Introduction

At first sight, the documentary texts which underpin three of the world’s great religions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam – appear riddled with dubious content. This paper focuses on the primary texts of Judaism (the Torah) and Islam (the Qur’an); explores and compares their content and origins; and wonders at the extent to which they might be propaganda, manufactured to facilitate the acceptance and spread of the religions in question, not least through the use of force. The course themes explored are Power and Religion.

Arguments

The journey begins in the city of Ur between 1800 and 1700 BCE. An old man called Abram, poor and with no children, hears a voice which tells him to travel hundreds of miles to a new land, where he will become the patriarch of two great peoples and three world religions[1] (Judaism, Christianity and Islam[2]), which today represent 54.9% of the world’s population[3].

The problem is that there is no historical or archeological evidence for this story[4]. Except for its description in the sacred texts of the three religions in question[5] (for the purposes of this paper, Christianity is regarded as an offshoot of Judaism). The other interesting point, for it forms much of the basis of this paper, is that God promised to make Abram into a great nation, not a great religion[6].

Fast forward to the man who became the Prophet Muhammad, and lived between 570 and 632 CE, some 2,400 years later. Muhammad was a merchant in the city of Mecca, situated in the Arabian Peninsula. He too had visions. Which told him that he was the final prophet of the One True God and that it was his duty to found a religion (Islam) to bring God’s Message to all the nations of the earth[7]. There is little reason to believe that Muhammad did not exist[8]. But the myths about him which led to the inviolability of his God’s Message were myths created by Muhammad himself[9]. There is no direct supporting corroboration for the myths[10].

So, why then did these two religions take such hold? Could it have been the context in which they arose? And the manner in which the sacred texts in support were written, and what they demanded of their religious followers?

Abram did not make it to the land chosen for his people by God. According to the sacred text at the heart of Judaism, the Torah, it was Moses who allegedly led the future people of Israel out of Egypt to Palestine[11]. Although, once again, the existence of Moses is not supported by any historical evidence[12]. The problem was, this chosen land was already inhabited. So, a formerly-enslaved tribe, led by a man who was not a king, needed to establish moral and physical supremacy over people who had wealth, kings and history on their side.

Muhammad was a merchant whose fellow city-dwellers in Mecca did not immediately buy into his claims that he was the one final prophet of God. Muhmmad had to develop his power base in a different city, Medina, where he did so by first enhancing the myths around his claims, and then by imposing them with an army, before returning to Mecca, and laying the foundations of what became an Islamic empire through the notion of jihad[13][14]. Again, the question can be raised, was religion the intent, or was it a means to an end: a nation (Arab) and then an empire, created by use of arms, sanctioned by a supposedly sacred text?

This paper wonders if both Judaism and Islam were more about establishing the identity and supremacy of peoples (respectively Jews and Arabs) than actually spreading the word of God. The sanctity of the word led to the pre-eminence of the people. And the first step in establishing the sanctity of the word was to underline the moral supremacy of the underlying sacred texts. Proponents of both the Torah[15][16] and the Qu’ran[17][18][19] claim they are the living word of God. Exodus 34:27: “Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Write down all these instructions, for they represent the terms of the covenant I am making with you and with Israel’.”[20] God promises in the Qur’an 15:9: “We have, without doubt, sent down the Message; and We will assuredly Guard it.”[21]

In order to enhance the supremacy of the two sacred texts, both drew on ancient myths as if those myths were peculiar to each sacred text. For example, both sacred texts refer to Noah and the Great Flood[22]. Yet, tales of a great flood considerably predated both Moses and Muhammad. The first record of a great flood is to be found in the Sumerian Ziusudra, and that flood has been archeologically dated as occurring around 2,900 BCE[23][24][25]. So, notwithstanding the claims about their divine origin, were the Torah and the Qu’ran merely constructs to enhance the moral and military supremacy of their respective peoples, as they carved out nations and then built empires through conquest?

Many respected scholars have postulated that the Torah had several authors, took several hundred years to complete, and that much of it was written in response to political exigencies, primarily uniting the Jewish people against those who would conquer or enslave them[26][27][28].

Notwithstanding the fact that Muhammad claimed that it was the Archangel Gabriel who transmitted to him the word of God, he never wrote any of it down[29]. That was left to his followers, several decades after Muhammad’s untimely death[30]. Followers who managed, apparently, to overcome divine intervention sufficiently to include a whole plethora of errors and inconsistencies[31]. Is it possible that the Qu’ran was, in fact, deliberately constructed to assist in completing Muhammad’s ambition to create an Arab nation and then empire[32]?

It is noteworthy that both texts are more than mere stories; they represent considerable treatises about moral behavior. They are game plans for a way of life. Game plans which both texts require be imposed with force. Deuteronomy 17:12 of the Torah demands, “Anyone who shows contempt for the judge or for the priest who stands ministering there to the Lord your God is to be put to death.”[33] While Qu’ran 2:193 declares, “And fight them until persecution is no more, and religion is for Allah.”[34]

One interesting feature of the two religions is one which both connects and separates them. Abram had two sons: Isaac and Ishmael – Isaac by Abram’s wife; Ishmael by a servant. Both religions accept that Isaac became the ancestor of the Jews and Ishmael the ancestor of the Arabs.[35] There is a story about Abram being told by God to sacrifice his son, to prove Abram’s faith. The Jews claim the son in question was Isaac[36]; the Arabs, that it was Ishmael[37].

Both religions claim pre-eminence based on a story that no-one can prove, about a man no-one can prove existed, and they base their claim on a mythical sacrifice, each claiming it was their ancestor who was to be sacrificed. The primary claim to supremacy of each religion, over each other, over peoples they conquer, and to this day, resides in the alleged inviolability of constructed and dubious texts, enforced with arms, in the early days, and through the following centuries[38].

Conclusion

There is no historical or archeological evidence supporting the religious myths at the heart of the Torah and the Qu’ran. What appears to be the case is that these sacred texts were constructed by many different authors, over lengthy periods of time, long after the events they describe, with the specific purpose of establishing the identity and moral supremacy of two peoples through a required use of force.

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[1] Clifford R. Backman, Cultures of the West, A History, Volume 1: 1750 (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016, 2013, Second Ed), 71.

[2] Gn 12:1-3 (The Complete Jewish Bible, With Rashi Commentary (TCJB)).

[3] Pew Research Center, “The Global Religious Landscape” (December 18, 2012: http://www.pewforum.org/2012/12/18/global-religious-landscape-exec).

[4] Thomas L. Thompson, The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives: The Quest for the Historical Abraham (United States: Walter de Gruyter, 1974).

[5] Qu’ran 2:124 (English, Muhammad M. Pickthall, Ed (MMP)).

[6] Gn 12:2 (TCJB).

[7] Blackman, Cultures of the West, 277-283.

[8] Solomon Alexander Nigosian, Islam: Its History, Teaching, and Practices (Indiana University Press, 2004), 6.

[9] Francis E. Peters, Muhammad and the Origins of Islam (SUNY Press, 1994), 257-.

[10] Juan E. Campo, Encyclopedia of Islam (Checkmark Books, 2009), 492.

[11] De 4:22 (TCJB).

[12] William G. Dever, “What Remains of the House That Albright Built?,” in George Ernest Wright, Frank Moore Cross, Edward Fay Campbell, Floyd Vivian Filson (Eds), The Biblical Archaeologist (American Schools of Oriental Research, Scholars Press, Vol. 56, No 1, March 2, 1993), 25–35 [33]: 'the overwhelming scholarly consensus today is that Moses is a mythical figure.'

[13] Blackman, Cultures of the West, 282-290.

[14] Merriam-Webster, s.v. “jihad,” accessed December 2, 2018, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/jihad.

[15] Mishnah, Sanhedrin !0:1.

[16] Rabbi David Wolpe, “Did God Write the Bible?” (My Jewish Learning: https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/did-god-write-the-bible).

[17] Harvard Divinity School, Religious Literary Project, “Qu’ran: The Word of God” (https://rlp.hds.harvard.edu/religions/islam/quran-word-god).

[18] John Esposito, Islam: The Straight Path (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988, Extended Ed), 19-20.

[19] Why Islam?, “Qu’ran: The Word of God” (https://www.whyislam.org/quran/quran-the-word-of-god).

[20] Ex 34:27 (New Living Translation (NLT)).

[21] Qu’ran 15:9 (English, Yusuf Ali, Ed (YA)).

[22] Qu’ran 21:76 (English, Sahih International (SI)).

[23] Sumerian King List (Weld-Blundell 62) – the line following (King) Ziusudra in WB-62 reads: “Then the flood swept over.” The next line reads: “After the flood swept over, kingship descended from heaven; the kingship was in Kish.”

[24] Stephanie Dalley (Ed), Myths from Mesopotamia: Creation, the Flood, Gilgamesh, and Others (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 50-6, 71, 74, 77-84, 86-8, 95, 100-1, 107-19, 123-4.

[25] W.G. Lambert, A.R. Millard, Miguel Civil, Atra-Hasis: The Babylonian Story of the Flood (Eisenbrauns, 1999: English, Akkadian and Sumerian Ed), 138.

[26] John J. McDermott, Reading the Pentateuch: A Historical Introduction (Pauline Press, 2002), 21.

[27] John Riches, The Bible: A Very Short Introduction (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 19-20.

[28] Nir Hasson, “Is the Bible a True Story?” (Haaretz, November 1, 2017: https://www.haaretz.com/archaeology/MAGAZINE-is-the-bible-a-true-story-latest-archaeological-finds-yield-surprises-1.5626647).

[29] Fred Donner, Muhammad and the Believers: At the Origins of Islam (London: Harvard University Press, 2010), 153-154.

[30] Francis E. Peters, “The Quest of the Historical Muhammad” (International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol 23, No 3, August 1991), 297.

[31] Joseph Lumbard, “New Light on the History of the Qu’ranic Text” (HuffPost, Retrieved July 27, 2015).

[32] Patricia Crone and Michael Cook, Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1977).

[33] De !7:12 (New International Version Bible (NIV)).

[34] Qu’ran 2: 193 (MMP).

[35] Blackman, Cultures of the West, 72-74.

[36] Gn 22:1-19 (NIV).

[37] Qu’ran 37:102-112 (MMP).

[38] Justin Welby, “Christians on brink of extinction in Middle East, warns Archbishop of Canterbury” (The World News, from the London Daily Telegraph, December 1, 2018).