in religious terms. A small portion of Zoroastrians refused
to convert to Islam, and their descendents continue to live
in present-day Iran; others fl ed to India (particularly Mum-
bai, formerly called Bombay). Th ese groups (about 250,000 in
number) are called Parsis.
religion and cosmology
Th e Hebrew Bible is the religious scripture of Judaism, which
has survived continuously from its origins in the Bronze Age
(before 1000 b.c.e.) into the modern world. It is also the foun-
dation document of Christianity and Islam, the two most
widespread religions in the modern world. As a literary text it
is an incomparable world classic with vast infl uence.
Judaism began within the matrix of Levantine religion
but made a radical new interpretation of tradition. Th e He-
brew Bible has a great deal of mythology related to other Near
Eastern myths, for example, Yahweh as a storm god living on
a mountaintop, his slaying of Leviathan and Behemoth, and
his creation of humankind from clay (the name Adam means
“clay”). Th ere is also nothing exceptional in terms of cult.
Yahweh had a temple on one of his home mountains—Zion
in Jerusalem—and received there the sacrifi ce of animals ac-
cording to a fi xed cultic calendar. But while Baal/Hadad had
been the chief god worshipped in the Levant (polytheism)
and Marduk had transcended his fellow deities to become a
national god in Babylon (henotheism), the Bible introduces
something quite new to Semitic religion—monotheism, the
belief that there is only one god. Th e cult of other deities was
characterized as idolatry, the worship of statues devoid of life
and a terrible aff ront to Yahweh.
In the ancient Near East a common explanation for
misfortune was that something had been done wrong in the
worship of the gods: In order to counteract the misfortune,
the gods must be worshipped again in the proper manner.
Many scholars believe that this is how Jewish monotheism,
the belief that Yahweh is the only god, developed, in reac-
tion to the national catastrophe of the Babylonian captivity
(587–537 b.c.e.), when the Israelite state was conquered by
the Babylonians and its ruling elite transported to Babylon.
Another factor may be the essentially monotheistic beliefs of
the Persian patrons of the restoration (when the Jews were
allowed to return to Israel). In any case, monotheism became
the principal feature of all later Judaism and eventually of
Christianity and Islam.
Part of what is new in Judaism is its moral dimension. A
very clear example of this is the fl ood myth. In Atrahasis the
gods want to destroy humankind because human beings are
too loud and disturb the divine sleep, but humanity is spared
because its service to the gods through cult is deemed useful.
But in Genesis god destroys the human race because it has
become wicked and promises not to do it again as a spontane-
ous act of mercy. Th ese are concerns of a later era and can be
paralleled with the development of ethical thought in Greek
philosophy that was going on at the same time the Bible was
being compiled during and aft er the Babylonian captivity.
Another new element in Judaism is eschatology. As we
saw, there is almost no concern in Semitic religion about the
survival of human beings in a life aft er death or of the end
of the world as the completion of any kind of cosmic cycle.
Th ese eschatological ideas are, however, characteristic of the
Zoroastrian religion of Persia. Later, Judaism and Christian-
ity were happy to read eschatological ideas into the Hebrew
Bible by allegorical interpretation (reading something mani-
fest in the text as a symbolic representation to something that
is not referred to). But eschatological themes do not become
dominant in Jewish writings until the book of Daniel, the
youngest biblical book (ca. 167 b.c.e.). Th ereaft er these topics
become dominant in postbiblical Jewish religious writings,
such as the Dead Sea Scrolls and the books of Enoch, and in
Christian texts.
In 70 c.e. Jerusalem and its temple were again destroyed,
this time by the Romans, and the Jews exiled from the land.
Th ereaft er the cult of Yahweh ceased in its traditional form.
Judaism became something new, Rabbinic Judaism, a reli-
gion of the book, whose main purpose was to read and in-
terpret scripture. Th e traditional priesthood ended also, to
be replaced by rabbis who led synagogues in reading and
prayer.ASIA AND THE PACIFIC
BY KIRK H. BEETZ
Animism was the root religious belief in most of Asia and the
Pacifi c during ancient times. In general animists believe that
the universe has a multitude of spirits. Human beings are only
a small and insignifi cant part of the cosmos. Some spirits are
gods of various things on the earth. It is possible for animists
to believe that everything has a spirit—every tree, blade of
grass, animal, mountain, lake, stream, and stone—but most
animistic religions do not go to this extreme.
Certain places on the earth serve as spots on paths com-
monly traveled by spirits. At such places a person may be able
to summon a spirit or at least talk to one. Doing so is danger-
ous, because a human being can be driven insane or killed
by a spirit passing through on business of its own. For such
spirits, to kill a human who gets in the way is comparable to
accidentally stepping on an ant.OCEANIA
In what is today Oceania various versions of animism de-
veloped in ancient times. In Australia and Indonesia sacred
places tended to center on large stones or rocky outcrops.
People sometimes asked spiritual beings to help with hunt-
ing or to provide benefi cial weather. Although individual
animals had their own spirits, many animal species were rep-
resented by greater spirits. Although these spirits were usu-
ally far away and invisible, they sometimes took the form of
their special animal on earth to communicate with earthly
beings. Animals as diverse as kangaroos, wolves, and whales
could have such spirits.844 religion and cosmology: Asia and the Pacific