The Ancient Tradition

00:00

Music

00:09

You’re listening to The Ancient Tradition. A Wonk Media Production. Music provided by Joseph McDade. He is your host, Dr. Jack Logan.

00:26

Welcome to the Ancient Tradition podcast. I’m your host, Jack Logan. It’s great to have you back and welcome to all of our new listeners. Before I jump into today’s episode, I want to let our listeners know about our website. This podcast is a companion website, the ancienttradition.com where you can learn more about the evidence that I’ll present in today’s episode. If you go to the ancienttradition.com and click on evidence in the pull down menu, you’ll see a page dedicated to today’s episode.

00:54

You can find pictures and links, the ancient accounts and full citations for everything discussed in this episode. In our last episode, we established that the ancient record attested in stark contradistinction to 17th and 18th century philosophers that the spiritual realm was knowable, that human beings could obtain direct knowledge of a supreme being. And as you continue to listen to this podcast.

01:23

you’re gonna be exposed to an astounding number of correspondences or parallels between religious traditions that span the centuries and cover the entire globe. The question is, how do we explain this? And we’ll get to that, but before I do, let’s start with an even broader question, a fundamentally important question that must be addressed before we start. If there was a singular ancient religious tradition,

01:53

where did it come from? And the answer to this question, I think, can be narrowed down to really one of two options. Either the ancient tradition was man-made or socially constructed, or it was revealed by God or God revealed. And there really aren’t any other options. The world isn’t without myriad philosophers advocating for a man-made explanation.

02:22

So I’m gonna run through a few of them and then I’m gonna walk you through what’s written in the ancient record. So let’s start with Nietzsche. Nietzsche is famous in part for his provocative statement that quote, God is dead. And this is a statement which is one of the best known statements in all of philosophy. As an atheist, Nietzsche wasn’t proclaiming that an actual God had died.

02:50

really he was referring to the way enlightenment ideas like those of Locke, human Kant, which we mentioned in the previous episode, had effectively killed God by convincing the world through rationalistic, materialistic philosophy, that it was impossible for human beings to know God. And if one couldn’t know God, then he was effectively dead. But these philosophers were in a bit of a quandary.

03:19

since they’d killed off God, where would they get a legitimized system of morality? And then that’s where Kant jumped in. Kant not only argued that God was not knowable, but he also argued that God was not even needed. He argued that human beings could develop a system of morality on their own through reason or rational means. And he coined this creation of his, the

03:47

categorical imperative. And I don’t have time to get into it right now, but suffice it to say that there’s considerable debate in the philosophical community over whether it really is possible to develop a truly rational system of morality as Kant outlines. Killing God though, caused other problems of which Nietzsche was quite concerned. He was very concerned that rationalistic materialistic philosophers along with killing God,

04:17

had also killed the meaning of life. And Nietzsche believed that without meaning, human beings would be at great risk. And if you know anything about Nietzsche, you know he’s also famous for his statements on nihilism. And nihilism comes from the Latin word nihil, meaning nothing or nothingness. And Nietzsche was afraid that nihilism or believing life has no meaning.

04:44

would be much more prominent in a society once God was dead. So you can imagine what Nietzsche argued next. He argued that philosophers and human beings needed to replace the meaning of life originally offered by God with a socially constructed meaning. He basically argued that human beings needed to create their own values and then live by those values and then when they did so they would find some meaning.

05:12

He called these individuals who could quote, rise above religious based meaning to their own socially constructed values based meaning as ubermensch and uber meaning super and mensch being men. So these would be super men. He believed this was the only way to keep human beings from spiraling down the dark pessimistic vortex of existential dread or nihilistic thinking that had been caused by the likes of rationalist philosophers.

05:41

And note how these philosophers, according to Nietzsche, by killing God caused serious social problems. Problems to which they then offered up solutions, essentially making them saviors of human beings. And don’t forget that many of their ideas initially caused the problems that they are now declaring solvable by their new socially constructed philosophical ideas. They essentially replaced God with themselves.

06:08

And don’t think for a minute that Nietzsche wanted to resurrect God. He didn’t. He was an atheist his entire adult life, and he saw the death of God as an important social advancement. So let’s read the rest of his God is dead quote. This is what Nietzsche said, quote, God is dead, but given the way of men, there may still be caves for thousands of years in which his shadow will be shown. And we

06:36

we still have to vanquish his shadow. In Nietzsche’s eyes then, God was dead, but not dead enough. To his dying day, Nietzsche was an atheist, he hated Christianity, and he saw religion as a manmade system. So let’s move on to Karl Marx. Karl Marx was also an atheist. He argued that religion was a manmade social institution that was created to help.

07:03

the proletariat working class makes sense of their oppressive condition. And he’s famous for this quote. He said, quote, “‘Religion is the opium of the masses.'” He believed that like a drug, religion helped suffering proletariat workers feel better about the awful condition they found themselves in. He said, “‘Religion gave soul to their soulless condition.'” And he believed that once proletariat exploitation was eradicated,

07:32

then there would be no need for religion. And both Lenin and Mao implemented state atheism under their rule, which I consider to be really a tragedy, especially in China, since you’ll see in this podcast, China has such a rich history of the ancient tradition. And the majority of Chinese people just have no idea about that. All right, let’s move for our third. This one’s a theorist, Mill Durkheim. He’s a…

07:59

classical social theorist and he argued that religion was a man-made social institution that was created by human beings to produce number one social integration so religion was a way to bind a community together and number two to produce social regulation which would be a way to provide a unified system of beliefs that could govern human behavior and he believed that both of these functions

08:26

social integration and social regulation were essential to the stability of society. And he, like Nietzsche, was kind of concerned about a society that was void of religion. And what would happen in society once the vital functions of social integration or social regulation, which were provided by religion, were removed by secularization? Well, not good things. He argued that a modern secular society would be plagued

08:55

by instability and human beings in those societies would be plagued by anomie, that breakdown of standards and values, that rudderlessness, and also by the loss of a collective or binding consciousness. Now, although he was an atheist, Durkheim was quite concerned about this secularization of society. He argued that as long as there was no replacement for the vital functions performed by religion, then society would face increasing instability.

09:25

But unlike Nietzsche, Durkheim argued that there was really no functional equivalent for religion. He thought maybe labor unions might be able to form some of the functions of religion, but that’s as good as he could come up with. So in the end, Durkheim saw religion as a manmade social creation, one that was created to produce social stability. And he says, quote, by worshiping God, people are worshiping society itself. So in this light.

09:54

Durkheim argues that religion is a way to worship ourselves. And this sounds eerily like worshiping Kant for coming up with the rationalist replacement of the categorical imperative or Nietzsche for coming up with the Ubermensch as a replacement for God given meaning. So in Durkheim’s view, we worship society or ourselves. And to his dying day, Durkheim was an atheist.

10:21

Next we move to Sigmund Freud. He was also a declared atheist. Freud viewed religion as both an illusion and an illness. He wrote, quote, religion is an illusion and it derives its strength from its readiness to fit in with our instinctual wishful impulses. So he sees the creation of religion as the wishful impulse of human beings. And he also wrote, quote,

10:48

Religion is comparable to a childhood neurosis. So he saw those who subscribe to religious beliefs kind of sick or having some sort of neurotic illness. In other words, in Freud’s view, one only believes in religion if they’re sick or disillusioned. All right, the last one I wanna mention is Malinowski. Malinowski argued that religion was manmade as a way to deal with the stress of death. He was an agnostic.

11:18

which means without knowledge. So he believed that it wasn’t possible for human beings to acquire direct knowledge of God, which we talked about in the previous episode. So he argued that God was not knowable. So there you have it. Those are the views of some of the philosophers and theorists that have argued for a manmade origin of religion. And in each of these cases, these men are…

11:44

are either atheist or agnostic, and the majority of them present themselves or other philosophers as the true saviors of morality and meaning and the stability of society. So instead of worshipping God, they prefer that we worship at the altar of their philosophical ideas be it ubermensch or the categorical imperative, proletariat revolution, social regulation, psychotherapy, or

12:12

rationalistic materialistic philosophy. So in each case these men replace God with social constructions of their own, all of which are intended to replace God and be understood as salvatore solutions to the ills that plague human beings. See there’s no need for God if we socially construct our own values and meaning. There’s no need for God if we socially construct a rational moral system.

12:42

And there’s no need for God if the proletariat revolts and constitutes a classless communist society. There’s no need for God if we find other ways to socially integrate and socially regulate human beings. There’s no need for God if we can get psychotherapy and are freed of our disillusions and illness. Overall, really there’s no need for God if we just adopt the Salvatore solutions that these gentlemen hope that we will. So in each case they place

13:11

either themselves or the philosophies of other men above God. They see themselves and their philosophical ideas as more informed and more brilliant than an omniscient all-knowing supreme being. You know and that to me is the zenith of intellectual hubris. The ancients record a very different explanation of the origin of religion and regardless of religious tradition the ancients

13:41

that the religious teachings, knowledge and rights that form the basis of their tradition was revealed by God to human beings. And most of them claim that this knowledge was revealed by God very, very early in human history. So I wanna walk you through several of these traditions and dive into the ancient writings and myths because the ancient record reveals some very intriguing characteristics of this first religious tradition. And there are some aspects there that I think many of you.

14:11

Haven’t heard before all right. Well, let’s start with Egypt I want to start with Egypt because it represents some of the earliest religious writings known anywhere in the world Much of the information I’ll refer to in this section comes from the ancient Egyptian pyramid texts basically, they are inscriptions that were written inside or inscribed inside the tombs of the royalty of the fifth and sixth dynasties and scholars date them to between 2600 and

14:40

2200 BC somewhere in there which takes you know, which makes many of these texts about 4600 to 4500 years old so we’re talking pretty old We’ll start our exploration of the origin of the ancient Egyptian religion by focusing on the god Thoth. Thoth is a very important being to remember. He plays a very important role in Establishing the ancient tradition. So we’re gonna come back to him time and time again So keep him in the back of your mind. In the ancient Egyptian record

15:10

Thoth is most often depicted as a human being with the head of an ibis bird and usually has a writing utensil and a scribal palette in his hand. The earliest Egyptians didn’t actually conceive of the God Thoth as an ibis bird. It was symbolic and we’ll get into all of the symbolism conveyed by the ibis bird in a future episode. But in this episode, we’re going to focus on his epitaphs epitaphs, which are central to

15:38

understanding the origin of the ancient Egyptian religion. So I’m gonna try and stay on task here. A couple of things to keep in mind first from the references to Thoth in the pyramid text, it’s evident that Thoth was one of the most important and one of the oldest ancient Egyptian gods. In one account, Thoth was born quote, from the lips of Ray. In all of the texts, Thoth is closely associated with the creator god, Ray. So.

16:05

Let’s take a look at a few of his epitaphs. The epitaphs or titles that are given to Thoth are very important because they give us a really good idea of how he’s understood in terms of the origin of ancient Egyptian religion. All right, so the first one is Thoth. His title is, Tongue of Ray. I’m gonna draw upon a very important book here. It is written by Patrick Bolan. It’s titled, Thoth or the Hermes of Egypt. In this book,

16:35

he basically peruses all of the key references to Thoth that he can find in the Egyptian record and then he kind of co-relates them together. And it’s really regarded as an important contribution in the field of the book. All right, so this is what Bolan has to say about this epitaph of Thoth as the tongue of Ray. He says, quote, Thoth is the assistant of Ray, Thoth as the friend and trustworthy minister and scribe of Ray. So already we…

17:03

relearn a few things about Thoth that he’s a scribe. He writes down the words of the creator God, Ray. The next title is Thoth, Lord of Sacred Ceremonial. Bolan says, quote, “‘Thoth devised the minutiae of the divine service, which was carried out in the temples.'” Okay, this is very important, right? Because what it’s conveying is that Thoth was the author of, or the originator of,

17:33

the sacred ceremonial that the ancient Egyptians performed within their temples. So we’re already seeing that there is a direct relationship of divine origin or God revealed religion, and they attribute this to the God Thoth. A third epitaph is Thoth, president of the mysteries of the divine words. Bolan says, quote, Thoth appears not merely as the Lord of sacred formulae.

18:01

but as the leader in the actual sacred ceremonial itself, as a sort of official master of liturgical ceremonies. So now he is the master of ceremonies. He leads them through it. He guides them through it. So they’re receiving this directly from the god Thoth. All right, a fourth epitaph is, Thoth, Lord of the Divine Words. Bolan says, quote, Thoth’s epitaph, Lord of the Divine Words, implies his lordship.

18:29

over the formula or ritual and cult. That worship implies again that Tuthoth was assigned the duty of superintending the celebration ritual ceremonial and that in Tuthoth was found the source of all such mysterious power. There is abundant evidence in the text that Tuthoth was assigned the authorship of the forms of cult. So again, Tuthoth is seen as the primary author

18:56

the ancient Egyptian religion. He’s the one that gave them or revealed to them all the important rituals. All right a fifth title is Thoth Lord of the Cubit. Bolan says quote the hieroglyphic texts of the temple of Edfu refer to the cubit by calling it quote cubit of Thoth or quote cubit of establishing Ma’at. One text indicates that the god Thoth was considered to be the lord of the cubit.

19:23

Everything suggests that this instrument was an essential tool or even the emblem for craftsmen and technicians, the ceremonial cubit rod. Symbolically this standard ruler in its votive form, this precious collection of tables ensures the control of time and space. Essentially to Maat, the balance of which is one of the guarantors, the cubit is precisely and perhaps secretly kept within the temple. If you go to theancienttradition.com

19:53

and you click on this episode and you scroll down a little bit, you’re going to see a picture there of an ibis bird and you’ll see that it’s in stride. The ancient Egyptians argued or believed that the length of the stride of the ibis bird was holy and it was actually the length of a cubit. And so what this conveys and what we’ll see in a lot of other aspects related to Soth is that he’s the author of every single aspect of the ancient Egyptian temple.

20:23

from the hieroglyphs, he created the hieroglyphs, to the measurements of the temple, he created those, to setting out the exact foundation of the temple. Every single aspect of the temple needed be according to the prescriptions of Thoth. The last epitaph of Thoth I wanna mention is Thoth, a second ray. Bolan says, quote, Thoth is often equated to ray as the night sun and acts as his deputy.

20:51

He’s seated at his right hand in the position of honor. In a lot of the depictions of Thoth, you’ll see him seated on a throne, which is kind of to convey this idea. The point though is that he’s very tight with the god, Ray. And so he’s sort of like a voice for, or a scribe for the tongue of the creator god, Ray. And so he is the one by which the entire ancient Egyptian religion is revealed to human beings.

21:21

Let me read what Bullen said here. Quote, Thoth is described at an early period as the founder of the cult carried on in the temples, as the originator of divine sacrificial worship and as the author of all order in the state. It is as author of the institutions of temple worship that we find Thoth engaged so often in the building and furnishing of shrines of all kinds. He did not content himself, however, with marking off sites.

21:51

The erection, internal arrangement, and decoration of the temples was regarded as designed by him. It was usual for Egyptian shrines to boast of their complete conformity with the plans and prescriptions of Thoth. It’s evident from the ancient Egyptian record and from these epitaphs of Thoth that the ancient Egyptian religion was understood as a God-revealed religion. It was revealed to human beings through…

22:20

the god, both. And it’s also important to take a moment here and point out that the religion that was revealed to the ancient Egyptians was a temple based religion. It’s centered in this sacred space where God could commune with human beings. Next, let’s take a look at ancient Mesopotamia. In particular, I want to focus on the famous epic poem, the Epic of Gilgamesh. So the earliest known surviving copy of the Epic of Gilgamesh was written on cuneiform tablets.

22:49

and they were found in the library of Ashurbanipal in the early 1850s. Scholars date the poem to around 2100 BC. And if they have that dating correct, the Epic of Gilgamesh is the earliest known literary composition of note and the second oldest religious text after the pyramid text, which we just mentioned. The poem is quite long, but I wanna focus on one particular aspect of the poem, which will make it much shorter. In the poem,

23:17

King Gilgamesh is in search of eternal life. He’s learned that Unapishtim, who is the Mesopotamian version of Noah, preserved the sacred secret teachings of eternal life, which had been taught before the flood. So King Gilgamesh sets out on this awesome quest to find Unapishtim so he can acquire the important secret knowledge he needs to gain eternal life, just like Unapishtim did.

23:44

The traditional epic poem was written on 11 tablets, and I’ll be quoting from various sections of tablets one, four, and six. And I’ll be quoting from Andrew George’s English translation, so let’s start. This is the very beginning of tablet one. Epic of Gilgamesh. He who saw the deep, the country’s foundation, who knew, was wise in all matters. Gilgamesh who saw the deep.

24:13

Gilgamesh the tall, magnificent and terrible, who opened passes in the mountains, who dug wells on the slopes of the uplands, and crossed the ocean, the wide sea to the sunrise, who scoured the world ever searching for life, and reached through sheer force, you napished him the distant, who restored the cult center destroyed by the deluge, and set in place for the people the rights of the cosmos. I am afraid of death, so I wander the wild.

24:43

to find Yunapishitin son of Ubertutu. I am seeking the road of my forefather, Yunapishitin, who attends the God’s assembly and found life eternal of death and life. He shall tell me the secret. I’m gonna jump forward now to the part of the epic where King Gilgamesh finds Yunapishitin and converses with him. Said Gilgamesh to him, to Yunapishitin the distant, I look at you, Yunapishitin.

25:12

Your form is no different. You’re just like me. You’re not any different. You’re just like me. I was fully intent on making you fight, but now in your presence my hand has stayed. How was it you stood with the gods in assembly? How did you find the life eternal? Said you knapished him to him to Gilgamesh. Let me disclose, oh Gilgamesh, a matter most secret. To you I will tell a mystery of gods.

25:41

And Lil came up inside the boat. He took hold of my hand and brought me on board. He brought aboard my wife and made her kneel at my side. He touched our foreheads, standing between us to bless us. In the past, Ynapishtim was a mortal man, but now he and his wife shall become like gods. There’s a lot of truly amazing stuff going on in this poem. And so I wanna break it down here just a little bit. And I wanna start off with the very first phrase where he says, he who saw the deep.

26:11

Here the deep is referring to the mysteries or wisdom that Gilgamesh brought back from his meeting with unapishtim. Gilgamesh was given knowledge on how to worship the gods and how to live a good life and Ultimately how to obtain eternal life. Now if you’re familiar with the poem, you know, he ultimately does not Gain eternal life which makes this very much a tragedy, but let’s go back into the poem and look a little closer

26:40

where he talks about and he describes Unapishtim, he says, Unapishtim was the one who restored the cult center that had been destroyed by the deluge. So this puts us as pre-deluge, before the flood of the earth, he’s saying that there was a cult center that basically this Mesopotamian Noah was familiar with and part of and then after the flood he

27:10

and he refers to this ancient religion as the rites of the cosmos. King Gilgamesh understands that really what the core of this original religion was that Unapishtim had was the ability to gain eternal life. And then he goes on and he refers a little bit more and tells us more about Unapishtim and he says, Unapishtim attended the God’s assembly and found eternal life. So it suggests in some way Unapishtim ascended to heaven.

27:39

where he attended some sort of council or assembly of the gods and there they told him a secret or they conferred to him or revealed to him certain information that would allow for him to gain eternal life. All right, jump forward and this is where we get to even more of the God revealed religion section here in the back when he when Gilgamesh finds Yenepishem and Yenepishem relates

28:08

truly amazing account of what happened to him while he was on the ark. And he says to him, Yenapishtim said to Gilgamesh, let me disclose, oh, Gilgamesh, a matter most secret. So that’s another point I want to bring out is that this original religion was one that was so sacred that it was preserved for people who met certain qualifications. It wasn’t just distributed to everybody. This was really sacred information that was only disclosed to certain individuals.

28:36

The way the story is told, it seems like Ynapishtim is not yet in the ark himself. So this is before they get into the ark, apparently. And so he says that Enlil came inside the boat and took hold of Ynapishtim’s hand and brought him on to the ark. And then he brought his wife onto the ark and together they both kneel at his side. And then Enlil, the god, touches their foreheads and then he is transformed from a mortal man.

29:06

and he and his wife become like gods. This is just an amazing story that’s here. For our purposes in this episode, what I really want to convey is that this information was revealed, God revealed through this God’s counsel and then through the God Enlil himself coming and interacting. And I also want to point out again that the anthropomorphic features of Enlil, he takes him by the hand suggesting that God has a hand.

29:35

to bring him on the boat. Just some fascinating stuff here. And of course, we will come back to this in another episode. Unfortunately, we’re already out of time, but I hope you’re already seeing or noticing some intriguing parallels, not only between the Egyptian account and the Mesopotamian account, but also the accounts that we covered in episode number one of the Aboriginal peoples in New South Wales, Australia, and the Dayak people of Burneo. Note how in

30:03

Each of these accounts, the supreme being either reveals the religious tradition in a temple setting or the religious tradition is directly connected to a temple context. I think this is really important. Let me just give you a quick example of this in which we have Unapishtim who is apparently standing outside of the ark and God appears in the ark. If you compare this to the biblical account in which we’re speaking of Noah, there’s a lot of features of the ark.

30:31

that suggests to scholars that the ark itself was a temple. The measurements of the ark and how it was revealed, how to build the ark, all of these are important features related to a temple context for an apostate. So there’s a lot there that suggests that the ark itself was a temple. And if we go back to the aboriginal peoples in New South Wales, you’ll recall that Bayami, the creator god, imparts a religious tradition to the people.

30:58

in the most sacred place on earth, which was his camp. And that camp where he resided, or where Bayami, the god, dwelt on earth, was near a mountain. And mountains are almost always a synonym for a temple. And it’s there that Bayami relays to them the religious tradition. It’s here that Bayami reveals to the people the mysteries. He teaches them important spiritual truths and reveals to them the sacred ceremonies or rituals that are associated with those truths.

31:28

and all of this takes place in a temple-like setting. If we look at Egypt, in Egypt, the god Thoth, as lord of the sacred ceremonial, reveals to the earliest Egyptians the sacred ceremonies which were to be performed in the Egyptian temples. And all of this, which like Unapishtim of Mesopotamia, are deeply connected to obtaining eternal life. I have a whole lot more I wanna share on this topic, so I’m gonna do a part two next week.

31:57

We’re definitely gonna take a look at Adam and the Judeo-Christian perspective. We’re gonna look at Hinduism. I’m gonna share with you one of my favorite books. It’s an apocryphal Old Testament book, the Book of the Secrets of Enoch, which has got some fabulous stuff in it. We’re also gonna look at Mandeism, which is one of the only surviving, if not the only surviving, Gnostic sect from early Christianity. We’re gonna look at the Elysian Mysteries, Islam.

32:23

as well as some Native American tribes, the Lenape and of my favorite, of course, the Hopi. If you’re interested in learning more about the evidence presented in this episode, visit theancienttradition.com and search for this specific episode under evidence. Near the bottom of the podcast page, there’s the button to subscribe to the podcast as well as a running countdown to our next episode, all of which you can share with your family and friends. In addition, I invite you to check out our sister podcast,

32:51

the ancient tradition audio writ, where you can find audio recordings of the many ancient texts, which we refer to in this podcast as well as the occasional scholarly article. If you’re interested in listening to a recording of the full text of the Epic of Gilgamesh, check out our sister podcast, the ancient tradition audio writ. I’ll leave you with the words of William Shakespeare, knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven. I’m Jack Logan. I’ll see you on the next edition.

33:21

of the ancient tradition.

33:25

You’ve been listening to the ancient tradition. A Wonk Media Production.