One of the oldest and better-known civilizations in human history is ancient Egypt. Egypt was important for its great accomplishments in agriculture, art, literature, construction, and religion. Egypt was also an extremely important producer and exporter of sorghum (corn) and gold throughout the connected ancient world.
Aspects of free will in ancient Egypt are evident due to the enormous number of written texts we now call wisdom literature. People of ancient Egypt were taught to take personal responsibility for their actions from an early age, through adulthood and into old age. There are several cultural reasons for this special attention to good behavior from this first nation-state in history.
First is public order, but unlike civilizations along the Indus River and in Mesopotamia, Egypt became a unified nation much sooner. It was not simply a confederation of small villages sporadically occupying the banks of the Nile River. There was a broader central authority, and this presented a new dynamic between the people and their leaders.
Early societies settled as bands of people who had been tribes of hunters and gatherers for many thousands of years. They were tightly knit groups who relied upon each other for everything they had in life. These tribes settled into permanent homes, domesticated animals, and planted crops, but their worldview remained very tribal oriented. To a person who was born and grew up in a small locale, having never ventured far from home, it was almost impossible to conceptualize belonging to something as large as a nation-state.
Ancient Egyptians in their small villages knew each other intimately at almost every level, but people living tens or hundreds of miles away would not have been seen as belonging to the same society at all, in fact, they could have been seen as adversaries. So how could they all be seen as one people if they did not belong to the same tribe or even know each other personally? The concept of citizenship or even countrymen had very high barriers to overcome.
One way the ancient Egyptian leaders attempted to overcome this estrangement between people was to unify them through religion. This religion was based upon the mysteriousness and sacredness of the Egyptian gods. The strategy was to adopt certain god images that all people already knew or would accept. As this order was established, it took hold of the people’s mindsets.
The Pharaohs (divine sovereigns of ancient Egypt), and their administrators (royal sovereigns), became the ultimate representatives of the gods and ruled by their desires and proclamations. Furthermore, established clergy would be recruited from local areas and would serve as the bridge between different villages, as well as the relationship to central authorities.
So how was this specific religion presented to the people? By studying the continuity of these ancient god images through the centuries, it is possible to see a common, very calm, yet powerful demeanor. Visually, the statues of the Egyptian gods demonstrate a divine order. This order was powerful, in control, reliable and stable. Ancient Egyptian artwork and god images presented strong, calm faces; and the benefits of Egyptian life and lifestyles were promoted to the people as being natural and good, with peace and plenty.
Without the ancient Egyptian administrative state and the Egyptian gods, people feared to suffer from natural disasters, raiders, starvation, disorder, and chaos. Ancient Egyptians saw themselves as blessed with security, surplus, serenity, and a sense of certainty. These were seen as gifts from the governmental and religious structures if the people continued to worship the Egyptian gods and follow the edicts of the Pharaohs and their administrators.
Most ancient Egyptian gods were believed to live in the cycles of agriculture. Ancient agrarian cultures were always on the edge of subsistence. One bad season and people died from starvation. These pre-mechanized societies did not have the benefits of modern scientific knowledge or technology. They did not have weather radar, refrigeration, pest control, antibiotics, machines, and other things that we in the modern world take for granted. Therefore, belief, worship, and obedience to the will of the gods and the Pharaohs were paramount to maintaining success and psychological sustainability of the society.
This vision of certainty, rooted in confidence, was essential for the ancient Egyptian civilization, and continued from that time forward in every other successful human civilization. Without it, people lose confidence and hope in their futures. It’s essential for every successful civilization to possess confidence and conviction in what they do; otherwise, the effort required to preserve and expand it appears futile and wasted. This is probably the most important lesson to the United States from ancient Egypt and all other great civilizations in human history, as a civilization cannot survive if the people who are charged with its preservation no longer believe in it.
Familiarity and family lines are extremely important in the minds of people throughout the world, and it was no different for American citizens who had only until recently been colonists in their now united states.
Until the Industrial Revolution in the nineteenth century, technology was very limited and slow in bringing mass communication and a common national culture to the people of the new United States of America. The difficulty of a local mindset among the citizenry was also present for the founders and framers of the American republic, as loyalty to one’s state was often a priority over loyalty to the nation. Many Americans at that time saw themselves more as citizens of their state first and citizens of their nation second.
The founders and framers of the American republic also knew better than to have an established religion. Experiences with the Roman Catholic Church, the Protestant Reformation, and the continued branching of the Christian religion into various denominations and sects made a uniform religion unworkable and detrimental to freedom.
Instead, it was decided to simply adhere to the broader concept and faith in a single creator God that most American colonists recognized and understood. Utilizing the human value and dignity derived from our creator God, who formed human beings in His own image, the founders continued the processes begun many years earlier to state that natural rights exist as a gift from God and not from people or governments.
The founders and framers of the American system also understood the power of confidence and conviction. This confidence did not simply come from people believing in themselves. This is because people are fallible, weak, and suffer from vices. This new nation required the conviction of the people to put their faith in the God of Creation. This was essential to the nation’s early success and future prosperity. Without God, a nation falls into a state of sin and debauchery, and like earlier civilizations, would disintegrate or be swallowed up by stronger forces.
The Declaration of Independence
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them . . .
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights . . . We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions . . .
The U.S. Constitution
. . . done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty seven. . .
Amendment I (ratified December 15, 1791)
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . .
CHAPTER 3
Ancient Israel and Judaism
Just northeast of ancient Egypt was a collection of city-states in a land called Canaan (modern Israel). Canaanites were confederacies of tribes who had settled among the great lands of Egypt, Phoenicia, and Mesopotamia.
With all these influences, they developed a unique religious culture and worldview we call Judaism. Judaism teaches through scripture that the first man, Adam, was made by God the Creator from the dust of the ground.
Later, God created a woman, Eve, by taking one of Adam’s ribs. Both were occupants of a paradise called the Garden of Eden. This is unique in the ancient world because man and woman are made in the image of God, and like God, humans are self-aware creators with individual free will.
In Judaism, human free will is considered a gift from God, the creator of all things. It is what separates humans from animals, and it gives humans a responsibility that goes beyond our Earthly obligations. Free will in Judaism is not permission to do whatever is desired; rather, it is the power of individual choice. It is the power to freely choose to follow the will of God or not to follow the will of God—or how closely to follow.
God told Adam and Eve they may eat from any tree in the garden except from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Adam and Eve chose not to follow the will of God and were forced to accept responsibility and consequences. Because Adam and Eve ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, they stopped thinking like animals and started thinking like God. God then banished the couple from the garden, sentencing them to the toils of life on Earth.
The story of the Jews, followers of Judaism, begins in ancient Mesopotamia with a man named Abram. Abram was a poor shepherd. Scripture tells us that the Lord God spoke to him directly and commanded him to leave his home in Mesopotamia and venture through the land of Canaan and down into Egypt.
Abram could have refused to obeyed God’s instructions, but instead he freely chose to follow. Each time God gave Abram new instructions, he obeyed and was more and more blessed by God. His faith and dedication to the will of God brought favor on him, and God changed his name to Abraham.
This God of Abraham became the God of the Jews, and His very specific and unique conceptualization remains with us today in the religions of modern Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, as well as “Nature’s God,” in our Freedom Charters.
When Canaan was attacked by northern tribes of invaders, some Canaanites must had fled into Egypt. When Egypt was attacked by the northern tribes, they had to repulse the invaders. Those tribes also settled in Canaan and became a civilization called the Philistines.
The Philistines settled along the coasts while the old Canaanite societies likely stayed in parts of Egypt and in the mountains of Canaan.
Many of these people were eventually called Israelites. Israelites were early Jews, who considered themselves a chosen people by God. People who were not Jewish were called Gentiles.
Jewish scripture states that the Prophet Joseph was taken to Egypt as a slave after members of his extended family attempted to murder him. Joseph was an interpreter of dreams, and when he impressed the reigning Pharaoh with his skill he was given important status in Egyptian society.
Many Israelites fled to Egypt seeking Joseph to avoid famine in Canaan. While there, the Israelites prospered and multiplied, and their population grew to millions. To curb their numbers and secure their obedience, later Egyptian pharaohs had them enslaved.
Generations later, the Israelites were led out of Egypt, in an event called the Exodus, by the Prophet Moses. While in the desert, Moses went to the top of a mountain in Sinai where God gave him the Ten Commandments.
These commandments are as follows:
1) “I am the Lord thy God, thou shalt not have any strange gods before Me,”
2) “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain,”
3) “Remember to keep holy the Sabbath day,”
4) “Honor thy father and mother,”
5) “Thou shalt not kill,”
6) “Thou shalt not commit adultery,”
7) “Thou shalt not steal,”
8) “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor,”
9) “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife,”
10) “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods.”
The significance of these commandments would affect many future human societies. In Judaism, free will was not a simple choice for people to make in society. It became the choice to obey or disobey the will of God, the Creator. This line of thinking continued to affect the descendants of Abraham, who became known as the Children of Abraham, while impacting ancient, medieval, and modern civilizations more than any other statements of belief from ancient times.
Scripture also states that a prophet named Joshua led the Israelites into the land of Canaan, which had been promised to them by the God of Abraham. The Israelites then conquered many Canaanite cities. They established themselves in what scripture describes as the “land of milk and honey” with the city of Jerusalem as their capital. They also built their temple in Jerusalem through the leadership of a framer and royal sovereign named King Solomon, who was the son of King David.
It is important to note here that the sovereigns of ancient Israel were not seen as divine. Divinity was solely reserved for the one God of Abraham. The Lord God of ancient Israel was very different from the gods of the other ancient religions.
For centuries, Canaan, Jerusalem, and the Temple of Solomon would be the home of the Jewish people and the center of Judaism, ensuring their survival and prosperity if they freely chose to follow the will of God. This agreement to follow the will of God and, in turn, prosper is referred to as the Holy Covenant. The Holy Covenant is described in ancient scrolls called the Torah. The Torah is a guidebook revealing the mind of the God of Abraham, and it is considered holy and sacred to this day.
What is important for these writings is Abraham’s God. Despite all the variations of the concept of God/gods throughout civilization, no religion has had such a lasting and profound impact on human perceptions of divinity as Judaism. This Jewish concept of God has shaped the minds and sensibilities of people throughout the ancient, medieval, and modern worlds.
There are many factors that made Judaism unique in the ancient world. First, was the radically new concept of a God who is one loving father. Most ancient religions were polytheistic (many gods), and their gods were very different in almost every aspect. The pagan gods, as we call them today, did not love humanity as many creation myths taught that humans were created as slaves. These gods engaged in intrigue and deception, opportunism, sexual assault, and murder. They were extremely political and could destroy people and societies on a whim.
Judaism is monotheistic because the God of Abraham is one God, and He is not seen as our master, but our father, and He created us in His own image. This elevates humanity to universal importance.
The God of Abraham does not operate on whims, but on laws that reflect His character. The Holy Covenant is a legal agreement between God and humans. Under the Holy Covenant, God rewards those who honor and follow his divine laws with prosperity and protection.
The God of Abraham also exists outside of linear time. For He not only travels with us throughout existence, as Creator of the Universe,
He also exists outside of physical existence. He is not hostage to linear time and sees all things from a position of absolute truth. He knows the past, present and future because He is everywhere within and outside this Universe — the Universe He lovingly created. Ultimate truth is known to Him alone because He is the ultimate truth.
The concepts and worshiping of pagan gods were much different.
The gods and people lived under the constraints of linear time and operated under arbitrary rules. The pagan god images were numerous and in every form. Statues of people, animals, hybrids, rocks, fire, and other things made up the pagan god images.
The God of Abraham was completely abstract with no images at all.
The Jews considered it a great crime to create an image of a god figure or “the God” figure. Even Jewish art was very careful to avoid images of real objects, animals, or people.
Found in the Torah are the Holy Laws. Most people have heard of the Ten Commandments, but there were over six hundred commandments that regulated all kinds of behavior. Everything from worship in the temple to eating habits to circumcision were regulated by the Holy Laws of Moses. It was, and still is, believed that by keeping to the Holy Laws of Moses, God would keep to His promises of security, peace, and prosperity for the Children of Abraham.
The Holy Covenant in Judaism is paramount. It is the lifeline of blessings from God the Creator. Although life continues to be hard, due to the mistakes of Adam and Eve, the Holy Covenant proclaims that by keeping to God’s instructions, Jews and the holy state of Israel will stand against all forces that attempt to destroy it.
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