1.2 An Axial Context
Last modified 07/01/2008
| It is the observation of the place of the core Old Testament history in the context of the Axial Age that unlocks the riddle (even as it creates a mystery of another kind) of what we see in the history of 'Israel'. Even as 'Israel' is emerging, so are a whole series of analogous cultural areas undergoing a simultaneous emergentism. In China, in India, in Greece/Rome, we see a whole series of very sudden take off points that within a few centuries will transform an older era of earlier civilization beyond recognition. On the one hand, the 'Israel' phenomenon resembles that of Greece, on the other that of India, where another world religion will appear in parallel to the 'core monotheism' that will differentiate in the era to come into several religions. We can see the reason for our division of the Old Testament into two pieces. The core history of 'Israel' corresponds to the Axial interval, almost exactly, and we can see that, almost on schedule, the period after the Exile corresponds to the waning of that interval, and the consolidation of the Biblical corpus. | ||
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