Institutes of The Christian Religion

Quotations in italics are from the book.

Some remarks on Book One

CHAPTER ONE

I suspect Calvin is correct in saying that "we always seem to ourselves just...until we are convinced, by clear evidence, of our injustice, vileness, folly, and impurity," but I don't know that the evidence invariably comes from contemplat[ing] the face of God." Unless, like many liberal theologians, you define as "the face of God" anything that leads you to this kind of corrective, cleansing self-knowledge /:) I think he goes too far in saying that "any empty semblance of righteousness is quite enough to satisfy us instead of righteousness itself." It's simply not true of everybody. If that were so there would be no such thing as, for instance, the Catholic Worker movement.

"So long as we do not look beyond the earth, we are quite pleased with our own righteousness, wisdom, and virtue; we address ourselves in the most flattering terms, and seem only less than demigods. But should we once begin to raise our thoughts to God, and reflect what kind of Being he is, and how absolute the perfection of that righteousness, and wisdom, and virtue, to which, as a standard, we are bound to be conformed, what formerly delighted us by its false show of righteousness will become polluted with the greatest iniquity; what strangely imposed upon us under the name of wisdom will disgust by its extreme folly; and what presented the appearance of virtuous energy will be condemned as the most miserable impotence."

Well, I don't know. I suspect there may be some truth in this; the phenomenon repeats itself across cultures. But I see it more pragmatically as a reflection of the process of acculturation -- the child measures himself by the standard set by the people around him, and gradually becomes aware of where he comes up short. I don't see it necessarily as proof of God's existence; it certainly does nothing to prove Christianity true.

But I agree that apparent wisdom is often shown up for folly. This happens to religionists all the time; it is why people leave their churches.

CHAPTER TWO

"We cannot," says Calvin, "say that God is known where there is no religion or piety." Well, I suppose so; if you stipulate that by "known" he means "experienced -- encountered -- felt." The converse is also true, however: where god is experienced, encountered, felt, there are religion and piety.

We are (supposedly) not comfortable with the idea of God as "father, ... author of salvation, or propitious in any respect," until a Messiah makes amends for us -- and the presence of a saving, self-sacrificial Messiah-figure in so many religions gives me pause.

But I don't know that the sacrificial death means quite the same in other religions.

I do agree that monotheistic worship is pointless unless you see God as the sole source and sustainer of the world. But it can no longer be proved that such is the case. Epicurus knocked this argument into a cocked hat centuries before Calvin was born. But Calvin protests: "What avails it, in short, to know a God with whom we have nothing to do?" -- that is, a God who is impersonal First Cause only. I say: we can quit defending the indefensible. We can quit looking over our shoulders at an angry god who is not actually there. Calvin says that the genuine knowledge of God will train us to be good, obedient worshipers; I say that it ought to bring us closer to reality, whether or not there is really any such thing as a personal, responsive, jealous god. Calvin assumes the thing he says he is proving, when he says that "your idea of his nature is not clear unless you acknowledge him to be the origin and fountain of all goodness."

He assumes that the true nature of God is self-evident, and then says that "the depravity of the human mind" prevents most people from seeing it. How, then, is it self-evident?

And I don't see anything that leads inexorably to Christianity thus far. Well, I'll try to be patient.

But here's a bone to pick:

"Loving and revering God as his father, honouring and obeying him as his master, although there were no hell, he would revolt at the very idea of offending him."

Why is there hell, then? Why is death not punishment enough?

Calvin objects, more or less gratuitously at the end of this chapter, "On all hands there is abundance of ostentatious ceremonies, but sincerity of heart is rare." And so the Protestant reformation cut out all ceremonies but three, baptism, communion and marriage. I think they went too far. Ritual can lead to reverence, as modern Neo-Pagans are finding out. Of course it is stupid to participate in ritual that expresses concepts you cannot assent to (though it's much more mannerly to slip away than to stand defiantly stock-still). But to assume that ceremony, or even a little "ostentatiousness", is necessarily a bad thing is to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I know many Protestants have avoided this trap -- Episcopalians, for example -- but not all have done so. Consider the Disciples of Christ's absolute (and as far as I can see, pointless) ban on instrumental music in church.

CHAPTER THREE

Calvin returns to the idea that some rudimentary knowledge of God is inborn. I doubt this. But then it can be so difficult to distinguish between socialization and biology, as seen in the dispute over whether sex roles are "natural" or learned. To settle this question we would have to be able to go back and uncover the origins of religion itself -- to resurrect and interview the first person ever to conceive of an intangible, omnipotent creator, or at least an intangible spirit with power over some things humans could not control.

As an argument for his proposition, Calvin cites the case of the emperor Caligula, than whom no man "broke out into more unbridled and audacious contempt of the Deity,...and yet none showed greater dread when any indication of divine wrath was manifested." Caligula was not an atheist, though, as Calvin claims; rather he insisted that he himself was the supreme god. "The most audacious despiser of God is most easily disturbed, trembling at the sound of a falling leaf." Calvin assumes that this is due to a guilty conscience. I say it is more likely due to a keen sense of the dangers that exist in the natural world, to say nothing of "the secular arm" of countries where freedom of religion is not the order of the day.

Calvin accuses unbelievers of seeking out "hiding-places where they may conceal themselves from the presence of the Lord," and I admit I have done some of this; I never open a Bible now, for instance. But that is not out of fear; it is because, to quote Oscar Wilde, "a gentleman is never unintentionally rude," and to participate in anything Christian with the amount of anger I now have about it would be disrespectful to sincere believers.

Calvin assumes, also, that "unbelievers" are all "wicked," which leads him to confuse all pangs of conscience, from whatever cause, with guilt over abandoning one's faith in God. He also assumes that morality is impossible without theism, which I think is very handily refuted here. It is quite possible for a hard heart to co-exist with theistical belief, and quite possible for a person to awaken to a sense of their wrongdoing and a desire to make amends, without assuming that a personal god is at the back of it all. History abounds with atheists who have taught soundly and done good work in many fields, as well as with people who have done evil in the name of religion. And, of course, the converse is also true. I am not saying that theism is necessarily evil, or that atheism is necessarily good. I am saying that there is no correlation.

"All men of sound judgement will therefore hold, that a sense of Deity is indelibly engraven on the human heart." Well, I don't know. It depends on how you define "deity." If you mean an acceptance that there is such a thing as sacredness in the universe, whether or not you believe in a personal God who is interested in your life, then I suppose I agree. On my better days.

CHAPTER FOUR

Here Calvin assumes that everyone who disagrees with him has an evil heart, a common error among fundamentalists both religious and otherwise.

He does say "that when they [unbelievers] do think of God it is against their will", which is how some conversions begin. However, my own experience runs against his assumption that this unwilling acknowledgement consists of "only ... forced and servile fear" of divine punishment. This is precisely the opposite of what has happened to me in the past year or so. As I expressed it when I first noticed it, "I told God I didn't believe in him, and He cracked up." I began to be tickled by a perception of cosmic friendliness, interest and humor. I am still undecided about how delusionary it all is; or whether that matters much.

"To impiety, and to it alone, the saying of Statius properly applies: 'Fear first brought gods into the world.'" I doubt this very much indeed. It was fear that first inspired humans to cry out to gods like an infant to its mother.

Unless, of course, it was overpowering amazement that conjured up a Creator to give thanks to.

Calvin also assumes that every religious hypocrite -- that is, every churchgoer who does not live by the precepts of the church -- is necessarily an atheist. I think the question is much more complicated than that. "And yet hypocrites would fain, by means of tortuous windings, make a show of being near to God at the very time they are fleeing from him." So far so good! But it is themselves they are trying to convince. I do think that some of those who are surest that they are obeying God are actually running from Him (or It). Else there would be no bloodshed in his name, no one knuckling under to the dictates of their church to the pain of their conscience (believe me, folks, I've done enough of it).

CHAPTER FIVE

Calvin uses the same argument that Paul uses in Romans 1:20 to prove the existence of a creator from the natural world: "on each of his works his glory is engraven in characters so bright, so distinct, and so illustrious, that none, however dull and illiterate, can plead ignorance as their excuse." But again, there is nothing in the natural world to indicate that it is the god of the Bible who is responsible for the existence of anything. Tree branches do not bend themselves into the shape of the Tetragrammaton; shells on the beach do not arrange themselves into the letters "JESUS." Oh, perhaps I am trivializing the argument just a tiny bit -- but what is there, particularly, to connect the natural world with the God of the Bible, except the statements to that effect in the Bible itself? And other scriptures of the world's religions make similar claims about their deities.

Well, well, five hundred years ago it was the best argument available...in the West, at any rate. (Karen Armstrong's History of God says that the Muslim East went through this whole rationalism-versus-faith argument a thousand years before Europe did.)

Calvin makes the assumption, utterly reasonable for his time, that where there is order there must be someone to do the ordering. But I think Richard Dawkins' book, The Blind Watchmaker, deals satisfactorily with this. I don't have sufficient scientific training to explain the thesis in elaborate detail (is there anything more infuriating than an atheistic poet?), but the Abiogenesis FAQ is a decent start.

What many modern humanists and "skeptical believers" call "a sense of the Sacred" is nailed pretty shrewdly by Calvin: he says, basically, that a thorough knowledge of the exquisite complexity and order in nature, and all (or most all) in the service of functionality, furnish "such proofs of ingenious contrivance as are sufficient to proclaim the admirable wisdom of its Maker." I acknowledge that such awe is real and legitimate. I acknowledge that the assumption of a Creator is plausible, or has been so throughout most of human history. But the state of human knowledge, especially in the field of the natural sciences that Calvin relies on, is such as to knock holes in all the theistical arguments available.

Now Calvin verges on poetry; I begin to see why he gained a following. "If, in order to apprehend God, it is unnecessary to go farther than ourselves, what excuse can there be for the sloth of any man who will not take the trouble of descending into himself that he may find Him?" A Buddhist might well ask the same question; but a Buddhist would also admit that it is hard work that requires patience and persistence. Calvin makes some mean-spirited errors in this book, but in this section he reveals a sweet, innocent streak that should have allowed Servetus to live to a ripe old age!

"No one, indeed, will voluntarily and willingly devote himself to the service of God unless he has previously tasted his paternal love, and been thereby allured to love and reverence Him." Damn right. No church which shuts you off from that experience is a true church.

Ah, but he falls back into the nasty assumption that people who do not see religion his way are doing it on purpose.

Calvin seems to think that the bare existence of the human intellect and personality is sufficient to prove the existence of an intelligent, personal God; he finds the pagan idea of a "cosmic consciousness" or "oversoul" (as it has been called in the West) "not only silly, but altogether profane." Yes, he does say why he thinks so, but -- I can't see that he does anything to unseat the contrary argument.

Calvin also assumes that since God is the source of all that exists, he must be eternal, or else everything else would cease to exist. Why?

Now Calvin turns to "providence" - especially the "fact" that "the righteous are the special objects of his favour, [and] the wicked and profane the special objects of his severity." Then why do the innocent ever die? Or why do the unjust ever get off scot-free? I think what Calvin is probably thinking of is a body of secular law that reinforced religious doctrine, as the laws of European nations did until only about a generation ago. But Calvin has an answer -- "God simply hasn't caught up with the unjust yet." Or else he is trying to coax them back into righteousness by letting them off easy. Is this mercy, or bribery? He's opened up the same can of worms that the Book of Job tries to corral.

All right, so we often get "sudden and unexpected succour ... when almost on the brink of despair," - this while equally deserving people around us get nothing at all. What then?

I am not even saying that belief in a personal God is necessarily evil. To quote Doug Muder, "There is nothing wrong with taking out the inner divinity and bowing to it. You can always put it back later." What I do consider evil is dogmatism, a doctrinaire, rigid approach to religion that "draws a circle to shut me out." I am inclined to accept Calvin's assumption of the surety of justice as -- well, a wholesome delusion, a necessary hallucination.

For all Calvin's logic, his religion has a core of emotional, subjective experience: "The Lord is manifested by his perfections. When we feel their power within us, and are conscious of their benefits, the knowledge must impress us much more vividly than if we merely imagined a God whose presence we never felt." Calvin here recommends "contemplating God in his works" rather than "with presumptuous curiosity to pry into his essence" by mere logic-chopping -- at least, that is what I think he is objecting to. Actually I think he is very much in favor of any logic-chopping that arrives at his particular brand of Protestantism. He argues very strenuously (and with some beauty, too) for a direct experience of God, which I think he means to contrast with the supposedly useless and sterile ritual of the Catholic church.

But I think men's better works are a subset of God's, if there is any truth in the statement that God created humankind. So why should not God be experienced in ritual sometimes?

I suspect that, contrary to what Calvin asserts, the experience of God might not lead to belief in an afterlife. Calvin's first argument is "You ain't seen nothin' yet." His next is that there must be an afterlife in which to undo the injustices we see about us every day. Well, so the Hindus believe, also.

"Bright, however, as is the manifestation which God gives both of himself and his immortal kingdom in the mirror of his works, so great is our stupidity, so dull are we in regard to these bright manifestations, that we derive no benefit from them." I am tempted to respond with a quotation from Oscar Wilde: "God in creating man somewhat overestimated his ability." You would think, if there were so much at stake, that God would make it easier to communicate with him.

Calvin goes on to say that nearly everybody's idea of God is wrong. I think the Hindu sage who invented the parable of the blind men and the elephant was much kinder -- he also granted that each of the blind men had some partial truth.

And then he says that the way this world is run makes the results of providence virtually indistinguishable from the results of blind chance! "Hence that immense flood of error with which the whole world is overflowed." I think, in his place, that I would have lain down my pen at that point.

But Calvin soldiers on, arguing the utter necessity for divine revelation as proved by the multiplicity of gods and religions, all, of course, utterly corrupt and wrong. He buttresses his arguments with a string of proof-texts -- in other words, he backs his own assertions with those of ancient Hebrew and Christian preachers.

Calvin quotes Socrates as saying that "Apollo enjoin[s] every man to worship the gods according to the rites of his country, and the particular practice of his own city." He says this doesn't go far enough; it's a "a too feeble and fragile bond of piety" to build a religion on. I say it goes too far. I cite the example China Galland gives in her book, Longing for the Dark: Tara and the Black Madonna, where she says that for ancient Buddhists and Christians to see Tara* and Mary as bold warriors for justice and indefatigable seekers of enlightenment "would not serve the social order" which depended on women being subservient. And this sort of thing is why I believe in subversion as a moral principle.

Actually, I agree with Calvin's argument that there are no guarantees when it comes to humans formulating religious doctrine, however careful and honest they may be. I only disagree with his conclusion that the consequences of even the slightest error are lethal.

So God is supposedly seen in creation, but we are too blind to see it until God reveals himself to us internally. This is not bad, actually; it is echoed in all religions of the world -- so much for all religions but one being completely wrong! And yet, supposedly, this revelation does not make God comprehensible to us but only proves how stupid we are. "But though we are deficient in natural powers which might enable us to rise to a pure and clear knowledge of God, still, as the dullness which prevents us is within, there is no room for excuse." How thoroughly nasty! At least Buddhist and Hindu teaching view this congenital ignorance not as a crime to be punished, but as a lack to be remedied by thought and experience.

CHAPTER SIX

I'm not done yet. "Since God, in order to bring the whole human race under the same condemnation, holds forth to all, without exception, a mirror of his Deity in his works..." Yes, utterly nasty! Foul, indeed! I doubt very much that there is anything like it outside of the Judaeo-Christian-Islamic tradition. The Jews were compassionate enough to acknowledge that it was possible for "any of the sons of Noah" to be righteous, yes, saved, even if they did not have the good fortune to become Jews.

Scripture is supposed to sharpen our dim perception of God as revealed in the natural world, and this is why the Jews were chosen as a "peculiar people," so they could get to work writing scripture (and providing material for same). But modern historical scholarship has shown (over the past couple of hundred years) that the picture of the old Jewish religion is by no means so simple. Deuteronomic railings to the contrary, there are many survivals in Judaism of pre-Canaanite rituals, including the Passover itself. I see nothing evil about this.

The trouble with reinforcing religious exclusiveness with scripture is that you have to resolve the question: which scripture?

"There can be no doubt that it was by this help, Adam, Noah, Abraham, and the other patriarchs, attained to that familiar knowledge which, in a manner, distinguished them from unbelievers." Funny, I remember nothing in the Bible that says they consulted scripture; and this chapter is about scripture as the prime revealer of God. Am I being unfair again? No, Calvin expressly says that they got their knowledge of him "from the Word." The problem is that every religion that has any scripture at all claims that theirs is "a depository of doctrine as would secure it from either perishing by the neglect, vanishing away amid the errors, or being corrupted by the presumptuous audacity of men."

"God, foreseeing the inefficiency of his image imprinted on the fair form of the universe" - oh, my, that is damning. I do hope Calvin means "insufficiency," don't you? But when Christians say things like "the character of God, drawn from his works is described accurately and to the life" in the Bible, they are probably forgetting things like the temptations Jesus succumbed to (a very irritating problem for trinitarians), failures of God's omniscience, his murderous bad temper, his deviousness.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Unfortunately, the arguments on the authority of scripture, intended to 'divest our minds of all doubt', rely on circular reasoning. "[Since] the Scriptures are the only records in which God has been pleased to consign his truth to perpetual remembrance, the full authority which they ought to possess with the faithful is not recognised, unless they are believed to have come from heaven, as directly as if God had been heard giving utterance to them." Calvin uses as a base assumption the very thing he is trying to prove.

"With great insult to the Holy Spirit, it is asked, who can assure us that the Scriptures proceeded from God; who guarantee that they have come down safe and unimpaired to our times; who persuade us that this book is to be received with reverence, and that one expunged from the list...?" Excellent questions, these, to which I doubt Calvin has an answer that any inquiring mind is bound to respect. It is shrewd of him, though, to note that the establishment of a canon of scripture can be used in the service of tyranny -- and I submit that this is exactly what Sola Scriptura leads to, in too many cases. Calvin is really trying to strike a blow for liberty here, when he says that "assurance of eternal life" does not depend on any institution. But I don't think that 1) eternal life is a relevant issue, or 2) that Sola Scriptura goes far enough toward liberty. And by liberty I don't mean irresponsibility, but sufficient freedom to assume control of and responsibility for your own life and spirituality.

Calvin assumes that the Bible books we now have are in precisely the same form in which the first generation of readers saw them. This is not the case. He thinks that distinguishing scripture from Apocrypha is as simple as telling sweet from bitter; but I can show you at least one example of a book which was accepted by the church as scripture until 400 C.E.

Supposedly, one of the chief functions of the church is to make it easier for potential converts to accept scripture; and one of the chief functions of scripture is to reinforce the understanding of God's existence as displayed in nature. We seem to have something like the "Great Chain of Being" going here -- every new link is weaker than the preceding one.

"Profane men think that religion rests only on opinion, and, therefore, that they may not believe foolishly, or on slight grounds, desire and insist to have it proved by reason that Moses and the prophets were divinely inspired. But I answer, that the testimony of the Spirit is superior to reason." In other words, "We will not know God until we read the scriptures; we will not understand the scriptures until we know God." Circular reasoning, and yet --

And yet I think there is a certain limited amount of truth in this idea. I think there is truth on both sides. To be of any use at all -- to be "true," belief must rest on either reason or personal experience - preferably both. "The Spirit is called an earnest and seal to confirm the faith of the godly," but I don't think this means "Never mind those nasty unbelievers, dear." It's only since I gave up on the Bible, Christianity and theism itself that I have begun to understand what Calvin means by this kind of talk. I call it "God laughing."

But it doesn't follow that those who are awakening to The Spirit, whatever It is, will necessarily adhere to the Bible. I offer my own life as anecdotal evidence.

Now, I was told to read this book because "Calvinist Christianity is based on logic and reason, not emotional experience which leaves you vulnerable to false doctrine" (to summarize the arguments of the man who recommended it to me), but here at the end of Chapter 7 Calvin is getting downright mystical and even borderline soppy. It's cute. Still, though, the reverence that the Holy Spirit is supposed to inspire toward the Bible is felt by the believers of every religion toward their faith tradition's holy book. I am trying to make up my mind as to whether this is a good thing or not. "This singular privilege [of being taught from Scripture] God bestows on his elect only, whom he separates from the rest of mankind." And everybody else can go to Hell, I assume. How disgusting! I much prefer the Hindu take on things, that people who do not "appreciate spiritual things" are "young souls" who have not outworn the novelty of the material world, and who will get the point eventually, centuries or millenia from now, and who need very little but time.

I do agree that "none comprehend the mysteries of God save those to whom it is given," but morality revolts at the idea that eternal punishment awaits those who don't get it.

What, though, if reason leads to one conclusion and experience to another? Well, it's one of the best jokes God ever told. Relax and enjoy it.

CHAPTER EIGHT

"When recognising [The Bible's] exemption from the common rule [of evidence], we receive it reverently..." I'll just bet we do. It's that very "exemption" that knocks "Biblical inerrancy" into a cocked hat.

I'm tempted to skip over this entire chapter on the "credibility of Scripture" and just point you to the Secular Web.

Is the Bible really all that majestic?

It certainly is not "free from every thing that savours of earth," nor is it especially harmonious, nor (by the standards actually adhered to by many churches) dignified.

Here is an interesting aesthetic "proof": "when an unpolished simplicity, almost bordering on rudeness, makes a deeper impression than the loftiest flights of oratory, what does it indicate if not that the Holy Scriptures are too mighty in the power of truth to need the rhetorician's art?" Why, to me it indicates that -- in those passages where such actually is the case -- that parts of the Bible were put together by competent wordsmiths, that's all.

Is the Bible more moving than, say, Plato? I think that if so it's because 1) we are raised to think so, and 2) Eloquence and "the rhetorician's art", such as the ancient Greeks relished, actually work against acceptance of ideas, for most people in this century. Well, maybe. Mark Belletini is awfully good at it, but nonetheless he's a plain speaker. Lincoln was, too. Jefferson I find a little too ornate. Mark Twain is quite powerful sometimes. John Holt, even. When it comes to philosophical explanations, less is more, I suspect. Of course Calvin turns around and says that where the Bible is refined and elegant -- in Isaiah, for instance -- that it's just to prove that God could do it when he wants to.

Oh, this is rich: "The Holy Scriptures ... are replete with sentiments which it is clear that man never could have conceived," and where these sentiments appear in pagan writers, why, it's just Satan ripping them off again. Silly apologist!

As to the antiquity of the Bible, modern scholarship has made hash of all Calvin's arguments. The Pentateuch is not nearly as ancient as its supposed author, Moses, as can be seen for instance from the fact that his own death is recorded in it. And why is it that miracles in the bible are proof of its authenticity, but miracles in other religions' writings prove only that "unbelievers" are gullible? (Sigh) Calvin's whole argument for the credibility of the Bible depends on...the credulousness of the reader. Pages and pages of circular reasoning. I am disappointed.

But I keep slogging on! Help me!

"When David is anointed by Samuel, what apparent ground is there for the transference? Who could have looked for a king out of the plebeian family of a herdsman?" We must be patient with Calvin; T.H. White's The Sword in the Stone hadn't been written yet. Nor was Cinderella much known in the west, was it? Perrault's seminal book of fairy tales came about a hundred years later. But the world's folk literature is full of such sudden elevations as David's. By divine or magical intervetion, too.

I'm not even going to get into the fulfillment of prophecy .

"I am aware of what is muttered in corners by certain miscreants... They ask, how do we know that Moses and the prophets wrote the books which now bear their names? Nay, they even dare to question whether there ever was a Moses. Were any one to question whether there ever was a Plato, or an Aristotle, or a Cicero, would not the rod or the whip be deemed the fit chastisement of such folly?" That is an excellent question. I suspect that it depends on the quality of outside testimony to the existence of these writers - references to Cicero and his writings by writers of his own period, in surviving legal documents, and the like. Extra-biblical references to biblical writers are extremely sparse, and that is precisely what leads modern scholars to presume that the people whose names are attached to the books never existed -- or, at least, did not write them.

Calvin piles up a mound of supposed obstacles to the preservation of the Bible; one of them being that Hebrew is an obscure language not widely spoken. So is Pali, the dialect of Sanskrit in which Hindu scripture is preserved.

"Those who have the least particle of candour must be ashamed of their fastidiousness when they read the first chapter of Luke." Isn't that the one where the writer gets Jesus' genealogy wrong?

Here are a few links to what modern scholarship has uncovered with regard to the origins of the Bible text we now have. Good hunting!

• The Evolution and Devolution of the Bible An article on "mythological fossils" in the Bible which, frankly, needs a bibliography. Interesting nonetheless. A snailmail address for the author is provided.
• Did They or Didn't They? An article about the women who first saw the resurrected Jesus; also discusses some problems with the text of Mark.
• John David Pleins' bookmarks were prepared for an online course in comparative religion. Lots of tasty-looking historical and cultural links.
• If It Walks Like A Duck... An article describing traces of polytheism and mythology in Genesis, showing that the stories in it are older than "Moses".
• Zoroastrianism: The Forgotten Source Many of the bedrock ideas of Judaism and Christianity are actually traceable to this ancient Persian religion. (back)

By the way, I found a lovely .jpg of Tara, the female Buddha, for you. J. C. Lew deserves a round of applause for putting it up! (back)