(Roughly) Daily

Further, in a fashion, to last Saturday’s post, a look at how religions have changed from their inceptions until now– and how we know…

Five histories told in order, a chapter at a time: Hinduism from the farmers of Mehrgarh, Judaism from the hill villages of Iron Age Canaan, Buddhism from the Ganga plain, Christianity from Galilee and Islam from late antique Arabia. Every claim names the verse, inscription, excavation or study behind it, and says how settled the evidence is…

… How It Evolved tells the history of religions the way a good historian would explain it to a curious friend: chronologically, with the evidence on the table, and honest about where the evidence runs out.

Most writing about religion falls into one of two camps. Devotional accounts describe a tradition as it sees itself, often as timeless and unchanging. Polemical accounts go looking for ammunition. Neither is much use to someone who simply wants to know what changed, when, and how we know. That is the only question this site sets out to answer.

Every claim shows its receipt. Statements cite the specific verse, excavation, inscription, manuscript or peer-reviewed study they rest on, with numbered references on every page.

Every claim says how sure we can be. Confidence tags (Consensus, Majority, Contested, Speculative, Political) mark how far the evidence stretches.

Disagreements are stated, not resolved by fiat. Where scholars disagree, each chapter gives the strongest form of each position, including the ones we do not adopt.

Primary sources in the original. Key passages are quoted in their original script, transliterated and translated, followed by what the passage does and does not prove.

Each religion gets a series: a sequence of chapters from its earliest traceable roots to the present, with shorter pages that answer the questions people most often ask about it.

The five series published so far:

• How Hinduism Evolved, 7000 BCE – present, in 13 chapters. From Neolithic Mehrgarh and the Rigveda to bhakti, the Raj and the present.
• How Buddhism Evolved, c. 600 BCE – present, in 14 chapters. From the śramaṇa movements of Magadha to Theravāda, Mahāyāna, Zen and Tibet.
• How Christianity Evolved, c. 30 CE – present, in 14 chapters. From a Jewish apocalyptic movement to councils, schisms, reformations and a global church.
• How Islam Evolved, c. 300 CE – present, in 14 chapters. From late antique Arabia to the caliphates, law schools, Sufism and modern reform.
• How Judaism Evolved, c. 1250 BCE – present, in 14 chapters. From Yahweh among the gods to the Torah, the rabbis, the diaspora and the modern movements.

Series on Sikhism are in preparation. Each is published only when every chapter meets the same standard.

The series are written to be read together. Where traditions grew up side by side, as Buddhism did beside the Vedic religion of ancient India, the same evidence appears in more than one series, told from each side, and the chapters link to each other…

Plus there are maps shows the spread of each religion and a (very large) chart tracing the development of all five, side by side.

Absolutely fascinating: “How It Evolved“… puts one in mind of the telephone game.

(Image above: source)

* Mark Twain

###

As we get religion, we might recall that today is (in the Christian tradition) All Souls Day, a day of prayer and remembrance for the departed. It is also (the final day of) All Souls Day’s predecessor (and variation on its pagan inspiration), The Day of the Dead…

The Day of the Dead (el Día de los Muertos), is a Mexican holiday where families welcome back the souls of their deceased relatives for a brief reunion that includes food, drink and celebration.

A blend of Mesoamerican ritual, European religion and Spanish culture, the holiday is celebrated each year from October 31-November 2. While October 31 is Halloween, November 1-2 is All Souls Day or the Day of the Dead. According to tradition, the gates of heaven are opened at midnight on October 31 and the spirits of children can rejoin their families for 24 hours. The spirits of adults can do the same on November 2.

The roots of the Day of the Dead—celebrated in contemporary Mexico and among those of Mexican heritage in the United States and around the world—go back some 3,000 years to the rituals honoring the dead in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica.

The Aztecs and other Nahua peoples living in what is now Mexico held a cyclical view of the universe and saw death as an integral, ever-present part of life. Upon dying, a person was believed to travel to Chicunamictlán, the Land of the Dead. Only after getting through nine challenging levels, involving a journey of several years, could the person’s soul finally reach Mictlán, the final resting place.

In Nahua rituals honoring the dead, traditionally held in August, family members offered food, water and tools to aid the deceased on this difficult journey. This inspired the modern Day of the Dead practice of leaving food and other offerings on loved ones’ graves or setting them on makeshift home altars, called ofrendas.

In ancient Europe, pagan celebrations of the dead also took place in the fall and featured bonfires, dancing and feasting. Some of these customs survived after the rise of the Roman Catholic Church, which informally absorbed the pagan traditions into its observances of two holy days—All Saints Day and All Souls Day—celebrated on the first two days of November. – source

source