The other Major Pillar of Western Civilization (MPWC) is the Judeo-Christian Pillar. Let us travel backwards in time to-- when? We don't know, really. Probably sometime around 1500 BCE (again, that's "Before the Common Era"). After Zoroaster, but a thousand years or so before the flowering of Greek civilization, in any case. At this time, a local macher-- a big cheese, a wheeler-dealer-- living somewhere near Hebron, was sitting in the door of his tent in the heat of the day, when three men approached. This seemingly unremarkable event signaled the inception of Western Civilization. How so? These three were no ordinary desert dignitaries. They carried a special message to our macher: the old order was over. The continuous, unending and monotonous spiral of existence, which none could ever escape, was thereupon revoked. Old age inevitable, you say? Death and taxes the only certainties, you say? Hah! Our macher was to have a new thought: anything is possible. Life is not a death spiral, but an upward progression-- halting perhaps, but upward.
You may have guessed by now that the macher to whom I refer was Abraham-- still calling himself Avram at the time-- and his visitors none other than Avram's god, El, and two angels. Now, please bear in mind, I am not putting forth any particular opinion on the theological veracity of this event. That is, whether God can manifest as a person, whether there *IS* a God in the first place, etc., etc., etc.-- I leave all those questions to greater minds than mine. The significance, for my purposes, is that a thought was born. God's shattering message, specifically, that Avram's wife, Sarai (later Sarah), a perfectly ordinary old woman, would bear a child in her dotage, meant that 1. Miracles can happen 2. to ordinary people 3. in defiance of the inevitable cycles of life and death 4. thereby creating a future that is different, worthwhile, better.
Now, take a moment to compare that 4-part statement to your own worldview, and ponder: which is the more remarkable, that you already believed it implicitly, or that no one had ever had this thought before Avram?
If this event was the inception of Western Civilization, then the birth took place some years later. One day, our macher took his son on a little hike...
to be continued
You may have guessed by now that the macher to whom I refer was Abraham-- still calling himself Avram at the time-- and his visitors none other than Avram's god, El, and two angels. Now, please bear in mind, I am not putting forth any particular opinion on the theological veracity of this event. That is, whether God can manifest as a person, whether there *IS* a God in the first place, etc., etc., etc.-- I leave all those questions to greater minds than mine. The significance, for my purposes, is that a thought was born. God's shattering message, specifically, that Avram's wife, Sarai (later Sarah), a perfectly ordinary old woman, would bear a child in her dotage, meant that 1. Miracles can happen 2. to ordinary people 3. in defiance of the inevitable cycles of life and death 4. thereby creating a future that is different, worthwhile, better.
Now, take a moment to compare that 4-part statement to your own worldview, and ponder: which is the more remarkable, that you already believed it implicitly, or that no one had ever had this thought before Avram?
If this event was the inception of Western Civilization, then the birth took place some years later. One day, our macher took his son on a little hike...
to be continued
posted by Chicago MBA, Stanford BA at 8:24 PM
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