E ternal

A H istory of the M iddle E astern Monotheistic Religions

3 rd E dition

Chris Strakosch
University of Queensland Department of Medicine 2009
2

A H IST O R Y O F T H E M I D D L E E AST E R N M O N O T H E IST I C

R E L I G I O NS

Introduction

Australia currently has members of her armed forces serving overseas in

three countries which were or remain theaters of war: Timor, Afghanistan
and Iraq.

The conflicts in all these places share one common factor: at least one of
the Middle Eastern monotheistic religions is involved. These religions do
seem prone to be involved in conflict, since they are, by nature,
exclusivist. If there is only one true god demanding allegiance, then
persons of another religion must be in serious error. Furthermore, if
allegiance to this one god is the only way to salvation, then it is a duty of
the faithful to gather everyone else to this fold. Religions, which have a
multitude of gods, on the other hand, do not have this tendency, since
there is no theological problem in adding a further god to the pantheon.

This monograph is an effort to understand the history of these

monotheistic religions, all of which have originated in the Middle East. It
is not a theological work but uses the usual methods of historical review;
results of archeological research and study of ancient documents. I cannot
read these ancient languages myself so perforce much of the monograph
relies on secondary sources. With greater historical knowledge we may
better understand the background to the conflicts which engage our armed
forces.
3

A H istory of the M iddle E astern Monotheistic Religions

H istory according to the H ebrew Bible

The three great Monotheistic religions of the Middle East; Judaism,

Christianity and Islam, date their origin to Abraham, who lived almost
4000 years ago. He was a gentleman of some means who left a Babylonian
FLW\XVXDOO\GHVFULEHGDV8UDQGKHDGHGWRZDUGVWKHODQGRI&DQDDQ,W¶V
not clear where he actually came from, since "Ur" is the general
Babylonian word for city. The present day Tel el-Mukayyar in Southern
Iraq, known today as Ur, is held by many to be the Biblical Ur, though
traditionally Ur was thought to be further north in present day Turkey.
Canaan, on the Eastern Mediterranean shore, is now the country of Israel,
Palestine and Lebanon. He took with him his extended family, loaded
camels and his flocks. Somewhere along the way he had the revelation
that there is only one God, and was inspired to build altars and temples to
this God, usually called Jehovah. God established a series of mutual
obligations with Abraham, known as the Covenant. When Abraham
arrived in Canaan, he found the land in a grip of famine and moved on to
Egypt. He had some adventures in Egypt but returned to Canaan
somewhat richer than he had been before. He settled in Canaan and had
two sons, the first named Ishmael, by his Egyptian slave girl Hagar, and
another named Isaac by his wife Sarah. Isaac is said to be the father of the
-HZV DQG *RG¶V FRYHQDQW ZLWK $EUDKDP FRQWLQXHG ZLWK ,VDDF *HQHVLV
17:21 my covenant will I establish with Isaac. *RG¶VSODQIRU,VKPDHOLVD
little ambiguous. Genesis 16:12 states And he will be a wild man; his hand
will be against every man, and every man's hand against him, then 17:20
Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply
him exceedingly; twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a
great nation. Legend has it that Ishmael became father of the Arab race.

It was later revealed to the Prophet Muhammad that Abraham and his son
Ishmael had journeyed south to Mecca in Arabia where they built a temple
to God. It is the remnants of this temple that form the centerpiece of the
Kaaba, the sacred Islamic shrine in Mecca.

Several generations later we have the story of Joseph, a descendent of

Isaac, who was sold into slavery in Egypt by his jealous brothers. There
followed another famine in Canaan and his brothers and other Hebrews
later followed him into Egypt.
4
The Hebrews thrived and multiplied for a while until Now there arose up
a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph Exodus 1:8. The
Egyptians, then, enslaved the Hebrews who remained in captivity for
about 400 years. An Egyptian prince called Moses finally led them out of
slavery. Moses turned out to be really a Hebrew whose mother had set him
afloat in a reed boat when he was a baby but who was rescued and brought
XSE\3KDUDRK¶VGDXJKWHU0RVHVDSSHaled to Pharaoh to let my people go
Exodus 8:20, but it took a series of divinely ordained disasters before
Pharaoh was convinced of the wisdom of releasing his captives.

Moses led his people through the deserts for some 40 years until all the ex-
slaves were dead and a new race of hardened, self-sufficient, people came
into being. It was only then that they came to the "Promised Land",
Canaan, which they believed had been promised to them by God.
Numbers 34:2 When ye come into the land of Canaan; (this is the land
that shall fall unto you for an inheritance, even the land of Canaan with
the coasts thereof:)

Under their General Joshua, the Hebrews furiously attacked the

Canaanites and, with the assistance of God, were victorious. Trumpets
were sounded and the walls of the Canaanite city, Jericho, collapsed. The
triumphant Hebrews occupied the land of Canaan and the unfortunate
inhabitants were either dispersed or exterminated.

H istory according to archeology

For the last 200 years, and more extensively for the last 100 years, the
Holy Land has been subjected to extensive archeological survey and there
is now has an immense database on this area. There are found to be major
archeological problems with these early Bible stories. For example,
Abraham could not have used camels as beasts of burden since camels
were not to be domesticated for another 1000 years. Secondly, for
$EUDKDP¶V WULS WR (J\SW WKH VDGGOHEDJV RI WKH FDPHOV ZHUH VDLG WR EH
packed with the valuable gum arabic (a soluble sap of the acacia tree) that
was not, in fact, traded for another 1200 years. Many of the towns
mentioned in the early biblical stories were not in existence at the time and
there is no historical evidence of any of the disasters visited on the
Pharaoh. The desert areas around the Sinai show no archeological
evidence of ever being inhabited and certainly there was no big tribe of
people living there for the 40 years that Moses is supposed to have spent
leading his people in the wilderness.
5
There is, however, historical evidence of a Semitic people called the
Hyksos who did settle in Egypt around 1700 BCE, the time in question.
They became quite successful and even provided a dynasty of Pharaohs
that lasted for several hundred years. Finally the Egyptians revolted and
enslaved some of the Hyksos (a Greek rendering of Egyptian words
PHDQLQJ³IRUHLJQUXOHU´ and forced the rest to flee.

The Philistines did not enter the story until 1200 BCE, some 600 years
after Abraham. They were an Aegean seafaring people who smashed into
the land of Canaan and completely devastated the coastal area. Using their
ships to effect surprise, they could land anywhere in strength and
overwhelm the local defences. There is much archeological evidence of
tremendous destruction at this time with the result that Canaan was
essentially depopulated. The Philistines then landed to take up residence.

This FODVVLFDO VWRU\ RI UDLGLQJ ³6HD 3HRSOH´ FDXVLQJ WKH ZDYHV RI
destruction noted throughout the Mediterranean has been challenged
recently. The Eastern Mediterranean is a very seismically active area with
three major tectonic plates in collision. The Africa Plate is sliding past the
Arabian Plate to the east and diving under the Eurasian Plate to the north.
The resulting earthquakes create fracture lines where water can come to
the surface creating inviting oases. Jericho, the oldest known city, has
been built on the Elisha Spring for at least nine thousand years and been
destroyed some twenty two times by earthquakes. It appears that this
destruction was the cause of the relative depopulation of Canaan.
According to this line of reasoning the Philistines, rather than being
seaborne raiders, were an indigenous people living in the south around
modern Gaza who expanded north and collided with the Hebrews.

W ho then were the H ebrews?

The Hebrews it seems had been present in the Holy Land all the time, in
the hill areas around Jerusalem. The Canaanites, living on the
Mediterranean coastal strip, were Phoenicians, a related Semitic people
speaking a very similar language to the Hebrews. Canaan was, at the time,
a wealthy Egyptian province and the Hebrews appear to have made their
living by raiding. Jericho was a small town at the time and did not have a
defending wall since Canaan relied on the Egyptian army for defence.
The word Hebrew bears a suspicious resemblance to the Egyptian word
³DSLUX´VRPHWLPHVJLYHQDV³LELUX´ZKLFKPHDQVRXWODZRUEDQGLW:LWK
the destruction wrought by the earthquakes or perhaps the raiding
Philistines, the Hebrews advanced into the now depopulated Canaan
6
where they came up against the Philistines who had similar designs on the
area.

T he G reat H ebrew kings

Be that as it may, the Bible continues with the story of the Hebrews. In
about 1000 BCE, there arose a great Hebrew king called Saul, who united
his people in victorious wars against the Philistines. His most successful
warrior had started out as a shepherd boy from that most famous little
town of Bethlehem. This shepherd boy later became King David, who
further expanded the Hebrew Empire and founded the Davidic Dynasty.
The Bible when recounting the early life of David, (1 Samuel) describes
KLPDVDEDQGLWOHDGHULQWKH³5RELQ+RRG´ (? Apiru) mould who robs the
rich and defends the poor of the highlands around Jerusalem against the
marauding Philistines.

'DYLG¶V VRQ 6RORPRQ ZDV HYHQ JUHDWHU WKDQ KH DQG EXLOW PDQ\
monuments in Israel, including a magnificent temple in Jerusalem. He was
also a powerful war leader and was said to have a cavalry of 40000 horse.
He had 700 wivHVRQHRIZKRPZDV3KDUDRK¶VGDXJKWHUDQGIRUKLVVSDUH
time, 300 concubines.

When Solomon died his son Rehoboam took the throne. The dignitaries
from the northern part of the kingdom approached Rehoboam and
requested relief from the high taxes, which had been necessary for
Solomon to complete his building works. King Rehoboam took three days
to consider this request and then dismissed them with the famous words
My father made your yoke heavy, and I will add to your yoke: my father
also chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions I
Kings 12:14. Facing an attitude like this it is no surprise that the northern
part of the kingdom seceded and the state was divided into two parts. In
the north there was Israel with the capital Samaria, and, in the south, Judah
with the capital of Jerusalem. The northern kingdom soon lapsed into
idolatry, particularly under the influence of Queen Jezebel, who had been
a Philistine princess and was an enthusiastic pagan.

T he F all of the Northern K ingdom, Israel

Perhaps because of the straying from the path, or because the northern
kingdom of Israel had become very wealthy, it was overrun by the
Assyrians in 722 BCE. The aristocracy and learned men were dispersed to
various part of the Assyrian Empire. The remaining Jews now mixed with
7
Philistines and Assyrians to form their own version of Judaism based on
the capital Samaria, and became known as the Samaritans. It was
considered a good idea in those days to worship the local gods, so the
Assyrians tended to convert to this version of Judaism. The southern
kingdom of Judah remained as a client state of the Assyrians. With the
death of the Assyrian king Sargon, the King of Judah, Hezekiah,
(sometimes given as Ezekias) took the opportunity to lead a revolt against
the Assyrians. The new Assyrian king Sennacherib took several years
before he was able to address the revolt in this remote western part of his
Empire. He then swept down in 701 BCE and devastated the area
surrounding Jerusalem. He was on the point of capturing the city when his
army was apparently devastated by a plague. Despite this narrow escape,
Judah was forced to remain a tributary of the Assyrian Empire. With the
fall of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, Judah however became quite
wealthy with the population swollen by the refugees from the north and by
QRZEHLQJSDUWRIWKH$VV\ULDQ³*OREDO´WUDGHV\VWHP

King Hezekiah saw himself as a God fearing man and wished to emulate
the achievements of the Great Kings David and Solomon and perhaps in
pursuit of these aims he launched the ill-fated revolt against the Assyrians.
It was during this time that the Bible started to be written down by the
palace scribes and rabbis. Prior to this, writing was an elite occupation
practiced exclusively in the royal service. Stories and legends were
transmitted orally by professional storytellers who were expected to recite
long sagas by heart.

The earliest recognisable version of Hebrew script, Paleo-Hebrew a

derivation of the earlier Phoenician, appears at the time of the Great Kings
in around the 10th century BCE. The script evolved over time until the
ILQDO³VTXDUHOHWWHU´+HEUHZDSSHDUHGLQWKHrd century BCE.

Learned men were still required to read the early texts. Hebrew was
originally written without vowels and a single consonantal symbol could
have several meanings. There were no gaps between words and no
punctuation or paragraphs. It was simply not possible to read the text
without some knowledge of the oral tradition. It was also not possible to
copy such long texts without mistakes which were then transmitted to the
next copy. Scribes chose between the various readings according to each
RQH¶Vunderstanding of the meanings.

In fact it was not until the 4th century CE onwards that groups of Hebrew
scholars known as Masoretes worked to produce the final received
version. Vowels were added as diacritic points, chosen because they could
be added to the text already in place.
8
It did seem fortunate that in the time of King Hezekiah (715-687 BCE) an
ancient scroll of religious instructions said to have been written by Moses
himself (who lived long before the invention of Hebrew writing) was
³GLVFRYHUHG´ LQ WKH 7HPSOH This greatly added to the authority of the
King who used the discovery to aid his campaign to enforce monotheism
and to centralise worship on the Temple in his capital of Jerusalem.

Then in the mid seventh century BCE, a King Josiah took the throne in
Jerusalem. His scribes continued the work of writing and editing the
stories that would become the Bible. Writing and reading became much
more common among the population and the written version of the Bible
started to achieve the status of Holy Writ rather tKDQDQ³DLGH- PHPRLUH´
to the storytellers. The first five books of the Hebrew Bible, known as the
Torah (teachings) or by the Greek name Pentateuch (five scrolls): Genesis,
Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy took shape.

King Josiah also wished to emulate the Empire of David and Solomon and
made great efforts to rid the kingdom of polytheism and to reunite the
Kingdoms of Israel and Judah. There are clues as to when some of the
ERRNVZHUHZULWWHQ)RUH[DPSOHWKH%LEOHIUHTXHQWO\XVHVWKHSKUDVH³Wo
WKHSUHVHQWGD\´DV ZKHQGHVFULELQJWKH UHODWLRQVKLSRI,VUDHODQG-XGDK
(The House of David): So Israel rebelled against the house of David unto
this day 1 Kings 12:19. This places the writing at some time around the
reigns of King Hezekiah or Josiah. The Bible continued to be edited and
added to over the centuries to come.

T he O rigin of the F irst F ive Books of T he Bible: T he Documentary

H ypothesis

The Documentary Hypothesis seems to be accepted by most Bible

scholars though rejected by fundamentalists who hold that the first five
books of the Hebrew Bible were written by Moses himself. A position
made more difficult by the fact that the final book, Deuteronomy,
describes the death of the proposed author Moses, (De:34:5).

According to this hypothesis the first five books of the Bible represent an
amalgamation of several documents. There is the J document, so called
because God is referred to as YHWH (Jahwe in German, the language of
most of the initial work in the field). In this work, the Hebrews had known
God as YHWH since the earliest times and the southern kingdom of Judah
is given pride of place. For example it is Judah (after whom the kingdom
was named) who saves Joseph IURP KLV EURWKHUV¶ SODQ WR NLOO KLP 7KH
9
other early source is the E document. Here God is referred to as El, or
Elohim (plural) and the name YHWH is not revealed until the time of
Moses (Exod 6:2-3). In E it is Reuben, not Judah, who saves Joseph from
his brothers. Cities in the northern kingdom of Israel are emphasised eg
Shechem is the final burial site of Joseph. Whereas -IDYRUV-XGDK¶VUR\DO
family of David and Solomon, E is critical of the southern royal family. It
is in E that the story of the heavy royal taxes which forced the split of the
kingdom into Judah and Israel is found. It is thought that J was written in
the southern kingdom of Judah and E in the northern kingdom of Israel.

Later documents include the P document which emphasises the role of the
priests. Repentance for sin, in this document, must include sacrifices
carried out by priests. Clues in the text and linguistic analysis of the
Hebrew used place its writing at the time of Hezekiah. If dissected out of
the body of the text, the J, E and P documents can each be read as
complete meaningful narratives. The final main source is the D document,
a rather legalistic document that takes up most of the book of
Deuteronomy.

These sources and documents were finally combined and edited by R

(redactor of editor) who added connecting text.

The several sources of the first five books seem to be the reason why there
DUH PRUH WKDQ WKLUW\ ³GRXEOHWV´: stories told in two different ways. The
Bible opens with the story of creation which is presented in two versions.
The first (Gen 1), thought to be from P since it emphasises a ritualistic
approach, sets a timetable. On the first day God, here referred to as
Elohim, created the sky, earth and light, the second day water, the third
day plants, until finally on the sixth day creeping things, then male and
female humans. The second version from J (Gen 2) has God, on this
occasion YHWH (Jahwe) is used, initially creating earth, then man
followed by the Garden of Eden. Animals are then created and are
presented to the first man, Adam, who names them. Finally a companion
for Adam, Eve, is created from one of his ribs. A connecting verse (Gen
2:4): These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they
were created, is thought to come from the Redactor, R.

The well known story of the flood is again presented in two versions.
Mankind prospered but apparently became wicked since God decided to
destroy all humanity except for the one righteous man, Noah. The P
version (Gen 7:2) has Noah taking onto the ark seven pairs of each clean
animal, (some would be needed for priestly sacrificial purposes) and seven
pairs of each bird as well as pairs of all the other living things. The usually
recounted story from J (Gen 7:15) mentions only a single pair of each
kind.
10
Incidentally, most scholars feel the flood story in the Bible and the similar
story in the earlier Sumerian Epic of Gilga mesh are a folk memory of the
flooding of the settlements on the shore of the Black Sea when the
Caspian Sea, swollen by glacial melt water, broke through into the Black
Sea in about 5000 BCE. The Sumerian account also introduces the
familiar elements of the story such as the ark, dove and olive branch,
though in this version Noah is known as Ziusudra.

T he T ime of the G reat H ebrew K ings A ccording to A rcheology

Archeology has a lot to reveal about this era. There have been many
attempts to find the archeological remains of any major structure built by
King Solomon, but none have ever been found. Initially, some
archeologists believed that remains of any major structure from the time
must have represented the work of Solomon, but all these were found to
have been built by the powerful northern kingdom of Israel. Indeed there
has never been an archeological finding of any sort relating to Solomon.
There are no references to the Hebrew kings in any of the very extensive
surviving writings of the Egyptians, Assyrians or Babylonians. The only
mention of the kings of this era is an inscription on a basalt block, found in
1993, in northern Israel at the Biblical site of Tel Dan. It was probably
written by the Syrian king Hazael around 835 BCE, 100 or so years after
the time of the great Hebrew kings and refers to the death of his enemy
³>$KD]@LDKXVRQRI>-HURKDPNLQ@JRIWKH+RXVHRI'DYLG´.ings David
and Solomon of the southern kingdom of Judah, if they existed at all, were
minor hill-fort kings operating out of the small iron age town of Jerusalem
which at the time had a population of, at the most, 2000 people.

Archeology can also be used to date the time of writing of the various
Books of the Bible. The First Book of Samuel goes into great detail
describing the armor of the Philistine giant, Goliath, the enemy of the
shepherd boy David, 1 Samuel 17:4-7

And there went out a cha mpion out of the ca mp of the Philistines, na med
Goliath, of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span.
And he had an helmet of brass upon his head, and he was armed with a
coat of mail; and the weight of the coat was five thousand shekels (about
240kg) of brass.
And he had greaves of brass upon his legs, and a target of brass between
his shoulders.
And the staff of his spear was like a weaver's bea m ; and his spear's head
11
weighed six hundred shekels of iron: and one bearing a shield went before
him.

The incident described was said to have occurred at around 1000 BCE but
the armor described is that of a Greek hoplite from the seventh to fifth
centuries BCE, placing the writing at least 300 years after the event. The
historical Philistines wore little or no armor.

There is virtually no archeological evidence of monotheism prior to the 7 th

century BCE, some 400 years after the time of the Great Kings. Altars
unearthed before this time typically feature a male and female figurine, the
female being known as Asherah. An early sample of graffiti asks for
EOHVVLQJ IURP ³<+:+ DQG KLV $VKHUDK´ 0RQRWKHLVP DSSHDUV WR KDYH
been practiced as the orthodox religion only after the 7 th century BCE and
the reforms of King Josiah with the Biblical authors retrospectively dating
it back to the time of a mythical Abraham some 1300 years before.

The first five books of the Bible seem to be a brilliant compilation of mis-
remembered folk tales in which a Semitic people, the Hyksos, who were
forced out of Egypt, became the Bible story of the Exodus, with Moses
leading the Hebrews out of Egypt. The predations of the Philistines in
Canaan, and/or the devastation wrought by the frequent earthquakes in the
area, became the victories of the Hebrews under Joshua. The fabulous
stories of King David and Solomon appear to be the royal propaganda of
Kings Hezekiah and Josiah. It was in their interests to portray the ancient
kings as being great, wise men with a large empire. If they were to
emulate the Great Kings, perhaps similar fame and fortune would be
theirs.

T he Prophet Isaiah

It was about the time of King Hezekiah that the prophet Isaiah appears.
From this time on the Bible is more historical and the books of Isaiah
appear to be written, at least in part, by the prophet himself, though much
of the prophesy seems to have been added later. He warned against
ODSVLQJLQWRLGRODWU\DQGRWKHUZLVHGLVREH\LQJ*RG¶VODZV,IWKLVZHUHWR
be the case, a jealous God would cause the kingdom to be destroyed. If,
on the other hand, the right path were to be followed, great things would
happen and it is here that Isaiah writes that such would be the peace that
The wolf also shall dwell with the la mb, and the leopard shall lie down
with the kid Isaiah 11:6. Not only that, but Isaiah 9:6-7 also prophesizes
that as a reward for righteousness,
12
For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government
shall be upon his shoulder: and his na me shall be called Wonderful,
Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting F ather, The Prince of Peace.

Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon
the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it
with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever.

In other words, there would be a child born, of the house of David, who
ZRXOG EH D JUHDW NLQJ WKH ³PLJKW\ *RG´ DQG KLV G\QDVW\ ZRXOG ODVW
forever. Needless to say, this is of great significance to Christians and it
has been said that, with prophecies like this in the Old Testament, the New
Testament virtually wrote itself.

T he Babylonian E xile

3HUKDSVWKHNLQJVDQGSHRSOHGLGQ¶WOLVWHQRUSHUKDSVEHFDXVHWKHVRXWKHUQ
kingdom of Judah had become rich and powerful, because, in its turn, it
was overrun. In about 600BCE, the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar
conquered Judah and destroyed the temple in Jerusalem. The nobles and
learned men were taken as hostages into exile in Babylon. The exile
ODVWHGRQO\DERXW\HDUVEHFDXVH.LQJ1HEXFKDGQH]]DU¶VHPSLUHZDVWR
be short-lived and was conquered by the Persians under the famous King
Cyrus. When Cyrus came to Babylon, the Jewish rabbis in exile there
approached him and warned that God was unhappy with their exile and
WKLV ZDV SUREDEO\ WKH UHDVRQ ZK\ 1HEXFKDGQH]]DU¶V HPSLUH KDG EHHQ
destroyed. King Cyrus, to be on the safe side, ordered the rabbis and
Hebrew nobles back to Jerusalem and instructed them to rebuild the
temple, no doubt with the hope that some prayers on his behalf would be
useful. The re-established Hebrew state lasted for several hundreds of
years.

T he Contribution of the Jews

The Jews have made enormous contributions to Western Civilization. It

has been said that though the furniture of the structure of the West is
Greek and Roman, the walls and roof are Jewish. The Jews were the first
to be inspired to Monotheism. This concept, which allows the ideal of
perfection in one being, seems to have great emotional appeal. Judaism
does not include the being of Satan. It is difficult to maintain the concept
13
of Monotheism in the religions of Christianity and Islam that include an
autonomous evil being with godlike powers that in any other religion
would be called an evil god. The mistaken idea of a Jewish Satan relates to
the story of the fall of Lucifer, Isaiah 14:12 How art thou fallen from
heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the
ground, which didst weaken the nations! This episode refers to the fall of
Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar. Kings were often referred to as Lucifer
(bearer of light), another name for the morning star that heralds the dawn.
Even dutiful wives of the time would address their husbands in this
manner. A great mythology of the evil angel has arisen from this
mistranslation.

The Jews were the first to write a history that was a linear in direction.
There was a definite start, a continuing historical story and there will be an
end. Though taken for granted in modern times, this was a great advance.
Western thought and culture, which assumes a better future and leads to a
forward looking, advancing, society owes much to this idea. All previous
civilizations had seen history as being essentially cyclical. What goes
round comes round. This state of mind leads to fatalism and the belief that
WKLQJVFDQ¶WEHFKDQJHG:HVWHUQVRFLHW\LVWKHRQO\RQHWKDWKDV ever sent
out ship after ship for the sole purpose of finding out what was beyond the
horizon. This idea of the Jews that the future is unfolding (hopefully for
the better) is reinforced by the belief that revelation from God is ongoing.

The exile in Babylon also bought about the concept of separation of

church and state. While in Babylon, it was found Judaism could be
practiced quite successfully without any political authority at all. This
separation has become another major tenant of the Western State.
Religions are inherently conservative, even with the concept of ongoing
revelation. Separating church and state allows political and intellectual
advances to be made, freed from the shackles of religious dogma. The
Middle Ages, when this concept was ignored, and church and state were,
to a great extent, unified in the West, was a rather dark and gruesome
time. The West has advanced greatly with the Renaissance and the
Enlightenment and the rediscovery of this ancient Jewish ideal.

The Babylonian Exile also developed the idea of scholarship. The Jews
now had a great literature and oral tradition that was in danger of being
lost. To preserve this treasure it became a tradition that all Jewish males
were taught to read and write. The eldest son of every family of means
was to be supported by the rest of the family to enable study of the written
and oral traditions. These keepers of the Jewish Doctrine were no doubt
WKH EHJLQQLQJ RI WKH IDPRXV -HZLVK VWDWHPHQW ³P\ ER\ WKH GRFWRU´7KH
tradition of scholarship among the Jews has meant that Jews living in the
West are awarded Nobel Prizes at a rate some twenty five times that
14
predicted by their numbers. There was a downside, though, to the
universal literacy of Jewish males. In Central Europe and Russia from the
Middle Ages until recent times, the Jews were the only people apart from
priests who were literate and were greatly sought after to be bailiffs for
absentee landlords. They were paid by being granted the liquor license or
by being allowed to take a percentaJHRIWKHSHDVDQWV¶SURGXFHFRQGLWLRQV
that greatly contributed to their unpopularity. Jews were also virtually the
only educated, literate persons among the workers and peasants of the
Russian Communists in the earlier 20th century and almost all the Political
Officers were Jews.

The Jews of the middle part of the first millennium BCE did find it a little
hard to understand how it was that they, as the chosen race, seemed to
meet with so many disasters. The rabbis came to the conclusion that the
suffering of the Jews must be atonement, not only for the sins of the tribe,
but perhaps for the entire human race.

A lexander the G reat and the H ellenisation of the Holy L and

The next major event in the history of the Holy Land was the conquest of
Jerusalem by Alexander the Great in 332 BCE. He died as a young man
and the empire was divided amongst his generals. Originally the southwest
part of the empire, which included Egypt and Palestine, was given to
General Ptolemy and became part of the Ptolemaic Empire. The Ptolemaic
Empire is perhaps best remembered by being later headed by Queen
Cleopatra of Egypt. In time, Palestine became part of the empire given to
General Seleucus: the Seleucid Empire. This now led to a Hellenic
influence on Jewish culture which was to have immense influence on
western civilisation. The Jews already had a tradition of a linear history
with unfolding revelation and scholarship that had, up to now, been
devoted to the study of theology. They were now exposed to a Hellenic
non-God based philosophy and the study of nature. So important was this
most powerful combination that the whole of western civilisation could be
said to be populated by Hellenised Jews.

With their doctrine of separation of church and state, the Jews were quite
happy to recognize the political importance of the Seleucid Emperor.
,QVFULSWLRQVKDYHEHHQIRXQGRQV\QDJRJXHVRIWKHWLPH³7RWKHJORU\WR
*RGLQKRQRURIWKH(PSHURU´8QIRUWXQDWHO\WKLVPXWXDOWROHUDQFHZDV
shattered when there arose an Emperor based in Antioch, Antiochus IV
(175-163 BCE) whose empire was being challenged by the Romans in the
west and the Persians in the east. In an effort to consolidate and
15
strengthen the Empire, he tried to enforce Hellenisation on all subjects.
This involved raising a statue of the Greek god Zeus in the Jewish Temple
of Jerusalem. A revolt of the Jews was sparked under the brilliant general
Judas Hasmoneus. He was so successful that the temple of Jerusalem was
restored (still celebrated in the Jewish Hanukah, the Festival of Lights)
and eventually political autonomy was granted to the Hasmonean state that
became the Kingdom of Judea. Judas took the name Maccabeus, meaning
³KDPPHU´RIWKH*UHHNV

T he A dvent of Rome

Then was to occur in the Hasmonean Kingdom of Judea, one of the major
problems in history: a disputed succession. One of the protagonists
invited a nearby great power to assist him to win the civil war. The
arrangement throughout history is always that the King assisted to the
throne becomes the vassal of the overlord. This is the way the British
came to Ireland. And it was the way the Romans under General Pompey,
who had been campaigning in nearby Syria, annexed the Hasmonean
Kingdom. This event occurred just as a civil war broke out in Rome as
well, pitting Pompey against Julius Caesar. The throne of the kingdom of
the Jewish state changed hands several times until there was thrown up a
King Herod. The Jews were extremely unhappy about this state of affairs.
7KH5RPDQVKDGDPRUH³KDQGVRQ´DSSUoach to their Empire than had the
Greeks of the Seleucid Empire and a lot of the Jewish autonomy was lost.
7RPDNHPDWWHUVPXFKZRUVH.LQJ+HURG¶VPRWKHUKDGEHHQDQ$UDELDQ
princess and under Jewish law he was not even a Jew. The Jews had been
expecting a King of the Davidic line to rule them in splendor, but instead
had a Roman governor and a king who, far from being of the Blood Royal,
was only a convert.

T he Coming of Jesus C hrist

The Roman province of Judea had become a tinderbox. There then came
the Feast of the Passover that commemorated the liberation of the Hebrew
slaves, under Moses, from Egyptian captivity. The analogy was not lost
on the Romans and the Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate, came down to
Jerusalem from the Roman administrative capitol of Caesarea, on the
Mediterranean Coast, and brought his troops with him. He was expecting
trouble, and trouble he soon got, since riding into Jerusalem came a Jewish
Rabbi of the noble Davidic line. Jesus was riding on a donkey, no doubt to
16
fulfil the prophecy of Zechariah 9:9 O daughter of Jerusalem : behold, thy
King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding
upon an ass. His very numerous supporters waved palm leaves, the
traditional sign of Jewish victory (1Maccabees 13:51). To emphasise his
authentic claim to the throne, he was said to have been born in Bethlehem,
the same town as the legendary King David.

The Roman authorities could not accept the challenge to their protégé
Herod and marched out troops to arrest Jesus. The New Testament uses
WKH VSHFLILF ZRUG ³FRKRUW´ VSLUD LQ *UHHN WR GHVFULEH WKH VROGLHUV
assigned to the task. A cohort was a tenth of a legion, and comprised six
hundred men under the command of a Tribunus Cohortium. This Tribune
was usually a young Roman nobleman of high rank who was fulfilling his
military obligation before entering politics in Rome. It seems unlikely that
such a powerful military force would be necessary to arrest a rabbi
accused of some theological heresy. Furthermore, Jesus had armed
followers, one of whom at least, put up a fight. Jesus, however, was
arrested and taken to Pontius Pilate. The New Testament tends to portray
Pontius Pilate as being a rather kindly man. The New Testament,
however, was written at a time when the Christians were parting ways
with the Jews and identifying more with the Romans and this bias is
reflected in the Gospel stories of the ensuing events. Pontius Pilate, was,
in fact, quite a ferocious person who intensely disliked the Jews and
caused so much trouble in Judea that he was later relieved of his
governorship by the Roman authorities and died in obscurity.

Pilate asked Jesus the only question which was of concern to the Romans,
who were not at all interested in minor points of Jewish theology: Then
Pilate entered into the judgment hall again, and called Jesus, and said
unto him, Art thou the King of the Jews? -RKQLQRWKHUZRUGV³DUH
\RXFKDOOHQJLQJRXUSURWpJp.LQJ+HURGIRUWKHFURZQ"´,Q5RPDQ law,
the onus is on the defense, and Jesus did not defend himself at all, but
answered in a theological manner that his kingdom was of another realm.
The sentence was virtually automatic: that of crucifixion, a punishment for
armed insurrection against the Roman state. The New Testament also has
Pilate say he could find no fault with this man: Pilate saith unto him,
What is truth? And when he had said this, he went out again unto the
Jews, and saith unto them , I find in him no fault at all John 18:38 which
seems rather unlikely given the context of the trial. The crowd points out
that to claim to be king is treason against the Roman state: And from
thenceforth Pilate sought to release him : but the Jews cried out, saying, If
thou let this man go, thou art not Caesar's friend: whosoever maketh
himself a king speaketh against Caesar. John 19:12. Interestingly, if a
person were to turn up in England today with armed followers and
pronounce himself the rightful King of England, he would be liable to
17
execution, if he was not consigned to a psychiatric hospital, since hanging
has not been abolished in the UK for high treason. Pilate wrote the sign for
the cross: Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews, which is usually seen as
heavy handed Roman sarcasm, but perhaps it was the truth after all.

Following the C rucifixion

His followers were quite dismayed by this defeat and are said to have
gathered in an upper room when Jesus appeared to them again, having
risen from the dead. It became clear to his followers that the crucifixion
was not a failed political coup but was a much more significant theological
event. Jesus Christ (Joshua, the anointed one) was a manifestation of God
himself who had given himself in atonement for sins of the Jewish people.
It can never be known what happened, but it seems something did, since
his followers went from being a frightened group to being confident and
enthusiastic propagators of this new belief.

On the other hand, to claim that a Jewish rabbi was divine, was seen as
heresy by the Jewish temple authorities and they made vigorous attempts
to suppress this new cult. One of the main agents of the temple authorities
was a person called Saul, who while on the road to Damascus, in his
pursuit of the Christians, was himself converted to the new faith. He
changed his name henceforth to Paul and began preaching. We have this
VWRU\ IURPWKH1HZ7HVWDPHQW ³$FWVRIWKH $SRVWOHV´ WKRXJK3DXOGRHV
not mention it in his copious writings. This conversion was of enormous
significance to Christianity. He did for Christianity what Lenin was to do
to Marxism: essentially change the thrust of the faith. He announced that
Christ had come for the benefit of the whole human race and not just the
Jews. For some reason, however, this benefice was extended only to
persons who believed this to be true. Perhaps just as important was his
opinion that the Bible was allegorical or metaphorical and could not be
interpreted literally. This new Pauline version of the faith was extremely
successful.

T he Jewish Revolt

The political problem for the Jews, however, had not been solved. The
Romans still occupied Judea. In 70 CE, the Jews in northern Israel at
Galilee arose under their leader, Simon Zealotes, and massacred the
Roman garrison. The Roman sent out reinforcements from Syria, who
18
were also defeated. The Jews had the reputation of being excellent
soldiers, much like the Israelis of today. The Romans then decided that
enough was enough and sent a large army, under one of their best
generals, Vespasian. He defeated the Zealots who streamed back to their
capitol at Jerusalem. The authorities in Jerusalem had not supported this
revolt, which outraged the Zealots, who went on the rampage, executing
most of the leaders for what they saw as treason. The Romans now
besieged Jerusalem and tens of thousands of people died during the siege
or the murderous civil war occurring inside the city. So many rabbis had
died or were killed that one Rabbi ben Zakkai feared that the accumulated
learning would be lost. He pretended to have died and had himself carried
out of Jerusalem in a coffin. He somehow made his way to General
Vespasian, where he hopped out of the coffin and greeted Vespasian as
being the next Emperor of Rome. Vespasian was rather pleased with this
salutation. In the ensuing discussion, he agreed that, if he became
Emperor, and ben Zakkai were not to interfere in politics, he would allow
a rabbinical school to be opened. He did become Emperor and ben Zakkai
opened his school. All the Jewish legal opinions and Biblical commentary,
which had been previously only preserved in memory by the rabbis, were
now written down as the Talmud.

The Zealots, meanwhile, went down hard and the Romans, in 73 CE, only
conquered their last mountain fortress at Massada with immense exertion.

During this time, Christianity was spreading throughout the Roman

Empire. It seems that often the womenfolk were converted first, since
female Christian names tend to precede the male Christian names in a
family.

T he Gospels are W ritten

The first of the writings, which were later to be gathered into the New
Testament, were those of the Apostle Paul, whom we met above on the
road to Damascus. His first works are thought to be the Letters to the
Thessalonians and Galatians, written about 48 or 49 CE; 18 years or so
after the crucifixion, and the last, Colossians, in 62 CE. There was, in
3DXO¶V WLPH JUHDW WHQVLRQ EHWZHHQ KLPVHOI ZLWK KLV PHVVDJH RI &KULVW¶V
salvation for all, and the Jerusalem church of James, brother of Jesus, who
KHOG WKDW &KULVW¶V PHVVDJH ZDV IRU WKH -HZV RQO\ 7KH $FWV RI the
Apostles, written about 25 years later, makes this tension very clear and
seems to embroider the story of Paul somewhat.
19
Mark, writing somewhere between 65 and 75 CE is held to be the earliest
of the Gospel authors, though this was still some 35 to 45 years after the
death of Christ. Matthew, is then thought to have been written in the mid
¶V DQG /XNH VRPH  \HDUV DIWHU WKDW There appear to have been
additions after this eg. the much quoted line from Mathew 12:33 the tree is
known by his fruit seems to have been taken from a letter by Bishop
Ignatius of Antioch who is known to have died in 110CE. Whole passages
of the Gospel of Luke eg 2:41-50 appear to have been taken from the
works of the Romanised Jewish historian Josephus who also wrote in the
late first century. Other scholars feel that rather than these lines indicating
later additions, the Gospels themselves were not written until the second
century. This view is reinforced by the failure of any ecclesiastical writer
to even mention the Gospels until Aristides of Athens did so in 140 CE.

The first three Gospels share much in the way of content, style, and order
of events and are known as the Synoptic Gospels (from the same point of
view, literally the same eye). The Gospel of John, the most controversial
of the books, was written later in the second century CE. Matthew used
PRVWRI0DUN¶VPDWHULDOWKRXJKWKHUHLVQRHYLGHQFHWKDWWKH\HYHUNQHZ
about each other, and it was suggested, more than 150 years ago, that they
both used a common source, called by the early German scholars the Q
document (from the German Quelle meaning source). Q, which was
probably just a collection of the reported sayings of Jesus, has since been
lost. Luke used much less of the material in Mark, and clHDQHGXS0DUN¶V
rather poor Greek. He also added a lot of embellishments, not found in the
earlier works, and, for example, it is only from Luke that we get the
Christmas Story. There are some major differences in details between the
earlier Gospel of Mark and the later one of Matthew. For example, Mark
6:3 says: Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of
-DPHV«"Jesus is a carpenter, and the son of a woman, strongly implying
that the father was unknown, since in those times a person was always
referred to as the son of his father. Matthew changes this to the much more
acceptable: Is not this the carpenter's son? Matt. 13:55. The use of the
ZRUG ³FDUSHQWHU´ KHUH LV VRPHWKLQJ RI D PLVWUDQVODWLRQ 7KH RULJLQDO
*UHHNZRUGLV³WHNWRQ´ZKLFKLVEHWWHUWUDQVODWHGDV³EXLOGLQJFRQWUDFWRU´
7KH$UDPDLFZRUG³QDJJaU´ZKLFKZRXOGEHXVHGKHUHPHDQV³PDVWHU´DV
LQ³PDVWHUEXLOGHU´EXWFDQDOVRPHDQ³VFKRODU´

There was also a tendency to magnify the significance of events in the

later Gospels compared with the earlier writings. For example, after Jesus
had risen from the dead, there remained in the tomb a young man sitting
on the right side, clothed in a long white garment in the earliest work,
Mark 16:5 ,Q 0DWWKHZ  WKH PDQ EHFRPHV ³ an angel of the Lord´
sitting outside the tomb and finally we have two angels outside the tomb
in the later Luke 24:4. In Mark, Jesus heals the sick by touch or use of
20
spit, in the later Matthew, by touch or word and finally in Luke, Jesus
effects cures by word alone.

There were many other Letters and Books in existence, the most famous
EHLQJWKH³*RVSHORI7KRPDV´GLVFRYHUHGLQDQGVXSSRVHGO\ZULWWHQ
E\ -HVXV¶ WZLQ EURWKHU 7KRPDV WKH QDPH PHDQV WZLQ LQ +HEUHZ
Beginning in the middle of the Second Century, the books that now make
up the New Testament were selected and moves were made to close the
Canon. It was not always clear, however, which books and writings should
be included and disputes on the selection continued for centuries. The
modern New Testament includeV 3DXO¶V )LUVW DQG 6HFRQG (SLVWOHV WR WKH
Corinthians, but not the Third, a polemic against Gnosticism. The
discarded 3 Corinthians, on the other hand, survived up to the seventeenth
century in the East in the Armenian Canon. The famous Codex Sinaiticus
from the fourth century, one of the oldest Bibles in existence and now
housed in the British Museum, contains the complete New Testament and
includes the Epistle of Barnabas. This Epistle, along with the Revelation
of John, was thought in the early centuries to be of doubtful authenticity.
The Epistle of Barnabas was discarded whereas the Revelation of John
was not. The definitive list of the twenty seven books of the Western
Canon (the Ethiopian Canon includes thirty one) dates from a pastoral
letter from Bishop Athanasius of Alexandria in 367 CE. Athanasius is one
of the great figures of the Christian faith and was a fiery and determined
opponent of what he saw as heresy, leading to his being exiled half a
dozen times by the Roman Emperors of the time and thHWLWOH³$WKDQDVLXV
FRQWUD PXQGXP´ $WKDQDVLXV DJDLQVW WKH ZKROH ZRUOG +H ZDV ILQDOO\
triumphant and died peacefully in retirement.

There was also a tendency for scribes copying the Bible to edit the text to
support various theological positions. Early versions of the New
Testament, for example, recount the presentation of the infant Jesus at the
7HPSOH³And his father and mother marvHOHGDWZKDWZDVVDLGDERXWKLP´
(Luke 2:33), implying that Joseph was the biological father of Jesus.
6RPHZKHUH DORQJ WKH OLQH WKLV ZDV FKDQJHG WR ³ And Joseph and his
PRWKHU«´ - the modern text supporting the received Trinitarian view of
Jesus.

A famous, or at least much referred to, passage is Matthew 16:18-19: And

I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my
church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give
unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt
bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose
on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Much of the authority of the Catholic
Church is derived from it; the Papal Arms always include the crossed
³.H\VRI3HWHU´VLQFHWKH3RSHis said to be successor to the Primate Peter.
21
The parallel verses in Mark and Luke, however, make no mention of the
primacy of Peter, nor does Peter ever refer to this signal honor in the
several ESLVWOHV DWWULEXWHG WR KLP 0RUHRYHU WKH *UHHN ZRUG ³HFFOHVLD´,
meaning political gathering, RQO\ FDPH WR PHDQ ³FKXUFK´ FHQWXULHV ODWHU
There was no suggestion of any such organisation in the time of Jesus.
This passage appears to have been added to bolster the authority of the
Christian Church at a much later time.

One of the most moving scenes in the New Testament depicts Jesus in the
Mount of Olives before his arrest, terrifiHGRIWKHFRPLQJFUXFLIL[LRQ³ And
being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were
JUHDW GURSV RI EORRG IDOOLQJ GRZQ WR WKH JURXQG´ Luke 22:44 . A scene
ZHOO SRUWUD\HG LQ *LEVRQ¶V UHFHQW ILOP ³7KH 3DVVLRQ RI WKH &KULVW´ 7KH
problem is that it is not included in the other Synoptic Gospels and is not
even found in the first known versions of Luke. It appears to have been
added at a later time by scribes to support the Trinitarian view that Jesus
ZDV³ZKROO\PDQ´DQGWKHUHIRUHUHDOO\Gid suffer for humanity as well as
bHLQJ³ZKROO\*RG´DQGWKHUHIRUHSUHVXPDEO\EH\RQGKXPDQH[SHULHQFH

The rejected works are grouped under the title of the New Testament
Apocrypha (hidden writings) and Pseudepigrapha (false writings) and do
not share the authority accorded to the Old Testament Apocrypha, which
is often included in the Bible. Perhaps the most interesting of the
Pseudepigraphic writings is the ³Book of Enoch´ which was included in
the Canon for a short time. It displays significant Persian influence and is
probably the origin of the story of The Three Wise Men (Magi) seen in
Matthew 2:1-12. The Magi were a Persian priestly caste thought to have
profound religious insight.

As well as deliberate alterations to the text, many mistakes were made in

copying the texts by hand. This was particularly the case in the early days
of Christianity when the copying was done by amateurs rather than by
professional scribes as became the case in the Middle Ages when copying
was performed by trained monks. The problem was compounded by the
fact that the early Greek texts were written without punctuation or even
gaps between words. Text was simply written in two columns per page
with each row consisting of twelve capital letters. Mistakes were repeated
into the next copy. The differences between texts became so marked that
by the early 18th Century an English Bible scholar, John Mill, found thirty
thousand differences between the various hand written texts available. The
many deliberate or accidental variations were to cause enormous
difficulties for scholars forced to make decisions as to which texts to use
as the basis for the printing of eg The King James Bible in 1611.
22
A lternative V iew of the L ife of Jesus

For more than two hundred years, scholars have voiced doubts as to
whether there ever was such a person as Jesus Christ. The Romanised
Jewish historian, Josephus, who wrote in the first century CE was author
of three famous works: The Jewish War , The Antiquities and Against
Apion. He details the life of JohQ WKH %DSWLVW EXW GRHVQ¶W include Jesus.
(The two brief mentions are thought to be later additions ±the Christian
author Origen writing in 240 CE quotes other passages but not these which
would have been the most important). Another Jewish historian Justus of
Tiberias, a contemporary of Jesus who lived DW&DSHUQDXPFORVHWR-HVXV¶
ministry also fails to mention Jesus. The first century texts, eg Epistles of
Paul, The Shepherd of Hemas and the Didache (an early Christian
instruction manual) were more concerned with the spiritual meaning of
³7KH 5LVHQ &KULVW´ DQG YLUWXDOO\ LJQRUHG WKH HDUWKO\ -HVXV The several
Roman historians of the time eg Plutarch, Seneca and Pliny the Elder
make no mention of Jesus, despite the Gospels listing his followers as in
the thousands and on a par with other often mentioned Jewish groups such
as the Pharisees and Sadducees. The only works on the life of Jesus are the
Gospels, which as we have seen, were written in the Second Century, well
over one hundred years later.

In this version of events, Jesus either did not exist at all or was a Jewish
rebel involved in a minor insurgency, who was crucified by the Romans.
Interestingly, a recent discovery in the Holy Land of an inked stone tablet,
dated some decades before the proposed time of Jesus, mentions another
Jewish insurgent to whom God, through Gabriel, promised resurrection on
the third day. The tablet may refer to a Jewish rebel named Simon who is
mentioned by Josephus. It does suggest that a suffering messiah, rather
than a messiah in the majestic King David mould, might have been part of
the Jewish tradition of the time.

Sometime in the early Second Century the idea of God appearing on Earth
and being sacrificed to redeem humanity evolved. The later written
*RVSHOVWKHQ³EDFNILOOHG´WKHOLIHRI-HVXVMany details were deliberately
added to fulfil Biblical prophecy. Isaiah not only refers to the coming of a
JUHDWNLQJRIWKH+RXVHRI'DYLGZKRZRXOGEH³ the mighty God´EXW
also mentions the suffering endured to redeem the Jews: he was bruised
for our iniquities 53:5, thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin 53:10.
Matthew 2:16-UHIHUVWRWKH³6ODXJKWHURIWKH,QQRFHQWV´VDLGWRKDYH
been instigated by Herod to prevent Jesus, the prophesied future king,
from threatening his throne. This event is not mentioned in Mark or Luke,
(not to mention the secular historians of the time) and is openly said in the
next verse in Matthew to have occurred to fulfil a prophesy in Jeremiah
(31:15).
23
Virgin birth was a common way for deities to make their appearance in
those times: Mithra, Horus (an Egyptian God whose mother Isis was
NQRZQDV³4XHHQRI+HDYHQ´%DFFKXVDQG7DPPX]D%DE\ORQLDQ*RG
were all born of earthly virgin mothers and godly fathers. It appears to
have been inserted to add gravitas to the otherwise hardly mentioned early
OLIH RI -HVXV ,Q PRUH PRGHUQ WLPHV WKH ³6WDU :DUV´ VHULHV RI PRYLHV
portrays the protagonist Anakin Skywalker as being fathered E\ ³7KH
)RUFH´WRDYLUJLQPRWKHU

Some anachronisms crept in. Jesus was said to be from Nazareth: Matthew
2:23: he ca me and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled
which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene.
Archaeological research, however, has revealed that Nazareth was not
founded until after the time of Jesus. Needless to say, Nazareth is never
mentioned in the Old Testament. 0DWWKHZ SUREDEO\ PHDQW ³1D]DULWH´-
someone who had made a vow to God, as in Judges 13:5 the child shall be
a Nazarite to God from the womb to the day of his death. The word
³1D]DUHQH´on the other hand, did come to be used in reference to Jewish
Christians in the early centuries.

Other anachronisms include the census which is said to have caused

Joseph to take his pregnant wife to Bethlehem. The Romans did take a
census HYHU\ IRXUWHHQ \HDUV EXW WKH GDWHV GRQ¶W PDWFK, and, as might be
expected, the Romans required persons to return to their dwelling place,
not their place of birth. Luke places the Nativity of Jesus in the reigns of
both Herod the Great and the Roman governor Quirinius though
historically they were separated by a dozen years.

These problems are widely acknowledged in the Christian Church, but

debates about the literal truth of the Christian Bible have never seemed to
compromise the basic Christian message.

T he Contribution of C hristianity

Christianity was extraordinarily successful and spread like wildfire

throughout the Roman Empire. If offered a personal view of God, one who
was prepared to manifest himself as a human being, and to undergo great
suffering for the benefit of the human race. Suffering became something
VKDUHG ZLWK *RG DQG HYHQ KDG PHDQLQJ ³-RLQLQJ &KULVW RQ WKH &URVV´
Christianity continued the concept of Isaiah that God communicated with
the individual and not just through the great priest-kings. Salvation was
individual and not something that happened to nations as a whole. There
24
was also the concept of the Holy Spirit who was one of the three persons
of the apparently single God who remained on Earth after Christ ascended
LQWRKHDYHQ7KH+RO\6SLULWFRQWLQXHG*RG¶VUHYHODWLRQWRWKHLQGLYLGXDO
This concept of the Holy Spirit, however, is probably the most debated
point of Christian theology. The Hebrew Bible does refer to the holy spirit
without capitals on several occasions, for example in the Psalms, David
DSSHDOVIRU*RG¶VPHUF\3V Cast me not away from thy presence;
and take not thy holy spirit from me , but this is thought to refer not so
much to a divine presence as to an individual inspiration. The Qur¶an also
has many references to the Holy Spirit eg Sura 16:102 The Holy Spirit
(Ruh-ul-Qudus) has revealed it from your Lord with the truth, that it may
establish those who believe and as a guidance and good news for those
who submit. Again this is thought to refer not to a divine presence as in
Christianity but to the Archangel Gabriel who is only sent to certain
appointed persons such as the Prophet Muhammad. The Muslim concept
of the HoO\6SLULWDVRQHZKRGRHV*RG¶VELGGLQJLVFORVHUWRWKHYLHZRI
the Persian religion of Zoroastrianism. The Christian view is that the Holy
Spirit dwells in every Christian. 1 Corinthians 3:16 Know ye not that ye
are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? The
more personal view of God embodied in Christianity had great emotional
appeal.

The concept of the Holy Spirit, allowing revelation to continue and

theology to evolve, has meant that Christianity has been a dynamic
religion, capable of change. For example, it was thought, until recently,
that it was necessary to be a Christian, to accept Christ and his message, to
be able to attain salvation. It is now the feeling of the mainstream of both
Protestant and Catholic streams of the WHVWHUQ &KXUFK WKDW &KULVW¶V
benefice is for everyone of good will. A position supported by the First
Letter of Timothy. ´ For God is the saviour of everyone, but especially of
those who believe." 1 Tim 4: 10.

Christianity, however, was left with the difficult concept of the Trinity.
While maintaining the Monotheism of Judaism, it now proposed that the
single God actually consisted of three persons: God the Father, God the
Son and God the Holy Spirit. Even committed Christians, such as the
evangelist BLOO\*UDKDPKDYHVDLG³'RQ¶WDVNPHWRH[SODLQWKH7ULQLW\
EHFDXVH,FDQ¶W´7KHGLIILFXOW\RIWKH7ULQLW\ZDVWREHDPDMRUVWXPEOLQJ
block for the unity of Christianity and remains so to this day.
25
T he C hallenge of G nosticism

No sooner had Christianity made a start, than it was under challenge from
DQDOWHUQDWLYH IRUPRI XQGHUVWDQGLQJRIWKH PHDQLQJRI &KULVW¶V PLVVLRQ
that expounded by the Gnostics. The Gnostics held that there was a
transcendent God who was not involved in the trivial day-to-day problems
RI WKH FUHDWLRQ 7KH KXPDQ VRXO ZDV ³FRQVXEVWDQWLDO´ ZLWK WKLV *RG EXW
the human body was forced to live in the evil material world which been
FUHDWHGE\WKH-HZLVK-HKRYDKDIODZHGOHVVHUJRGRUGHPLXUJH&KULVW¶V
mission was to save mankind from this evil world by allowing access to a
divine knowledge (gnosis) of the transcendent God.

The Gnostic heresy, though eventually unsuccessful, did force the early
Christian Church to reevaluate its theology, to close the Canon of the New
Testament and to emphasise Episcopal authority. The major problem with
having ongoing revelation, provided by the Holy Spirit, is that it leads to
fragmentation of the faithful. It became necessary in the face of the
Gnostic challenge to assert the authority of the elders (presbyters) to
maintain the cohesion of the Church. In time this authority was devolved
to a single person, known as the Bishop, derived from the Greek
episkopos, OLWHUDOO\ ³RYHUVHHU´ /DWHU LW EHFDPH WUDGLWLRQ WKDW WKHUH KDG
always only ever been one Bishop in each congregation, and this Bishop
derived authority by direct line of consecration going back to the Apostle
3HWHU 3DXO¶V HDUO\ OHWWHUV KRZHYHU ZHUH DGGUHVVHG WR FRQJUHJDWLRQV
WKHPVHOYHV IRU H[DPSOH µ7KH &RULQWKLDQV´ UDWKHU WKDQ WR DQ\ SHUVRQV RI
DXWKRULW\2QHLPDJLQHV WKDW KH ZRXOGQRW KDYH ³JRQHRYHUWKH KHDG´RI
the local Bishop, had there actually been one.

T he Roman E mpire becomes C hristian

By the third century, Rome was itself coming under threat from German
tribes in the north and the Persians in the east. The great Emperor
Diocletian assumed control of the Roman Empire. He was a pagan, (a
Roman military term meaning a person not in the army, and now meaning
one not of the Christian faith), and carried out the last great persecution of
the Christians. He also decided that the Empire had become too large for
one man to handle, and divided it into two. He took control of the eastern
half himself and his co-emperor Maximian the western half. Each
Emperor was to select a second in command or Caesar, so that in the event
RIWKHHPSHURU¶VGHDWKRUUHVLJQDWLRQWKH&DHVDUZRXOGDVsume the throne,
ensuring that the succession would be trouble free. This unfortunately did
not happen as smoothly as predicted. In 312 CE, in the northern British
26
Roman garrison town of York, General Constantine was proclaimed
Emperor by his troops. He advanced on Rome with his army to take up
the throne. At Milvian Bridge outside Rome, prior to the battle for the
throne, he had a vision of the Christian symbol chi-rho (the initial letters
of Jesus Christ in Greek) in the sky with the legend In Hoc S igno Vinces
(in this sign conquer). He vowed that, if victorious, he would convert to
Christianity. He was indeed victorious and became the great Emperor
Constantine. He reunited the east and west portions of the Empire and
moved the capital from Rome to Byzantium in the eastern part of the
empire, renaming it Constantinople.

T he A rian H eresy

Constantine had hardly taken up the Imperial Purple and encouraged

conversion of the population of the Empire to Christianity, when a major
theological problem arose, concerning the nature of Christ. A Christian
priest, Arius of Alexandria, in about 323 CE, had proclaimed the opinion
that Christ was not a divine manifestation but a lesser being. There were
various versions of Arianism ranging from Jesus as a simple man as were,
say prophets Abraham and Moses (the current position of the Islamic
faith) to Jesus as second only to God in heaven, though still a being
created by God (the position of the sole remainder of Arianism in
Christianity today; WKH -HKRYDK¶V :LWQHsses). This was a major
embarrassment to Emperor Constantine. He directed all the Christian
Bishops to meet at one of the imperial resorts, Nicaea, across the straits
from Constantinople. He himself opened proceedings and directed the
Bishops to arrive at a consensus that would then be enforced. From this
FRXQFLO ZH KDYH WKH 1LFHQH &UHHG ZKLFK VWDWHV WKDW &KULVW LV ³of one
VXEVWDQFH ZLWK WKH )DWKHU´ and therefore different in nature to the
previous prophets. Arianism was proscribed in 381 CE, and many of the
Arian Christians fled south into Arabia. In fact, when Islam arose some
centuries later, it was initially thought to be merely a version of Arianism
returning from the desert. The Islamic perception of Christianity, that it
FODLPV³*RGKDVD&RPSDQLRQ´IROORZVWKH$ULDQUDWKHUWKDQWKHRUWKRGR[
view of Christ.

Rome F alls

Arianism was not completely destroyed; many of the Germanic tribes to

the north of Rome had converted to the Arian version of Christianity. In
27
410 CE, the Visigoth King Alaric, who had been an ally of Rome and had
even been promoted to the rank of Roman General, revolted and entered
Rome with his troops. He treated the population with some respect, but
this was a devastating loss of prestige to the western empire. By the early
sixth century, all of Western Roman Empire had been overrun by
Germanic tribes, leaving the eastern empire based at Constantinople
holding the flame.

T he Coming of M uhammad

In 570 CE there was born, in the Arabian town of Mecca, a person called
Muhammad. There is almost nothing known about him from independent
sources. The earliest documentation of his life was written by Ibn Ishaq
about one hundred and twenty years after MuhDPPDG¶VGHDWKLQ&(
and even this is second hand since the original has been lost and what is
NQRZQFRPHVIURPH[WHQVLYHXVHRI,EQ,VKDT¶VZRUNE\,EQ+LVKDPRQH
hundred years after this. As far as is known, he was orphaned at a young
age and brought up by his uncle. As a young man he became the agent for
a wealthy merchant widow Khadijah. He ended up marrying her and
became a very successful merchant himself. Muslim tradition has it that
he was illiterate, (and the tradition is backed by an interprHWDWLRQRI4XU¶DQ
29:48). On the other hand, this does seem most unlikely for a person in
such an occupation, and it has been suggested that the illiteracy was added
ODWHU WR LQIHU WKDW 0XKDPPDG¶V H[WHQVLYH NQRZOHGJH RI WKH -HZLVK DQG
Christian faiths was derived from revelation and not study. He was a very
thoughtful man and was traditionally said to be most disturbed by the fact
that most of the Arabs were pagans. There were, however, many Jewish
tribes in the area that had either fled to Arabia with the fall of Jerusalem in
70 CE, or were actually ethnic Arabs, who had converted to Judaism. One
Arab King, Dhu Nuwas, had done so, and, in those times, it was
considered wise to follow the religion of the king. On the other hand, a
fifth century Greek source The Ecclesiastical History of Sozomen, states
that the Arabs of Northwest Arabia were already monotheists who dated
their origin to Abraham and Hagar and followed certain Jewish customs
such as the avoidance of pork. As well, recent archeological surveys of the
Hijaz (the region of present day Saudi- Arabia bounding the Red Sea and
containing the cities of Mecca and Medina) have found almost no
evidence of pagan worship after the 4 th century CE though pagan practice
persisted in the north in the Negev desert for several centuries.

The Arabs were also greatly influenced by the religion of the nearby great
power, Persia. This religion, Zoroastrianism, had both monotheist and
dualistic features. There was one God as overlord, Ahura Mazda, who had
28
twin sons, one of whom chose the path of good, and the other that of evil.
The sons were involved in an eternal battle for dominance on Earth.
Zoroastrianism introduced the concept of six Holy Spirits, as an
H[SUHVVLRQ RI *RG¶V ZLOO DQG DQJHOV ZKR GLG *RG¶V ELGGLQJ As a
merchant, Muhammad would also have had contact with Christians,
particularly those of heretical belief, who had fled into the Arabian deserts
to escape persecution in the Byzantine Empire. A cousin of his first wife
Khadijah, for example, was a Christian who was able to read Hebrew text.

Muhammad retired to a cave outside Mecca to meditate on the state of the

Arabs for some years. Finally, in 610 CE at the age of 42, he was
DSSDUHQWO\YLVLWHGE\WKH$UFKDQJHO*DEULHOZKRVWDUWHGWRGLFWDWH*RG¶V
directions. In time, it was revealed to Muhammad that he was the latest,
and in fact the last, prophet in the tradition of Abraham and Moses. In 620
he recounted to his friends a miraculous journey in which he had visited
Jerusalem, mounted on a white winged creature, Al- Buraq, accompanied
by the Archangel Gabriel and had then toured Heaven and Hell and had
conversed with the Prophets Moses and Jesus and even with God himself.
The pagans of Mecca, however, were by and large unimpressed, and he
was forced to flee to a town called Yathrib, 150 miles to the northeast.
This flight to Yathrib in 622 CE, known in Arabic as the Hijra, marks year
1 of the Arabic Calendar. Yathrib later became known as Medina,
PHDQLQJ ³WKH &LW\ RI WKH 3URSKHW´ 7KH PDMRU GLVDSSRLQWPHQW RI
0XKDPPDG¶VOLIHZDVVDLGWREHWKH IDFWWKDWWKH-HZVGLGQRWUHFRJQL]H
him as the latest, and last, of the Prophets. The Jews apparently were
reluctant to recognise a prophet who did not demonstrate his authenticity
by performing miracles. In response to this rejection, he now directed that
the faithful pray facing Mecca, whereas, previously, Muslims and Jews
and had prayed together facing Jerusalem.

In Medina, Muhammad became a very successful war leader and led his
men in between 42 and 78 battles (the number varies between sources).
Only one of these was defensive: the Battle of the Trenches. In most of
these he was successful, though sometimes with the assistance of an
invisible army sent from heaven (Sura 9:26). On some occasions,
however, he was defeated. He was by no means a mild leader and, on one
occasion, massacred some 800 Jewish prisoners and sold their wives into
slavery, reserving one beauty, Rihana, for himself. He finally returned in
triumph to Mecca, where he rededicated to God the ancient stone which
had been the focus of pagan Arab worship, but which was revealed to
Muhammad as actually being the corner stone of the temple built by
Abraham and his son Ishmael. Muhammad died shortly after his return to
Mecca, at the age of 62 in 632 CE.
29
A lternative V iew of the F irst M uslims

Some scholars, in particular Patricia Crone and Michael Cook, originally

from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London,
have pointed out that there are no independent sources for this classical
Muslim history. They note the great similarities between Islam and at least
the Samaritan version of Judaism. The Exodus of the Hebrews is
paralleled by the flight to Medina and the person of Moses by
0XKDPPDG 7KH FRQIHVVLRQ RI IDLWK ³7KHUH LV QR *RG EXW *RG´ LV
common to both religions and the Prophet Muhammad seemed unaware of
any of the Hebrew Bible apart from the first five books, the Pentateuch;
the Canon of the Samaritans. The later prophetic writings such as Isaiah,
so important to the Christians, are ignored. In this scheme of things, the
Arabs followed a version of Samaritan Judaism. The conquest of Palestine
was done in conjunction with the Jews and was an effort to retake the
Holy Land from the Christians. The Arabs were by tradition small time
raiders and now enthusiastically joined an enterprise that promised
conquest and the spoils of war, but even better was divinely ordained.
Only after the conquest of Jerusalem did the Arabs and Jews divide. This
VHTXHQFHIROORZVWKDWRIDQ$UPHQLDQFKURQLFOHRIWKH¶V&(- written
only a couple of decades after the conquest of the Holy Land. Only then
did the Arabs devise a religion heavily influenced by Samaritan Jewish
doctrines complete, in time, with a supporting history which now had the
Arabs as the latest of the Chosen People and Arabic as the Holy Language.
This relative unity of religion and purpose would explain why for the first
60 years after the death of the Prophet, mosques were orientated in the
general direction of Jerusalem in Palestine. For example the first mosque
built in Kufa, Iraq in about 670CE was aligned to the south-west when it
should have pointed to the south if it were built to face Mecca, the
difference being 30 degrees. The Great Mosque at Wasit, near Kut in Iraq,
ZDV EXLOW RYHU DQ HDUOLHU PRVTXH ZKLFK ZDV DOVR ³RXW´ E\  GHJUHHV
After Jerusalem was conquered by the combined forces in 637 CE, the
Muslims built a mosque, The Dome of the Rock, on the site of the ancient
Jewish Temple, completing it in 691 CE. It was octagonal rather than
rectangular since it was built on the very spot that previous mosques had
been aligned towards. Only after the split from the Jews were mosques
aligned towards Mecca.

There is, as well, evidence of a lot of Christian influence in early Muslim

theology. The many vivid descriptions of Heaven and Hell, the acceptance
of the being of Satan and the depiction of Jesus as a prophet (though not,
in this case, a divine manifestation of God) are thought to be of Syriac
Christian origin. 7KH 4XU¶DQLF VWDWHPHQW WKDW -HVXV ZDV QRW DFWXDOO\
crucified but another died in his place (Sura 4:156-159) follows the beliefs
of several Christian sects, eg the Gnostic Basilidians that date back to the
30
very dawn of Christianity. Apocryphal Jewish and Christian writings also
have been incorporated into the 4XU¶DQ7KHDFFRXQWRI0RXQW6LQDLEHLQJ
held over the head of the Jews as a threat for abandoning the Law (Sura
7:171) comes from the Jewish apocryphal book The Abodah S aran and the
story of the infant Jesus creating birds from clay (Sura 3:49) is from the
Christian apocryphal 7KRPDV¶ *RVSHO RI WKH ,QIDQF\ of Jesus Christ
(Chap2:4).

Alexander the Great was greatly admired in classical times and the subject
of much legend and mythology which is now referred to DV WKH ³7KH
$OH[DQGHU 5RPDQFH´. Though actually a pagan, in time he came to be
thought of in Jewish and Christian legend as a monotheist and even a
prophet, occupying a similar place to King Arthur in British tradition. The
story of Dhul-Qarnayn (Sura 18:83-98), who is identified by Arab
historian Ibn Ishaq as Alexander, closely follows some passages of the
Alexander Romance, though the legends are WUHDWHGDVIDFWLQWKH4XU¶DQ

The religion of the great Persian Empire, Zoroastrianism, also appears to

have influenced the writing of the 4XU¶DQ and the accompanying
traditions. In particular the mystical night journey of the Prophet when he
toured Heaven and Hell mounted on the flying creature Al-Buraq (Sura
17:1) closely resembles the tour of the Zoroastrian emissary Arta Viraf
described in a book written 400 years before the Islamic era. The Islamic
doctrine that the souls of the dead must cross a bridge, al-Sirat, before
entering paradise follows a Zoroastrian belief and the Islamic belief in
Jinns, malicious shadowy creatures frequently GHVFULEHGLQWKH4XU¶DQHJ
Sura 72: The Jinn) seems to be of Zoroastrian origin. Indeed the word Jinn
is of Persian derivation.

0DQ\ LQVFULSWLRQV RI D 4XU¶DQLF QDWXUH GDWLQJ IURP WKH ILUVW ILIW\ \HDUV
after the death of the Prophet in 632 CE have been uncovered in Arabia.
1RQHKRZHYHUPHQWLRQ0XKDPPDG¶VQDPHDWDOODQGLWLVQRWXQWLO
&(VL[W\ \HDUVODWHU ZKHQWKH FODVVLFDO ,VODPLFIRUPXODWLRQ³7KHUHLVQR
*RG EXW *RG DQG 0XKDPPDG LV KLV 3URSKHW´ ILUVW DSSHDUV LQVFULEHG RQ
the walls of the newly completed Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. The
first rock inscriptions that do mention Muhammad as Prophet (starting
from around 730 CE) DOVRLQYRNH*RG¶VIRUJLYHQHVVIRUKLVVLQV- whereas
later Muslim doctrine holds Muhammad to be incapable of sin. The first
caliphs were known by the title Khalifat Allah (Deputy of God) and only
later was the title changed to Khalifat Rasul Allah (Deputy of the Prophet
of God). On the other hand a Greek Syrian text around 634 CE refers to a
³IDOVH SURSKHW DPRQJ WKH 6DUDFHQV´, dismissing him on the grounds that
prophets are not supposed to be war leaders. The Doctrina Iacobi, circe
636 CE, a Greek anti-Jewish tract mentions an Arabic leader who
SUHDFKHGRI³DQDQRLQWHGRQHZKRLVWRFRPH´ This is confirmed by two
31
contemporary Jewish apocalyptic documents which mention Muhammad
as the prophetic herald of Umar, the messiah. As brother descendants of
Abraham, the Jews were prepared to follow an Arabic leader if it led to the
reconquest of the Promised Land where the messiah must manifest
himself. In fact it was the failure of the promised messiah to appear that
probably led to the rupture between the Jews and the Arabs. Muhammad
is also mentioned by name as a monotheistic preacher in an Armenian text
dated to 661 CE. From this viewpoint there does seem to have been a
military leader who advocated a version of monotheism, though the
elevation to a prophet who received revelation from God seems to have
occurred later.

Other scholars take an even more radical position. They review the
engraved inscriptions on official monuments, results of other
archeological findings, coins, and documents from the time to cast doubt
as to whether there ever was a single major historical figure called
Muhammad, though there may have been one or more minor persons of
this name.

The Traditional Islamic history has it that Muhammad himself led his men
in several battles to capture the Hijaz before dying in 632 CE/10 AH. His
followers then led an Arab army north and after a series of mighty battles
with the Byzantine forces captured Palestine and Jerusalem. The actual
border of the Byzantine Empire, however, was further north around
Antioch and the Empire relied on client Arab kings or chieftains to defend
against Bedouin raiders from the south. These Arab leaders received
subsidies to help maintain their authority provided they followed at least a
version of the Christian faith. The Patriarch of Jerusalem, writing in
VWDWHVWKDW ³WKH 6DUDFHQV ZKRRQDFFRXQWRIRXUVLQV KDYHULVHQ
XS DJDLQVW XV XQH[SHFWHGO\´, strongly suggesting that they were not
members of a conquering army but resident Arabs staging an uprising.
(The name Saracen indicates a person of the family of Abraham but
descended from the slave girl Hagar and not from his wife Sarah-
relegating the Arabs to a position of inferiority compared with the Jews,
descended from Sarah, and the Christians with their Divine Prophet).
There is no mention of the battles between the Arab forces and the
Byzantine Empire in any other chronicles of the time though battles
between the Persians and Byzantines are well documented. It appears that
the client Arab leaders on the spot usurped the authority of the Byzantine
power in much the same way that the client European kings had declared
independence with the decline of the Roman Empire several hundred years
before.

Arab coins issued from Palestine continued to display a cross on the

obverse side for some 60 years until the reforms of Caliph al-Malik (ruled
32
685-705 CE - the fifth Caliph in the Traditional Islamic history). Arab
official documents continued to be produced in Arabic and Greek with the
Greek versions also beginning and ending with the traditional Christian
Cross until this practice abruptly ceased with al-Malik (the name means
³WKH .LQJ´ LQ $UDELF. In this line of reasoning the Arabs followed a
monotheistic religion which was not anti-Christian until al-Malik
instituted the tradition of an Arab prophet named Muhammad- the name
VLPSO\ PHDQLQJ ³WKH SUDLVHG RQH´ RU ³WKH FKRVHQ RQH´ LQ $UDELF. The
familiar Muslim IRUPXODWLRQ³7KHUHLVQR*RGEXW*RGDQG0XKDPPDGLV
KLV 3URSKHW´ DSSHDUHG RQ RIILFLDO GRFXPHQWV DQG FRLQV ³RYHUQLJKW´ $O-
Malik built the Dome of the Rock, completed in 692/70, which has many
prominent anti-Christian inscriptions in keeping with this new more
assertive and particularly Arab version of monotheism. The Prophet
0XKDPPDG ³7KH 6HDO RI WKH 3URSKHWV´ VHQW WR WKH $UDEV LQVWDQWO\
changed a perception of inferiority of the Arabs to the Jews and Christians
to one of superiority.

TKH4XU¶an as a single Holy Book does not seem to have been compiled,
or at least canonized, until later still. Bar Penkaye, a Nestorian Christian
writing in Syriac in about 690CE/69AH, details the Arab conquests of the
time but makes no mention of an Arabic sacred text. A manuscript from
876 CE tells of a meeting between an Arab governor (probably of Syria)
and a Christian Patriarch held about 644CE/23 AH. The discussion
revolved around the nature of Christ and the fact that the Arabs only
revered the first five books of the Hebrew Bible- the Pentateuch. There is
QRPHQWLRQRIWKH4XU¶DQRURI0XKDPPDGRU,VODPLQJHQHUDO As well
a mid 8th century statement of the Muslim creed, the Fiqh Akbar 1, also
does not mention the Qur¶an, a finding as unlikely as a statement of the
Christian faith not mentioning the Gospels. In fact the first reference to the
4XU¶DQ IURP D &KULVWLDQ VRXUFH LV ³ Concerning Heresy´ E\ -RKQ RI
Damascus, writing about 750CE/133AH, which mentions several chapters
LQFOXGLQJ³7KH&DPHO´though this last is not in the canonized version and
may represent a remnant of a lost Arabic apocrypha. The first official
Muslim PHQWLRQ RI WKH 4XU¶DQ LV IURP  LQ DQ LQVFULSWLRQ LQ WKH
Prophet Mosque of Medina which quotes Sura 8:41 in urging persons to
obey the Caliph and pay their taxes.

The written history of the Muslims does seem to become more complex
with time. For example, a raid might be mentioned by the first Arab
historian, Ibn Ishaq, but the next account will mention the number of
warriors involved and finally the definitive account, written perhaps a
hundred years later, will be complete with dates, times, numbers of
casualties and prisoners taken. The received history of Islam does seem to
have taken several centuries to reach its final form.
33
By whatever means, there is no doubt that the most recent version of
0RQRWKHLVP ,VODP PHDQLQJ WR VXUUHQGHU RQHVHOI WR *RG¶V ZLOO ZDV
extraordinarily successful and within a short time was dominant
throughout most of the Arabian Peninsula.

T he F irst Four C aliphs

Muhammad died without leaving a designated successor. By consensus, it

was his father-in-law, Abu Bakr, who became the first Caliph (meaning
successor). Abu BakU¶V GDXJKWHU $LVKD KDG PDUULHG WKH 3URSKHW DW WKH
age of nine, and became his favorite wife. She was only sixteen when the
Prophet died. Abu Bakr found that the Arab forces were starting to
dissolve with the death of the Prophet, and, that many of the Arab holy
men had started to claim divine revelations themselves. In response, Abu
Bakr made two very important decisions. The Prophet had said that he
would be the last prophet before Doomsday, and Abu Bakr decreed that
this meant there would be no further revelations from God at all. This was
to have enormous implications for the future of Islamic culture. A person
GHVLULQJWRNQRZ*RG¶VZLOOZDVXQDEOHWRSUD\IRUJXLGDQFHLQWHUSUHWHG
as a revelation, and therefore now forbidden, but was expected to be able
WRGLVFHUQ*RG¶VZLOOE\UHDGLQJWKHFROOHFWLRQRIWKHUHYHODWLRQV*RGKDG
made to Muhammad, or by studying the sayings of the Prophet.

$EX%DNUDOVRDQQRXQFHGWKDWDQ\SHUVRQZKRGHIHFWHGIURP*RG¶VSDWK
as laid down by the Prophet, was guilty of treason and therefore would
die. This decree, that apostasy meant death, remains a fundamental precept
of Islamic dogma and continues to cause serious problems in a pluralist
society. It means that anyone raised as a Muslim is unable to choose his
own religion, in contradiction to the United Nations doctrine of freedom of
religious choice. Abu Bakr only lived another two years and another of the
SURSKHW¶V FRPSDQLRQV 8PDU ZKR UXOHG IURP  WR  WKHQ WRRN KLV
place. At this stage, the Islamic world was undergoing a dramatic
expansion with the defeat of both the Byzantine forces in the north, in
Palestine, and the Persian forces to the northeast. The world was divided
into the Dar al-,VODPWKH+RXVHRI,VODPZKHUH*RG¶VODZVZHUHNHSW
and the Dar al-Harb (the House of War) where the struggle to institute
*RG¶V ODZV ZDV RQJRLQJ $OO DFWV RI ZDU ZHUH SHUPLWWHG LQ WKH 'DU DO-
Harb. Umar made the farsighted decision that the Arab troops were to be
kept in camps to maintain a state of warlike readiness and not to be
billeted in the captured towns, where their enthusiasm might diminish. He
also decided that any booty taken by the Arab troops belonged to the state,
and not to the individual who captured it. He took a major share himself.
When he died, the next Caliph, Uthman, who ruled from 644 to 656 CE,
realised that many of the persons who had personally known the Prophet
were either dying, or were being killed in battle, and the revelations were
34
in danger of being lost. He directed his holy men to collect the revelations,
which the Prophet had received from Gabriel. Since the Prophet was said
to be illiterate, these dictates had been written down on anything that was
to hand, including scapulae of camels and scraps of leather. It was often
difficult to decide ZKLFKZHUHWKH3URSKHW¶VUHYHODWLRQVIURP*DEULHODQG
which were just recorded sayings of the Prophet himself. There were
collections of both of these in each of the major Islamic centers. Uthman
decreed that his collection was now the official one, named WKH 4XU¶DQ
(recital), and that all others were to be destroyed. Needless to say, the
owners of the other collections objected to the destruction of the holy
words, and, therefore, there came into existence at least seven major and
substantially differing vHUVLRQV RI WKH 4XU¶DQ 7KHUH LV DOVR QR UHDVRQ WR
VXSSRVH WKDW 8WKPDQ¶V FROOHFWLRQ ZDV FRPSOHWH $V WKH IDPRXV  th
FHQWXU\ 4XU¶DQLF VFKRODU $s-Suyuti pointed out "Let no one of you say
that he has acquired the entire Quran, for how does he know that it is all?
0XFKRIWKH4XUDQKDVEHHQORVWWKXVOHWKLPVD\µ,KDYHDFTXLUHGRILW
ZKDW LV DYDLODEOH¶ In support As-Suyuti mentions a tradition in which
0XKDPPDG¶V\RXQJZLIH$LVKDUHODWHVWKDWVKHNHSWDZULWWHQUHYHODWLRQ
from the Prophet (regarding stoning for adultery) under her bed but it had
been eaten by a goat.

T he Umayyad Dynasty

0HDQZKLOH 8WKPDQ¶V WURRSV LQ WKH ILHOG ZHUH VWDUWLQJ WR KDYH PDMRU
objections to being kept in camps, while the booty from their endeavors
was going to the state, with thH OLRQ¶V VKDUH JRLQJWRWKH &DOLSK KLPVHOI
They sent an armed delegation to make their objection in person. Uthman,
however, brushed their arguments aside with the opinion that he was the
Caliph, or successor to the Prophet, and was beyond criticism from his
troops. The delegation was not impressed and Uthman was assassinated.
7KHUH WKHQ IROORZHG D ZDU RI VXFFHVVLRQ 7KH 3URSKHW¶V VRQ-in-law, Ali,
who had married the Prophets daughter, Fatima, was the major contender,
but was challenged by several others, two of whom were supported by the
3URSKHW¶VZLGRZ$LVKDVWLOODYLJRURXV\RXQJZRPDQ$OLZDVVXFFHVVIXO
and became the fourth Caliph, but was assassinated by disaffected
members of his own force. If that were QRWEDGHQRXJK$OL¶VVRQ+XVD\Q
who was of the Blood Royal, being the grandson of the Prophet, was later
also assassinated, along with his entire family, by members of the family
of the second Caliph, Umar. The supporters of Ali were outraged at what
they saw essentially as sacrilege. From this arose the major schism in the
Islamic world, with the supporters of Ali becoming known as the Shiites,
GHULYHGIURPWKH$UDEZRUGVPHDQLQJ³WKHSDUW\RI$OL´7KHGHVFHQGDQWV
of Umar reclaimed the Caliphate and the capital of the Empire was moved
35
from Mecca to Baghdad, to be closer to the other major centers of Islam.
The Umayyads were very successful in consolidating the Islamic
conquests, concentrating on administration rather than points of theology.
The Umayyad Caliphate successfully ruled over an Islamic Empire that
extended throughout the Middle East and North Africa and into Spain.
Jerusalem was captured early on, and, in 692 CE, the Mosque, known as
³7KH 'RPH RI WKH 5RFN´ ZDV EXLOW RQ WKH VLWH RI WKH 6HFRQG -HZLVK
temple, which had been destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE. This remains
D YHU\ VRUH SRLQW ZLWK WKH -HZV DQG LW ZDV WKH ,VUDHOL *HQHUDO 6KDURQ¶V
visit to this site that sparked the latest uprising of the Palestinians.

T he A bbasid Dynasty

In 750 CE, the Abbasids overthrew the Umayyad Dynasty. The name,
$EEDVLG EHLQJ GHULYHG IURP WKDW RI WKH 3URSKHW¶V XQFOH DO-Abbas, who
had died in 653 CE. The Abbasids changed the focus of Islam from the
west and south, to the east, and moved the capital to Damascus. Because
they were lead by descendents of the Prophet, they were supported by the
Shiites, the party of Ali. They moved away from the focus on Arab
ethnicity and administration, to an emphasis on the community of the
faithful and support of religious law. Several Islamic communities in
North Africa and Spain took the opportunity to declare independence
under their own Caliphs.

7KH4XU¶DQDQG7KH+DGLWK

As we have seen, the Holy Book RI ,VODP WKH 4XU¶DQ FDPH LQWR EHLQJ
when the Caliph Uthman directed that all the revelations to the Prophet,
which he had dictated to others, be gathered into one official collection,
and that other collections be destroyed. The owners of the other
collections were loath to destroy the Holy Words, and thus, at least seven
PDMRU YHUVLRQV RI WKH 4XU¶DQ FDPH LQWR H[LVWHQFH VRPH RI ZKLFK PD\
differ to a significant extent.

7UDGLWLRQDOO\ZRUQRXWFRSLHVRIWKH4XU¶DQZHUHQRWGHVWUR\HGEXWVWRUHG
LQ PRVTXH ³JUDYH\DUGV´ 5HVWRUDWLRQ RI WKH *UHDW 0RVTXH RI 6DQD¶D LQ
Yemen LQ WKH ¶V uncovered thousands of fragments of perhaps one
thousand DQFLHQW 4XU¶DQV. Included were the oldest copies RI WKH 4XU¶DQ
ever found and even some of these were palimpsests- written over
SUHYLRXVO\ ³UXEEHG RXW´ WH[WV Significant textual variations and
36
differences in text organisation have been noted. The Yemeni authorities
have put further work in the hands of German paleographologists, but all
concerned are aware of the political and religious consequences of these
findings and few further details have been released.

The script in which the original 4XU¶DQ ZDV written was much more
difficult to read than modern Arabic script. There were fifteen symbols (to
represent twenty eight sounds), and no diacritic points to differentiate
between the several letters represented by D VLQJOH V\PERO 7KH 4XU¶DQ
itself states that it is intended only as guidance for the faithful, as pointed
out in Sura 2:2. Arabic script itself was only developed in about 500 CE
(just 70 years before the birth of the Prophet) by Christian Arabs at al-
Hira. It was derived from a version of Aramaic which itself was derived
from the earlier Phoenician script. Until the addition of the diacritic points
more than 200 years laterDQGYRZHOV\PEROVDIWHUWKDWWKH4XU¶DQ, like
the Hebrew Bible before it, probably could not have been read by any
person without prior knowledge of an oral tradition. Even today there are
verses consisting of only three letters eg Alif la m mi m of Sura 2:1, the
meaning of which is unknown and which are described in the
DFFRPSDQ\LQJ FRPPHQWDU\ DV EHLQJ ³RQH RI WKH PLUDFOHV RI WKH 4XU¶DQ
DQGQRQHEXW$OODKNQRZVWKHLUPHDQLQJ´7KH\DUHSUobably remnants of
the original proto-Arabic script, the meaning of which was lost to later
scholars who were unable to translate the verse into the more modern
Classical Arabic.

As well as the verses which are undecipherable, the lack of diacritic points
and vowels in early Arabic has meant that perhaps twenty percent of the
4XU¶DQ LV also either unable to be understood or subject to various
interpretations. The early scholars added the diacritic points according to
HDFK ZULWHU¶V XQGHUVWDQGLQJ RI WKH WH[W The mid 15th century Spanish
scholar, John of Segovia, QRWHG WKDW RQH RI KLV FRSLHV RI WKH 4XU¶DQ KDG
³far more YRZHO PDUNV IRU FDVH HQGLQJV´ WKDQ GLG DQRWKHU Islamic
VFKRODUV WUDGLWLRQDOO\ GLYLGH 4XU¶DQLF VHQWHQFHV LQWR Zahir (obvious) and
Khafi (hidden). Highlighting the difficulty in understanding the meaning
of some of the sentences, a group of Islamic scholars has recently
published an eight volume magnum opus Al-TXU¶DQL\\Dh which lists some
ten thousand variations of the reading of the text oIWKH4XU¶DQ

7KH4XU¶DQLVXVXDOO\RUJDQL]HGRQWKH EDVLVRIWKHOHQJWKRIWKHYHUVHV
and has no chronological sequence. There are, however, two major
VHFWLRQVRIWKH4XU¶DQ7KHILUVWFRQVLVWVRIUHYHODWLRQVUHFHLYHGLQ0HFFD
and are mainly concerned with theological issues and may be very
conciliatory. So much so that Sura 53 originally allowed prayer to pagan
JRGGHVVHVWKH³6DWDQLF9HUVHV´PDGHIDPRXVE\6DOPDQ5XVKGLH7KHVH
were later removed, following further revelation from Gabriel. The second
37
major section is the collection of the Medinan revelations. These came at a
time when the Prophet was a great political leader and so the verses are
concerned with organization and rules for conduct. The tone of this part is
much more warlike: Sura 9:29 F iJKWWKRVHZKRGRQRWEHOLHYHLQ$OODK«
until they pay the tax in acknowledgment of superiority and they are in a
state of subjection. Other parts of the Medinan collection do seem to be
rather self-serving. When accused by his wife, Hafsa, of continuing an
affair with a Coptic slave girl, which he had promised to end, a divine
revelation allowed it to continue, and to threaten the wives with divorce if
they objected: Sura 66.1 O Prophet! why do you forbid (yourself) that
which Allah has made lawful for you; you seek to please your wives; and
$OODKLV)RUJLYLQJ0HUFLIXO«««66.5 Maybe, his Lord, if he divorce you,
will give him in your place wives better than you, submissive, faithful,
obedient, penitent, adorers, fasters, widows and virgins.

Though the rXOHVDQGSXQLVKPHQWVPD\VHHPVHYHUHWKH4XU¶DQFRGLILHG

behavior in brutal times, and did, for example, accord women many more
rights than they had had, at least in Arabia, before this time.

The second part of Islamic law is based on the Hadith: the collections of
the sayings of the Prophet, or of actions that he may have witnessed and
GLG QRW REMHFW WR 7KH +DGLWK KROGV VHFRQG RQO\ WR WKH 4XU¶DQ LWVHOI LQ
importance. The major problem in collecting these items was in
determining which of them were authentic, especially since they were
being manufactured wholesale to support various political or ideological
SRVLWLRQV $LVKD WKH 3URSKHW¶V \RXQJHVW DQG IDYRULWH ZLIH FRQWULEXWHG
about 1000 quotes from the Prophet, and who could gainsay her? It
became practiFH WR SUHFHGH WKH 3URSKHW¶V UHSRUWHG VD\LQJV E\ SUHVHQWLQJ
an authentication chain (Arabic isnad), as to who told it to whom etc, and
when it had been written down. Unfortunately, persons in the business of
fabrication can just as easily produce false chains, and it does appear that
the more authentic the pedigree of a quotation is, the more likely it is to be
false. There was a tendency for the Hadith quotation to be given ever
higher attribution as time went on. For example, a quote may have been
originalO\VRXUFHGWRRQHRIWKH3URSKHW¶VVXFFHVVRUV&DOLSKVEXWVRPH
time ODWHU WKLV VDPH TXRWH ZRXOG EH DWWULEXWHG WR RQH RI WKH 3URSKHW¶V
Companions and later still to the Prophet himself. Sunni Muslims of today
recognize six legitimate collections of the Hadith but all these were
written down several hundred years after the event. The most famous
collection was that of Muhammad ibn Ismail al-Bukhari (810-870CE). He
travelled widely through the Abbasid Empire and reviewed some 600,000
traditions attributed to the Prophet. He finally accepted 2602 (0.4%) as
authentic.
38
The FRPELQDWLRQVRI*RG¶VUHYHDOHGZLOOLQWKH4XU¶DQDQGWKHVD\LQJVRI
the Prophet, as well as some unattributed traditions, make up Islamic law,
or Sharia.

T he Contribution of Islam

The monotheistic faith expounded by Muhammad was emphatically not a

new religion, but an effort to return to the simpler faith of the Patriarchs of
early times. The Jews and especially the Christians, with their doctrine of
the Trinity, had strayed from this path and Islam was seen as being an
H[SUHVVLRQ RI *RG¶V ZLOO RI D UHVWRration to the true faith. Islam was
sternly monotheistic, though it shared with the Christians, though not the
Jews, the existence of an autonomous evil being, Satan, which weakened
this monotheistic stand. The Islamic view of the Trinity does appear to be
mistaken in that apart from following the Arian view of seeing Jesus as a
³&RPSDQLRQ´ WR *RG LW DOVR SRUWUD\V 0DU\ DV WKH 7KLUG 3HUVRQ RI WKH
Trinity: Sura 5:115. And when Allah will say: O Jesus son of Mary! did
you say to men, Take me and my mother for WZRJRGVEHVLGHV$OODK«The
great 12th century Muslim theologian Zamakhshari interpreted this to
mean that Jesus was the child of a union between God and Mary.

It was seen as a way of life for all people that governed every part of their
existence, and, tKHUHIRUH WKHUH FRXOG EH QR ³VHSDUDWLRQ RI &KXUFK DQG
6WDWH´Because Islam provides a complete formula for living, it has great
emotional appeal, especially for persons dissatisfied with the current state
of their lives. Islam also appeals to persons unhappy with the dominance
of the United States and Europe in world affairs. This appeal has a
historical basis, since it was the dominance of the Middle East, by the
great powers of the Persian and Byzantine Empires, which first lead
Muhammad to ponder the relative impotence of the Arabs and to decide,
(or be directed by God), to take decisive action to rectify the situation.

Revelation from God was thought to have ceased with Muhammad, the
³6HDORIWKH3URSKHWV´ DQGWKDWDOOWKDW ZDV QHHGHGWRXQGHUVWDQG*RG¶V
ZLOO LV FRQWDLQHG LQ WKH 4XU¶DQ 7KLV ODFN RI VHSDUDWLRQ RI &KXUFK DQG
State, when combined with the cessation of revelation, was to have
enormous significance for the future of Islamic Culture. Both the Christian
and Jewish Faiths perceive revelation to be ongoing, the Christians
through inspiration from the Holy Spirit and the Jews by their doctrine of
UHJDUGLQJ WKH %LEOH DV DQ ³RSHQ ERRN´ FDSDEOH RI FRQWLQXDO
reinterpretation by their Rabbis. Furthermore, at least since the
Enlightenment, the state in the West has been freed from the conservative
grip of the Church. The combination of these two factors has meant that
cultures originally based on Christianity and Judaism tend, by and large, to
be forward looking and progressive.
39
The lack of ongoing revelation seen in Islam, compared with that of
Judaism and Christianity, or the concept of the Holy Spirit seen in
Christianity, means that there was no need to have a priesthood to control
the tendency to fragment which accompanies individual revelation. Since
the Reformation, this fragmentation has been a major force driving the
profusion of nonconformist Protestant faiths that have not retained
Episcopal authority after being released from the control of the Catholic
priesthood.

Islam is based on the simple concept of acknowledgement of one God,

with Muhammad as his Prophet, and, unlike the Christian Church, has
never been involved in fine points of religious dogma. Islam has
emphasized Orthopraxy (the correct way of doing things) over Orthodoxy
(the correct set of beliefs). The only real requirements of the Muslim faith
DUH WKH ³ILYH SLOODUV RI ,VODP´ ZKLFK consist of: shahadah, the Muslim
profession of faith ; salat, or ritual prayer, performed in a prescribed
manner five times each day ; zakat, the alms tax levied to benefit the poor
and the needy; sawm, fasting during the month of Ramadan; and hajj, the
pilgrimage to Mecca, expected of every Muslim, who is able to afford it,
at least once in a lifetime.

There remain several controversial aspects of Islam. The first one relates
to the status of women in modern society. All three Monotheistic religions
of Judaism, Christianity and Islam stem from a time when women were
thought to be not so much a separate sex but a smaller, weaker and
generally less perfect form of males. The Hebrew Bible states that a
husband will ³rule over ´ his wife as punishment for Eve offering Adam
the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden, Gen 3:16. A daily prayer by
Jewish men offers WKDQNV WR *RG ³IRU QRW PDNLQJ PH D ZRPDQ´ 7KH
-HZLVK WUDGLWLRQ RI UHJDUGLQJ WKH %LEOH DV ³DQ RSHQ ERRN´ FDSDEOH RI
endless reinterpretation by scholars, however, has meant that there are
now female Rabbis in some parts of the world. The early Christian
tradition followed the Jewish law : Let your women keep silence in the
churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are
commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law, 1 Corinthians
14:34 and 1Tm:2:12: But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp
authority over the man, but to be in silence. Again, the doctrine of the
Holy Spirit and ongoing revelation has meant the ordination of female
Bishops in at least some Christian congregations. Islam, on the other hand,
does not accept ongoing revelation by any means. Revelation ended with
the Prophet Mohammad. Ayatollah Muhammad Mesbah-Yazdi, spiritual
advisor to the devout President of the Republic of Iran, stated in
1RYHPEHU  ³LI VRPHRQH WHOOV \RX WKH\ KDYH D QHZ LQWHUSUHWDWLRQ RI
,VODP SXQFK WKHP LQ WKH PRXWK´ 7KH VWDWHPHQW LQ WKH 4XU¶DQ UHPDLQV
valid: Men are the maintainers of women because Allah has made one of
40
them to excel the other and because they spend out of their property; the
good women are therefore obedient, guarding the unseen (their chastity)
as Allah has guarded; and (as to) those on whose part you fear desertion,
(sometimes translated as disobedience) admonish them, and leave them
alone in the sleeping-places and beat them ; then if they obey you, do not
seek a way against them. The Women 4:34. The Secretary-General of The
International Union of (Islamic) Scholars, Mohamed El-Awa, stated in the
Cairo Newspaper Al-Ahram, issue 736, April 2005, ³,VODP KDV EHHQ
around for 15 centuries and not once have its followers approved of
women as imams. This view is an invention alien to the faith and as such
LVDEUHDFKRI,VODPLFMXULVGLFWLRQ´

The second and probably the most controversial aspect of Islam remains
that of Jihad. Traditionally this referred to a duty, established in the
4XU¶DQDQGWKH+DGLWKDQGLQFXPEHQWRQDOO0XVOLPPDOHVWRDGYDQFHWKH
cause of Islam. The most important collection of the Hadith mentions
Jihad almost 200 times, and in all cases it is in the sense of armed warfare
against non-Muslims. For example, Volume 4, Book 52, Number 317:
(Narrated Abdullah) When the Prophet returned from Jihad, he would say
7DNELUWKULFH«´Allah fulfilled His Promise and helped His S lave, and He
$ORQHGHIHDWHGWKHLQILGHOFODQV´

Osama bin Laden uses it in this sense in hLV RUJDQL]DWLRQ ³7KH ,VODPLF
)URQWIRUWKH-LKDGDJDLQVW-HZVDQG&UXVDGHUV´0RUHPRGHUDWH0XVOLPV
tend to emphasize Jihad as being a fight to purify ones own heart and as
the struggle to advance the cause of justice in the community.

On the other hand, tKH 4XU¶DQ GLFWDWHG WKDW ³3HRSOH RI WKH %RRN´
Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians, were to be allowed to practice their
religion without hindrance. This was in marked contradistinction to the
Christian churches of the Middle Ages and the times of the Reformation,
which relentlessly persecuted persons seen as heretics. In the Islamic
ZRUOGWKH³3HRSOHRIWKH%RRN´ PLJKWKDYHWRSD\DVSHFLDOWD[DQGIRU
example, not build a house higher than a Muslim neighbor, but were not at
risk of torture or being burnt at the stake. There was a large flow of
refugees fleeing persecution in the West to Islamic countries, and the
Ottoman Empire had large, and loyal, European communities.

T he G reat Schism in the C hristian C hurch

There had always been tension between the Western Catholic Church
based in Rome, with theology influenced by Roman law, and the Eastern
41
Orthodox Church, based in Constantinople, with theology influenced by
Greek philosophy. Initially, the Eastern Church had been ascendant,
especially with the fall of Rome to the Germanic tribes. The march of
Islam, however, greatly weakened the Eastern Church, as did the fall of
Constantinople to Latin crusaders in 1204 CE. The theological calmness in
the West contrasted with the Eastern Church, which was riven by endless
religious controversies. The Iconoclast dispute, in particular, raged
throughout the 8th and 9th centuries in the Orthodox Church. Opponents to
the use of religious icons, the Iconoclasts, cited the Biblical prohibition on
images, Exodus 20:4, Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or
any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth
beneath, or that is in the water under the earth : and the danger of magical
powers, eg the ability to effect cures, being invested in images themselves,
rather than their being merely symbols of faith. This position was
strengthened by the rise of Islam, which was sternly opposed to the use of
any religious images. Supporters of the use of icons replied that these
images were to the illiterate what books were to the educated and gained
support by the fact that icons could be seen as a very visible statement
against Islam. Byzantine Emperors might support one or other camp, with
their opponents being persecuted, until a new Emperor would take the
throne and reverse the situation. Icon veneration was finally restored to the
Eastern Church in 843 CE, an event still celebrated in the Orthodox world.

7KH ´)LOLRTXH FRQWURYHUV\´ ZDV WR EH D PDMRU FDXVH RI IULFWLRQ EHWZHHQ
the Orthodox and Catholic Churches. The Western Church had begun to
insert the word, filioque /DWLQ³DQGIURPWKHVRQ´LQWRWKH1LFHQH&UHHG
6th century, in an effort to counter the Arian Heresy.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,

who proceeds from the F ather and the Son.

It was finally accepted by the Papacy in the 11 th century, and has remained
part of the service in the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches, though
has always been rejected by the Eastern Churches

In 1054 CE, there was a final break between the East and West with
mutual excommunications and ceremonies of anathema with dramatic
GDVKLQJRXWRIFDQGOHVDQGSUD\HUV IRU*RG¶V YHQJHDQFHWREHYLVLWHGRQ
the opposing camp. This schism has never been repaired.
42
T he A dvent of the T ur ks

Unfortunately, no sooner had there been a break between east and west,
than a Turkish people from Central Asia threatened Byzantium. These
tough horsemen, known as the Seljuq Turks, after their leader, had
converted to Sunni Islam. They moved to invade Anatolia, the Eastern part
of the Byzantine Empire. The Byzantines marched out a huge army and
confronted the Seljuqs at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071. The Imperial
Army was decisively defeated and the victorious Seljuqs advanced into
Anatolia, coming virtually to the gates of Constantinople. Byzantine
prestige also suffered another blow when the city of Antioch in Syria, the
seat of the senior Orthodox Patriarch, fell to the Seljuqs in 1085 CE.

T he C rusades

The Byzantine Emperor, Alexius Comnenus, appealed to the west for

help. Western Europe was ready to respond, having undergone an
economic and political, not to mention religious, revival at the beginning
of the second millennium. At the Council of Clermont, in 1095, Pope
Urban II of Rome preached the First Crusade. There was a very
enthusiastic response from European chivalry, especially in France. Many
knights and common people were inspired to make the perilous journey to
the Middle East to try to wrest control of Jerusalem, with its many sites
holy to Christianity, back from the Muslim conquerors. They did this at a
fortunate time, since Jerusalem was situated near the front between the
Seljuq Turks, moving south, who were Sunni Muslims, and the northern
reaches of empire of the Fatamid Caliphate of Egypt. The Fatamids were
so-called because their Caliph claimed descent from Fatima, daughter of
the Prophet, through her son, Husayn, whom she had with her husband,
Ali. Needless to say, the Fatamid Caliphate was Shiite: the Party of Ali.

Probably because of this disunity between the Muslim forces, the

Crusaders were able, after three very difficult years of struggle across Asia
Minor, to capture Jerusalem. There followed an act of slaughter of the
inhabitants of Jerusalem that left an indelible stain on the reputation of the
crusaders.

In the early 12th century, however, there arose in Egypt a great Islamic
leader, of Kurdish descent, who began his career as vizier of Fatamid
Egypt. His name was S alah Ad-din, usually referred to in the west as
Saladin. He became sultan of Egypt, overthrew the weak and ineffectual
Fatamid Caliphate, and managed to convert the Egyptian Shiite Muslims
43
to the Sunni faith once more. With a combination of diplomatic skill and
military genius, he reunited the Egyptian forces, with those of Syria and
Palestine. With his now combined army, he confronted the 88-year-old
Frankish Kingdom of Jerusalem. He drew the crusaders into the desert
where, half-crazed with thirst, they were decisively defeated at the Battle
of Hattin. He was then easily able to recapture Jerusalem in 1187. His
disciplined troops, on entry into Jerusalem, treated the inhabitants with
respect, in marked contrast to the massacre that had occurred with the
previous entry of the Crusaders.

The fall of Jerusalem to Saladin was greeted with dismay in Europe. The
Third, and probably most famous crusade, was launched in an attempt to
win Jerusalem back. King Richard of England, a knight of great renown
and a brilliant military leader, took part in this crusade, but was
checkmated by the genius of Saladin and the crusaders were unable to
retake the holy places.

Several more crusades took place, but these were all unsuccessful, and the
last crusader stronghold, Acre, fell to the Islamic forces in 1291.

T he F lowering of Islamic C ulture

The beginning of the second millennium of the Christian era was a

turbulent time for the world of Islam. The Abbasid Caliphate did not have
as firm a grip as did its predecessor; with many local areas claiming
independence, the Persians were being threatened by the Central Asian
Turk tribes and the Fatamid Caliphate in Egypt challenged the Abbasids
for dominance. It was at this time that Islamic Culture came to its greatest
expression. The most famous physician of the time was Ibn S ina , known
in the West as Avicenna. His textbook, the Canon of Medicine , was to
serve as the standard in both the Muslim and Christian worlds for five
hundred years. The great Arab mathematician, Al-Kwarizmi, had lived
somewhat earlier, but his works were introduced into the West in the 11 th
and 12th FHQWXULHV,W ZDVRQO\ QHFHVVDU\WRVWDWH ³GL[LW $OJRULWPL´WKXV
speaks Al-Kwarizmi) and a proposition could be taken as proven. His
name lives on in the words algebra and algorithm. Other great names of
WKLV ³,VODPLF *ROGHQ $JH´ WR QDPH MXVW D IHZ LQFOXGH ,EQ $O-Nafis, a
physician who discovered the circulation of the blood 300 years before
Harvey, and Jabir Ibn Haiyan, (known in the West as Gerber), father of
modern chemistry. The very word chemistry comes from the Arabic word,
al-Kimya. Al-Razi, (Western name Rhazes) a physician and chemist who
first synthetised sulphuric acid and whose classification of nature is still
44
largely valid ZDV DOVR RQH RI WKH ³)UHHWKLQNHUV RI 0HGLHYDO ,VODP´ +Ls
publications included ³7KH 3URSKHWV¶ )UDXGXOHQW 7ULFNV´ DQG ³2Q WKH
5HIXWDWLRQ RI 5HYHDOHG 5HOLJLRQV´ :KLOH DFFHSWLQJ D VXSUHPH *RG KH
opposed the idea of prophets on ethical grounds, feeling it unlikely that the
³:LVH 2QH´ ZRXOG SURPRWH RQH KXPDQ DERYe all the rest, resulting in
hostility and bloodshed between the SURSKHW¶V followers and the others.
Though clearly attacking the central tenant of Islam his works were
tolerated at the time and he was not persecuted. The rise of religious
intolerance in the Islamic (and Christian) worlds resulted in his books
being destroyed and it is only from quotes in works opposing his ideas that
they have survived at all.

The crusaders brought back to Europe much learned from the Islamic
world. The practice of desert after the main meal, the use of table forks,
luxury items like silks from China, and a general improvement in
standards of personal hygiene, were all from the East.

The reestablishment of a greater central authority with the rise of the

Ottoman Empire, however, meant that the religious authorities gained
control over education once more. The emphasis was directed away from
secular learning to the study of religion. As for science, one Caliph stated,
³LI ILQGLQJV DJUHH ZLWK WKH 4XU¶DQ WKH\¶UH QRW QHFHVVDry, and if they
GLVDJUHHWKH\DUHZURQJ´$QRWKHUIDPRXVVWDWHPHQWUDQ³+HZKRVWXGLHV
ORJLFLVDQDWKHLVW´± a capital offence at the time. The Islamic world lost
its predominance in the fields of art and science, never to be regained.

T he O ttoman E mpire

The new Turkish tribal group, the Ottomans, named after their leader,
Uthman, (translated as Osman in the West) gradually extended their
control over Anatolia from around 1300. The Ottoman Empire brought
new standards of organization, learned mainly from the Persians, as well
as instilling a great discipline into the civil service and army, all of whom
ZHUH UHTXLUHG WR DFFHSW WKH IRUPDO VWDWXV RI ³VODYH RI WKH 6XOWDQ´ 7KH
weakened Byzantine Empire was defeated in several engagements and the
Ottoman Sultan, Mehmet II, finally captured Constantinople itself in 1453.
The Ottoman Empire reached its greatest glory under the reign of
Suleyman the Magnificent in the mid 16th century, but went into steady
decline after that. The last great effort at expansion came in 1683, when
the Ottomans unsuccessfully besieged Vienna. Since then, however, the
Ottoman Empire and its influence continued to decline, until by 1918,
European forces had either colonized, or were in occupation of, all the
45
Ottoman lands. So complete was the relative decline, that by the end of the
20th century, it was possible to stand in the center of any capital city of the
Islamic world and not see anything that did not originate in the West.

A cknowledgements

My daughter Elizabeth gave me her original insight that the Jews were the
first to conceive of a linear, rather than a cyclical, history and provided
helpful comments on the text.

Monotheistic Religions Bibliography

Anthony DW The Horse, The Wheel and Language: How Bronze-Age

Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World Princeton
University Press, Princeton, USA, 2007

Cahill T The Gifts of the Jews: How a Tribe of Desert Nomads Changed
the Way Everyone Thinks and F eels Lion Publishing, Oxford, UK, 2000

Cantor N The S acred Chain: A History of the Jews Fontana Press, London,
UK, 1996

Chadwick H The Pelican History of the Church 1. The Early Church

Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, UK, 1967

Chesterton G K Orthodoxy Hodder & Stroughton, London, UK, 1996

Bauer W Orthodoxy & Heresy in Earliest Christianity Sigler Press,

Mifflintown, USA, 1996

Dawood N J (translator) The Koran, with parallel Arabic text Penguin

Books, London, England, 2000

Dever W G Did God Have a Wife? Archaeology and Folk Religion in

Ancient Israel Wm B Eerdmans Publishing, Grand Rapids, USA, 2005

Ehrman BD Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scriptures and the F aiths
We Never Knew. Oxford University Press, New York, USA, 2003
46
Ehrman BD Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible
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Finkelstein I 7KH%LEOH8QHDUWKHG$UFKDHRORJ\¶V1HZ9LVLRQRI$QFLHQW
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