God Against the Gods (35 page)

Notes

I have taken the liberty of omitting words and phrases from some quoted material without using brackets and ellipses to indicate the omissions. Whenever I have done so, I use the word “adapted” in the note that identifies the source of the quotation. In all instances, the omissions do not affect the meaning of the quoted material. A key to abbreviations used in Biblical citations is provided on page 315.

PROLOGUE: The Everlasting Fire

1
Karen Armstrong,
A History of God
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993), xix.

2
David Zucchino, “The Last Days of Bamian’s Buddhas,”
Los Angeles Times
, February 24, 2002, A10-A11.

3
Gore Vidal,
Julian
(1962; reprint, New York: Ballantine, 1986) “A Note” (not paginated).

4
Hans Lietzmann,
From Constantine to Julian: A History of the Early Church,
trans. Bertram Lee Woolf, (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1950), 3:156-57, paraphrasing Constantine.

5
F. J. Foakes-Jackson,
The History of the Christian Church from the Earliest Times to A.D
. 461 (1891; reprint, Chicago: W. P. Blessing, 1927), 328.

6
Quoted in Pierre Chuvin,
A Chronicle of the Last Pagans,
trans. B. A. Archer (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990), 58.

7
J. L. Myers, quoted in Robin Lane Fox,
Pagans and Christians
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1987), 204.

8
Franz Cumont,
Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism
(1911; reprint, New York: Dover, 1956), 35.

9
Ramsay MacMullen,
Christianity and Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 2.

10
John Holland Smith,
The Death of Classical Paganism
(New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1976), 6.

11
1 Cor. 8:5-6 (adapted).

12
Jer. 10:10.

13
John 17:3.

14
Jer. 2:11.

15
1 Cor. 10:21.

16
Quoted in Daniel B. Clendenin,
Many Gods, Many Lords: Christianity Encounters World Religions
(Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books, 1995), 71 (adapted).

17
Walter Burkert,
Homo Necans: The Anthropology of Ancient Greek Sacrificial Ritual and Myth
, trans. Peter Bing (1972; reprint, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), 48, 49.

18
Fox, 672.

19
Ibid., 261.

20
Martin of Braga,
On the Castigation of the Rustics
, quoted in J. N. Hillgarth, ed.,
Christianity and Paganism, 350-750: The Conversation of Western Europe,
(rev. ed. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1986), 58.

21
Quoted in ibid., 12.

22
See, e.g., Lev. 18:26.

23
Rev. 17:5. Babylon is named here, but it is commonly understood as a reference to Rome.

24
Num. 25:11. The Hebrew word
ki-nah
, translated here as “zeal,” is sometimes rendered as “passion” (New JPS) or “jealousy” (NEB).

25
Random House Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary.

26
Quoted in Cumont, 41.

27
Num. 25:11.

28
Random House Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary.

29
Edward Gibbon,
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
(1776; reprint, New York: Heritage, 1946) 1: 421.

30
Quoted in ibid., 1:427.

31
Diana Bowder,
The Age of Constantine and Julian
(New York: Barnes & Noble, 1978), xii, xiii.

32
Kenneth Scott Latourette,
A History of Christianity
(New York: Harper & Row, 1975), 1:23.

33
Quoted in Cumont, 160.

34
James Carroll,
Constantine’s Sword: The Church and the Jews
(New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2001), 171.

35
Julian,
To the Uneducated Cynics
, in Wilmer Cave Wright, trans.,
The Works of the Emperor Julian
(1913; reprint, Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1980), 2:5 and fn. 1.

CHAPTER ONE: Against All the Gods of Egypt

1
According to the Bible, Abram is given a new name—“Abraham,” which is said to mean “Father of Many Nations”—when God and his very first worshipper enter into a covenant with each other.

2
Gen. 12:7.

3
Ex. 5:2.

4
Ex. 12:12.

5
Various dates are proposed for the life and reign of Akhenaton. I have adopted the dates given by Egyptologist John Bright: c. 1364-1347 B.C.E. John Bright,
A History of Israel
; 2d ed. (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1972), 108.

6
Franz Cumont,
Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism
(1911; reprint, New York: Dover 1956), 78.

7
Bright, 108.

8
Jan Assmann,
Moses the Egyptian: The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997), 25.

9
Ex. 3:2.

10
Acts 9:3.

11
Donald B. Redford, “Akhenaton,” in
The Anchor Bible Dictionary
, ed. David Noel Freedman (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1992), 1:135.

12
Bright, 108.

13
Quoted in Sigmund Freud,
Moses and Monotheism
, trans. Katherine Jones (1939; reprint, New York: Vintage, 1967), 24, citing James Henry Breasted.

14
Deut. 6:4.

15
Ps. 104:12 (New JPS).

16
Assmann, 24.

17
Freud, 16, 31-32 (adapted). Freud’s reference to Moses as a Jew is an anachronism—“Jew” is a term derived from the tribe of Judah, but Moses is described in the Bible as a member of the tribe of Levi, one of the twelve tribes of ancient Israel.

18
Gen. 1:26.

19
E. A. Speiser, trans., intro., and notes,
Genesis: The Anchor Bible
(Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1987), 1:45.

20
The Hebrew text of Gen. 6:3 and 6:4 refers to
“B’nai ha Elohim,”
that is, the “sons of Elohim.” a phrase that is rendered as “the sons of the gods” in the NEB and “the divine beings” in the New JPS.

21
Gen. 6:2, 4 (New JPS).

22
Gen: 31:19.

23
1 Sam. 19:13.

24
Ex. 20:4.

25
Num. 21:9.

26
Ex. 15:11.

27
Ex. 20:3.

28
Quoted in J. E. Emerton, “Yahweh and His Asherah,”
Vetus Testamentum,
vol. XLIX, No. 3, July 1999, 315-337, p. 320. (Leiden: E. J. Brill).

29
Deut. 12: 2-3.

30
2 Kings 21:2.

31
1 Kings 10:24.

32
1 Kings 11:4 (NEB).

33
Ex. 19:5 (New JPS).

34
Ex. 32:10.

35
Ex. 32:12.

36
Ex. 32:27.

37
Jer. 2:11.

38
Ezra 9:2.

39
Prov. 11:31.

40
Isa. 58:7 (adapted from New JPS).

41
Deut. 32:17 (adapted).

42
Deut. 32: 22, 25 (adapted from JPS and New JPS).

43
Ex. 20:5.

44
Ezek. 16:7-34 (adapted from New JPS).

45
Ezek. 16:37-41 (adapted from New JPS).

46
Nah. 1:2.

CHAPTER TWO: What Did Pagans Do?

1
Ezek. 16:17, 19-21 (adapted from New JPS).

2
Josh. 23:13.

3
Elaine Adler Goodfriend, “Prostitution (OT),” in
The Anchor Bible Dictionary
, ed. David Noel Freedman (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1992), 5: 505
et seq
., and Karel Van Der Toorn, “Prostitution (Cultic),” in ibid., 5:511
et seq
.

4
Quoted in Eugene J. Fisher, “Cultic Prostitution in the Ancient Near East? A Reassessment,”
Biblical Theology Bulletin
6, nos. 2-3 (June-October 1976): 226.

5
Quoted in Prudence Jones and Nigel Pennick,
A History of Pagan Europe
(London: Routledge, 1995), 63.

6
Quoted in John Holland Smith,
Constantine the Great
(New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1971), 287-288.

7
Quoted in John Holland Smith,
The Death of Classical Paganism
(New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1976), 65.

8
Dan. 11:31; Matt. 24:15.

9
Isa. 44:17 (New JPS).

10
Franz Cumont,
Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism
(1911; reprint, New York: Dover 1956), 96.

11
Quoted in Hans-Josef Klauck,
Magic and Paganism in Early Christianity: The World of the Acts of the Apostles
, trans. Brian McNeil (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000), 84.

12
Quoted in Johannes Weiss,
The History of Primitive Christianity
(New York: Wilson-Erickson, 1937), 1:238, fn. 22.

13
Deut 18:10; Exod. 22:18.

14
Rev. 21:8.

15
Robin Lane Fox,
Pagans and Christians
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1987), 228.

16
Robert Browning,
The Emperor Julian
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), 58.

17
Quoted in Fox, 135.

18
Ibid., 136.

19
J.L. Myers, quoted in ibid., 204.

20
Smith,
Death of Classical Paganism
31.

21
Fox, 151.

22
Ibid., 163 (adapted).

23
All of the questions are quoted in Klauck, 67, except “Will my son be born with a big nose?,” which is paraphrased from Cumont, 165.

24
Ps. 106:38. Strictly speaking, the Psalmist is complaining about the conduct of the Israelites, whom he accuses of aping their Canaanite neighbors by offering human sacrifice.

25
Walter Burkert,
Homo Necans: The Anthropology of Ancient Greek Sacrificial Ritual and Myth
, trans. Peter Bing (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983) (Orig. Pub. 1972), 2, 3.

26
Quoted in in Nigel Davies,
Human Sacrifice: In History and Today
(New York: William Morrow, 1981), 24-25.

27
Gen. 22:13.

28
Davies, 43.

29
Ibid., 47.

30
Ibid., 47.

31
Ross Shepard Kraemer,
Her Share of the Blessings: Women’s Religions Among Pagans, Jews and Christians in the Greco-Roman World
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 51.

32
Merlin Stone,
When God Was a Woman
(New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976), 3.

33
Franz Cumont,
Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism
, 186.

34
Pierre Chuvin,
A Chronicle of the Last Pagans
, trans. B. A. Archer (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990), 33.

35
Fox, 343.

36
Julian,
Heroic Deeds
, quoted in (and slightly adapted from) Giuseppe Ricciotti,
Julian the Apostate, Roman Emperor, 361-363
, trans. M. Joseph Costelloe (1960; reprint, Rockford, Ill.: Tan Books, 1999), 117.

37
Num 12:6 (adapted).

38
Num. 5:17, 27.

39
Exod. 29:20.

40
Julian,
Against the Galileans
, quoted in (and slightly adapted from) Ricciotti, 223.

41
Ramsay MacMullen,
Christianity and Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 2.

42
Ibid., 32.

43
Quoted in Smith,
Death of Classical Paganism
, 81 (adapted).

44
Samuel Dill,
Roman Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire
, 2d rev. ed. (New York: Meridian, 1958), 132-133.

45
Edward Gibbon,
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
, (1776; reprint, New York: Heritage, 1946), 1: 432.

46
Fox, 30.

47
Acts 17:23-24.

48
Klauck, 82-83.

49
Quoted in August Neander,
The Emperor Julian and His Generation
, trans. C.V. Cox (1812; reprint, Eugene, Ore.: Wipf and Stock, 2001) 58 (adapted).

50
Ezek 16:15; Rev. 17:5.