What If The Bible Had Never Existed???
by ziddina 82 Replies latest jw friends
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Satanus
I had a thread that was somewhat along that line http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/friends/80650/1/Whats-Your-Prechristian-Culture
Of course, yours can go further back to ask where would jews be, if their people hadn't put together what came to be the ot.
S
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tec
The bible does not create God. God would still exist without the bible, and He would communicate with people as He always has - though prophets, though the Spirit, and through His Son.
But where would I personally be without the conquest Zid speaks of?
How could I know? How could anyone know where they would be if a major event in our history was altered?
We as a people would still believe in a creator. One thing that might have changed is that people would not have the bible to abuse and twist to suit their own ends.
Tammy
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FlyingHighNow
Human beings know that we create and make things. We see the miracle of birth, the miracle of tiny seeds producing crops and might trees. If we know man made things need makers. We know that things animals make, such as bird nests and honey combs have to have makers, it's not a far stretch to realize the material universe had to have a maker. For most people. Some people just aren't going to believe anything they can't see. I know I'd sure be wondering how all this got here.
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sizemik
The premise of this thread is: "What If The Bible Had Never EXISTED???"
While this premise may be specific in treating the absence of Biblical writings and it's consequences for today, there appears to me one half of the equation is missing in this thread.
A subject as speculative and philosophical as this must have both halves to achieve proper balance.
All I'm saying is that while ancient beliefs and writings are influential in modern culture. The beliefs and writings themselves are influenced by human nature . . . the Bible is as much a product of human society as human society is a product of the Bible.
Apart from the stories and details they espouse, ancient belief and writings are a reflection of human nature. It is therefore my belief that unless human nature undergoes a fundamental shift . . . religious belief will be largely unchanged in it's fundamental nature . . . apart from the details.
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ziddina
SheeeeEEEEESH!! [face/palm slap] You people haven't even BEGUN to scratch the surface of this subject!!
Almost all of the replies so far have been defensive postures on their particular form of pseudo-mono-theism...
Let me show you a direction you haven't even considered... And initially I'm going to have to bring in some of the bible mythology, just to get this started...
"What If The Bible Had Never Existed???"
Let's start out with the mythological patriarch, Abraham - who is also included in the mythological ancestors of the Arabs - but I'm getting ahead of myself....
"Abraham" had a first-born son, Ismael. His second son, Isaac, was almost sacrificed - and incidentally, the fact that "Abraham" willingly agrees to sacrifice his second-born son, shows that "Abraham" was worshipping the Canaanite gods initially, since the Canaanites practiced child sacrifice.
So - let's postulate that "Abraham" went ahead and sacrificed his second son to appease the Canaanite gods, instead of "suddenly" getting the "new information" from a 'new' god about NOT sacrificing his second son because a "mighty nation" was going to be built from him.
So, instead of allying himself with "Sara's" extended family for a nation-building process, "Abraham" remains with the Canaanites.
Which means that the Canaanites are never pushed out of their land. It also means that the "Abrahamic" blood line - or lines - would be incorporated into the nation of Canaan.
If the Canaanites are never pushed out of their land, then they probably wouldn't have become the Phoenicians.
Carthage [in North Africa] would probably never have been established.
Hannibal [that's like Hanni - Ba'al...] would probably never have been born...
The "Punic Wars" would never have taken place with Rome.
See?
Now, I'm going to fill in some more gaps...
If the Canaanites are never pushed out of their lands... They probably wouldn't have become one of the more successful sea-faring nations on the Mediterranean.
IF the displaced Canaanites were the "Sea People" - although I think that most legitimate authorities believe that the "Sea People" were proto-Greeks - but just at this point, I'm going to postulate the Canaanites/Phoenicians as the "Sea People"... Anyway, IF the Canaanites/"Sea People" aren't raiding the Mediterranean, then several civilizations - like the Egyptians and the Cretes - would not have been hampered by war and the accompanying stresses.
Therefore, after [the Crete-ruled island of] Thera erupted, thereby destroying the Cretan civilization, the Cretan civilization may have had a chance to recover and become strong again.
If Crete had again risen to become strong in the Mediterranean, then they may have hobbled the rising Grecian empire. Alexnder the Great may never have existed.
If Alexander the Great had never existed, then the Medes and Persians may have remained a power in the Middle East.
With Greece reduced to a regional power instead of a world power, the Grecian influence upon the proto-Romans may not have occurred. The Etruscans may have retained power over "Rome" - which wouldn't have been called "Rome", after all.
The Etruscans weren't the empire-builders that the Romans came to be. Eliminate Rome, and you've eliminated the conquest of France, Germany, the British Isles, and so on...
Without the Greek influence, the explosion of ideas and even the concept of a "republic", might not exist today. The "Magna Carta" would never have existed - but I'm getting ahead of myself again. I will say at this point, that without the examples of democracies and republics, the "monarchy" would probably have remained the preferred style of government...
Egypt would probably have regained much of its past glory - though without Alexander the Great, it would have had to do it without Cleopatra...
But this would have left the Mediterranean area very fractured - no major empire-building power to unite that area.
Without the Roman influence, then France, Germany, British Isles, the Norsemen ["viking" is a VERB, not a noun, as many an SCA with a Norse persona has told me... ] and other forerunners of European nations, probably would have remained much more primitive, as it was Roman conquest that introduced much of the basis of their current civilizations today.
Without the Roman influence, England would never have conquered Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. Those four nations might be little, squabbling nations today, with a backwards lifestyle and little modern advantages, engaging in multiple border skirmishes in much the same way as the tribal conflicts taking place in Afghanistan and certain areas of Africa, today.
Without the [Greco-]Roman influence, the Magna Carta would never have existed. Parliamentary procedures would probably never have come into existence. England would never have become a world empire.
Without the Roman influence, Spain probably would not have become a world power, also. The "New World" would have eventually been discovered, but perhaps by that time the Native Americans may have become more organized, and able to repel the newcomers...
"America" might eventually come to exist, but it might have been established by the Norsemen, and called "Leifland", with "Vinland" as its capitol in the north. The southern half of "America" might have come under Greek rule, or perhaps the French would have eventually caught up to the Mediterranean sailing technology and have conquered "America", instead...
Now...
Referring more properly to the Greeks as the invasive, destructive "Sea People", instead...
Crete is destroyed, and remains so. The Greeks become dominant.
Alexander the Great arises, and unites much of the known world.
Which leads to Rome...
Imperial Rome conquers the Mediterranean area as before, but the Punic Wars don't take place, as the Canaanites are still living in their original lands, not having been pushed out by marauding desert nomadic tribes who rape, murder, pillage and plunder - yes, I'm referring to the Israelites at this point...
Anyhoo...
Without a faith-based unifying force, the Romans still divide into two empires, both somewhat weakened by internal graft and corruption. However, since the fall of Imperial Rome took place very soon after Constantine made Christianity the "official" national religion, I postulate that Rome would NOT fall, was NOT invaded by the Vandals and the Goths, and struggled on as a has-been world power for several more centuries...
On the positive side, all those "heathen" scientists and philosophers who were eventually killed and pushed into extinction by Christianity, would have probably thrived, giving technological advances and social reform to the two Roman empires... But this time, those advances wouldn't be taken into Europe...
On the other hand, without the Christians' resistance to scientific advancement, Europe might have eventually picked up Roman advancements through trade, instead of by conquest...
The Mongols still arise and sweep across China, Russia - and THIS time, since the lands that were conquered under the "Christian Roman" empire who stopped the Mongols before, WEREN'T there, the Mongols sweep through Poland and on into Germany and France.
Ol' Vlad the Impaler isn't around to scare the bee-jeebus out of them, this time...
Sulyman the Magnificent probably also arises in Turkey...
It would be a very different world that we inhabit today, if the bible had never existed.
As I said earlier, the Magna Carta probably would never have existed. Shakespeare might never have existed. Victorian England probably would never have existed. Which also means that Victorian morality wouldn't have existed, either. Womens' rights might be further advanced, but across a politically divided and fractured landscape - I mean all of Europe, not just England.
What "America" - er, I mean, "Leifland" and "New Olympia" - or whatever the Greeks would have called it - would have become, is anyone's guess...
But the "Black Plague" probably would have still swept across most of the then-known world, which probably would still have given rise to some sort of "Renaissance".
So, NOW do you people see what I meant???
And again, SHEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSHHHH!!!
NONE of you thought of that??????
Well, except for Satanus - I'll have to look up his thread. I searched for the phrase, "what if the bible hadn't existed"...
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ziddina
Whoops!!! Forgot to get into the whole "Arabs/Koran/Islam" section...
If "Abraham" had been absorbed into the Canaanites, then the Arabs wouldn't have had an iconic patriarch to form around.
At this point, however, things could go several ways...
The Arabs become a peoples anyway - isolated in an area that was rapidly turning into desert, they probably would have become the raiders that they DID become...
And due to climate changes, they would again have been forced to come roaring out of Arabia on a mission of conquest, since their rising population levels and ongoing desertification of their lands would have forced them to seek new lands, anyway...
HOWEVER...
There would have been no "CRUSADES" to traumatize them and create a deep-seated hatred of European cultures...
I suspect that oil would have eventually become the basis of technological advancements, anyway - which would have given the Arabs money and power all over again...
That is, if the "New Roman Empire" - or "Eastern Byzantine Roman Empire" hadn't gone south-east and conquered them, to ensure a steady supply of oil and gasoline for their "Death Demolition Derbys" in the new and improved [!!!] Coliseum...
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botchtowersociety
UNLESS YOU CAN PROVE TO ME THAT YOUR ANCESTORS OF 4,000 YEARS AGO [in other words, pre-biblical...] WERE MONO-THEISTS, YOU CANNOT USE MONOTHEISTIC THINKING IN ANSWERING THIS QUESTION...
Well, some of my ancestors actually were.
Others became monotheists before the compilation we call the Bible became an official text.
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ziddina
Hey, Botch!
Where's the archaeological dig? When was it excavated? Where are the carbon-14 testing results? Were they performed by a valid laboratory? Has the entire site been excavated, or just a small portion, and if so, what percentage size compared to the suspected size of the entire site? What evidence is there for a single "god" as opposed to poly-theism? Where's the scientific article published? And in a VALID scientific publication, not some of these Christian pseudo-"scientific" sites that tend to quote studies from 100 years ago...
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botchtowersociety
Pardon me? I have Jewish ancestry. I am not arguing whether monotheism is more or less correct than polytheism, I am merely pointing out that some of my ancestors have been monotheistic for a very long time.
Monotheism may be a natural progression from polytheism, and we see it in other places than in the Abrahamic context. See Aten/Akhenaten, Zoroastrianism, Sikhism, and certain kinds of Hinduism.