt. 16:18–19) have been debated. Nonetheless, this hierarchical model of Christianity became common in western Europe. Although the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century, which we will discuss later, weakened the acceptance of papal authority, the Catholic bishops of Rome have continued to claim supremacy over all Christianity, and the Roman Catholic Church maintains this claim. Christianity in eastern Europe, however, as we will see later in the chapter, developed and has maintained a different, less centralized form of organization.

The Roman Empire made many contributions to Christianity. In the first two centuries of the Common Era, Christianity was often persecuted because it was associated with political disloyalty. But when Constantine became emperor, he saw in Christianity a glue that would cement the fragments of the entire empire. In his Edict of Toleration, Constantine decreed that Christianity could function publicly without persecution, and he supported the religion by asking its bishops to meet and define their beliefs. This they did at the first major Church council, the Council of Nicaea, held in Asia Minor in 325 ce. By the end of the fourth century, Christianity had been declared the official religion of the Roman Empire.

Thus the partnership of Christianity with the Roman Empire marked an entirely new phase and a significant turning point for the religion. Christianity formalized its institutional structure of bishops and priests, who had responsibilities within the set geographical units—based on imperial political units—of dioceses and parishes. And because it now had the prestige and financial support that came with government endorsement, Christianity could enthusiastically adopt imperial Roman architecture, art, music, clothing, ceremony, administration, and law. Most important, through church councils and creeds, Christianity clarified and defined its worldview. And just as historians had written about the history of Rome, so writers such as Eusebius (c. 260–c. 339) came to record the history of Christianity.

Page 357Because Christianity in western Europe spread from Rome, much of it was distinctively Roman in origin—especially its language (Latin). Latin was the language of church ritual and scholarship in the West. The Bible had also been translated into Latin. Indeed, scholars often say that though the Roman Empire disintegrated in the late fifth century, it actually lived on in another form in the Western Church. The pope replaced the emperor of Rome, but the language, laws, architecture, and thought patterns of Rome would continue fairly undisturbed in the West for more than a thousand years.

INFLUENCES ON CHRISTIANITY AT THE END OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE

As the Roman Empire was collapsing in the West (it would end in 476 ce), new sources of energy and direction influenced the next stage in the development of Christianity. Two individuals who had a great impact on Christianity were a bishop, Augustine, and a monk, Benedict.

Augustine

Augustine (354–430 ce) was born in North Africa in the later days of the Roman Empire of the West. Although we think of North Africa today as being quite different and separate from Europe, in Augustine’s day it was still a vital part of the Roman Empire.

As a young adult, Augustine left his home in North Africa for Italy to make his name as a teacher of rhetoric. After a short time in Rome, he acquired a teaching position in Milan. He became seriously interested in Christianity as a result of his acquaintance with Ambrose, the bishop of the city. While in his garden one day, Augustine thought he heard a child’s singsong voice repeating the phrase, Tolle, lege (“pick up, read”).

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 Augustine, who had been studying the letters of Paul, picked up a copy of the epistles that lay on a nearby table. When he opened the book, what he read about the need for inner change pierced him to the heart, and he felt that he must totally reform his life. Augustine sought out Ambrose and asked to be baptized.

Augustine returned to North Africa to devote himself to church work. Ordained first as a priest and then as a bishop, he decided to live a monastic style of life in the company of other priests. Although he had a child with a mistress before his conversion, Augustine now preached an attitude toward sex and marriage that encouraged a growing Christian suspicion of the body. A reversal of those attitudes would begin only a thousand years later with the thought and work of the reformer Martin Luther, who had been a celibate member of the Augustinian order but who later married and rejected its idealization of celibacy.

Page 358 In the years after his conversion, Augustine wrote books that were influential in the West for centuries. His Confessions was the first real autobiography in world literature, and it details Augustine’s growth and conversion. The City of God was a defense of Christianity, which some people in his day blamed for the decline of the Roman Empire. The Trinity was Augustine’s explanation of the relationship between God the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. He also wrote to oppose the priest Pelagius, a thinker who held a more optimistic view of human nature than Augustine did.

Augustine had incalculable influence on Western Christianity. He was the authority in Christian theology until the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century; he was an influence, as well, on Reformation thinkers such as Martin Luther and John Calvin. In short, Western Christianity was basically Augustinian Christianity for over a thousand years.

Benedict and the Monastic Ideal

As mentioned earlier, Augustine, after his conversion, chose to become a priest and live with other priests and monks in a life devoted to prayer and study. This monastic way of life became a significant part of Christianity. It is important to remember that monastic life was not just a religious choice. In the days when life was less secure, when work options were severely limited, and when marriage inevitably brought many children (of whom up to half might die young), the life of a monk offered extraordinary freedom. The monastic life provided liberation from daily cares, leisure time to read and write, a wealth of friendships with interesting people, and a strong sense of spiritual purpose. In fact, monks and nuns are found in many religious traditions today, and monasticism, far from being odd or rare, is a fairly universal expression of piety. Monasticism appears not only in Christianity but also in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Daoism; and in Judaism, the celibate monastic life was carried on among the Essenes for approximately two hundred years.

A monk is not necessarily a priest, nor need a priest be a monk. A monk is simply any male who chooses to leave society to live a celibate life of religious devotion; a priest is a person authorized to lead public worship. In the early days of Christianity, priests were often married and thus were not monks. However, under the influence of monasticism, Western priests were gradually expected to resemble monks and to be unmarried.

Christian monasticism probably sprang from a number of influences. One may have been the Essene movement and another may have been the fact that Jesus had never married. We might recall that he praised those who do not marry “for the sake of the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 19:12).

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 Paul also was without a wife and recommended that state heartily for others (1 Cor. 7:32–35). Another influence on Christian monasticism came from Egypt, where hermits had been living in caves even before Jesus’s time. Lastly, once the government stopped persecuting Christians, becoming a monk or nun was an important way for a Christian to show special religious fervor.

 

Benedict’s Rule for Monks still shapes monastic life around the world. Here, twenty-first-century monks in Poland chant psalms and prayers.

Page 359The first Christian monks that we know of are called the Desert Fathers: Paul the Hermit, Antony of Egypt, Paphnutius, Pachomius, and Simon the Stylite. There were also women (of apparently shady backgrounds) among them: Saint Pelagia the Harlot and Saint Mary the Harlot. These individuals all turned away from the world to live what they thought of as a more perfect type of life. The movement may have shown a lack of interest in the needs of the world, but the movement also expressed a longing for the life of paradise—for joy, lack of conformity, individuality, and love of God. In fact, the monastic style of life was often called “the life of the angels.”

The monastic movement in the West was greatly influenced and spread by a Latin translation of the Life of Antony, the Egyptian hermit. The movement took root in southern France and Italy. The real founder of Western monasticism was Benedict of Nursia (c. 480–c. 547 ce). Benedict was born into a wealthy family near Rome but fled to live in a cave, where he began to attract attention and followers who joined him in the monastic life. Eventually, Benedict and his followers built a permanent monastery on the top of Monte Cassino, south of Rome. From there the movement spread and became known as the Benedictine order.

Benedict’s influence came from his Rule for Monks. Based on the earlier Regula Magistri (“rule of the master”) and on the New Testament, the Rule gave advice about how monks should live together throughout the year. It stipulated that monks should pray each week the entire group of 150 psalms (biblical poems), spend time in manual labor, and remain at one monastery. It opposed excess in any way, yet it was sensible; for example, it allowed wine because, as it lamented, the monks could not be persuaded otherwise. The Rule became the organizing principle for all Western monasticism and is still followed today by Benedictines.

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Page 360

What can be sweeter to us, dear brethren, than this voice of the Lord inviting us? Behold, in His loving kindness the Lord shows us the way of life.

—Saint Benedict’s Rule for Monks

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Benedictine monks became the missionary force that spread Christianity—and Roman architecture and culture—throughout western Europe.

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 Among the great Benedictine missionaries were Augustine (d. 604 ce), who was sent as a missionary to England by Pope Gregory I, and Boniface (c. 675–754 ce), who spread Christianity in Germany.

THE EASTERN ORTHODOX CHURCH

Up to this point, we have focused on Christianity in western Europe. But another form of Christianity, known as the Eastern Orthodox Church, developed and spread in Russia, Bulgaria, the Ukraine, Romania, Greece, and elsewhere. These were regions that learned their Christianity from missionaries sent out from Constantinople, which Constantine had established as his imperial capital in 330 ce. 

Orthodox

, meaning “correct belief,” is used to designate Christianity in much of the East. The name’s Greek roots—orthos, “straight,” and doxa, “opinion,” “thought”—reflect Eastern Christianity’s desire to define its beliefs and keep them unchanged.

Early Development

In the earliest centuries of Christianity, when communication was slow and authority was rather decentralized, the bishops of Jerusalem, Antioch, Rome, and Alexandria, though often at odds in their theology, were looked to for guidance and authority. They were eclipsed, however, when Constantine made the small fishing village of Byzantion (Byzantium) the new capital of the Roman Empire. He officially named it New Rome, but it was soon called Constantinople—“Constantine’s City.” (Today it is Istanbul.) The large population of Constantinople, its importance as a governmental center, and its imperial support of Christianity all united to elevate the status of the bishop of Constantinople. Now called a patriarch, he became the most influential of all the bishops in the East.

Constantine had hoped to strengthen the Roman Empire by placing its capital—now Constantinople—closer to the northern frontier. From there, soldiers could be sent quickly to protect the frontier against the many barbarian tribes that lived in the north. But Constantine had in fact planted the seeds for an inevitable division of Christianity into Eastern and Western churches. For a time there were two emperors—of East and West—although this did not work well. The Latin-speaking Western empire, as we have seen, ended in the fifth century, and Western Christianity developed independently. The Greek-speaking Eastern empire, centered in Constantinople, spread its own form of Christianity and continued until its fall in the Muslim conquest of 1453.

Page 361The Orthodox Church is generally divided along ethnic and linguistic lines—Russian, Greek, Serbian, Bulgarian, and Romanian. But all these churches accept the statements of faith of the first seven Church councils, particularly those of Nicaea (325 ce) and Chalcedon (451 ce). The Orthodox Church has always held to a decentralized, consensus-based model. Although it does accept in theory that the bishop of Rome has a “primacy among equals,” it holds that decisions concerning all of Christianity should be made collectively, in consultation with all patriarchs and bishops; thus, only Church councils are of ultimate authority.

Monasticism in the Eastern Church

As in the West, the monastic movement was an important aspect of the Eastern Church. It spread northward from Egypt and Syria into Asia Minor, where its greatest practitioners were the fourth-century Church leaders, Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335–394), Gregory Nazianzen (c. 329–389), and Basil of Caesarea (c. 330–379), who set the pattern for the monastic movement in 

Orthodoxy

. Basil wrote recommendations for monastic living that are still followed today in Orthodox Christianity. Greek-speaking monks of the eastern part of the Roman Empire carried Christianity from Constantinople into Russia and eastern Europe. The ninth-century brothers Cyril and Methodius are the most famous of these missionary monks, because they or their disciples are said to have authored the Cyrillic alphabet, based on the Greek alphabet, which is in common use in eastern Europe and Russia today.

Eastern Orthodoxy has created great monastic centers. The most famous is on Mount Athos in Greece, the current center of monasticism in that region. All Orthodox branches have sent representatives there for monastic training, and to visit or study there is considered a great honor.

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 Other monastic centers grew up in Romania, Bulgaria, the Ukraine, and Russia. Many of these monasteries still exist and may be visited today.

During this Sunday morning Orthodox service, the priest walks from the altar down the middle of the church. Devout congregants are blessed when the communion cup is placed atop their heads.

Eastern Orthodox Beliefs

Debate over several questions helped define and differentiate the Orthodox churches in their early development. One issue was the nature of Jesus Christ: How is Jesus related to God? Is God the Father greater than Jesus? If Jesus is divine as well as human, is he two persons or one person? And how did Jesus exist before his human life began? Some believers stressed the human nature of Jesus, while others stressed his divinity. The controversies eventually led to the creation and adoption in the fourth century of the Nicene Creed, which is accepted not only by the Eastern Orthodox but also by all traditional Western Christians. Because the creed was created to overcome several heresies, it speaks of the divine nature of Jesus in some detail:

We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father, the only-begotten; that is, of the essence of the Father, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one essence with the Father; by whom all things were made, both in heaven and on earth; who for us men, and for our salvation, came down and was incarnate and was made man.

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Page 362Even after the Nicene Creed, one school held that the divine and human natures of Christ were two separate persons, not one. Others argued that Jesus had only one nature, not two. The Council of Chalcedon (in 451 ce) declared that Jesus had two natures—divine and human—that were united in only one person.

After the major Church councils of the fourth and fifth centuries, certain groups of Christians, with differing views about the nature of Jesus, were labeled heretical. They continued to exist, however, though not in communion with the mainstream. Among those churches that did not accept the formulations of some early Church councils were the Church of the East, existing in Syria and the Middle East, and the Coptic Church of Egypt and Ethiopia. The variety of these early churches exemplifies the diversity of thought that existed among Christian groups in the first few centuries of the Common Era.

Another defining controversy, which has had lasting influence, occurred over the use of images for religious practice. We might recall that one of the Ten Commandments prohibits the making of images (Exod. 20:4), and Jews, as a result, have generally refrained from creating any religious images. Islam has a similar prohibition, as do some forms of Protestant Christianity today. The argument over making and using images reached a crisis when the Byzantine Emperor Leo III (680–740 ce) commanded the destruction of all images of Jesus, Mary, and the angels. It is possible that he did this for political as well as religious reasons, hoping to build bridges to Islam. But John of Damascus (c. 676–749), a monk and writer, came strongly to the defense of religious images—or 

icons

, as they are often called (the Greek term eikon means “image”). John argued that images served the same purpose for the illiterate as the Bible did for those who could read. He also argued that God, by becoming incarnate in Jesus, did not disdain the material world. Icons, he said, were simply a continuation of that manifestation of divine love shown through the physical world. Church councils later affirmed the use of images, thus putting an indelible stamp on the practices of the Eastern Orthodox Church, which glories in the veneration of religious paintings.

Page 363

Deeper Insights

INSIDE A GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH

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n his book Eleni, Nicholas Gage documents his childhood in Greece during World War II and the civil war that followed it. His memories include this description of the Greek Orthodox church in his native village of Lia. The church was destroyed by the Nazis.

For seven centuries the Church of the Virgin had nourished the souls of the [villagers of Lia]. Its interior was their pride and their Bible. No one needed to be literate to know the Holy Scriptures, for they were all illustrated here in the frescoes painted by the hand of monks long vanished into anonymity. In the soaring vault of the cupola, Christ the All-Powerful, thirty times the size of a mortal man, scrutinized the congregation below, his Gospel clasped in his hand. In the spaces between the windows, the prophets and apostles, painted full-length with bristling beards and mournful eyes, made their eternal parade toward the altar.

The villagers of Lia never tired of staring at the wonders of the Church of the Virgin: the walls glowed with every saint and martyr, the twelve feast days, the Last Supper, the life of the Virgin, and as a final warning, on the wall near the door, the Last Judgment, where bizarre dragons and devils punished every sort of evil, with the priests in the front rank of the sinners.

The jewel of the church was the magnificent golden carved iconostasis, the shimmering screen which hid the mysteries of the sanctuary until the priest emerged from the Royal Doors carrying the blood and body of Christ. The iconostasis held four tiers of icons, splendid with gold leaf and jewels, and between the sacred pictures the native wood-carvers had allowed their imagination to create a fantasy of twining vines and mythical birds and beasts perched in the lacy fretwork.

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Cracks in the unity of Christianity appeared early, but the first great division occurred in 1054, when disagreements brought the bishops of Rome and Constantinople to excommunicate each other. Despite the fact that the excommunications at last have been revoked, there remains a strong sense of separation.

Although cultural differences assisted the separation, there were small doctrinal differences, as well. The most famous concerned the doctrine of the Trinity. Did the Holy Spirit come from the Father or the Son or from both? The oldest and traditional position held that the Father generated the Spirit, but it became common in the West to attribute the generation of the Spirit to both Father and Son together. The Latin word 

filioque

 (“and from the Son”) was added to creeds in the West from an early period. The Eastern Church rejected the notion as an improper addition to the Nicene Creed and cited it as a main reason for splitting off from the Western Church. Another dividing issue was the growing power of the pope and the claim that the bishop of Rome was the head of all Christians. Scholars today, however, point out the inevitability of separation because of many factors, such as distance, differences of language, and the political growth of northern and eastern Europe.

364Orthodox belief is, in summary, quite similar to that which emerged in the West and eventually became mainstream Christianity. The doctrinal differences are quite small, but the Orthodox Church differs in emphasis. Mainstream Western Christianity (Catholicism and Protestantism) has focused on the death of Jesus as an atonement for sin. Some scholars have said that that focus indicates a more “legal” emphasis: God is viewed as a judge, and punishment and repentance are paramount. Eastern Christianity has put more emphasis on a mystical self-transformation that human beings can experience through contact with Christ. As a consequence, Orthodox Christian art and literature focus less on the crucifixion of Jesus and more on the resurrection.

Relatives and friends attend a special service forty days after a death. Orthodox Christians believe that atonement for a dead person’s sins can be partially achieved through the prayers and good works of the living.

With the collapse of communism in Russia and eastern Europe, the Orthodox Church has regained some of its earlier strength. Church buildings that were banned from religious use have been transferred back to Church ownership and restored. It is notable that after the fall of communism, Russian authorities decided to rebuild the Cathedral of the Holy Savior in Moscow, which Stalin had destroyed and replaced with a swimming pool. The Russian Orthodox Church was also successful in having laws passed in 1997 that affirmed its special status, thereby giving it assistance against the missionary efforts of some other religious groups.

PERSONAL EXPERIENCE

Inside the Monasteries on Mount Athos

Mount Athos is a finger of rocky land jutting into the Aegean Sea in the far north of Greece. The peninsula is a monastic state, where monks and hermits have lived for at least a thousand years. Although politically it is part of Greece, it is semi-independent and conducts its own affairs through a monastic council. At the center of the peninsula is a high mountain, and scattered around it, close to the shore, are twenty large monasteries. One spring, after getting proper approval from the government, I spent the week of Orthodox Easter at Athos.

From Athens I went to Thessaloníki, and from there I took a bus filled with people going back home to celebrate the festival. After staying the night in the village of Ouranopolis, I got on a ferryboat to Athos before dawn the next morning. In the small capital of Karyes, where monks run the shops, I received my passport. Over its Greek words was a picture of the peninsula and of Mary, appearing protectively over its mountain. This passport allowed me to stay overnight in any monastery I visited.

Page 365Each day I walked from one monastery to the next, a hike lasting about four hours, and was received graciously everywhere. One day I even hitched a ride on the back of one of three donkeys that were being used to carry supplies to several monasteries for the Easter celebration. The two drivers of the animals gave me brandy and Easter candy as the donkeys ambled along. Spring flowers blossomed everywhere next to innumerable streams, which were fed by water from snow melting on the mountain. At one point the drivers, no longer sober, began arguing with each other. They jumped off their donkeys and began to fight, and the donkeys fled. A monk in a small rowboat came ashore, scrambled up the hill, and stopped the fighting. We recaptured the donkeys, which were feeding placidly farther up on the green hillside, and went on our way, as if nothing had happened.

The monasteries have high walls designed to protect the monks from the pirates who once roamed the coast. The lower half of each monastery is generally without windows, rising about 70 feet (21 meters) in height, and above that are as many as seven stories of wooden balconies. In the center of each monastery is a separate church building in the shape of a Greek cross, usually painted a reddish-brick color. Each arm of the church building is equal in size, and at the intersection of all the arms is the large central dome.

I can never forget the services of Easter, celebrated in those mysterious spaces. Being inside the churches felt like being in a group of caves. The floors were covered with sweet-smelling laurel leaves, an ancient symbol of victory. Chandeliers full of candles hung from the domes, illuminating the darkness like stars. For the predawn Easter service, monks used long sticks to make the chandeliers swing back and forth. As the chandeliers swayed, they lit up the murals and mosaics on the walls. I could see images of the prophet Elijah in his cave and the prophet Isaiah speaking with a six-winged angel. Jesus stood on a mountaintop, surrounded by an almond-shaped, rainbow-colored halo. Mary held her child and looked at me serenely. Above them all, an austere cosmic Christ held his hand up in blessing. Below him, each holding a lighted, orange beeswax candle that smelled like honey, monks on one side of the church began the Easter greeting. “Christos anesti,” they sang. “Christ is risen.” Then monks on the other side answered back, “Alithos anesti”—“Truly, he is risen.” They sang these two phrases back and forth for minutes. At last they stopped—except for one monk. He had a long white beard and was singing with his eyes closed. “Christos anesti,” he continued to sing loudly. “Christos anesti.” The monks looked at each other in confusion, then smiled as a middle-aged monk came out and tapped the old monk on the shoulder. The old monk opened his eyes and there was silence.

This view of Vatopedi Monastery gives a good sense of the design of the great monasteries of Mount Athos.

Page 366

CHRISTIANITY IN THE MIDDLE AGES

From its earliest days, when it was just another exotic “Eastern” religion in the Roman Empire, Christianity had made astonishing leaps—at first facing persecution, then becoming the official religion of the empire, and finally rising as the religion of all Europe. Christianity also existed on a smaller scale and in varied forms in Ethiopia, the Middle East, and India.

There were many reasons for the growth of Christianity. It preached a gospel of mercy and hope, offered divine help, promised an afterlife, treated the sick, and aided the poor. It taught skills in agriculture and architecture, introduced books, and spread use of the technology of the time. Imagine how a candlelit church at Easter—with its music, incense, candles, jeweled books, glass windows, and gorgeously robed priests—must have appeared to people who were not yet Christians. The effect must have been intoxicating. A legendary story tells of Russian ministers who attended a service at Saint Sophia’s Cathedral in Constantinople about 988 ce. When they returned home to Kiev, they said that during the cathedral service they had not known whether they were on earth or in heaven.

Although many of the religious practices in both Rome and Constantinople were Roman in origin, the two centers, as we have seen, eventually split over differences. The existence of several patriarchates in the East kept any one of them from becoming a single ruling power. But the Roman Church in the West had no competitors for power in its region and thus grew in authority and strength. The pope, as the bishop of Rome, asserted his dominion over all Christians, an assertion that was not widely opposed in the West until the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century. The long-term effect was that the practices of the Roman Church would set the standard for language, practice, doctrine, church calendar, music, and worship throughout western Europe and then beyond, wherever European influence traveled. (To get a sense of the far-reaching impact of Roman culture, consider the fact that the book you are now reading—long after the Roman Empire has ended and probably thousands of miles from Rome—is written in the Latin alphabet: the capital letters come from the classical Latin of Rome; the lowercase letters were created by Christian monks and clerics.)

The growing size of the Christian population and the increasing cultural dominance of Christianity created a climate for a wide variety of religious expression: devotional and mystical movements, the founding of new religious communities, the Crusades and the Inquisition, reform movements, and new interpretations of the Christian ideal. Over time, traditional Church authority was questioned, giving rise to a search for new sources of authority.

Christian Mysticism

The word mysticism in theistic religions indicates a direct experience of the divine and a sense of oneness with God. Although not always approved of by Church authorities, this sort of transcendent experience is nevertheless an important part of Christianity. Christian mystics have spoken of their direct contact with God, sometimes describing a dissolution of all boundaries between themselves and God. Accounts of their experiences speak of intriguing states of consciousness.

367The fact that Jesus felt an intimate relationship with God, whom he called Father, provided a basis for seeing Jesus as a role model for all Christian mystics. The Gospel of John, which has a strong mystical tendency, sees Jesus in this light. We also see mysticism in some letters of Paul. For example, Paul describes himself as having been taken up to “the third heaven” and having heard there things that could not be put into words (2 Cor. 12:1–13). Many monks and nuns from the earliest days of Christianity yearned to experience God, and mystical passages are common in the writings of Origen, Augustine, and Gregory of Nyssa.

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 Origen (c. 185–254) was the first of many Christians who would interpret the biblical Song of Songs mystically. He saw the young lover as Jesus and his beloved as a symbol of the mystic, “who burned with a heavenly love for her bridegroom, the Word of God.”

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Mystical experience was especially prized in the West during the Middle Ages and early Renaissance. Francis of Assisi (1182–1226 ce) is possibly the best-known medieval mystic. Originally a playboy and son of a wealthy trader, Francis embraced a life of poverty in order to imitate the life of Jesus. He also showed a joyful love of nature, calling the sun and moon his brother and sister. One of the greatest Christian mystics was Meister Eckhart (c. 1260–1328), a German priest whose description of God as being beyond time and space, as “void,” and as “neither this nor that”

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 has captured the interest of Hindus and Buddhists as well as Christians.

In this fresco, Giotto portrays Saint Francis receiving the wounds of Jesus. Some in the Middle Ages saw this as the ultimate mystical experience.

Many mystics were women. In recent years, the mystical songs of the medieval Benedictine nun Hildegard of Bingen (c. 1098–1179) have become popular through the availability of numerous recordings. An Englishwoman, known as Julian (or Juliana) of Norwich (c. 1342–1416), had a series of mystical experiences, which she later described in her book Revelations of Divine Love. She wrote of experiencing the feminine side of God. “God is as really our Mother as he is our Father. He showed this throughout, and particularly when he said that sweet word, ‘It is I.’ In other words, ‘It is I who am the strength and goodness of Fatherhood; I who am the wisdom of Motherhood.’”

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 One of the most famous female mystics was Teresa of Avila (1515–1582), a Spanish nun who wrote in her autobiography about her intimacy with God. A dramatic statue by Bernini at the Roman church of Santa Maria della Vittoria shows Teresa lost in ecstasy.

Page 368

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy.

—Prayer attributed to Francis of Assisi

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The mystical approach to Christianity was counterbalanced by Christian attempts to offer reasoned, philosophical discussion of primary beliefs. The religious communities of Franciscans and Dominicans (discussed later in this chapter) were especially active in this work. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), a Dominican priest, is the best known. In two major works, the Summa Theologica and Summa Contra Gentiles, he blended the philosophical thought of Aristotle with Christian scripture and other Christian writings to present a fairly complete Christian worldview. Even he, however, was swayed by the appeal of mystical experience. At the end of his life, after a particularly profound experience of new understanding brought on by prayer, he is said to have remarked that all he had written was “like straw” in comparison to the reality that could be understood directly through mystical experience.

The Crusades, the Inquisition, and Christian Control

During the fourth and fifth centuries and thereafter, Christians all over Europe made pilgrimages to the lands where Jesus had lived and died, and the Emperors Constantine and Justinian had built churches there to encourage this practice. But Muslims took control of Jerusalem in the seventh century, and by the eleventh century, Christian pilgrimage had become severely restricted. To guarantee their own safety in pilgrimage and their access to the “Holy Land,” some Europeans felt they had a right to seize control over the land of Israel and adjacent territory. Attempts to take over the Holy Land were called the Crusades—military expeditions that today might be described as religious enthusiasm gone badly astray.

The First Crusade began in 1095, and Jerusalem was taken after a bloody battle in 1099. Europeans took control of Israel and kept it for almost two hundred years, until they lost their last bit of Israel, at Acre near the port of Haifa, in 1291. The suffering inflicted on Muslims and Christians alike was appalling, and most crusaders died not of wounds but of illness. Many Eastern Christians, too, died at the hands of crusaders because they were mistaken for Muslims. The Crusades also did ideological damage, for they injured Christianity in their promotion of the ideal of a soldier who kills for religious reasons—something quite foreign to the commandments of Jesus. The romantic notion of the Christian soldier, “marching as to war,” has remained in some forms of Christianity ever since.

One significant development in Christianity was the founding of nonmonastic religious communities, called religious orders. An order is a religious organization of men or women who live communal celibate lives, follow a set of written rules (Latin: ordo), and have a special purpose, such as teaching or nursing. The most famous medieval order was the Franciscan order, begun by Francis of Assisi, who idealized poverty and worked to help the poor. Other orders were the Dominicans, who became teachers and scholars, and the Knights Templar, who protected the pilgrimage sites and routes. Most orders also accepted women, who formed a separate division of the order.

Page 369In another development of the times, as western Europe became almost fully Christianized, Jews, Muslims, and heretics were considered to be religiously and politically dangerous. Jews were forced to live a life entirely separate from Christians; nontraditional Christians who had emerged in southern France were destroyed; and an effort began that would rid Spain and Sicily of Muslim influence.

The Inquisition received its name from its purpose—to “inquire” into a person’s religious beliefs. Church authorities set up an organization to guarantee the purity of Christian belief, and its aim was to root out variant forms of Christianity that were considered heretical (divisive and dangerous to public order). Heretics were ferreted out, questioned, tortured, and, if found guilty, burned to death.

The Inquisition was first active in southern France in the thirteenth century, and the same inquisitorial procedures were later employed in Spain. We might recall that in the fifteenth century there was a large-scale attempt by Christian rulers to “reconquer” all of Spain. When all Spanish territory had been taken over by Christian rulers, Jews and Muslims were forced to convert to Christianity or to leave Spain, and many did leave, particularly for Morocco and Egypt. Those who stayed had to accept baptism and to publicly practice Christianity. Some of these new converts continued, however, to practice their old religions in private. The Inquisition attempted to discover who these “false Christians” were, and the religious order of Dominicans was especially active in this pursuit.

Tomás de Torquemada (c. 1420–1498), a Spanish Dominican, was appointed first inquisitor general by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella in 1483 and grand inquisitor by Pope Innocent VIII in 1487. As he oversaw the Inquisition in Spain, he became notorious for his cruelty. The Reconquista, as the Christian movement was called, took over all Spanish territory in 1492. After this date, the Inquisition acted as a religious arm of the Spanish government both in Spain and in Spanish colonies in the New World.

The Late Middle Ages

The complete ousting of the crusaders from Israel (1291) marked the end of the Christian optimism that had been typical of the earlier Middle Ages. The loss was widely viewed as some kind of divine punishment for religious laxity. The feeling of pessimism deepened a half century later, when an epidemic of bubonic plague—called the Black Death for the black swellings that appeared on people’s bodies—began to spread throughout Europe. The first major outbreak of disease occurred largely between 1347 and 1351. Beginning in France and Italy, the plague swept throughout western Europe; whole towns were emptied, with no one left to bury the corpses. Priests often fled, refusing to attend the dying—a neglect that brought the Church into great disrepute. Between a quarter and a third of the population died, and the plague continued to break out in many places for years afterward.

370We now know that the disease was bacterial, caused by a bacillus found in fleas, which carried the disease to human beings. Rats that carried the fleas had arrived on ships that came from the Black Sea to ports in southern France and Italy. But the medical origin of the plague was not understood at the time, and people saw it instead as punishment from God. Some blamed the Jews, who were accused of poisoning wells or of angering God by their failure to accept Christianity. Others saw the plague as punishment for the lax behavior of Church authorities.

It is natural for a successful institution to take its authority for granted, and by the late Middle Ages it was common for bishops and abbots to be appointed to their positions purely for financial or family reasons. Some even lived away from their monasteries or dioceses. Indeed, for most of the fourteenth century, the popes lived not in Rome but in southern France. This papal dislocation led to a weakening of Church authority, until two and then finally three factions claimed the papacy.

The Middle Ages saw many changes in European society, as travelers to the Middle East and Asia returned home with new goods and ideas. New forms of trade and economy developed. Imagination and independence grew.

By far the greatest development of the late Middle Ages was the invention of printing with movable type. Before that time, all writing had to be done, laboriously, by hand, making the Bible and other works available only to scholars and clergy. Although the first book to be printed (c. 1450) was a Latin Bible, translations were soon necessary. Printing also made possible the spread in modern languages of new and revolutionary ideas. As a result, a multitude of vital new forms of Christianity would emerge.

THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION

As institutions age, they naturally lose some of their earnestness and purity, prompting attempts at reform. The Eastern Church, weakened by the Muslim invasions and its own decentralization, had less need for reform. In contrast, the Roman Church in the West had been enormously successful, spreading throughout western Europe and building a centralized power structure that had not been seriously challenged in the first thousand years of its growth.

By the late medieval period, people resented the lands and wealth of the Church and its monasteries. Thoughtful people also were troubled by what seemed to be a multitude of superstitious practices—particularly the veneration of relics of saints. Significant relics included the bones of saints and any object supposedly touched by Jesus or Mary or the saints, such as Mary’s veil and the nails used at Jesus’s crucifixion. Many of these items were not genuine.

Page 371Earlier attempts at reform had not been successful. John Wycliffe (c. 1320–1384), an English priest, preached against papal taxation and against the special authority of the clergy. He labeled as superstition the doctrine of transubstantiation (the notion that the sacrament of bread and wine, when blessed at the Mass, literally turned into Jesus’s flesh and blood). He also oversaw the first translation of the Latin Bible into English. Accused of heresy by Pope Gregory XI in 1377, he was forbidden to teach. He died of a stroke, and after the Council of Constance (1414–1418) condemned his teachings, his body was dug up and burned and the ashes were thrown into a river.

Jan Hus (c. 1370–1415), rector of the University of Prague, kept alive many of Wycliffe’s criticisms. Excommunicated in 1410 and condemned by the same council that condemned Wycliffe, Hus was burned at the stake in 1415.

Reform was inevitable. Soon another great turning point would occur in Christianity. The north and south of Europe would painfully split along religious lines, and Western Christianity would divide into Protestantism and Catholicism.

Martin Luther

Martin Luther (1483–1546), a German priest, was the first reformer to gain a large following and to survive, and his success encouraged others who also sought reforms. Their joint influence ultimately created the Protestant branch of Christianity, so called because the reformers protested some of the doctrines and practices of the Roman Church and affirmed their own biblical interpretations of Christian belief.

Luther, convinced of his own personal sinfulness, entered religious life (the Augustinian order) as a young man because of a vow made during a lightning storm. To enter religious life, he had to disobey his father, who wanted him to be a lawyer.

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 But after ordination as a priest, Luther still did not experience the inner peace he had sought.

Luther became a college professor in the university town of Wittenberg, teaching courses in the Bible with a focus on the New Testament—particularly the Pauline Epistles. At a time when he felt overwhelmed by his own sinfulness, he was struck by Paul’s words at the beginning of the Epistle to the Romans: “The just shall live by faith” (Rom. 1:17).

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 Luther admitted that upon reading this epistle he felt as if he had been “born anew” and sensed that now “the gates of heaven” were open to him.

What Luther came to believe was that no matter how great the sinfulness of a human being, the sacrifice of Jesus was enough to make up for all wrongdoing. An individual’s good deeds could never be enough; to become sinless in God’s eyes, a person could rely on the work of Jesus.

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 Luther also recognized the importance of his reading of the Bible as the primary inspiration for his new spiritual insight. Luther’s main focuses have sometimes been summarized by the Latin phrases sola scriptura (“scripture alone”) and sola fides (“faith alone”).

 

Luther’s writings provide a sense of his personality, here conveyed in Lucas Cranach’s portraits of Luther and his wife Katharina.

Page 372Luther’s teaching came at a time when the papacy was asking for contributions for the building of the new Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome. In return, donors were promised an 

indulgence

, which would shorten the period after death that an individual would spend in purgatory, a preparatory state before the soul could attain heaven. Luther opposed the idea that anything spiritual could be sold.

To show his opposition and to stir debate, in 1517 Luther posted on the door of the castle church of Wittenberg his demands for change and reformation in the form of Ninety-Five Theses. Despite reprimands, Luther was unrepentant, and in 1521 Pope Leo X excommunicated him. Luther’s efforts at reform might have failed—and he also might have been burned at the stake—if he had not received the support of and been hidden by the prince of his region, Frederick III of Saxony. During this period of refuge, Luther translated the New Testament into German, and he soon translated the Old Testament, as well. Luther’s translation of the Christian Bible was to become for the Germans what the King James Bible became for the English-speaking world—it had an incalculable influence on German language and culture.

After his insight into the sufficiency of faith, Luther firmly rejected celibacy and the monastic style of life. He married a former nun, Katharina von Bora, had six children, and opened his home to a wide range of visitors interested in his work on church reform.

Page 373Deeper Insights

EMPHASES OF PROTESTANT CHRISTIANITY

P

rotestantism seeks to find—and live by—what is essential to the Christian experience. It places great emphasis on the individual’s own ability to establish a personal relationship with God.

· Return to simple Christianity The New Testament outlines the essentials of Christianity, both in belief and in practice. Christians should imitate the early tradition and avoid unnecessary, later alterations.

· Centrality of Jesus Jesus is the one way to God the Father. Devotion to Mary and the saints has distracted believers from their faith in Jesus and should be de-emphasized or even abandoned. Trust in relics of Mary and the saints borders on superstition.

· Guidance of the Bible The Bible is a divinely inspired guide for human lives. Believers should read it regularly, and ministers should explain it in sermons.

· Importance of faith One’s deeds alone cannot bring salvation. Faith in Jesus brings righteousness in God’s eyes.

· Direct relation to God Although ministers assist in religious services, they are not necessary as intermediaries between God and the individual. Every individual has a direct relationship with God.

· Individual judgment The Holy Spirit helps each believer make decisions about the meaning of biblical passages and about how to apply Christian principles to everyday life. (The ability of each individual to radically question and rethink accepted interpretation is sometimes called the Protestant Principle.)

Forms of Protestantism

The right of every individual to radically question and reinterpret Christian belief and practice is at the heart of Protestant Christianity. This so-called 

Protestant Principle

 has been responsible for the generation of major branches of mainstream Protestantism, a multitude of smaller sects, and many thousands of independent churches, which continue to proliferate miraculously. Their styles of organization and worship run the spectrum—from ritualistic and structured to informal, emotional, and highly individualistic. Some Protestant denominations emphasize emotional conversion of individuals, while others stress broad social welfare. Some exclude people who are not in their denominations, while others are strongly inclusive, even inviting non-Christians to share in their services. Some have retained traditional ritual and an episcopal structure (that is, involving bishops and priests), while others have rejected all ritual and clergy. We must keep this variety in mind as we read about these denominations.

Lutheranism
 Martin Luther’s version of the reform emphasized faith and the authority of the Bible. To encourage greater participation, Luther called for services to be conducted in German as well as in Latin. He also wrote hymns that were to be sung in German by the entire congregation, thus beginning a strong musical tradition in Lutheranism, which has particularly valued choral and organ music.

Page 374Luther’s version of the Protestant reform spread throughout central and northern Germany and then into Scandinavia and the Baltic states. It came to the United States with German and Scandinavian immigrants, who settled primarily in the upper Midwest. Over the years, Lutheranism has retained Luther’s original enthusiasm for the Bible, a trust in God, and excellent church music.

Glide Memorial Methodist Church in downtown San Francisco opened in 1931. Today the congregation works extensively with people who are sick, homeless, and socially marginalized. Its Sunday services attract supporters from a broad variety of economic and religious backgrounds.

Calvinism
 Once the notion of reform was accepted, it was adopted and reinterpreted by others who also sought change. Among them was the French theologian John Calvin (1509–1564). Calvin’s thought is sometimes said to be darker than Luther’s because he saw human nature as being basically sinful and almost irresistibly drawn to evil. He also took the notion of God’s power to its logical end: if God is all-powerful and all-knowing, then God has already decreed who will be saved and who will be damned (a doctrine known as 

predestination

). One’s deeds do not cause one’s salvation or damnation; rather, they are a sign of what God has already decreed.

Calvin’s view of God as judge may have been influenced by his study of law at the university. Eager for reform, when he was only 26 he published a summary of his ideas in The Institutes of the Christian Religion. Persecuted in France, he was forced to flee and eventually settled in Geneva, Switzerland. Because of the work of the reformer priest Huldrych Zwingli (1484–1531), the Swiss were already considering reforms. Calvin’s great success in Geneva made the city a center for the expansion of the reform movement.

Where Luther had allowed much latitude in preserving elements of the Mass and other traditional Catholic practices, Calvin had a more austere view. Looking exclusively to the Bible for what might be approved, he encouraged the removal of all statues and pictures from the churches and the adoption of a style of congregational singing that had no organ accompaniment. The focus of the Calvinist service was on the sermon.

Page 375Ministers were not appointed by bishops—there were to be none in Calvinism—but were “called” by a council from each congregation. This practice, being highly democratic, threatened the political and religious leaders of the time, and believers of Calvinism were often forced into exile. Among such believers were the Puritans, who immigrated to New England, and the Huguenots (French Protestants), who were forced out of France in 1685 and settled in several areas of North America. Calvinism spread to Scotland through the efforts of John Knox (1514–1572), who had studied with Calvin in Geneva. It was in Scotland that a Church structure without bishops was refined, providing a pattern for Calvinism in other countries. Calvinism ultimately became important in Holland, Scotland, Switzerland, and the United States. Later, in the nineteenth century, it became influential in sub-Saharan Africa, Korea, China, and the Pacific. The Presbyterian Church is the best-known descendant of Calvinism. It gets its name from the Greek word presbyter, meaning “elder” or “leader.”

The Church of England (Anglican Church)
 Another form of Protestantism, which originated in England under King Henry VIII (1491–1547), unites elements of the Reformation with older traditional practices. Some see the Anglican Church as a compromise between Catholicism and Protestantism.

Henry maintained the traditional Church structure of bishops and priests. (It is called an episcopal structure, from the Greek word episkopos, meaning “bishop” or “overseer.”) He also kept the basic structure of religious services much as before, initially in Latin. He even maintained priestly celibacy, although this was abolished soon after he died. As a concession to reformers, Henry had an English translation of the Bible placed in each church for all to read. The Church of England had a shaky beginning, but Henry’s daughter Elizabeth, when she finally became queen, established it firmly.

The Church of England produced several works of great significance in its first century of existence. The Book of Common Prayer, with all major prayers in English for church use, was issued in 1559. Its rhythmic sentences set a standard by which other works in English have been measured. Throughout the sixteenth century, composers were commissioned to write choral music in English for religious services. The result was a wonderful body of music, still in use today. In 1611 the King James Bible was published, named for its sponsor, James I, who had succeeded Queen Elizabeth I. It became the single greatest influence on the English language.

The Church of England has been deliberately tolerant of a wide spectrum of interpretation and practice. Some churches have buildings and services of great simplicity (their style is called Low Church), while others use incense, statues of Mary, and stately ritual (called High Church). Furthermore, in spite of great opposition, the Church of England has generally accepted the ordination of women as priests and bishops.

Sectarianism
 The powerful notion that every individual can interpret the Bible has encouraged—and still encourages—the development of an abundance of independent churches or sects. Most have been formed by a single, charismatic individual, and many have been small. Some have interpreted the Bible with literal seriousness, thus producing special emphases—among them, the rejection of the outside world and its technology, the adoption of an extremely simple lifestyle, total pacifism (rejection of war and violence), complete celibacy, and the expectation of the imminent end of the world. As a loosely defined group, this branch of Protestantism is called Sectarianism. Following are the most prominent sects:

· 376The Anabaptists (meaning “baptize again”), a pious movement that developed during the sixteenth century, stressed the need for believers to be baptized as a sign of their inner conversion—even if they had been baptized as children. Their worship was simple. From this general movement arose several Mennonite and Amish sects, some communities of which maintain a simple, agricultural lifestyle without the use of cars or electricity. (The movie Witness is set against a background of Amish life.)

· The Baptists, a denomination that began in England, have grown up as a major force in the United States. Baptists espouse some of the Anabaptist principles, including the need for inner conversion, baptism of adults only, simplicity in ritual, independence of personal judgment, and freedom from government control.

· The Quakers were founded by George Fox (1624–1691) in England. Those who came to the United States settled primarily in Pennsylvania. Quakers are ardent pacifists; they have no clergy; and they originated a type of church service conducted largely in silence and without ritual. Their official name is Society of Friends, but the name Quaker came about from George Fox’s belief that people should “quake” at the Word of the Lord.

· The Shakers grew out of the Quaker movement. Founded by “Mother” Ann Lee (1736–1784), who came from England to New York State, the Shakers accepted both women and men but preached complete celibacy. Their religious services were unusual because they included devotional dance, from which their name derives. Settling in New York State and New England, the Shakers founded communities primarily dependent on farming. Although there are only a handful of Shakers today, their vision of Christian simplicity lives on in their architecture and furniture, which is unadorned but elegant.

· The Pentecostal movement, although it has ancient roots, has been especially active in the last one hundred years. It emphasizes the legitimate place of emotion in Christian worship. At Pentecostal services one might encounter “speaking in tongues” (glossolalia), crying, fainting, and other forms of emotional response, which are thought of as gifts brought by the presence of the Holy Spirit.

· The Methodist Church at first was simply a devotional movement within the Church of England. It was named for the methodical nature of prayer and study followed by Charles Wesley (1707–1788) and his followers at Oxford. But under the strong guidance of John Wesley (1703–1791), Charles’s brother, Methodism took on an independent identity. Charles Wesley wrote more than six thousand hymns, which helped spread the movement.

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THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIANITY FOLLOWING THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION

The Catholic Reformation (Counter Reformation)

Although the Protestant Reformation was a powerful movement, Roman Catholicism not only withstood its challenges but also grew and changed in response to it. That response, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries—called the Catholic Reformation or the Counter Reformation—strongly rejected most of the demands of the Protestant reformers. Protestants rejected the authority of the pope; Catholics stressed it. Protestants demanded the use of native languages; Catholics retained the use of Latin. Protestants emphasized simplicity in architecture and music; Catholics created churches of flamboyant drama.

Nevertheless, the Catholic Church recognized that some institutional reform was necessary. The church’s first response was a long council, primarily held in the northern Italian town of Trent between 1545 and 1563. The council set up a uniform seminary system for the training of priests, who had sometimes in the past learned their skills simply by being apprenticed to older priests; it made the Roman liturgy a standard for Catholic services; and it defended traditional teachings and practices (see the box “Emphases of Catholic Christianity”). This council took a defensive posture that erected symbolic walls around Catholic belief and practice.

Reformers were infuriated by the sale of indulgences to pay for the building of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. The basilica was completed during the Counter Reformation and remains a monument to Roman Catholicism.

Page 378

Deeper Insights

EMPHASES OF CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY

C

atholicism accepts all traditional Christian beliefs, such as belief in the Trinity, the divine nature of Jesus, and the authority of the Bible. In addition, particularly as a result of the Protestant Reformation, it defends the following beliefs and practices.

· Importance of good works The Christian must accompany faith with good works to achieve salvation.

· Value of tradition Along with the Bible, Church tradition is an important guide for belief and practice.

· Guided interpretation of the Bible Individual interpretation of the Bible must be guided by Church authority and tradition.

· Hierarchical authority The pope, the bishop of Rome, is the ultimate authority of the Church, and bishops are the primary authorities in their dioceses (regions of authority).

· Veneration of Mary and the saints Believers are encouraged to venerate not only Jesus but also Mary and the saints, who reside in heaven. As an aid to faith, believers may also honor relics (the bodies of saints and the objects that they used while alive).

· Sacraments There are seven 

sacraments

 (essential rituals), not just two—as most Protestant reformers held. They are baptism, confirmation, the 

Eucharist

 (the Lord’s Supper, Mass), matrimony, holy orders (the ordination of priests), reconciliation (the confession of sins to a priest), and the anointing of the sick (unction).

Several new religious orders came into existence to defend and spread Catholic teaching. The most influential of these orders was the Society of Jesus, or the Jesuits. The Spanish founder of the Jesuits, Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556), was a former soldier, and with this background he brought a military discipline to the training and life of his followers. Ultimately, Jesuits made a lasting contribution through their establishment of high schools and colleges for the training of young Catholics, and many continue this work today.

Because of the varied interpretations of the Bible and of Christian doctrine that began to emerge as a result of the Protestant Reformation, a major part of the Catholic Church’s response was to stress discipline and centralized authority. The First Vatican Council (1869–1870) upheld this emphasis when it declared that the pope is infallible when he speaks officially (that is, ex cathedra, “from the chair” of authority) on doctrine and morals.

The International Spread of Christianity

The New Testament contains the injunction to “baptize all nations” (Matt. 28:19). As a result of this order, powerful missionary and devotional movements arose within all branches and denominations of Christianity (

Figure 9.2

). Over the past five hundred years, these movements have spread Christianity to every continent and turned it into a truly international religion.

 

FIGURE 9.2 Branches and denominations of Christianity.

379The Catholic Church conducted an early wave of missionary work. Wherever Spanish, Portuguese, and French colonists took power, their missionaries took Catholic Christianity. The Jesuit Père Jacques Marquette (1637–1675) propagated Catholicism in Canada and the Mississippi River valley, and the Franciscan Padre Junípero Serra (1713–1784) spread Catholicism by establishing missions in California. In Asia, early Catholic missionaries at first had little success. Jesuit missionaries were sent out from such missionary centers as Goa in India and from Macau, an island off of southeastern China, to convert the Chinese and Japanese. The Spanish Jesuit Francis Xavier (1506–1552) and Italian Jesuit Matteo Ricci (1552–1610) were industrious, but their attempts in China and Japan were repressed by the government authorities, who feared that conversion would bring European political control. Catholicism was, however, successful in the Philippines and Guam, where Spanish colonization contributed to the widespread acceptance of the religion. In the nineteenth century, French Catholic missionaries worked in Southeast Asia and the Pacific region. Tahiti, after being taken over by the French, became heavily Catholic; Vietnam, too, now has a sizable Catholic population. In sub-Saharan Africa, wherever France, Portugal, and Belgium established colonies, Catholicism also took hold.

Catholicism in Latin America frequently blended with native religions. In Brazil and the Caribbean, African religions (especially of the Yoruba peoples) mixed with Catholic veneration of saints to produce Santería, Voodoo, and Candomblé (see 

Chapter 11

). In the southwestern United States, Mexico, Central America, and Spanish-speaking South America, Catholic practice incorporated cults of local deities. The cult of the Virgin of Guadalupe arose at the place where an Aztec goddess had been worshiped, and nature deities of the Mayans—gods and goddesses of the earth, maize, sun, and rain—are still venerated under the guise of Christian saints. Jesus’s death on the cross was easy to appreciate in Mayan and Aztec cultures, in particular, in whose native religions offerings of human blood were an important part. Native worship of ancestors easily took a new form in the Día de los Muertos (“day of the dead”), celebrated yearly on November 2, when people bring food to graves and often stay all night in cemeteries lit with candles.

Page 380Protestant Christian missionaries and British conquests also spread their faith throughout the world. Protestant settlers who came to North America represented the earliest wave. The Church of England (the Anglican Church) traveled everywhere the English settled; although in the United States at the time of the American Revolution the name of the Church was changed to the Episcopal Church, to avoid the appearance of disloyalty to the new United States. The Anglican Church is widespread in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and other former British colonies. It has also been a major force in South Africa—as demonstrated by its campaign against apartheid (the former government policy of racial segregation) headed by Anglican Bishop Desmond Tutu in the late 1980s.

Protestant churches in the United States have played a large role in the lives of African Americans. When slaves were brought to the English colonies of North America, the slaves were (sometimes forcibly) converted to Christianity, usually Protestantism. Most African Americans became members of the Methodist, Baptist, and smaller sectarian denominations. In the nineteenth century, Protestant denominations split over the issue of segregation and slavery, and churches were divided along racial lines. In 1816 the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church emerged from Methodism to serve African Americans exclusively and to save them from having to sit in segregated seating at the services of other denominations. At the same time, some New England Protestant churches became active in the abolitionist (antislavery) movement, helping runaway slaves to escape to Canada and changing public opinion about the morality of slavery. Later, southern Protestant churches played a large role in the movement that fought segregation, and their pastors (such as Martin Luther King Jr.) became its leaders.

The missionary movement gave both women and men new opportunities to spread Christianity, as well as to lead unusual lives. One example involves three women who worked together for years. Called the China Trio, they were two sisters (Eva and Francesca French) and a friend (Mildred Cable). Much of their time was spent traveling to towns of western China and to oases in the Gobi desert. They worked in China for more than thirty years, distributing Bibles and Christian literature and publishing colorful accounts of their work. They left China in 1936 but continued to write about their work for years afterward.

Methodist and Presbyterian missionaries have spread their vision of Christianity to Asia and the South Pacific. About half of South Koreans are now Christian. Protestant Chinese have been active in Taiwan, where they are politically prominent, and in mainland China, where today there are many “underground” house-churches that are not authorized by the government.

Page 381

Contemporary Issues

MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.

M

artin Luther King Jr. was born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1929. The fact that both his father and grandfather were Baptist ministers led him naturally to religion. As a young man, he was troubled deeply by segregation and racism, and his studies in college and graduate school convinced him that Christian institutions had to work against racial inequality. His reading of Henry David Thoreau’s essay “Civil Disobedience” and his study of the work of Mahatma Gandhi led him to believe in the power of nonviolent resistance. In Montgomery, Alabama, in 1959, King led a boycott of the city’s bus system, following Rosa Parks’s refusal to move from the white section to the back of a public bus.. Ultimately, the Supreme Court declared that laws imposing segregation on public buses were unconstitutional. As founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, King mobilized black churches to oppose segregation. In 1964 he won the Nobel Peace Prize. He was assassinated four years later.

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King’s powerful preaching and writing relied heavily on images taken from the Bible. His “I Have a Dream” speech is inspired by the stories of Joseph’s dreams in the Book of Genesis (37:1–10). His “I Have Seen the Promised Land” speech is based on the story of Moses in the Book of Deuteronomy (34:1–4).

Martin Luther King Jr. is portrayed here with a halo, a traditional symbol of holiness and sainthood. Robert Lentz painted this contemporary icon.

Missionaries have also spread Orthodox Christianity across Russia to Siberia and even into Alaska, where 40,000 Aleuts (Eskimo) belong to the Orthodox Church. (A noted Russian Orthodox church is located in Sitka, Alaska.) The Orthodox Church also spread to North America through emigration from Russia, Greece, and eastern Europe.

Christianity has been less successful in China, Japan, Southeast Asia (except Vietnam and the Philippines), the Middle East, and North Africa. But elsewhere it is either the dominant religion or a powerful religious presence.

Page 382Nontraditional Christianity

Because Christianity is a fairly old religion and has flourished in cultures far from where it originally developed, it has produced some significant offshoots. These denominations differ significantly from traditional Christianity, and although they are not usually considered a part of the three traditional branches of Christianity—Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Eastern Orthodox—they all sprang from Protestant origins. They differ in their beliefs, particularly regarding the Trinity, the divinity of Jesus, the timing of the end of the world, and the role of healing. Because the fastest-spreading of these religions is Mormonism, it is described in some detail. Other nontraditional groups include the Unitarians, Unification Church, and Jehovah’s Witnesses (see the box “Examples of Nontraditional Christianity”).

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
 The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as the Mormon Church, is one of the fastest-growing religious denominations in the world. Although Mormons consider themselves to be Christians who belong to a perfect, restored Christianity, mainstream Christian groups point out major differences between Mormonism and traditional Christianity.

Joseph Smith (1805–1844), the founder of the movement, was born in New York State. As a young man he was troubled by the differences and conflicts between Christian groups. When he was 14, he had a vision of God the Father and of Jesus Christ, who informed him that no current Christian denomination was correct, because true Christianity had died out with the death of the early apostles.

When Smith was 17, he had another vision. An angel named Moroni showed the young man to a hill and directed him to dig there. Mormonism teaches that Smith eventually unearthed several long-buried objects of great religious interest. The objects were golden tablets inscribed with foreign words, a breastplate, and mysterious stones that Smith was able to use to translate the words written on the tablets. Smith began the translation work, dictating from behind a curtain to his wife Emma and to friends Oliver Cowdery and Martin Harris. The result of his work was the Book of Mormon. Later, John the Baptist and three apostles—Peter, James, and John—appeared to Smith and Cowdery, initiating them into two forms of priesthood—the Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthoods.

Hoping to be free to practice their religion, Smith and his early followers began a series of moves—to Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois. Opposition from their neighbors resulted from the new Church’s belief in the divine inspiration of the Book of Mormon and its practice of polygamy, which Smith defended as biblically justified. At each new location the believers were persecuted and forced to leave. In Illinois, Smith and his brother were imprisoned and then killed by a mob that broke into the jail.

At this point, the remaining believers nominated Brigham Young (1801–1877) as their next leader. Young organized a move to Utah, where he founded Salt Lake City. Prior to the move, a split had developed within the Church—in part over the matter of polygamy. Leadership of the smaller group, which did not travel to Utah, was taken over by Smith’s son.

Page 383

Deeper Insights

EXAMPLES OF NONTRADITIONAL CHRISTIANITY

C

hristianity is capable of taking on new shapes, sometimes as a result of blending with other religions. Here are some important examples:

· Unification Church Founded in South Korea, this Church blends elements of Christianity, Buddhism, and Confucianism. Reverend Sun Myung Moon (1920–2012), who called himself the Jesus of the Second Coming, founded the religion in 1954. The Church hopes to establish God’s kingdom on earth. Promoting its vision of society as a harmonious family, the Unification Church arranges marriages between its followers and frequently performs joint wedding ceremonies involving hundreds of couples.

· African Independent Churches (AICs) Christianity has been immensely successful in sub-Saharan Africa over the last one hundred years. Although the majority of Christians belong to mainstream traditional churches, thousands of independent churches exist. Some manifest distinctively African characteristics and interests, including a focus on faith healing, prophecy, and charismatic experience. The Harrist Church, for example, was begun in the Ivory Coast by a messianic leader who claimed to have received revelations from the angel Gabriel; and the Mai Chaza Church in Zimbabwe was founded by a woman who claimed to have died and come back to life. These churches also have often adopted elements from African culture, particularly music, dress, and ritual. The Kimbanguist Church of Central Africa, for example, uses sweet potatoes and honey, rather than bread and wine, in its services.

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· Jehovah’s Witnesses Members of this religion take biblical passages literally and expect the imminent end of the world. The religion does not allow blood transfusions because of the biblical prohibition against ingesting blood. Its members do not believe in the Trinity, the divinity of Jesus, or a permanent hell—all of which, they say, are not found in the Bible. For the same reason, they do not celebrate Christmas (or birthdays). Giving allegiance only to God, they are strongly nonpolitical, refusing to salute a flag or show allegiance to any country.

· Christian Science and Unity The Christian Science Church and Unity Church began in the movement called New Thought, which emphasized the role of positive affirmations. Christian Science puts emphasis on the power of thought to bring about physical healing. In its services it uses the Bible and the book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, written by its founder Mary Baker Eddy (1821–1910). Unity Church is based in Christianity, but it also uses passages from many other religions among its readings. Its services include guided meditations, hymns, and positive affirmations.

· Unitarian Church The Unitarian Church rejects the doctrine of the Trinity and prides itself on having no creed. Instead, it imitates the prophetic role of Jesus by emphasizing acts of social justice. The writers Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau were Unitarians.

In Utah the Church faced regular opposition but grew in numbers. In 1890, the fourth president of the Church delivered a new command that disavowed polygamy. This rejection of polygamy (sometimes called the Great Accommodation) led to social acceptance of Mormonism. And in 1896, the Utah Territory won statehood.

The Mormon Church has always been a missionary Church, and it made its way very early to England and Hawai`i. The Mormon Church has spread so far through missionary efforts that it is now found worldwide. It has been particularly successful in the South Pacific.

 

The Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City glitters in the Christmas season.

Page 384Mormons accept as inspired the Christian Bible, which they usually use in the King James Version. They also believe that several other works are equally inspired. Most important is the Book of Mormon. Another inspired work is the Doctrine and Covenants, a list of more than one hundred revelations that were given by God to Joseph Smith and, later, to the heads of the Church. A last inspired work is The Pearl of Great Price, containing further revelations and a compilation of the articles of faith. These three additional works are all thought of as complements to the Christian Bible. More than 100 million copies of the Book of Mormon have been distributed.

The Mormon notion of the afterlife includes a belief in hell and in several higher levels of reward: the telestial, terrestrial, and celestial realms. At the peak of the highest realm are Mormons who have performed all the special ordinances in one of the more than one hundred Mormon temples around the world. Couples who have had their marriages “sealed” in a temple service will continue as a married couple in the celestial realm and can become godlike, producing spiritual children there.

The Book of Mormon adds details to traditional biblical history. It teaches that some descendants of the people who produced the tower of Babel (Gen. 11:1–9) settled in the Americas but eventually died out. It also teaches that a group of Israelites came to North America about 600 bce. They divided into two warring factions, the Nephites and Lamanites, and Jesus, after his resurrection, came to preach to them. The Book of Mormon tells how in the fourth century ce the Nephites were wiped out in battles with the Lamanites, who are considered to be the ancestors of Native Americans.

While Mormons follow the Christian practice of using baptism as a ritual of initiation, they are unusual in that they also practice baptism by proxy for deceased relatives, as was practiced by some early Christians (1 Cor. 15:29). This—along with a general interest in family life—is a major reason for Mormon interest in genealogy. In fact, Mormons maintain the largest source of genealogical records in the world.

Devout Mormons meet for study and worship each Sunday. Their Sunday meetings include a sacrament service (Lord’s Supper), which is performed with bread and water, rather than wine. Because they view the body’s health as a religious concern, devout Mormons do not smoke or use tobacco, drink alcohol, take illicit drugs, or consume several beverages, primarily coffee and tea.

385Because the Mormon Church emphasizes different gender roles for men and women, its hierarchy is male. Women, however, exercise leadership roles in their own organizations, which focus on domestic work, child rearing, and social welfare. Mormons are well known for the importance they place on harmonious family life. Mormons also support the tradition of setting aside one night each week for all family members to stay at home to enjoy their life as a family.

At the top of the Church hierarchy is the church president, who is called the Prophet (as well as Seer and Revelator), because he is considered capable of receiving new revelations from God. Below him is a group of men called the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and below that group are the first and second Quorums of the Seventies, who act as general authorities. Below them are area authorities and stake presidents (a stake is the equivalent of a diocese). Pastors are called bishops, and the males in their wards (parishes), when they reach the appropriate age, are ordained in various offices of the Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthoods. Young men are expected to give two years to preaching the religion, often in foreign countries. Young women are also invited to do missionary work, but the length of their missionary work is slightly less (usually a year and a half). At any one time, about 60,000 missionaries are active. Today the Mormon Church has about fourteen million members, half of whom live outside the United States. The headquarters of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Mormonism has a strong choral tradition. Hymns and solo works are sung at services, and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, which gives regular concerts in Salt Lake City, performs a traditional repertory of hymns, oratorios, and other music.

In addition to the Mormons, who form the largest branch of the movement begun by Joseph Smith, there are at least a dozen offshoots. The most important is the Community of Christ, formerly known as the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (RLDS). It changed its name in 2001 in order to emphasize its closeness to mainstream Christianity. Smaller groups exist—some of them continuing the early practice of polygamy—primarily in Utah and western Canada. The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS) is the largest of the groups practicing polygamy and has received much government scrutiny and media coverage in recent years.

CHRISTIAN PRACTICE

Christianity is very much a religion of doctrines, but it is also a religion of ritual, and after more than two thousand years, these rituals have become rich and complex.

Page 386

Sacraments and Other Rituals

The most important rituals are thought of as active signs of God’s grace and usually are called sacraments. The rituals that are considered essential to the practice of Christianity are the following:

· Baptism This ritual cleansing with water is universally used in Christianity as an initiation rite. The ritual originally involved complete immersion of the body, but some forms of Christianity require that only the head be sprinkled with water. Baptism came to Christianity from Judaism, where ritual bathing was an ancient form of purification (see, for example, Lev. 14:8). It was also commonly used to accept converts to Judaism, and the Essenes practiced daily ritual bathing. John the Baptizer, whom the Gospel of Luke calls the cousin of Jesus, used baptism as a sign of repentance, and Jesus himself was baptized and had his followers baptize others. Early Christians continued the practice as a sign of moral purification, new life, and readiness for God’s kingdom. In early Christianity, because baptism was done by immersion in water, the act helped recall vividly the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. Although early Christians were normally baptized as adults, the practice of infant baptism became common within the first few hundred years. Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and the more ceremonial forms of Protestantism practice infant baptism. Other forms of Protestantism, insisting that the ritual be done only as a voluntary sign of initiation, reserve baptism for adults only.

· Eucharist Another sacrament is the Eucharist (Greek: “good gift”), or Lord’s Supper. Early Christians, particularly Paul’s converts, met weekly to imitate the Last Supper, which was probably a Passover meal. At this meal of bread and wine, they prayerfully recalled Jesus’s death and resurrection. Sharing the Lord’s Supper is a symbolic sharing of Jesus’s life and death, but beliefs about it are quite varied. Some denominations see the bread and wine as quite literally the body and blood of Jesus, which the believer consumes; other groups interpret the bread and wine symbolically. All Christian denominations have some form of this meal, but they vary greatly in style and frequency. Catholic, Orthodox, and traditional Protestant churches have a Lord’s Supper service every Sunday. Less ceremonial churches prefer to focus their Sunday service on preaching and Bible study, but they usually have the Lord’s Supper once a month. Virtually all churches use bread, but some use grape juice or water in place of wine.

Christians see baptism as a purification that signifies one’s formal entry into God’s kingdom. Many denominations, including the Romanian Orthodox Church, practice infant baptism.

Page 387In addition to these two main sacraments, accepted by all Christians, some churches count the following rituals as full sacraments:

· Confirmation The sacrament of confirmation (“strengthening”) is a blessing of believers after baptism. In the Orthodox Church, confirmation is often administered with baptism, but in Catholicism and in some Protestant churches, it is commonly administered in the believer’s early teen years.

· Reconciliation The sacrament of reconciliation (or penance) takes place when a repentant person admits his or her sins before a priest and is absolved.

· Marriage This is the sacrament in which two people publicly commit themselves to each other for life. The two individuals administer the sacrament to each other while the priest or minister simply acts as a public witness of the commitment.

· Ordination This sacrament involves the official empowerment of a bishop, priest, or deacon for ministry. (Some denominations ordain ministers but do not consider the action to be sacramental.)

· Anointing of the sick In this sacrament (formerly called extreme unction), a priest anoints a sick person with oil—an ancient symbol of health—and offers prayers (see James 5:14).

The Christian Year

The most important festivals are Christmas and Easter. Other festivals developed around these two focal points (see 

Figure 9.3

 on p. 389). Traditionalist churches mark more festivals, and Orthodox churches often use the older Julian calendar to determine festival dates. The Church year begins with Advent (Latin: “approach”), which is a month of preparation for Christmas. Although the actual birth date of Jesus is unknown, Christmas is kept on December 25, using a festival date common in classical Rome. (Some Orthodox and Eastern churches use a later date, particularly January 7.) The Christmas holiday ends with Epiphany (Greek: “showing”), which recalls the visit of the three Magi to the Christ child.

FIGURE 9.3 The Christian Church year.

Page 388Deeper Insights

SIGNS AND SYMBOLS

I

n addition to the sacraments, many smaller devotional rituals have arisen over the two thousand years of Christianity. Making the sign of the cross—in which the fingers of the right hand touch the forehead, the chest, and the two shoulders—is used to begin and end prayer and to call for divine protection. Genuflection—the bending of the right knee—which originated as a sign of submission to a ruler, is a ritual performed by Catholics and some Anglicans on entering and leaving a church. Christians in general often pray on both knees as a sign of humility before God.

Devotional objects are also widely used in Christianity. Blessed water (holy water) reminds one of baptism; it is used in the blessing of objects and in conjunction with making the sign of the cross on entering a Catholic church. Oil and salt are used in blessings as symbols of health. Lighted candles symbolize new understanding. Ashes placed on the forehead at the beginning of 

Lent

 (a time of preparation before Easter) recall the inevitability of death. Palms are carried in a procession on the Sunday before Easter to recall Jesus’s triumphal procession into Jerusalem. Incense is burned to symbolize prayer and reverence. Statues and pictures of Jesus, Mary, angels, and saints are common in traditionalist forms of Christianity.

In addition to devotional rituals and objects, Christianity is a source of much religious symbolism. The fish is an ancient symbol of the Christian believer. It probably began as a reference to Jesus’s desire that his followers go out “as fishers of men” (Luke 5:10), seeking converts. It was also used to represent the Greek word ichthus (“fish”), which could be read as an acronym for the Greek words that mean “Jesus Christ, God’s son, savior.” The cross is used to recall Jesus’s death; when Jesus is pictured hanging on this cross, the cross is called a crucifix.

Letters of the Greek alphabet are frequently found in Christian art. Alpha (A) and Omega ({CAP OMEGA}), the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, symbolize God as the beginning and end of all things (Rev. 1:17). The logo IHS (from the Greek letters iota, eta, and sigma) represents the first three letters of the name Jesus. The logo XP (usually written as a single unit and called “chi-rho”—pronounced kai-roh) represents the first two letters of the name Christ in Greek. (It is also the basis for the abbreviation of Christmas as Xmas.)

Preparation for Easter is long and solemn. Called Lent (Old English: “lengthening”), it is marked by fasting and giving up pleasures. In the Western churches, Lent begins with Ash Wednesday, when the faithful receive ashes on their foreheads to remind themselves of death. Frequently they pray or attend church regularly during Lent. A week before Easter, Palm Sunday recalls Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem before his death. Holy Thursday recounts Jesus’s last supper, and Good Friday remembers his death. When Easter finally arrives, it is marked by great rejoicing.

 

Page 389The feast of the Ascension tells of Jesus’s departure from earth, and Pentecost marks the birth of the Church. Over time, festivals of Mary and the saints were added to this calendar. A few saints’ days, such as Valentine’s Day and St. Patrick’s Day, found their way into public life.

Devotion to Mary

Devotion to Mary, the mother of Jesus, appeared in Christianity quite early. In the Eastern Church, its strength was evidenced in the fifth century by arguments concerning the titles that could be given to Mary. For example, although some objected, Mary was called theotokos (“God bearer”). In the West, Roman Catholic devotion to Mary began to flourish in the Middle Ages. Many of the new churches built after 1100 ce in the Gothic style in France were named for notre dame (“our lady”), and statues of Mary, often tenderly holding her child on her hip, appeared in almost every church. A large number of feasts in honor of Mary came to be celebrated in the Church year. Praying the rosary became common in the West after 1000 ce. A rosary is a circular chain of beads used to count prayers, with the prayer Ave Maria (“Hail, Mary”) said on most of the beads. (The use of rosaries for counting prayers is also found in other religions, such as in Hinduism, Islam, and Buddhism.)

On Thursday of Holy Week, Christians recall the last supper of Jesus and his disciples. That supper began when Jesus washed the feet of the disciples, an act today recalled in the liturgy.

Page 390

Deeper Insights

COLOR SYMBOLISM

W

estern Christianity has developed a symbolic system of colors, used in many churches and ministers’ clothing, to mark festivals and to convey emotions:

· white—joy, resurrection; Christmas and Easter

· red—love, Holy Spirit, blood of martyrdom; Pentecost

· green—hope, growth; Sundays after Pentecost

· violet—sorrow, preparation; Advent and Lent

· blue—sometimes Advent and feasts of Mary

· black—death (now often replaced by white)

Although this system weakened after the Reformation, it is still apparent in weddings (white) and funerals (black).

Protestant reformers in the sixteenth century in the West criticized the devotion to Mary as a replacement for a devotion to Jesus. For this reason, devotion to Mary is less common in Protestant Christianity. But devotion to Mary remains strong in Orthodox and Catholic branches of Christianity.

Catholics believe that Mary appears in the world when her help is needed. The three most important sites where Mary is officially believed to have appeared are Lourdes (in southern France), Fatima (in Portugal), and Tepeyac (near Mexico City). Lourdes, famous for its springwater, is a center for healing, and people hoping for a cure go there to bathe in its waters. Fatima, where Mary is believed to have appeared to three children, is another center of healing. And Tepeyac is the center of the veneration of Our Lady of Guadalupe, who is an important part of Hispanic Catholicism. Mary is believed to have appeared to a native peasant, Juan Diego, and to have left her picture on his cloak. The site is particularly crowded on December 12, the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The festival is celebrated widely with Masses and processions in many cities and towns.

The death of Mary, although never mentioned in the New Testament, is celebrated as a major holy day in the Orthodox churches. Here, the child in the arms of Jesus symbolizes Mary’s soul being taken to heaven.

 

Aztec dancers perform for pilgrims at the Basilica of Guadalupe in Mexico City. The main celebration for the Virgin of Guadalupe is December 12, the date on which the image of Mary is said to have appeared on the cloak of Juan Diego in 1531.

Page 391CHRISTIANITY AND THE ARTS

Particularly because of its ritual needs, Christianity has contributed much to architecture, the visual arts, and music. This artistic legacy is one of the greatest gifts of Christianity to world culture—a gift that can be experienced easily by traveling, visiting the great churches and museums of major cities, and listening to Christian music.

Architecture

When Christianity began, its services were first held in private homes. As it grew in popularity, larger buildings were needed to accommodate the larger groups, particularly for rituals such as the Lord’s Supper. For their public services, early Christians adapted the basilica, a rectangular building used in the Roman Empire as a court of law. In larger Roman basilicas, interior pillars and thick walls helped support the roofs. Windows could be numerous but not too large, because large windows would have weakened the walls. Rounded arches were placed at the tops of windows and doors and between the rows of pillars. This style—known as Romanesque because of its Roman origins—spread throughout Europe as a practical church design.

Page 392Eastern Orthodox Christianity used the basilica shape but also developed another shape: the model, a perfect square covered by a large dome, was based on the design of the Roman Pantheon. Mosaics with gold backgrounds help to magnify the sometimes dim light.

In the West, probably as a result of contact with Islamic architecture, a new style arose after 1140, known as Gothic style. (The designation Gothic was applied to this new style of architecture by a later age, which considered this style primitive and thus named it after barbarian Gothic tribes. The Gothic style, however, is neither primitive nor a product of Goths. It seems to have developed first in Persia, between 600 and 800 ce, and elements of it may have been carried to Europe by Europeans returning from Syria and Israel.) The first example of Gothic architecture appeared in France; the cathedral of Saint Denis, near Paris, is still open to visitors today.

Gothic architecture is light and airy; it leaps upward toward the sky. Typical of Gothic style are pointed arches, high ceilings, elongated towers, and delicate stone carving. The walls and roofs are held up externally by stone supports (called flying buttresses) that extend outward from the walls and down to the ground. Because these supports do much of the work of holding up the roof, they allow the walls to be filled with large windows, frequently of colored glass.

Gothic churches began springing up everywhere; any town of importance wanted to have a church built in the new style. This was especially true in towns that featured a cathedral. (A cathedral is a bishop’s church and takes its name from the bishop’s special chair, the cathedra, which symbolizes his teaching authority.) The great Gothic cathedrals were so impressive that Gothic style remains the style associated with Western Christianity.

The detail of this angelic orchestra atop Dominican friars’ choir stalls demonstrates Christian attention to expression through art.

 

The architectural style of Saint John’s Abbey Church in Minnesota, completed in 1961, stands in stark contrast to Gothic and Baroque styles.

Page 393In addition to the Gothic style, other styles have been influential in the West. The Catholic Reformation popularized the theatrical Baroque style. The word baroque is thought to come from the Portuguese name for an irregular pearl, barroco. Baroque style uses contrasts of light and dark, rich colors, elegant materials (such as marble), twisting pillars, multiple domes, and other dramatic elements to create a sense of excitement and wonder.

While Catholicism was adopting the Baroque style with enthusiasm, Protestantism generally moved in a more sober direction. With the focus of worship placed on hearing the Bible read aloud and listening to a sermon, new churches were built with pews, clear-glass windows, high pulpits, and second-floor galleries to bring people closer to the preacher. In larger churches, classical Greco-Roman architecture was drawn upon to produce the Neoclassical style.

Mormon temples are architecturally interesting in that they are deliberately unlike older styles, such as Romanesque or Gothic or Byzantine. Instead, the building designs reflect an imaginative style that has been called Temple Revival. Elements of the style include large, flat building surfaces that are ornamented with elaborate grillwork and decorated with tall, narrow spires.

Art

Christianity has made immense contributions to art, despite the fact that it emerged from Judaism, which generally forbade the making of images. Mindful of the biblical prohibition against image-making (Exod. 20:4), a few Christian groups still oppose religious images as a type of idolatry. But because Christianity first began to flourish in the Greco-Roman world, it abandoned the prohibition of images and quickly embraced the use of statues, frescoes, and mosaics, which were common art forms there. By the second century, statues and pictures of Jesus had begun to appear, based on Greco-Roman models.

 

Benedictine monk Jerome Tupa says that all monastics are on journeys and find various means—for example, poems, letters, photos—to reflect on their journeys. He paints paths to sacred shrines.

394Orthodox Christianity has tended to avoid statues but has concentrated instead on frescoes, mosaics, and icons (paintings on wood). Icons play a special part in Orthodoxy. Churches usually have a high screen that separates the altar area from the body of the church. This screen is called an iconostasis (“image stand”) because it is covered with icons. Individual icons also stand around the church, and during services worshipers may kiss them and place candles nearby. Many homes also display icons.

In western Europe, new directions appeared in Christian art in the later Middle Ages. Statues and paintings of Mary began to show her less like a goddess and more like a human mother, and representations of Jesus began to emphasize his bodily suffering. During the Baroque era, painting and sculpture tended toward the dramatic and showy. Paintings of saints often showed the saints’ eyes lifted to the skies, the robes blown by wind, and sunlit clouds parted in the background.

Many Protestant groups rejected religious painting and sculpture as being unnecessarily sensual, wasteful, or idolatrous, and because artists in Protestant countries were not greatly patronized by churches, their subjects tended to be secular, often depicting home life, civic leaders, and landscapes. Christian art, however, has begun to flourish again, particularly because it has increasingly been influenced by non-Western traditions and cultures.

Page 395

Music

From the beginning, Christianity has been a religion of music. Jesus himself is recorded as having sung a psalm hymn (Matt. 26:30; Mark 14:26). Because of its early musical involvement, Christianity has contributed much to the development of both theory and technique in music. A Benedictine monk, Guido of Arezzo (c. 991–1050), worked to help monks sing the notes of religious chants correctly; he is thought to have systematized the basic Gregorian musical notation system of lines, notes, and musical staffs, from which modern musical notation derives.

For the first thousand years, both Eastern and Western church music was chant—a single line of melody usually sung in unison without instrumental accompaniment. The origins of chant are uncertain, but it probably emerged from both Jewish devotional songs and folk music. Music in the Orthodox Church is sung without accompaniment, thus remaining closer to ancient church music and to its origins in the synagogue and the Near East.

The ancient Greeks were familiar with the principles of harmony as they related to mathematics. But the use of harmony in terms of musical composition (called organum) seems to have first developed in Paris, around 1100, in the cathedral of Notre Dame. In the West, initial experiments with harmonized singing eventually led to the introduction of instruments, such as the flute, violin, or organ, which could easily be used to substitute for a human voice or to accompany the chant. Even though it is now considered a primarily religious instrument, the organ at first was opposed for use in some churches because it was considered a secular instrument.

The most important early pattern for Western religious music was the Catholic Mass

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 (Lord’s Supper). A variant of the regular Mass is the Requiem (“rest”) Mass, the Mass for the dead. Psalms and other short biblical passages were also put to music for the services. These relatively short works, usually in Latin, are called motets.

The crucifixion of Jesus is perhaps the most frequent subject of Christian art. This painting, at the center of the Despenser Reredos in England’s Norwich Cathedral, dates from the late fourteenth century.

The Protestant Reformation greatly expanded the variety of religious music, as each branch created its own musical traditions. Luther, we might recall, wrote hymns in German, and although he encouraged some church use of Latin, he recommended that services be conducted primarily in the language of the people. The Lutheran tradition also supported the use of the organ, both on its own and to accompany hymns. The supreme genius of the Lutheran tradition was Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750). A church organist and choirmaster for most of his career, Bach composed many beautiful musical pieces for church use, both solo organ music and choir music. His Saint Matthew Passion, a musical reflection on the last days of Jesus, is one of the world’s most complex and moving religious compositions. Bach also wrote in forms that derived from the Roman Catholic tradition, producing a Magnificat in Latin and his Mass in B-minor, which has been compared to a voyage in a great ship across an ocean.

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Page 396

Rituals and Celebrations

THE MASS

T

he Mass is a form of the Lord’s Supper that evolved in the Western tradition. Five parts of the Latin Mass have been regularly put to music by composers. They are:

· Kyrie (Kyrie, eleison—Greek: “Lord, have mercy”)

· Gloria (Gloria in excelsis Deo—Latin: “Glory to God on high”)

· Credo (Credo in unum Deum—Latin: “I believe in one God”)

· Sanctus (Sanctus—Latin: “holy”)

· Agnus Dei (Agnus Dei—Latin: “Lamb of God”)

Renaissance composers, such as Giovanni da Palestrina and William Byrd, composed Masses for voice alone. Later composers (such as Franz Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Franz Schubert, and Ludwig van Beethoven) all made use of organ or orchestra in their Masses. The dramatic style of church music reached an artistic peak in the luminous Masses of Mozart. Two Requiem Masses of extraordinary beauty are those by Gabriel Fauré and Maurice Duruflé. Rather than emphasizing divine judgment, they radiate joy and peace.

After the Church of England decreed that services be held in English, a body of church music began to develop in England. Much of this music was written for choirs, which traditionally have been supported by Anglican cathedrals.

One of Christianity’s greatest contributions to the arts is music. Here, a choir performs at an Episcopal church.

Other forms of Protestant Christianity have been cautious about the types of music used in church services. Wanting to keep the music popular and simple, Protestant churches have supported the writing and singing of hymns but often have avoided more complex compositions. They have allowed use of the organ and piano but until recently have generally discouraged the use of other instruments. In recent decades, however, a liberalization of practice has brought about great experimentation in both Protestant and Catholic church music.

Page 397CHRISTIANITY FACES THE MODERN WORLD

Christianity—in spite of the strength of its varied interpretations and its international influence—faces obstacles that arise from new nonreligious worldviews.

The Challenges of Science and Secularism

One of the greatest intellectual challenges to Christianity has been the growth of science, and it will remain so. Christianity speaks regularly of miracles—the virgin birth of Jesus, the healings performed by Jesus, his resurrection and ascension, and innumerable later miracles performed by apostles and saints. But critical approaches to the study of nature and modern study of the scriptures have questioned many of these miracles. Modern critical approaches view reality from a naturalistic point of view, and scientific discoveries can produce new challenges to traditional beliefs.

The theory of evolution, a prominent example of scientific criticism, emerged in the nineteenth century. It explained the multiplicity of species as the product of natural selection rather than divine plan. At first, this theory of evolution created consternation—and it still does in certain quarters. Although many denominations have accepted some form of evolution as compatible with their beliefs, certain Christians want the theory of Intelligent Design taught as a scientific alternative to evolution. This theory argues that an intelligent designer lies behind the multiplicity of species. Critics, though, say that the theory of Intelligent Design is merely religion disguised as science.

Another challenge is less theoretical. It is the rising focus on material realities—money and possessions. At one time, religion was considered the means for increasing one’s personal wealth. This belief has diminished over the last century. Financial success, people increasingly believe, comes from studying business, not theology. It comes from compound interest, not prayer.

Some forms of Christianity, however, have now adjusted, teaching what they call “Prosperity Christianity.” This form of Christianity teaches that God will repay in a very precise way those who contribute “love offerings.” Defenders argue that this form of Christianity simply continues many of those practical features that have long distinguished Christianity, including care for the poor, attention to education, and a building up of God’s kingdom in this world.

Contemporary Influences and Developments

Mainstream Christian denominations prefer to emphasize similar ideals rather than differences. On the one hand, they accept that there are denominational differences in belief and practice. On the other hand, they are influenced by the movement called 

ecumenism

—from the Greek word for “household.” This modern movement encourages dialogue and work between denominations. On the institutional level, the World Council of Churches includes representatives from the major Protestant denominations and Orthodox churches. It also includes non-voting representatives from the Catholic Church. On the individual level, ecumenism encourages people from various denominations to work together, especially on social issues.

Page 398At the same time, the Christian churches have seen a growing polarization over important topics, especially gender roles, Bible interpretation, and the role of religion in political life. Two great wings have emerged—conservative and liberal.

Mainstream Protestantism has largely accepted the principles of female equality, at least in theory. Female ministers, priests, and bishops are now an accepted part of some denominations (although with disagreement from some sections). Female preachers are also common, especially on television. However, Catholicism and the Orthodox and Eastern churches do not accept the ordination of females. Whether eventually these churches will change their practice is still unknown. Right now, they remain highly resistant.

Biblical interpretation is another area of disagreement. Conservative denominations tend to retain an older literalist interpretation. They assume that the entire Bible is inerrant and presents “gospel truth.” They therefore hold that biblical descriptions of creation, history, people, and miracles are literally true. Liberal denominations do not agree, but argue that the biblical accounts are a mixture of fact and devotion. Sometimes separating the two is not easy.

Because of the difficulties of correct biblical interpretation, the movement of fundamentalism has provided one practical answer. Christian fundamentalism argues that there are essential truths—fundamentals—that are central to Christianity. Among these are the virgin birth of Jesus, the physical reality of his resurrection, and the inspired nature of the Bible. Fundamentalism is also often allied with political activism, providing Christians who want to influence society with answers to difficult questions. Christianity has always proclaimed the need to help others. But who are the others? Should they be only Christians or everyone else as well? What kind of help should be given, and what demands should be enshrined in laws? These questions have become all the more urgent as the modern world presents other, more secular views of reality.

The majority of Christians today live in the Southern Hemisphere. This painting of one of Jesus’s miracles adapts a biblical story to the Mafa people of northern Cameroon.

Page 399The liberal-conservative division has resulted in coexistence among Protestants. Mainstream Protestant churches have tended to become liberal, while 

evangelical

 denominations have more strongly held onto conservative positions.

The Catholic Church has had more difficulty in finding central positions on which all can agree. The Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) was generally liberal, in that it permitted liturgy in native languages, endorsed ecumenism, and opened the Church to respectful contact with other religions. However, the council members rejected many other liberal possibilities, such as allowing women to become priests. They also upheld traditional positions on marriage, birth control, and divorce. This meant that the discussion of many important topics would continue after the council, with both liberal and conservative wings battling for supremacy. The papacy of John Paul II (1920–2005) was largely conservative, and this tendency has continued in his successor, Benedict XVI (b. 1927).

In the political realm, John Paul II was recognized for his pivotal role in the downfall of communism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. It was during his papacy that the Berlin Wall came down. Eastern European states abandoned communism, and the Soviet Union dissolved into many separate countries. These political changes have allowed Catholic and Orthodox forms of Christianity to reassert themselves in those regions.

Congregants are overcome with emotion as they pray during an evangelical worship service in southern California. Evangelical Christianity is growing worldwide.

Page 400Contemporary Issues

CREATION CARE

C

reation Care is an emerging environmental movement within Christianity that cuts across many of its denominations. Until recently, Christianity did not give much emphasis to the environment—possibly because of its orientation toward heaven as the true home of human beings. But a new, still-evolving theology has sprung up within the faith that critically examines the relationship between humanity and the environment. This theology, drawn from biblical roots, bases itself on the notion that the world is a manifestation of God’s love and that, as a result, humanity has an obligation to protect the environment—to give it “care after its creation.” To support its view, this theology cites the stewardship assigned to Adam and Eve over the Garden of Eden (Gen. 3), Noah’s preservation of animal species in his wooden ark (Gen. 7–9), and Jesus’s attention to the birds of the air and lilies of the field (Matt. 6:26–30).

Biblical stories may inform the movement’s theology, but a major impetus for the development of Creation Care has been the widespread public acknowledgment in recent years that human activity is leading to climate change, including rising temperatures around the world that threaten to cause untold damage to the environment in the next century. In response to such a threat, a number of Protestant ministers have signed an Evangelical Climate Initiative, which insists on responsible human action against global warming. The Patriarch of Istanbul, Bartholomew I, has declared that acts that harm the environment are sinful. And Pope Benedict XVI has been called the Green Pope because he devotes so many sermons and speeches to the environmental cause. He has reforested thirty-seven acres of land in Hungary to offset the carbon “footprint” of the Vatican, and he even directed that solar panels be placed on top of Vatican buildings to provide electricity for the city-state. At the grassroots level, some conservative Christian leaders—not long ago associated with biblical fundamentalism—have even begun to emphasize biblical injunctions for Christian stewardship of the planet. Responses such as these suggest that the emerging Creation Care movement will do for environmentalism what Christianity has long succeeded in doing for education and in caring for the sick.

One of the great developments in contemporary Christianity is its spread in Africa. While northern Africa remains primarily Muslim, sub-Saharan Africa has adopted Christianity in many forms. Former British colonies—such as Nigeria and Zimbabwe—have large congregations of Anglicans, and former colonies of Catholic powers have large Catholic denominations. African Independent Churches also have emerged widely. Though their churches and robes are often traditional in appearance, these new churches incorporate much indigenous practice, such as faith healing and dance.

Christianity is also spreading in Asia. Although the great majority of people in Myanmar and Thailand are Buddhist, many tribal groups have taken up Christianity, especially in the north of the two countries. In China, Christianity comes in many forms. Both Protestant and Catholic churches have denominations that are approved by the State—although there is occasional dissension with state officials, especially over the approval of bishops. Parallel forms of Christianity that do not have state approval are growing, nonetheless; these groups often meet in believers’ homes and are frequently called “house-churches.” The population of Christians in China is unknown, but it is estimated at about 100 million. The numbers are expected to increase.

Page 401The growth of Christianity will have an impact not only on Africa and Asia but also eventually on the West, when ministers from newly Christian areas will be sent to staff European and North American churches. In the long run, these ministers will take on important roles in their denominations. Some will find their way into the World Council of Churches and other interdenominational groups. Their interests will then become a part of world Christianity.

In summary, traditionalists have much to worry about. But optimists see great vitality in Christianity. They especially appreciate its respect for the individual, its ethic of practical helpfulness, its support for the arts, and even its openness to debate.

Reading REVELATIONS OF DIVINE Love

In 1373, the Englishwoman known as Julian of Norwich received revelations. She first wrote them up in short form and then, much later, in long form. This passage is from Chapter 32 of the long text, put into modern English. The author says that God insists that, despite the evils in the world, all will be well.

On one occasion the good Lord said, “Everything is going to be all right.” On another, “You will see for yourself that every sort of thing will be all right.” In these two sayings the soul discerns various meanings.

One is that he wants us to know that not only does he care for great and noble things, but equally for little and small, lowly and simple things as well. This is his meaning: “Every thing will be all right.” We are to know that the least thing will not be forgotten.

Another is this: we see deeds done that are so evil, and injustices inflicted that are so great, that it seems to us quite impossible that any good can come of them. As we consider these, sorrowfully and mournfully, we cannot relax in the blessed contemplation of God as we ought. This is caused by the fact that our reason is now so blind, base, and ignorant that we are unable to know that supreme and marvelous wisdom, might, and goodness which belong to the blessed Trinity. This is the meaning of his word, “You will see for yourself that every sort of thing will be all right.” It is as if he were saying, “Be careful now to believe and trust, and in the end you will see it in all its fullness and joy.”

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TEST YOURSELF

1. Christianity grew out of ___________.

a. Hinduism

b. Judaism

c. Islam

d. Buddhism

2. Almost everything we know about Jesus comes from the four gospels of the New Testament. The word gospel means “___________.”

a. vision

b. good news

c. enlightenment

d. covenant

3. The Two Great Commandments of Jesus combine two elements: ___________.

a. love for God and an ethical call for kindness toward others

b. missionary activity and prayer five times a day

c. love for God and annual pilgrimage to Jerusalem

d. refraining from immoral activities and giving to the poor

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4. ___________ is occasionally called the cofounder of Christianity because of the way that Jesus’s teachings and his interpretation of them blended to form a viable religion with widespread appeal.

a. Peter

b. James

c. Paul

d. John

5. In the Gospel of John, the portrayal of Jesus is full of mystery. He is the___________ of God, the divine made visible in human form.

a. inspiration

b. transcendence

c. incarnation

d. spirit

6. When ___________ became emperor, he saw in Christianity a glue that could cement the fragments of his entire empire.

a. Herod

b. Constantine

c. Antiochus

d. Hyrcanus

7. ___________ was the dominant authority in Christian theology from the fifth century until the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century.

a. Hector

b. Herodotus

c. John Calvin

d. Augustine

8. ___________, a Dominican priest, blended the philosophical thoughts of Aristotle with Christian scripture through writings such as the Summa Theologica and Summa Contra Gentiles.

a. John Calvin

b. Francis of Assisi

c. Tertullian

d. Thomas Aquinas

9. ___________, a German priest of the late Middle Ages, was the first reformer of Western Christianity to gain a large following and to survive. The movement he founded ultimately created the Protestant branch of Christianity.

a. John Wycliffe

b. Martin Luther

c. John Calvin

d. Huldrych Zwingli

10. In 1962, Pope John XXIII convened a council of bishops that proceeded to make the first major changes in Catholicism since the Council of Trent. The ___________ allowed, among other things, the use of native languages in ordinary church services.

a. Council of Nicaea

b. Council of Jamnia

c. Second Vatican Council

d. Third Council of Churches

11. Consider the following statement: Despite the tremendous importance of Jesus in Christianity, Paul played an even more important role than Jesus in shaping Christian beliefs and practices. Using the information from this chapter, explain why you agree or disagree.

12. Review the descriptions of the different forms of Protestantism. Which one do you think is most unusual? Which one do you think is most similar to Roman Catholicism? Explain your answers.

Afterspending two days in Tel Aviv, you leave for Jerusalem and arrive at your hotel near the old part of the city. Once there, you can’t wait to begin exploring. The Old City is a place for walking and wandering, with wonderful sights in its narrow streets.

Drawing you like a magnet is the site of the ancient temple, destroyed by Roman soldiers nearly two thousand years ago. Only its foundation stones remain. On the mount where the temple once stood is now a glittering golden dome. Built by Muslims, the Dome of the Rock covers the great stone beneath it, which is venerated by Muslims and Jews alike, who hold that their ancestor Abraham came to this spot.

You decide to walk down from the city in order to view the mount from below, after which you plan to turn back and travel, like a true pilgrim, “up to Jerusalem.” You buy food for a picnic lunch at stalls as you walk inside the city. Soon you are beyond the Old City gate. Luckily, the day is sunny but not hot. You see a large stone tomb in the valley below and beyond it, in the east, Mount Scopus.

Page 282At last it is time to stop for a rest and to eat your lunch. You sit under a tree and look back, thinking to yourself about the events this site has witnessed. Your mind becomes crowded with the names of biblical kings, prophets, and priests associated with Jerusalem: David, Solomon, Melchizedek, Isaiah, Jeremiah. As the sounds of everyday traffic filter through your thoughts, you imagine the many battles over this holy city and the successive waves of conquerors—Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, and European crusaders—who took possession of it in the past. You also think of the more recent battles and problems here. You cannot help thinking of the contrast between the violence that this place has seen and the root of the city’s name—salem. Like

 

shalom and salaam, words to which it is related, the word salem means “peace” and “wholeness.”

You start back, walking uphill thoughtfully. You see the small tombstones in front of the walls, the high walls themselves, and a beautiful double stone gate, now sealed. Slowly, you make your way back through the city streets around to the western side, to what is left of the great temple. The immense foundation stones, set there during an enlargement ordered by King Herod the Great, were too solid to be knocked down and too big to be carted off. At their base is an open area in front of the 

Western Wall,

 now used for contemplation and prayer—on the left stand men, and on the right, women. Some hold prayer books, and many touch their hands and foreheads to the wall. You see little pieces of paper, which have prayers written on them, rolled up or folded and placed in the cracks between the stones. These have been left here by people who have come to speak with God and to remember their family members in prayer. You reflect on the historical events that led up to the building of the temple. You think of the long and great history of the Jews, who developed and flourished in spite of persecution in lands far away. It is deeply moving to be here, and you stay a long time in silent contemplation.

AN OVERVIEW OF JEWISH HISTORY

Jewish history goes back two thousand years or far longer, depending on one’s point of view. This difference of opinion revolves around a major historical event—the destruction of the Second Temple of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 ce (

Timeline 8.1

), which brought about the end of the temple-based ceremonial religion of that region and the widespread dispersion of its people to lands far away from Israel. Following the calamity of the temple’s destruction, the earlier religion had to develop in new ways to survive. From the centralized, temple-based religion practiced in Israel, another form of religion arose that could be practiced among the Jews who lived outside of Israel. Jews anywhere in the world could now practice their religion in the home and synagogue. In recognition of this fundamental religious reorientation, a distinction is often made between 

biblical Judaism

 and 

rabbinical Judaism

. When we study the Judaism practiced today, what we are really studying are the forms of Jewish belief and religious practice that largely came into existence after the destruction of the Second Temple.

 

Timeline of significant events in the history of Judaism.

Page 284The two great spans of time—before and after the destruction of the Second Temple—are also commonly subdivided into two periods each. Over the first great span of time, a landless people established a homeland in Israel and made Jerusalem the capital of its kingdom. Great change occurred and another period began, however, when the Babylonians destroyed the kingdom of Judah and its First Temple (586 bce), forcing the Israelite people into exile in Babylonia (present-day Iraq) for nearly fifty years. These events made clear to the exiled people that religious law and history had to be put in written form to guarantee their survival. As a result, the Hebrew Bible was created, and study of the scriptures and prayer in synagogues became important, even after the temple was rebuilt.

The second great time span comprises the two thousand years of the development of Judaism in the Common Era. It also can be subdivided into two periods. The first period marks the evolution of rabbinical Judaism and traditional Jewish life, from about 100 ce to approximately 1800 ce, the beginning of the modern period. The second period started about two hundred years ago, when a movement began in Judaism as a response to (1) the new thinking of the European Enlightenment, (2) the liberal thought of the American and French Revolutions, and (3) the laws of Napoleon, which were carried widely beyond France. The movement, called the 

Reform,

 questioned and modernized traditional Judaism and helped produce the diverse branches within Judaism that exist today. The Reform also raised the issue of Jewish identity. Who is a Jew? What is essential to Judaism? These are two questions to which we will return later.

The Hebrew Bible records that the roots of Judaism go back far into the past to a landless people sometimes called Hebrews and more commonly called Israelites, who traced themselves to an ancestor named Abraham. Because much of what we know of the first span of Hebrew history comes from the Hebrew Bible, we will examine it first. We should note, however, that the Hebrew Bible is not a history book in the modern sense; it presents instead what might better be called sacred history. It is the Israelites’ view of their God’s relationship with them in the midst of historical events.

We should note, too, that the Hebrew Bible is significant not only in terms of the history of the Hebrews but also in terms of its role in the development of Judaism over the past two thousand years. When the ceremonial religion of the Jerusalem Temple ended in the first century ce, it was the Hebrew scriptures that provided a foundation for the development of rabbinical Judaism. The scriptures offered a firm basis for Jewish 

rabbis

 (teachers) to offer their 

midrash

 (interpretation) of biblical laws and practices: the books outlined the Ten Commandments and other ethical teachings; they established the major yearly festivals that would guide and sanctify the lives of Jews; and they contained the psalms that became the everyday prayers of Jews everywhere.

Thus, we turn first to the Hebrew Bible, to understand its structure and to examine the laws and history of the Hebrew people. After looking at the Hebrew Bible and at Hebrew and Jewish history, we will then consider Jewish belief, practice, and influence.

THE HEBREW BIBLE

Judaism is often associated with the land of Israel, but Judaism is perhaps better associated with its most important book, the Hebrew Bible. Although nowadays the Hebrew Bible is published as a single volume, it is made up of individual “books,” which were once separate written scrolls. The word Bible, in fact, comes from the Greek term biblia, which means “books.” The individual books were originally oral material that was subsequently written down in some form perhaps as early as 900 bce, although the final form was not achieved until about 200 bce. It was once thought that Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible—the Torah—but this is no longer commonly held. Instead, scholars see the Torah as composed of four strands of material, which arose in different periods but have been skillfully intertwined by later biblical editors.

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The Hebrew Bible is divided into three sections: the 

Torah

 (the Teaching), 

Nevi’im

 (the Prophets), and 

Ketuvim

 (the Writings). Considered as a whole, it is often called 

Tanakh

 (or Tanak), which is an acronym made up of the first letters of the Hebrew names for the three sections: t, n, k.

The Torah is the sacred core of the Hebrew Bible, with its stories of the creation, Adam and Eve, Noah, and the Hebrew patriarchs and matriarchs—the early ancestors of the Hebrew people. It introduces Moses, the great liberator and lawgiver, and his brother Aaron, the founder of the priesthood. It includes laws about daily conduct and religious ritual—material that would be of great importance to the later development of Judaism. Because the Torah comprises five books, it is sometimes called the Pentateuch (Greek: “five scrolls”). (We should recognize that the term Torah is also used more widely to refer to all teachings, both written and orally transmitted, that are thought to have been revealed by God.)

Synagogue members take turns carrying a new handwritten Torah to their synagogue in London. The Torah is kept in the most important place within a synagogue.

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Deeper Insights

BOOKS OF THE HEBREW BIBLE

· TORAH

· Genesis (Bereshit)

· Exodus (Shemot)

· Leviticus (Vayiqra)

· Numbers (Bemidbar)

· Deuteronomy (Devarim)

· THE PROPHETS (NEVI’IM)

· Joshua (Yehoshua)

· Judges (Shofetim)

· Samuel (Shemuel)

· Kings (Melakhim)

· Isaiah (Yeshayahu)

· Jeremiah (Yirmeyahu)

· Ezekiel (Yehezaqel)

· Book of the Twelve (Tere Asar): Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi

· THE WRITINGS (KETUVIM)

· Psalms (Tehillim)

· Proverbs (Mishle)

· Job (Iyyov)

· Song of Songs (Shir Hashirim)

· Ruth (Ruth)

· Lamentations (Ekhah)

· Ecclesiastes (Qohelet)

· Esther (Ester)

· Daniel (Daniel)

· Ezra-Nehemiah (Ezra-Nehemyah)

· Chronicles (Divre Hayamim)

The second part of the Tanakh, called the Prophets, is named for those individuals who spoke in God’s name to the Jewish people. The books that concentrate on the history of the Israelite kingdom are called the Former Prophets, followed by additional books, which are more strongly visionary and moral in tone, called the Latter (or Later) Prophets. In the Latter Prophets, the voices of the individual prophets tend to predominate.

The third part of the Tanakh, called the Writings, is closer to what we think of as imaginative literature. Although it includes some late historical books, it contains primarily short stories, proverbs, reflections on life, hymn (psalm) lyrics, and poetry.

We will use the term Hebrew Bible for all of this material. (Jews do not refer to the Hebrew scriptures as the Old Testament, as do Christians, because the title implies that the Jewish books have meaning only in relation to the Christian books, collectively called the New Testament. Also, the order of books in the Hebrew Bible, in the format that it assumed by the end of the tenth century ce, differs somewhat from the general order that is found in Christian Bibles.) The commonly used titles of some of the books are Greek, based on early Greek translations.

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Page 287The historical accuracy of the Hebrew Bible is not always certain, because not all biblical accounts can be verified by archeological finds or references in other historical records. Although we can presume that many of the accounts (particularly those of events after the Jewish kingdom was established) are based on historical fact, we must also recognize that they were recorded by the Jews themselves, who naturally viewed historical events from their own special perspective. Furthermore, many accounts were transmitted orally long before they were written down or assembled in final form, thus affecting the way they were recounted.

BIBLICAL HISTORY

Whatever its historical accuracy, the heroic and mythic power of the Hebrew Bible cannot be denied. It is filled with astonishing people and powerful images. Adam and Eve, for example, stand naked and suddenly aware among the trees and streams of the Garden of Eden. Noah and his wife are surrounded by animals in their big wooden boat, riding out a long flood. Moses climbs to the top of cloud-covered Mount Sinai to speak with God and receive the Ten Commandments. These images and ideas are not only unforgettable, but they are also part of Western culture and have influenced its laws, art, literature, and ways of living.

In the Beginning: Stories of Origins

The earliest stories of the Hebrew Bible, given in Genesis 1–11, have a mythic quality that is universally appealing. The story of the origin of the world presents God as an intelligent, active, masculine power who overcomes primeval chaos. To create order, God imposes separations—separating light from darkness and land from water—and completes his work of creation in stages, spread over six days. At the end of each day, God views what he has done and sees that it is good. Finally, satisfied with the result of all his labor, God rests on the seventh day.

This account (which shows parallels with the creation story in the Babylonian epic poem Enuma Elish) appears in the first chapter of Genesis, the first book of the Bible. This first account is cosmic and measured—possibly written that way in order to be read out solemnly by a priest at temple ceremonies. The second account (perhaps written earlier than the first) begins in the second chapter of Genesis. This account is more human, utilizes colorful dialogue, and focuses on the first human parents, Adam and Eve, and on their moral dilemma.

The Garden of Eden, which God has created for his refreshment, is based on the pattern of a walled garden, complete with fruit trees, birds, exotic animals, a central fountain, and streams to cool the air. God creates Adam to live in the garden as its gardener and caretaker, forming his body from the dust of the earth and breathing life into Adam with his own breath. In some way, Adam is a copy of God himself, for the human being, the Bible says, is made “in the image of God” (Gen. 1:27),

3

 bearing some of the dignity of God. Soon, though, because Adam is lonely, God decides to give him a companion. Taking a rib from Adam while he is in a deep sleep, God forms Eve around that rib. In the first account of creation, male and female were created simultaneously, but in the second account, the male is created first and the female afterward—leading to the interpretation that while the male is a copy of God, the female is only a copy of the male.

288Interestingly, the conception of God in the creation stories is somewhat different from many later views. For one thing, although the biblical God has no apparent rivals, he does not appear to be alone, and when he declares “Let us make man” (Gen. 1:26),

4

 he is most likely addressing his heavenly counselors, some of whom are identified in later texts (such as Psalms and Job). In addition, God is not represented as pure spirit. The account in chapter two of Genesis says that God walks and eats; and having made the garden to enjoy, he strolls in it when he wants to enjoy its cool breezes. God allows Adam and Eve to eat from almost all the trees, but he forbids them to eat fruit from one of the trees that he especially needs to nourish his supernatural life and insight. Eve, tempted to eat from the forbidden tree, does so and then urges Adam to do the same. For their disobedient act, they are exiled from God’s garden. God can no longer trust them, knowing that if they were to remain they might become his rivals. Now they must live outside the garden, work, and suffer for the rest of their amazingly long lives.

To some, the portrait of Eve—a temptress who brings down punishment on Adam and herself—is distressing. But it should be pointed out that Eve is the one with ambition and personality, while Adam seems far less colorful. Whatever the interpretation—and there have been many—the story of Adam and Eve has influenced Western views of women, men, and marriage for several thousand years.

Next is the story of Adam and Eve’s children, Cain and Abel (Gen. 4:1–16), whose sibling rivalry ends in Cain’s murder of Abel. This tale may reflect ancient rivalries between farmers and herders.

Following this is the story of the Great Flood (Gen. 6–9), which echoes a Mesopotamian tale, the Epic of Gilgamesh. Disgusted with the rapidly growing, immoral human population, God sends a flood to do away with humanity—all of humanity, that is, except the righteous Noah and his family. He warns Noah to build a large wooden boat (an ark) and fill it with animals, because only those in the boat will survive the coming downpour. At the end of the flood, God makes a pact with Noah never again to destroy the earth by water. As a sign of this promise, God places his “bow” (perhaps an archer’s bow) into the sky. The rainbow is a reminder of his solemn promise. Like several of the early stories, this account gives an explanation for a natural phenomenon. This story also explains how, from the three sons of Noah, different races arise.

 

New Beginnings, a contemporary painting by Bruce David, is a reminder of the rainbow that signaled God’s promise at the end of Noah’s journey. The Hebrew inscription quotes Isaiah 11:9: “For the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.”

Page 289Chapter eleven of Genesis tells the story of the tower of Babel (or Babylonia). Wanting to reach the heavenly realm that they believe exists above the skies, people begin building a very tall tower. God, not willing to have his private world invaded, stops the construction by making the builders speak different languages. Because they can no longer understand each other, they cannot finish their tower. This story also gives a convenient answer to the question, Why are there different languages in the world?

Page 290Did Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, Noah, and the others really exist? For centuries, Jews have thought of them as historical figures. Now, however, influenced by the views of scholars, many Jews view them instead as symbolic figures who set the stage for the events that follow. The first eleven chapters of Genesis are, in effect, a great allegorical introduction to the rest of the Hebrew Bible. There are many indications of this nonhistorical, symbolic purpose. For example, Adam and his immediate descendants are described as living to great ages—Adam is said to have lived to be 930 years old (Gen. 5:5) and Methuselah, the longest-lived, 969 years old (Gen. 5:7). Moreover, many names are apparently symbolic; for example, Adam means “humankind” and Eve means “life.” Scholars, as pointed out earlier, believe that the stories of the creation and the flood derive from earlier Mesopotamian tales. What is important to understand, though, is that these stories were given new meanings by the Israelite scribes who adapted them.

The World of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs

Abraham is the first Hebrew patriarch (Greek: “father-source”). He is introduced in chapter twelve of Genesis, the point at which the book becomes more seemingly historical. Abraham, first known as Abram, is called by God to leave his home for another land. Originally from Ur (in present-day Iraq), Abraham migrates via Haran (in Turkey) to the land of 

Canaan

. “Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation’” (Gen. 12:1–2a).

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 This passage is significant to Judaism because it is seen as establishing a claim to the region now called Israel. Abraham’s migration becomes a pilgrimage of great importance, making him, his son Isaac, and his grandson Jacob the patriarchs of Judaism.

After assuring Abraham of land and many descendants, God enters into a solemn 

covenant,

 a contract, with Abraham. In return for God’s promise to provide land, protection, and descendants, Abraham and his male descendants must be circumcised as a sign of their exclusive relationship with God (Gen. 17).

The most famous story of Abraham concerns his son Isaac. Abraham has long been unable to have a son by his wife, Sarah. At Sarah’s urging, he fathers by her maid, Hagar, a son named Ishmael. But then, to the amazement of all, Sarah herself has a son (Gen. 19). Soon, though, Sarah jealously demands that Ishmael and Hagar be sent away. (This aspect of the story will be important later on in Islam.) Shockingly, God then asks (in Gen. 22) that Abraham offer Isaac, the beloved son of his old age, as a sacrifice. (Perhaps this is a vestige of an earlier practice of human sacrifice.) Abraham agrees and sets out with his son to Mount Moriah, believed by Jews to be the hill on which Jerusalem now rests. Just before the boy is to die, God stops Abraham, and a ram, whose horns had become tangled in a bush nearby, is used as the sacrifice instead. God has thus tested Abraham’s devotion, and in so proving his absolute loyalty to God, Abraham has shown himself worthy of land, wealth, fame, and the joy of knowing he will have innumerable descendants. (This passage may show the replacement of human sacrifice with the sacrifice of animals.)

 

Marc Chagall’s Abraham and the Three Angels includes Abraham’s elderly wife Sarah, whose pregnancy is an important part of matriarchal history. (© 2017 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris)

Genesis also contains stories about some extremely memorable women, the matriarchs of the Hebrew people: Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah. Although these women are always linked with their husbands, they all have strong and carefully drawn personalities. Sarah, for example, stays modestly inside the tent when strangers arrive but laughs so loudly that they hear her and then question her about why she is laughing (Gen. 18:10–15).

The stories in Genesis also tell of mysterious contacts with God—called 

theophanies

—which are sometimes friendly in nature but at other times fierce and frightening. God appears to Isaac, for example, and promises him protection and many descendants (Gen. 26:24). One of Isaac’s sons, Jacob, has a vision of God in a dream (Gen. 28). He sees a stairway leading from earth into the sky. God is at the top, and angels are ascending and descending, linking heaven and earth. A more unusual theophany occurs when Jacob wrestles all night long with a mysterious stranger—God or God’s angel. At dawn the fight is over, and Jacob receives from the stranger a new name: Israel (“wrestles with God”). Because Jacob and his sons would settle the land of Canaan, it came to be called Israel after his new name. Jacob, with his two wives and two concubines, has many sons, who would become the ancestors of the twelve tribes of Israel.

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Joseph, Jacob’s next-to-last son, is the focus of the final section of Genesis. Because Joseph’s brothers sense that his father loves him best, they scheme to have him killed. Ultimately, though, they sell him as a slave, and he is taken to Egypt (

Figure 8.1

). There, through his special gifts, he rises in importance to become a government minister. When a famine in Israel brings his brothers down to Egypt to look for grain, Joseph is not vengeful but invites his brothers to bring their father to Egypt and to settle there permanently. They do so and settle in the land of Goshen in northeastern Egypt. The Book of Genesis ends with the death of Jacob.

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How historically true are these stories, especially that of Abraham? Traditional believers and some scholars think that the stories surrounding Abraham do express historical truth, though shaped by oral transmission. Other scholars, however, argue that the Israelites arose in Israel itself, possibly as a landless peasant class that revolted against its rulers. If that view is true, then the story of Abraham and his entry into Israel from elsewhere may not be historically accurate. In addition, no archeological evidence has yet been found to prove the existence of Abraham. The debate about the historical existence of Abraham may never be resolved.

Moses and the Law

The Book of Exodus records that the population of Hebrews in Egypt grew so large after several centuries that the Egyptians saw them as a threat. As a solution, the pharaoh commands that all Hebrew baby boys be killed at birth. However, the baby Moses (whose name is probably Egyptian) is spared by being hidden. After three months, when his Hebrew mother is afraid to keep him any longer, she and her daughter fashion a watertight basket, put him inside it, and place the basket in the Nile River. There an Egyptian princess discovers him and raises him as her own. As a young adult, Moses sees an Egyptian foreman badly mistreating an Israelite slave. In trying to stop the cruelty, Moses kills the foreman. Moses then flees from Egypt.

Our next glimpse of Moses comes when he has found a new life beyond the borders of Egypt, where he is now a herdsman for a Midianite priest named Jethro, whose daughter he has married. One day, when Moses is out with his father-in-law’s herds, he sees a strange sight: a large bush appears to be burning, but it is not consumed. As Moses approaches the bush, he hears the voice of God, who commands Moses to return to Egypt to help free the Hebrews.

Living in a world that believes in many gods, Moses is curious to know the name of the divine spirit speaking to him. The deity, however, refuses to give a clear name and says mysteriously, “I will be who I will be,” and then commands Moses to tell the Hebrews “that ‘I will be’ sent you” (Exod. 3:14).

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 In Hebrew the mysterious answer provides an etymological clue to the name for God. The name for God, usually associated with the verb hayah (“to be”), is Yhwh, and it is often translated as “I am.” The name is usually written Yahweh, but the exact pronunciation is unknown.

As mentioned, Moses lived in an age when people believed in many gods, and he had grown up in the polytheistic culture of Egypt. People everywhere believed in multiple gods and thought of them as guardian deities of particular groups and regions. Could Moses—or the patriarchs and matriarchs before him—have really been monotheistic? We do not know. A possibility is that Moses and the Hebrew patriarchs and matriarchs believed in the existence of many gods, of whom one, possibly a major deity, declared himself the special protector of the Israelites. If this is true, monotheism was not the original belief system of the Israelites but evolved over time. Some scholars wonder whether the actions of the Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten (Ikhnaton, reigned c. 1352–1336 bce) influenced the development of Jewish monotheism. Akhenaten gave sole worship to the sun god Aten, and he unsuccessfully attempted to suppress the worship of all other Egyptian gods.

Page 294Ultimately, the god of the Jews would come to be proclaimed “the one true God.” We see two traditions in the Torah. In one (possibly older) tradition, Yahweh is embodied and appears directly to human beings. In another (possibly later) tradition, Yahweh exists as a spirit, separate from human beings. The notion of God as being transcendent and distant grew stronger over time, and the transformation was complete when Yahweh came to be considered pure spirit and any reference to his body was considered to be metaphorical. In addition, God’s name eventually was thought of as being too sacred to be pronounced; instead of speaking the name Yahweh, priests and lectors substituted the Hebrew word Adonay (“the Lord”).

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 Ultimately, all other gods were considered false gods; images of anything that could be construed as a god were prohibited; and Yahweh at last was considered the one God of the entire universe.

But these changes would all occur after the time of Moses. In the Book of Exodus, Yahweh, the god of the Hebrews, simply needs to show himself to be more powerful than any of the gods of the Egyptians (Exod. 12:12). It is by his power that ten plagues strike the Egyptians and convince the pharaoh (possibly the great builder Ramses II, c. 1292–1225 bce) to let his Israelite slaves leave.

The last and greatest of the plagues is the death of the first-born sons of the Egyptians. The Israelites’ sons are spared because they have followed Yahweh’s warning and have marked the doors of their homes with the blood of a substitute—a sacrificial lamb (Exod. 12:13). Because God has “passed over” Egypt, the event is thereafter called the 

Passover (Pesach),

 and its yearly memorial has become one of the major Jewish festivals (which we will discuss later).

The Bible tells of the Hebrews’ journey out of Egypt through a large body of water, the Red Sea, on their way to the Sinai Peninsula. (The Hebrew term may be translated as either “Red Sea” or “Reed Sea.” The second translation may refer to the reed-filled marshes of northeastern Egypt.) Movies have dramatized the event, showing two walls of water held back as the Hebrews marched between them. But the reality was possibly less dramatic. Although Egyptian records do not mention it, the exodus from Egypt has become a central theme of Judaism. A whole people, protected by God, leaves a land of oppression and begins the march toward freedom.

The Books of Exodus and Numbers describe in detail the migration back to Israel—a migration that lasted a full generation, about forty years. The most significant event during this period of passage is God’s encounter with Moses at Mount Sinai. The Book of Exodus (chap. 19) paints a terrifying picture: the mountain is covered with cloud and smoke; lightning and thunder come from the cloud; and the sound of a trumpet splits the air. The people are warned to keep their distance, for only Moses may go to meet God at the top of the mountain. Moses enters the cloud and speaks with God.

Page 295When Moses descends, he returns to his people with rules for living—the Ten Commandments (Exod. 20). The strong moral orientation of Judaism is apparent here, for Moses does not return with an explanation of the universe, with science, or with art, but rather with ethical precepts. Parallels have been drawn to several other early codes, particularly that of the Babylonian King Hammurabi (c. 1792–1750 bce).

Undergirding the commandments is the conviction that a covenant—a contract—exists between Yahweh and his people. He will care for them, but they must fulfill their half of the bargain by following his laws and giving him sole worship. Such an agreement had already been made between God and Noah and would later be made with Abraham. The covenant is reaffirmed with Moses and solidified by the laws and commandments, which give it legal form.

The Book of Leviticus begins with detailed laws about animal sacrifice (chaps. 1–7) and then takes up the complexities of ritual purity. In addition to laws about general honesty and humaneness, Leviticus outlines many special laws that would be important to the later development of Judaism: laws specifying which animals may and may not be eaten (chap. 11), laws prohibiting the consumption of meat with blood in it (17:10) or the cutting of one’s beard (19:27), and laws governing the observance of the major religious festivals (chap. 23). The Book of Numbers returns to historical themes, recounting specifically the years of wandering before the Hebrews entered Canaan. But it also spells out laws about ritual purity and the keeping of vows. The Torah ends with the Book of Deuteronomy, which repeats the Ten Commandments and describes the death of Moses, an event that occurs just before the Hebrews enter the Promised Land of Canaan.

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The historicity of Moses is, like that of Abraham, another focus of debate. Virtually all Jews believe him to have been a real person. So far, however, no Egyptian archeological records have been found that mention Moses, a slave rebellion, or an exodus from Egypt. Specialists in mythology point out parallels between the story of Moses and Egyptian religious tales. Also, no archeological evidence has yet been found to give proof of the forty years of wandering in the desert. The lack of historical evidence, however, does not disprove the historicity of Moses. A common view sees the biblical account as representing basic historical truth that has been magnified and embellished over time.

The Judges and Kings

After Moses’s death, the Israelites were led by men and women who had both military and legal power, called judges. To think of them as military generals is more accurate than to envision them as modern-day courtroom judges.

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Deeper Insights

THE GODS OF EGYPT

E

gypt, as the earliest great imperial state in history, left a significant cultural mark on the ancient Near East. Even countries that had never experienced its direct political control felt its sway through trade, which carried Egyptian goods, culture, and religion far beyond its borders. It’s not surprising that Egyptian religious artifacts have been found in Greece, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, and the islands of the Mediterranean. However, not all peoples welcomed Egyptian influence, including the Hebrews, who recorded their concerns about it in their scriptures. The Ten Commandments, in particular, show a desire to escape from Egypt’s influence. The first commandment, for example, implies the gods of Egypt when it orders, “you shall have no other gods before me.” The next commandment reinforces this demand by forbidding the making of images that portray any creature in the sky, on the earth, or in the waters. This prohibition would especially exclude many of the animal-like gods of Egypt. In order to understand these biblical concerns more clearly, we have to consider Egyptian religious beliefs.

The culture of Egypt dates back to ancient times. Archeology reveals the existence as early as 5000 bce of complex societies in Egypt and Nubia, a region to the south of Egypt. Egyptian life was centered on the Nile River, whose waters irrigated crops and served as a great highway on which goods, people, and ideas traveled easily. Because cultural centers were spread up and down the river, sometimes at great distances, Egyptian religion initially developed in a localized and diverse fashion, with each community having its own gods and stories of creation. Later, as a unified Egyptian state developed after 3000 bce, so did a more unified Egyptian religion. (The same unifying process occurred in Greco-Roman religion, as we will see in the next chapter.) Some gods were blended, many were linked in myth, and a few emerged as preeminent. Here we will mention only the most important. (We will use their familiar names, some of which are Egyptian and some of which are Greco-Roman.)

THE PANTHEON

Although at least four major creation stories existed, the one that became most common told of an original watery chaos called Nun and the eventual birth of nine gods. This creation myth tells how, in the midst of the formless body of water, a mound of earth arose, and from this mound emerged the primordial sun god, called Ra (Re) or Atum. From the exertions of the sun god came an initial parent pair—a god of dry air named Shu and his consort, Tefnut, goddess of rain and mist. These two, in turn, gave birth to another pair—the sky goddess Nut and her consort, the earth god Geb. And from them came four children: one pair was Osiris and his consort, Isis; the other pair was Set (Seth) and his consort, Nephthys. (These nine interconnected deities are often called the Ennead; from a Greek word for “nine.”)

The goddess Nut was especially beloved. She is frequently shown as a great female being, usually blue and covered with gold stars, who crouches protectively over the earth. She is held up over the prostrate earth god Geb by the air god Shu, whose power keeps sky and earth separate. It was believed that the sun god Ra entered the sky goddess every night, sailed in the dark on a boat with other gods under the earth, and was reborn from Nut every morning.

Horus and Isis stand beside Osiris in this image from between 945 and 715 bce.

Page 297Isis, Osiris, and their son Horus were also deeply revered. Their stories served as guides for generations of Egyptians. According to the primary myth, Osiris was killed by his jealous brother Set and sent down the Nile in a coffin. Isis searched for Osiris and found his body in Byblos (today in Lebanon). She brought his dead body back to Egypt, but Set found them and cut Osiris into pieces. Binding the pieces with linen, Isis put the body of Osiris back together (she fashioned one missing part—eaten by fish—from wood). Because of her love, Osiris was allowed to be reborn and to live again for one day with Isis. It was at this time that their son Horus was conceived. Osiris returned to the underworld and became the god and judge of the dead. After Horus was born, Isis hid him in the reeds of the delta so that he might escape the wrath of Set. Once Horus came of age, he conquered Set and became the ruler of Egypt. Egyptians came to believe that by imitating Osiris, they would be identified with him and could gain eternal life in his realm. Mummification, because it ritually reenacted Isis’s wrapping of Osiris’s body parts, was an important way of achieving that identification.

Belief in the afterlife was strong and complex. Egyptians envisioned that after death they would be led before a court of gods, where Osiris was the chief judge. The scribal god Thoth would record the testimony of the deceased, and each person’s heart would be placed on a scale. On the other side of the scale was the symbolic feather of the goddess Ma’at, deity of balance and order. If the heart and the feather weighed the same, the deceased would safely enter the afterlife and would live forever with the gods.

Of the few thousand gods worshiped in Egypt, several dozen gained widespread affection throughout Egypt. Many of the most beloved deities were associated with certain animals and were shown with animal characteristics. These deities probably began as animal gods who became increasingly humanized. Among them, Hathor, shown as a cow or as a woman with cow horns, was associated with love and motherhood. Bastet, with a cat’s head, was a household protector. Thoth, the god of writing, was shown with the head of an ibis (a heronlike bird); his bill suggested the scribe’s reed pen. Anubis, with a jackal’s head, was the god who carefully guided the dead to the courtroom of Osiris.

Gods were worshiped both at temples and in the home. Temple activity, managed by priests, involved taking daily care of the images of the gods, celebrating festivals, counseling, and producing art, medicines, and amulets. Egyptians seem to have been highly religious, organizing their lives according to the religious festivals of their area and protecting themselves with temple visits, chants, charms, and prayers.

EGYPTIAN INFLUENCES

Despite the Hebrews’ desire to separate themselves from the culture of Egypt, Egyptian influences could not be entirely overcome. There are many signs of that influence in the Hebrew Bible. The name Moses, for example, is apparently Egyptian, variously translated “child,” “born,” or “son.” (It is also found in the name Tutmose, meaning “child of Thoth,” which was the name of several pharaohs.) The goddess Ma’at may have inspired the figure of the Wisdom of God in the Hebrew Book of Proverbs, where Wisdom is shown as a female figure who assists God in the work of creation (Prov. 8). Some of the psalms also may have Egyptian origins. The clearest example is Psalm 104, a hymn to the beauties of nature; it shows many parallels with an earlier hymn—found by archeologists in the ruins of the city of Aketaten (Tell el-Amarna) on the Nile—that praises Aten, the daytime sun, whose rays descend to nourish the earth.

As we’ve seen in previous chapters, the histories of religions show evidence of borrowings and influences, some obvious and others subtle. The history of the Hebrew religion is no exception. Archeologists and scholars will no doubt find more evidence of such connections as they continue their research and understanding of Hebrew and Egyptian history.

Page 298The Books of Joshua and Judges describe this period and give accounts of Israelite expansion and the eventual division of Canaan among eleven tribes. Realizing that they needed to be unified for their protection, the people of Israel soon established a king, selected a capital city, imposed a system of laws, and built a temple for centralized worship. The biblical Books of 1–2 Samuel and 1–2 Kings describe the process.

The first king, Saul (whose reign began c. 1025 bce), became a tragic figure, suffering repeatedly from depression and then dying after a battle—one tradition says from suicide (1 Sam. 31:4). After a civil war divided the country’s allegiance, a new king emerged to lead Israel. David (c. 1013–973 bce) was a young man from Bethlehem, a town in the tribal area of Judah. As an accomplished military leader, David oversaw the buildup of the kingdom. Recognizing the need for a central city, he took over the hilltop town of Jebus, renaming it Jerusalem and establishing it as the national capital.

This small prayer room in a Bulgarian synagogue has all the elements required for the Sabbath service.

Recent archeological evidence seems to confirm the historical existence of David and his son Solomon, who constructed the temple envisioned by David. The Book of Chronicles records how Solomon built and dedicated the First Temple in Jerusalem. In this way he created a home for Yahweh, whose presence, it was hoped, would protect the kingdom. Services included prayers and hymns, accompanied by musical instruments such as trumpets and cymbals (see Ps. 150). Incense and grain were common offerings, and animals were ritually killed and offered as burnt sacrifices to Yahweh.

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Having a royal palace and the national temple in Jerusalem unified the separate Hebrew tribes for a time, but the taxes required to fund these and other extensive building projects quickly made the people rebellious. After the death of Solomon, the northern tribes broke away from the control of the king in Jerusalem and set up their own kingdom.

Division weakened the two kingdoms, and in 721 bce Assyria, an expanding power in the northeast, took over the northern kingdom. A theological explanation for the destruction of the northern kingdom came from prophets of the time. 

Prophets

 (human beings who spoke in God’s name) were significant figures—both as groups and as individuals. They were active from the earliest days of the kingdom; but individual prophets became especially important in the three hundred years after 800 bce. Typically the prophet experienced a life-changing revelation from God and then felt commissioned by God to speak his message to the people. The prophet Isaiah, who was active in the eighth century bce, is possibly the best known. He had a vision of God in the temple of Jerusalem, which he described as being filled with smoke—a symbol of the divine presence. In his experience there, he heard the voices of angels. They were crying out “Holy, holy, holy” in the presence of God (Isa. 6). His feeling of unworthiness dissolved when an angel touched a lighted coal to his lips, thus purifying and empowering Isaiah. From then on, he could speak his message. Isaiah and other prophets explained that political losses were punishment from Yahweh for worshiping other gods and for not having kept his laws. The losses were not a sign of God’s weakness but rather of his justice and strength.

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Deeper Insights

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS

I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other god to set against me.

The Ten Commandments

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 begin with a reminder that Yahweh is the protector of the Hebrews and that because of his help they owe him their obedience. There seems to be an understanding, however, that other peoples have their own gods.

You shall not make a carved image for yourself nor the likeness of anything in the heavens above, or on the earth below, or in the waters under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous god. I punish the children for the sins of their fathers to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me. But I keep faith with thousands, with those who love me and keep my commandments.

The commandment not to make images was meant to prevent worship of any deity but Yahweh, and it has been observed quite strictly over the centuries. Although a few early synagogue paintings of human figures have been found,

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 the prohibition has restrained in general the development of Jewish painting and sculpture. Only in the past hundred years have Jewish artists emerged, and many have been nonrepresentational artists.

You shall not make wrong use of the name of the Lord your God; the Lord will not leave unpunished the man who misuses his name.

The commandment against misuse of Yahweh’s name opposes using God’s name to bring misfortune on people, as by curses and black magic. Eventually, it was considered unacceptable to pronounce the name of Yahweh for any purpose whatsoever. Only the high priest had this privilege and did this but once a year.

Remember to keep the Sabbath day holy. You have six days to labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath of the Lord your God; that day you shall not do any work, you, your son or your daughter, your slave or your slave-girl, your cattle or the alien within your gates; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and on the seventh day He rested. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and declared it holy. Remember to keep the Sabbath day holy. You have six days to labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath of the Lord your God; that day you shall not do any work, you, your son or your daughter, your slave or your slave-girl, your cattle or the alien within your gates; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and on the seventh day He rested. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and declared it holy.

The commandment to keep the Sabbath was a humane commandment, intended to give regular rest to servants, slaves, children, workers, and animals.

Honor your father and your mother, that you may live long in the land which the Lord your God is giving you.

The commandment to honor one’s parents offers a reward: long life. We should note that Hebrews generally thought of rewards and punishments as being given on earth and in one’s lifetime. The notion of rewards given in a future life or an afterlife was a later development.

You shall not commit murder.

This commandment does not prohibit all killing but prohibits murder—that is, unlawful and undeserved killing of human beings. Killing human beings in wartime and in self-defense was allowable, and execution was expected as the punishment for many types of crime.

You shall not commit adultery.

The commandment against adultery is only incidentally concerned with sex. Primarily it is a property law, because a man’s wife was legally considered his property. This commandment is linked with the commandments immediately before and after it, because all three refer to property rights. To murder is to take unlawful possession of another person’s body; to commit adultery is to disregard a man’s right to sole possession of his wife; and to steal is to take unlawful possession of another person’s goods.

You shall not steal.

You shall not give false evidence against your neighbor.

You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, his slave-girl, his ox, his ass, or anything that belongs to him.

In this last commandment, property rights are linked together and spelled out clearly.

Page 300The southern kingdom, the kingdom of Judah, carried on alone for more than another century—though with constant anxiety. Unfortunately, another power had emerged—Babylonia—and at first the southern kingdom paid tribute; but when tribute was refused, Babylonia took control. In 586 bce Nebuchadnezzar II destroyed Solomon’s temple, tore down the city walls of Jerusalem, and took the aristocracy and a great part of the Jewish population off to exile in Babylonia. Their exile would last almost fifty years. Because the kingdom had ended and temple worship was no longer possible, the religion of Israel seemed to lose its heart.

Exile and Captivity

The period of exile in Babylonia (586–539 bce) was a monumental turning point and one of the most emotional chapters in the history of Judaism. Psalm 137 is a manifestation of the sorrow felt by the Jews during their captivity. It tells of their inability to sing happy songs as long as they were in exile: “By the rivers of Babylon—there we sat down and there we wept when we remembered Zion.”

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Without a temple, public ritual had come to an end, but in its place the written word took on new importance. During their exile in Babylonia, the Jews began to meet weekly to discuss the scriptures and to pray. What developed was the 

Sabbath

 service of worship, study, sermon, and psalms, performed in a meetinghouse, or synagogue (Greek: “lead together”). The period of exile also made it clear that the oral Hebrew religious traditions had to be written down if the Jews were to survive.

During their exile, the Jewish people began to assimilate influences from the surrounding Babylonian culture. Knowledge of the Hebrew language declined, while Aramaic, a sister language, emerged as the common tongue. (Aramaic eventually even crept into the sacred literature.

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) Also emerging at this time was a growing sense of an active spirit of evil, often called Satan, and of a cosmic antagonism between good and evil. Although the sense of moral opposition was present in the Israelite religion from an early time, it may have been sharpened by the pain of exile.

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Return to Jerusalem and the Second Temple

In 540 bce, Cyrus came to the throne of the Persian Empire and, after taking over Babylonia, allowed the Jews to return to their homeland. The returning exiles rebuilt their temple, dedicating it in 515 bce, and the sacrificial cult was reestablished. The Book of Psalms, containing the lyrics of 150 hymns, is often called the hymnbook of the Second Temple, and when we read in the closing psalms of all the instruments used in temple worship, we get a sense of the splendor of the ceremonies performed there.

At the same time, the work of recording oral traditions and editing written material also grew in importance. Scribes did not want the history of their people to be lost, and the result of their work was to become the Hebrew Bible. A final edition of the Torah (Pentateuch) was made, the prophetic books were compiled, and new books were written as well. Several of the last books written were literary—such as Ecclesiastes, a dark meditation on life, and the Song of Songs, a collection of love poetry. The books that would eventually be accepted into the Hebrew canon were finished by about 200 bce.

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Although the Second Temple was destroyed in 70 ce, descriptions allow craftsmen to build models that show how it looked.

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CULTURAL CONFLICT DURING THE SECOND TEMPLE ERA

The historical record in the canonical Hebrew scriptures ends with the building of the Second Temple. But the history of the region did not end here. Because of the geographic location of Israel, it seemed that the Jews in Israel would continually have to contend with invasions—and in some cases conquests—by foreign powers.

The Seleucid Period

When the army of Alexander the Great was on its way to conquer Egypt, it made Israel part of the Greek Empire, and after Alexander’s death in 323 bce, his generals divided up his empire. Israel at first was controlled by Egypt, which was ruled by the descendants of Alexander’s general Ptolemy. Later, Israel was controlled by Syria, ruled by the descendants of Alexander’s general Seleucus.

In 167 bce a Seleucid ruler, Antiochus IV (Antiochus Epiphanes) took over the temple, apparently with the intention of introducing the worship of the Greek god Zeus to the site. He deliberately placed on the altar a dish of pork—a forbidden meat. He also forbade circumcision. His acts caused such hatred among the Jews that they rebelled. Led by a Jewish family of five brothers, the Maccabees (or Hasmoneans), the Jews took back the rule of their country, and the temple was rededicated to the worship of Israel’s one God. (The winter festival of 

Hanukkah,

 widely kept today, joyously memorializes that rededication of the Second Temple.) The country retained its autonomy for almost a century, until the Roman general Pompey took control in 63 bce.

Antagonism between Jewish culture and the growing Greek-speaking culture in the region was inevitable, because Jewish culture had values and practices that made absorption into Greek culture difficult, if not impossible. For example, all Jewish males were circumcised, which meant they were easily identified in the public baths or while exercising in gymnasiums. There were also Jewish dietary restrictions that forbade the eating of pork and shellfish and strict prohibitions against work on the Sabbath. These practices conflicted with the sophisticated Greek-speaking culture called Hellenism (from Hellas, meaning “Greece”). This culture was becoming dominant in the entire Mediterranean area, even after the Romans took control of the region. Greek plays and literature were read everywhere around the Mediterranean; Greek history, science, medicine, and mathematics were considered the most advanced of their day; and Greek architecture and city planning were becoming the norm. Because of its sophistication, Hellenistic culture was hugely attractive to educated people.

Responses to Outside Influences

Contact with Hellenistic culture led to a variety of responses. Some people welcomed it; some rejected it, clinging passionately to their own ethnic and religious roots; and the rest took a position in between. Tensions led to the rise of several religious factions among the Jews in Israel starting around 165 bce.

Page 303The 

sadducees

 were the first of the factions to emerge.

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 They were members of the priestly families, living primarily in Jerusalem, and were in charge of the temple and its activities. The fact that they derived their living from temple worship would have made them traditional—at least in their public behavior.

The 

pharisees

 were the second faction that arose.

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 Their focus was on preserving Hebrew piety through careful observation of religious laws and traditions. (Later rabbinical Judaism would develop from and continue the work of the Pharisees.)

A third faction, eventually called the 

Zealots,

 was opposed to foreign influences and after 6 ce was bitterly opposed to Roman rule of Israel. The Romans called them “robbers.” The name Zealots—from the Greek word for zeal—was given to them when wars began between the Jews and the Romans. The patriots sometimes used violent means to achieve their ends.

The 

Essenes

 were the fourth group. Not a great deal is known with certainty about them, although current interest in them is intense. Three authors of the classical world wrote about the Essenes: Philo (c. 10 bce–50 ce), a Jewish theologian of Alexandria; Josephus (c. 37–100 ce), a Jewish general and historian; and Pliny the Elder (23–79 ce), a Roman writer. These classical writers indicate that the Essenes numbered several thousand; lived a communal, celibate life, primarily in the desert area near the Dead Sea; rejected animal sacrifice; and avoided meat and wine. We also are told that the Essenes were skilled in medicine, dressed in white, followed a solar calendar that was different from the lunar calendar used in the temple, studied the scriptures assiduously, and kept separate from the rest of society. Moreover, we now recognize that there may have been several varieties of Essenes and that a strict celibate core at Qumran (called the Covenanters) was supported by a noncelibate network of supporters and sympathizers throughout Israel.

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The Essenes saw themselves as an advance guard, preparing for the time when God would end the old world of injustice and bring about a new world of mercy and peace. They described themselves as “sons of light” who were fighting against the forces of “darkness.” Because their center was no more than fifteen miles east of Jerusalem, they would have had some contact with the political currents of their day, and they may have shared some of the ideals of the Zealots and Pharisees.

Scrolls and scroll fragments, called the Dead Sea Scrolls, were uncovered between 1947 and 1955 in caves near Qumran, above the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea. It is possible that the scrolls constituted the library of the Essenes. It is also possible that the scrolls were a more general library of Jewish sacred books, brought from Jerusalem for safekeeping during the rebellion against the Romans that began in 66 ce. Besides containing all or part of nearly every book of the Hebrew scriptures, the cache of scrolls contained works that commented on scriptural books, gave details about the organization and practices of the Essenes, and spoke of a coming judgment and end of the world. The Dead Sea Scrolls show that during the later part of the Second Temple period, there was no universally accepted norm of correct religion, and the canon of scripture was still in the process of formation. Instead, there were many books and interpretations of correct practice, each competing for acceptance.

 

This piece of parchment from the Dead Sea Scrolls contains a selection from the Book of Isaiah.

Page 304Although the Second Temple was flourishing, the older, ceremonial, temple-based religion was in fact giving way to a more decentralized religion, based on the Hebrew scriptures, on the practice of the Pharisees, and on religious practice in the synagogues.

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THE DEVELOPMENT OF RABBINICAL JUDAISM

The Roman Empire assumed direct political control of much of Israel in 6 ce, and it ruled with severity. Consequently, there was much anti-Roman fervor and a widespread hope that, as in the time of the Maccabees, the foreigners could be expelled and a Jewish kingdom reestablished. A major revolt broke out in 66 ce, but Roman legions crushed it brutally in 70 ce, when they destroyed the temple and much of Jerusalem.

The end of the Second Temple was a turning point for the Jewish faith, producing two major effects. It ended the power of the priesthood, whose sacrificial rituals were no longer possible. It also forced the religion to develop in a new direction away from temple ritual, moving Judaism toward a central focus on scripture and scriptural interpretation.

The Canon of Scripture and the Talmud

Once the temple-based religion had been destroyed, it was necessary to clearly define which religious books—of the several hundred being revered and read by various groups—constituted the sacred canon. Although some scholars now question it, an old tradition holds that in about 90 ce, twenty years after the destruction of the Second Temple, Jewish rabbis gathered together in Israel at the town of Yavneh (Jamnia). There, it is said, they examined each book individually to decide which books would be included in the canon. (Some books, such as the Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes, were hotly debated and were almost excluded.) The canon of the land of Israel resulted from this process of selection. A slightly larger number of books had already been accepted by Jews in Egypt and came to be known as the Alexandrian canon.

Another revolt began in Israel in 132 ce. Some declared its leader, Bar Kokhba, to be the 

Messiah,

 the long-awaited savior sent by God to the Jews. In 135 ce, the Romans put down this second revolt even more cruelly than the first, with many public executions. Jewish families who had remained in Israel even after the destruction of the Second Temple now fled. They not only went to Egypt but also settled around the Mediterranean, expanding the number of Jews living in the 

diaspora

 (dispersion of Jews beyond Israel). The existence of a canon of scripture, which could be copied and carried anywhere, brought victory out of apparent defeat. Rabbinical Judaism, based on interpreting sacred scripture and oral tradition, could spread and flourish.

Once the Hebrew scriptures were declared complete, the next logical development was their protection and explanation. Interpretive work, called midrash (“seeking out”), became a central focus of evolving Judaism. The work of interpreting the Hebrew scriptures and applying their principles to everyday problems went on in stages. By about 200 ce there existed a philosophical discussion in six parts of specific biblical laws and their application, called the Mishnah (“repetition”). By about 400 ce, the Mishnah had received further commentary (the Gemara, “supplement”), and the result was the Palestinian 

Talmud

 (“study”), or Talmud of the Land of Israel.

Page 306When people use the word Talmud, however, they usually are referring to a second, larger collection of material. Because it was compiled by religious specialists in Babylonia, it is called the Babylonian Talmud. Complete by about 600 ce, the Babylonian Talmud consists of the earlier Mishnah and an extensive commentary. After the Hebrew Bible itself, the Babylonian Talmud became the second-most important body of Jewish literature, and it continued to be commented on over the centuries by rabbinical specialists.

Two rabbis speak:

Hillel used to say: If I am not for myself, who will be for me? Yet if I am for myself only, what am I?

Shammai said: Set a fixed time for thy study of the Torah; say little and do much; and receive all men with a cheerful countenance.

—from The Sayings of the Fathers

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The Babylonian Talmud is vast, sometimes being compared to an ocean in which a person can sail or swim. In the Babylonian Talmud, rabbis of different generations added their insights and solutions to problems. The growth of opinion is visible, because the earliest material is printed in the center of each page, and later commentary is arranged around it. The Babylonian Talmud contains legal material (halakhah, “direction”) and nonlegal anecdotes and tales (haggadah, “tradition”). It is really a large encyclopedia, organized into sections, or tractates, according to subject matter. Its size and complexity, along with the difficulty of mastering it, would contribute to a strong scholarly orientation in later Judaism.

Islam and Medieval Judaism

The diaspora introduced Jewish vitality to places far from Israel, such as Spain and Iraq. After the ninth century, this Jewish presence was possible because of the tolerance with which Islam—now dominant in Spain, North Africa, and the Middle East—usually treated the Jews. Islam has held that Jews and Christians have a special status: called “peoples of the Book,” they are members with Muslims in the same extended religious family. The result was that cities such as Alexandria, Cairo, Baghdad, and Córdoba became havens for Jewish thought.

Foremost among the Jewish medieval thinkers was Moses Maimonides (called Rambam, 1135–1204). Maimonides was born in Córdoba, but he and his family fled that city when it was occupied by Muslim forces hostile to both Jews and Christians. He eventually settled in Cairo, where he practiced medicine at the court of Salah al-Din (Saladin). The work that made him famous was his book The Guide of the Perplexed, in which he argued that Judaism was a rational religion and that faith and reason were complementary. He wrote this work in Arabic in order to make it accessible to a wide readership. Maimonides is also known for his Mishneh Torah, a scholarly work written in Hebrew, which is a summary of the Talmud and other rabbinical writings. Maimonides is renowned for his list of the basic principles of Jewish belief, which we will discuss later in this chapter.

Jewish thought has consistently shown several approaches in its interpretation of the Hebrew Bible. The more conservative tendency, which produced the Talmud, has interpreted the Hebrew scriptures fairly strictly, using them as a guide for ethical living. Another trend has been speculative, using the scriptures imaginatively as a way to understand more about the nature of God and the universe. Out of this second tendency came works of Jewish mysticism, which we look at next.

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The Kabbalah

The Middle Ages saw renewed interest in Jewish mysticism. The whole body of Jewish mystical literature, called 

Kabbalah

 (“received,” “handed down”), began to emerge even before the Common Era in works that speculated on mysterious passages of the Hebrew Bible. For example, kabbalistic literature speculated about Enoch (an early descendant of Adam) and the prophet Elijah, who had not died but had simply been transported upward to God’s realm (Gen. 5:24 and 2 Kings 2:11). It also speculated about Yahweh’s throne (merkebah) and the sound of the surrounding angels (see Isa. 6:2), using the scriptures as a tool for understanding more about the reality of God and the hidden structure of the universe. A frequent mystical assumption was that the Hebrew Bible was written in coded language that could be interpreted only by those who knew the code. Much biblical language, this view held, was to be read not literally but symbolically.

New mystical speculation arose in the medieval period, sometimes as a response to the growing persecution of Jews. Common themes were the divine origin of the world, God’s care for the Jews, and the eventual coming of the Messiah (spoken of in Dan. 7 and elsewhere). The human world was frequently seen as the microcosm of a greater heavenly world beyond the earth and the human being as a microcosm of the universe: “the superior and inferior worlds are bound together under the form of the Holy Body, and the worlds are associated together.”

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From the innermost center of the flame sprang forth a well out of which colors issued and spread upon everything beneath, hidden in the mysterious hiddenness of the Infinite.

—The Zohar

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The most famous book of the Kabbalah is the Zohar (“splendor”). It was long believed to have been written in the first centuries of the Common Era, but in actuality it was probably written about 1280 in Spain by Rabbi Moses de León. The Zohar sees the universe as having emerged from a pure, boundless, spiritual reality. From the divine Unity come the ten sefiroth—ten active, divine powers, such as wisdom, intelligence, love, and beauty. The Zohar compares them to colors, and sees the sefiroth as links between God and his creation. Human beings are particularly significant in creation, blending the divine and the earthly, for within their bodies is a spark of divine light that seeks liberation and a return to God. Other texts included the Sefer Yetzirah and the Sefer HaHasidim. Some Jewish circles valued the mystical texts of the Kabbalah as much as, or even more than, the Talmud.

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Christianity and Medieval Judaism

The mystical movements gave comfort to European Jews as their persecution increased. Christianity had become the dominant religion in all of Europe by the late thirteenth century, but Christianity carried with it an anti-Jewish prejudice that had been present since the first century ce, when Christianity was separating—sometimes angrily—from its Jewish origins (see, for example, Matt. 27:25 and Acts 7:31–60 in the Christian New Testament).

The dominant position of Christianity in medieval Europe also had political implications, because Christians were thought of as loyal citizens, whereas Jews were treated as suspicious and even traitorous persons. Because so much of Jewish religious practice was carried out in the home, superstitious stories circulated among Christians that Jews needed the blood of Christian children for their Passover meal or that they stole and misused the consecrated Christian communion bread. Because Jews were often forbidden to own farmland, they were excluded from agriculture; and because they were kept out of the guilds (the medieval craft unions), they were excluded from many types of urban work. Furthermore, because Christians in the Middle Ages were generally prohibited from lending money at interest, this role became a Jewish occupation, but it generated much ill will among those to whom money was lent. In many places, Jews were forced to wear a special cap or display some other identifying detail. They were sometimes also forced to live in a separate section of town, called a ghetto, which might be walled so that Jews could be locked in at night.

 

At a cemetery in Budapest, mourners shovel dirt into the grave while a rabbi chants prayers.

Page 308 Jews were persecuted regularly. At the time of the First Crusade, for example, many were killed by crusaders traveling through what is now Germany to Israel. During the period of the bubonic plague, also known as the Black Death (1347–1351), Jews sometimes were blamed for the deaths. In retaliation, many Jews were killed; some were even burned alive in their synagogues.

Beginning in the late Middle Ages, European Jews were forced into exile. Often the motive was economic as much as religious, because exiling the Jews would allow the Christian rulers to confiscate their property and to be freed of debt to them. Over a period of two centuries, Jews were expelled from England, France, Spain, and Portugal. In Spain, they were forced in 1492 to become Christians or to leave. Some Spanish Jews converted to Christianity but continued Jewish practice in their homes. As a result of the Spanish Inquisition, which sought out Jews who had converted for the sole purpose of remaining in Spain, Jews fled elsewhere—to Morocco, Egypt, Greece, Turkey, Holland, central Europe, and the New World. It is at this time that two great cultural divisions of Judaism emerged—Sephardic Judaism in the Mediterranean region, North Africa, and the Middle East, and Ashkenazic Judaism in Germany, central Europe, and France. We will look at their cultural differences later, when we examine the branches of Judaism.

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QUESTIONING AND REFORM

The Renaissance of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries began a new era for Europe. As people began to travel more, they were exposed to a multitude of previously unknown religions, cultures, and regions of the world. The invention of printing with movable type quickened this process by making written material widely available. Discoveries in science and instruments such as the telescope revolutionized people’s perception of the earth and its relationship to the larger universe. These changes, which presented challenges to the Christian worldview, also affected Judaism.

After the Renaissance, Judaism began to move in two directions, both of which continue today. One direction cherished traditional ways; the other saw a need for modernization. The traditionalist way, strong in eastern Europe, offered refuge from an uncertain world. In central Europe, traditionalism expressed itself both in Talmudic scholarship and in the devotional movement Hasidism (“devotion,” “piety”). The Hasidic movement was founded by Israel ben Eliezer (c. 1700–1760), a mystic and faith healer known affectionately as the Baal Shem Tov (the “good master of the Holy Name”). He felt that living according to the rules of the Torah and Talmud was important, but he also felt that devout practice should be accompanied by an ecstatic sense of God who is present everywhere.

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 Hasidism emphasized the beauty of everyday life and the physical world, teaching that “only in tangible things can you see or hear God.”

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 Mystical schools were sometimes considered suspicious, for they could easily supplant traditional practices with those of the school, and they could encourage disciples to proclaim their master as the long-awaited messiah. Hasidism, however, made it possible for mystical interest to be accepted in mainstream Judaism. Hasidism continued to inspire Jews for centuries and remains one of the most vital movements in Judaism today.

The creator and the object of His creation are a Unity inseparable.

—Hasidic saying

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The other direction in which Judaism moved was toward modernization. The liberal direction, which was strongest in Germany and France, urged Jews to move out of the ghettos, gain a secular education, and enter the mainstream of their respective countries. In Germany, the modernizing movement, called the Reform, began in the late eighteenth century. With the goal of making worship more accessible, the Reform movement translated many of the Hebrew prayers into German and introduced elements such as organ and choir music. The Reform movement, however, generated many counterresponses—among them, an attempt to preserve traditional Judaism (Orthodox Judaism) and an attempt to maintain the best of tradition with some modern elements (Conservative Judaism). We will look at all these movements later in more detail.

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JUDAISM AND THE MODERN WORLD

The growth of freedom for European Jews over the nineteenth century did not end anti-Jewish activity. The Russian Empire, where Eastern Orthodox Christianity was the established religion, continued its restrictions on Jews, with occasional outbreaks of persecution. In response, Jews from Russia, Poland, and the Baltic area emigrated, and from 1880 to 1920 more than a million Jews came to the United States, most coming to or through New York City. Their children and grandchildren sometimes moved farther, settling in Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, and elsewhere. Jews also emigrated to other large cities in North America and Latin America, such as Montreal, Toronto, Mexico City, and Buenos Aires—bringing a new freedom to Judaism, but at a price. Jewish identity was compromised because many Jews wished to assimilate with the surrounding culture, and intermarriage grew in frequency.

Traditional Jewish life continued in Europe until the end of the 1930s, particularly in Poland and the Baltic region, where there were still more than three million Jews. Beautiful evocations of this warm, traditional lifestyle are evident in the paintings of Marc Chagall and in the book that he and his wife Bella created together, Burning Lights.

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 This centuries-old culture, however, would be destroyed within ten years by Adolf Hitler.

Hitler and the Holocaust

The rise of Adolf Hitler in 1933 as German chancellor and head of the Nazi Party began a prolonged wave of anti-Jewish activity that ended in the most dreadful sufferings. Hitler was fueled by several irrational notions. One was a theory of racial classes, which imagined Jews and Gypsies to be subhuman polluters of a pure but mythical Aryan race. Another was Hitler’s belief that Jewish financiers and industrialists had conspired against Germany and helped make possible the Allied victory over the Germans during World War I. Hitler sought both an imaginary racial purity and political revenge.

At first, the Nazis put pressure on Jews to emigrate by forcing them out of government and university positions, by boycotting their stores, and eventually by physically persecuting them. Many Jews did emigrate, particularly to North America—Albert Einstein is a well-known example. After the annexation of Austria and the invasion of Poland (1939), Nazi control eventually spread to Holland, Norway, northern France, and Czechoslovakia; and as Nazi domination spread to these countries, so too did the persecution of Jews. Jews who wanted to flee found it hard to find refuge, because many countries, including the United States, refused to take in large numbers of Jews. Moreover, France and England did not forcefully protest Hitler’s policies against the Jews, and the Catholic leader Pope Pius XII had signed an earlier concordat of understanding with Hitler. The Jews were without defenders, and when World War II was declared, they were caught in a trap.

 

Barbed wire and guard towers surround Auschwitz buildings, where most “guest workers” awaited death during World War II.

Page 311Hitler began plans to exterminate all European Jews. Jews in countries under Nazi control were officially identified, made to wear yellow stars in public, and eventually deported via train to concentration camps. Upon arrival at the camps, Jews were often divided into two groups: (1) those who were strong enough to work and (2) the rest—mostly women, children, the sick, and the elderly—who were to be killed immediately. (The psychologist Viktor Frankl has described the process in his book Man’s Search for Meaning.) At first, internees were shot to death; but as their numbers increased, gas chambers and crematoria were constructed to kill them and incinerate their bodies. Those who were kept as workers lived in horrible conditions and were routinely starved, insufficiently clothed, and attacked by all kinds of vermin and disease. Few ultimately survived.

By the end of World War II in 1945, about twelve million people—Jews, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, prisoners of war, and political enemies—had died in the concentration camps. Of these, it is estimated that as many as six million were Jews, and of that number about a million and a half were Jewish children. This immense loss is called the 

Holocaust

 (Greek: “completely burned”) or Shoah (Hebrew: “extermination”). It is one of the greatest crimes ever committed against humanity.

The extermination has left a shadow on civilization and a great scar on Judaism. About a third of the world’s Jews were killed during the Holocaust, and of those who died, a large number had been devout traditional Jews. Their deaths, under such painful circumstances, raised haunting questions about the faith and future of Judaism.

Creation of the State of Israel

A major result of the Holocaust was the creation of the state of Israel after more than a century of hope, thought, and work. Centuries of virulent anti-Jewish restriction and persecution had created in many Jews a desire for a Jewish nation, where they could live without fear, in the traditional historic home of their faith. The movement came to be called 

Zionism,

 after Mount Zion, the mountain on which Jerusalem is built.

The state of Israel emerged through several steps. The first was the notion of a separate Jewish nation, popularized by the influential book The Jewish State, written by the Hungarian-born Austrian writer Theodor Herzl (1860–1904) following an outbreak of anti-Semitism in France. The second step was the Balfour Declaration, a political statement issued in 1917 by the British government, which endorsed the notion of a Jewish homeland. When World War I ended, the British received control of the area then called Palestine and authorized a limited immigration of Jews to their territory, the British Mandate of Palestine. The third step came after World War II, when the newly created United Nations voted to divide the British Mandate of Palestine into two states, one for Jews and the other for the Palestinians, the Arab residents of the mandate. The Jews accepted the U.N. plan and created the state of Israel when the mandate ended in 1948. The Palestinians, who had opposed Jewish immigration into the region under the British, rejected the U.N. plan and, along with neighboring Arab nations, resisted the creation of Israel.

Page 312The difficult relationship between Jews and Palestinians has continued to the present day. There have been repeated wars and an exchange of terrorist activities between Israelis and Palestinians, and the conflict has grown more horrifying in recent years. So far the conflict has not been resolved.

Because European Judaism was almost completely destroyed, Jewish life today has two centers: Israel and the United States. The estimated Jewish population of Israel is about five million and that of the United States is roughly six million. Judaism in the United States is largely liberal and enjoys general freedom of practice. In Israel, Judaism encompasses a wide spectrum of opinions and practices, ranging from liberal and even atheistic to highly conservative and traditionally religious. Some important control of government policy and daily life is in the hands of traditionalists, but for perhaps a majority of the population, Judaism is more a culture than a religion.

PERSONAL EXPERIENCE

A Visit to the Anne Frank House

In high school I read the diary of Anne Frank, a teenage Jewish girl of Amsterdam who had hidden with her family and others throughout most of World War II. Her sensitive diary covers her years from age 13 to 15. In August of 1944, Nazi soldiers found the family and took them away to the concentration camp of Bergen-Belsen, where Anne died in March of 1945—just months before the war ended. Her father was the only family member who survived, and when he returned to Amsterdam he was given her diary, found on the floor of the house where they had hidden.

In her diary she wrote of her discovery of the beauty of nature—something she’d never appreciated before. Hiding in the attic rooms, she began to look out an upstairs window for long periods of time. One night she wrote: “the dark, rainy evening, the gale, the scudding clouds held me entirely in their power; it was the first time in a year and a half that I’d seen the night face to face.”

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 Anne described having fallen in love there and her first kiss—with her friend Peter, who was also in hiding. As she described it, “suddenly the ordinary Anne slipped away and a second Anne took her place, a second Anne who is not reckless and jocular, but one who just wants to love and be gentle.”

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 She wrote as well of God, religion, and belief.

Page 313During my first trip to Europe, near the end of my college years, I sought out the narrow house beside the canal in Amsterdam where Anne and her family and others had all lived in hiding. After climbing the steep, narrow stairs, I looked out through the same window that Anne had looked out many times, and I realized that the life and young intelligence that had once lived here had been so meaninglessly destroyed. As I stood there in thought, gazing through the open window, the bells of a nearby church rang out. What complex feelings, I thought, had the sound of those bells evoked in Anne and her family. As for me, I could feel only loss and emptiness.

Afterwards, when reading her diary again, I marveled at the hopefulness she expressed there, near the end of the book, and near the end of her short life: “in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.”

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JEWISH BELIEF

There is no official Jewish creed, but there is a set of central beliefs, first formulated by the medieval scholar Maimonides. Among them are

· Belief in God. God is one, formless, all-knowing, and eternal. God is master of the universe as its creator and judge. God is both loving and just.

· Belief in the words of the prophets.

· Belief that God gave the law to Moses.

· Belief that the Messiah, the savior to be sent by God, will come someday.

· Belief that there will be a resurrection of the good “in the world to come.”

Regarding these beliefs, there is no universal agreement about the precise meaning of the Messiah, the resurrection of the good, or “the world to come.” In the past, these were understood literally. The Messiah would be a heaven-sent, powerful leader who would inaugurate a new age, and at that time the deceased who had followed God’s laws would come back to life. Some Jews no longer interpret these beliefs literally but see them as symbols of the ultimate triumph of goodness in the world.

Belief in personal immortality or in the resurrection of the dead has been a frequent topic of debate among Jews. Although the notions of resurrection and even of an immortal soul have been defended by many within the Jewish faith, Judaism more strongly emphasizes the kind of immortality that comes from acting virtuously in this world, living on in one’s children, and leaving behind some charitable contribution to the world.

In Judaism, human beings have a special role. Because they are created in God’s image, they have the ability to reason, to will, to speak, to create, and to care; and they have the responsibility to manifest these divine characteristics in the world. Jews believe that among human beings, the Jewish people have a special role—a role that some believe is to witness to the one God and to do his will in the world. Others believe that their role is to suffer for a purpose known only to God. And others have said that their role is to bring a sense of justice to a world that often has none. Although there is no agreement about the Jewish role, there is general consensus among Jews that they hold a unique place in this world, and there is great pride in knowing that they have contributed so much to world culture.

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RELIGIOUS PRACTICE

To be a Jew, however, does not come only from holding a set of beliefs; it is even more a way of living. Scholars explain this by saying that Judaism is less interested in orthodoxy (correct belief) and far more interested in orthopraxy (correct practice). The Ten Commandments, of course, are at the heart of Jewish morality, and they direct behavior; but there are many additional laws and specific customs that dictate how time is to be used, what foods are to be eaten, and how prayer is to be conducted. And although Judaism promotes congregational worship, many Jewish celebrations are carried on in the home. Moving like wheels within wheels, the week, month, and year all have their devotional rhythms, established by religious laws and customs. The goal of all laws, however, is the recognition of God’s presence and the sanctification of human life.

The Jewish Sabbath

Central to all forms of Judaism is keeping the Sabbath, the seventh day of the week, as a special day. The Sabbath, when kept properly, is felt to sanctify the entire week. Recalling the royal rest of God after the six laborious days of creation, the Sabbath is a day of special prayer and human relaxation (see Exod. 20:11 and 31:12–17).

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 In earlier times, before watches and clocks were invented, a “day” began in the evening at sundown; thus the Jewish Sabbath begins on Friday at sunset and lasts until Saturday at sunset.

The traditional purpose of the Sabbath was a compassionate one: it was to allow everyone, even slaves and animals, regular rest. The prohibition against work has been interpreted variously over the centuries. Traditionally, fires could not be built on the Sabbath because of the labor involved; this meant that food would have to be cooked beforehand or eaten uncooked (see Exod. 35:1–3). Shops, of course, would be closed. Interpreting the requirement of rest in the modern would, some Jews will not operate light switches or kitchen stoves, nor will they drive a car or use the telephone during the Sabbath. Although some restrictions might seem excessive, their purpose is to separate the everyday world of labor from the one day of the week in which everyone can enjoy leisure.

The Sabbath is meant to be joyous and is often remembered that way by adults who have grown up in traditional households. The Talmud recommends that the mother of the household welcome the Sabbath on Friday night by lighting candles, and it recommends that the family drink wine at the Sabbath meal as a sign of happiness. During the Jewish exile in Babylonia, synagogue study and worship became a regular way to mark the Sabbath, and today it is common for religious Jews to attend a synagogue service on Friday night or Saturday morning. Friends are often invited over to share the main Sabbath meal, and on Saturday evening the Sabbath is at last bid farewell. There is an old Jewish adage: More than the Jews have kept the Sabbath, has the Sabbath kept the Jews.

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Deeper Insights

WHAT’S IN A NAME?

J

ust one example of the immense cultural influence of the Hebrew Bible is evident in many commonly used names. Following are some personal names from the Hebrew Bible, along with their original meanings and places where they may be found in the Bible:

· Aaron: “exalted one” (Exod. 4–6)

· Abel: “breath” (Gen. 4)

· Abigail: “father is rejoicing” (1 Sam. 25)

· Abner: “the father is a light” (2 Sam. 2–3)

· Abraham: “father of many” (Gen. 12–25)

· Adam: “humankind” (Gen. 2–3)

· Amos: “carried [by God]” (Amos 1–9)

· Benjamin: “favorite son” (Gen. 42–44)

· Caleb: “dog,” meaning “faithful” (Josh. 14)

· Daniel: “God is my judge” (Dan. 1–12)

· David: “beloved” (2 Sam. 1–24)

· Deborah: “bee” (Judg. 4–5)

· Esther: “[the goddess] Ishtar” (Esther 1–9)

· Ethan: “firmness” (1 Chron. 6:44)

· Eve: “life” (Gen. 2–3)

· Hannah: “grace” (1 Sam. 1–2)

· Isaac: “laughter” (Gen. 21–35)

· Isaiah: “The Lord is my salvation” (Isa. 6)

· Jacob: “seizing by the heel” (Gen. 25–50)

· Jared: “descent” (Gen. 5)

· Jeremy: “The Lord frees” (Jer. 12–13)

· Joel: “The Lord is God” (Joel 1–3)

· Jonathan: “The Lord has given” (1 Sam. 20)

· Joseph: “may he add” (Gen. 37–50)

· Joshua: “The Lord’s help” (Josh. 1–24)

· Malachi: “my messenger” (Mal. 1–4)

· Micah: “Who is like [God]?” (Mic. 1–7)

· Michael: “Who is like God?” (Dan. 10–12)

· Miriam: “rebellion” (Exod. 15)

· Naomi: “my delight” (Ruth 1–4)

· Nathan: “gift” (2 Sam. 12)

· Noah: “rest” (Gen. 6–9)

· Rachel: “ewe” (Gen. 29–35)

· Rebecca: “noose” (Gen. 24)

· Reuben: “behold, a son” (Gen. 37)

· Ruth: “companion” (Ruth 1–4)

· Samuel: “name of God” (1 Sam. 1–3)

· Sarah: “princess” (Gen. 17–23)

· Seth: “appointed” (Gen. 4–5)

Jews speak with pride of their observance of the Sabbath, pointing out that the great gift of Judaism to the world has not been the creation of a beautiful temple in physical space but rather the creation of a beautiful temple in time. Jews were once called lazy by the Romans for stopping their work one day out of every seven. But the Jewish practice has triumphed, and one day of the week is generally set aside as a day of rest throughout the world.

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Holy Days

Just as the week is sanctified by the Sabbath, so the months and the entire year are sanctified by regular holy days and periods, each marked by a distinctive emotional tone—happiness, sadness, repentance, gratitude.

Before speaking of specific festivals, we must point out that the Jewish religious calendar is lunar, meaning that each month begins with the new moon. However, adjustments must be made in order to keep the lunar years in general harmony with the regular, solar calendar. Because a year of twelve lunar months lasts 354 days, one lunar year is eleven days shorter than one solar year. Therefore, in the Jewish religious calendar an extra month is added approximately every three years. The lunar months of the Jewish year thus vary somewhat, as do the holy days.

New Year’s Day is 

Rosh Hashanah

 (“head of the year”). The Jewish religious year begins at the end of harvest season, when all debts can be paid off. Thus the religious New Year occurs in the autumn, in late September or early October. The New Year period of ten days, called the High Holy Days, ends with 

Yom Kippur

 (“day of covering”). Called the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur is the most solemn day of the year. It is a day of fasting, prayer, and reflection, meant to cleanse people for the upcoming religious year.

Following soon after the High Holy Days comes the late-harvest festival of 

Sukkot

(“shelters,” “booths”). Temporary outdoor shelters were once used as a way of protecting crops in the fields. Devout families still construct them, eat in them, and occasionally even sleep in them. Nowadays the shelters often are constructed in backyards and on porches. The festival recalls the wandering of the early Hebrews.

An Orthodox Jewish boy practices blowing a shofar in preparation for the Jewish New Year. The shofar, made of a ram’s horn, is used in conjunction with Jewish observances.

A winter festival is Hanukkah (“dedication”). It is also called the “Feast of Lights” because the festival recalls a time when the Second Temple was rededicated and oil lamps burned miraculously for eight days. To commemorate this December festival, families gather on eight evenings, light candles on a special 

menorah

, and give their children presents.

In February Jews celebrate 

Purim

 (“lots”). The festival recalls the divine protection given to the Jews at the time of Esther and her uncle, Mordecai. Purim is marked with the giving of food and money, a reading of the Book of Esther, and a festive meal.

The springtime festival of Pesach (“pass over”), or Passover, recalls the Hebrews’ departure from Egypt. It is a feast of freedom, kept with prayers and a special meal, called the 

Seder

(“order”). The Seder includes several traditional foods, including breads without yeast (matzoh), wine, parsley, a hard-boiled egg (symbolizing new life), saltwater (symbolizing tears), and an animal bone (symbolizing the paschal lamb). After recalling the liberation from Egypt, the diners share a large meal and sing songs of liberation.

Jewish Dietary Practices

From its earliest biblical origins, Judaism has valued cleanliness and care regarding food. What were once basic rules of hygiene developed into rules about ritual purity. In recent centuries, some Jews have relaxed their observance of certain dietary rules, keeping them to a greater or lesser degree as they think suitable and according to the branch of Judaism to which they belong.

Amnesty International and other organizations arranged this Passover Seder in south Tel Aviv for African refugees, local Jews, and employees of nongovernmental organizations. Guests chat as they await the special meal.

Page 318One of the basic tenets of traditional Jewish dietary practice is that food consumption and food handling be done according to religious laws. The term 

kosher

 (Hebrew: kasher) means “ritually correct” and particularly applies to food preparation and consumption. In regard to meat, all blood must be drained before the meat is cooked and eaten, because blood, which gives life, is sacred to God. In temple services, blood was offered on the altar separately from the rest of the sacrificed animal, and only meat without blood could be eaten by the priests and sharers in the sacred meal (see Lev. 17). This rule also ensured that animals that had died in the field or were killed by larger animals—carcasses that might be unsafe to eat—could not be consumed (see Exod. 22:31). In practice, there are very specific methods of kosher slaughter, inspection, and preservation.

Pork and shellfish are forbidden (see Lev. 11), probably because these animals were considered scavengers and thus easily contaminated by what they ate. (Pork sometimes contains a parasite, Trichinella spiralis, which can be killed only by cooking at high temperatures.)

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 For traditional Jews, meat and dairy products may not be mixed or eaten together at the same meal. This also means that a household that “keeps kosher” must maintain separate sets of cooking implements, pans, dishes, and utensils—one for meat and one for dairy products. Some households even have separate sinks and refrigerators. These practices derive from a rule of uncertain origin that forbids the cooking of a baby goat or lamb in its mother’s milk (Exod. 34:26). It is possible the practice was forbidden for being cruel; some fetal animals, cut from the womb before birth, were considered tender delicacies. The practice of cooking a kid in its mother’s milk may also have been associated with non-Hebrew religious practice and therefore forbidden.

Marc Chagall’s 1914 Rabbi of Vitebsk shows a Russian rabbi deep in prayer, expressing an almost shamanistic intensity. (© 2017 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris)

Other Religious Practices

Devout Jews practice regular daily prayer at dawn, noon, and dusk and often at bedtime. When they pray in the morning during the week, traditionalist males use the 

tefillin,

 or phylacteries, which are two small boxes containing scriptural passages; one is attached to the forehead by leather straps tied around the head, and the other is attached to the upper left arm by straps wound down around the arm and hand. They signify quite literally that God’s law is in the mind and heart of the person at prayer (see Deut. 6:8). The 

talit

 (a prayer shawl)—usually white, with dark stripes and fringe—covers the man’s head and body during prayer and signifies humility in the sight of God. In less traditional forms of Judaism, the prayer shawl is sometimes not used, but men wear the skullcap (kippah in Hebrew and 

yarmulke

 in Yiddish, the old language of eastern European Jews). Devout males sometimes express their reverence before God during their waking hours by covering their heads continually with a skullcap.

Page 319Remembrance of God is also assisted by the presence of a mezuzah, which is placed on the doorpost of the entrance to a home and sometimes on the doorposts of interior rooms (see Deut. 6:9). Like the tefillin, the mezuzah is a small container that holds scriptural words; it can be touched upon entering the house or room. Unlike the tefillin, it is used even by secular Jews.

Devout Jews place a mezuzah beside their doors and touch it reverently when they enter.

Perhaps because sexuality and the origin of life are considered especially sacred, Judaism has a number of practices relating to them. Eight days after birth, when a male receives his name, he is circumcised—the foreskin of the boy’s penis is cut off by a specialist. The ceremony recalls God’s covenant with the Hebrew people (see Gen. 17 and Lev. 12:3). The origin of this practice in Judaism is uncertain. It began possibly as a health measure, to prevent infection commonly brought about by hot climates; but it is also possible that circumcision began as a way of recognizing divine control over sex and generation. Males mark puberty with a coming-of-age ceremony at age 13, when a young man legally becomes an adult, or “son of the commandment” (

bar mitzvah

).

In some branches of Judaism, girls ages 12 to 18 are honored in a coming-of-age ceremony called a bat mitzvah. For women, menstruation and childbirth have also been considered special occasions, celebrated with a ritual bath (mikvah) and purification.

Although in ancient days temporary celibacy was expected of priests on duty in the temple and soldiers in the field, sex has been viewed positively in Judaism. With the exception of the Essenes, Jews have honored marriage and considered children a major goal of life (see Gen. 1:28 and 12:2).

The view of women’s roles is expanding quickly, though with argument. The most liberal strands of Judaism accept complete gender equality. The most conservative traditions, however, maintain the earlier restrictions. (Actual practice can fall somewhere in between.)

Traditional groups have argued that men and women are “equal but separate.” The great emphasis on family life has allowed women to be seen as the natural and best nurturers of children. Therefore, their main role has been homemaking. Men, by contrast, have been the ones who carry on study and public prayer. Men read Torah aloud in services, act as rabbis and cantors, and study Talmud and other religious texts.

This division of labor began to change in the last century. As women started to question their traditional image, barricades fell. In some traditions females can now become cantors and are ordained as rabbis.

Page 320Rejection of this change, however, is particularly strong among the Orthodox. In North America, where the Orthodox constitute a small percentage of the Jewish population, their stance is not so influential. But in Israel, where the Orthodox make up a larger percentage of the Jewish population, they play a major governmental role in defining rules for Sabbath observance, food preparation, and marriage. Currently attempts are being made to include non-Orthodox leaders and female rabbis in this official machinery, but so far these efforts have had little success. The Orthodox continue to argue that the role of the woman is to be the “good wife and wise mother.” They fear that women’s working outside the home will damage the warmth and effectiveness of traditional family life.

DIVISIONS WITHIN CONTEMPORARY JUDAISM

We find in Judaism both cultural differences and differences in the observance of traditional rules. Some commentators, as a result, talk not of “Judaism” but of “Judaisms.”

Culturally Based Divisions

The great ethnic diversity among Jews has resulted in a number of cultural divisions within Judaism. It is important to understand these divisions in order to appreciate the richness of Judaism, as well as the challenges that face Israel, where members of these groups have come to live together.

Sephardic Jews
 The name Sephardic comes from a mythic land of Sephar (or Sepharad), once thought to exist in the distant west of Israel and often identified with Spain. After the Roman victories over the Jews in Israel (70 and 135 ce), Jews emigrated from Israel and settled in lands far away. Southern Spain particularly became a center of flourishing Jewish life, especially under Muslim rule, but this ended with the expulsion of the Muslims and Jews by the Christian rulers in 1492 ce. Sephardic Jews (

Sephardim

) carried their language and culture to Morocco, Greece, Turkey, Egypt, and elsewhere in the Mediterranean region, as well as to Holland and England. The common language of the Sephardic Jews, termed Ladino in recognition of its ultimate derivation from Latin, was a type of Spanish mixed with Hebrew words and often written in Hebrew characters. Sephardic Jews lived in significant numbers in Morocco until recent times, when most emigrated to Israel. More than half of the Jews of Israel are of Sephardic background.

Ashkenazic Jews
 The name Ashkenazic comes from Ashkenaz, a descendant of Noah who settled in a distant northern land (see Gen. 10:3). The term 

Ashkenazim

 refers to those Jews who at one time lived in or came from central Europe. A very large population of Jews flourished for centuries in Poland, the Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, Germany, and Hungary; and before the Holocaust, three million Jews lived in Poland alone, where sometimes entire towns (called shtetls) were Jewish. The origin of Ashkenazic Judaism is unclear, but the most common opinion is that it arose when Jews migrated from France and other countries of western Europe to central Europe, after 1000 ce.

 

This Sephardic synagogue is located in Yangon, Myanmar, far from the area ordinarily associated with the diaspora and Jewish emigration. Although the synagogue has no rabbi today, it is maintained as if a rabbi will arrive at any moment.

Page 321The common language of central European Judaism was Yiddish (“Jewish”), a medieval form of German mixed with Hebrew words and written in Hebrew characters. While it flourished, Ashkenazic Judaism produced a rich culture of books, stories, songs, and theater in Yiddish. Ashkenazic culture virtually ended in Europe with the Holocaust, but Yiddish language and culture lived on in the United States, Canada, and Israel, and although they once seemed to be rapidly declining, there are recent signs of revival.

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Other Jewish Cultures
 A mysterious form of Judaism exists in Africa among the Falashas of Ethiopia. The Falashas practice a religion that accepts as canonical only the five books of the Torah—a sign that Ethiopian Judaism could be quite ancient. Judaism also established itself in a small community on the western coast of India, though today it is very small. Distinctive Jewish cultures also exist in Yemen, Iraq, and elsewhere.

Observance-Based Divisions

Within Judaism today, divisions also exist based on variations in religious observance. Although some Jews have held to traditional practices, other branches have developed out of the conviction that Judaism will stay vital only if it reinterprets its traditions. Four branches have emerged. We begin with the most traditional and move to the least traditional, although the branches did not emerge in this order.

Orthodox Judaism
 Traditional Judaism is often called 

Orthodox

 (

Figure 8.2

), but we might recall that until the Reform movement began, there was no need to give a special name to traditional Judaism, because all Jews were traditional in belief and practice. In a sense, Orthodox Judaism came into being only after the Reform began, and as a response to it. When we use the term Orthodox to refer to traditional Jews, we should also recognize the great variety among Orthodox Jews—particularly regarding social and political positions. Some, termed integrationists, seek to play a role in civil society, whereas others, called separatists, want to live their traditional lifestyle apart from society. Orthodox Jews also differ in their support for the state of Israel and the need for secular education.

FIGURE 8.2 Observance-based branches of Judaism.

With this said, we can describe Orthodoxy as a branch of Judaism committed to retaining traditional practice and belief. Some specific practices follow.

· Orthodox synagogues separate males and females, with females often sitting in an upstairs gallery.

· For a service to take place, there must be a quorum (minyan) of ten Jewish males.

· Services are conducted completely in Hebrew and led by male rabbis.

· Only males may celebrate the coming-of-age ceremony (bar mitzvah).

· Men at prayer use the talit and at weekday morning prayer use the tefillin.

· Males must keep their heads covered (with the skullcap, prayer shawl, or hat) as a reminder that God is above all.

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· Social roles (especially among ultra-Orthodox Jews) are strictly separate. Men are the breadwinners of the family, and women are responsible for running the household.

· The hair of the beard and in front of the ears is sometimes left uncut by males, in response to a command in the Torah (Lev. 19:27).

· Some Orthodox Jewish males (and particularly those affiliated with a specific Hasidic community) also wear a style of dress that developed in central Europe during the nineteenth century—a black hat and black coat (originally a beaver-skin hat and a black smock).

· Orthodox women who are married sometimes cover their heads with a kerchief when outside the home. The hair is covered as an expression of modesty, because a woman’s hair is considered to be seductive to men.

· The Orthodox household keeps strictly the traditional laws about diet.

· Orthodox Jews closely follow rules that prohibit any manual labor on the Sabbath. Cooking is not allowed, nor is driving a car, walking long distances, using a telephone, or even turning on an electric light.

Outsiders might consider the strictness of this lifestyle burdensome. But the Orthodox themselves—particularly those who have been raised as Orthodox—say that it is not difficult. They say that it is even fulfilling, because every waking moment is consciously devoted to the worship of God.

In continental Europe, Orthodox Judaism was nearly destroyed by the Nazis. In Israel, although only a tenth of the population can be considered traditionalist or Orthodox, that segment has considerable political power. In the United States, Orthodoxy constitutes a small minority among those who practice Judaism, but it has gained recognition and visibility particularly through the efforts of Hasidic communities.

Conservative Judaism

 For some Jews, the European movement for reform seemed too radical. 
Conservative Judaism
 traces its origins back to Germany, but it took strong root in the United States among Jews who desired moderate change that was coupled with a protection of beloved traditions, such as the use of Hebrew in services. Thus this branch of Judaism accepts change, but it uses study and discussion to guide change carefully. In the United States, almost half of all practicing Jews belong to this branch.

Reform Judaism
 Reform Judaism began in Germany out of a desire of some Jews to leave ghetto life completely and enter the mainstream of European culture. An early influence on this movement was Moses Mendelssohn (1729–1786), a major thinker and writer. Mendelssohn, although he was not a Reform Jew, helped shape Reform and Orthodox Judaism. He argued for religious tolerance, held that Judaism could be combined with civil culture, and embraced many of the ideals of the European Enlightenment of the eighteenth century—human dignity, equality, individual liberty, democracy, secular education, and the development of science. These ideals brought radical changes in the Jewish circles that espoused them, because in the name of reform, every traditional Jewish belief and practice could be questioned.

 

Young women help their friend light candles at her bat mitzvah celebration.

Page 324The result has been that in Reform synagogue worship, women and men do not sit separately, services are conducted in both the native language and Hebrew, choirs and organ music are common, and use of the talit and tefillin has either been dropped or made optional. Traditional ways of dressing, common among the Orthodox, have disappeared. Perhaps more important, equality is espoused for men and women. As a result, women may become rabbis, and girls have coming-of-age ceremonies in which each becomes a “daughter of the commandment” (bat mitzvah).

Reconstructionist Judaism
 This newest and smallest branch of Judaism grew out of the thought of its founder, Mordecai Kaplan (1881–1983), a Lithuanian who came to the United States as a child. Kaplan was influenced by the American ideals of democracy and practicality. As a leader in the Society for the Advancement of Judaism, Kaplan promoted a secular vision that encourages Jews to become familiar with as many elements of traditional Judaism as possible but that allows them the freedom of individual interpretation. Elements of belief that traditional Jews interpret literally (such as angels, prophecy, revealed law, and the Messiah) are taken as useful symbols by 

Reconstructionism

; even the notion of God is seen from a pragmatic viewpoint as “the Power which makes me follow ever higher ideals.”

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 Instead of searching for a minimum number of beliefs and practices that are the unchanging essence of Judaism, Reconstructionism sees Judaism as a changing cultural force, with many elements and manifestations. Judaism, in this view, is a whole civilization “which expresses itself … in literature, art, music, even cuisine. It never stands still but evolves.”

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Contemporary Issues

ECO-JUDAISM

B

ecause it emphasizes ethical living, Judaism has always had basic principles that address how humanity should appropriately relate to the environment. The Hebrew scriptures, however, were written long before caring for the global environment became a pressing issue. In an effort to update their faith’s vision of ecological wisdom, contemporary Jews concerned with the environment have revisited traditional biblical sources.

The Hebrew scriptures offer two stories of value for environmentalists. The first is the story of Adam and Eve, designated by God to protect the Garden of Eden. The second is the story of Noah and the Great Flood. By collecting pairs of animals in his ark, Noah saved these animals (and their offspring) from extinction. As such, the modern environmentalist could regard Adam and Eve and Noah as the first defenders of plant and animal species.

The Hebrew scriptures also provide important passages that show a divine hand in creation and preach respect for nature, especially for plants and animals. The Book of Genesis ends the tale of creation by saying that God saw that the universe he created was “very good” (Gen. 1:31). Psalm 19 begins by saying, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the earth declares his handiwork,” and Psalm 104 is a hymn praising the beauties of nature. Offering specific rules, the Book of Deuteronomy says that even in wartime, fruit trees must not be destroyed (Deut. 20:19). The Bible also shows concern for the sustainable use of land and animals for agriculture. In order for land to restore its minerals and nutrients, scripture recommends that it lie fallow once every seven years (Lev. 25:3–4), and animals are to be given rest on the Sabbath (Exod. 20:10).

Contemporary Jews express an increasing concern for the environment. The Sephardic and Ashkenazic chief rabbis of Israel have issued statements calling for greater respect for the land. Israel is working to protect the Jordan River and the Dead Sea. (The Jordan River is being rapidly drained by agriculture in Syria, Jordan, and Israel, and this in turn is leading to the depletion of the Dead Sea.) Several Israeli kibbutzim (communes) grow organic fruits and vegetables. In England and the United States, Jewish groups are working for the preservation of wetlands, the establishment of recycling centers, and the inclusion of environmental education in Jewish schools.

Borrowing biblical language, modern Israeli environmentalist Moshe Kornfeld has reinterpreted God’s commands for the modern world. According to Kornfeld, the Lord tells us today that

You shall reduce, reuse, and recycle with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all of your resources. And concern for the planet that I command you today shall be upon your hearts. And you shall teach sustainability to your children and speak of it frequently: when you sit in your energy-star-rated home, or when you ride your bike to work, when you go to sleep and when you wake up. And you shall have a non-disposable mug as a sign on your hand and an organic cotton hat to shade your eyes.

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JEWISH IDENTITY AND THE FUTURE OF JUDAISM

Judaism today is particularly concerned with two great questions, which are inescapably linked. What is essential to being a Jew? Will Judaism survive?

 

Only a few hundred feet separate Jerusalem’s Western Wall from the Dome of the Rock, one of Islam’s oldest buildings. Yet they are worlds apart. Resolving the intractable conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is a key to the future of Judaism.

Page 326Appreciating the cultural and religious divisions among Jews demonstrates how difficult it is today to define what makes a Jew. Three hundred years ago, the question of identity was nonexistent, because Jews were those people who practiced traditional Judaism. Now, however, Jewish identity is no longer so easy to ascertain. Although Orthodox Judaism holds that a person is born a Jew if his or her mother is Jewish, this does not address the matter of practice, and today there are many nonobservant Jews. A person may also convert to Judaism. However, some Orthodox rabbis have refused to accept conversions to non-Orthodox branches of Judaism. Judaism is certainly a religion, but there is great disagreement about the essentials of belief and practice, and many people consider themselves Jews even though they do not practice the religion.

Furthermore, any attempt to define a Jew as a person belonging to a single culture or ethnic group is virtually impossible. Jews are as ethnically diverse as they are ideologically diverse, a fact that becomes quite clear when one visits Israel. Although there is as yet no clear answer to the question of Jewish identity, the topic becomes more important as Jews increasingly intermarry with non-Jews.

The history of Judaism has been marked by displacement and disasters. In the past century, nearly a third of the world’s Jewish population was destroyed. Nevertheless, Jewish history has also been marked by the will to endure. The resilience of Judaism has in large part resided in its ability to adapt to changing circumstances and environments. This ability suggests that in the decades ahead, Judaism will again take new forms and gain new life.

Page 327

Reading TENDING THE GARDEN

The biblical story of creation includes the making of a garden, with Adam and Eve as the first gardeners.

Then the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. And the Lord God planted a garden eastward, in Eden; and there He put the man whom He had formed. And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying: “Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” And the LORD God said: “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a help meet for him.” And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto the man to see what he would call them; and whatsoever the man would call every living creature, that was to be the name thereof. And the man gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found a help meet for him. And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the place with flesh instead thereof. And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from the man, made He a woman, and brought her unto the man. And the man said: “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh. (Gen 2: 7–9, 15–24)

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TEST YOURSELF

1. The destruction of the Second Temple of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 ce brought about the end of the ___________ ceremonial religion of Israel.

a. temple-based

b. polytheistic

c. rabbinical

d. patriarchal

2. The Hebrew Bible is divided into three sections: ___________.

a. Rig, Yajur, Atharva

b. Adam, Eve, Noah

c. Genesis, Exodus, Numbers

d. Torah, Nevi’im, Ketuvim

3. ___________ is the first Hebrew patriarch. God entered into a solemn covenant with him, which involved a promise of land, protection, and descendants.

a. Abraham

b. Noah

c. Isaiah

d. Genesis

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4. In a story from Genesis, Jacob wrestles all night long with a mysterious stranger—God or God’s Angel. At dawn, the fight is over, and Jacob receives from the stranger a new name, ___________, which means “wrestles with God.”

a. Judah

b. Israel

c. Joseph

d. Noah

5. In Hebrew, the name for God, usually associated with the verb hayah (“to be”), is commonly written ___________.

a. Baal

b. Adonai

c. Yahweh

d. Adam

6. The Babylonian ___________ contains legal material and nonlegal anecdotes and tales.

a. Ketuvim

b. Talmud

c. Torah

d. Testament

7. In eighteenth-century central Europe, Jewish traditionalism expressed itself in both Talmudic scholarship and the devotional movement ___________ (“devotion,” “piety”).

a. Hasidism

b. Sephardim

c. Conservative Judaism

d. Essene

8. By the end of World War II, an estimated six million Jews had been killed. This immense loss is called the ___________ (Greek: “completely burned”) or Shoah (Hebrew: “extermination”).

a. Diaspora

b. Midrash

c. Holocaust

d. Purim

9. Traditional Judaism is often called ___________ Judaism.

a. Reform

b. Orthodox

c. Reconstructionist

d. Sephardic

10. ___________, the newest and smallest branch of Judaism, grew out of the thought of its founder, Mordecai Kaplan.

a. Reconstructionist Judaism

b. Reform Judaism

c. Conservative Judaism

d. Kabbalah

11. Consider the following statement: The concept that seems to be emphasized most strongly throughout the Hebrew Bible is that God wants his followers to devote themselves to him and him alone. Using instances from the Hebrew Bible stories discussed in this chapter, do you agree or disagree with this statement? If you disagree, what do you think is the most strongly emphasized concept in the Hebrew Bible?

12. Of the many differences between Orthodox and Reform Judaism, which two do you think would cause the strongest disagreement between these branches? Using examples from the chapter, explain why you think these differences cause so much disagreement.