In this part . . .
Those religions developed in the heat and turmoil of the Middle East. Each one centered on the idea of one God, and then diverged in ways of worship. Abraham’s genealogy includes two distinct branches that both link and divide Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
Chapter 1
One God, Three Faiths
In This Chapter
Revealing how religions worked prior to Abraham
Uncovering the origins of monotheism
Discovering how one God led to three religions
In New York City alone, there are 6,500 or so Christian churches, according to the Internet. The Boston area is home to around 6,000 Christian churches. In fact, every American community features many different churches serving Christian residents of various denominations.
When you include buildings for Jews, Unitarian Universalists, Muslims, and other worshippers, our country seems awash in religious structures.
There are so many sects, so many denominations, so many beliefs, that the number of religions seems to multiply daily.
Yet, all of them have an origin. Everybody’s religion, whatever anyone believes, started somewhere. In this chapter, we explore some of these starting points and show how they’ve affected the three major monotheistic religions of today: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
Holy Toledo! How Many Gods Are There?
Originally, ancient people believed in magic. Their holy men, called shamans, practiced various rituals and had magical sayings that were supposed to heal illnesses, stop storms, grow crops, or change the future.
The people soon realized that these actions and spells didn’t work, so they decided that great, distant beings, called gods, watched over all aspects of life and controlled everything. These deities could only be reached through rituals and prayer. The ancient people developed thousands of gods, each of whom was responsible for some aspect of human life.
Religion was born. Religion began as a way for people to understand lightning, thunder, good or bad fortune, birth, death, and all the other events in their lives.
Religion quickly became an integral part of life. For example, Egyptians, who originated one of the earliest civilizations, began to create rituals to “guarantee” that the Nile River flooded on time every year. When the Nile flooded, it brought rich, fertilizing soil to their farmland. Without it, they would starve. The Egyptians developed calendars based on the stars so they would know exactly when their gods would send the floods.
Not that far away from Egypt, Babylonians built large pyramid-like structures to their gods and invented a style of writing to record the amount of grain and beer that worshippers donated to their temples.
Every early religion worshipped many deities. Scientists call that belief polytheism, which means “many gods.” Still, some people began to believe that there was only one God who controlled everything.
The religions that believe in one God practice monotheism — the opposite of polytheism — which comes from the Greek for “one god.”
Monotheism Develops
Monotheists have never been the majority of humans. Even today, roughly half of all humans accept the idea that there is only one God. But the followers of one God belong to two of the world’s largest religions, Christianity and Islam. They developed their faith by building on ideas generated by an older religion, Judaism. Table 1-1 shows how the number of believers in each monotheistic faith compares to the others.
Table 1-1 Largest Monotheistic Faiths | Religion | Members |
| Christianity | 2.1 billion |
| Islam | 1.3 billion |
| Judaism | 14 million |
| Baha’i | 7 million |
| Unitarian Universalist | 800,000 |
Ancient gods get a new life
Although few people today worship the ancient gods, their names live on in our everyday lives. Here are a few examples:
Wednesday is named for Wodin, the chief god of the Norwegians.
Thursday is named for Thor, another Norse god. He carried a big hammer, and when he threw it, it made a loud noise humans called thunder.
Saturday is named for Saturn, a Roman god of agriculture.
March is named for Mars, the Roman god of war.
June is named for Juno, the chief Roman goddess.
There are many more: All the planets are named for Roman gods. Neptune, covered by a blue methane haze, got its name, for example, because Neptune was the Roman god of the deep blue sea.
Many companies today have taken symbols from ancient religions and use them in their logos. For example, the winged feet featured in the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. logo comes from the shoes worn by Mercury, the swift messenger of the Roman gods.
Egypt tries the one-god concept
Historians think the first people to be monotheists were the Egyptians, although their belief didn’t last long. Egyptians developed several important gods, including one named Ptah. He was once the chief deity of a city, but eventually became the main god of the country. The other gods were seen as manifestations of Ptah. All people had to do was pray to Ptah, regardless of other gods.
Later, after the god Amon had replaced Ptah in the Egyptian belief system, an Egyptian leader (called pharaoh) named Amonhotep IV became tired of having his rule interfered with by priests. So, he changed his name to Ikhnaton around 1300 BC and declared that the god Aton was the only god.
Ikhnaton is the first person known in history to have declared that his god was the only god. In many ways, he had no choice.
If he suffered a defeat in a war, or if there was a natural disaster, people in his country would say that another god was stronger than Aton. If there were no other gods, Ikhnaton wouldn’t face that problem.
If something did go wrong, Aton could be called on to reverse the situation. If th...
