Relevancy22: Contemporary Process Christianity: Post-Evangelic Topics and Theology: Feb 23, 2024

A mosaic of symbols of the 12 tribes of ancient Israel is displayed in the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem, Israel, Dec. 29, 2022. BEATA ZAWRZEL/NURPHOTO VIA GETTY IMAGES

The history of ancient Israel and Judah begins in the Southern Levant during the Late Bronze Age and early Iron Age. The earliest known reference to "Israel" as a people or tribal confederation is in the Merneptah Stele, an inscription from ancient Egypt that dates to about 1208 BCE, but the people group may be older. - Wikipedia

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Below is a rough outline of the ancient historical cultures I hope to explore through this coming year. Within each categorical section there are large gaps yet to be completed. Many articles have already been completed and are linked while many others have yet to be written.

I began this project over a year ago beginning in the Fall of 2022 when asking the question, "What came before the book of Genesis?" Or, "What is the Evolutionary History of Man, Religion, and God Before It Became Legendary in the Hebrew Bible?"

These are not normal questions a Christian would ask... but I think we must ask these broad questions to understand how the Christian God we worship came to be with humanity's dynamic journey of self-discovery which began so many eons ago.

Which also means that this same Hebraic/Christian God we claim to know by our words and actions, art and outcomes, will continue to have a dynamic relationship with creation and humanity in the eons ahead. Do we then fixate on the God of the ancients as acclaimed? Or, are we allowed to modify or reform our existential journey against God's epistemological sooth-sayers by undoing so much bad theology with better, more humane, God-filled theology?

Let Us Build New Reformational Societies of Humanitarian Good Will

Jesus said, "By their works you shall know them." The Protestant Reformers thought the same when re-envisioning the Catholic Churches appraisement of the Hebraic and Christian bibles. But by the Reformers Christianly journey I am not so sure their legacy of reform has been helpful based on its bloody, oppressive history vouchsafing a God of oppressive duty and worship.

Perhaps then, we are due for another, more loving Spirit-filled Reformation than the Protestant one begun in the 1600's? If so, it must be more loving, kind, and respectful of other's beliefs and cultures, race and skin color. To be justly co-operative, and importantly, non-assimilating within polyplural settings.

This movement must also take into account what it would mean to build towards ecologically just and fair societies which are not indifferent to the requisite and necessary social justices required to be met within it's ecologically-centered civilizations.

Israel's Cultural Background Did Not Happen in a Vacuum

Let us begin by setting an arbitrary date of 2500 BC within the Babylonian Kingdom from whose Semitic influence it so deeply influenced Israel's early civil and religious history before being subsequently affected by the enslaving Egyptian and pagan Canaanite cultures.

During this time, as Israel grew to become an ancient kingdom it required the requisite amount of time to develop it's own national origin from it's humble tribal beginnings. One which could admit and administer civil and religious laws while transitioning from a polytheistic society to one acclaiming monotheistic values.

All this occurred over 1600 years beginning with Israel's ForeFather and Senior Patriarch, Abram/Abraham, through whom 12 tribes resulted, which tribes were later enslaved by Egypt, then escaped to wandered the many tractless wildernesses of the Levant giving tribal Israel time to organize itself under Moses' civil and religious laws (e.g., the 10 Commandments).

After 40 years Israel entered the land of Canaan to establish it's presence and a rudimentary form of monarchy of some years before splitting in two to form a pagan, polytheistic Northern Kingdom, in 900 BC from ten of it's tribes. And, a sacramental, monotheistic Southern Kingdom, in 850 BC from it's remaining two tribes, Judah and Benjamin.

We should also be aware that Israel collected it's oral traditions which we know as the narratives and laws from Old Testament texts: it's Torah, Writings, and Prophets. These oral traditions were gathered together between 700BC to 300BC when Israel's ten northern tribes were exiled from the Land by Assyria (between 732 - 722 BC); and later it's two southern tribes under Babylon's rule (exile dates: 598/597, 587, and 582 BC). When returning from exile in 539 BC at the largesse of Persia under Cyrus the Great, the Southern kingdom constructed a Second Temple out of the ruins of the former Solomaic Temple under Ezra's guidance in 537 BC.

Moreover, by Israel gaving attention to its religious history it completed it's Hebraic Bible, a Canon testifying to it's God YHWH. As such, (1a) parts of the Hebrew Bible first section, the Torah (the first five books of the Bible), was written beginning in the 10th century BC with (1b) the final redaction and canonization of the Torah most likely occuring during the Babylonian Exile (6th–5th century BCE). The rest of the Hebrew Bible in its (2) Writings and (3) Prophets was complete by 100 BC but not Canonized until at the Council of Jamnia sometime in the first century AD in response to Christianity.

The Violent History of the Church

In short, Israel has had a long history which Jewish-Christians recognized and placed alongside their own Christian Bible with the New Testament. Through the millenia the early church expanded globally and we now have a deep and concerning heritage to which triumph and terror have occurred since Christianity's earliest persecutions - first, at the hands of Israel's priests, and then at the hands of Rome.

Some years later, under Emperor Constatine in 312-313 AD, the fourth century church launched it's own state-assisted attacks upon pagan Europe and the Islamic Middle East. Then, through the centuries ahead, the church turned its attention to it's own membership and oppressed, tortured, and murdered fellow Catholics and Protestants alike forgetting it's own previous history of oppression and enslavement. Added to these inane acts of the Western church, countries across Europe and in America itself, experienced the Western Christian church's religious colonialization of African tribes; wars against Spain and Italy; and the decimation of the native tribes of America. This has been a significant part of the Christian church's legacy in sharing what was suppose to be the good news in Christ Jesus to the world.

Let Us Start Anew

And so, perhaps its time to end the church's ruinous campaigns of faith and worship upon the unfaithful and pagan and begin considering all men and women as beloved of God and requiring the utmost of respect and kindness. Christianity's many past oppressive pagan forms must end and a new era of Christian faith commence as a loving testimony to a loving - and not Warrior - Godhead.

So let's begin by looking at the history of humanity both inside and outside the bible ... of which Christians seem to know very little of God's earlier worlds of divine presence, sustainability, and blessing. Let's look beyond Israel's history to the more ancient histories of Semitic and non-Semitic human civilizations throughout the Fertile Crescent, the Levant, and all the way back into Egypt and East Africa where mankind (sic, homo sapiens) was first birthed 300,000 years ago.

R.E. Slater

February 23, 2024

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Index - The History of Ancient Humanity

by R.E. Slater

Table of Contents