**This is #1, Part 2 of my “Testing the Hypothesis” series investigating Wilhelm Schmidt’s Original Monotheism. For an introduction and summary of Whitley’s article, see Part 1. For other installments in the series, click: #2

Framing the Discussion: Christian Expectations for the Most Ancient H-G Societies

In his article Dr. Whitely begins by directly comparing five overarching concepts of hunter-gatherer “religion” to tenants of a Western Judeo-Christian worldview. He explains that as Westerners, our culture’s concept of “religion” has been biased toward a Judeo-Christian framework for at least 1500 years and we therefore should address this bias if we hope to come to understand non-Western, tribal religions.

This is important because for hunter-gatherers, religion is not an isolated social institution. It is incorporated into every aspect of everyday life as a matter of course. A Western reader, for example, might be taken aback by funerary rites being performed essentially inside the living space of the family rather than transported to a separate burial ground. Could you imagine your grandmother buried in your kitchen?

On the contrary, however, on a Christian worldview, one might expect this blending of undifferentiated sacred and profane spaces if ancient humans were acquainted with the God of the Bible prior to the advent of Adam and Eve in Eden.

Surprised? What about the Pentateuch’s instructions on maintaining sacred space and ceremonial purity (Leviticus 11-18, Numbers 6, etc.)? What about the patriarchs buried in tombs? What about Biblical sacred spaces like the holy of holies and even the garden of Eden? Understanding sacred space is essential to understanding the Torah as well as all other Ancient Near-Eastern religions.

“Sacred space is a place where God is encountered in a special or direct way, by virtue of which the very place becomes holy and set apart from ordinary space. It is a point of reference to which people return, either physically or in memory. Some sacred places are the site of once-only encounters with God, while others are places of perpetual visitation.” Dictionary of Biblical Imagery

However, because we’re investigating the most ancient religion, which necessarily predates the compilation of the Bible and development of Hebrew culture, we must (1) develop a worldview model that is consistent with both Biblical and scientific data, and (2) explore the possibility (and implications of) that there were people outside of Eden’s garden.

When looking at Genesis 1 we see an initial state of God giving dominion over the whole Earth to His Earthly imagers. In other words, the whole Earth is fit for sacred space, with God resting in His cosmic domain of creation. Only in Genesis 2 do we see the introduction of a more specialized sacred space (the garden in Eden). Since the language of Genesis 1 describes a situation prior to the introduction of location-specific sacred space, it makes sense that ancient hunter-gatherers, who lived prior to the introduction of the garden, would operate in a non-location-specific paradigm where everywhere was considered potentially (though not necessarily) sacred space. [Check out this presentation by Michael Heiser on ancient Israelite concept of sacred space.]

We can also develop other predictions from our hypothesis that the most ancient cultures operated under a Genesis 1 Dominion Mandate modus operandi. We will keep these predictions specifically tailored to this article for the purposes of brevity. We should expect to find:

  • A general awareness of a spiritual realm, perhaps discovered accidentally through altered states of consciousness (ASC), applying the teachings of their own myths using reason, or actual encounters with spiritual beings/phenomena. This does not preclude animistic tendencies like an “ensouled world,” but it does not require it either. We would expect the expression of this spiritual awareness to vary from tribe to tribe (especially in ritual) yet exhibit many core similarities.
  • A lack of or an underemphasis of any “sacred” vs. “profane” spaces, since in Genesis 1 all of creation was considered “good” and fit for humanity. Also, because of the events of Genesis 2, we should expect to see the Supreme Being’s absence from mankind and Earth; therefore, the Supreme Being in their myths would likely not be expected to have any physical interaction with these tribes’ local spaces, thus obfuscating the need for a Biblical concept of “sacred space.”
  • A set of common thematic elements (due to their shared mythic origins) found among the myths of widely separated tribes’ coupled with a significantly varied matrix of rituals and ceremonies that may or may not interact with those myths. We’d expect that each H-G tribe would develop their own set of rituals based on ancestral innovations within their own broad mythic frameworks. Therefore, we’d expect that rituals would vary based on (1) geography, (2) circumstances surrounding the tribe’s founding and subsequent development through time, and (3) the activities of any local spiritual entities that interact with said tribe.
  • A loose compatibility between their religious beliefs and a “Mere Christianity”-type theology.
  • A strong prerogative to preserve mythic knowledge, likely by developing robust oral transmission processes. We should expect this if each tribe’s most ancient human ancestors were instructed by their Creator (a la Genesis 1) at the founding of their tribe(s); such an event would inspire each tribe’s founder to preserve their tribe’s teleological distinctions for their posterity.

My Response to Whitley’s Five H-G vs. Western Judeo-Christian Contrasts

If we are to test the hypothesis that the most ancient hunter-gatherers worshipped (or at least acknowledged) a Supreme Being that shares the characteristics of the Biblical Yahweh, we will start by addressing Whitley’s list of key differences. We will use our predictions from the Dominion Mandate to address these differences.

  1. Hunter-gatherer religions tend to be animistic
    • While this statement is generally true, if you find the most isolated (and therefore most ancient) cultures, you will find that they are rarely animistic, especially if their Supreme Being is an integral part of their religion.
      • H-G societies that have adopted higher forms of material culture, like adopting horticulture (and therefore not purely reliant on hunting or gathering), or that have been influenced by local materially-advanced societies, will have developed animism.
      • Ernest Brandewie, in his academic review of Wilhelm Schmidt’s work, said: “Schmidt’s factual investigations led him to conclude that the oldest groups of people often (always?) had a notion of a high god and often expressed very little animistic thinking.”
    • Animism is an academic Western label describing a set of beliefs that include the reality of a spiritual realm and that nature is imbued with conscious spiritual properties.
      • The term “animism” as a “religion” has roots as far back as E.B. Tylor, who was trying to imagine the roots of the oldest religion.
      • Tylor’s animism was simply, and generally, a “world full of personal spirits.” (Winfried Corduon, In the Beginning God, p. 54)
    • A Christian response: the belief that there are personal spirits throughout the world is a Biblical position. In its strictest sense, Christians could be said to be loosely “animistic” as well (ie, there is an active spiritual realm, including the possibility of elemental spirits). How we interact with those spiritual beings of heaven and nature is the most important distinction that Christianity makes (ie, who do you worship, the Creator, or the creation?).
  2. Sacred space is rarely demarcated from the secular
    • As we discussed earlier, sacred space, in the Biblical sense, is a way of describing a location that was holy due to the presence of Yahweh. These spaces include the ground on which Moses stood before the burning bush, the ground Joshua stood on during his conversation with the Angel of the Lord (probably the preincarnate Christ), and the ground within the tabernacle and the Holy of Holies.
    • A Christian response: Because the personal presence of Yahweh would likely not have been something for these ancient hunter-gatherers to grapple with since their Supreme Being was often far removed from the world, let alone their tribe. Therefore, there would be no need other then cultural or societal conventions for having “sacred space” strictly in the Biblical sense.
      • Therefore, if they were operating under a Genesis 1 Dominion Mandate, we should expect there to be very little impulse for the demarcation of sacred vs. secular spaces in these ancient cultures.
  3. There is a wide variety amongst hunter-gatherers regarding the connection between ritual and myths.
    • Myths are accounts of supernatural agents acting in an often pre-human world. Notice that this definition does not assume that these stories are untrue; rather, the societies that carefully passed on these myths orally for millennia would certainly say they are True.
    • As for how these myths inform the tribes’ rituals and ceremonies, we’d expect a wide variety simply based on the fact that these tribes don’t share climates, geography, food sources, etc. and so will create meaningful rituals for their own purposes.
      • Also, from a supernatural perspective, a Christian would not necessarily expect all the various evil spiritual entities in throughout the world to act in perfect accord with each other; rather, we’d expect H-G societies, struggling with these beings, to develop various ritualistic tools to either deal with the entities, whether by appeasement or subservience.
    • A Christian response: if God’s instructions to mankind were reflected accurately in Genesis 1, the most ancient H-G cultures would have been given a very loose framework within to choose how they lived and structured their societies based on the climates and situations in which they lived.
      • In fact, it seems that the most ancient H-G tribes’ Supreme Beings were much more interested in moral instruction for his people rather than procedures for worship. (Corduon, In the Beginning God, p. 76)
      • We’d expect a highly varied myth-ritual relationship if God’s first instructions to ancient humans dealt primarily with humanity’s ontological status and teleological function, which we see in Genesis 1.
  4. “[H]unter-gatherer religions are syncretic rather than exclusionary…”
    • Whitley presents this section of his article as a contrast between Judeo-Christian Western beliefs and broad H-G religious religious tendencies. However, as he points out, “…they are also open knowledge systems in the sense that that they can be augmented or influenced by outside beliefs and events.” (p. 1223)
    • Consider the story of Ko Thah-byu of the Karen people in southern Burma.
      • The monotheistic God of the Karen (Y’wa), the Lahu, and Kachin tribes had promised a book from “a white man” for generations; “the missionary breakthrough came through their respective folk religions, rather than in spite of them, has been completely lost upon some scholars.” (Don Richardson, Eternity in Their Hearts, p. 88)
    • A Christian response: If Original Monotheism is true, and my hypothesis is correct, then these most ancient H-G cultures with a Supreme Being that encounter “mere Christianity” would easily adopt Christian doctrine:
      • their Supreme Being once shared His personal name Yahweh with an Israelite named Moses,
      • their Supreme Being came in the form of a man named Jesus,
      • that man died and paid for all the wrong done in the world, and
      • that man will return again one day as King to the Earth.
    • To incorporate these facts into their existing monotheistic framework, where they are no longer bound to the local spirits but are free to go straight to their Supreme Being that they’ve been estranged from for so long, should not be shocking.
  5. Religious knowledge is carefully controlled within the group.
    • Considering the longevity of the myths passed from generation to generation (in The Edge of Memory, Patrick Nunn reports that some H-G myths contain accurate geological and astrological data older than 10,000 years!) in these ancient cultures, it should not shock us that they keep their beliefs “close to the chest.”
    • This careful control indicates how seriously these societies took their cultural knowledge. It wasn’t given out to just anyone; that would open these accounts up to uncontrollable change.
      • Whitley brings this up, again, as a contrast to Judeo-Christian beliefs, possibly with Christian proselytizing in mind.
      • However, considering that ancient monotheism was the rule amongst all of the oldest cultures in the world rather than the exception, there was no need amonst these ancient cultures to proselytize. The only movements we see are revivals toward the Supreme Being within Schmidt’s “younger” Culture Circles.
        • See, for instance, Chapter 7 (“God’s Country”) of Dr. Thong, Chan Kei’s Faith of Our Fathers book, where he details how China’s The Five Classics outline how benevolent emperors often restored Shang Di‘s Mandate of Heaven whenever authoritarian or evil rulers took power.
    • A Christian response: If an ancient H-G society is operating under a Genesis 1 mandate, before writing existed and with only oral tradition to preserve your cultural heritage, then you would expect these societies to hold their mandate and myths in high regard; you would also expect them to transmit this data in a tightly controlled way so as not to lose it or risk having it change over time.