Video: The History of God
1. When did religion enter into the human story?
Over 100 thousand years ago
2. What kinds of questions did religion try to answer for human beings?
What happens after we die? who are we? Why is life filled with suffering/
What causes weather?
Why am I here?
3. What is the nature of the gods in the pagan world? How are they limited? What made polytheism so attractive to ancient peoples?
-specific to highly specified tasks—god of the hunt , war, death, fertility
-gods were close at hand—tangible
-no gulf between the people and the gods
4. How was Abraham’s relationship with God similar to polytheists?
-god is close at hand: see and experience
-shared meals with god
-argued with god
5. What role did sacrifice play in ancient religions? Why is religious sacrifice so important?
-show of how much the god is loved
-stressed the inter-relationship between the gods and the people
-show of true belief
-some pagans sacrificed people-human/child sacrifice.
6. How does the story of Abraham and Isaac reveal the struggle between paganism and monotheism?
-god put him to a test by telling him that he should offer Isaac as a burnt offering
-new god says when Abraham was willing to kill his child for his god—god wanted to test how much Abraham believed
-last human sacrifice
7. What role did knowing the name of gods play in ancient paganism?
-gives a person power over something
-manipulate the gods if you chant their name
8. How is the story of Jacob wrestling with God symbolic of the shift in the nature of “god”?
-moving away from paganism towards a god of mystery
-“wrestling’ with one’s beliefs
9.How is the God of Moses different from that of Abraham?
-now god is cloaked in mystery-not close at hand
-cannot control or manipulate Yahweh
-dynamic and mysterious god
10. What does Yahweh mean? How is its meaning related to the changing nature of the Hebrew God?
-I am what I am. God is now understood to be more mysterious and not kinowable.
11. How is Yahweh a “tribal” God at this point?
-only on the side of the Hebrews
-intensely bias in their favour
-the mythology states that Yahweh visited plagues etc. –attacl pm specific Egytian gods
12. How is Yahweh a God of “mystery”?
-his unknowable, unimaginable -gap between God and his followers
-cannot access him through images
13. Why is it part of the human impulse to create “idols” or “icons”?
-gives concept of something tangible –see, touch, make sacrifices to
14. How does the story of the prophet Elijah illustrate the struggle between the pagan impulses of the Hebrews and the monotheistic nature of the Hebrew God?
-severe drought
-people begin to pray to Ba’al for rain
-Elijah builds two altars and sacrifice to both gods
-placies a sacrifice on each
-pries of Ba’al try to summon rian
-Elijah calls on Yahweh—fire consumes the altar
-then torrential rains come
-Elijah has 450 priests of Ba’al killed
-he begins to assert that God is not in the forces of nature but rather in the “still small voice”
15. What is meant by “transcendental”? How is this concept part of the human condition?
-that which goes beyond our human experience—we seek to go beyond ourselves to experience it..
-found in art, sport,
-some seek it through drugs and “altered states”
-we seek to go beyond what we can grasp
16. When was the “axial” age? Why was it so called?
-between 800-200 BCE pivotal moment in human history
-point in history on which all human activity pivots
17. List the changes occurring all over the world during the Axial Age
-growth of empires—untold numbers of people killed or driven from homes.
-urbanization
-quantum growth of violence
-merchant economy (market economy)
-poor are trampled by rich
18. How did the religions of the world respond to these changes?
-adopted doctrine of compassion, non-violence-justice
-help the oppressed
19. Why is compassion so difficult for humanity?
-mankind tends to be vengeance minded
-forces us to unseat ourselves from the centre of our own world
-requires empathy
-we don’t like to put our own needs aside desires
20. How does The Babylonian Captivity (586BCE) alter the Hebrew concept of God?
-far from their homeland
-Isaiah 2 preaches that Yahweh was not just a local god but that God was the god of everyone---God controlling all of history
-Judeans cling to Yahweh—as the mastermind of history