5.  History and Holy Writ
=========================
    And the brokers on Wall Street said
    Don't make us laugh
    You're a smart kid
    Time is linear
    Memory is a stranger
    History is for fools
    Man is a tool in the hands
    Of the great God Almighty
    And they gave him command
    Of a nuclear submarine
    And sent him back in search of
    The Garden of Eden
  -- Roger Waters, _Amused to Death,_ 1992

Sometimes it seems religion is the urge to thump very hard on a
suitable Book.  It seems God directs our history, and even
communicates with us---though often he (usually a "he") says some very
peculiar things.  We then collect stories about our Gods in Holy
Books, and demand everyone treat them with utter solemnity.  But we
can also study history with a more critical eye.  When we do this, we
find religion is a very human creation in an accidental world.

1.  Special Revelation
----------------------
Theologians usually say the wonders of the natural world show there is
an awesome creative force who designed it all.  Somehow, though, this
"general revelation" is not very satisfying.  Even before natural
science thoroughly undermined it, general revelation never seemed to
say much about God.  If, for example, the universe required a creating
cause, there still was no guarantee this cause was a personal deity.
God must reach out to us if we are to learn about a deeply personal
divine reality.  Perhaps science or philosophy produces a dry,
impersonal sort of knowledge, which cannot substitute for an encounter
with the Word of God.  Protestants often go so far as to declare our
very intellects are darkened by our sin, making remedial revelation
necessary for a saving knowledge of God.[1]

Special revelation---especially scripture---is central to the
Abrahamic religions; much more so than the God of the philosophers.
Children grow up hearing tales from the Bible or the Qur'an; the
stories of our religion become templates for our culture.  We absorb
lists of thou-shalt's, examples of moral rectitude, everything Deeply
Significant with some entertaining sex and violence thrown in.  We
learn that "God has power over all things" not from metaphysicians,
but the Qur'an's story about a man God let die, then brought back to
life a hundred years later.  We learn the dead can come back to life
from God's demonstration to Abraham, instructing him to tame four
birds, and then to kill them and scatter the pieces on separate hills;
they then came flying back when Abraham called (2 Al-Baqarah 259,
260).

Wonders like these are supposed to have taken place in real history,
not once-upon-a-time.  More importantly, they are not just strange
happenings out of the blue but messages which make sense within the
history of a religious community's relationship with God.  Life is not
one damn thing after another; events fit into a story---a divine plan.
God might be a cosmic power, but with divine acts in history, cosmic
purposes come down to earth, touching ordinary lives.  In the words of
a popular Old Testament textbook,

    biblical faith, to the bewilderment of many philosophers, is
    fundamentally historical in character.  It is concerned with
    events and historical relationships, not abstract values and ideas
    existing in a timeless realm.  The God of Israel is known in
    history---a particular history---through his relations with
    Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.[2]

Prophets and patriarchs are messengers from God, calling nations to
repentance, even speaking the words of God.  In the history of
Yahweh's chosen people, Jews and Christians see God acting in the
world.  For Muslims, Muhammad was the last prophet, bringing the final
and perfect revelation.  Human history is a religious drama, beginning
with Creation, ending in Judgment.

Christians in particular used to believe in a very elaborate
historical drama.  From the time of the church fathers to the
Renaissance, historians regularly began their accounts with Creation,
followed the Biblical story up to Jesus, brought the reader to the
present, and even told of the Apocalypse and Judgment which would
bring the story to its climax.  The whole universe was a stage for the
drama of human salvation.  Philosophers like Augustine wrote that
history would go through six ages corresponding to the six days of
creation, leading into a seventh age in which the faithful rest
eternally.  Such explicit religious patterns remained part of
traditional historical writing for many centuries.[3]

Another way of seeing God's plan in history was prophecy.  Foretelling
the future was an important ingredient in the Jewish view of history's
direction, and Christians learned to read almost everything in the
Jewish scriptures as a prophecy of Jesus.[4]  Somehow Jews themselves
were never able to see how that worked, but one expected that sort of
thing from benighted Christ-killers.  To this day, conservative
Christians believe in Biblical prophecy, even that we may be living in
the End Times.  Some watch the Middle East closely, wondering whether
Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein rebuilding "Babylon" as a tourist
attraction is a prelude to dormant prophecies about that city finally
being fulfilled.[5]  Harold Camping, who rashly predicted the world
would end in 1994, nevertheless gives voice to a common expectation:

    The return of Israel to its land, the potential for massive
    worldwide destruction by nuclear war, and the rapid increase in
    communication technology (permitting the Gospel to penetrate
    everywhere in the world), are some of the phenomena that cause
    serious students of the Bible to wonder if the end of time is at
    hand.[6]

Though popular religion clings to traditional beliefs, historians have
been undermining these for centuries.  The European Enlightenment
changed how we think of history, as well as the universe.  Historical
writing became secularized; history itself began to be seen not as a
cosmic drama, but a narrative of human events.  History formerly
revealed the purposes of God, but now "the scope of histories became
ever more limited as the focus of attention gradually shifted from the
supernatural to the natural, from the universe to nation,
principality, city."[7]  Historians became increasingly critical,
evidence-oriented, and naturalistic.  And as with the new natural
sciences, critical history eventually became a major headache for
old-time religion.  Instead of inspired, possibly even inerrant
Scriptures, we were left with stories which inspire religious
communities.  Religion itself became an object of secular historical
study, no longer a key to the supernatural principles behind human
events.

Today, conservatives still steadfastly defend the inerrancy of the
Qur'an or Bible, and say their religion is supported by facts like
"the unity of the Bible, its fulfilled prophecies, its remarkable
accuracy as determined by archaeology and historical
investigation."[8]  But many of the traditional historical claims of
the Abrahamic religions are as peculiar today as creationism in
biology.  What was once obvious has now become ridiculous.  Among
modern scholars, literal claims of prophecy, Noah's Ark, or the Tower
of Babel are an embarrassment.

However, just like creationism, we have to take traditional historical
claims seriously.  For many believers, the idea of God is inseparable
from the particular special revelation they put their trust in.
Furthermore, traditional claims would provide good evidence for a
supernatural force revealing itself in history.  Beliefs like prophecy
fulfillment are not arbitrary traditions; they have always served to
confirm that there is a divine plan of salvation, that Scripture is
true, even that there is a God.[9] If we are to explain the world by a
religious theory, conservative claims of patterns in history would be
an excellent place to begin.  If Augustine's six ages appeared in our
study of history, we would at least start to suspect a supernatural
power influencing the course of events.  If students of prophecy like
Camping were able to tell us what lies ahead, our religious theory
would have a predictive power secular historians would envy.

There is no returning to the days of Augustine, and we can no longer
believe the Bible or the Qur'an is holy writ straight from God.  But
it still might be possible to salvage some of the old-time religion.
The Bible might not be free of error, but it may still testify
reliably to a supernatural pattern in ancient Israel's history.
Prophets like Muhammad may bear witness to the divine intruding in
ordinary time.  For if there is a God offering salvation to sinners,
we should expect _some_ signs in our religious history.  The Abrahamic
God whom so many have so fervently believed in must speak to us.  If
there is any sort of personal God, we should have some special
revelation---religion needs a God who reaches out to its creatures,
not a Creator permanently aloof from our predicaments.  There is no
point in looking behind the vast silences of an indifferent universe
just to find an equally silent God.

2.  Yahweh's Promise
--------------------
Yahweh, the story goes, starts out by creating the world and the first 
human pair.  Humans, however, turn out to be a disappointment; they 
are a rebellious bunch and continually do evil.  Frustrated, Yahweh 
destroys his creation with a great flood, saving only a chosen few.  
Unfortunately, humans multiply and begin acting like pests again.  So 
Yahweh decides to cultivate a special nation from the seed of Abraham.  
He gathers the Jews out of Egypt, and leads them to a promised land 
which becomes theirs after some ethnic cleansing.  Yahweh also 
promises that if the Jews try and become more godly, obey his laws, be 
nice to their neighbors, and slaughter whom he dislikes, they will 
become a privileged people.  Yahweh, the Lord of all Creation, will be 
present in Jerusalem, and the temple-state will prosper.  In time, the 
Jews will lead the other nations into righteousness.  But meanwhile, 
being the chosen people is also a heavy burden; the Jews will 
transgress against Yahweh and be severely punished for doing so.

At face value, this is an overly ambitious tribal epic.  But in 
various mutated forms, Yahweh's promise ended up capturing the 
imagination of billions.  The promise was supposed to be real, 
historical; not just a myth about bygone ages or an allegory of moral 
ideals.  And so Abrahamic religions have to defend their epic as 
history---mostly reliable history, even if not absolutely true in all 
details.

The orthodox often claim the Hebrews developed a unique historical
consciousness.  Biblical narratives are supposed to be infused with a
linear sense of history, a concreteness lacking in the timeless,
cyclic myths of their pagan neighbors.  Dying and rising agricultural
deities were not for the Jews; time marched on driven by a divine
purpose from Creation to the Day of the Lord.  As a result,
theologians such as Paul Merkley argue, "in the Jewish tradition
standards of faithfulness in preserving and perpetuating received
accounts of past events were incomparably higher than ever became the
case among the Hellenes, and were of longer standing by many
centuries."[10] We learn of the prophets, and how the fate of the Jews
depended on how faithful they were to Yahweh, from trustworthy
sources.  The Jews were set apart by their awareness of the
transcendent forces behind history.  Even their dogged monotheism was
unique compared to pagan beliefs.  Left to their own devices, humans
set up idols of their own devising, worshiping social or natural
forces.  The Jewish sense of a peerless God transcending all creation
can only arise from revelation.

Secular historians tell a different story: through a series of
historical accidents, the tribal epic of a minor Near Eastern people
came to inspire several world religions.  In the beginning, Israelite
religion was a hodgepodge of cultic practices and beliefs which served
as the ideology of a Near Eastern temple-state.  Yahweh was not very
different from his neighboring gods; he spoke through thunder, threw
around lightning like arrows, fought great monsters and cut them up,
directed battles as the Lord of Armies, received sacrifices.  He had
his holy mountains, his throne, cultic objects, a chosen people.
Yahweh was not the only god, but like the chief gods of other peoples,
he had the conceit of being "a great king above all gods" (Psalm
95:3).

A single Most High god, who created everything including the 
specialized gods of popular worship, was a common belief in ancient 
religions.  Long before the Israelites appeared, Egyptians were 
praising Re in hymns including verses like

    You are the sole one, who made all that is,
    The solitary and only one who made what exists.

This would warm the heart of most believers in a single Supreme God.  
The following verses, however, tell us we are in an unfamiliar 
mythology:

    From whose eyes men came forth,
    and from whose mouth the gods came into being.[11]

Re spoke the other gods into existence by his creative word; and 
formed humans out of his tears.  This obviously signifies a deficient 
religious consciousness when compared to the sublime story of making 
the first man out of earth, and woman from his rib---but then again, 
Egyptians were mere pagans.

The One God did not appear like a bolt from heaven; we can see signs
of its gradual development.  Yahweh started out as _a_ god of the
Israelite tribes who became temporarily dominant in times of crisis,
and later went on to do very well for himself.[12]  In time, the
Yahwist priesthood would demote the lesser gods to angels and demons,
like the angels responsible for each nation who survived into medieval
times.  But while the religious establishment preferred one god, one
people, one temple, the people themselves often had other ideas.  The
Bible continually complains about faithless Jews who follow gods
lacking the official seal of approval, so these idols must have been
popular.  The Yahwist priests did invent something new: monotheistic
intolerance.  Eventually, Jewish official religion distinguished
itself in the region by its condemnation of anti-authoritarian, occult
religion---magic.  Folk beliefs, as always, remained different; Jews
would in time acquire a reputation for producing great magicians.

The religious establishment also invented Scripture.  When the Jewish
upper echelons were exiled to Babylon, and then returned to take over
again, the priests produced an official version of the national epic.
The heart of the story, the first five books of the Bible, was patched
together from at least four different sources.  This was mythmaking,
not critical history.  The new composition even included different
versions of the same myths, as recorded in the northern and southern
kingdoms before the exile.  From then on, the epic was etched in
stone, and when religious communities reimagined their myths, they
would start with commentaries on the official text.

It is no longer radical to say much of the Bible is myth.  However,
large swaths of it are ostensibly sober history, recounting the acts
of kings and prophets.  For example, Deuteronomy to 2 Kings are by a
single author emphasizing a clear theme.  Written in or after the
exile, the Deuteronomistic history looks forward towards the time when
the Jews will be driven out of their land.  The Jews are not properly
attentive to Yahweh, so Yahweh hands them over to oppressors for a
while, rescues them, and then the cycle repeats itself.  Yahweh's
promise, it seems, led to a pattern in Jewish history.  Christians
adapted this pattern to themselves, usually by making their own nation
the focus of divine attention.  Americans, for example, have often
imagined themselves to be a chosen nation, rising or falling by the
way they carry out Biblical mandates.[13]

Ancient Near Eastern religions regularly explained national calamities
by divine anger.  A Moabite inscription from about 830 !bce! reveals
that their national fortunes fluctuated according to the whims of
their chief god.  Chemosh---"the abomination of Moab" to the fans of
Yahweh (1 Kings 11:7)---is angered with Moab, and uses the Israelites
as an instrument to punish Moab.  Mesha, "son of Chemosh, king of
Moab," regains the favor of Chemosh and strikes back:

    Omri was king of Israel, and he oppressed Moab for a long time,
    for Chemosh was angry with his land.  And his son succeeded him
    and he too said: "I will oppress Moab." In my days Chemosh spoke
    thus, and I looked down on him and his [Omri's] house.

Like Yahweh, Chemosh instructs his human instruments in battle and 
proper extermination, so Mesha says

    And Chemosh said to me, `Go, take Nebo against Israel!' And I went
    by night and fought against them from dawn until midday.  And I
    took it and slew them all: seven thousand warriors and old
    men---together with women and old women and maidens---for I had
    consecrated it for Ashtar-chemosh.  And I took from there the ram
    of Yahweh and dragged it before Chemosh.  And the king of Israel
    had built Jahaz and remained in it while fighting against me.  But
    Chemosh drove him out before me, when I took from Moab two hundred
    men, all its brave men.[14]

The Deuteronomist wrote his history according to a religious pattern:
calamities _must_ have been caused by transgressions against Yahweh.
And since he was a peculiarly jealous god, the offending acts had to
be those honoring other gods.  What we read in our Bibles is a
theological reconstruction of events, written in light of the
Babylonian exile, preserved by a religious establishment who liked its
theme.[15]  They also kept other versions of the same history; for
example Chronicles which revises Kings while fawning over David and
Hezekiah.  We cannot take these accounts to be trustworthy, let alone
the Word of God.  It is like learning American history from a
Democratic party pamphlet demonstrating how Republican administrations
have been disasters, while theirs generally led to prosperity.


We can understand how Jewish religious beliefs evolved through 
different historical circumstances, without need for supernatural 
messages beamed down from above.  However, it still is possible that 
the ancient Jews grasped part of God's plan.  Traditionally, prophetic 
evidence saves the day.  Fulfilled prophecy demonstrates supernatural 
knowledge; prophecies yet to be fulfilled ensure that a religious 
theory of history is relevant to the present.  God has control over 
events, from the sacred history of Israel to the apocalypse when evil 
will finally be defeated.

The book of Daniel is a good example, containing both allegedly
fulfilled prophecies and apocalyptic visions.  It advertises itself to
be the prophecies of a Jewish hero during the Babylonian exile, laying
out the future of the chosen people.  From the exile to the reign of
Antiochus IV over the Jews some centuries later, Daniel seems to have
had a clear vision except for some minor errors.  Antiochus considered
Jewish religion to be a political irritation, and began a campaign of
Hellenization.  Pious Jews erupted in the eventually successful
Maccabean rebellion.  Daniel is aware of Antiochus's policies, and
explains foreign domination over the Jews as punishment for Israel's
sins against Yahweh.  However, with the predictions of Antiochus's
death and beyond, the narrative becomes increasingly bizarre, not to
mention wildly inaccurate.  To begin with, Daniel brings the world to
an end seventy sevens of years after exilic times, and we are still
here.

Believers in prophecy have ingenious ways around such difficulties.
Daniel's seventieth block of seven occurs after an "anointed leader"
disappears and vanishes (Daniel 9:26); with some stretching, this
falls in the ballpark of Jesus's crucifixion.  Many evangelical
Christians believe this event interrupts the prophetic timetable, so
the last seven years before the End are postponed indefinitely.[16]
The bizarre narrative beginning at the time of Antiochus is really
about the End Times.  With such flexibility in interpretation, it
would be a miracle to prevent valid prophecies mushrooming up all over
the Bible.

Prophecy is an exercise in religious imagination, not evidence for the
hand of God in history.  For example, the figure of Antichrist was in
the past seen as the emperor Nero revived from death, a Jewish false
messiah, a Muslim Turk, the Pope, Martin Luther, Napoleon III and
more[17]---all supported by impressive exegesis and detailed
calculations.  Prophetic beliefs and theologies of covenants and
retributions are continually rewrought myths of religious communities;
telling us much about the communities but little about history.

Modern scholars think Daniel was written under a false name, during
the rebellion against Antiochus.[18]  With the outcome uncertain, the
writer tried actual prophecy, which stretched out into apocalyptic
fantasies.  Burton L.  Mack, a historian of early Christianity, points
out that apocalyptic scenarios emerge from religious communities in
trouble.  "It is a people's investment in their traditions,
institutions, culture, and ideals that determines what is `good.' Only
when the good is in danger of being overwhelmed by external
circumstances does an apocalyptic rationale begin to make sense."[19]
Responding to the external threat, the writer of Daniel produced a
piece of wartime propaganda, disguised as ancient prophecy.  Like
other Jewish apocalyptic writers of the time, he borrowed the
authority of a revered figure of legend.  Daniel expresses an
inspiring vision of history under God's control; it is also a pious
fraud.


We tend to think history is more straightforward than physics---a
matter of telling a story.  But critical history does not come
naturally to us, any more than science.  Humans are mythmakers, not
historians.  Competing nations in today's Near East still tell their
histories to bolster nationalist or religious ideologies.  In the
United States, schools teach a national epic of unflagging progress,
with a few misunderstandings like slavery along the way.[20]  And when
we want to revise these myths, we end up in the quagmire of having to
sooth the self-images of every tribe.

Yahweh's promise is myth as well, even though it is a myth which gains
force from being proclaimed as history.  For centuries, it has been a
myth central to our cultures, so we have wanted to believe the ancient
Jews were reliable historians.  But, as historian Robin Lane Fox
observes, "The people who have been described as `obsessed with
history' had not a single historian among them with a critical idea of
evidence."[21] We have wanted to believe there was something radically
different about the Jewish sense of history.  But Jewish religious
ideology makes sense in its ancient Near Eastern context; even the
supposed contrast between linear Biblical history and cyclic pagan
myths is exaggerated at best.[22]

None of these conclusions are really new.  Since the nineteenth 
century, many liberal theologians have insisted that the very idea of 
God has a complex, ever-changing history, that monotheistic religion 
did not spring full-grown from the brow of Yahweh.  Perhaps the 
natural history of religious belief is no threat to faith; by a kind 
of progressive evolution, our religious beliefs are continually 
refined towards higher truths.  Even in the Bible, we see a change 
from rewards and punishments visited on the whole Jewish nation to 
more individualist notions of salvation.  We are not merely custodians 
of a past revelation which can only degenerate---communities of faith 
produce revelation as well as preserve it.

This is an attractive idea, but it is little more than an invitation
to continue refashioning religious myths for our times.  With no grand
patterns reflecting the will of God, our history remains a
naturalistic account.  Religious traditions still provide many with
comfortable metaphors to express feelings of transcendence or cosmic
meaning, but the course of events is no longer evidence for God.
Religious experiences within history might, of course, still point to
a God.  We may have to conclude prophets bring supernatural messages,
or that the founding events of a certain religion reveal a radical
novelty intruding on the natural flow of history.  Even so, giving up
grand patterns in history is no help for God.  The Lord of the
Universe seems to be retreating from natural science, from history,
from every public stage, to the individual experiences of religious
people.  At some point, we have to wonder if there is anything left
worth calling "God."

3.  The Messenger of God
------------------------
Inhabitants of what used to be Christendom are still trying to come to
terms with the fact that history does not follow the Biblical epic.
Islam proclaims a different story, with different difficulties.
Muslim history unfolds between Creation and Judgment as well, but what
happens in the meantime need not follow a grandiose pattern of
salvation history.  Occasionally, God sends messengers to the
different nations, punishes a disobedient tribe, or performs miracles
through a prophet.  But such stories in the Qur'an are told as "a
collection of interesting anecdotes about persons who had lived at
some period in the past---a collection not in any way chronologically
ordered."[23]  For example, 34 Saba' 12-14 speaks of jinns (lesser
supernatural beings of Arab tradition) enslaved to build things for
Solomon:

    We (subjugated) the wind to Solomon.  Its morning journey took one
    month, and the evening's one month.  We made a spring of molten
    brass to flow for him; and many jinns labored for him by the will
    of his Lord.  Anyone of them who turned from Our command was made
    to taste the torment of blazing fire.  They made for him whatever
    he wished, synagogues and statues, dishes as large as
    water-troughs, and cauldrons firmly fixed (on ovens; and We said):
    "O House of David, act, and give thanks."  But few among My
    creatures are thankful.  When We ordained (Solomon's) death, none
    but the weevil, that was eating away his staff (on which he
    rested), pointed out to them that he was dead.  When he fell down
    (dead) the jinns realised that if they had full knowledge of the
    Unknown they would never have suffered demeaning labour.

Such stories do not appear in a historical narrative; they illustrate
the ways in which God acts, but they are not events in a great
historical drama.  Even the exact point of the stories are often
unclear.  The original audience for Muhammad's revelations no doubt
knew tales about Solomon, and could fill in the background the Qur'an
assumes but is often lost to us.  This particular story may derive
from legends about Solomon building the Temple.  There are many
stories in the Qur'an which appear with no context, and which
sometimes make sense only when compared to Jewish and Christian
sources from outside the Bible.[24]

Muslims construct their myths around the Qur'an, and so have a
different vision of history than Christians and Jews.  In Islam,
history testifies to God through the revelations sent to the nations.
Muhammad, the Messenger of God, the final prophet, speaks the words of
God, and from then on everything is radically different.  There was an
Age of Ignorance before the Prophet, which was set aside, if not
erased, by the coming of Islam.  Even non-Arab Muslim peoples tend to
see their history before Islam as a time of darkness, even as if
history only began for them once they received Muhammad's message.
The sacred history of a chosen people dominates Judaism, Jesus stands
at the center of the Christian imagination, but Islam is focused on a
Divine Message---the Qur'an itself.  All the Abrahamic religions tend
to take their scriptures to be the inerrant word of God, but for
Muslims, "The Qur'an is unique.  It embodies the word of
God---unchanged, unabridged and uncompromised.  It does not contain
any element that is a product of a human mind."[25]

Learning that their holy writings were very human documents was not
easy for Jews and Christians.  For Muslims, the difficulty is even
greater: admitting a flawed Qur'an is like a Jew disavowing the idea
of a chosen people, or a Christian saying Jesus was not divine.
Nevertheless, the Qur'an was not dictated by any God.  It is too
obviously set in a world corresponding to the beliefs of seventh
century Arabs.  God creates the universe in a span of days, with seven
layers of skies anchored on the earth (41 Ha Mim As-Sajdah 9-12).  God
fashions Adam from clay, breathes spirit in him, and commands the
angels to adore him (38 Sad 71-72).  The world of the Qur'an is
familiar from ancient Near Eastern beliefs, from the Bible, except
that the Qur'an's historical legends are not connected into a coherent
narrative.  An inerrant scripture could have been good evidence for a
God, but no one who takes modern knowledge seriously can accept such
doctrines anymore.

If the Qur'an is a rather implausible message for God to dictate, how 
do we account for the origin of Islam?  There is, of course, the 
traditional story.  In the Age of Ignorance, the Arabs did many awful 
things, chiefly, worship idols alongside the One True God.  Muhammad 
was a merchant from Mecca, a town organized around a pagan shrine 
originally built by Abraham.  At age forty, he was called to 
prophethood and began to recite revelations.  He invited his fellow 
Arabs to join the pure religion of Abraham he was proclaiming, but the 
Meccans were not convinced.  They persecuted him when he was 
insistent.  So the Messenger of God packed up with his followers and 
migrated to Medina, a Jewish and pagan oasis.  Soon, after some ethnic 
cleansing, he became the master of Medina.  He raided Meccan caravans, 
fought a few battles with mixed success, finally took control of Mecca 
itself.  He successfully united the nomadic Arab tribes, and was 
getting ready to invade other lands, when he suddenly dropped dead.  
The revelations he uttered until his death were carefully preserved in 
memory, and later assembled in a holy book.

In outline, the traditional story makes sense.  The devil, however, is
in the details.  Historians would like to know more about what exactly
happened, and we want to use what they find to see if Muhammad
provides us any evidence for God.  Unfortunately, Muslim traditions
about the Messenger are far from perfect.  Muslim interest in the
historical Muhammad began late, and it was motivated by more than
curiosity: the Prophet's life could answer questions which arose in
the Islamic empire, questions the Qur'an was silent on.  In many
cases, a story was fashioned not out of independent evidence, but
interpretations of the Qur'an and a sense of how things must be to fit
theological and political views.  Many of the traditions orthodox
Muslims rely on are sheer inventions, few are trustworthy at face
value.  Even the chronology of Muhammad's life is murky; for example,
Muhammad in all likelihood became a prophet long before the ideal age
of forty, but the story was fashioned according to Near Eastern
expectations for an ideal prophet's biography.  Historian F.E. Peters
expresses the difficulty Muslim sources present:

    At every turn, then, the historian of Muhammad and early Islam
    appears betrayed by the sheer unreliability of the sources.  One
    confronts a community whose interest in preserving revelation was
    deep and careful, but who came to history, even to the history of
    the recipient of that revelation, too long after the memory of the
    events had faded to dim recollections over many generations, had
    been embroidered rather than remembered, and was invoked only for
    what is for the historian the unholy purpose of polemic.[26]

The unreliability of our sources casts doubt on the traditional
history, so much that some scholars have come up with very radical
accounts of Islamic origins.  Patricia Crone and Michael Cook, for
example, depart from the few but intriguing non-Muslim sources we
have, and reconstruct a version of early Islam according to which the
traditional story is mostly a later fabrication.[27]  Muhammad was an
Arab merchant who proclaimed the religion of Abraham, but the
immediate focus of his message was that as children of Abraham through
Ishmael, Arabs also had a claim on the promised land and Jewish
messianic hopes.  The first thrust of the Arab tribes was into
Palestine---in alliance with Jews.  Islam was fashioned out of that
initial ideology, political developments like a later break with the
Jews, the influence of Samaritan beliefs, and the need for a myth of
common identity for the peoples thrown together by the first wave of
Arab conquests.  The traditional biography of Muhammad was shaped by
such concerns, along with the legend of Moses which was a model for a
prophetic life.

Crone and Cook may be wrong; indeed, most historians of Islam believe 
the traditional framework of events is still serviceable.  However, 
the fact that even radical scenarios are serious possibilities means 
history does not provide good evidence for the Muslim God.  Orthodox 
believers flesh out the traditional framework with detailed stories 
about Muhammad, his sinless nature, his revelations, even a few 
miracles.  These myths were invented for good reason: if true, they 
would lead us to conclude something supernatural was going on.  All we 
have now is an obscure Messenger of God and a very dubious Message.

Religious liberals, of course, manage to find revelation in Islam.  
Muhammad may well have revealed some truths about God, had an 
experience of the divine, and spiritually transformed his community.  
We perhaps do not have the uncorrupted word of God in the Qur'an more 
than any other scripture, but the hand of God can still be discerned 
in the origins of Islam.  In Muhammad's mystical experience, moral 
reforms, and inspiring effect on a worldly and corrupt community, we 
see a radical change toward a God-centered way of perceiving the 
world.

We do not know which verse of the Qur'an was first revealed; Muslim
tradition preserves different views.  But tradition agrees that
Muhammad first had a visionary experience, during an obscure seclusion
ritual, probably while asleep.[28]  The Qur'an refers to his vision of
God, "He had surely seen Him on the clear horizon" (81 At-Takvir 23),
though later doctrine would identify this presence as the angel
Gabriel.  Karen Armstrong elaborates, describing how revelation
"invaded his being with fearful force, doing violence to his natural
self which was not built for such a divine impact.  What all these
prophets had experienced was transcendence, a reality that lay beyond
concepts and which the monotheistic faiths call `God'."[29]  Muhammad
quite possibly had a visionary experience induced by ritual
procedures, though the traditional account which impresses Armstrong
owes much to stereotyped stories about how a prophet ought to receive
his call, validating his message by casting him in the role of ideal
prophet.  In any case, Muhammad did not attract followers by
pontificating about Transcendence or the Ineffable Other.  The
Messenger brought _words_ from a personal God.

Muhammad spoke verses from the Qur'an throughout his prophethood,
often in response to particular circumstances.  Disbelievers seem to
have questioned this gradual process, and the Qur'an explains that "it
was sent thus that We may keep your heart resolute" (25 Al-Furqan 32).
Muhammad would later declare that the Qur'an had indeed been revealed
in its entirety during a holy night (97 Al-Qadr), thus conforming to
the Jewish belief that the Torah had been revealed on a single
occasion.[30]  Muhammad's early revelations were similar to the speech
of of poets and seers, though the Qur'an assures listeners that it is
inspired by God.  Like Christian miracles, which were distinguished
from magic by the influence of the Holy Spirit rather than demons,
Muhammad's words were special because they were brought down by the
"trusted spirit" of God (26 Ash Shu`ara 193).  More developed Muslim
dogma declares the style of the Qur'an impossible to imitate, though
poets attempting to compose in a Qur'anic style have always been
deterred by secular punishments and not lightning bolts from above.

Some traditions describe Muhammad speaking new verses after something
vaguely similar to an epileptic fit.[31]  However, it is hard to say
how much these stories owe to prophet-stereotypes.  More interesting
is how Muhammad's circumstances shape the Qur'an.  The most notorious
example is the incident of the Satanic Verses.  According to a Muslim
tradition, Muhammad once announced some verses praising three
goddesses worshiped in Mecca.  Muhammad was a Messenger of the High
God Meccans already acknowledged, but the goddesses were intermediary
beings who could intercede with the High God.  However, Muhammad soon
came to reject the idea of lesser gods.  So he withdrew the Satanic
Verses and replaced them by others denouncing the goddesses.
Tradition blames Satan for the earlier version.  Though modern Muslims
vehemently deny the whole thing ever happened, it is probably true;
traditions airing dirty laundry are more reliable precisely because
they would not be invented for apologetic purposes.

The Satanic Verses is just one case where we catch a glimpse of
Muhammad's evolving theological convictions.  Muhammad did not start
out with what is now orthodox Islam; we can see signs of how his
thought developed.[32] Late in Muhammad's traditionally Meccan period,
he came to deny all lesser gods; subsequent Medinan revelations stress
the uniqueness of God.  Even beings like jinns totally disappear.

Philosophers like this pared down, uncompromising monotheism;
ironically, this late period is also the time when the Qur'an endorses
Muhammad's violent and opportunist political career.  When Islam was a
small movement in a hostile environment, the Qur'an pleaded for
tolerance between faiths, and disavowed compulsion in matters of
conscience.  Verses from Medina, when Muhammad was a stronger leader
with military ambitions, demand non-Muslims to submit and pay a
protection-tax (9 At-Taubah 5, 29).  Muhammad's personal circumstances
would also shape his revelations.  For example, Muslim tradition tells
of Muhammad's adopted son divorcing his wife so that Muhammad could
marry her.  Adopted sons being considered equivalent to sons in every
respect, this was bound to raise eyebrows.  Immediately, God sent a
verse (33 Al-Ahzab 37) to make it known that Muslims may marry the
daughters of their adopted sons.  Muslims regarded the prophet as a
moral model, so his personal life being an occasion for revelations
was only to be expected.  The adopted son incident, however, looked
uncomfortably self-serving even to the faithful.[33]

There is little that is certain about Muhammad.  But we can tell his 
revelations emerged through a creative process; they were not zapped 
down from heaven.  In his message we see evolving theologies, 
influence of Jewish ideas, even changes in response to criticism.  The 
Qur'an is like a work of literary art, written in interaction with a 
human environment, including messy politics and personal life.

None of this is all that surprising.  In more recent times, we have
many examples of religions started by a charismatic leader.  Mormon
founder Joseph Smith, for example, received new scriptures endorsing
nineteenth century American superstitions, was involved in politics,
and tended to receive revelations solving immediate problems with his
developing church and his personal life.[34] The United States has had
its share of prophets; Joseph Smith, Mary Baker Eddy who started
Christian Science, Ellen White of Seventh Day Adventism, and many
more.  Even now, New Age channellers speak new revelations from
supernatural beings, maybe even new scriptures.[35]  History shows us
that some people have visionary experiences, and that many more are
inclined to see this as a sign of holiness.  Never, however, do our
prophets reveal credible divine messages.  We invariably find false
and superstitious claims; signs of creativity and adaptation to
external circumstances; often even pious fraud.  This is not to say
the words of our prophets are worthless.  Particularly for members of
disadvantaged groups like women, claiming a supernatural voice is
sometimes the only way to speak up and be taken seriously.[36]  But
prophets are no evidence for any supernatural reality.  The voices
that inspire us are only human.

4.  God's Empires
-----------------
Whatever the origins of Abrahamic religions, they have clearly been 
very successful.  This does not help God much, any more than people's 
propensity to fall for get-rich-quick schemes makes belief in easy 
money respectable.  But if divine providence shapes history, the least 
it would do is ensure monotheism flourishes.  Muslims saw a sign of 
Islam's truth in the phenomenal expansion of the early Islamic empire; 
Christians saw a miracle in how a small sect took over the Roman 
empire; Jews believed Yahweh granted them David's mini-empire.  With 
imperial success, the One God became our cultural background, an actor 
in all the stories dear to us.

Since God is now tied up with so much that is important, we tend to 
think a prophet establishing monotheism is ushering in progress, or at 
least responding to the deep spiritual needs of his community.  For 
many monotheists, squashing idolatry is progress enough.  Liberals are 
more tolerant, so they like to imagine prophets proclaiming a more 
humane moral order.  Prophetic success, however, owes as much to power 
and political violence as to an inspiring moral vision.

Western scholars often portray Muhammad as a moral reformer.
According to this story, Muhammad's hometown, Mecca, was a city based
on trade.  Its residents, however, were recently desert nomads, and
their inherited social order no longer fit their newfound capitalist
prosperity.  There was a spiritual malaise in Mecca, indeed,
throughout Arab lands.  Commercial success led to moral degradation
and a cynical disregard for the less fortunate.  Muhammad restrained
the worldly attitudes of the settled Arabs, and so effectively
overcame the malaise that the Arabs were able to unite and achieve
their magnificent conquests.[37]

This story is largely a modern myth.  To begin with, Mecca was not a
prosperous trading town.  It was a desert settlement with no
resources, in the middle of nowhere, at a time when the spice and
incense trade had collapsed even if it were implausibly to go through
Mecca.  What Mecca had was a prominent pagan shrine.  F.E. Peters
observes that "Mecca may have indeed begun to construct for itself,
out of the matrix of its shrine influence and revenues, and in the
face of the rapidly receding economic and political influence of both
the Sasanians and the Byzantines, a modest trading zone along the now
unpatrolled frontiers of Syria and Iraq." This trade, however, was "on
a far more modest level than is generally thought."[38]

Mecca surely had its share of social tensions, even without large
scale trade.  Still, there is no solid evidence for Arab malaise.
Patricia Crone points out that Muslim sources portray disbelieving
Meccans as depraved precisely _because_ Islam was unattractive to
them.  If Islam had a specifically ideological advantage, it was its
program of forming an Arab nation, leading to conquest.  God "told the
Arabs that they had a right to despoil others of their women,
children, and land, or indeed that they had a duty to do so: holy war
consisted in obeying.  Muhammad's God thus elevated tribal militance
and rapaciousness into supreme religious virtues."[39]

Crone sounds a jarring note in an environment where scholars of Islam 
are concerned about the West demonizing Islam to fashion a substitute 
for the Red Menace.  But whether we go as far as Crone or not, there 
is no escaping the fact that early Islam is awash with violence.

Muhammad appears to have been invited to Medina as a holy man who 
could act as a judge and bring peace to the fractious oasis.  Muhammad 
was as good as his word, and eventually achieved peace by getting rid 
of the local Jews and melding everyone else into one Muslim community.  
This was a difficult process.  Muhammad seems to have been especially 
concerned about poets who, in an age without television, could be 
influential in shaping public opinion.  Fortunately, he was usually 
able to have them assassinated.  Orthodox tradition describes how 
Muhammad dealt with Ka'b ibn al-Ashraf, Jewish leader and irritating 
satirical poet:

    The Prophet said, "Who is ready to kill Ka'b ibn Al-Ashraf who has
    really hurt God and his Apostle?" Muhammad ibn Maslama said "O
    God's Apostle!  Do you like me to kill him?" He replied in the
    affirmative.  So, Muhammad ibn Maslama went to him (Ka'b) and
    said, "This person (the Prophet) has put us to task and asked us
    for charity." Ka'b replied "By God, you will get tired of him."
    Muhammad said to him, "We have followed him, so we dislike to
    leave him till we see the end of his affair." Muhammad ibn Maslama
    went on talking to him in this way till he got the chance to kill
    him.[40]

Orthodox Muslims think Ka'b deserved his fate.  He had plotted against 
the Islamic State and the Prophet, and had insulted the honor of 
Muslim women with immoral songs.

Like any competent politician, Muhammad was willing to use greater
displays of force when necessary.  For example, according to Muslim
tradition, Muhammad dealt with the last remaining Jewish tribe in
Medina by a method straight out of the Bible.  The Jews, it seems, had
assisted Muhammad's enemies, though their side of the story has not
been preserved.  So the Muslims, led by Muhammad, killed all the men,
divided the property among themselves, and enslaved the women and
children.[41]

After Muhammad's death, the Arabs burst out of the desert, and 
bestowed salvation on their neighbors---though to an untrained eye, 
this looked a lot like slaughter and slavery.  They conquered Coptic 
Egypt, Berber North Africa, Spain, Persia, Turkish Central Asia.  God 
had a shiny new empire.  And empire meant Islam was to be reshaped 
into an imperial ideology.  This was Sunni Islam, still orthodoxy for 
the overwhelming majority of Muslims---a religion which enjoined 
obedience to Sunni rulers, and sanctified wars of conquest as a holy 
duty.  This new imperial ideology was not, however, a corruption of an 
originally pure revelation.  The jurists and theologians who created 
Sunni Islam were making new myths on a theme originally sounded by 
Muhammad himself.


Political violence is not unique to Islam.  Judaism started out as a 
temple-state ideology which was as bloodthirsty as anything in Muslim 
doctrine when it came to smiting idolaters.  For centuries the 
universal Church was too small to persecute anyone but dissident 
Christians, but after the emperor Constantine converted, the new 
imperial religion could deal with infidels in traditional monotheistic 
fashion.  Christian empires destroyed native Americans and assimilated 
their cultures into the imperial ideology just as surely as Islam 
swallowed Egypt, Iran, or Central Asia.  It is curious that a 
benevolent God would choose such violent institutions to spread 
revelation.  Idolatry must be a terrible offense indeed, if God's 
empires are its punishment.

Monotheism, it seems, serves very nicely as an ideology for 
totalitarian, expansionary empires.  If a faith can help organize an 
effective use of violence, it gives its adherents a competitive 
advantage against their rivals.  Even so, portraying monotheism as 
nothing but authoritarian ideology is as much a corruption of history 
as reverent epics about the Triumph of God's Truth.  While Islam would 
not have succeeded without political violence, the Islamic world was 
not carved out just by the sword.  Such an empire would have been as 
ephemeral as Genghiz Khan's.  The conquered peoples resisted, but 
eventually genuinely converted, made Islam their own, even formed the 
next generation of God's soldiers.

More importantly, the empire also gave rise to heterodox, oppositional
beliefs within Islam.  Muhammad's cousin and fourth successor `Ali was
murdered (a common fate of caliphs) during the civil warfare of the
early empire; Shi'ites opposed Sunni rule by creating myths around
`Ali and his martyrdom.  Central Asian Turks created a mystical,
heterodox Islam out of their pre-Islamic beliefs, the conquering
message they were exposed to, and messianic hopes for a heaven on
earth when all oppression passed away.  Turkish popular Islam centered
not on the Qur'an, but saint-cults, magical beliefs monotheistic
purists held in suspicion, and the poetic wisdom-sayings of mystics.
Stories about a merciful God became the voice of the downtrodden, as
well as the dogma of empire.  While the Islam of empire was bent on
smiting infidels, heterodox wise men declared that it did not really
matter whether one was a heretic or unbeliever, and that God had a
place in Hell for the hard-hearted persecutor.[42]

So Islam, like any world religion, soon came to include a whole family
of constantly mutating and mutually contradictory myths.  Many
Christians have quoted the Bible to support slavery, but
African-Americans have found stories of release from bondage in the
same pages.  Similarly, Islamic myths supported violent interests, but
they also expressed hopes for a world without violence.  Modern
secularists often portray the heterodox saints and poets of popular
Islam as representatives of a humanist morality beyond theism; but
this is historically false.  The mystic poet Yunus Emre said "we love
the Creation on account of the Creator"---God is still at the center
of heterodox beliefs, even though this God has a different character
than the imperial God.[43]  Our religions encompass everything human,
both our humane and our murderous sides.  If we create God in our own
image, it is no surprise that God should turn out to have so many
different faces.

The history of religions makes God implausible, but not just because
God's empires are unlikely instruments for a loving God.  It is
because religions seem very human, not the product of gods and demons.
We have hopes and hates, interests and fears.  We tell stories.  We
seek supernatural sanction for our ideals, hoping this will make them
something more than _just_ our ideals.  All this does not, by itself,
mean the claim of One God is false.  But religion seems so much a
human creation that we do not need revelation to explain it.  The One
God succeeded and flourished for reasons which had nothing to do with
revealed truth.  Monotheism was violent enough to ensure growth,
flexible enough to contain both desire for power and hope for freedom.

5.  The Meanings of History
---------------------------
When all else fails, try philosophy.

It seems we best understand the history of religions from a
naturalistic point of view.  But this depends on treating history like
a science---examining fact claims about the origin of Islam, asking
whether events show a pattern explained by a contract between Jews and
a God.  We start with theories, throw evidence at them, make
adjustments; take what seem to be historical facts, throw theories at
them; stir well, keep going around, and hope to converge on something
sensible.  Since human societies are very complex, history is a messy
business; nevertheless, it still seems to be a kind of science
figuring out the human past, much like paleontology studies the
history of life.

But not all historians believe their work is continuous with natural
science.  Perhaps history is about finding the _meaning_ of our past,
not just recounting what once happened.  Historians who dread
reductionism are often uncomfortable with the impersonality of natural
science.  Physics, for example, is supposed to be concerned with
reproducible events reducible to specific instances of general laws.
Historian Jeffrey Burton Russell thinks his discipline is different:
"its goal is always the understanding of the individual.  In this way
history is transcendent, almost religious."[44]  History is about
individuality, personality, and interpreting events to give them
meaning.

Such a view is useful for religious apologetics.  If history is
concerned with unique, meaningful events, it can present and validate
those singular intrusions of divinity into the ordinary world we call
revelation.  It can portray a religion like Christianity as unique,
incomparable to pagan beliefs.[45]  Religions begin to look like they
erupt from Great Events---Muhammad's call to prophethood, Jesus's
Resurrection, Moses's visit to Mount Sinai---which confound the
natural order.  Moreover, we discover revelation through our
interpretation of events, not just grubby playing with evidence and
theories.  An infidel will be unimpressed with scripture, while
theologians will find a theme to give it profound meaning.  Similarly,
a historian will discover divine providence not in explicit historical
patterns, but through interpretation.

Interpretation is a magical thing indeed.  Theologian Langdon Gilkey
says "Spirit transcends history by surveying its past and in that
light envisioning its possible future . . . eternity, transcending
time but a transcendence united with time, invade[s] personal and
communal life in historical understanding and in political action
alike." This seems to be a rather florid way of pointing out we can be
aware of the past and act accordingly.  But there is more: "Some deep
assumed principle of interpretation is always at work whenever we
think of temporal passage or seek to act within it."[46]  Philosophers
of history will supply the principles we need; after all, Eric
Voegelin tells us

    Philosophy is the event of being on the occasion of which the
    logos of realization becomes transparent.  Philosophy, therefore,
    is that phenomenon in the field of history, with the help of which
    not only are other phenomena recognized as phenomena of
    realization but also is the field of history recognized as the
    field of tension between the phenomena.[47]

With the aid of German High Metaphysics, we should soon succeed in 
understanding history, or at least intimidate enough people from 
criticizing theology.  

Still, history is told as a narrative.  As with the narratives of
literature, we may be able to find many layers of meaning in history,
depending on how we read it.  Liberal theologians have ingenious ways
of discovering God in scriptures which look like a collection of old
legends; if doing history is but telling a story, they will retell it
in ways to squeeze God back into the picture.


All this talk about spirit and transcendence threatens to turn history
into mush; let us see if history is so radically different from
natural science after all.  The most obvious way to connect history
with science would seem to be to find some general laws of history.
Philosopher Carl Hempel once argued that history could capture the
unique individual quality of an event, but only because it described
an event in terms of general concepts.[48]  History was no different
than the sciences which presented their phenomena in terms of general
laws.

Unfortunately, we know no general laws of history.  When we want to
know about the origins of Islam, we try and reconstruct the social
environment of seventh century Arabia, and then tell a story about
Muhammad in that setting.  This is not an arbitrary story; we are
guided by the evidence we have.  Our picture of Muhammad is not
totally unique; we understand him better by comparing him to other
examples of charismatic prophets in precarious political
circumstances.  We do not, however, explain Muslim history by invoking
anything like Zinglitt's Fifth Law of Prophets, describing how a
prophet will solve domestic strife between his wives by announcing an
appropriate revelation.

The course of history, it seems, could have been otherwise.  We might
be able to say a missionary faith has a competitive advantage, but
what specific faith succeeds is largely a matter of accidents.
Muhammad's authority in Medina was enhanced when the Muslims won,
against the odds, the battle of Badr against Meccan forces.  Later,
the Muslims were defeated at Uhud, and were lucky the Meccans did not
press their advantage to destroy them.  The Qur'an presents Badr as a
sign of divine favor---God sent down three thousand angels to fight
alongside the Muslims.  Uhud, of course, was a test of faith.[49] Now,
we can easily imagine that events could have taken a different turn.
A parallel universe where Muslims were defeated, and consequently
Islam was only a religious movement which flared up briefly and
disappeared, would not violate any obvious law of history.  We explain
the initial success of Islam by some advantageous features of the
religion, Muhammad's political talents, and lots of historical
accidents.  Judaism as we know it would not exist today if not for the
Babylonian exile, which converted a Near Eastern temple-religion into
a religion of the Book.  Christianity might not have succeeded, or at
least evolved very differently, if Constantine had not converted.[50]
Many religious movements do not get the lucky breaks and are barely
remembered in history.

The unpredictability of historical change, however, does not set
history apart from natural science.  Physics itself lays the
groundwork for an accidental world.  We have seen how we lose
predictability in physical systems with chaotic dynamics or an element
of randomness.  To describe the evolution of such systems, we are
forced to list what took place, much like what we do with human
history.  Many different futures are compatible with the information
we possess, and events in the past could have been otherwise if not
for some accidents we can do no more than describe.  The supposed
contrast between science with its laws, and history with its unique
individual events, is based on a false picture of physical science.
Even within natural science there are historical sciences such as
evolutionary biology which are all about teasing out individual
histories from the evidence we have.  In a complex system like a human
society, unpredictable behavior which forces us to describe individual
events is exactly what we expect.[51]

There is still something missing if we are to understand history as a
science.  Historical writing relies heavily on common-sense ideas of
what a proper narrative should be like.  We do not just string
individual historical facts together but assemble a story.  Connecting
history to the physics of accidents is important, but this still does
not bring us all the way to narrative history.  So philosophers still
have room to argue narrative is an "irreducible form of understanding"
distinct from the way we understand the time evolution of a complex
physical system.[52]

There is a better way to understand narrative.  Consider a geographer 
and her maps.  A map is like a spatial narrative, displaying 
information about individual features of an area.  Like history, 
geography is not completely random; mountains on earth cannot be 
twenty miles high or shaped like perfect cubes.  But as a rule, a 
geographer has to individually depict features of the terrain we are 
interested in, like a mountain pass, or the location of a city we want 
to visit.  Maps portray complex systems we cannot capture with a few 
elegant equations.

A map, like a historical narrative, is not just a dumping ground of 
information.  We are visual animals who like to take in colorful 
two-dimensional pictures at a glance.  We do not, even if we could, 
read the raw data off a satellite.  On a map, we recognize patterns; 
we can see the shortest route to our destination, or, if we know 
enough geology, make a good guess at what processes formed the 
mountains we see.  A map, in other words, is a good way of presenting 
information to our kind of brain.  Narrative works the same way.  We 
assimilate historical information as narratives: stories with a theme 
we can remember, and see patterns of personal and social relationships 
within.  Telling a story about Muhammad helps us make sense of the 
Prophet as a person in his social circumstances.

Maps and narratives are suitable for _our_ brains.  Imagine a future
probe we construct for interstellar exploration.  Since we will not be
able to control it, we have to give it a good deal of artificial
intelligence.  Two dimensional star charts will not be the best way to
represent information it needs for navigation.  The ideal solution for
a craft which will often move close to light-speed is to represent
events and objects in four-dimensional spacetime.  We would build the
craft's artificial brain to literally perceive events within a
spacetime we understand not intuitively but only through our
equations.  But though a bizarre four-dimensional map would be a
natural way to represent events to our explorer, it is not "an
irreducible form of understanding." Similarly, we do narrative history
because of the way our brains have evolved, not because history is
irreducible to physics, and not because a religious transcendence is
built into the fabric of history.

What, then, of the meanings of history?  Ordinary meaning is not a
metaphysical mist floating around and attaching itself to words and
events; such meanings also emerge from the Darwinian world which
shaped our brains.[53] Theologians need something more.  Perhaps if we
understood history only with the aid of deep interpretive principles,
theology could still guide us through the world of meaning.  For
example, take the Deuteronomistic history in the Bible, with its
pattern of Jews violating their covenant with Yahweh and so inviting
disaster.  A secular historian might try and find evidence to see
whether this pattern reflects history or the Deuteronomist's ideology.
But we can also read Deuteronomy as a demand that a historian should
interpret the evidence from a religious point of view.  The Bible
speaks to our deepest commitments, calling on us to decide whether we
accept the Word of God; that decision will shape how we interpret
history.

There is something disturbingly arbitrary about this notion of 
interpretation.  Consider the Holocaust.  An orthodox Jew following 
Deuteronomic principles might say this was Yahweh's latest punishment 
of a straying Jewish nation.  Sherwin Wine, a humanistic rabbi, 
disagrees:

    The Holocaust is dramatic testimony to the sublime indifference of
    the universe to undeserved human suffering---and to undeserved
    human pleasure, for that matter.  In the twentieth century, the
    Jews learned that the reward for faith and humility is despair and
    humiliation.  If they did not resist reality, they were confronted
    by an ironic truth.  The Jewish people, whose official
    establishment proclaimed for over two thousand years that Jewish
    history is testimony to the presence of God is, indeed, the
    strongest testimony to the absence of God.[54]

It is tempting to say orthodox and humanist Jews interpret history
differently, in keeping with their different ideologies, and that is
all there is to it.  But though we certainly bring our hopes and
allegiances to the debate, we also want to explain our history.  We
can quarrel about a map's color, but we still want it to show the
roads properly.  And we have learned something about how to do
history, as well as natural science; theological spin-doctoring under
the name of "interpretation" is not part of it.  When we do the best
we can with our evidence, we find Wine is correct in saying there is
no overarching moral pattern in Jewish history.  It would be wonderful
if we could tell such a story.  We are most comfortable casting our
history as a narrative, preferably with a moral to it all.  But though
critical history leads to many interesting stories, it gives us no
cosmic dramas.

We do not reach this conclusion because God-denying assumptions are
built into modern historical inquiry.  History _could have_ supported
God.  We could even have discovered that the interpretive principles
of Deuteronomy were trustworthy, and changed how we do history
accordingly.  Instead we find that history is a science, and that God
fades from view as in natural science.  We had to risk putting sacred
history to the test; as conservative theologians fear, unless
revelation is an objective historical fact, God itself increasingly
becomes a psychological metaphor.[55]  We could have found God, even
the stern Yahweh of Jewish myth.  Instead, we find our history is
chaotic, unpredictable, naturalistic.  The only purposes shaping our
history seem to be our own.  History does not tell us whether we
should find this depressing or exhilarating, but there it is.

6.  The End of Revelation
-------------------------
There used to be no accidents.  History flowed towards salvation; 
everything had its place in the divine purpose.  We were all actors in 
a drama beginning at Creation and ending with Judgment.  Every 
decision we made took meaning from its place in the story, and how it 
affected our eternal fate.  Even the punishments of Hell were a way of 
highlighting the significance of our acts; we would choose our 
spiritual condition in our finite earthly life, and God would honor 
this choice throughout eternity.[56]

Many of us still think this way.  Even the most conservative Abrahamic
religions are going strong, perhaps precisely because they heroically
embrace the old stories.  Nevertheless, the world has changed.  Islam
is no longer a world unto itself, and both modernizers and Islamicists
now feel confined by the orthodox religious consensus.[57] The Western
world is no longer Christendom; countries once dominated by a Church
are now populated by individualist religious consumers.[58]  We have
become relativists about religion---though we usually affirm the
virtue of faith, it does not seem to matter what particular Eternal
Truth we trust in.  Even Christians no longer believe in the Bible,
but believe in believing in the Bible.  Muslims may yet succeed in
walling themselves off from modernity, but conservative Christians
have to hope they will succeed in the religious marketplace as they
once prevailed in the religious chaos of the Roman world.[59]  Maybe
another Constantine will come looking for an imperial ideology.
Meanwhile, our One True Faiths are not as confident as they once were.

Of course, a changed religious climate does not mean we no longer have
saving truths; perhaps many of us have just grown deaf to God's words.
But which words are we supposed to listen for?  Religious feeling
alone does not take us far.  Even in pagan times, people had profound
personal experiences with their local gods; and these days the
religious market is overrun by promises of salvation.  There seem to
be too many revelations, eloquently testifying to human religiosity
but not to the truth of any single tradition.  We once may have hoped
God's gift of reason would help illuminate the true path to salvation,
but nowadays this looks like a hollow promise.  We have learned our
holy epics are more works of fiction than records of events.  Reason
could have vindicated our gods and demons, it demoted them to myths
instead.

Since old-time religion is out of touch with our new smorgasbord of
faiths, and intellectually disreputable to boot, philosophers and
theologians need a new kind of God.  Maybe the half-zillion
revelations swirling around us are not all wrong, but all correct.
God reaches out to everyone; we receive the outpouring of divine love
through the religious experiences we channel through diverse
traditions.  There is no one sacred history, no single chosen people.
The core of religion is encountering fundamental reality as something
deeply personal, which is totally beyond yet within us.  Some of us
attend Mass to express our dependence on this mystic God, some of us
pray towards Mecca; but these are the disciplines of spirituality, not
the substance.

Such a liberal religion is perfect for our time.  It is wonderfully
tolerant and undogmatic, so full of sweetness and light as to kill any
self-respecting cynic with nausea.  It allows scholars to rip apart
traditional doctrines during the week and join their congregations on
the sabbath.  The old verities get reinterpreted; apocalyptic
prophecies become psychological metaphors of our internal struggle
with evil, messengers of God become vaguely left-wing moral reformers.
But liberal religion protects itself from historical criticism so well
that history can no longer be evidence for God.  If our religious
traditions express revelation, we have to take their specific claims
seriously---we cannot dissolve them in an amorphous spiritual soup.
Religious liberals bury the fire-breathing God under inoffensive
platitudes.  Mohammed Arkoun says "Revelation is the accession to the
interior space of a human being---to the heart, the _qalb,_ says the
Qur'an---of some novel meaning that opens up unlimited opportunities
or backcurrents of meaning for human existence." His examples include
"the teachings of Buddha, Confucius, African elders, and all the great
voices that recapitulate the collective experience of a group in order
to project it toward new horizons and enrich the human experience of
the divine."[60] This is a vapid broadmindedness, ignoring the content
of new ideas.  Early Buddhist teachings, for example, were shaped by
criticism of Hindu theism; it does them no honor to redefine them as
divine revelations.  Teachers make real claims, sometimes they even
say other teachers have been dead wrong.  And if their ideas are
something new under the sun, so they are.  In an accidental world,
people will have new ideas, even inspiring ideas.  Declaring these to
be supernaturally granted vistas of deep meaning is sheer
superstition.

There is a peculiar irony in defining revelation as radical novelty.  
The most radical idea of modern times is the skepticism which comes 
with science.  The followers of a jealous God taught us to take truth 
seriously, but some of us also refuse to think under the authority of 
revelation or to confine truth to custom and community.  And as 
Jacques Monod suggests, this is perhaps too radical for our taste:

    Modern societies accepted the treasures and the power that science
    laid in their laps.  But they have not accepted---they have
    scarcely even heard---its profounder message: the defining of a
    new and unique source of truth, and the demand for a thorough
    revision of ethical premises, for a total break with the animist
    tradition, the definitive abandonment of the "old covenant," the
    necessity of forging a new one.  Armed with all the powers,
    enjoying all the riches they owe to science, our societies are
    still trying to live by and to teach systems of values already
    blasted to the root by science itself.[61]

Monod is no prophet, he heralds the end of revelation.  And if Monod
sounds naively evangelistic these days; it is because we are too busy
complaining science gives us only truth when what we want is myth.
 
So the quest for God in history continues.  After all, here in the
Western world, we tell stories of Jesus.  The Jews only prepare the
way, and Muhammad we ignore.  Theologians like Wolfhart Pannenberg
hope that history is revelation, that Jesus Christ will make
everything come together, and that this revelation is open to everyone
who honestly examines history.[62]  Well, maybe Jesus will save us.
But this Jesus cannot be the God-man predicted by the Hebrew prophets,
who descends from above, gets born of a virgin, saves us from Satan
with his sacrifice, gets resurrected, and flies up to heaven to wait
for his return in glory.  This story is too fantastic, even
nonsensical, to salvage.  We are too aware now of how religious
communities spin myths.  Still, liberal Christians claim that even
after critical history does its worst, we are left with a new and
better Jesus who answers our mature religious needs.  Let us seek, and
see who we shall find.

Notes
-----
[1] Calvinists in particular.  Bernard Ramm, _Special Revelation and
the Word of God,_ p. 19.  Note, however, that traditionally even such
theologies do not deny that general revelation is available.

[2] Bernhard W. Anderson, _Understanding the Old Testament_ (Third
Edition, Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1975), p.  12.

[3] C.A. Patrides, _The Grand Design of God: The Literary Form of the
Christian View of History_ (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1972),
chap. 2, 3.

[4] Burton L. Mack, _Who Wrote the New Testament? The Making of the
Christian Myth_ (HarperSanFrancisco, 1995), chap. 10.

[5] Charles H. Dyer, _World News and Bible Prophecy_ (Wheaton:
Tyndale, 1992), pp. 154-155.  For the amazingly open-ended positions
regarding Babylon in conservative Christianity, see R.  Ludwigson, _A
Survey of Bible Prophecy_ (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1951), pp. 31-38.

[6] Harold Camping, _1994?_ (New York: Vantage, 1992), p. 29.

[7] C.A. Patrides, _The Grand Design of God,_ p. 58.

[8] Jack W. Cotrell, in Charles R. Blaisdell, ed., _Conservative,
Moderate, Liberal: The Biblical Authority Debate_ (St. Louis: CPB
Press, 1990), p. 33.  For a defense of Biblical inerrancy, see Norman
L.  Geisler, ed., _Biblical Errancy: An Analysis of its Philosophical
Roots_ (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1981).

[9] Paul Boyer, _When Time Shall Be No More: Prophecy Belief in Modern
American Culture_ (Cambridge: Belknap Harvard, 1992), pp. 293-296.

[10] Paul Merkley, _The Greek and Hebrew Origins of Our Idea of
History_ (Toronto Studies in Theology, vol. 32, Lewiston: Edwin
Mellen, 1987), p. 76.  Merkley extends his confidence in Israelite
historical competence to the compilers of the Christian canon,
naturally (p. 77).

[11] From "Hymn to Amun from the Eighteenth Dynasty," Walter Beyerlin,
ed., _Near Eastern Religious Texts Relating to the Old Testament_
(transl. John Bowden, Philadelphia: Westminster, 1975), p. 14.

[12] Robin Lane Fox, _The Unauthorized Version: Truth and Fiction in
the Bible_ (New York: Alfred E.  Knopf, 1991), pp. 54-63; Gerd
Theissen, _Biblical Faith,_ pp. 56-57.

[13] Burton L. Mack, _Who Wrote The New Testament?,_ pp. 303-306.
This is a historically common belief; C.A. Patrides, _The Grand Design
of God._

[14] From "The Mesha Inscription," Walter Beyerlin, ed., _Near Eastern
Religious Texts Relating to the Old Testament,_ pp. 238-239.

[15] Outside of fundamentalist circles, this is uncontroversial.  See
Richard Elliott Friedman, _Who Wrote the Bible?_ (New York: Summit,
1987), pp. 133-134; and Robin Lane Fox, _The Unauthorized Version,_
pp. 71-77; for recent semipopular accounts.

[16] R. Ludwigson, _A Survey of Bible Prophecy,_ p. 46.  The
interrupted prophecy belief among fundamentalists derives largely from
the 19th century dispensationalism of John Nelson Darby; Ernest R.
Sandeen, _The Roots of Fundamentalism: British and American
Millenarianism, 1800-1930_ (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1978), pp.  62-64.

[17] Bernard McGinn, _Antichrist: Two Thousand Years of the Human
Fascination with Evil_ (HarperSanFrancisco, 1994).

[18] Andre LaCocque, _Daniel in His Time_ (Columbia: University of
South Carolina Press, 1988); G.A.  Wells, _Who Was Jesus?_ (La Salle:
Open Court, 1989), pp. 160-168.

[19] Burton L. Mack, _Who Wrote The New Testament?,_ p. 109.

[20] James W. Loewen, _Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your
American History Textbook Got Wrong_ (New York: The New Press, 1995).

[21] Robin Lane Fox, _The Unauthorized Version,_ p.  116.  For a
comparison between Greek and Hebrew ideas of history, see chap. 11.

[22] Jonathan Z. Smith, _Drudgery Divine: On the Comparison of Early
Christianities and the Religions of Late Antiquity_ (London:
University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies, 1990),
pp. 105-107.

[23] W. Montgomery Watt, _What is Islam?_ (New York: Frederick
A. Praeger, 1968), p. 79.

[24] The Qur'an is in many ways similar to a a Jewish _midrash._ So
critics can often embarrass orthodox Muslims by doing little but print
stories from the Qur'an, note that they look like fairy tales, and
compare them to Jewish antecedents; e.g.  Ilhan Arsel, _Seriat'tan
Kissalar_ (Istanbul: Kaynak, 1996).  The closest English-language
example I know of is Ibn Warraq, _Why I am Not a Muslim_ (Amherst:
Prometheus, 1995), pp. 49-65.

[25] T.B. Irving, K. Ahmad, & M.M. Ahsan, _The Qur'an,_ p. 29.

[26] F.E. Peters, _Muhammad and the Origins of Islam_ (Albany: State
University of New York Press, 1994), p. 265.

[27] Patricia Crone and Michael Cook, _Hagarism: The Making of the
Islamic World_ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977).  M. Cook
further develops his argument about the unreliability of Muslim
sources in _Early Muslim Dogma: A Source-Critical Study_ (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1981).

[28] F.E. Peters, _Muhammad and the Origins of Islam,_ pp. 141-152.

[29] Karen Armstrong, _Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet_
(HarperSanFrancisco, 1992), p. 84.

[30] F.E. Peters, _Muhammad and the Origins of Islam,_ pp. 150,
205-206.

[31] Western critics of Muhammad have often seized on epilepsy as an
explanation of his revelations; e.g. Paul Kurtz, _The Transcendental
Temptation: A Critique of Religion and the Paranormal_ (Buffalo:
Prometheus, 1991), pp.  211-215.

[32] F.E. Peters, _Muhammad and the Origins of Islam,_ chap. 6.

[33] Frederick Mathewson Denny, _An Introduction to Islam_ (New York:
MacMillan, 1985), pp. 87-88.

[34] Ernest H. Taves, _Trouble Enough: Joseph Smith and the Book of
Mormon_ (Buffalo: Prometheus, 1984), pp. 64-65.

[35] Suzanne Riordan, "Channeling: A New Revelation?"  in J.R.  Lewis
& J.G.  Melton, eds., _Perspectives on the New Age._ Western religion
is increasingly becoming more cult-like and individualistic (see Steve
Bruce, _Religion in the Modern World: From Cathedrals to Cults_
(Oxford: Oxford University press, 1996)), so modern prophets are
increasingly likely to bring new revelations rather than affirm the
doctrines of an organized religion.

[36] Ann Braude, _Radical Spirits: Spiritualism and Women's Rights in
Nineteenth-Century America_ (Boston: Beacon, 1989).

[37] This seems to be the standard story from a liberal religious
perspective, e.g. in Karen Armstrong's _Muhammad,_ or William E.
Phipps, _Muhammad and Jesus: A Comparison of the Prophets and their
Teachings_ (New York: Continuum, 1996).  It derives mainly from the
work of W. Montgomery Watt.

[38] F.E. Peters, _Muhammad and the Origins of Islam,_ p. 75.

[39] Patricia Crone, _Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam_ (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1987), pp. 234-245.

[40] From the tradition collection of Bukhari, Jihad 270.  A more
detailed account is in Sahih Muslim, Kitab-al-Jihad chap. 744, 4436.
These books are held in scarcely less esteem than the Qur'an by
orthodox (Sunni) Muslims.

[41] F.E. Peters, _Muhammad and the Origins of Islam,_ pp. 222-224.

[42] Ahmet Yasar Ocak, _Turk Sufiligine Bakislar_ (Istanbul: Iletisim,
1996), p. 46.

[43] _Ibid,_ pp. 126-136.  The translation from Yunus Emre is mine.

[44] Jeffrey Burton Russell, _The Devil: Perceptions of Evil from
Antiquity to Primitive Christianity_ (Ithaca: Cornell University
Press, 1977), p. 38.  A classic example of this kind of philosophy of
history is R.G.  Collingwood, _The Idea of History_ (London: Oxford
University Press, 1956).  For a critique, see G.A.  Wells, _Belief and
Make-Believe: Critical Reflections on the Sources of Credulity_ (La
Salle: Open Court, 1991), pp.  25-34.

[45] Jonathan Z. Smith observes that the historical study of religion
has regularly taken on such an apologetic function; _Drudgery Divine,_
chap. 2.

[46] Langdon Gilkey, in C.T. McIntire & Ronald A. Wells, ed., _History
and Historical Understanding_ (Grand Rapids: William B.  Eerdmans,
1984), p. 5, 11.

[47] Eric Voegelin, _Anamnesis_ (transl. and ed. Gerhart Niemeyer,
Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1978), p. 136.  The whole
book is a perfect example of the kind of work that gives philosophy a
bad name.

[48] Carl G. Hempel, "The Function of General Laws in History," in
Patrick L. Gardiner, ed., _Theories of History: Readings from
Classical and Contemporary Sources_ (Glencoe: Free Press, 1959).

[49] F.E. Peters, _Muhammad and the Origins of Islam,_ chap. 9.

[50] Robin Lane Fox, _Pagans and Christians_ (New York: Alfred
E. Knopf, 1986).

[51] Naturally, we should then expect to use ideas from physics, like
chaotic dynamics, to understand history better.  See Michael Shermer,
"The Chaos of History: On a Chaotic Model that Represents the Role of
Contingency and Necessity in Historical Sequences," _Nonlinear Science
Today_ <2>:4 (1993), p. 1; "Exorcising Laplace's Demon: Chaos and
Antichaos, History and Metahistory," _History and Theory_ <34>:1
(1995), p.  59.

[52] Louis O. Mink, "Narrative Form as a Cognitive Instrument," in
_Historical Understanding_ (Fay, Golob, & Vann, eds., Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 1987).

[53] Daniel C. Dennett, _Darwin's Dangerous Idea,_ chap. 14.

[54] Sherwin T. Wine, _Judaism Beyond God_ (KTAV, Society for
Humanistic Judaism, Milan Press: 1995), p. 98.

[55] David F. Wells, _No Place for Truth,_ p. 270.

[56] Paul Merkley, _The Greek and Hebrew Origins of Our Idea of
History,_ pp. 4--5; Gary R. Habermas & J.P.  Moreland, _Immortality,_
pp. 162-164.

[57] Don Peretz, "Islamic Revival or Reaffirmation," in D. Peretz,
R.U. Moench, and S.K. Mohsen, _Islam: Legacy of the Past, Challenge of
the Future_ (New York: New Horizon/North River, 1984); Bassam Tibi,
_The Crisis of Modern Islam: A Preindustrial Culture in the
Scientific-Technological Age_ (Salt Lake City: University of Utah
Press, 1988).

[58] Steve Bruce, _Religion in the Modern World._

[59] David F. Wells, _No Place for Truth, or, Whatever Happened to
Evangelical Theology_ (Grand Rapids: Wm. B.  Eerdmans, 1993),
pp. 259-264.

[60] Mohammed Arkoun, _Rethinking Islam: Common Questions, Uncommon
Answers_ (transl. & ed. Robert D. Lee, Boulder: Westview, 1994),
p. 34.

[61] Jacques Monod, _Chance and Necessity_ (New York: Alfred E.
Knopf, 1971), p. 171.  For a critique of Monod, see Mary Midgley,
_Evolution as Religion: Strange Hopes and Stranger Fears_ (New York:
Methuen, 1985), pp. 75-90.  But though Monod does have a tendency to
construct grandiose stories, I believe his overall perspective is
correct.

[62] Wolfhart Pannenberg, "Revelation as History," in C.T.  McIntire,
ed., _God, History, and Historians_ (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1977).


