The Great Leap-Fraud: Social Economics of Religious Terrorism, Volume 1, Judaism and Christianity

By A.J. Deus

Religious ignorance is as dangerous for societal stability as religious extremism. In The Great Leap-Fraud, author A. J. Deus shows that only through the cowardly behavior of a majority that is uneducated in religious questions can sectarian extremism and terrorism take shape and overtake societies. Modern civilizations fail to address the dangerous defect.

Based on a reassessment of primary documents from the beginning of Judaism through to the Reformation, The Great Leap-Fraud evaluates the Judaic scriptures of the Jews, the Christians, and the Muslims for their potential to stir hatred, violence, and terrorism. It searches for messages in the scriptures that may alter the economic behavior of societies.

While providing an overview of three major religionsJudaism, Christianity, and IslamThe Great Leap-Fraud uncovers a series of frauds and premeditated deployment of prophets with the goal to establish or redeem the Jewish state of Israel. It also uncovers how the vested interest of Christian historians has pushed the rise of Christianity unto Roman Emperors. Deus shows that the way humans think and act are strongly influenced by a culture driven by the norms of religious organizations, both past and present.

More information at www.ajdeus.org.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jan 19, 2011
• ISBN: 9781450280600

A.J. Deus

A. J. Deus is a researcher in economics and writes political economics articles. His research focuses on social economics and history of economics. Deus earned an economics degree from the University of Applied Sciences in Economics and Business Administration, Zürich, Switzerland, and a master’s degree from the University of Ottawa, Canada. More background information and mission statement at www.ajdeus.org.

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Contents

A Rational Inquiry

Leap of Faith

A Cultural Heritage

The Cost of the Creation

A Failed DNA Experiment

A Land Grab

An Assassin Leads the Israelites

The Assassin Turns Forger

Moneylenders

Palestinians on the Death List

Thou Shall Kill Your Neighbor

The Monopoly on God’s Words

The Flood of Prophets and Witches

The Prohibition of Idols

A Ponzi Scheme Promising Unrealistic Returns

Genocide in Canaan

David Kills Goliath

The Wisest Man of All Time

The Last Prophets

The Great Fraud

Rebuilding of the Temple Prohibited

A Clan of Infiltrators

An Intellectual Framework for Industriousness

Shifting to Spiritual Beings

One God

The Palestinians Isolated

Alexander the Great

The Library of Alexandria

Who Are the Jews?

Of Justice and Judgment

Fraud as an Economic Force

Eternal Guilt

Self-Determination or Fate?

The Rise of Shame

Martyrdom

Intellectual Decline

Does Religious Freedom Include Fraud?

The Rebellious Jews

A City of Refugees

A Terrorist Organization

Roman Puppet Kings

The Messiah Is Coming

The Temple Razed

A Symbol for Evil

The Cradle of Christianity

The Poorhouse

The Origins of the Christians

The Business with Superstition

Subverting the Economy

Keys to Eternal Life

Early Communism

Light in a Coma

Serving God or Serving Wife and Children

Rise of Passive Aggression

A Continued Trail of Fraud

Terrorists Stir Hatred Against Mankind

The Strongholds of the Jews

The Christian Bible Emerges

The Language Barrier

The Economy Tanks

Rome in Crisis

Freedom!

Divide and Rule

The Promise of a Papacy

A Notorious Liar

Dreaming of Success

Abuse of Freedom

Jesus Turns God

One Scroll for an Empire

Fabricating Evidence

New Rome

Weeding Out Heresies

A Burdened Economy

Christian Invasion

Anti-Semitic Laws and Heresies

An Entitled Society

Paganism Revived

God’s Gift

The Arian Race

Sectarian Conflicts in Rome

Trickle Turns Torrent

The Dam Breaks

A Diabolical Plan

A Pivotal Law

The Plan Backfires

The Genocide Synod

Profiteers of Corruption

The Emperor Challenged

Pagans Stand Tall

The Wall

The Doors Unlocked

Collapse

Jews Expelled from Africa

The City of God

Law Reforms

The Seed of Islam

Abuse

Submission

Sex Before Marriage

Rape

Polygamy

Cows

Unclean

Catholic Excess

Justinian Justice

Muslim Cages

Pedophilia

Emancipation

A Look Ahead, to Volume II

Bibliography, Volume I

Primary Sources

Significant Church Councils

Secondary Sources

Internet Research Sites

Copyright Notices for the Holy Bible

The author has made all reasonable efforts to locate and contact all rights holders to any copyrighted material used in this work. In cases where these efforts have not been successful, the publisher welcomes communication from copyright holders, so that the appropriate acknowledgments can be made in future editions and to settle other permission matters. Some quotes have been slightly edited for style.

A Rational Inquiry

Probably the most important finding of this book is that religious ignorance is as dangerous for societal stability as religious extremism. Only through the cowardly behavior of a majority uneducated in religious questions can sectarian extremism and terrorism take shape and overtake societies. Radical sectarian groups always start out as irrelevant minorities in the name of religious zealousness, and the majority chooses to tolerate and ignore them under the mantle of religious freedom. As intensifying religious conflicts put seven billion people at risk for a clash of civilizations, humanity needs to change the way religion is embedded in societies.

I had no idea what I was getting myself into. For over a decade, I had been working on a book about a novel approach to social economics. It was all laid out, and more than 350 pages were written. The purpose was to find a path for societal evolution that includes lifting a billion people out of poverty. The one key chapter that was still in skeleton form was the study of the sacred scriptures of the Jews, the Christians, and the Muslims. It was to be a brief attempt of rational inquiry (so to speak) into the three Judaic religions in terms of their social and economic impact, as well as their link to modern and past terrorism.

One might think that such an undertaking can only lead to disrespectful religion bashing. Instead, this project is a matter of respect toward people of faith. It is a leap from basking in ignorance to conscientiously studying each faith’s scriptures and literature and trying to rationally connect their evolving cultures to economic history. The Jewish speaker of an interfaith initiative,[1] Rabbi Ted Falcon, told a crowd at the Second Presbyterian Church in Nashville, One of the problems in the past with interfaith dialogue is we’ve been too unwilling to upset each other. We try to honor the truth. This is the truth for you, and this is the truth for me. It may not be reconcilable, but it is important to refuse to make the other the enemy.[2] The intention of this book is to show along the lines of religious thought how societies and economies have changed.

After going through the seemingly insurmountable task of studying the relevant historical literature and archaeological findings, I came to the conclusion that faith is decisively stronger as a change agent than reason. One might be inclined to believe that as our society has evolved toward modernity, reason and knowledge would have eventually overwhelmed spirituality. However, as soon as faith steps in the place of reason, both comprehension and reason are lost. Faith—if defined as the replacement of the unknown with belief—is in fact much more dominant in modern life than what one might hope for in the face of universal education.

Upon this discovery, I came to the conclusion that reason could not be applied in a literary representation of our modern social and intellectual framework, which is built on religious foundations and is relentlessly influenced by faiths. Instead, the view through the eye of history was much more promising when offered along with an understanding of what it is about religious faith that makes societies rise or fall. Applying today’s context posed too many pitfalls of polemics, while history shows an evolution to where we are today, whether it is in regard to faith, terrorism, or economics. Yet, naturally, this book compares and connects modern events with the religious evolution of the past.

The original book was to demonstrate how the Jews looked at their religious foundation differently and how it made Jews rich and smart, and Christians as well as Muslims poor and dumb. After all, the world’s financial system is ruled by smart Jews. What we don’t seem to understand is how strong an influence the scriptures have on our thought process. History shows the direct link repeatedly; only our modern social structures lead us to refuse to see the connections. One of the conclusions is that religious terrorism and many of today’s humanitarian disasters could be prevented if religion were no longer the driving engine of poverty. This is not to suggest that the poor have their own hand in remaining in poverty. Instead, we have no choice but to assimilate at least some of the culture that we are born into, and it is hard to break free from it. It is a society’s culture that fosters poverty, and it is religion that feeds it.

As I was studying, I stumbled; I faced a flood of questions about material I found incomprehensible. Entire blank areas and gaps opened up, as if nobody had traveled my route before. Those who know me can tell what was next: I had to dig. My love for social economics, history, technology, arts, and sports enabled me to put the sacred texts into context; and this brought forth more questions than answers.

While the scriptures conformed to the popular version of history, the background of the unfolding saga didn’t fit the story. Had I learned one thing through the study of history, it was that the wheels of societal evolution turn slowly—very slowly indeed—and that superstitions stubbornly prevail through centuries, if not millennia. Even in today’s fast-paced societies, it takes decades, rather than years, for a social phenomenon to become widely adopted. Also, the actions of a society are reactions to a significant problem. In the grand stream of societal evolution, every shift has a visible cause. Revolutions didn’t happen just like that; they find their root in widespread and grave discontent over the status quo. Without cause to change, societies drift along a well-traveled road of traditions.

This insight provided important guidance in fitting events together. All of a sudden, mainstream history appeared like a shuffled deck of cards, out of order—less a royal flush and more an empty hand of unrelated and isolated cards from different decks. The timeline of religious history just didn’t depict an evolution of social life and religion. It was nothing short of astonishing what reordering of the cards brought forth, and the project took a turn toward the unexpected, into a territory that nobody seemed to have mapped for me. I had always wanted to know how Lewis and Clark must have felt when they first explored the American West just two hundred years ago. Now I know. They had no maps. They had no idea what was ahead of them. There are marked differences, of course. While Lewis and Clark had their boots soaked, I could pick my socks and sip a glass of milk from the center of my desktop adventure. When they were facing Native Americans, they could not pull up Wikipedia to tell whether they were hostile tribes, and they had no access to an online trough of historical primary documents of the tribes to study their culture. While they could certainly tell an arrowhead from a peace pipe, religious and state history are not that straightforward.

In fact, it seems that experts have a hard time telling a deadly weapon from an extended, welcoming hand. The reason for that is simple politics. The red party tells us all the best about a person or an event; the blue party tells us all the worst. It is even more pronounced when a single group is in total control of information, like in theocracies or other[3] dictatorial regimes. These groups are in a position to bend history by editing primary documents, destroying whatever does not conform to their thinking, or adding evidence that wasn’t there before.

Hardly any crime is perfect, though. The clues for what really happened are in the background noise of the cash registers, and the motifs are in the outcomes of the events. The money trail tells a clear-cut story that centers on framing others and defrauding entire nations of their history, if not entire continents. Hence, like Lewis and Clark, who explored the unknown, I remained persistent. Through sheer determination, I studied mountains of primary and secondary information and ultimately completed this work. The accomplishment has nothing to do with extraordinary talents but more with my naïve insistence on staying on course without knowing if or when land would be reached.

Religion is a very difficult topic in social economics to start with. Most authors avoid it altogether and by doing so probably miss the most important building blocks of economic and cultural life. If they do touch on it, they seem to rely on glorifying their own faith rather than asking the hard questions, or they follow the comfort of the conformists. Indeed, religion seems to be instinctively ingrained in humans, possibly as a means to bettering the chances for survival of any given group. Archaeological excavations in the Oaxaca Valley by Joyce Marcus and Kent Flannery may provide a clue that religion started out with simple dancing floors about nine thousand years ago with the hunter-gatherers: It moves to the ancestor-cult shrines that appeared after the beginning of corn-based agriculture around 1,500 BC, and ends in AD 30 with the sophisticated, astronomically oriented temples of an early archaic state.[4] Because religion is instinctual, it can easily be abused for power, and people can easily be misled.

Countless historians endure ridicule today for doubts they have dared to raise about the evolution of Judaic religions. My hope is that these renaissance historians with their heads full of questions will pick up the line of thought of this book and see their findings in a new light that will help them unearth a much better foundation to history than what is believed to be knowledge today. The significance of their doubts is that they might be on track toward finding an effective weapon against poverty and terrorism. For that purpose, it seems that faith is a silver bullet.

Because the outcome of this work was so unexpected, it involves many quotes from the scriptures and from primary documents. Unlike books where the reader can rely on a known historical context, each chapter of this book alters the telling of religious history, often subtly and sometimes substantially, and the book will be hard to understand if not read in its proper order. For anyone to grasp the big picture of the economic impact of religion, the differences between religious belief systems need to be understood. As a side effect, this work provides an overview of the world’s three main religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

I have not relied on modern secondary sources, and my methodology is unscientific. For one, I have accepted the modern Protestant versions of the Bible and the Koran as the basis for their respective religions, knowing well that these texts had been compiled and edited over several centuries. This approach includes the use of the Protestant books of Moses instead of the Jewish Torah for their greater importance in Western society. The reasoning is simple: the religious leaders claim the scriptures’ divinity. Hence, I took the liberty of accepting this idea at face value. If they are divine, I don’t need to be bothered with changes over time. Sarcasm aside, my intention was to relate this material as closely as possible to our modern times. An exhaustive listing of the scriptural variations is not suitable when considering the pandemic of short attention spans and factoid thinking—not to mention that the added complexity would have been overwhelming for me. Hence, I have chosen the modern versions of the texts.

However, more important than the scriptures is what was actually believed during any given era. It can be seen today that beliefs of the people supersede the written works. Depending on societal circumstances, the clergy chooses to focus on certain messages in the sacred texts while ignoring others, only to quickly adapt when opportunity strikes. Most followers of any given faith, except for the Jews, are not intimately familiar with their own scriptures, let alone the others. Hence, while the scriptures are presented with a focus on poverty and terrorism, they only form the cornerstone upon which the temple of thought, money, and violence has been built throughout history. This should allow the reader to easily follow the progress of religion and to come to independent conclusions.

This research project revealed a saga of fraud and deceit in the name of religion and of misguided fanatics who did not live long enough to see the consequences of their preaching hatred against humanity. Having invested in the issue through this book, I am convinced that there is hope. The messages of religion can be changed, because they have been changed before—sometimes simply by state decrees and more frequently by fraud.

I had to study the Bible and the history of the Catholic Church in my youth under the guidance of monks in a Franciscan convent. Re-examining the scripture, I found that I had been guided in selective reading. Instead of the original message of hope I had been fed, I now found a message of miracles, demons, supernatural wrath, deceit, and fraud, and I ended up appalled. I am not trying to undermine anyone’s faith or the absence thereof. In fact, I respect people who live faith, rather than preaching it, and I think that faith can provide positive guidance in life, in particular if it comes from within a person and not from any of the scriptures. I am not so sure whether I still have the same respect toward people who preach faith—who are, in ever so many cases, simply in it for their own gain, living on the payroll of religious institutions or finding their spiritual peace at the expense of others.

Also, even without religion, reason can provide positive guidance. Contributing positively to economic and social life is a matter of the individual’s ethics, not of faith. In fact, it seems to me that the pretenders often display a lower level of ethics than those who live a life of reason. The difference between the secular world and the spiritual is that the latter is very well organized, with highly efficient communication hierarchies and internal laws that provide the followers with a strong sense of group belonging. The secular world is atomistically fragmented and not only lacks a set of behavioral standards equivalent to that of religious sects and scriptures, but also lacks the educational framework to understand the religious leaders who compete with the secular for intellectual dominance.

I offer this upfront: the various religions and their sectarian offshoots are archenemies. When the pope reaches out to related religious sects, his idea of reconciliation is a missionary conversion to his version of Christianity, not a compromise on any of the questions that slice faiths apart. It is different with the majority of people who are not theologically trained. They can probably recognize the errors in scripture and reconcile with opposing beliefs. They might be able to evolve toward a faith centering on God that promotes human virtues, which includes economic duties and societal responsibilities of the individual and relies less on the promise of otherworldly rewards or satanic punishments than it does on real life.

The scriptures do not deliver the guidance so desperately needed by many, unless the seeking engage in so much selective reading that the dangerous downsides of preaching poverty and excluding others to the point of genocide are simply ignored. Religion delivers the reason for most conflicts between nations and also for the fragmentation of countries. However, we are all children of God, if you will, and we are in this together either way: Muslims, Christians, Jews, agnostics, atheists, and all others who are not part of this research project.

The Judaic scripture is a man-made compilation of purposefully created and upheld power hierarchies designed to redeem Israel. Leaders of faith claim that religion is abused for political purposes. Indeed, the Judaic religions were invented for political goals. This realization made me see things in a different light, and writing this book has turned me from doubter to agnostic to atheist regarding that God, the one of the Judaic faiths. Maybe there is a God, but it is not this one. For anyone seriously interested in the root of evil, I recommend rereading the scriptures, unguided and from cover to cover, in their Catholic form.[5] One must then read through the Koran, only to see that warring states and peoples have made so much ado about so little. Most readers of the scriptures would not be able to detect the most pressing issue that divides the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim world to this day, which is whether or not Jesus Christ is God. One might think that they all believe in the same God. Instead, the definition of God is at the root of the religious differences. Christians in the West believe in a quartet of gods and figures with godlike powers: God the Father, God the Son, the Holy Spirit of God, and Satan. This version of Christianity is here termed as the Divine Trinity. In contrast, Jews and Muslims believe in one God only but also accept one or multiple Satans who are equipped with godlike powers.

I beg forgiveness for my errors.

Leap of Faith

A Cultural Heritage

This book is not about God. It is about people and their underlying religious thought process and how it influences their economic and social behavior. It seems that spirits, gods, faith, and religion are defining parts of civilizations across the globe. It will be shown here that the way we think, the way we act, our mating rituals, even our word choices are strongly influenced by a culture driven by the norms of religious organizations past and present.

Refusing to believe does not help one escape a cultural heritage. We just don’t seem to be able to cope without our share of superstitions. Even in the twenty-first century, religious activists still perform their rituals, prayers, and readings in a self-enforcing mechanism: the more they engage in it, the narrower their thought process.

A number of authors and historians deny the primary influence that religious cultures have on economic life. Christian authors are quick to point out that Christianity had no role in the downfall of the Roman Empire and in the emergence of the Dark Ages, which cost humanity seven hundred years of societal development. Instead, many claim that Protestant Christianity was responsible for the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution. They argue primarily that the Eastern Roman Empire survived another thousand years after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, despite the former having a Christian foundation that was even stronger than the one in the West. This is only half of the story, though, that has evolved through biased interpretation of the historic evidence. The full impact of religion on societies is only revealed by examining the competing cultures of all three Judaic faiths—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—from ancient times up until today. We focus on the economic and social impact of the three religions and also search for a possible intellectual framework that supports terrorism in any of the groups.

The evolution of religion has not found its end today. The attempts of seven billion people to explain the inexplicable and to avoid an apocalypse will ensure colorful rituals and competing faiths far into the future. Simplification, as well as competition with science will bring forth new sects. Hopefully, a new fact-based religion will trigger the dawn of the Age of Reason, which we may already believe we live in. Instead, we may be in the Age of Information Overload—or worse, the Age of Factoids, which prevents people from putting themselves into the proper context of time and evolution of societies. It will be demonstrated that today’s problems with the Muslim world are deeply rooted in what can only be termed as the biggest fraud ever committed against humanity. Organized religion—in contrast to individual faith—has one overarching theme: who controls the people.

In order to set our minds to the era of the beginnings of Judaism, we have a look at the four cultures that dominated the world over two thousand years ago.

The Egyptians were the masters of the divine and the afterlife, celebrating a spirituality much older than the Greek, Roman, or Judaic religions. Egyptian gods had supernatural powers and were called upon when needed for protection and help. The gods had to be kept happy with offerings and prayers. They were closed away in temples and could only be seen by officials, who acted as intermediaries, while the pupil was allowed to worship little idols. Oracles, often in the form of statues who would supposedly respond to questions by offering a sign of some kind, served as intermediaries between the gods to the pupil. The responses have been uncovered by historians as fraudulent, of course. The Egyptians brought forth the concept of a division of physical and spiritual being. The spirit could move to a statue, which would serve as a new, eternal home. However, this everlasting life was only granted by a trial in which the heart, the home of the spirit, was weighed against a feather of truth and the deceased was found worthy of a spiritual afterlife.

The Ipuwer Papyrus is an Egyptian poem that is dated around the eighteenth or seventeenth century BC. It holds some important clues about religious customs and rituals at the time. Many elements of the described spiritual life later underwent a transformation to other religions.

Remember to […] shrine, to fumigate with incense and to offer water in a jar in the early morning. Remember [to bring] fat r-geese, trp-geese, and ducks and to offer god’s offerings to the gods. Remember to chew natron and to prepare white bread; a man [should do it] on the day of wetting the head. Remember to erect flagstaffs and to carve offering stones, the priest cleansing the chapels and the temple being plastered (white) like milk; to make pleasant the odor of the horizon and to provide bread offerings. Remember to observe regulations, to fix dates correctly, and to remove him who enters on the priestly office in impurity of body, for that is doing it wrongfully, it is destruction of the heart […] the day which precedes eternity, the months […] years are known.

Remember to slaughter oxen […].

Remember to go forth purged […] who calls to you; to put r-geese on the fire […] to open the jar […] the shore of the waters […] of women […] clothing […] to give praise … in order to appease you. […] lack of people; come […] Re who commands […] worshiping him […] West until […] are diminished […]. Behold, why does he seek to fashion [men …]? The frightened man is not distinguished from the violent one.

He brings coolness upon heat; men say: He is the herdsman of mankind, and there is no evil in his heart. Though his herds are few, yet he spends a day to collect them, their hearts being on fire.

Would that he had perceived their nature in the first generation; then he would have imposed obstacles, he would have stretched out his arm against them, he would have destroyed their herds and their heritage. Men desire the giving of birth, but sadness supervenes, with needy people on all sides. So it is, and it will not pass away while the gods who are in the midst of it exist. Seed goes forth into mortal women, but none are found on the road. Combat has gone forth, and he who should be a redresser of evils is one who commits them; neither do men act as pilot in their hour of duty. Where is he today? Is he asleep? Behold, his power is not seen. …

Authority, knowledge, and truth are with you, yet confusion is what you set throughout the land, also the noise of tumult. Behold, one deals harm to another, for men conform to what you have commanded. If three men travel on the road, they are found to be only two, for the many kill the few.

What Ipuwer said when he addressed the Majesty of the Lord of All: [. . .] all herds. It means that ignorance of it is what is pleasing to the heart. You have done what was good in their hearts and you have nourished the people with it. They cover their faces through fear of the morrow.

That is how a man grows old before he dies, while his son is a lad of understanding; he does not open [his] mouth to speak to you, but you seize him in the doom of death […] weep […] go […] after you, that the land may be […] on every side.[6]

In terms of economic life of almost four thousand years ago, the text reveals a great extent of division of labor and an apparent change in the distribution of wealth. The Egyptians lived in a vibrant, highly developed social organization, divided into divine royals, priests, nobles, craftsmen, commoners, and slaves. They were engaged in a multitude of tasks, crafts, and trades. Egypt’s economy attracted foreigners from far away, because it was based on predictable supply of food and water nourished by the Nile. The reliability of the Nile supposedly provided special powers to the spirits of those who could calculate the coming and going of the seasonal flooding with mathematical precision. The Egyptians had a pontiff much like the Catholic pope. The Egyptian pontiff was also the pharaoh, one man with power over spiritual and secular life. The text reflected on catastrophic social turmoil and on an economic depression, where everything was lacking, from food to materials.

They come no more; gold is lacking [. . .] and materials for every kind of craft have come to an end. The […] of the palace is despoiled. How often do people of the oases come with their festival spices, mats, and skins, with fresh rdmt-plants, grease of birds … ?

Indeed, Elephantine and Thinis […] of Upper Egypt, (but) without paying taxes owing to civil strife. Lacking are grain, charcoal, irtyw-fruit, m’w-wood, nwt-wood, and brushwood. The work of craftsmen and [. . .] are the profit of the palace. To what purpose is a treasury without its revenues?

Indeed, [men eat] herbage and wash [it] down with water; neither fruit nor herbage can be found [for] the birds, and [. . .] is taken away from the mouth of the pig. No face is bright which you have [. . .] for me through hunger.

Indeed, everywhere barley has perished and men are stripped of clothes, spice, and oil; everyone says: There is none. The storehouse is empty and its keeper is stretched on the ground; a happy state of affairs!

Indeed, the private council chamber, its writings are taken away and the mysteries which were [in it] are laid bare. Indeed, magic spells are divulged; smw- and shnw-spells are frustrated because they are remembered by men.

Indeed, public offices are opened and their inventories are taken away; the serf has become an owner of serfs. Indeed, [scribes] are killed and their writings are taken away. Woe is me because of the misery of this time! Indeed, the writings of the scribes of the cadaster are destroyed, and the corn of Egypt is common property. Indeed, the laws of the council chamber are thrown out; indeed, men walk on them in public places, and poor men break them up in the streets. Indeed, the poor man has attained to the state of the Nine Gods, and the erstwhile procedure of the House of the Thirty is divulged. Indeed, the great council chamber is a popular resort, and poor men come and go to the Great Mansions.

Indeed, the children of magnates are ejected into the streets; the wise man agrees and the fool says no, and it is pleasing in the sight of him who knows nothing about it.

Indeed, those who were in the place of embalmment are laid out on the high ground, and the secrets of the embalmers are thrown down because of it.

Anarchy broke loose, and the graves were robbed for their treasures. The document revealed a critical point about religion: without suffering, one would not find God.

If we had been fed, I would not have found you, I would not have been summoned in vain; Aggression against it means pain of heart is a saying on the lips of everyone.

The text reveals that religiosity and natural or humanitarian disasters seem to be closely interconnected.

The consensus is that the Hebrew prophet Jeremiah came forth with the idea that there was only one God rather than many gods or an exclusive tribal God. However, ideas don’t form out of context, and the placement of Jeremiah on the timeline seems out of place. Monotheism emerged during the reign of Akhenaton in the fourteenth century BC. Sigmund Freud considered Akhenaton as a pioneer of monotheism, as one of the first of its proponents.[7] He thought that Moses might have been forced to the exodus after Akhenaton’s death.

It is easy to imagine that the sun, the mother of all life, was worshiped as God. The sun could have been a mere symbol for the spirit of God, just as a statue was the house of a spirit. If artists wanted to represent a spirit, they were forced to symbolize it with something, anything: a statue, the sun, or a white dove. Nobody would claim that Christians are worshipping doves, while it should be clear to anyone born under Christianity that the white dove is nothing other than a symbol for the Holy Spirit.

The Greeks were divided into social classes based on wealth, which was in particular manifested in ownership of the scarce land. Only landowners were fully protected by the law. Education for boys was mostly private. Girls could also learn to read, write, and calculate. Slavery was essential to the social web of the Greeks. Their religion was based on polytheism, with many immortal gods and goddesses, each with a specific assigned purpose. Without being omnipotent, the god Zeus was God of the gods, all of whom had to submit to fate. The gods could go to war against each other, which translated to earthly conflicts among peoples. Upon dying, a person would go into the underworld, where the afterlife took place. Without a proper burial, the human spirit could not enter the afterlife. The Greeks had a concept of hell,[8] also in the underworld, where the damned were tormented. The souls would be judged and sent to hell for punishment, if necessary. Greek mythology was based on stories about their gods and heroic figures—basically legends transmitted from generation to generation (with ever so slight, but important, changes). Greeks would also often consult oracles to foretell the future.

The philosophers Xenophanes,[9] Plato,[10] and Aristotle[11] criticized the Greeks’ polytheism. In the absence of hard evidence, these men thought that some supreme being existed, even if they lacked proof other than the claim that everything they could look at is evidence.

The Greek Xenophanes of Colophon was the first philosopher of religion. Xenophanes was a social reformer of the sixth century BC who chose satire as his mode of communication. His social critiques span a wide range of topics, mocking everything from the exaggerated importance of athletic victories to the humanization of the gods of Homer. He thus triggered new lines of thought against polytheism.

The Ethiops say that their gods are flat-nosed and black, while the Thracians say that theirs have blue eyes and red hair. Yet if cattle or horses or lions had hands and could draw, and could sculpt like men, then the horses would draw their gods like horses, and cattle like cattle; and each they would shape bodies of gods in the likeness, each kind, of their own.[12]

The philosopher went as far as believing that the poets’ stories about their gods were the foundation of the moral corruption of his time, a theme that rings all bells 2,600 years later. He concluded that each of the Greek gods were mere meteorological phenomena. Xenophanes first came forward with the idea of one god greatest among gods and men that was neither limited nor infinite, but altogether nonspatial: that which is divine is a living thing which sees as a whole, thinks as a whole, and hears as a whole.[13] He brought forth the idea that God does not resemble humans either spiritually or physically. It’s an it, not a he. It—God—sees all over, thinks all over, and hears all over.[14] It does not go about from place to place.[15] It does everything without toil.[16]

A pivotal figure in the development of monotheism was Aristotle, the teacher of Alexander the Great. The latter would sack the Persian Empire and bring Hellenistic ideas to the East—more precisely, to the Jews. Aristotle brought forth a system of moral virtues, with examples of actions that could never be justified: we could never justly complain that somebody had committed too few murders, and there is no such thing as committing adultery with the right person at the right time in the right way. Among excluded passions he lists envy and spite: any amount of these sentiments is too much.[17]

The question here is whether the entourage of Alexander the Great brought the ideas to Jerusalem or whether the ideas of the scripture somehow found their way to Greece. We know with some certainty that the scripture, or even the Jewish religion, was unknown outside of Jewish circles before the advent of the Library of Alexandria during the third century BC. We also know that the Jews, after being seized by Alexander the Great, knew about Aristotle’s writings.

Aristotle’s wisdom and moral value are both acquired characteristics which build upon natural qualities. On the one hand, wisdom demands inborn intelligence; but intelligence can be used for evil purposes as well as good ones, and only moral virtue will ensure that the good winds out.[18] Aristotle’s political teachings included a justification of slavery and a declaration of usury being unnatural:

A slave, Aristotle says, is someone who is by nature not his own but another man’s property. To those who say that all slavery is a violation of nature, he replies that some men are by nature free and others by nature slaves, and that for the latter slavery is both expedient and right. He agrees, however, that there is such a thing as unnatural slavery: victors in an unjust war, for instance, have no right to make slaves of the defeated. But some men are so inferior and brutish that it is better for them to be under the rule of a kindly master than to be free. … Aristotle’s remarks on usury were brief, but very influential. Wealth, he said, can be made either by farming, or by trade; the former is more natural and more honourable. But the most unnatural and hateful way of making money is by charging interest on a loan. For money was intended to be used in exchange, but not to increase at interest. And this term interest (tokos), which means the birth of money from money, is applied to the breeding of money because the offspring resembles the parent. That is why of all modes of getting wealth this is the most unnatural.[19]

Aristotle purported to prove the existence of a Supreme Cause, of all things, by arguing that whatever exists for a useful purpose must be the work of an intelligence and that this intelligence can only be one: the Supreme Being. Heaven was set in motion by that being. Aristotle viewed the world as eternal, and he did not reflect on an original creation. It is quite obvious that history takes a different path, whether Aristotle’s Supreme Being found its way to Jerusalem or the Jewish idea of one God made it to Greece.

The Persian Empire at the time was the largest nation in ancient history. Persian boys were taught in three main skills: riding horses, shooting arrows, and speaking the truth.

The most disgraceful thing in the world [the Persians] think, is to tell a lie; the next worst, to owe a debt: because, among other reasons, the debtor is obliged to tell lies.[20]

From the mid-fifth century BC, historical evidence emerges of Zoroastrianism as the Persian state religion, a monotheist but complex religion that has similarities to almost all other religions that had their source in the Middle East. Long before Judaism was born, Zoroastrianism found its archaeological and historical references.[21] Zoroastrians specifically claimed that their religion was first before all others and named those that had followed their lead. This is a typical claim of all religions, because religions have an urge to be looked at as divine:

Know that the formation also of the religion and customs of the people of the borders, whose original country was Iran, is (derived) from the original religion and faith of their Iranian ancestors. Therefore, to them there is (accrual of) good, profit, and increased strength by inquiries concerning this same religion and system. For, the power they have attained is owing to the Iranian religion; and those who have become lords of the world, inclusive even of Xwaniratha [Iran], are (descended) from Hooshang, Tahmurasp, Jamshed, Faridoon; Erach, and other Iranians; and, whatever greatness their sovereignty has acquired, that greatness is owing to giving freedom and happiness to (their) subjects; and owing to that there is perpetual advantage to them. Therefore, the decisions of other rulers [other than those of Iran and professing the Zoroastrian religion], who are not approvers of those who tell lies for the sake of oppression, of those who raise up dissensions in religion, of murderers and highwaymen, must always be acknowledged by the servants of Ohrmazd, and, they (the rulers) must be reckoned as protecting kings, and (the servants of Ohrmazd) must keep (themselves) obedient to them according to the laws, without revolting, and promote their rule. But, if any one there [i.e., in the dominions of border sovereigns], should arrest the greatness, the glory, and the splendor of the Mazdayasnian religion for the sake of introducing (another) religion, then, (the servants of Ohrmazd) should keep (themselves) in the right from such cruel persons in the manner in which advantage and happiness may appear to them. And those who may have fallen from that religion and become damned should be persuaded to turn back. Again, a check should be given to the advancing strength and the attack of the Yahud [Jewish] religion of Rum and the Masahiya [the Jewish Messiah] religion of Khavar [i.e., the West], and the Mani religion [Manichaeism] of Turkestan, lest their wickedness and degradation should enter into (our) co-religionist friends and the purity of our religion, which is older than that of Rum, should be dimmed.[22]

Zoroastrianism was based on free will, which is diametrically opposed to the Greek concept of fate. Other ideas also contrasted starkly with those of the Greeks. According to Herodotus, the Persians have no images of the gods, no temples nor altars, and consider the use of them a sign of folly. This comes, I think, from their not believing the gods to have the same nature with men, as the Greeks imagine.[23] Until Artaxerxes II[24] erected statues, the Persians refrained from using idols.[25] This is an important pointer for the order of things, as the Jewish scripture complains about the Persians worshipping idols. If there were no idols before the fourth century, the Jews couldn’t complain about such worship before that time.

Heavily influenced by Greek culture were the Romans. The most important institution for the Romans was the family, a clan, which included all family members. They did admire their ancestors, but did not worship them. The family was headed by the most senior: the paterfamilias, the role which would be assumed by the eldest son. The paterfamilias had power over the life and death of his family members. The schooling of boys was undertaken by parents and by educated slaves at home or in expensive private schools. Romans had many official gods, and everybody had to take part in the religious ceremonies that we have come to know as Paganism. These were the empiric cults worshipping great gods like Zeus, for example. The purpose of the worship was to stop the gods from doing harm and prompt them to help out when needed ("Do ut des: I give, so it is you to give now"). If all Romans did their religious rituals collectively and properly, the gods were appeased, and the Roman leaders were assured of the loyalty of the people. If rituals were incorrectly conducted, Romans thought they had wasted their time, and they simply turned to another god. The processes were formal, and rituals were the centerpiece. Religion was not about ethics and morality but just about keeping the gods happy. The Roman religions were known as the peace with the gods (pax deorum).

A second cultural level comprised local religions that were tolerated by the Romans as long as they did not involve human sacrifice or cannibalism. While still partaking in the rituals of the official Roman religions, citizens were free to worship their local gods as well.

A third cultural level was formed by the many varied mystery cults of the Roman culture, open to anyone. These cults involved complex processes and rituals that one had to learn in order to be admitted to eternal salvation. Most mystery cults—Mithraism, for example—centered upon some sort of a divine central hero who had died and been resurrected or who had conquered death entirely.

Religious jobs were the state jobs of elected officials, paid for by the government. In the case of a government vacuum, those officials were given an opportunity to step in, provided that a dominant state religion was structured well enough to allow it, which was not the case at the time. The state religion of the Romans had a pontiff at the top of its hierarchy, the equivalent of the Catholic pope. The pontiff was not just anybody, but the Roman emperor. The Roman Pagan religion was controlled and ruled by the head of the Roman Empire.

Today, polytheism is no more, at least in places where economic life is of any importance, and has thus rendered itself useless in our quest for religion’s economic influence. However, with the disappearance of polytheism, religious tolerance also vanished, and sectarian conflicts were born between stiff-necked groups who each claimed ownership of the truth. Polytheism, or rather the pluralism of competing gods, may not have been a hindering factor in economic progress like some of the Judaic belief systems that came to replace it. However, what is critical in the search for the economic impact of religion is what we believe in today and where that came from.

With nonreligious societal institutions taking on tasks that were previously in the domain of religious organizations, religion, at least in the Western world of this day, has lost some of its direct influence on the policy-making aspects of the public sphere. In the West, religious considerations have become less relevant in explorations of the limits of science and technology. Economic, political, and other social considerations have since taken over the controlling roles that religious institutions used to exclusively hold. Yet, our cultural and religious straitjacket poses stark limits upon what we view as ethical and, more importantly, defines what we put down in our laws even today. There is only little hope for a career in American politics without a strong submission to Christian lip service. An American president who does not pray to Jesus is unthinkable. Religious fervor still shapes national sentiments and decision making. As an extreme example from the Middle East, religious concerns with purity laws of the current Taliban movement in Afghanistan and Pakistan guide the region’s public policies. The values espoused by this movement naturally affect its economic life.

The Cost of the Creation

With the dawn of Judaism, the foundation of the three major faith systems (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) was laid. Just like the Greek philosophers of the time, Judaism at first accepted other gods but lifted one god to the stature of God of the Israelites, who was stronger than any other god. This God was omnipotent; he was not the one God that societies have come to worship today but rather a tribal God who was dedicated to the Israelites.

After having created the earth and all that is in it, God put Adam and Eve into the Garden of Eden,[26] which is believed to be in Mesopotamia.[27] There are two competing narratives about the Creation in the first book of the Torah, the differences between which we need not ponder, other than acknowledging that they are from two different writers. Creationists take it at face value that God made the world, including the archcouple who kick-started humanity. Their only evidence for the Creation is the scripture, and it was originally believed to have happened in 3760 BC, a notion invalidated with the emergence of fossils. Evolutionary theorists are the main competitors to the creationists, and neither group seems to realize that civilization is not advanced enough to know what prompted the initial spark—the big bang, as some call it. Modern creationists like D. James Kennedy see clearly: And what of Darwin? His views have largely been discarded by scientists working in the field of genetics. Why? They just don’t seem to fit the facts. Yet thousands of people go on blindly believing in the theory of evolution rather than accepting the truth that there is a God who created the universe, just as the Bible says.[28] The scripture probably refers less to the physical creation of humanity and more to the idea of a spark of human consciousness at the dawn of civilization:

Out of the ground God made every tree to grow that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the middle of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.[29] … God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat of it; for in the day that you eat of it you will surely die.[30]

The main issue with the story is that it may have been lifted straight off Persian or Greek sources and edited for the purposes of the Israelites.[31]

From the start, the Torah outlines ideas of work for reward, of stark punishment for disobedience, and of the value of possessing and protecting knowledge. God’s strategy of punishment is unnecessary, though. He is able to communicate even with nonbelievers, and he is able, if he only wanted, to set anyone straight. The tribal God of the Israelites could give commands to polytheists, non-Israelite royals, and so on. As an example, a passage[32] in the last book of the Torah refers to God having given a command to an Egyptian pharaoh.[33] It indicates either a struggle with faith on the side of the Egyptians or a Jewish invention.

Adam and Eve had three children, Cain, Abel, and Seth.[34] At the time of Seth’s birth, Adam lived 130 years.[35] Generations of man from Adam to Noah[36] had a life expectancy of over 900 years.[37] Sooner or later, the omnipowerful God had to step in to check an explosion of humans: It happened, when men began to multiply on the surface of the ground, and daughters were born to them, that God’s sons saw that men’s daughters were beautiful, and they took for themselves wives of all that they chose. God said, ‘My Spirit will not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh; yet will his days be one hundred twenty years.’[38] What greater demonstration of religious power could there be than being master over life and death? It is easy to imagine that the naive mind would tremble in the face of such power as it addresses our most fundamental fear of our own mortality. The righteous men still lived to be hundreds of years old, but those were few and far in between, and no ancient writer outside the scripture ever took note of the extraordinary age that the Hebrews could reach. However, the promise of an extra-long life is very appealing still today.

Economic clues provide a timeframe of the story. Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.[39] This describes a settled, agricultural society. God made coats of skins for Adam and for his wife, and clothed them.[40] Families or tribes engaged in a natural division of labor. One of the various further divisions in the scripture stands out: Zillah also gave birth to Tubal Cain, the forger of every cutting instrument of brass and iron.[41] Bronze couldn’t have been forged before about 2900 BC, and iron not before about 1300 BC.

The first form of taxation is defined early on in the Bible: Then men began to call on Yahweh’s name,[42] Yahweh being a synonym for God. Obviously, if taxation is supposed to be enforced, subjects must obey somebody who has the power to set the rules and punishments for their violation. As an example for the Judaic subjects (simultaneous with the calling on God), Adam’s sons, Cain and Abel, were judged based on their material contribution to God’s organization: As time passed, it happened that Cain brought an offering to God from the fruit of the ground. Abel also brought some of the firstborn of his flock and of its fat. Yahweh respected Abel and his offering, but he didn’t respect Cain and his offering.[43] Religious scholars would say that a sacrifice is only returning a portion to God of everything that is coming from him. However, one must imagine how frightening an omnipotent God is when he[44] declares, if you don’t do well, sin crouches at the door. Its desire is for you, but you are to master it.[45] The outcome of the story is that Cain killed Abel in envy.

Taxes were more formalized through the story of Jacob, the grandson of Abraham. The latter is the central figure of all Judaic religions, from which the Jews descend and from which the Christians and Muslims take their prophets’ lineages. Abraham’s grandson Jacob is also the man endowed with the name Israel. Jacob had wrestled with God all night without knowing that he was fighting with God. Because of this struggle with God, Jacob was disabled[46] and renamed Israel.[47] Jacob’s disabled left tendon serves also as a justification for Jewish food traditions.[48] After that night, Jacob vowed,

If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and clothing to put on, so that I come again to my father’s house in peace, and Yahweh will be my God, then this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, will be God’s house. Of all that you will give me I will surely give the tenth to you.[49]

Jacob seems to suggest that there is a choice of other gods to follow and that deals can be cut with them. Nevertheless, from his time forth, taxes of 10 percent from all revenues has been firmly established as the standard financial covenant with God. This is convenient for those in charge of collecting the taxes. What might not have sounded like a tax at first was confirmed as such in the last book of the Torah when Joash, one of the rulers of the kingdom of Judah, decided to restore the temple in Jerusalem. He called together the priests and Levites and said to them, Go out to the cities of Judah, and gather money to repair the house of your God from all Israel from year to year. See that you expedite this matter. However, the Levites didn’t do it right away. The king called for Jehoiada, the chief, and said to him, Why haven’t you required of the Levites to bring in the tax of Moses the servant of Yahweh, and of the assembly of Israel, out of Judah and out of Jerusalem, for the tent of the testimony?[50] Other than establishing taxes, the Torah here unified the role of the king with the superiority over spirituality. King and pontiff were one and the same person.

The aforementioned stone, which had served to hold a pillar for God’s house, is of utmost importance. It is the foundation stone of the initially mobile tent of the testimony to God and will resurface as a historical marker throughout history.

Notable from an economic point of view is also the definition of riches at the time when precious materials and preservation of produce enjoyed high status:

Hezekiah had exceeding much riches and honor: and he provided him treasuries for silver, and for gold, and for precious stones, and for spices, and for shields, and for all kinds of goodly vessels; storehouses also for the increase of grain and new wine and oil; and stalls for all kinds of animals, and flocks in folds. Moreover he provided him cities, and possessions of flocks and herds in abundance; for God had given him very much substance.[51]

It seems that the accumulation of riches was very desirable at the onset of the scriptures. The Israelites were firmly settled in towns with extensive storage of food, decorative jewelry, and weaponry.

The book of Chronicles, also part of the Torah, brings the likely reason for tribal conflicts to the fore. Population growth led to the overgrazing of local soil, which was followed by the search for new pasture lands for the sake of sheer survival. At the beginning, according to the scripture, the Jews drove out the indigenous peoples:

They went to the entrance of Gedor, even to the east side of the valley, to seek pasture for their flocks. They found fat pasture and good, and the land was wide, and quiet, and peaceable; for those who lived there before were of Ham. These written by name came in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah, and struck their tents, and the Meunim who were found there, and destroyed them utterly to this day, and lived in their place; because there was pasture there for their flocks. Some of them, even of the sons of Simeon, five hundred men, went to Mount Seir, having for their captains Pelatiah, and Neariah, and Rephaiah, and Uzziel, the sons of Ishi. They struck the remnant of the Amalekites who escaped, and have lived there to this day.[52]

In the name of gain for the Jews, religion sanctioned the extermination of others. After they committed genocide on all inhabitants, their land became peaceful and quiet, with a unique Israelite version of a Pax Romana—a forced peace. With this violent approach, they extended their land claim considerably up to the Euphrates River in Iraq.[53]

A Failed DNA Experiment

God was unhappy with how man had evolved. God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. God was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him in his heart. God said, ‘I will destroy man whom I have created from the surface of the ground; man, along with animals, creeping things, and birds of the sky; for I am sorry that I have made them.’[54] Eating the forbidden fruit did not seem to inspire humanity to tell right from wrong; instead, they were busy accumulating riches and chasing after beautiful girls. So God admitted a mistake and decided to kill all, only to start over with Noah. If God’s mastery over life and death were not enough to prompt anyone to believe in him, wiping out all life from earth to set an example should do the trick. If taxes are not paid collectively in the form of an offering that pleases God, some surprises might be in store:

In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the same day all the fountains of the great deep were burst open, and the sky’s windows were opened. The rain was on the earth forty days and forty nights.[55] The waters prevailed fifteen cubits upward, and the mountains were covered.[56] Every living thing was destroyed that was on the surface of the ground, including man, livestock, creeping things, and birds of the sky. They were destroyed from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those who were with him in the ship. The waters prevailed on the earth one hundred fifty days.[57]

The creationist D. James Kennedy sees God’s tendency toward wrath in a much different light, and his words are here deliberately taken subtly out of context: "But what God was revealing about Himself here