1.1 From Abraham To The Exile
Last modified 07/01/2008
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One of the most significant discoveries of modern historiography has been that
of the Axial Age, the phase of synchronous emergence occurring in the time-frame
from ca. -900 to -400 in a broad spectrum across Eurasia. This quiet pattern of
correlated data has forced us to reexamine what we mean by the dynamics of
history. Here we have immediately the major clue to unraveling the enigma of the
Old Testament. The history of Israel/Judah takes its place at once as one of the
principal zones of emergence in that pattern of synchronicity. But just at this
point we can become confused, in part because of the instant misinterpretation
foisted on the data pointed to by Karl Jaspers. The various attempts to recast
religious myth in Axial language has nearly frittered the point intuited by
Jaspers. The first step required is to find the historical basis, given by archaeology for the facts recorded in the bible. Works such as The Bible Unearthed summarize much of that research, although at the very end it seems to compromise, perhaps out of fear, with a religious interpretation. The result in broad strokes is to see the Old Testament is really in two pieces: the histories of Israel/Judah and the sagas of the prior period leading up to that second period. The figures of Abraham, Moses, and the Exodus simply lack the sound basis in fact that the increasingly historicizing 'Israel' epic suggests. What is really portrayed is relatively simple, and almost exactly analogous to what we see in Greek history. A relatively factual history with an epic history stuck onto the beginning. In both cases it almost seems as if the emergence of a new form of literature is the main event, a legacy. In both cases master epics appear as if out of the blue and almost like clockwork, in both cases at a level of quality as yet unseen in history. The overall picture is clear. In an area of Canaan, in the shadow of Egypt (and Mesopotamia) a series of kingdoms rise and fall, and even as this series of kingdoms undergoes its fate in the sphere of imperialist empires, a new form of monotheism emerges armed with a remarkable literature. Then a distinct breaking point occurs at the period of the Exile and the process is complete. Note then the two sections of the tale, beginning with epic saga, followed by the historical chronicle (such as it is) of the Canaanite kingdoms. This sets up the data perfectly for our eonic analysis. The figures of Abraham and Moses, the Exodus, etc, in the earlier period are of dubious historical status, but one way or the other do not enter into the analysis of what we see as the core historical era. Note the exact resemblance to the Greek case. Achilles and Agamemnon may have some historical basis but basically the epic about them is a 'history' tacked onto the actual history of Archaic Greece. |
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