In the Beginning was the Word
It is the Bible from where we learn that, "In the beginning was the word, and Word was with God, and the Word was God". There was not a language, yet, because it would be absurd to think that God first invented a language and, only afterward, he created light, earth and water, plants, animals, all the others and finally Adam and nobody to talk with. Here, the meaning of "word" is "project". We may suppose that God had in mind a project. It is interesting that, in other languages, instead of word, they use something similar with the English for "verb". They suggest the idea of action. However, before any action, it must be an intention, which I named here "project". Any project, we know, needs some amendments, as it could not be perfect, not even God conceived it. The proof is to be found in the Bible as well, where one describes more situations when God himself observed that, either his project might be improved, or something is not all right with it and he must operate some modifications. Thus, even since the beginning, we learn that "God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness". There are many phrases like this.
Even after he created Adam, thinking, "it is not good that the man should be alone", God gave him a woman, albeit he must break his best work for extracting a rib from it. The Deluge, sending his son on the earth, are "manoeuvre for rectifying the trajectory", as well. After the Deluge, he rebuilt the whole humanity in a new tree. Therefore, he went forward step by step with his project, not having a complete imagine of the finished product for the beginning.
A first conclusion ensuing here is the lack of any finality. The initial project is to be improved ceaseless, probably still today.
A second conclusion is that such revisions will occur in the future and they will be even more radical.
This is why, the church is wrong every time it clings to some anachronistic ideas or situations.
I started from the idea that, at the beginning, it was the Word. Is it important? It is! Not the Word as it is and not because it was at the beginning, but because the Bible says it is so. The Bible is our fundamental book, which has led us during the last years (several thousands), no matter if we are or not believers. We cannot neglect this book, because it means we would neglect ourselves. We are the product of our history and our history was dependent on religion, no matter whether we like it or not. Could it be different? Certainly, not! With another fundamental book, we should become somebody different. Why? Let us see!
People act, in a great measure, based on habitudes acquired early their childhood and it depends on their education. By education, I do not mean the knowledge about Shakespeare or the structure of the atoms, but those activities with which they are accustom to, because they were taught in this way, especially by parents. A man does not think every time what would be the sagest proceeding. He acts as he has gotten use to it, and it come from the tradition. Therefore, he is a product of tradition. In the past, religion was that what had the most important role in setting up the tradition. The great majority of people keep up the rules of cohabitation, because religion taught them so, because any believer proceeds in this way. Dead persons are entombed, because it is Christianly to do that way, a Christian will say, even if they are buried throughout the world, no matter of religion, from sanitarian reasons.
We must not expect that priests think in all religious dogmas, but we expect that they be good educators in the idea of keeping common persons with the most useful traditions, according to that epoch. We could say they are even good pedagogues, particularly if we have in view that first schools came into existence beside the churches and monasteries.
I mentioned the Deluge. It exists in all religions, no matter if they recognize God or not. It is true, between them, there are small differences of interpretation. Well, just these "small" differences make the distinction between different life philosophies staying at the base of every social construction. And not only between religions, but also inside of the same religion.
The difference may go from the assertion of one idea to the assertion of the opposite one, which unfortunately is valuable even inside Christianity. Which were initial principles of Christianity and which were those practised by Catholic Church during Middle Ages and even after it? For analysing them, we should set up what we understand Christianity is, obviously beyond the level of stories. This is not my objective at this moment and, supposing the reader understands to what I refer, I will point out several main ideas, for getting beyond this phase. The Deluge was an example.
The question is "how was it possible to have so many differences?" A little history, even just a little, would be necessary for understanding the evolution, but not here. For the moment, we shall observe that, in order to attain its aims, the church used a huge propagandistic machinery. During the Middle Age, one almost confuses it with what we name today as culture. Painting, philosophy, architecture, everything has religious subjects and aim the parishioners’ indoctrination toward obedient, sheepish high prelates’ servant.
Not keeping account by the evolution of the society, by the development of knowledge, in time, any sheep realizes more and more that aims are false. Strong people took their fortune in their own mains. The Faustic European culture arose in this way. Weak-willed ones still need religion. For both of them, a turning point is around the corner. Let us hope that it will not be as radical as a deluge. Anyway, the amplitude of change is in our hands, because a small correction made in time is more efficient than a great forced one, after a catastrophe.
In fact, at the beginning, the Chaos was, namely something without form, therefore without limits, something in which everything was possible and in which – just because it – nothing important occurs. But, God came! He first divided the light from the darkness. Therefore, he traced a limit between them. Up till here, he did not create, but delimitate. And so, he did with earth, waters and so on. They do not say in the Bible or anywhere else that someone would create the Chaos. (It seems that we are going to create it.) In all religions, Chaos existed before anything. The All-creator is improperly named so, as he did not create, but separated. Maybe more correct would be to say he organized, if this word would not be almost compromised by too many human activities wrongly organized. Tracing a line of demarcation between earth and heaven, the divinity created two restrictions: the earth could not be heaven and heaven could not be earth, any longer. And he did not stop here. Going on, he imposed limits after limits, restrictions after restrictions, organized materiel in entities odder and odder, making small monsters, among which we are, human beings, obliged to fight with everything around us, even between us, because the limits imposed by the creator became more and more stifling.
At this point, an interesting virus appeared; we do not want to dissolve our limits. On the contrary, as the limits give our identity, we love them and want to push them as far as we can, over the neighbour’s ones, and in his detriment. As this idea belongs to him too, our facing is ready.
In primitive societies, the link man–divinity was one of a mercantile sort, something like if you give to me, I will give to you. "Make to rain and I make an oblation". Morality did not have a religious character. It belongs to people, as a summation of behaviour rules, imposed by cohabitation between people first and less by their rapport with the divinity. The shamans appeared just for acting as go-between between people and divinities. They did not belong to divinities, but pretended to be able to communicate with them.
In Christian religion, divinity has the initiative and send messages to people, messages from which they learn how to comport in order to please the divinity. The relationship between man-divinity is no longer one of small-agreement, you give to me – I give to you, but an authoritarian one. The moral rule comes from God, who pretend and does not haggle in bargain. The mediator is no longer a shaman, but the priest.
In oriental religions, the individual comes from an unchangeable Universe and, after a smaller or greater number of reincarnations comes back to the Universe. Humanity is only a summation of solitary individuals, incidentally living together. In Judaism and Christianity, humanity has a history, beginning with the conversation between Eve and devil and finishing with the Last Judgement. Here, the individual does not matter, but the humanity, in finality will happen simultaneously for all the people, because we inherited Eve’s sin.
As regards Christianity, we observed that it did not appear as suddenly and unexpectedly as bigots like to think. Most philosophers, even some theologians, beginning with St. Augustine, recognize in Plato a precursor of Christianity. M. Louis considers Plato as "the first systematic theologians". Still, he says: "Plato’s theology is not the same with nowadays theology. Plato makes only dialectical speculations with phenomena and people’s way of life. If, from time to time, his philosophical syllogisms know the divinity, it is only a result of the thinking system and not a precise aim. Plato analyzes the idea of God. Also, he deal with the relations between an earth-born and God. But Plato, when speaks about divinity, as peak of the idea, he does not refer to God as being of creed, and often confound it with all-embracing idea of Well. Plato’s religion is not just a belief, but an invitation toward the worship… For Plato, it was more an invitation to dialog, a talk on a topic of high elevation between educated Greeks, a searching of truth about the unknown, when the mind has to choose between metaphysics and materialism… From here, probably, for some searchers one created the confusion that Plato deals with divinity."
Greek mythology, full of contradictory ideas, proving Geeks’ pleasure of philosophizing, contains many Christian ideas, including that of democracy. Yes, democracy is a Christian idea as well: if all people are God’s children, they are equal in his face, then they are equal with each other. Whether the equality cannot be implemented immediately on the earth, then we must be content with the idea that, at least in Paradise, it exists and, maybe, sometime it will come on the earth.
Anyway, the idea of democracy certainly belonged to Greeks, first. They did not create a history, yet, in the sense of something with beginning and necessary end. To them, the Eternal Returning Myth was in the centre of their philosophy. For them, the substance is finite, while time is infinite. Consequently, the same forms will be reproduced after a time, no matter how long it takes. Natural cycles as if day-night, winter-summer etc. emphasized this philosophy. Nietzsche realized this idea too. Amusing enough is that he thought this discovery belonged to him.
Because we entered a little mythology, I allow a small comparison between those two variants of the Deluge: mythological one and biblical one. In mythological variant, the survivors of the Deluge were Deucalion and his wife, Pyrrha. After water's withdrawal, the goddess Themis advised him that, while they will go down from the mountain, to throw back in their trace all the stones they found in the way, as stones symbolize the bones of their great grandmother, Gaea, who is the earth itself. From every stone, immediately, a man or a woman rose. Consequently, there are two categories of people: the natural heirs of Deucalion and those born from the stones. It was natural to think so in a slave society, where democracy is only for the first category. Deucalion’s first son was Hellen and he is considered Greeks’ ancestor (Hellenes)
In the biblical version, the Deluge has not such interpretations; instead, Noah’s descendants, organized in familial clans, want to overrule the world. The idea of ownership is fundamental, and hereditary monarchy became the characteristic type of social organization for European Middle Eve. Of course, not the Deluge induced the theory, but inversely, the theory invoked the Deluge as doctrinal justification. (By the way, as anywhere a deluge appears as a solution for purification of the society, what would today’s society look like after a new deluge?)
Prometheus, the one who is so much eulogised today, did not have the same resonance in the old Greek world, and was not seen merely as a positive hero, but only as a subject for discussions, his indiscipline face to Zeus being his characteristic feature. Here is what Zeus says to Prometheus: "You gave to the people only the ecstasy of victory. Do they know what to do with fire until you teach them? Some will, but those are few. And they will become despots for those who do not know and will become unaware slaves. You have given the fire to several for enlightening the others. I would want to give it to all the people. Of course, you wanted it too, but your impetuous and unabated temper did not let you to do the work with moderation and embroiled me." Zeus is a deity of progress, not one of the revolutions. "People did not receive progress from you, but protest instead. They have not the disquietude of tomorrow. Their mind was filled only with hatred for the boss". (How well would have been if the hanger-on of communism had read a little mythology!) Along with Prometheus a kernel of revolt appears against too stern rules and despotic lord. The wish for change is obvious, and the merciful and righteous God is the expected solution. And he has come! We realize now that the later apocalyptic God was the reaction of some priests for which the old doctrine of a punitive divinity, maybe just idols, was better. They wanted only the power. What would be the use of a wise one?
Christianity began as a religion of poor people. It is clear that it was embezzled later by politicians associated with priests. Now, people want the religion returned, but it must be cleaned up of the impurities. I do not plead for returning to biblical precepts and not at least for a certain religion, but for a reasonable one; and I do not pled, but only think that it will come naturally.
Christianity brings an innovation. Unlike oriental faiths, where the Universe is stable and life is conceived in an endless cycle, in Christianity, mankind has a beginning and, of course, an end. The idea of singleness has great moral implications. All people will go in front of the God in the Day of Judgement. In this way, people’s lives have a sense of togetherness. They are no longer expected to have a miserable life forever. From some passive, apathetic persons, they have become active people. It could explain the progress of Europe in the good sense but their bad deeds too (wars, colonial conquest, etc.). Is the Christian morale a good one? We can discuss it.
In oriental faith, the salvation is individual. Consequently, a good believer insulates himself from the society; he lives in seclusion. The religion tells him not to make bad acts, but not to make good ones. Christianity did it. From this reason, Christian believers live together, as one could not be good to himself. He needs a receiver for his kindness.
Judaism and Christianity introduced the history: there was a beginning, and will be an end. Everything we do happens within this period, and we do it together. We are not some individuals living temporary in an infinite Universe, like in Hinduism. We live together in a limited period. Maybe we should think more about it. Man becomes man but by the community's virtues (Socrates).
Pray or meditation? The word 'meditation' does not have sense in Christian doctrine. It is peculiar for oriental faiths where people meditate to purifying himself for a future life. A Christian does not meditate but prays. During his prayer, he implores God to help him. People without much will, lazybones, or dishearten implore more often God's help. Trustworthy people, instead, usually forget God, thinking that they succeed by themselves. They remember him only before an important but uncertain trial. Then, they ask God’s help to overcome the moment, or to conquer an enemy, even if this battle is contrary to the Christian doctrine. It makes me to think that our emotional mood needs the faith. But is it just what God asks us to do? Of course, not! This is only priests’ desire.
A large part of the Old Testament is history: the history of Jewish people. The modern historians and archaeological diggings have come to light that many facts reported in the book were true. As a matter of fact, most part of the Old Testament, particularly its beginning, was written during the exile of Jewish in Babylon, when - feeling that they are lost - thought that it would be a pity if nobody learns about their history and life. Many times, authors exaggerated facts, embellished or described them in the form of fiction, as they, the authors, were writers and mostly priests. The Bible is a book of wisdom as well. Wisdom, what a great word! The all of us want to be wise persons, but nobody knows whether he really is. Whatever their opinion about themselves would have been, the authors of the Bible were some scholars of those times, and involved themselves as spiritual leaders. Some paragraphs were entirely written in a metaphoric style, just for sending a message. These made the freest interpretations possible.
The Bible itself is not homogenous. Some ideas are in contradiction with other ideas, if you read different chapters. We may have understanding for its authors. They had to change some old ideas with other new ones. As it usually happens, they could not do it quickly and with accuracy. Even we can not do it. Some reminiscences from older mentality remain. Besides, the Bible was written by more than one author, in different periods. We can recognize the way in which some ideas progressed in the authors' conception.
This idea is true even if you want to believe that the Bible was written under the divine inspiration. You may accept that God changed his ideas, or he has a plan and, from time to time, gives us lessons accordingly to our evolution or, even better, both of them.
As all religions have a cosmogony, the priests tried to persuade us that Bible has one as well. I suppose that it was not conceived as a cosmogony, but a metaphor full of teachings, of moral consequences, in this way being a useful educational guide. Metaphor of what? Of an early period from their history! From it, the priests made a cosmogony, which - due to its naivety - has compromised the Christian religion entirely. Of course, God could not be like us. He should help us more if he is almighty. Then who was he for the Jewish people? Let us read the Bible!
In Genesis 2.7, it is said that "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground...". Not from mud, clay, or simple earth? It is not mentioned that he would use water. I think it had to be difficult to mould in dust. Is this a mistake, or an accidental expression? Not at all! From the next paragraph we learn that "And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed." Therefore, Eden has points of the compass. Interesting! From the paragraphs 10 to 14, we learn that "a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads". Their names are Pison, Gihon, Hiddekel (Tigris) and Euphrates. We cannot help thinking that Eden is the old Sumer and what the Sumerian civilisation means for old times. Yes, Summer used to be a pleasing and charming place in comparison with the surrounding areas, namely exact what this word means in their language. God probably was a Sumerian king, who accepted a Jewish tribe on his territory for different works. This one seems to have been the best period from the Jews history. It was that king was God for them, their father, because he made them men. They were like dust and became like the Sumerians. This is the correct meaning when one says that God made man like him, and not that a divinity could look like us. As the Jews did not keep the arrangement and aimed higher than it had been allowed to them (testing from the tree of knowledge), the king expulsed them. More than that, God observing the sin committed by Adam and Eve, declared "… the man is become as one of us . . ." (Genesis 322). Consequently, God was not alone. He did not speak that man would be "like me", but "like us". He spoke in the name of the leadership of Sumer and accuses the Jews that exceeded their rights as employees, infiltrating themselves among the employers. We see now why in the whole history recorded in Bible, with all its details, Sumer does not appear at all. That's so because it was the beginning. It was the heaven. In the whole of their history, the Jews do nothing else but beg God's pardon, hoping to be accepted again in Eden's garden.
The idea of an ancestral sin is an ancestral one itself. Most old religions contain it. The abandonment of this idea is just one of the most important idea that Christianity brought. Jesus died for it, consequently the problem is solved, and the topic is closed. To insist on this point means not to understand what Christianity really is. We are not forced to make sacrifice for imaginary reasons. Instead, we are responsible for our mistakes. Peter says: "... your sins may be forgiven" (Acts 2:38). Yours and not some ancestral ones! Following Christ's way, we tell ourselves not to make other mistakes. Jesus Christ gave us the dignity to stand right, be responsible.
Yes, God is forgiving; he always gives us a second chance, but, for it, we must repent and promise (to ourselves firstly) not to fall again in the mistakes, but to follow God's way. How well we did it is another question.
One day, an American friend asked me whether I believe that Jesus is alive. I avoided the answer then, because the question must be analysed before answering. We first need to know if he imagines a Jesus like a man who lives somewhere and looks at us, or Jesus as a symbol for the entire Christian theology. In the first hypothesis, I am not the man to chat over this subject, but, in the second one, the subject is quite inciting. For those who look at religion as a myth - true or false - the question is an essential one, maybe the most. It is not my case. I remember some years ago, it was in fashion to question whether Shakespeare was a man, or an enterprise, dealing with books, a publishing house in our terms. As I am not a historian, the question is not interesting from my point of view. I am interested in Shakespeare's works and not in his life. It was Schumann who wrote that only stupid musical critics speak about the composer, instead of his works. Another example, maybe just clearer, is Marxism. It is not important at all if Marx was a great scholar, a tiny one. Just that he existed at all. Instead, Marxism marked the social and political life almost the entire XX century. It is the same with writers and, generally, with the creators from any other field, including Christianity. Yes, I am interested in Christianity, but not whether Jesus is alive or not.
Maybe he is alive, or maybe not. Anyway, what is important is what he said to us. His message matters! Speaking about his life, it counts as a message too, because he used it as an example, as a way to convey his message to us.
Consequently, the question of the most importance is: what is Christianity? Or, more exactly, what is the Christian theology? It is difficult to answer at this question seriously, and probably people will never write enough books on this topic. Instead, they wrote lots of books with propagandistic purposes, to provide the common people a convenient behaviour, accordingly to priests' interests. The Bible was used intensely and misinterpreted, which makes things more complicated, because any different idea is immediately rejected, just because it is different. Any religion is conservative.
Many times, maybe most times, the priests themselves did not understand the Christian message, or more probably did not want to understand. Why? Because their interest was not to guide people, to teach them, but to keep them at their disposal! That's why their recommendations sometimes were just in opposition to those of the Christian teaching. Often they embraced the older ideas, the pre-Christian ones, because such ideas are more useful and according to priest's interests. Fear and humility are among their spurs. They changed the word 'idols' with 'God' but kept the same attitude.
Christianity gave us the humanism and the dignity, not the lack of them. As for the Apocalypse, this is a monument of non-Christianity.
Also, you must view that people from throughout the world are God's children, and - if they are of different religions - this is so because God wants it so. Consequently, there are not bad or right religions, but different God's projects.
If we are as we are, there are two variants:
• This is God's will. (Consequently, we do not worry; if he wants us nitwits, we are on the right way.)
• We are out of God's control. (It would be dangerous. No matter what or who God would be, if we perceive our world as a part of a whole organism, any part does not exist independently; it rapidly decays.
Anyway, if God has put a curtain between he and us, we should respect his will, and not try to imagine all kind of things occurring beyond the curtain. God shows himself to every one of us according to our imagination and understanding.
Coming back to the Bible, for me, it is an important book, maybe the most important, but I always read it wondering myself what was the genuine message of the authors, either under the divine inspiration or not.
But, what is Christianity? To understand it, we have to look around, especially in the past. Thinking to the past, we must begin with the Old Testament, whence we learn about God in opposition with idols. It was a good step, but it was not the first at all. Before it, Jewish people conceived a God only for their nation, and made from Judaism a national religion. This was good for them, but not for the others. Why they did this way it is accountable. We can talk about it, but this is their problem, and maybe their mistake. Christianity extended the concept of a God for all the nations and turned their beliefs to divinity from fear to love. The idols used to be pitiless and pretending immolation in order to gain their goodwill, while God is benevolent, a benefactor and does not want immolation. He wants for us only to have decent behaviour, because we are his children, and he is the Father.
But changing the God of Israel people into a universal divinity, the Christians turned the God into a new idol. The only difference is that God is not materialised into an object or a being. As for God's kindliness, even if it is frequently asserted, the Bible contains many more paragraphs destined to terrify man, to implant in his soul the fear of a merciless final judgement of God. The priests are guilty for all these. It is understandable too, because they preferred the old and verified method of fear in order to keep the people under their control. That's why we must discern between the genuine good intentions and the result, marked by some people's subsequent interest.
But the priests are not guilty only for these. Their mistakes provoked all kind of schisms, ending with all the sects that appeared in our time like the mushrooms after the rain. Almost all the people I talked with - belonging to no matter which sect - used to be ignorant enough not only concerning the religion, but also in history and all-round education, generally.
Is Jesus alive or not? The question comes again in my mind, even if I said that it is not so important. Some people ask if Jesus really existed as a human being. Roman documents do not mention him at all, or we know that in Roman Empire they used to record in official reports every remarkable event. Even this question is not so important, because what followed was what really matters - namely Christianity – and with its priests as well. Jesus was not the Messiah expected by Jesus people (although Christos means messiah in Greek language) but surely he was the prophet of Christianity, which begins with him and found in his life its philosophy and morale. What really matters is just this philosophy and morale.
The idea of a good divinity was not just new. The Greeks advanced it a long time ago, and it would have been impossible for the Jewish to not knowing about it. The Apostle Paul himself was a Jew from Greece at that time (Tars in nowadays Turkey), and it was he who first made great efforts in his epistles to the Romans in showing that God is for all the people, not only for Jews. As for a good-hearted divinity, the Greek philosophers prepared people for it. If we study attentively the Mythology, beyond the stories, we shall find a humanist doctrine. Gods used to be like people, with human qualities and defects. They were only more powerful. In the meantime, some Greek philosophers had risen against the gods' exaggerate power, wanting a more kind-hearted divinity. So was Aeschylus in his "Prometheus (Bound, Unbound and Fire-Bringer" and "Oresteia", and many others, long before Jesus Christ. The idea of a loving-people divinity used to be already present. "For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom". It is not me who say this. It is written in 1 Corinthians 1:22.
Jesus was a prophet because he conveyed ideas from the philosophers to the common people. For this purpose he gave his life. This is generally a prophet:
someone able to understand philosophy, and able as well to communicate with people, which common philosophers cannot. Socrates had already made the supreme sacrifice for his ideas. He was aware that only through his death, his ideas would survive; and he accepted to drink the cup with hemlock.
It is true, Jesus Christ was a Jew from Palestine, but he was only the spark that lit the fire. Christianity appears as a religion of poor people giving them a hope. Not far from the Palestine, Greece used to be under the Romans occupation too. It is not accidental that the apostle Paul was from Greece. Later on, the Jews kept the Judaic faith, while the Greeks adopted Christ's religion immediately. After Jesus, Christianity developed world wide, firstly in Roman Empire.
Maybe a part of the Bible was written under the divine inspirations, but surely not entirely. It is full of priests' wishes and ideas - some of them belonging to the Jews'. There were also many other writings. What was accepted to be "The Bible" is a selection of what some priests considered being opportune. As any human deed, it could be non-perfect. This is one more reason to read the Bible in an intelligent way.
Children know a lot about the Bible. But, in time, as they grow up, their faith diminishes. First, a child learns that Father Christmas, he who - after a thrilling waiting - gives him presents, and fills his soul with joy, he, Father Christm