Religion: A Process of Evolution

All human endeavors show signs of evolutionary progression. Examples of human advancement can be found in shelter, communication, art, and religion. It is religion that we find some of the earliest examples of the creative genius that is human. Because developmental theology is such a broad and deep topic only a few examples will be given in this article, with much of this topic only given cursory comment. An attempt to show the beginnings of human worship can be found in cave art found in such places as Lascaux and Altamira France, or in the Petroglyphs of the America’s. The worship of a female deity can be seen again in cave art at Lascaux, figurines throughout the world, often of accentuated breast and vulva. A long historical leap will then be made, by discussing Egypt’s “heretical” pharaoh Akhenaten and the development of monotheism.
Being human is a process of evolution. Humankind has lived in caves, such as Danger Cave in western Utah, exhibiting some 11,000 years of habitation;1 to a 5,000 year old timber, stone, wattle and daub construction found at Crannog;2 or Catal Hüyük in Anatolia built c. 7,250–6,150 B.C.E. A finale example is the massive brick construction as seen in ancient Mesopotamia and Sumer around 2,700 B.C.E. The megalithic stone construction of ancient Egypt, starting around 3,000 B.C.E., which still stands today, is a monument of human ingenuity. Today we have modern buildings of concrete and steel, each method being an adaptation or improvement upon other methods of construction.
From the earliest times, humans have tried to communicate beyond speech. Symbolistic communication in the form of Petroglyphs are found throughout the world with stunning examples in the American Southwest. Pictograms bare resemblance to physical objects where early examples are found on rock walls and were used in writing systems in which the characters resemble an idea or thought; the like can be found on modern road signs. Ideograms are the next step in the evolution of communication; they are graphic symbols that represent the development of communication by expanding upon more complicated concepts. Ideograms are found in mathematical notation and Chinese characters and then are arranged in sequential order that can be understood by those properly trained, such as ancient scribes. The iconographies of ideograms lead to the development of phonetic symbols, or phonograms that would become the written word.3 This progression would continue forth until today with modern telecommunications. “The reverence which Middle Eastern cultures held for the religious and political values of written language represents one of the most immutable factors in the history of writing.”4
For as long as people have existed, there has been a spiritual realm. In attempting to show recognition of the spiritual realm, humans have constructed numerous types of monuments to withstand the ages. Humans have been compelled to beautify and explain the world around them. Beginning around 40,000 B.C.E., the archaeological record shows that the earliest known art was created. In France, in the 1940’s, four children were searching for their dog and discovered one of the oldest and best examples of prehistoric art. The Lascaux Cave has magnificent paintings of wildlife on the walls, along with multiple relief’s of animals and several sculpted Ox. Among the plethora of lifelike animals can be seen aspects of the female divine. The cave itself represents the womb from which life springs. Throughout the cave and its representation of animals and female worship are multiple footprints of ancient youths visiting the most remote areas of this cave, in areas that were once muddy clay, but now hardened like pavement. The most supported theory of the cave art is that they were created as a method to conduct spiritual or religious ritual rites.5 Evidence of “ceremonial artifacts have been found more in some areas of the cave than in others. In addition, archeological evidence has shown that people were only there for short periods of time.”6
Some 40,000 years ago, humans began creating sacred wall art in a form of worship. Other evidences exists that suggests from the earliest beginnings humans worshiped, and that the earliest forms of worship was that of the female… “it appears that originally the goddess was a more powerful and important personage than the male god.7 From these humble beginnings the male and female gods and goddesses were paired. Yet the earliest known artifacts are clearly of female deity figurines such as, the Venus of Willendorf carved around 24,000–22,000 B.C.E.8 As Karen Armstrong has pointed out,
In the Paleolithic period, for example, when agriculture was developing, the cult of the Mother Goddess expressed a sense that the fertility which was transforming human life was actually sacred. Artist carved those statues depicting her as a naked, pregnant woman which archaeologist have found all over Europe, the Middle East and India. The Great Mother remained imaginatively important for centuries.9

As communication was able to progress through drawn symbols, more complex thoughts could be communicated through generations via the written word. One area of complex reasoning is found in the art of philosophy. Philosophically speaking, the argument of God existence can be broken down into two camps, intellectualism and Voluntarism, “the rational versus the instinctual, or the cognitive versus the emotional.”10 In Socratic intellectualism, God follows eternal laws and does not break them; it is part of the Socratic notion that “one will do what is right or best just as soon as one truly understands what is right or best.”11 Voluntarism on the other hand, is the notion that God can do anything, and God’s will determines right and wrong.
Most commentaries and Bible scholars agree that when we read in the Jewish scriptures the Tanakh Devarim or in the Christian Bible Deut. 18:10 “Let no one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft. . .” or 2 Kngs 23:10 “And he defiled Topheth, which [is] in the valley of the children of Hinnom, that no man might make his son or his daughter to pass through the fire to Molech.” These sections are discussing human sacrifice which the Old Testament (OT) clearly denounces.
However, in Eerdmans Bible Dictionary it states that Human sacrifice was apparently part of the Yahwistic cult in pre-exilic times. Yahweh in the King James Version of the Bible (KJV) is translated as Lord in the OT and is considered by most people, God. According to the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia human sacrifice was clearly practiced among the Canaanites though irregular, and for the most part done at times of extreme peril or need. One example is, 2 Kings 3:27 “Then he took his firstborn son, who was to succeed him as king, and offered him as a sacrifice on the city wall. The fury against Israel was great; they withdrew and returned to their own land.”
In Judges 11, Jephthah made a vow to God to kill his daughter. What is found here is that in the earliest biblical tradition there is a notion of human sacrifice. Though deplorable, it should not come as a surprise. Some of the earliest forms of worship were done with the sacrifice of humans. “We have to remember that human sacrifice is not just a ritual act designed to appease the gods, divine the future, or bring luck and prosperity to those offering the sacrifice. It covers all situations in which a human life is exchanged for a greater cause.”12
In the case of Attis in Phrygia, there was a mimic killing of the priest accompanied by a real effusion of his blood. It is thought that this practice “as it has been elsewhere, a substitute for a human sacrifice which in earlier times was actually offered.”13 Also, in ancient Greece, there was the custom to sacrifice, to the goat-smiting Dionysus, a child. Later a goat was substituted.14 “Human sacrifice was practiced at least 5,000 years ago among the early agricultural societies of Europe.”15 It is something that has been found throughout the world in ancient times and is even practiced in some of the most remote parts of the world to this day.
The development of intellect is one form of evolution often overlooked in historical debates about theology. If intellectual development means, the ability to gain knowledge and determine a course of action based on our knowledge, then clearly evolution is illustrated. Technologies alone show a development of thought to transform the world around us and make it what it is today. The fact that humans communicate using symbols that others recognize, on paper and verbally is amazing. The development of the written word from pectoral symbols such as Egyptian hieroglyphs to Sumerian cuneiform developing into Greek and Roman symbols still used in the West to this day is an extraordinary feat. An evolutionary process is clearly demonstrated with the advent of the printing press to the development of word processors and computers.
From the progress of religion we can see the earliest forms in primitive cave art to the great temple complexes of Egypt and Mesoamerica. From earliest times, humankind has worshiped. From these ancient beginnings humans have created a multitude of theisms ranging from beliefs in a pantheon of gods and goddesses to the development of a monotheistic view of one God.
The primordial deity for our Paleolithic and Neolithic ancestors was female, reflecting the sovereignty of motherhood. In fact, there are no images that have been found of a Father God throughout the prehistoric record. Paleolithic and Neolithic symbols and images cluster around a self-generating Goddess and her basic function as Giver-of-Life, Wielder of Death, and Regeneratrix. This symbolic system represents a cyclical, nonlinear mythical time.16

The mother goddess has been found throughout the world in various forms and at various times, “she was called Inana in ancient Sumeria, Ishtar in Babylon, Anat in Canaan, Isis in Egypt and Aphrodite in Greece, and remarkably similar stories were devised in all these cultures to express her role in the spiritual lives of the people.”17 One ritualistic form of worship takes on the form of animism in which natural objects have souls. This type of worship is found throughout the world at various times and is thought to be most common among primitive peoples. Humans later develop forms of polytheism, a belief in or worship of multiple deities, made up of a pantheon of gods and goddesses. This form of worship is often best viewed in the ancient civilizations such as Egypt, Greece, and Rome with their own mythologies and rituals. While some may think that polytheism has lapsed into the realms of antiquity, it is very much alive today found in many vibrant religions now such as: Shinto, Chinese folk religion, Neopagan faiths and even Christianity. Finally, as far as this paper is concerned, people develop into monotheist, or the belief in one God. This belief is perhaps best adhered to by Islam today.
There are many examples of monotheism throughout history, three excellent examples found in Egypt, with Akhenaton, Israel with Jehovah and finally in Mecca and Medina with Mohamed and Islam. This paper will concern itself primarily with Egypt and Israel. Beginning with, Akhenaton, the heretic pharaoh of Egypt, we find great details of his city, Amarna’s, internal plans in large part because the city was abandoned shortly after the death of Akhenaton, and remained uninhabited thereafter. Along with a virtually untouched city complex there is a multitude of clay tablets from the Tel el-Amarna known as The Amarna Letters and also called the Amarna correspondence or Amarna tablets.
From the beginnings of religious expression one of the worlds most fascinating individuals come into view. He was the man who started monotheism in a land that was abundant in gods. Akhenaten was Ancient Egypt’s “Heretic King,” founder of Amarna. The ruins of Tel el-Amarna/Akhetaten in English literally means “the Horizon of the Aten” and is the site of modern day El-Amarna. It is located on the east bank of the Nile River some 58 km (38 miles) south of the city of al-Minya, and 312 km (194) miles south of Egypt’s modern capitol Cairo. This region of Egypt is the solar center of that Ancient land. Akhenaten was a worshiper of Aten, who was represented by the solar disk, and was the God above gods. In the KJV of the Bible in 2 Chronicles it reads strikingly similar when Solomon is giving orders for the construction of the ancient Temple of Israel. 2 Ch 2:5 “And the house which I build [is] great: for great [is] our God above all gods.”
The site was discovered in 1887 when a local Egyptian peasant woman digging for sebakh or fertilizer, often made from clay brick, found a few tablets buried in the ruins of the Akhetaten palace complex and sold them to antiquities dealers. These tablets recorded a select diplomatic correspondence of the Pharaoh. The tablets were written predominately in Akkadian, the langue of the era much like English is today. “Later excavations recovered the rest, beginning with the work of English Egyptologist William Matthew Flinders Petrie in 1891-92.”18
“There are about 382 tablets (350 of which were letters), now scattered among various museums but mainly found in: the British Museum in London, the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, and the Vorderasiatishes Museum in Berlin.”19
Though lost to history until its discovery in the 19th century, this site has been rich in gaining a better understanding of Egypt and its relationship with its neighbors. In the tablets from Amarna there are some letters written from the Lavant, the area of the Middle East encompassing the region from Sinai to Lebanon, Syria, Jordon, Iraq, Palestine and Israel. In the vicinity of present day Jerusalem, warning the Akhetaten of the Habiru, who have been conjectured to be the Hebrews of the Old Testament.20 The name Habiru seems to mean homeless or displaced people. It should be noted that Abraham and his descendants fall into that category.21 According to William G. Dever ““Habiru” is not the preferable transliteration; the Akkadian (Mesopotamian) root of “Apiru” means something like “freebooter,” while the root of “Hebrew” means “to cross over.” That is, it refers to those ancestors of Israel who like Abraham come over from Mesopotamia to Canaan.”22
Akhenaton’s importance cannot be underestimated. Akhenaton is one of the most controversial figures in history. When comparing Akhenaton’s one god against the worship of the Hebrew’s one god there are a lot of similarities. According to Kent Weeks, a noted Egyptologist and scholar,
…Amenhotep IV [Akhenaton] has been labeled everything from a religious genius to a mentally deranged, physically deformed zealot. He has been the subject of a study by Sigmund Freud, an opera by Philip Glass, a novel by Mika Waltari, and a film by Darryl F. Zanuck. Thousands of articles have been written about him, ranging from the profoundly scholarly to profoundly ridiculous.

Although Tel el- Amarna boasts a large wealth of artifacts, often times the history of Amarna and Akhenaton are embellished or woven into the story and account of the ancient Israelites. While we have many artifacts, it is not enough to say concisely one way or the other, that Akhenaton ties into the history of the Hebrews and because of that we often allow imagination and conjecture to reign supreme.23
Many people have become interested in Egyptology because of their reading of the Jewish Tanakh or Old Testament in the Christian Bible. This was especially true from around the early 1800’s to the early 1900’s. A special interest occurred particularly in the U.S., between the years 1850 to 1950, culminating with studies of W. F. Albright. Much has changed since those heady days with the Archeologists’ desires to transpose their beliefs on the excavations. Often the attempt to impose their particular belief systems was defined by trying to prove the accuracy of the Biblical text.24 Outlandish statements based on truth have occurred throughout the studies of Akhenaton such as: “There was a Pharaoh who built a city of mud and straw brick, and some of the bricks lack straw?” Another statement might be, “Akhenaton worshiped ‘one god’ which can be found in the Old Testament.” Yet, another comment might be, “Akhenaton had a chief artist named Tuthmosis, his grandfather was Tuthmosis IV and he had a brother named Tuthmosis.” While this last statement about the many Tuthmosis’ is true, it should be noted that the name Tuthmosis is fairly common. Akhenaton’s brother Thuthmosis, did not attain the crown of Pharaoh because of a split in his tongue which made him slow of speech, due to this impediment people have linked and inflated Akhenaton and Thuthmosis into being the brothers Aaron and Moses. At the end of the heretic Pharoah’s life, he was stricken from the records of Egypt and left off the list of Pharaohs. Shortly thereafter, there was a mass exodus of priestly lepers who moved into the southern Levant, modern Israel. To give an idea of the antiquity of the debate about Akhenaton, one of the most influential writers in ancient times was Flavius Josephus. In his book Against Apion Book 1:26, Josephus tries to prove Mantheo’s histories (Mantheo, was an Egyptian historian that composed a list of the pharaohs during the reign of Ptolemys 283–246 B.C.E.) as inaccurate by quoting him and giving the name of what at that time seemed to be a fictitious king’s name, Amenophis. Amenophis was discovered in 1887 in Tel el- Amarna and is now known by his throne name of Akhenaton.
The struggle for a single god, took place over thousands of years and was often violent. After Akhenaton’s failed attempt at a form of monotheism in Egypt, a man named Moses would leave that ancient land with the Israelites and bring to the world its first beginnings of a single god after descending from mount Sinai. Even after the miraculous events surrounding Moses and the children of Israel’s leaving Egypt that can be read about in the Tanakh or OT the Israelites struggled to worship just one god. As one author informs us,
It was almost inevitable that the cult of this great Canaanite mother goddess, who was venerated also in many other parts of the Ancient Near East, should penetrate Hebrew religion as well. In fact, it was not long after the Israelite conquest of the Canaanite hill country, in the period of mixed Israelite-Canaanite settlement that this development took place, together with intermarriage between the Israelites and the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, “among who they dwelt.” The establishment of family and religious ties went hand in hand, and “the Children of Israel…served the Baals and Aherahs.” (My quote Jdg 2:13 And they forsook the LORD, and served Baal and Ashtaroth.)

So ingrained in the local populations of ancient Israel, this Asherah was worshipped even in the Temple of Solomon. A Biblical reference can be found in 2 Kings 21: 4-5 in referring to Manasseh it says, “And he built altars in the house of the LORD, of which the LORD said, In Jerusalem will I put my name. And he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the LORD. According to Raphael Patai, the word Asherah in Biblical usage can thus refer to either the goddess herself or to her image. Patai further informs us,
From a story told in the Book of Judges about Gideon, who lived in the 12th century B.C.E. we learn that the Asherah worship in those early days was a communal or public affair. However, the wooden image of the goddess belonged to the town’s chiftain who, at one and the same time was also the priest of Asherah and Baal. This chieftain was none other than Josah the Abiezrite, Gideon’s father. When Gideon, an early precursor of zealous Yahwist, demolished the alter of Baal and cut down the Asherah, he incurred the wrath of the entire town of Ofra. His immediate punishment of death was demanded by the men of the city, and he was saved only because his father stood by him. Gideon’s act remained, for several generations at least, an isolated incident.25

There is ample archaeological evidence of the Asherah as a household goddess. The evidence is found in the many small clay figurines of nude women with protruding breasts. These statuettes called Teraphim or idols in the Bible have been found throughout Palestine and have been dated with confidence ranging throughout the ancient Israelite period.26 One of the most interesting aspects of the acceptance of the Asherah while fighting against other gods is told by Raphael Patai in his book The Hebrew Goddess,
The extent of the worship of these Sidonian deities in Ahab’s court is attested by the report that 450 prophets of the Baal and 400 prophets of Asherah ate at the table of Jezebel. It was these prophets whom Elijah met on Mount Carmel, in a great public rain-making contest which ended with the utter defeat of the Canaanite god and a miraculous vindication of Yahweh. It is interesting to observe that Elijah did not accuse the people of having abandoned Yahweh for the foreign gods but merely of dividing their attentions between both. Although the 400 prophets of Asherah seem to have attended the meeting on Mount Carmel, only the 450 prophets of Baal were challenged to the contest by Elijah, and no further word is said in the entire detailed narrative about the prophets of Asherah. Evidentl, the Phoenician Baal was the real rival of Yahweh, not the goddess Asherah. The appeal of the Baal prophets to their god and that of Elijah to Yahweh are surprisingly similar, in fact, almost identical. When Yahweh’s fire (lightning?) descends on Elijah’s alter and thus proves His superiority, the people side with Elijah, and burst into shouts of “Yahweh is the god!” Thereupon the 450 prophets of the Baal are seized, dragged down into the valley, and slaughtered at the River Kishon. No word is said about the fate of the 400 prophets of Asherah. The inference must be that, not being part of the contest, no harm befell them. If so, they must have continued unhindered to serve their goddess. Nor was the Asherah which Ahab had “made” and set up in Samaria removed or in any way harmed either as a result of Elijah’s victory over the prophets of the Baal, during the remaining years of Ahab’s reign. It would appear then that only the Baal was considered by Elijah (and the strict Yahwists in general) as dangerous rival of Yahweh, while the goddess Ahserah was regarded as his inevitable, necessary, or at any rate tolerable, female counterpart.27

As professor Patai further developed his thesis he was able to demonstrate that the female aspect of deity continues within Judaism, morphing from one goddess to another and eventually becomes the consort of God.
From the earliest of times humans have sought meaning in their existence. Progress continues to be made in shelter, communication, art, and religion. Yet religion seems to strive to enrich life and give meaning to our existence, and it is within the context of religion that we find some of the earliest examples of human creative genius. Because this topic is so broad and all encompassing the narrative must end but the search continue. Some of the marvels of early human worship can be found throughout the world such as the cave art found in such places as Lascaux, Altamira, and in the Petroglyphs of the America’s.