Thematic Resonance in Civilizational Superstructure

As more people grew dissatisfied with this explanation, they had to come up with more and more invisible gifts to heap upon the deserving. You could serve in the afterlife (heck… sometimes that’s how you GOT an afterlife), it was a battle between good and evil and evil was all the lazies (a good afterlife only coming to those who served well).

Spirituality grew further and further away from perceived reality. And gods dwindled from a multitude to handfuls per culture to finally two.  Even two wasn’t low enough. People were still miserable and trying to figure a way out.

This is where things get complicated.

Judaism comes in, in this world of divine kings and games of ‘our god is better than your god’ and awkward attempts at unification (“We’ve got to unify to fight the Bad God!” — Zoroaster, summarized). The common narrative is that the Jews responded to this polytheistic world by creating the idea of monotheism.

What if there is another way to look at this?

So here lies the context around Genesis. The Jews had battled their way out of generational slavery. They were a long ways away from their homeland, with not a lot of hope that they would successfully return. The kids were used to being forced to worship gods of one (or more) kingdoms who had enslaved them. How do you deal with that?

The Jews reacted by creating a clear pathway back to their land. An immediate-return religion.

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