NOTES

Chapter 1: The Conundrum of the Absolute

1. Thoreau (2007 [1862], 195).

2. I am giving an account here of the relaxing peace of the “out in nature frame” of doings we take to be (or stage as being) unguided by the social, as described in Brewster and Bell (2009).

3. Thoreau (2007 [1862], 185).

4. Thoreau (2007 [1862], 213).

5. Thoreau (2007 [1862], 191).

6. Thoreau (2007 [1862], 192).

7. Thoreau (2007 [1862], 191).

8. Thoreau (2007 [1862], 214).

9. Thoreau (2007 [1862], 215).

10. Thoreau (2007 [1862], 196).

11. Thoreau (2007 [1862], 202).

12. Even Thoreau was not always like “Thoreau.” His mother did his laundry the entire time he lived in his cabin on the shores of Walden Pond, supposedly alone (Theroux 2004).

13. St. Augustine (2006, 175).

14. St. Augustine (2006, 180).

15. St. Augustine (2006, 127).

16. St. Augustine (2006, 131). In the interim, he’d taken on another concubine, but it wasn’t a close relationship.

17. St. Augustine (2006, 177).

18. St. Augustine (2006, 181).

19. The passage is Romans 13:12–14. In this book, I use the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) translation of the Bible. To avoid confusion, I quote the NRSV translation here, not the version given in St. Augustine (2006).

20. St. Augustine (2003, 5).

21. St. Augustine (1886, 628).

22. St. Augustine (2003, 648).

23. St. Augustine (2003, 593).

24. On the challenges and possibilities for greening religion, three foundational works are Gottlieb (2006), Nasr (1996), and Taylor (2010).

25. I conceive the triangle this way for ease of visualizing the explanation, not to give priority to the human. Indeed, it could well be argued that the base of anything is its most fundamental aspect. But I don’t intend that priority either.

26. See Wirth’s classic 1938 essay, “Urbanism as a Way of Life.” Closely related observations can be found in Simmel’s “Metropolis and Mental Life” (1950) and Weber’s The City (1950 ([1921]).

27. “Entangled” and “entanglement” have become a popular metaphor these days, from physics to environmental anthropology (Kohn 2013, 227) and animal rights (Taylor 2017, xv). At the risk of confusion with these other uses, I use it extensively in this book.

28. Elsewhere I have described an interactive balancing of material and symbolic explanation as “ecological dialogue” (Bell 2012; Bell and Ashwood 2016).

29. This list is rather longer than the original list of Jaspers. See the next note for an explanation.

30. Jaspers’s (1976 [1949]) own term was originally translated as the “Axial Period,” but current scholars usually use the more mellifluous phrase “Axial Age.” There has been much debate over the timing of the Axial Age and which traditions count as fitting within it. Jaspers himself put the timing at about 500 BCE but with a “spiritual process” that lasted from 800 BCE to 200 BCE. Such a timing would exclude not only Islam but also Christianity, although Jaspers clearly meant to show the foundations of Christian thought. Others like Armstrong (2006 and 2009) include Muhammad as an Axial thinker, and she notes that current scholarship dates Zoroaster from likely before 1000 BCE. These inclusions and date corrections extend the timing of the Axial Age from at least 1000 BCE to 650 CE—a very long span for a specific “period” of thought. And are there no Axial thinkers today, including Armstrong herself? For this and many other reasons, I find the notion of the Axial Age rather muddled, as the next few paragraphs explain, while still finding some value in it.

31. See especially Armstrong (2006) and Armstrong (2009).

32. Armstrong (2014) goes so far as to say we could resolve our modernist troubles if we would only more fully embrace Axial religious sensibilities.

33. Wright (2009).

34. Durkheim (1964 [1893]) and Tönnies (1940 [1931]).

35. Tönnies (1940 [1931], 18) and Durkheim (1964 [1893], 129).

36. Plus there is a third common source of the absolute that we often bring to bear on our questions of community: community itself. For by stating that a motive is for the good of the community at large, and not necessarily for the good of the individual advocate for that motive, we often try to construct a moral place beyond politics upon which to base politics. I deal little with this source here. That will have to wait for another book. This one is long enough.

37. For more on the multilogical, see Bell et al. (2011).

38. Bakhtin (1986, 170).

Chapter 2: Nature Before Nature

1. Mallory and Adams (2006, 408). No doubt PIE peoples got a version of the idea from an even earlier folk.

2. But the Minoans apparently still pronounced Zeus with a “d” instead of a “z.” My source on this is not secure, however, so I’ve removed this minor point from the main text. The Wikipedia entry on Zeus mentioned it when I consulted it on May 31, 2013, and referenced www.palaeolexicon.com, which confirmed the point when I consulted it. However, www.palaeolexicon.com does not give sources for its information.

3. The story is not only local. Hesiod mentions it in The Theogeny, as do many other classical sources. See Ustinova (2009, 20) for a review.

4. A few kilometers away lies Zominthos, a fifty-room Minoan palace 3,900 feet up the mountain, on the road to the cave. Apparently, Zominthos was a seasonally occupied settlement used during the ancient tourist season until it was destroyed by earthquake in 1400 BCE—basically, an ancient tourist trap. See www.minoancrete.com/zominthos.htm, consulted June 9, 2013.

5. Porphyry in his Life of Pythagoras (para. 17) describes the initiation Pythagoras endured: spending twenty-seven days in the cave, while wrapped in black wool, followed by a sacrifice to Zeus. My source on Plato and Epimenides is weak, though—just a tourist website: http://www.cretanbeaches.com/Caves/Rethymno-Caves/ideon-andron-cave/, consulted March 19, 2014.

6. True, another telling of the myth locates it at the Dikteon Cave, a larger and more beautiful cave high up on Mount Dikti, which, at 7,047 feet, is the tallest mountain in eastern Crete. Probably that telling was more popular among the people of eastern Crete, and the telling locating the myth in the Ideon Cave, which lies a bit west of the center of Crete, was more popular at the other end of the island. A third version (Ustinova 2009, 180) offers a compromise: it locates Zeus’s birth at the Dikteon Cave, and his upbringing at the Ideon Cave.

7. De Landa (1978).

8. Chuchiak (2005, 614–615). De Landa later had a change of heart, after a difficult trial over his behavior, and tried to record Mayan culture before more of it was lost. His Relación de las Cosas de Yucatan was described by his translator, William Gates, as responsible for “ninety-nine percent of what we know today of the [ancient] Mayas” (De Landa 1978, iii). But Gates also noted that “he burned ninety-nine times as much knowledge of Maya history and sciences as he has given us in his book (De Landa 1978, iv).

9. Coe et al. (2015) have recently verified the authenticity of this fragment of a fourth ancient Mayan book, known as the Grolier Codex, long in some doubt.

10. See www.newberry.org/popol-vuh, consulted June 9, 2013.

11. See www.newberry.org/popol-vuh, consulted June 9, 2013.

12. Goetz and Morley (1954).

13. The timeline of the Popol Vuh actually extends right up to the sixteenth century.

14. Confusingly, the corn god’s name, Hun Hunahpú, is almost the same as that of one of his sons.

15. Coe (2011).

16. Popol Vuh, pt. I, chap. 1. All quotations from the Goetz and Morley (1954) translation.

17. Popol Vuh, pt. I, chap. 2.

18. Popol Vuh, pt. II, chap. 3.

19. Coe (2011, 67).

20. English translations of the Popol Vuh sometimes use the word “nature,” but only in the sense of the character of someone or something, as in “By nature these two sons were very wise, and great was their wisdom” (Popol Vuh, pt. II, chap. 1).

21. All quotes about the rise of the food chain from Popol Vuh, pt. II, chap. 7.

22. Porphyry copper deposits contain enrichments of several metals, not only copper, all of which have different mobilities. So the company’s lab used to measure the content of four metals, as I recall, to better pin down the deposit: copper, molybdenum, silver, and gold.

23. See Stull, Bell, and Ncwadi (2016).

24. The relationship of the amaQwathi to the amaXhosa is not everywhere agreed upon. Some regard the amaQwathi as a clan of the amaXhosa, and some regard them as their own independent nation. In any event, the amaQwathi largely identify with the amaXhosa, share most of their customs, and speak isiXhosa, the language of the amaXhosa.

25. Here are a few development statistics for 2010 (ECSECC 2012). HIV/AIDS has infected 11.6 percent of the population. Some 57 percent live in poverty, according to the standard definition used in South African government statistics, compared to the national average of 44 percent. Unemployment is 27 percent. Some 7 percent aged fifteen or older have never attended school. Only 24 percent of households have piped water into their homes, compared with a national rate of 39 percent, and only 39 percent have flush or chemical toilets, compared with the national rate of 58 percent.

26. In Stull, Bell, and Ncwadi (2016), we suggest calling this cause and effect “environmental apartheid.”

27. These benefits are often not recognized by scholars and administrators. See, for example, Cotula, Toulmin, and Hesse (2004), who advocate land registration to enable the state to collect taxes.

28. This was back in 1984, when much of what is now the Eastern Cape Province was still two apartheid era “homelands,” Transkei and Ciskei. In chapter 8, I tell the story of my visit to a South African gold mine during that trip.

29. To learn more about the LAND project, visit thelandproject.org.

30. At this writing, the 2001 census is the most recent source of published survey data on religious affiliation in the Eastern Cape, as the 2011 census did not include questions about religion. I take the numbers in this paragraph from Statistics South Africa (2006).

31. According to a 2002 survey, 64.3 percent of all isiXhosa-speaking men have undergone circumcision (Connolly et al., 2008). Many amaXhosa circumcisions today are done in a hospital, but in rural areas the traditional practice is still quite common, although I have not seen a recent survey of the relative prevalence of hospital versus ritual circumcision.

32. The full story of the family’s move is more complex, and indeed quite heartbreaking. But I’ll leave it at that.

33. I take the following account of the discovery of the Epic of Gilgamesh from Damrosch (2006) and Malley (2012).

34. Hormuzd Rassam was not a usual archaeologist for the time. He came from a family of Chaldean Christians, a small group of whom had been in Mosul since the seventeenth century. As a teenager, Rassam learned English from Anglican missionaries and converted to Anglicanism. In 1845, the adventurer, diplomat, imperial spy, and occasional archaeologist Henry Austen Layard arrived in Mosul to dig the ruins of Nineveh. He was astounded to find an English-speaking Anglican among the native population. He hired Rassam, then nineteen years old, to be paymaster for his workforce. Rassam quickly impressed Layard with his skills and intelligence. Eight years later, the British Museum sent Rassam, who by that time had picked up a degree from Oxford, back to the ruins of Nineveh in charge of his own dig.

35. Hardly anyone remembers Rassam now. The discovery of the Palace of Ashurbanipal is usually credited to Layard, who wasn’t even there. (Layard did discover the nearby Palace of Sennacherib, which was also a spectacular find.) Henry Rawlinson, one of the first translators of cuneiform scripts, tried to claim the discovery of Ashurbanipal’s palace, and described Rassam as one of the diggers. Layard, on the other hand, credited Rassam, and in a letter from 1888 accused Rawlinson of what we would now call racism (Waterfield 1963, 478).

36. The “Old Persian” variant of cuneiform, a phonetic script, had been translated a few years earlier. But the Library of Ashurbanipal was pressed into the clay using Akkadian and Assyrian cuneiform, earlier scripts that mixed phonetic symbols with logographic ones representing whole words, and at the time of Rassam’s expedition could not be read.

37. Mitchell (2004).

38. McIntosh (2005, 71).

39. Technically, the main temple was dedicated to Innana, the Sumerian name for Ishtar. Gilgamesh is mostly preserved in Akkadian, not Sumerian, and Ishtar is her Akkadian name (McIntosh 2005).

40. I favor the rendering by Mitchell (2004), which perhaps takes a few liberties of expression, but is extensively documented.

41. In pages to come, I will be describing these “widespread contemporary understandings of religion” as bourgeois.

42. Mitchell (2004, 126–127).

43. Damrosch (2006). Most commentators now accept that these parallels show cultural interconnections and syncretism, although there were some early denials, for example Heidel (1963 [1946], 223).

44. We could make similar lists for the traditions of ancient Greece, Native Americans, Japanese Shinto, the Celts, Hinduism, the Norse, and many, many more.

45. For example, Kohn (2013) describes how the Runa people of the Upper Amazon region of Ecuador understand jaguars and the forest to have thinking consciousnesses.

46. Mitchell (2004, 134).

47. George (1999), 50. The quote marks around “hand” are original in George, although he does not say why he used them. Perhaps he thought “hand” was an Akkadian euphemism for penis. One translator found these passages so delicate that he left the more ribald sections in Latin (Heidel 1963 [1946]).

48. See www.theoi.com/Olympios/ZeusLoves3.html, consulted June 17, 2013.

49. Pagels (1976).

50. Take this with a grain of salt. I recall reading somewhere that the head of the Minoan state was possibly often a woman, but now I find myself unable to track down the source. I’m still looking.

51. Shaw (2004, 82) argues that the excavators’ reconstruction of the “Prince of the Lilies” as a priest-king is “not far off the mark.”

52. Armstrong (2014) misses this point entirely, apparently seeking to portray early religions as more likely to incite violence than modern world religions.

53. Iliad 19.95–125. See Kearns (2010, 62–63).

54. A collection of ninety-five humorous obscene poems about Priapus called the Priapeia was popular in Roman times, and has survived to today.

55. For more on the spirited experience of place, see Bell (1997 and 2017).

56. Anderson (1991).

57. Popol Vuh, pt. I, chap. 5.

58. On the trickster as hero, see Scheub (2012).

59. Theodosian Code 16.10.25; translated by Pharr (1952).

60. See also Sandwell (2005, 89).

61. I take the translation of pangere from http://www.wordsense.eu/pango/#Latin, consulted August 6, 2013.

62. Mitchell (2004, 137).

63. Or so it appears from surviving frescoes.

64. Take, for example, the 29 percent difference in Midwest corn yield between 2012 and 2013 and the 59 percent difference between 1993 and 1994. Figures from http://www.indexmundi.com, consulted August 6, 2013.

65. Armstrong (2014) rightly stresses the centrality of war in early city-states and their processes of accumulation. Class society has continued to use war for accumulation, but more generally finds other means to gain and maintain inequality.

66. Mitchell (2004, 168–169).

Chapter 3: The Natural Conscience

1. See Bell (1994).

2. Bell (1994, 147). Thoreau would have readily appreciated the sure moral value of the environment that Nigel felt: the sense of nature as something good, that we should follow, that we should protect. Billions today agree. It often seems we don’t agree on much, but surveys from around the world show great unity on this point, at least. The World Values Survey asked thirty-six thousand people from twenty-eight countries whether it is better that humans try to “master nature” or “coexist with nature.” (It took five years to do this study, which lasted from 1999 to 2004. Thirty-six thousand is a staggeringly large number of survey respondents.) The survey showed that 78 percent around the world felt it is best to coexist with nature. Only in Saudi Arabia did a majority feel the other way. (For the sources on these surveys, see World Values Survey data cited in Bell [2012, 171].)

3. The Roman philosopher Lucretius was perhaps the first to claim the Greeks invented the concept of nature. He framed the discovery of nature as a form of opposition to religion, meaning the forms of religion I have been calling pagan. I will later argue that the forms of religion I call bourgeois were deeply influenced by the concept of nature, even if they often opposed the idea, but that mostly took place after Lucretius (1957, 4–5) declared around 55 BCE that “[w]hilst human kind throughout the lands lay miserably crushed before all eyes beneath Religion … a Greek it was who first opposing dared raise mortal eyes that terror to withstand” with the concept of nature.

4. Lovejoy and Boas (1980 [1935], 104).

5. Odyssey 10:302, http://www.theoi.com/Text/HomerOdyssey10.html.

6. Lovejoy and Boas (1980 [1935], 103). The etymology of “phy” as coming from “to be” is from note 2 on 103.

7. Oxford English Dictionary, online edition.

8. Lloyd (1992, 10); Soper (1995, 37).

9. Oxford English Dictionary, online edition.

10. Williams (1983, 219).

11. Strictly speaking, we don’t know if the five comedies commissioned for every Dionysia were performed one per day throughout the five-day festival. I have also taken the liberty of assuming that the play I recount below, Aristophanes’s Wealth, was first performed at Dionysia, and not at the Lenaia, the other annual drama festival, which is not known for sure. We do know, however, the names of the other four comedies, as listed above. See Sommerstein (2001, 1).

12. In 388 BCE, the Corinthian War still raged, pitting Athens and its allies against Sparta since 395 BCE. Before that, the Peloponnesian War set Sparta against Athens from 431 to 404 BCE, and nearly resulted in the destruction of Athens. Finally, under pressure from the Persians, the Peace of Antalcidas was signed the following year in 387 BCE.

13. One of the terms of Athens’s surrender at the end of the Peloponnesian War in 404 BCE was that it tear down its famous “Long Walls.” But starting in 395 BCE, with the coming of the Corinthian War, the Long Walls were reconstructed, a task that was completed in 391 BCE. The tax burden to accomplish this must have been crushing.

14. On the “farmer’s problem,” see Bell (2004).

15. I have taken quotes from Wealth from two translations, depending on which strikes me as phrasing individual sections better: either Sommerstein (2001) or Sparklesoup Studios (2004), with a couple of small changes for clarity.

16. Finley (1982, 121) estimates between 60,000 and 80,000 residents of the Athenian city-state were slaves in the classical period. Elsewhere, Finley (1963, 55) estimates that Athens had a total population of 275,000 in 431 BCE, yielding a proportion of roughly one-quarter slaves. Webster (1973, 42) puts it higher, estimating about a third were slaves.

17. M. I. Finley (1982, 103) writes, however, that “I am not altogether satisfied with the evidence for this view.”

18. Based on the 317 BCE census taken by Demetrius of Phalerum, which calculated 21,000 citizens and 10,000 metics. This census also recorded 400,000 slaves, but few scholars believe that figure, regarding it as a guess by Demetrius. The area of Attica doesn’t seem large enough to have supported a population that size.

19. Finley (1982, 64).

20. Finley (1982, 65). Foxhall (1992; cited in Rose 2012, 211) gives similar figures.

21. Finley (1982, 65).

22. Osborne (1995, 28).

23. Webster (1973, 41).

24. However, this may not actually have been the first performance of Wealth. There is some evidence that Aristophanes wrote an earlier version of the play in 408 BCE, or another play by the same name (Sommerstein 2001, 28).

25. Some scholars say women never attended the drama festivals, and some say women attended only the tragedies and had to sit in the back. My approach here is to imply that the rules were not always strictly applied, especially in the company of a male relative, allowing me to portray more of the sexism of Athenian society.

26. Rose (2012) provides an overview of gender and wealth in ancient Athens.

27. Martin (2013) provides a comprehensive overview of the political history of ancient Athens. Rose (2012) provides a Marxist analysis of the class dynamics of the period.

28. Sommerstein (2001, 34).

29. Sommerstein (2001, 1) says we don’t know who won the prize in 388, and Aristophanes (2005, loc. 3540) say we do know, and that Aristophanes won. In any event, it is quite amazing that we know anything at all about this kind of thing from so long ago.

30. Scholars of ancient Greek religion often describe it as a “polis religion,” oriented toward a state and society built around this distinctive social form, despite its pagan origins. Kindt (2012) complains that this interpretation is overdrawn, as it neglects how everyday ancient Greeks sought a personal basis for belief, seeking to answer their own questions of context. My interpretation suggests as well that the “polis religion” of the traditional pantheon did not answer all the questions that adherents sought to resolve. But Kindt wants to see this more personal and magical basis of belief as nonpolitical. I can’t agree with her there, as will become evident from my argument later in the book. To seek the nonpolitical is a form of politics. See especially chapter 8.

31. I offer here a loosely Weberian account of politics, albeit one that tries to leave analytic space for power to be seen, at least potentially, as a means and not an end, and as (again, at least potentially) non-zero-sum. Weber’s classic (1946 [1919]: 78) definition of politics is “striving to share power or striving to influence the distribution of power, either among states or among groups within a state.” In my phrase “contending with interests and their many conflicts,” I mean to imply power as a means of such contention, but not necessarily as the point of politics in and of itself, as I worry that Weber’s definition suggests. Power is potentially an interest in itself, and indeed sometimes the prime one of political actors. But not all motivation is power. As well, Weber’s emphasis on “striving” about the “distribution of power” seems overly zero-sum, although he does provide some opening for a non-zero-sum understanding of power with his inclusion of the possibility of sharing power. Relatedly, I have also tried to offer a non-Hobbesian view of politics with my phrasing. Social life is not necessarily a war of all against all. There may be interests that align rather than conflict, or that simply do not conflict with those of others, with no alignment even necessary. Like a thirst for power, conflict seems to me very common in politics, but not inherent in it.

32. I am quoting the translation by C. S. Calverley (1901 [1869]), which does not mention Demeter. The translation by Hine (1982, 28), however, does.

33. See Edmonds (1912, xvi–xvii).

34. Its most infamous line is “You’re sticking your prick in an unholy hole” (Shipley 2014 [2000]: 185).

35. I am no scholar of ancient Greek, but I conducted a word search for φύσις on the online Greek version of Theocritus’s work at http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, and found nothing. C. S. Calverley does use the word “nature” three times in his translation of the Idylls, as does J. M. Edmonds—but not in the same places. (I did other electronic searches to get these counts.) In any event, neither translator could be described as fastidious in his allegiance to the original text.

36. All quotations from Horace’s Tenth Epistle are from Horace (1983 [20 BCE], trans. Raffel).

37. Lau (1963, 9).

38. I speak no Chinese, but “integrity” is one of the common translations for the Daoist meaning of de. Confucianism uses the same word to mean something closer to “virtue.”

39. Fung (1966 [1948], 284, 177).

40. I take my quotations of the Dao De Jing from two translations. I love Le Guin (2009) for her gender-neutrality, literary ear, and, in keeping with the original, economy of expression. I also love Lau (1963) in part because it was the first translation of the Dao De Jing that I read but also for his more political eye. This quote is from Le Guin (2009, 4).

41. Le Guin (2009, 110).

42. Lau (1963, 96). The next quotation (“Do without doing …”) is from Le Guin (2009, 92).

43. Lau (1963, 109).

44. I base this translation on Merton (1965, 65), which I have updated with non-gender-specific language and with conversion of “Tao” to “Dao.”

45. Virgil’s Aeneid—basically, a retelling of Homer’s epics, domesticated for Romans—mentions natura only once, and only in a first nature sense of essential characteristic (also like Homer). First nature also makes a few appearances in Virgil’s Georgics—seven, by my count.

46. And in the classic translation by Garth (1961 [1717]), “nature” appears seventy-three times, twice as many times as the word natura appears in the original Latin.

47. Book IX, 714–763, Kline (2000).

48. Thoreau did read and admire the Bhagavad Gita, however, a classic Hindu work that seeks a means for overcoming desire and ambition, and says it plainly near the conclusion of Walden (Thoreau 1910 [1854]). For details, see Friedrich (2008). See chapter 7 for details about Hinduism, the Bhagavad Gita, and the problem of desire.

49. See Bell (1994) and chap. 7 of Bell (2012).

50. In a few pages, I add a third part to the natural conscience, the natural we. Two parts are enough for the moment.

51. For these quotes, see the section on Thoreau in chapter 1.

52. This is from a family original we call “The Oars Rise Up.” I wrote the tune and co-wrote the words with my wife, Diane Mayerfeld. We’ve talked for years about putting it on a CD. Maybe one day we will.

53. This is from another family original, “Take Me Back to the River.” I wrote the tune and co-wrote the words for this one too, mostly with my father, M. David Bell, with some lines from others. The image of “tree-green islands” was suggested by my brother, Jonathan Bell. We intend to put this song on that same CD, if it ever happens.

Chapter 4: Pagan Monotheism and the Two Evils

1. Genesis 6:5, 7. All quotes from the NRSV of the Old Testament, except where otherwise indicated.

2. Genesis 19:8.

3. Genesis 19:24. Note that the NRSV renders “Lord” as “LORD,” which I find unnecessary and distracting, and have altered throughout this chapter.

4. Exodus 19:12–19.

5. Exodus 21:2–9.

6. Exodus 21:10.

7. Exodus 21:21.

8. Exodus 21:15, 17.

9. Exodus 31:15.

10. Exodus 32:9–10.

11. Exodus 32:11–12.

12. Exodus 32:14.

13. Exodus 32:26.

14. Exodus 32:26–29.

15. Exodus 32:34.

16. Exodus 32:35.

17. Barna Group (2014, Table 3.1).

18. Barna Group (2014, Table 3.11).

19. Armstrong (2006), Smith (2002), and many others.

20. Genesis 3:22.

21. Deuteronomy 32:8–9.

22. Psalms 82:1.

23. The Hebrew, of course, is spelled right to left.

24. The Dead Sea Scroll 4QDeut (as scholars technocratically label it) makes the polytheism even plainer, and reads “according to the number of the sons of Elohim” (Tov 2014, 51) instead of “according to the number of the gods.”

25. Smith (2002) suggests that this use of Elohim results from the singularizing of an originally plural notion of the divine.

26. There is religious controversy over how to pronounce YHWH, the most common of the many names given for God in the Old Testament. I’ve already mentioned El, El Elyon, Elohim, and YHWH. God is also at times called El Shaddai, usually translated into English as “Lord God Almighty,” and Adonai, translated as simply “Lord” or “Master.” But there is a special complexity with YHWH. The oldest versions of Hebrew writing did not include vowels—only consonants. Along about the eighth century CE, though, scribes started adding diacritical marks to indicate vowel sounds, kind of like the German umlaut or the French acute accent. But to YHWH—the name scholars call the Tetragrammaton, which means “four letters” in Greek—the scribes added the approximate vowels for Adonai instead, even though the fit is clearly poor, to indicate one is supposed to read the word as Adonai. In Hebrew, that would be . But if the text already contained the word Adonai immediately before or after YHWH, the scribes instead used the diacritical marks for Elohim, leading to the common phrase Adonai Elohim in Jewish liturgy. Apparently, the scribes were holding to an old Jewish tradition that one is not supposed to write or speak God’s actual name. And now no one knows the actual pronunciation of YHWH—except perhaps for the few who followers of the esoteric Jewish tradition of Kabbalah say are taught it in every generation, carrying the correct pronunciation forward but keeping it secret. Christians typically do not share a reticence to speak God’s name. They usually render the Tetragrammaton as Yahweh or Jehovah in English. Anglophone scholars generally try to read the Tetragrammaton more or less phonetically as it would be in English, and pronounce it “Yah-weh,” in the manner of many Christians, but without assuming that this is the actual pronunciation. Many Jews take some offense at these practices, I should note, and even extend their tradition of respect to the very word “God,” preferring in English to write it “G-d” and to pronounce it “gee-dash-dee.”

27. Note that the story of the burning bush is a later story from Acts, not Genesis or Exodus.

28. Exodus 13–15.

29. Exodus 13:21.

30. Exodus 33:14 and 40:16.

31. Exodus 40:34, 38.

32. This phrase occurs dozens of times in 1 Kings and 2 Kings.

33. 1 Kings 8:10–13.

34. The NRSV does occasionally use the English word “nature,” as in “ill-natured fellow” (1 Samuel 25:25), but the word is not in the original Greek nor, I believe, the original Hebrew. I cannot claim enough skill in ancient Hebrew to ascertain this beyond doubt, but φúσις does not appear in the Septuagint, the second-century BCE Greek translation of the Hebrew which is the basis for most Old Testament translations today.

35. Job 36:30–37:5.

36. Exodus 16:14, 16:31.

37. Leviticus 26:14–16, 19–20.

38. Exodus 20:8, 23:12.

39. Leviticus 25:3–5.

40. Exodus 23:10–11.

41. Prosic (2004, 41 and 43–44). I take up the agricultural meaning of Passover again in chapters 9 and 10.

42. Exodus 23:17.

43. I heard somewhere that if the US state of Rhode Island (where I was born) were a dance floor, the entire world population could fit and join the party with six square feet apiece. Maybe we should try it.

44. See Dever (2012, 287) for the view that most ordinary Israelites actually did not follow the centralized practices of the Temple.

45. 1 Samuel 15:11.

46. Jeremiah 42:10.

47. This particular warning about God’s jealousy comes from Deuteronomy 5:9.

48. Joshua 24:19.

49. Exodus 34:14.

50. For the passage in Genesis that discusses the “sons of God,” see Genesis 6:1–4. For an account in the Apocrypha, see 1 Enoch 1–36. Related material is in Jude 6–7 and Jubilees. For the New Testament’s description of Jesus as God’s “only son,” see John 3:17 and 1 John 4:9.

51. The story of the Nephilim is also recounted in other ancient Israelite literature, especially the Book of Enoch and Jubilees, which describe them as a race of giants.

52. Genesis 6:1–4.

53. For example, see Wright (2009).

54. Contra Wright (2009), who I think overstates the case for monolatry in ancient Israel.

55. We start to see a transition toward a god of the good in the later books of the Old Testament.

56. Elsewhere the Old Testament uses “Ba’al” in a more generic way, not specifically tied to Moabite religion and to this Moabite mountain.

57. Numbers 25:1–5.

58. I base my account largely on the work of Armstrong (2006 and 2009), Dever (2001, 2005, and 2012), Friedman (1987 and 2003), Finkelstein (2013), Finkelstein and Silberman (2001 and 2006), Lemche (1988), Smith (2002), and Wright (2009), treading carefully through the often-conflicting interpretations.

59. Some of the prominent works of biblical minimalism are Burns and Rogerson (2012), Davies (1992), Finkelstein and Silberman (2001 and 2006), Finkelstein (2013), Gottwald (2001), Grabbe (2011), Lemche (1988), and Thompson (1992 and 1999). Unfortunately, the biblical studies literature is filled with ugly, vituperative, ad hominem attacks between the minimalists and maximalists. For a recent example, see Dever (2012, 11–34). See also Dever (2017), which is a touch more measured, but only a touch. Many biblical scholars—maybe most—find themselves in between these positions. (Biblical mesolists, perhaps we could call them.)

60. For reviews, see Dever (2012) and Fritz (1995).

61. Shanks (2014, 38) and Finkelstein and Silberman (2001, loc. 1414).

62. Smith (2002).

63. As Smith (2001, 14), puts it, “while early Israel recorded some traditions not shared by its neighbors, these distinctive features are relatively rare and hardly indicate a wholly different culture or religion.”

64. Cline (2014).

65. Cited in Cline (2014, 9).

66. Cline (2014).

67. Cline (2014).

68. The absence of pig bones distinguishes Iron Age Israelite settlements in the highlands from earlier Canaanite settlements in the highlands, as well as from the Iron Age settlements of the Philistines along the coast, contend Finkelstein and Silberman (2001, loc. 2035). Note, however, Sapir-Hen (2016) claims that there are complexities here, especially the evidence of pig bones in the Jewish settlements of the northern Kingdom of Israel. It seems that the taboo against eating pigs was originally a practice of the southern Kingdom of Judah.

69. The translation and implications of the famous Merneptah Stele have been under debate ever since it was discovered in 1898; the dust on it has not settled yet.

70. Dever (2001) gives an overview of this broadly held conclusion among archaeologists.

71. Freud (1939) offers this speculation. The hot coal story is a midrash. The Old Testament merely notes in Exodus 4:10 that Moses was “slow of speech and slow of tongue.”

72. See Exodus 12:37–38 and Numbers 1:46. Exodus gives the more general figure of 600,000.

73. I take the following figures from Shanks (2016), reporting on the results of the recent work of Hillel Geva, a biblical archaeologist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

74. Dever (2012), summarizing the work of others, reports somewhat different figures, generally a bit higher. These estimates supersede the work of Broshi (1978), who used a considerably denser model of Israelite urbanism to arrive at 12 acres and 2,000 inhabitants at the reputed time of King David and 125 acres and 25,000 inhabitants at the end of the eighth century BCE—still not huge, however.

75. Dever (2012, figure IV.22).

76. Dever (2012), Finkelstein and Silberman (2001 and 2006), Matthews (2002), Smith (2001 and 2002).

77. Much of the debate here concerns use of the “low chronology” of Finkelstein versus the “high chronology” used by most archaeologists. The low chronology moves the early Iron Age archaeological assemblages forward about one hundred years, meaning that urban development of Judah was that much later. As a result, the Bible’s portrayal of a more substantial State of Judah at the reputed time of David is likely to have been political mythmaking, according to followers of the low chronology. This view is hotly disputed by Dever and others.

78. Davies (2008) and Finkelstein (2013).

79. See Finkelstein and Silberman (2001 and 2006) and Davies (2008) for examples. Davies calls this the creation of “cultural memory,” a phrase that has been influential in the minimalist technical literature.

80. On the archaeological dividing line between Israel and Judah, see Finkelstein and Silberman (2001, loc. 2564). On the textual evidence, see Finkelstein and Silberman (2006). For the argument that the Kingdom of Judah was initially the smaller and less significant of the pair, see Finkelstein and Silberman (2001, loc. 2567) and Finkelstein (2013). I can’t comment on the archaeological evidence and the dispute over the “low chronology” (see note 77 above). But it does seem striking to me, and in keeping with the argument of this book, that the more transcendent Elohim would be from an earlier urbanized and developed state of Israel, and the more immanent and agrarian YHWH would be from a smaller, less developed urban society in Judah. See the discussion of the “documentary hypothesis” and theology of political unity below.

81. Samaria is also the name for a region that roughly corresponds with the ancient Kingdom of Israel, now roughly corresponding with the northern sections of modern Israel and the hotly contested West Bank region of Palestine, an “occupied territory” of modern Israel.

82. We know that the Jewish elite did indeed go to Babylon. Archaeologists have even discovered cuneiform ration lists from the time of Nebuchadnezzar II for grain to be dispersed to the king of Judah and his sons. These are on display at the State Museum of Berlin.

83. Chapter 6 gives more detail on the breakup of Alexander’s empire.

84. Prosic (2004, 39–40).

85. On the archaeological evidence for Israelite poly-divine worship at home, including idols, see Dever (2005 and 2012).

86. Friedman (2003, 35n).

87. Genesis 2:4–7.

88. For the best accessible summary of the findings, see Friedman (2003).

89. Lemche and some other minimalists argue that all the “voices” date from the Babylonian exile to the Hasmonean Dynasty, seeing the Old Testament as a far more recent creation. It seems to me, however, that the Old Testament could be both older and more recent, constantly being rewritten out of older materials in the light of current knowledge and circumstances, as is the case of all scholarship.

90. There has been a long dispute on the temporal order of the other three voices. See Friedman (2003) for one prominent adjudication of the evidence.

91. I am following Friedman (2003) here.

92. Friedman (2003).

93. The combination of YHWH and Elohim into a single, double name occurs only in the early passages of the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, and appears to be due to insertions by a later editor, who was likely seeking to better unify the Bible and its adherents. Most translations of the Bible into English therefore render the name of god in these passages as “Lord God,” not “Lord” alone, as is done in those far more numerous sections where YHWH appears alone. For details, see Friedman (2003), especially the second footnote on page 35.

94. Every major instance of such a god in human history is, if sexed at all, a he.

95. Such brilliance was not unique to the ancient Israelites, however. At the very least, their neighbors, the Moabites, also had such an understanding. The Mesha Stele from the ninth century BCE explains Moabite losses against the Israelites as due to their the Moabite god, Chemosh, “being angry with his land.” Burnett (2016, 32).

96. Finkelstein and Silberman (2001) and Dever (2012).

97. Dever (2012, 280).

98. Smith (2001).

99. 2 Kings 22:4–6.

100. Smith (2001).

101. Among those other sources likely was Zoroastrianism, as I discuss in chapter 6.

102. We should note, however, that in some ancient cultures, the female divine could be seen as aggressive. Examples include the Athenians and their sense that their patron goddess, Athena, was a goddess of war, as well as the Sumerian view of the warlike attributes of Ishtar. But under monotheism, in keeping with increased masculinization of power associated with a centralized state and empire, it is male capacity for violence that gains legitimacy, not female capacity for it.

103. The abundance of figurines of Asherah makes plain her former theological significance. We know from the ruins of Ugarit that the Canaanites regarded her as El’s consort, and many scholars suspect that Ba’al—also described as Asherah’s husband—was regarded as another expression of the male divine for many ancient Israelites, equivalent to El and YHWH, although the Bible in its current form takes a dim view of Ba’al. For details, see Dever (2005).

Chapter 5: Why Jesus Never Talked about Farming

1. Dick died in 2013 at the age of eighty-one.

2. I take this quote and the ones that follow from my own reporting in Bell (2004, 157–158).

3. Thompson, Thompson, and Thompson (2001).

4. For a recent review of the evidence, see Ehrman (2012), who notes that pretty much all biblical scholars—many of whom are not Christian or Christian advocates—think that “whatever else you may think about Jesus, he certainly did exist.” Other well-known studies of Jesus as a historical figure include Aslan (2013), Crossan (1992, 1995, 1998, and 2006), Dunn and McKnight (2005), Ferguson (1993), Freeman (2009), Green (2010), Horsley (1994, 2005, 2008, 2014), Levine (2006), Mason (2009), Wilken (2012), and Wright (2009).

5. See Mykytiuk (2015) for a recent review. For more detail, see Mason (2009).

6. Josephus (1999 [ca. 94 CE], 656); the quote is from his Antiquities of the Jews 20.9.1.

7. See recent issues of Biblical Archaeology Review for the latest in the controversy.

8. Whatever names for these works one uses are sure to annoy someone. For Jews, for example, the names “Old Testament” and “Hebrew Bible” are set within an inherently Christian frame; their term for those scriptures is simply “The Bible.” Nonetheless, I’ll continue on with Old Testament and New Testament, as is most common among scholars.

9. For a recent review of some of the more notable inconsistencies, see Aslan (2013).

10. See Matthew 1:18: “Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.” Other details just seem downright superfluous, like the Romans compelling a passerby, Simon of Cyrene, to carry Jesus’s cross for a while, as noted in Matthew 27:32, Mark 15:21, and Luke 23:26. In Second Treatise of the Great Seth, one of the Gnostic writings from the Nag Hammadi library, Simon of Cyrene is even said to have died on the cross in Jesus’s stead, as Jesus could not die, being divine.

11. Based on the NRSV translation, the word “farmer” appears only twice in the entire New Testament, once in Timothy and one in James, and never in the Gospels. Both uses are metaphorical, not agricultural. In 2 Timothy 2:6, Paul explains that one should not expect that the rewards for following the word of Jesus will come easily. One must work, even suffer for it, just as “It is the farmer who does the work who ought to have the first share of the crops.” In James 5:7, we hear encouragement for Christians to hold on and not grumble, for the coming of the Lord is near at hand. “Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains.”

12. John 10:11. My count of seventeen instances in total is again based on the NRSV.

13. John 15.1.

14. Matthew 13, Mark 4, and Luke 8.

15. Matthew 9:36–38.

16. Luke 9:62.

17. Matthew 19:29.

18. John 6:35.

19. Luke 12:22–23, 31.

20. For example, see Armstrong (2006 and 2009), Aslan (2013), Crossan (1992, 1995, 1998, and 2006), Dunn and McKnight (2005), Ferguson (1993), Freeman (2009), Green (2010), Horsley (1994, 2005, 2008, 2014), Levine (2006), Mason (2009), and Wilken (2012).

21. Antipater was originally from Idumea, a kingdom of Semites to the south and east of Judea, with its capital at Petra, a city carved into the living rock of Wadi Musa in what is now Jordan. Idumeans were Semites but not Jews—or at least only reluctantly Jews, many of them having been forced to convert a century earlier during the beginning of the Hasmonean Dynasty, which was having a go at the empire game by incorporating Idumea within Judea. That conversion was good enough for the Hasmonean elites, but many ordinary Jews never accepted it, seeing force as an inadequate basis for accepting someone into their community. Judaism today is unusual among the universal religions in making conversion difficult, seeking community strength through a strong boundary rather than through maximizing community size. Circumcision is required for male converts, and all converts have to demonstrate to the broader community that the conversion is not for any kind of advantage—a tough standard. Even those who go through a conversion ceremony are often shunned by more conservative Jews. And so it was two thousand years ago as well. Many Jews, and perhaps most, burned over the notion that a man whose family had been forced to convert to Judaism was now the real ruler of the country—especially because Antipater reported back to Rome.

22. Herod didn’t actually take power until 37 BCE, however, as he had a few contenders to deal with first.

23. A point I am implying here is that there is no need to presume that, before the coming of coined money, societies did not have markets, as Polanyi (1957) argued. His vision of an ancient Mesopotamian society that “possessed neither market places nor a functioning market system of any description” (Polanyi 1957, 16) has not withstood the scrutiny of more recent archaeological evidence (Algaze 2008). Markets existed before coins. But coins greatly increased the speed, power, and consequences of markets and their tendencies toward unequal outcomes.

24. Some dispute the notion that an alphabet is an easier form of writing to learn, including Michael Coe (2012), whose work I greatly admire. Coe contends that there is nothing inherently difficult in logo-phonetic scripts like Chinese and ancient Mayan, and that readers of alphabets eventually come to read each word as a unit anyway. Generations of Chinese students I think would disagree about the equal ease of logo-phonetic writing. But, nonetheless, many cultures across the world around this time were greatly improving writing of all kinds, from alphabetic to syllabic to logo-phonetic.

25. Stone and Zimansky (2004) themselves conducted an unusually detailed archaeological survey of urban form for the medium-sized Mesopotamia city of Mashkan-shapir, a site about fifty hectares in size whose apex was around 2000 BCE. They report (p. 379) that “although not conclusive, the data from Mashkan-shapir support the idea that elites were not concentrated within Mesopotamian cities but were distributed broadly across all residential districts.” But Stone (2008) also notes that early cities and states sometimes do show what she calls “exclusionary domination” along lines other than class. Her study of Ayanis—a city site from the Urartu empire, which flourished in the early Iron Age in the first half of the first millennium BCE—shows considerable spatial differentiation of wealth. But that differentiation “may be attributable to ethnic differences playing out within a highly structured and centralized economy” (p. 163). We should also note Ayanis is post–Bronze Age, and structure and centralization are accelerating, but do not yet seem to have led to what we would recognize today as class. Key here, perhaps, is the absence of coins from the site—at least Stone does not list coins among the objects found.

26. Fritz (1995, 161). Kessler (2008, 109), however, contends that by the eighth century BCE in ancient Israel “a class society had developed.” It is hard to draw a sharp line with historical trends.

27. Horace (1983 [20 BCE]), Epistle 1.10 (trans. Raffel 1983).

28. Kessler (2008, 111) notes that “the decisive factor in moving ancient farming societies toward being class societies was the institution of credit.”

29. Von Falkenhausen (2008), 222.

30. Marcus and Sabloff (2008, 22).

31. Marcus and Sabloff (2008, 22).

32. For details on the opulence of the townhouses in the center of Glanum, see McKay (1998 [1975], 159–164).

33. As far as I know, there are no rural Roman villas to visit near Glanum.

34. As of January 28, 2017, €9.50 is the admission price for adults at Glanum.

35. Some say 6 BCE, and others as early at 17 BCE, but 4 BCE seems to be where the weight of current scholarly opinion rests.

36. I am simplifying things a tad here, as I am often forced to do to keep this chapter coherent and readily appreciable by a general audience. Technically, the Province of Judea was attached to Syria, and was ruled by a lower Roman order of governor called a prefect, who reported to the higher order of governor, a legate, who ruled Syria and had the rank of Roman senator. Prefects were not senators.

37. The circumstances around the travel of Jesus’s parents to Bethlehem have been much debated by scholars. Luke 2 reports that Joseph wanted to take part in a census that the Romans were doing of Judea “because he was descended from the house and family of David”—in other words, to help establish his royal heritage. As well, Bethlehem was the traditional seat of the Davidic monarchy. But that particular census—known as the Census of Quirinius—took place in 6 BCE. Matthew 2 instead reports that Jesus was born in Bethlehem and that his parents immediately fled to Egypt for a short time, to avoid a supposed edict from Herod that all children in Bethlehem under age two be killed. Herod dies later that same year, according to Matthew, allowing Jesus’s parents to return to the “land of Israel.” But Herod died in 4 BCE, putting Jesus’s birth two years later than the Census of Quirinius. More likely, argue scholars such as Aslan (2013, 32–33) and Crossan (1995, 18–33), the writers of the Gospels were trying to find a way to have Jesus be born in Bethlehem, even though his family was from Nazareth, because of the prophecy in Micah 5:2, as I shortly discuss.

38. As Aslan (2013) points out, Jesus wasn’t the first to organize Jewish resistance to Rome from the relative safety of Galilee. Most notable was Judas the Galilean who helped found the Zealot movement around 6 CE. Even earlier was Athronges, a shepherd from Galilee who led an insurrection against Rome in 4 BCE. Several of these resistance organizers were also acclaimed at the time as the Messiah. For details, see Aslan (2013).

39. Matthew 2:2.

40. Horsley (1994) and Stegemann and Stegemann (1999) were some of the first to use this phrase.

41. Matthew 27:11; Mark 15:2; Luke 23:3.

42. For example, see Luke 1:27.

43. Micah 5:2, 4–5. Christians sometimes forget that the prediction of the Messiah is originally a Jewish idea, in line with the general forgetfulness of Christians about the Jewish origins of their religious tradition. Jews today, of course, disagree with Christians that Jesus is the Messiah, and some Jews continue to look to the eventual coming of the one they believe is the true Messiah.

44. Even John 7:41–42 raises this question, reporting that some contemporary local people questioned Jesus’s status by asking, “Surely the Messiah does not come from Galilee, does he? Has not the scripture said that the Messiah is descended from David and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David lived?” We should also note that the Gospels do indeed give widely varying accounts of Jesus’s birth and origin.

45. Luke 1:27. Luke 3:23–38 gives Jesus’s supposed full genealogy from Joseph back to David, and then back to “Seth, son of Adam, son of God.” The Sethian Gnostic sect in early Christianity made much of Jesus’s connection to Seth, instead of Adam’s sons Cain and Abel. Matthew 1:1–17 also gives Jesus’s genealogy from Joseph back to David, but only back to Abraham from there. One can find here and there in Christian apologetics the claim that these are really genealogies of Mary, and that it was conventional at the time to use the male names throughout when giving a woman’s genealogy. But this is pure supposition. There isn’t a shred of evidence in these passages in Matthew and Luke that they were intended to be read as actually Mary’s genealogy.

46. Aslan (2013). Aslan seems to overplay his argument, though, in implying that Jesus was a member of the Zealot party. More likely, he was a Pharisee, as the New Testament reports Paul as being.

47. Matthew 6:19–20.

48. Matthew 6:24.

49. Matthew 19:21.

50. Matthew 19:24.

51. Luke 18:25; Matthew 19:24; Mark 10:25.

52. Luke 18:22; Matthew 19:21; Mark 10:21.

53. John 12:14–15.

54. See chapter 1 for details.

55. Mark 10:17–19.

56. In Luke 18:19–20, the injunction against adultery is given top billing, with injunctions against murder, theft, and lying coming afterward, in that order, and honoring one’s parents in the number-five slot. And there’s no extra commandment about not defrauding. All in all, it’s pretty much the same. The parallel passage in Matthew 19:16–19 has a similar order, but puts the commandment against murder back in the top slot, with the addition I mention in the main text.

57. Matthew 22:36–40.

58. For an account of this interaction as the basis for enduring social bonds, see Bell (1998) and Petrzelka and Bell (2000).

59. Matthew 28:19–20.

60. John 3:36.

61. Mark 6:30–44; Luke 9:12–17; John 6:1–14.

62. Matthew 15:34.

63. Orne (2017) makes a persuasive case that it does not have to be that way—that what he calls “sexy community” can unite without disruption, if we allow it to. Connection does not necessarily require disconnection.

64. Seen in this light, Jesus’s retention of the commandment about honoring one’s mother and father is equally about controlling desire as it is about loyalty.

65. For a review of this old debate in rural sociology, see Bell (1992).

66. McGinn (2004).

67. If anything, my figure is likely high, as about a quarter of Pompeii has yet to be excavated, and presumably more brothels still lie under the volcanic debris. I should also note that there are three instances in Pompeii’s widespread graffiti of sexual services offered to women, but many fewer than those offered to men (McGinn 2004).

68. 1 Peter 2:9.

69. Matthew 12:46–50. Luke 8:19–21 and Mark 3:31–35 have similar passages.

70. Matthew 19:29.

71. John 6:53–57.

72. Luke 12:51–53.

73. Matthew 10:34.

74. Mark 11:17.

75. John 7:15–16.

76. John 5:30. There is also this similar passage in John 8:15–16: “You judge by human standards; I judge no one. Yet even if I do judge, my judgment is valid; for it is not I alone who judge, but I and the Father who sent me.” See also John 5:19.

77. Mark 12:14; see also Matthew 22:16.

78. Romans 2:11 and 1 Peter 1:17.

79. Matthew 1 and Luke 1.

80. John 5:41.

81. John 8:54.

82. Jacobovici and Wilson (2014) offer a recent claim about Mary Magdalene as Jesus’s sexual partner that gained a lot of attention.

83. Mark 12:17.

84. John 2:16.

85. John 2:15.

86. Crossan (1998, 586) seems troubled by the evidence that YHWH isn’t a mercy and goodness kind of god, but I think such an interpretation is inescapable.

87. Mark 16:15.

88. Romans 12:9.

89. 2 Timothy 1:14.

90. 2 Timothy 2:3.

91. Ephesians 5:8–9.

92. Colossians 3:2–10.

93. Matthew 5:11.

94. Matthew 18:1–5.

95. John 15:4.

96. See chapter 3.

97. Romans 5:1.

98. Romans 12:5.

99. Colossians 3:12–15. For a similar passage, see 1 Peter 2:9.

100. Luke 11:28.

101. John 3:36.

102. Acts 5:29.

103. As all sociologists will know, I am again drawing heavily here on an old sociological theme, most famously articulated by Durkheim (1964 [1893]) and by Tönnies (1940 [1887]). But see chapter 1 and elsewhere for my critiques of this theme.

104. Based on a search I did for physis (φύσις) and physikos (φυσικός), using the online tool provided by biblehub.com.

105. Romans 1:20.

106. Romans 1:26–27.

107. Luke 8:22–25. Matthew 8:23–27 gives a similar account.

108. John 12:27–31.

109. Acts 9:3–6.

110. Acts 7:48.

111. Acts 17:24–25.

112. Matthew 4:1.

113. Matthew 4:4.

114. Matthew 4:7.

115. Matthew 4:8–10.

116. See Crossan (1992 and 1995) and Horsley (1994, 2008, and 2014).

117. Matthew 13:55 and Mark 6:3.

118. See especially Galatians 2:11–14 and many passages in Acts. For a recent take on the controversy and how to harmonize Paul with a less conservative Christianity, see Borg and Crossan (2009).

119. The spread of Christianity as an urban phenomenon after the death of Jesus is one of the central focuses of the seminal work of Meeks (1983 and 2002).

120. Romans 11:13.

121. The Rhône splits in two upstream from Avignon, creating Barthelasse Island in between, one of the largest fluvial islands in Europe at eight miles long.

122. Some date the foundations back to Roman times. It certainly dates from the fourteenth century, however.

123. Theodosian Code, xvi.1.2, translation by Pharr (1952).

124. My source on this line is admittedly weak. But it is too juicy to omit. It appeared in the Wikipedia entry for the “Avignon Papacy” as of August 16, 2015, and is widely repeated from there across the web. I have not been able to track down a more reliable source.

125. However, the Papacy didn’t officially recognize France’s annexation of Avignon until 1814.

Chapter 6: Great Departures

1. There has been a long debate about the time period the Buddha lived. It seems now that the bulk of scholarly opinion agrees with the “short chronology” in which the Buddha dies in the mid-fourth century BCE (Verardi 2011) around 368 or 370 BCE.

2. “Want not, lack not” is an ancient creed, as Marshall Sahlins (1972) once observed, that the people of northern India found newly relevant to their lives.

3. Ling (2013 [1973], 78–83).

4. Archaeologists call these “punch-marked” coins, meaning that they had a variety of symbols hammered into them in an irregular scatter across their face, instead of a single, invariant design.

5. Jataka I:60–65; translation by Strong (2008, 13).

6. I am following the Lalitavistara Sutra here. The Nidanakatha is similar overall (Rhys Davids 1925).

7. Lalitavistara F.18.b. and f.40.a (Dharmachakra Translation Committee 2013, 22).

8. The full passage in Lalitavistara F.42.a (Dharmachakra Translation Committee 2013, 22) is, “She was untroubled by attachment, anger, or delusion, Had no sexual desires, nor envy or ill will.”

9. The full passage in the Nidanakatha (Rhys Davids 1925, 148) is, “The mother of a Buddha is not lustful, or corrupt as to drink, but has fulfilled the Perfections for a hundred thousand ages, and from her birth upwards has kept the five Precepts unbroken. Now this lady Maha Maya is such an one, she will be my mother.”

10. Here I follow the Nidanakatha (Rhys Davids 1880).

11. Some versions of Siddhartha’s story say that he won Yasodhara’s hand by winning a sports contest.

12. Samghabhedavastu 1:94–119; translation by Strong (2008, 19).

13. I am following Strong (2008) here. Other versions of the story put Mara’s question “who is your witness” as the last one he asks Siddhartha.

14. Strong (2008, 22).

15. Eckel (1997, 340).

16. I am giving the Buddhist interpretation of dharma and karma here. Hinduism takes these ideas somewhat differently, as chapter 7 describes.

17. Armstrong (2006, 341).

18. I am combining the translations in Strong (2008, 48) and Armstrong (2001, 187).

19. Pew Research Center (2015).

20. Ipsos Public Affairs (2016). The numbers are increasing rapidly, growing more than 50 percent since 2012.

21. Singh (2010).

22. For more on these parallels, see Linssen (1958).

23. Technically, maybe we have to say that he nearly finished the job. There was a bit at the southern end of the Indian subcontinent that Ashoka never conquered, but controlled nonetheless through proxies.

24. Citing Ashoka’s own word, carved into Rock Edict 13 (Allen 2012, 413).

25. MacNair (2015, 69).

26. Pillar Edict 7, cited in Allen (2012, 423).

27. Tarn says 27,000 to 30,000, but Green and Borza (2012, 381) call that estimate “too conservative.”

28. Commentators have speculated about this point for nearly two and a half millennia.

29. Arrian, Anabasis 12.4 (Arrian 2013 [ca. 140 CE], 177).

30. McKechnie (1989, 54).

31. The directionality is complex. For example, some scholars argue that the immaculate conception story in Buddhism postdates Christianity, although Buddhism is a significantly older tradition.

32. If I may exhibit a bit of syncretism with Jesus’s parable of the sower in Mark 4.

33. Rose (2011, xix).

34. Rose (2011, xviii).

35. Actually the idea of virgin birth of a savior-like figure was possibly not a Zoroastrian first, depending on how one draws one’s categorical boundaries. There are certain parallels in the myths of the Egyptian god Horus, the Hindu god Krishna, and some others around the world. As well, immaculate birth is part of the life stories told of many heroic figures, such as Alexander the Great. One legend is that he was born of a thunderbolt from Zeus into the womb of his mother, Olympias (Martin and Blackwell 2012, 4).

36. This is a Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhist usage. In Theravada, Buddhism’s other main branch, a bodhisattva is a person who is on her, his, or their way to Buddha-hood, and generally is reserved only as a title for Siddhartha before his enlightenment. See the discussion in the next chapter for more detail.

37. Matthew 2:1–2.

38. Jain (2010, 51).

39. I thank Diane Mayerfeld for this suggestion.

40. I thank Diane Mayerfeld for this suggestion too.

41. Jain (2010).

42. For the fullest telling of the story in the ancient sources, see Olympiodorus (trans. Griffin 2015 [ca. 550 CE], 74–75), a pagan philosopher from Alexandria who lived from ca. 500 to 570 CE.

43. Athens remained the Greek hub until Phillip II of Macedon—Alexander the Great’s father—beat the Athenians at the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 BCE.

44. Buddhism is often described as non-dualist, but in my reading it is only relatively more non-dualist than most other world traditions. For example, the distinction between dharma and karma seems to me to have an inescapable degree of dualism. Indeed, that is the whole point of the distinction.

45. And it also bore some resemblance to the Vedic idea of brahman, which I’ll discuss in the next chapter.

46. On St. Paul’s use of Greek philosophical ideas, see Linsley (2014).

47. St. Augustine (2006) is very plain about it at several points in his Confessions.

48. John 1:1–14.

49. Josephus (1999 [ca. 94 CE]) was hardly an adherent to impartial historiography, and many contemporary scholars argue that the sweep of Jewish sects and politics was likely more complex. For example, see Boccaccini (1998) for evidence that the Essenes were connected with the Enochic party and forebears of the theologies of John the Baptist and Jesus. The trouble is, as scholars like Grabbe (1998 and 2000) emphasize, our evidence base is very fragmentary.

50. Aslan (2013).

51. I lean here mainly on Grabbe (1998 and 2000).

52. Philippians 3:4–6: “If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.”

53. By my count, based on the NRSV, Jesus is called a rabbi thirteen times in the New Testament.

54. Most notably, perhaps, Ehrman (2003).

55. I draw the Athanasius quote from the translation of his 39th Festal Letter given at www.newadvent.org/fathers/2806039.htm. Irenaeus, writing around 180 CE, had earlier termed them “illegitimate and secret” in his On the Detection and Overthrow of the So-Called Gnosis, also called Against Heresies (Pagels 2003, 96).

56. In addition to the fifty-two separate works, there were also a few fragments of others.

57. I draw most of the history of Arius and Athanasius that follows from Barnes (1993, 19–33), Pagels (2003, 172–181), and Freeman (2005 [2002], 163–171).

58. Technically, Christianity did not become the state religion of the Roman Empire until some decades later when the Edict of Thessalonica declared it thus on February 27, 380 CE.

59. Fortunately, through other accidents of history, scholars now have access to both the Gospel of Judas and the Gospel of Mary, although not in complete form.

60. For example, see the Ecclesia Gnostica and the Gnostic Society.

61. Some scholars now advocate moving past the term “Gnosticism,” as being too broad-brush. (See the discussion in Meyers and Pagels 2007, 9–10.) But the phrase has become widespread and is not liable to be superseded soon, I wager.

62. Perhaps most notable here are the Princeton theologian Elaine Pagels and the actress Jane Fonda. Pagels (1979) is her most explicit discussion of the feminist possibilities of Gnosticism, but also see Pagels (2003). As Fonda said to an interviewer, referencing the Gnostic goddess Sophia, “When we talk about—depending on how you talk about it—God, the Almighty, Sophia, a greater power, whatever—can’t you understand that this is beyond gender? This is beyond anything that we can imagine.” www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/2005/04/Christianity-Is-My-Spiritual-Home.aspx, consulted November 13, 2015.

63. I could continue with all fifteen syzygies, but the pattern should already be clear.

Chapter 7: Electrum Faiths

1. Rogers (2002, 29).

2. Rogers (2002).

3. However, in Ireland it was celebrated on April 20 for many centuries (Rogers 2002, 22), despite the strength of—and perhaps exactly because of the strength of, and a Christian fear of—the celebration of Samhain in that country.

4. See Johnson (2006, 64–66) for a review of the controversy.

5. One example is the Kohenet Hebrew Priestess Institute, and its work to develop “embodied, Earth-based, transformative Jewish ritual.” See kohenet.com.

6. As McMahan (2008, 5–6) notes, “the Buddhism that has become visible in the West and among urban, educated populations in Asia involves fewer rituals, deemphasizes the miracles and supernatural events depicted in Buddhist literature, disposes of or reinterprets image worship, and stresses compatibility with scientific, humanistic, and democratic ideals.” Some also call this form of Buddhism “Protestant Buddhism,” which McMahan (2008, 7) notes was “connected with urbanization and the rise of the bourgeoisie in Ceylon, as well as other Asian nations, and mingled traditional Buddhist ethics with Victorian social mores.” See also Gombrich and Obeyesekere (1988).

7. By “discretely welcoming” pagan concerns, I have in mind the bodhisattvas of Mahayana Buddhism and the allowance for continued worship of traditional gods outside of Buddhism. By “incorporating some worship” of pagan divinities, I have in mind, for example, the Theravada Buddhism of Sri Lanka and its inclusion of Hindu gods as Buddhist gods, as well as some originally Hindu ritual (Gombrich and Obeyesekere 1988).

8. We get a bit in Harvey (1990), a classic work. Wynne (2015) is virtually silent on the matter. For a more extended critique of this selective rendering of Buddhism, see McMahan (2008).

9. On these three, I would judge Christianity as the most heavily weighted toward the bourgeois and Buddhism as it is actually practiced in Asia as the least.

10. It is with great reluctance, but a sense of mercy for the reader of this over-long book, that I do not include Mayan and Aztec traditions and the story of Quetzelcoatl/Kukulkan, as I had originally intended to do.

11. Rig Veda, Hymn 19 (Griffith 1896).

12. Rig Veda, Hymn 129 (Griffith 1896).

13. A quick look on the web will find many references to the idea of Hinduism as the “oldest religion.”

14. Meadow and Kenoyer (2000), Kenoyer (2014), and Coningham and Young (2015).

15. Kenoyer (1998, 173) and Coningham and Young (2015).

16. Meadow and Kenoyer (2000) and Kenoyer (2014). In the 1960s, the famed Sir Robert Eric Mortimer Wheeler claimed there was indeed evidence of violence, but that interpretation has now been widely discredited (Coningham and Young 2015, 265–266).

17. Tahir (2008, 157).

18. If I sound anti-Maslow here, it is because I am. For more details on my views about Maslow, see Bell and Ashwood (2016).

19. See the previous chapter for details.

20. Sarma (2008, 1).

21. Doniger (2009).

22. Hiltebeitel (2011, 209).

23. However, the Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra likely was composed around the seventh century CE, a millennium after Vyasa lived, if he indeed is historical at all.

24. Mahabharata 1 (Adi Parva): 63.47 (Morris 2014).

25. I draw this telling of the story from the translation of the Mahabharata by Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Morris 2014).

26. As well, both Satyavati and her adoptive father, the local chief, operate ferries on the river, amplifying their metaphorical roles in boundary-crossing.

27. Bhagavad Gita 1.34 (Swami 2011). I draw different quotations from either the Swami or the Sargeant translations.

28. Bhagavad Gita 1.32–33, 37–39 (Swami 2011).

29. Bhagavad Gita 2.71 (Swami 2011).

30. Bhagavad Gita 3.7 (Swami 2011).

31. Bhagavad Gita 14.13 (Sargeant 2009, 714).

32. Bhagavad Gita 14.14 (Sargeant 2009, 714).

33. Bhagavad Gita 18.53 (Sargeant 2009, 714).

34. Bhagavad Gita 18.73 (Sargeant 2009, 734).

35. There is considerable variation in the stories told of Ganesha’s birth. I take mine from the telling at www.amritapuri.org/3714/ganesha.aum, consulted December 7, 2015.

36. The panchayatana puja is more complex than I have made apparent, as it downgrades the Brahma/Saraswati pair and elevates Devi, the great mother goddess in their place.

37. Lang (2009).

38. Lorenzen (2006) argues—persuasively, in my view—that the contention that the idea of “Hindu” was a colonial invention is not historically accurate. The term is Persian, not British, and had long been used to distinguish Hindus from Muslims, well before the British arrived, despite the incredible variety of Hindu traditions. Similarly, see also Doniger (2009).

39. Jainism never did connect much with pagan concerns, and remains by far the smallest of these three traditions, appealing almost entirely to people who lead bourgeois lives, as I note in the previous chapter.

40. Harvey (1990, 140).

41. Harvey (1990, 140). Harvey also attributes the decline of Buddhism in India to the Muslim invasions.

42. Meanwhile, Buddhism was able to displace Hinduism from much of Southeast Asia, even converting the world’s largest religious complex—Angkor Wat, originally built to honor the Hindu god Vishnu—from Hinduism to Buddhism through appeal to local elites.

43. Esposito (2005, 2–3).

44. Esposito (2005, 6) reports that Muhammad worked for Khadija for a time before marrying; other sources say it happened all at the same time.

45. Lings (1983, 35).

46. This statement is translated many ways, and is traditionally said to be the start of Sura 96:1, which Haleem (2005, 428) translates as “read.” Others say “proclaim.”

47. Esposito (2005, 7).

48. Eleven is the most common view, but Esposito (2003) says thirteen, and wikiislam.net says nineteen.

49. The Book of Idols (Faris 1952, 23). Over the years, there has been much speculation about Hubal, including that he was a moon god, a rain god, and a warrior god. But we have no sources on any of this—only the discussion in The Book of Idols and elsewhere that he was used for divination, based on the tossing of seven arrows.

50. The Book of Idols (Faris 1952, 23–24).

51. The Book of Idols (Faris 1952, 29) says 34, but Armstrong (2000, 11) says 360, evidently based on hadith Sahih al-Bukhari 3:43:658.

52. Some scholars speculate that the form “lah” has a common origin with Israelite and Caananite “El.” The “al” in Hubal may also have same origin, and may also be a form of the once-popular Semitic god Ba’al, often discussed in the Old Testament. See Wright (2009).

53. The Book of Idols (Faris 1952, 12–13).

54. The Book of Idols (Faris 1952, 14–15).

55. Esposito (2003).

56. The Book of Idols (Faris 1952, 16).

57. The Nabateans also worshipped her, and traces of her shrine yet remain at Petra, where she was seen as a manifestation of the Greek goddess Aphrodite, and thus associated with love and chastity.

58. The Book of Idols (Faris 1952, 16–29).

59. The Book of Idols (Faris 1952, 23–24). The story is also told in the first biography of Muhammad, Ibn Ishaq’s eighth-century Sirat Rasoul Allah or Life of the Messenger of God, of which an edited copy by a student has survived.

60. Some say twenty-three years, contending that the night of Muhammad’s first revelation was in Ramadan on 609 CE, not 610 CE.

61. The phrase “straight path” occurs numerous times in the Qur’an, but the first occurrence is Sura 1.6 (Haleem 2005, 3), the obligatory daily prayer.

62. I am not following the convention of describing Islam as having five “pillars” of faith, as Sunni Islam and Shia Islam formulate the pillars somewhat differently.

63. The Qur’an gives no mention of the Talmud, however, which was only then becoming central to Jewish faith and practice, having been assembled in just the previous century.

64. I take my counts from the Haleem (2005) translation.

65. Qur’an 2.136 (Dawood 1999 [1956], 23). I use the Dawood translation here instead of Haleem (2005) because of its use of the word “submit,” which seems to me more in keeping with the meaning of Islam.

66. See chapter 3 for details on the etymology of physis and natura.

67. Qur’an 100.1–8 (Haleem 2005, 432).

68. Qur’an 104.1–9 (Haleem 2005, 436). Similarly, consider Qur’an 102.1–6 (Haleem 2005, 434): “Competing for more distracts you until you go into your graves. No indeed! You will come to know. No indeed! In the end you will come to know. No indeed! If only you knew for certain! You will most definitely see Hellfire.”

69. Qur’an 63.9–10 (Haleem 2005, 374–375).

70. Qur’an 92.17–21 (Haleem 2005, 424).

71. Qur’an 4.171 (Haleem 2005, 66).

72. Islam here departs decidedly from the entirely male conception of Allah during Jahiliyah.

73. Qur’an 4.25 and 3.103 (Haleem 2005, 53 and 42).

74. Qur’an 8.52 (Haleem 2005, 114).

75. Qur’an 6.157 (Haleem 2005, 93).

76. Qur’an 6.165 (Haleem 2005, 93).

77. I didn’t do a specific count because my Kindle program, which I have been using to derive these simple analyses, maxes out at a count of a hundred or more, unless you do some annoying fussing. “Mercy” and “punish” quickly maxed it out.

78. Qur’an 4.80 (Haleem 2005, 58).

79. Qur’an 8.1 (Haleem 2005, 110).

80. Berkey (2003, 64).

81. Or, if you prefer, a new take on an older religious tradition—the Abrahamic tradition—had been born along with a new state.

82. Qur’an 10.15–16 (Haleem 2005, 129).

83. Qur’an 18.110 (Haleem 2005, 190).

84. Qur’an 36.30 (Haleem 2005, 282).

85. Qur’an 64.12 (Haleem 2005, 129).

86. The Gupta Empire, ca. 320 to 550 CE, led to what is sometimes called the “golden age” of Hinduism.

87. There is some dispute about what to call this empire. I use the phrase “Arabian Empire” as it emanated from Arabia and had Arab leadership for centuries, until 1517. At that point, the caliphate passed to the Ottomans—Turks not Arabs. So some prefer to call the political entity that lasted from 632 to the abolishment of the caliphate in 1924 by Mutafa Kemal the “Islamic Empire,” seeing it as a succession of caliphates. But although Islam and state structures have always experienced an unusually high degree of unity, this empire also included people of many other faiths, often with a remarkable degree of tolerance for this diversity. Thus, I prefer to use the phrase “Arabian Empire” for the period of the three Arabian caliphates through to 1517 and “Ottoman Empire” for the caliphate from 1517 until 1924, while noting that Shia Muslims do not use the term “caliph.”

88. Khaldun (1967 [1377]).

89. The famous French founding figure of sociology, Émile Durkheim, was later to make a similar point, distinguishing between the “organic solidarity” of difference and the “mechanical solidarity” of similarity. See the discussion of Durkheim in chapter 1 for details.

90. Sura 7.40 of the Qur’an (Haleem 2005, 97) gives a version of the eye of the needle metaphor, but uses it to condemn disloyalty, not desire: “The gates of Heaven will not be open to those who rejected Our revelations and arrogantly spurned them; even if a thick rope were to pass through the eye of a needle they would not enter the Garden.”

91. Qur’an 2.276–279 (Haleem 2005, 31).

92. Based on the income ratios of the top 20 percent to the bottom 20 percent. For the precise comparative figures, see Bell and Ashwood (2016, 448n183). The pattern does not hold up among the dominantly Muslim African countries, however.

93. Some feminist Muslims argue, however, that the Qur’an itself is not necessarily sexist. The trouble, they contend, is patriarchal interpretation of it. Particularly influential in this line of critique has been the work of Mernissi (1991 and 2003 [1975]).

94. On veiling, see 1 Corinthians 11; on women submitting to their husbands, see Ephesians 5:22–24; on women being silent in church, see 1 Corinthians 14:34. The full quotation for the latter is: “As in all the churches of the saints, women should be silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as the law also says.”

95. Carus (1915, 78).

96. Sahih Muslim 1.219, http://ahadith.co.uk, consulted February 21, 2016. Note that Sahih Muslim is canonical for Sunni Muslims, but not for Shiites or Ibadis.

97. “When Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) bathed because of sexual intercourse, he first washed his hands: he then poured water with his right hand on his left hand and washed his private parts. He then performed ablution as is done for prayer. He then took some water and put his fingers and moved them through the roots of his hair. And when he found that these had been properly moistened, then poured three handfuls on his head and then poured water over his body and subsequently washed his feet.” Sahih Muslim 3.616, http://ahadith.co.uk, consulted February 21, 2016.

98. There is considerable controversy over the homosexual sections, not surprisingly, with not everyone in agreement that they even exist. Sir Richard Burton had intended to publish a translation of the homosexual section, but his wife apparently destroyed it upon his death. Some say that Burton made that whole section up anyway.

99. Sahih Muslim 1.1, http://ahadith.co.uk, consulted February 21, 2016.

100. Sahih Muslim 1.8, http://ahadith.co.uk, consulted February 21, 2016.

101. Bakhtin (1984).

102. Both Kitab Al-Haid, the third book of Sahih Muslim, and the sixth book of volume 1 of Sahih al-Bukhari focus on menstruation.

103. Sahih Muslim 3.577, http://ahadith.co.uk, consulted February 21, 2016. Many hadith, mainly from Muhammad’s wife Aisha, also show Muhammad making a point of distinguishing Islam from traditional Judaism’s sense that menstruation is pollution. It should be noted that Shia Islam tends to be skeptical of hadith sourced from Aisha. However, Muhammad’s embracing and close interacting with women while they are menstruating is also attested by hadith from other sources, as in the report of Umm Salama in Sahih al-Bukhari 1.6.297.

104. Once again, it should be noted that Shia Islam often doubts the authenticity of Aisha’s reports.

105. Qur’an 4.57 (Haleem 2005, 56).

106. Qur’an 2.25 (Haleem 2005, 6).

107. Qur’an 20.121–122 (Haleem 2005, 201).

108. Qur’an 6.99 (Haleem 2005, 87). For similar passages, see, for example, “The Bee,” Qur’an 16.1–17.

109. Qur’an 6.95–96 (Haleem 2005, 87).

Chapter 8: Nonpolitical Politics

1. At the time, working in these mines was truly horrible if you were Black. Annual fatalities—almost all Black miners—numbered in the hundreds. Conditions have somewhat improved since the end of apartheid, but the mines remain dangerous and largely organized through racial hierarchy.

2. In chapter 2, I describe some other adventures that my undergraduate degree in geology has led to over the years.

3. The rule against women in the mines was rescinded with the end of apartheid. “I am certain,” Karl notes in a recent email, “that Diane was one of a very, very small handful of women who ever went down one of those mines in the apartheid days.”

4. Readers interested in the use of dubious science in legitimating apartheid can find an extensive published literature on the best procedures for acclimatization.

5. The criminologist Jack Katz first raised this great question for me in his 1990 book.

6. But where a natural we draws on the moral goodness we attribute to second nature, a natural them draws on the moral badness of third nature.

7. There is an extensive sociological literature on narrative framing, which I will spare the reader.

8. I thank Kerem Morgul for suggesting the phrase “interests bias,” during one of our many wonderful conversations.

9. I will also spare the reader a gazillion references on this subject, but the work of Karl Mannheim (1936) is surely a great place to begin. Other good places are the philosophies of pragmatism and dialogism—or, as I prefer to say, dialogic pragmatism—which are in large measure efforts to deal with this problem. As is this book. For more on dialogic pragmatism, see Bell (2004).

10. Guha (1989), Peluso (1996), and Cronon (1995).

11. My first work in nature reserve creation is described in Bell and Mayerfeld (1982). I also worked for many years with the New Haven Land Trust, and continue to work with the Thousand Islands Area Residents Association in Ontario. The latter work is described in Bell (2007).

12. I didn’t have a recorder going as David told this story, so I’m quoting from his written account at landbetweentherivers.org, a site that was still online as of May 27, 2016.

13. Again, I’m quoting David’s account at landbetweentherivers.org.

14. Now I’m quoting Nickell (2007, 178), but David also told me this story orally.

15. I would encourage the interested reader, though, to read some of the vast critical literature on the social uses of nature, maybe beginning with the text that most influenced my own thinking: Stephen Jay Gould’s 1981 book, The Mismeasure of Man. Much of this literature is also reviewed in Bell (2004) and Bell and Ashwood (2016).

16. Bologna has a church dedicated to San Vitale e Agricola, but that is a different Agricola who lived in the fourth century, very early in church history, and has no special agricultural powers attributed to him.

17. Pounds (1973).

18. Benedictow (2004, 383, table 38).

19. See Scheidel (2008), who argues that the “high estimate” of Roman urbanism of around 25 to 28 percent seems the most likely. Those who favor the “low estimate” argue for an urban percentage nearer 10 percent.

20. Tuchman (1978).

21. Tellier (2009, 267).

22. A former student suggested this term during a course I was teaching on the subject of this book. If memory serves me right, it was the inestimable Alex McCullough, who served as teaching assistant for that course in 2010.

23. Weber (2009 [1904]). Weber sometimes has been critiqued for appearing to suggest that capitalism arose out of Protestantism, when it is plain that capitalism was already in strong renewal at the time of Protestantism’s rise. In my reading, Weber was actually making an appropriately dialogic argument, suggesting that each propelled the other.

24. Calvin (2008 [1536], 581).

25. Weber (2009 [1904], 93).

26. Office of US Chief of Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality (1946, 190).

27. Office of US Chief of Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality (1946, 189).

28. Hilberg (1973 [1961], 52). However, I have seen reports that the Nazi courts were confused on this point and did not all come to same conclusion.

29. Lutzer (2016).

30. The family’s memory isn’t 100 percent sure on this point, however. It may have been taken over by non-Jews instead of being destroyed.

Chapter 9: Awesome Coolness

1. Walker (1983, 1).

2. Dooling and Walker (2000), Walker (1983), Walker (1991), and Walker (1992 [1982]).

3. Walker (1983, 9).

4. Walker (1991, 34).

5. Walker (1917, 154–156). Note the similarity to the section in the Upanishads (Part II, 9th Brahmana), where two sages discuss the number of gods as, variously, 330 million, 33, 6, 3, 1 and a half, and 1.

6. Walker (1991, 34–36).

7. Schmitt (1966, 517). Unfortunately, De Perenni Philosophia has not been translated into English, and I am forced to rely on Schmitt’s translation of this single sentence, without its context.

8. Huxley (1946 [1945]). For some examples of recent uses, see Armstrong (2006 and 2014), Holman (2008), and Nasr (1996 and 2010).

9. Schmitt (1966, 506).

10. Stewart (2007, 11).

11. Masci (2009).

12. Einstein (1954, 46).

13. Einstein (1954, 45–46).

14. See Dawkins (2006, 11–19). Together with Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel Dennett, Dawkins is part of a group sometimes called the “four horsemen of the non-apocalypse.”

15. Frankenberry (2008, 153).

16. Calaprice (2011, 340).

17. Calaprice (2000, 217).

18. Frankenberry (2008, 153).

19. Dawkins (2006, 15).

20. From a much cited creed of Einstein’s, “What I Believe,” that exists in varying translations. I cite the version in Brian (1996, 234) because that is the version Dawkins (2006) uses, as I will discuss shortly.

21. Dawkins (2006, 19) doesn’t say where he got it, but it appears to be the Brian (1996, 234) version, and not the Einstein (1954, 8–11) version, nor the version in Rowe and Schulmann (2007, 226–234).

22. Dawkins (2006, 19).

23. Dawkins (2006, 13).

24. Dworkin (2013).

25. Dawkins (2006, 19).

26. Even Dawkins (1997) comes very close to advocating such a position.

27. Lichterman (2008, 83).

28. Bell (2004) and Bell and Ashwood (2016).

29. Or so Wikipedia estimates (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Books_published_per_country_per_year, consulted February 28, 2017).

30. Again, see Bell (2004) and Bell and Ashwood (2016) for more on this. Although I do not spell it out here, I am also trying to provide a counterpoint to evolutionary psychological accounts of ignorance and the rejection of “facts.” The evolutionary psychologists seemingly always want to rush to genetic explanations stemming from the lingering effects of living in small bands on African savannas millions of years ago, in this case ascribing people’s disputation of facts to competitive advantage. The argument, basically, is that it is evolutionarily better to crush your opponent and thereby preserve your group than accept the facts that other groups present. It would seem to me that the evolutionary advantage would depend upon the fact—like the points one group might learn from another, perhaps that lions have sharp teeth and that rhinos may charge, and that you therefore might be advised to give them wide berth. See Kolbert (2017) for a recent popular presentation of this flawed evolutionary psychology view.

31. This also concerns me about the way the word “ignorance” is used in some work in science studies on the sociology of ignorance.

32. Becker (1963) uses the term somewhat differently, being more concerned with the creation and enforcement of rules that label some as deviant outsiders and others as accepted insiders, a perspective in sociology known as “functionalism,” now often critiqued for its inattention to issues of power. I use the term “moral entrepreneur” specifically as a power move by someone who stands to gain social standing from building a group based in part on making some others look bad, and that in turn grants that higher standing to the moral entrepreneur.

33. Revelation 14:19–20.

34. Revelation 17:5.

35. Revelation 19:13–15.

36. Revelation 19:17–18.

37. Revelation 19:21.

38. Stevenson (2013, 15).

39. Pagels (2012).

40. Stevenson (2013, 16).

41. Matthew 10:34. See chapter 5.

42. Luke 19:27.

43. Qur’an 4.74 (Haleem 2005, 57–58).

44. Qur’an 5.33 (Haleem 2005, 71).

45. Qur’an 5.33 (Haleem 2005, 71).

46. Qur’an 5.32 (Haleem 2005, 70).

47. Al-Dawoody (2011, 56) lists forty-one instances of jihad in the Qur’an with five main meanings. He identifies twelve instances as having to do with war, but never in the sense of a “holy war” to kill unbelievers or force conversions; rather, they mainly deal with self-defense.

48. See Bell and Ashwood (2016) for a more detailed account of Huntington’s argument, including reproductions of his maps, as well as several other examples of social selection in accounts of nature.

49. Huntington (1915, 294).

Chapter 10: The Jewel of Truth

1. On the metaphor of settlement, see Latour (2014).

2. For more on multilogics, see Bell et al. (2011).

3. See Ashwood et al. (2014).

4. I could also mention the special place given in most Talmud printings to the commentaries of Rabbi Shlomo Itzhaki, an eleventh-century scholar often referred to as Rashi. Plus most editions of the Talmud include short commentaries from well after the Tosafot period, included on the outer margins of the pages. But I think my point is clear enough without highlighting yet more levels of commentary on commentary on commentary.

5. This is the standard accounting, which is a bit heavy on Sunna schools, listing five of them among the eight total. Some Shi’a object that there are more.

6. Hubburd (1983 [1982]).

7. Natarajan (2008). There are those who wonder if Einstein may one day prove right on this, however.

8. I’ve used a version of this line before but I can’t remember where.

9. The Dao De Jing makes a similar point in several places, especially chapter 81.

10. For more on my views on the economics of pagan oppression, and its connections to racial oppression, see my co-authored article Stull, Bell, and Ncwadi (2016).

11. Francis (2015) and DeWitt (2015).

12. Taylor (2010).

13. For, as well, ecological justice and social justice are both forms of the other.

14. Tarico (2009) reports the possible connection of Ishtar and Eostre/Ostara as a suggestion of Tony Nugent, who does not appear to have published the idea. On the evidence that the name Eostre/Ostara indicates a Germanic goddess and not a place name based on the direction east, see Shaw (2011). Shaw argues, however, that Eostre/Ostara was quite possibly part of a local cult of matron deities, and not a pan-Germanic goddess of spring or the dawn.

15. See chapter 5 for more details.

16. For more on Halloween, see chapter 7.

17. A great place for the interested reader to start is the remarkable book series on Religions of the World and Ecology, edited by Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim and published by Yale University Press. In that series, see Tucker and Williams (1997) on Buddhism; Foltz, Denny, and Baharuddin (2003) on Islam; Chapple (2002) on Jainism; Chapple and Tucker (2000) on Hinduism; as well as the other books in the series on Christianity, Confucianism, Daoism, Judaism, Shinto, and indigenous traditions.

18. Thoreau (2007 [1862]), 196. See chapter 1 as well.

19. St. Augustine (2003, 444).

20. St. Augustine (2003, 553).

21. Thoreau (1910 [1854], 360).

22. Thoreau (1910 [1854], 364).

23. Thoreau (1910 [1854], 358–359).

24. I counted thirty-two on Amazon published just since 2000, before I got tired of paging through screen after screen—and not counting editions of his complete works.

25. Bell (2011).

26. I have learned much in this regard from the work of Karen Armstrong. But she tends to put the matter a bit idealistically, as in her declaration (Armstrong 2009, xiii) that “religion is a practical discipline that teaches us to discover new capacities of mind and heart.” I would agree that religion should be such a discipline, but I fear we must also recognize that it very often is not.

27. Here again, I feel I must disagree with Armstrong and her view of God as “utterly transcendent” (2009, ix). Similarly, Armstrong writes about the importance of ekstasis, or “stepping out,” in religious experience. I would argue for the equal importance of “stepping in,” and that one cannot truly do one without the other.

28. The sociologists of religion Peter Berger and Anton Zijderveld (2009) argue that we should adopt a stance they call “doubt,” in order that we may have convictions without being fanatics. I largely agree but don’t think that doubt gets it exactly. What I advocate here is celebrating the wonder of the unknown and how it opens us up to each other and the world, a more positive orientation than “doubt.”