The oldest text that is venerated by more than one faith would be the Torah or Pentateuch (comprising Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy), which is venerated by Jews, Christians and Moslems alike. So one might, for the sake of argument, subject it to the most modern scholarly analysis to ascertain even further where the earliest stratum of God "imaging" found in that text leads to. Theoretically, this could be a way of ascertaining some of the most ubiquitous and universal attributes commonly tied to God throughout human history.
There are apparently four strata of texts in the Pentateuch: the so-called J, E, P and D strands. The J strand is now judged the oldest. And there is an essential image given in a J passage of (to use a Stanislavsky term) the through-line of God's character, in Exodus, 3:7, in which God says
"I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows[.]"
This arguably shows God as the hearer of those caught in social injustice.
Now, clearly, there are a thousand and one frequently contradictory images of God throughout just the Old Testament alone, beside the numerous worshiped texts from the numerous other theistic creeds on Earth. What makes this passage so striking, though, is first of all the fact that it comes from the very earliest stratum of the very earliest text venerated by more than one creed. What is also striking is that it is so very much in keeping with the implications of what God is, as drawn from the better documented visionaries throughout history who proactively bring to their cultures, in each case, a radically new spin on who and what God is.
Taken singly, there may, of course, be problems in assessing the historical reliability of only a Buddha's sayings (the earliest ones being possibly preserved in the earliest sermons extant in the Digha-Nikaya), or only a Socrates' sayings (the earliest being possibly those found in the Plato Euthyphro, Apology and Crito), or only a Jesus's sayings (as possibly preserved in the earliest Gospel, Mark, and possibly common cribbing from an early sayings source in both Matthew and Luke), or only Confucius's sayings (the earliest possible source generally assumed to be Chapters 4 through 8 of the Analects), or only an Urukagina's sayings (possibly preserved accurately or not in old Sumerian tablets), or only a Moses' sayings, or only a Zarathustra's sayings (as possibly preserved in the Gathas of the Zend Avesta), or only a Lao-tzu's sayings (as possibly preserved in the Tao-te-Ching), or only a Mohammed's sayings (as possibly preserved in the Koran and the Sunna), or only a Bahá’u’lláh's sayings (as possibly preserved in Kitáb-i-Aqdas and Kitáb-i-Íqán), and so on. In addition, the huge contrasts and differences among these visionaries, as extant in their surviving sayings, hardly suggest a unified image of God. Moreover, there can even be frequent contradictions among the earliest preserved sayings for just one visionary picked at random here, let alone the whole group of ten!
Taken together, however, one common theme does emerge from all ten -- and that theme doesn't show any unanimous agreement on God as a creator at all, and it doesn't show any unanimous agreement on God as a dispenser of punishments and rewards at all, and it doesn't show any unanimous agreement on God as a controller of events on Earth at all, and it doesn't show any agreement on God as either a man or a woman at all, and so on and so forth. No, there is only one aspect of God all these ten seem to be agreed on: God is sympathetic with the cry of the afflicted and the oppressed. Now, that doesn't mean that all ten are at all agreed that God can do anything to help them. On that latter point, these ten are all over the map. But such a notion of a basic residue of sympathy with the oppressed does seem to uniformly carry with it the implication that any human being's own sympathy here on Earth with the afflicted and with the oppressed inevitably carries with it some commonality with God. In other words, one draws closer to God in some (mostly unspecified) way if one's own sympathies are proactively engaged with the afflicted. That may not necessarily help either the sympathizer or the afflicted or the weak or the vulnerable or the down-trodden themselves in any immediately practical way, although it possibly could, goes the possible implication in (some) sayings. Rather, at a minimum, such sympathy with the afflicted on the part of a human being can at least make that human being a closer emulator of God's "hearing" sensibility, if nothing else. This seems to be the common implication.
Is it coincidence, then, that this one thread that ties all these ten together is also present in the earliest scholarly strand of the earliest known text worshiped by the greatest number of people on Earth, "I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows"? Now that, frankly, strikes me as a bit of a coincidence that's a bit hard to ignore. Consider all the other assorted attributes for God that are not uniformly subscribed to by all ten of these visionaries: total control of everything that happens, the beginner of all that is, ultimate responsibility for all rewards and punishments, a man of wrath and absolute power, and the rest of it. What do these occasional but hardly unanimous concepts have in common? Simple: they parallel the attributes of the absolute monarchs of numerous cultures and eras on Earth. That's all -- and therefore maybe too coincidental by half.
However, does the notion that God is first and foremost a hearer of the afflicted or the weak or the vulnerable or the down-trodden parallel any traditional attributes for most of the absolute monarchs throughout time? Such a notion is laughable. Clearly it doesn't (unfortunately). Granted, some monarchical concepts may have very occasionally entailed the notion of monarchy as the last hope for the afflicted, etc. But can such an attribute be at all viewed as so overwhelmingly invariable and/or traditional as applied to monarchy -- especially ahead of things like total control, ultimate rewards and punishments, and/or a man of wrath, etc.? Hardly. The very fact that this "hearer" image is not consonant with the rest of the theistic cliches, does not carry such blatantly monarchical connotations, and yet is the most uniformly attested in the earliest textual sources for known visionaries who evince a visceral experience of God, seems hardly negligible. What is also striking is the frequent (discouraging) way in which this dominant image commonly disappears from prominence in the documentary record for even a number of these very ten figures, once one gets into the second and third textual "generations" preserving their sayings. It's as if the initial image of God as the hearer of the down and out becomes rapidly embarrassing and awkward for subsequent generations again and again. Clearly, it doesn't serve anyone's power the way the other attributes do. So it's the most fragile attribute and the first one to be jettisoned -- only to crop up again, once the earliest extant record for the next visionary to come along surfaces.
If there's any attribute of God that may have some historical and textual validity at all, it would probably be this sole image of a figure who is -- somehow, some way -- the hearer of and the sympathizer with the down-trodden, making those humans who partake of that attribute an empathizer with God, either with or without any tangible practical consequences. Perhaps, one could say that altruism is God's paint brush.
Cheers,
Operacast
There are apparently four strata of texts in the Pentateuch: the so-called J, E, P and D strands. The J strand is now judged the oldest. And there is an essential image given in a J passage of (to use a Stanislavsky term) the through-line of God's character, in Exodus, 3:7, in which God says
"I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows[.]"
This arguably shows God as the hearer of those caught in social injustice.
Now, clearly, there are a thousand and one frequently contradictory images of God throughout just the Old Testament alone, beside the numerous worshiped texts from the numerous other theistic creeds on Earth. What makes this passage so striking, though, is first of all the fact that it comes from the very earliest stratum of the very earliest text venerated by more than one creed. What is also striking is that it is so very much in keeping with the implications of what God is, as drawn from the better documented visionaries throughout history who proactively bring to their cultures, in each case, a radically new spin on who and what God is.
Taken singly, there may, of course, be problems in assessing the historical reliability of only a Buddha's sayings (the earliest ones being possibly preserved in the earliest sermons extant in the Digha-Nikaya), or only a Socrates' sayings (the earliest being possibly those found in the Plato Euthyphro, Apology and Crito), or only a Jesus's sayings (as possibly preserved in the earliest Gospel, Mark, and possibly common cribbing from an early sayings source in both Matthew and Luke), or only Confucius's sayings (the earliest possible source generally assumed to be Chapters 4 through 8 of the Analects), or only an Urukagina's sayings (possibly preserved accurately or not in old Sumerian tablets), or only a Moses' sayings, or only a Zarathustra's sayings (as possibly preserved in the Gathas of the Zend Avesta), or only a Lao-tzu's sayings (as possibly preserved in the Tao-te-Ching), or only a Mohammed's sayings (as possibly preserved in the Koran and the Sunna), or only a Bahá’u’lláh's sayings (as possibly preserved in Kitáb-i-Aqdas and Kitáb-i-Íqán), and so on. In addition, the huge contrasts and differences among these visionaries, as extant in their surviving sayings, hardly suggest a unified image of God. Moreover, there can even be frequent contradictions among the earliest preserved sayings for just one visionary picked at random here, let alone the whole group of ten!
Taken together, however, one common theme does emerge from all ten -- and that theme doesn't show any unanimous agreement on God as a creator at all, and it doesn't show any unanimous agreement on God as a dispenser of punishments and rewards at all, and it doesn't show any unanimous agreement on God as a controller of events on Earth at all, and it doesn't show any agreement on God as either a man or a woman at all, and so on and so forth. No, there is only one aspect of God all these ten seem to be agreed on: God is sympathetic with the cry of the afflicted and the oppressed. Now, that doesn't mean that all ten are at all agreed that God can do anything to help them. On that latter point, these ten are all over the map. But such a notion of a basic residue of sympathy with the oppressed does seem to uniformly carry with it the implication that any human being's own sympathy here on Earth with the afflicted and with the oppressed inevitably carries with it some commonality with God. In other words, one draws closer to God in some (mostly unspecified) way if one's own sympathies are proactively engaged with the afflicted. That may not necessarily help either the sympathizer or the afflicted or the weak or the vulnerable or the down-trodden themselves in any immediately practical way, although it possibly could, goes the possible implication in (some) sayings. Rather, at a minimum, such sympathy with the afflicted on the part of a human being can at least make that human being a closer emulator of God's "hearing" sensibility, if nothing else. This seems to be the common implication.
Is it coincidence, then, that this one thread that ties all these ten together is also present in the earliest scholarly strand of the earliest known text worshiped by the greatest number of people on Earth, "I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows"? Now that, frankly, strikes me as a bit of a coincidence that's a bit hard to ignore. Consider all the other assorted attributes for God that are not uniformly subscribed to by all ten of these visionaries: total control of everything that happens, the beginner of all that is, ultimate responsibility for all rewards and punishments, a man of wrath and absolute power, and the rest of it. What do these occasional but hardly unanimous concepts have in common? Simple: they parallel the attributes of the absolute monarchs of numerous cultures and eras on Earth. That's all -- and therefore maybe too coincidental by half.
However, does the notion that God is first and foremost a hearer of the afflicted or the weak or the vulnerable or the down-trodden parallel any traditional attributes for most of the absolute monarchs throughout time? Such a notion is laughable. Clearly it doesn't (unfortunately). Granted, some monarchical concepts may have very occasionally entailed the notion of monarchy as the last hope for the afflicted, etc. But can such an attribute be at all viewed as so overwhelmingly invariable and/or traditional as applied to monarchy -- especially ahead of things like total control, ultimate rewards and punishments, and/or a man of wrath, etc.? Hardly. The very fact that this "hearer" image is not consonant with the rest of the theistic cliches, does not carry such blatantly monarchical connotations, and yet is the most uniformly attested in the earliest textual sources for known visionaries who evince a visceral experience of God, seems hardly negligible. What is also striking is the frequent (discouraging) way in which this dominant image commonly disappears from prominence in the documentary record for even a number of these very ten figures, once one gets into the second and third textual "generations" preserving their sayings. It's as if the initial image of God as the hearer of the down and out becomes rapidly embarrassing and awkward for subsequent generations again and again. Clearly, it doesn't serve anyone's power the way the other attributes do. So it's the most fragile attribute and the first one to be jettisoned -- only to crop up again, once the earliest extant record for the next visionary to come along surfaces.
If there's any attribute of God that may have some historical and textual validity at all, it would probably be this sole image of a figure who is -- somehow, some way -- the hearer of and the sympathizer with the down-trodden, making those humans who partake of that attribute an empathizer with God, either with or without any tangible practical consequences. Perhaps, one could say that altruism is God's paint brush.
Cheers,
Operacast
