Stony Brook University - SUNY Digital Repository
Stony Brook University - SUNY Digital Repository Stony Brook University - SUNY Digital Repository
a fascinating thing because it insinuates Christianity into the heart of Western rhetoric. But about the former, it would seem that the most crucial inheritance for Christianity from Judaism was monotheism. For those Hebrews of the pre-Christian era, monotheism was not simply a – if not the – defining characteristics of their religion, identifying them as the “Chosen People” of God, but also of the way they perceived reality, as theology and history were, as Tarnas describes it, “inextricably conjoined.” Of that monotheistic nature of traditional Judaism, Tarnas writes: In the midst of a land where a multiplicity of nature deities were worshipped by surrounding tribes and nations, the Hebrews came to believe they existed in a unique and direct relationship to the one absolute God who stood above and beyond all other beings as both creator of the world and director of its history. Indeed, the Hebrews perceived their own history as continuous with and reflective of the very beginnings of Creation, when God had made the world and, in his own image, man. (94) The “one absolute God” of the early Hebrews “was not one tribal or polis deity among many, but was the one true supreme God – the Maker of the universe, the Lord of history, the omnipotent and omniscient King of Kings whose unequalled reality and power justly commanded the allegiance of all nations and all mankind” (97). Put simply, everything in this material life has been preordained, and prescribed, by a “truth” glorified through the covenant with this “one absolute God,” this “one true supreme God.” It is a “truth” that was portrayed in sheer, and often 46
severe, black or white: either follow the word of God or don’t, which separates those who are good from those who are evil, or at the very least not “good,” which itself separates, in the end, those who will be saved at the End of Days from those who won’t. In the end, then, this monotheistic belief, if zealously obeyed, becomes tantamount to blinders, or, at the very worst, chains. According to the perception of “truth” that it both necessitated and nurtured, there are but two roads to walk down throughout this mortal existence. You listen and learn and live by that “supreme” and “absolute” word of God and you go to Heaven. Or else. And for Tarnas, the real possibilities for this sort of epistemological myopia that Judaic monotheism had bred were amplified as that God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was translated into the terms of earliest Christianity at the dawn of the “A.D.” epoch, or the so-called “Common Era.” But it would seem that a crucial reason for such an intensification can be traced to the influence of Greek philosophy upon the roots of Christianity, a relationship I would never have suspected, as I said before. While Christianity owes its “Old Testament”-displayed history and culture to Judaism, Tarnas claims that it was in fact the traditions of Greece where the authoritative and static nature of Christianity can truly be found. He writes, “While Christianity’s claim to religious universality originated in 47
- Page 3 and 4: Copyright by Leon Marcelo 2011 ii
- Page 5 and 6: Abstract of the Dissertation The Un
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- Page 9 and 10: Introduction This work is the culmi
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- Page 43 and 44: [W]hat happened to rhetoric in Amer
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- Page 49 and 50: making and doing” (6). And for De
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a fascinating thing because it insinuates Christianity into the<br />
heart of Western rhetoric. But about the former, it would seem<br />
that the most crucial inheritance for Christianity from Judaism<br />
was monotheism. For those Hebrews of the pre-Christian era,<br />
monotheism was not simply a – if not the – defining<br />
characteristics of their religion, identifying them as the<br />
“Chosen People” of God, but also of the way they perceived<br />
reality, as theology and history were, as Tarnas describes it,<br />
“inextricably conjoined.” Of that monotheistic nature of<br />
traditional Judaism, Tarnas writes:<br />
In the midst of a land where a multiplicity of nature<br />
deities were worshipped by surrounding tribes and<br />
nations, the Hebrews came to believe they existed in<br />
a unique and direct relationship to the one absolute<br />
God who stood above and beyond all other beings as<br />
both creator of the world and director of its<br />
history. Indeed, the Hebrews perceived their own<br />
history as continuous with and reflective of the very<br />
beginnings of Creation, when God had made the world<br />
and, in his own image, man. (94)<br />
The “one absolute God” of the early Hebrews “was not one tribal<br />
or polis deity among many, but was the one true supreme God –<br />
the Maker of the universe, the Lord of history, the omnipotent<br />
and omniscient King of Kings whose unequalled reality and power<br />
justly commanded the allegiance of all nations and all mankind”<br />
(97). Put simply, everything in this material life has been<br />
preordained, and prescribed, by a “truth” glorified through the<br />
covenant with this “one absolute God,” this “one true supreme<br />
God.” It is a “truth” that was portrayed in sheer, and often<br />
46
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