Abraham of Ur, Egypt and Exodus

I so enjoyed today listening to Dr. Maguire giving a lecture to the students at the Catholic Institute. I have this from ITunes U, finding it in the Off Campus Series of Lectures from Christendom College.
I love history and literature nearly as much as I do chemistry so was delighted by the brilliance of Dr. Maquire's lecture.  With the invasion of Islam under the guise of migration, or as 5th Column or as capitulation by western leadership or to replace the aborted babies in purgatory, or in exchange of cold cash to the likes of the Saudi Wahhabi creation or Dubai monetary influence or Packistani power grab, it does not really matter, the fact is suddenly Muslims are in everyone's face today.
I once thought that of the Jews.
Another time I thought that of the Hindi's.
Another time I thought that of the Indigenous native folks with their burning sage and  Creator talk.
Why can't people leave me alone with my comfortable Christianity.
So these people invariably have me questioning my religion, though probably not my faith. I often think that the godless or apostates or simply stupid person I'm talking wth does this unknowingly. They have shared some propaganda they've learned and won't question it but I'll now be required to go and clarify or refute or question what I'd believed till I heard what usually turns out as downright nonsense.
Being a scholar I delve into history to learn what I can about some question this 'outsider to me' has raised.  I loved my studies of Yoga and India and Hinduism and Buddhism as they helped me eventually deepen my awareness of meditation and eventually understand better the teaching of Benedictine and Thomas Merton.  I love the Bodram and communal chanting of my aboriginal brethren with thier small group sweat lodge studies.  The Baptists had been happy to purify me in dunking baths but the native elders introduced me to the sweat long before I was doing Hamas with my Muslim scholar friends.  My Israeli mentor by contrast had me dousing myself with hyssop. One can never be too pure or for that matter too learned.
So when my Muslim friend said that the great religions were all the same all coming from the wisdom of Abraham, I was somewhat taken aback.  Surely Judaism has come from Abraham. Islam takes it's roots from there. But Christ was different I wanted to say.  Except Jesus was a Jew and he took his history from Judaism. Jesus wasn't at first a rebel but rather wanted to fulfill the Covenant with God given too the Jewish people with the New Accord of Christianity.
Dr. Maguire's lecture, serendipitously,  was on Abraham.  I've grown fat with pain and sloth and Hagen dad Ice Cream so have been forcing myself against all the temptations of demonic possession to run with my less than enthusiastic cockapoo dog Gilbert in the morning. I find that if I shut off the screams and derision of my mind with the incredible sound system of the Apple IPhone 7 I can drag myself along the trail with less focus on the tortuous pain of my screaming muscles and joints.
Yesterday country singer Reba MacIntyre with her complaints about men and love of God did the distract trick but today I tried I Tunes U.    Dr. MaQuire as a lecturer was extremely engaging and entertaining, even if he wasn't a beautiful country and western singer
Abraham, also know by the nick name, Abram, was the patriarch in the second millennium, the so called 'patriarchial age'.  Job was considered to be of this time too.  Dr. Maguire showed how the chronology of the Bible and chronology of Egyptian records were difficult but not impossible to compare.  Abraham was the third dynastic period of Ur. Ur was an important Sumerian city of Mesopotamia. The ruins of Ur are not far from Baghdad Iraq today at a site known as Tall al Mugayyar, Iraq. Mesopotamia is within the Tigris-Euphrates River system corresponding today with Iraq, Kuwait, eastern Syria, south eastern Turkey.  The Sumerians and Akkadians (Assyrians and Babylonians) dominated the region from the beginning of written history 3100 BC to the fall of Babylon 539 BC.

Abraham was Semitic. Semitic means off spring of Shem or of Noah.  2000 years BCE Ur was an advanced civilization in what has in recent years been called the Fertile Crescent, this area where the greatest accomplishments of technology, agriculture, war, science, culture and religion originated. The argument is that human kind originated here and spread to the rest of the world.  Naturally the Chinese would argue this point but they have always felt they were the centre of the universe.
Abraham was also of the Akkadian Empire
Our ancestors have been around 6 million years but civilization only began about 6000 years ago with humans as we know them evolving only about 200,000 years ago.  Dr. MaQuire mentioned that as Europeans we have Neanderthal genes so they were about back in the day.  Even today parents are trying to keep their teenagers from having sexual congress with the Neanderthals of the neighbourhood so not much changes.  
From Wikipedia I just learned that the Third Dynasty of Ur was also known as the new-Sumerian empire and referred to the 2112 to 2004 BC.  This area is the area of modern day Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Iran.  It's significant to me that ISIS is destroying all the non Muslim culture and artefacts wherever they go.  True ignorant barbarians that make the actors in the  "Dumb and Dumber"  movie look brilliant.  The hillbillies of the Deliverance movie are more cultured civilized and intelligent than the ISIS in breeds.  One suspects ISIS followers have more Neanderthal genes than the rest of us.
Sadly much the income of this area depended on tourism from people like me who really would have been interested in seeing what architecture of the day was like rather than seing yet another mosque with mosque's as prevalent as MacDonald's franchises.  Young men and women never appreciate till it's too late the wonders of the ancients, including old men and old women. I was like the these thugs when I was a teen but thankfully I've learned a wonderful appreciation  for archeology. I am saddened at the losses to the people of the region economically and to historians.
Dr. Maguire said that droughts and famines caused migrations and that a common destiny was tthe 'fertile' delta of Egypt.  Abraham had moved his people from Ur to Canaan (Canaan is roughly the area of Israel, Palestine, Lebanon and western Jordan and western Syria)  and then from there to Egypt. The Bible tells us his wife was Sarah, his concubine Hagar and his second wife was Katsura.   Dr. Maguire referred to the Genesis tale as well as to archeological materials and the Jewish historians of later periods such as Josephus.  There appears to have been migration not just fof Abraham but other Semitic peoples and in the day they may have come as labourers and mercenaries.
Another great racy story in the Bible that female Sunday school teachers don't dwell on is  about Sarah being like the Marilyn Monroe Sophia Loren Angelina Jolie of her day and Abraham being less than Brad Pitt or Colin Firth or Gregory Peck and offering Sarah to the Pharoh claiming that she's his sister not his wife. The Pharaoh takes her into his Harem then rejects her when he realizes she's Abraham's wife and not his sister. Better than Day's of Our Lives.  Abraham was the happening event in Egypt around 1900 BC.
Moses is around 1400 BC.  The Hyksos Invaders reigned in Egypt in the 15th dynasty around 1650 BC.
The Hyksos was  translated from the Egyptian hieroglyphs as 'foreign kings' .   The Native Pharaoh's were from the time before and after them and Dr. Maguire wondered if the 'falling out' of the exodus period was related to Abraham being friends with the former 'native pharaoh's' and now Moses was at odds with Hysksos invaders or some such thing that I didn't really follow because my cockapoo Gilbert chose that moment to poop in the middle of the path and I had to stoop and scoop avoiding on coming cyclists.
I remember seeing the Hysksos artefacts in the Athens museum.  Very impressive.
The interesting insights that Dr. Maguire gave about Moses and the Egyptians were the plagues. Moses turned the river into blood. The Egyptian hieroglyphs couldn't be understood till the Rosetta Stone finding because the hieroglyphs were phonetic language with the pictures representing 'sounds like' images of parts of words.  But today they can be read fairly accurately and show the migrations. As a result today we also know that their religion was a zoological paganism.  In deed the war between the northern delta Hysksos Dynasty and the southern native dynasty began because in the south they started killing Hippopotamus which were the gods of the Hyksos.  Moses plague of locust was the plague of the land turning the worshipped land against the Egyptians.
When Moses lead the people out of Egypt into Canaan Dr. Maguire argued that much of the requirements of the Moses religion were to get the Egyptian out of the people.  Egyptians could eat pork but not a whole lot of other animals because they were sacred. So by making pork taboo and forcing the Israelites to eat what had once been sacred to Egyptians he was purifying them.  The Golden Calf wasn't something new but the fertility god of Egypt as the people were reverting back to the Egyptian god whenever they lost faith in the monotheism of Moses.
Great lecture. I just touched on points that I remember.  It kept me running rather than walking as well as Reba MacIntyre.

Referring to my original discussion,  I had thought Abraham was the patriarch the religion of Judaism and the religion. The religion of Christianity is fundamentally different from Judaism.   The new almagamation religion of Islam is something altogether different again.  It's like the Mormon's in that sense. They have elements of Christianity but a whole lot of other 'stuff'. As the Bahai are an amalgamation religion with a whole lot of other stuff too.
Tribal religions are different from Universal religions.  Both Judaism and Islam began as tribal religions but Christianity by contrast was not.  The great discussion of genital mutilation of men between Paul and Peter brought it to the level of universal religion. Genital mutiliation of men has tended to keep the Jewish religion at a more tribal level.   Islam has attempted universality in later years but continues to have fetish issues with tribal genital mutilation while Judaism remains routed in it's tribal history.  Hinduism long left it's tribal origins but mostly maintained an ethnic association while Buddhism had a universal construction.  Confuscianism isn't so much a religion but a broader form of Robert's Rules of Order with serious life implications.   Buddhism more than Hinduism has spread from its eastern basis.  Communism the aetheist religion which has a short history of abject failure was like the militaristic Islam formulated as a totalitarian earth conquering construct. "Workers of the world unite."  The god there was the worker state, with it's special dictator class like the priest class of other religions.  Today totalitarian religions are mostly driven by money which can be generalized from Marx as the religion of the world. Money is truly worshipped in high places.
Dr. Magure's lecture was thought inspiring and I would not suggest my thoughts are his. What I've written was just my thoughts after an enjoyable lecture taken while running with my dog.  Great way to start a day.

Istanbul - Hagia Sophia

What a wonder this church become mosque become museum is.  I believe the time space continuum is anointed by the prayers and meditations of devotees through the centuries.  I feel most moved in such sacred places.
Hagia Sophia is very much such a place despite the secularization that is occurring now with it’s museum status.  The spirit of intellectual curiosity that infuses the environs of any library or place of great learning is separate from the depth of surrender and faith that goes with devotion.
I believe that where the mystics find direct contact with God then the men of politics and business will follow.  There building of churches, temples and synagogues may be at those places where there is a nodal point between he dimensions of this world and next.  These sacred places may well be proto religious.  I feel the sense of wonder in nature at points of greatest beauty.  A sense of ones own insignificance and an appreciation of the grandeur of the Other (God) is inherent in these moments.
Hagia Sophia touched me the moment we entered her grounds.  But some of that feeling might simply be the anticipation and excitement that is attached to seeing a great artist, attending an important performance.  There was that sense of timeliness.
I had come to Instanbul, traveled so far, on pilgrimage to this church of Constantine’s, the emperor of Rome who had changed a small religion of the outer realms into the central state religion of the largest empire of the day.
Christianity’s claim to fame as a distinctive religion was it’s quality of being a personal or even peasant religion as opposed to what Nietze described as a view of the Superman.  Spirituality speaks to the individual experience of awe and wonder, the individual desire and need for prayer and meditation, that individual quest for truth and meaning. Religion is the organizational structures that surround and embellish this experience.  Jesus called God ‘Abba’, which means ‘papa’ or ‘daddy’.  Religions prior to this spoke of the divine as ‘great’ and powerful.  The first ‘big man’ or ‘chief’ of the early political units would be seen by himself and his followers as God man.  These were the divine leaders of the Egyptian states and Roman States.  That Nero was God and Kings were divine would wait at least till the Magna Carta (perhaps the beginning most point of the process of secularization and the first step to a modern world) to be formally challenged other than by assassinations, revolutions and violent dethronements.
The one God of monotheism was prior to Jesus separated from the being of the ruler though the ruler could still be blessed by this God and a people or individual could be chosen.  The God, however, was a serious master, with qualities at least as Nietze would have liked , a SuperGod or Superman. This God the father was not the message Jesus that God is Love and  God as Daddy.  The Creator thereafter had heart and we could know God in the little things, the baby, the littlest moment, the smallest of things.
The relations of God and man was prior to Jesus directional, God down but Jesus washing the feet of his disciples showed that the relationship of God and man was bidirectional.  Love more than fear was central to the relationship.  The simplest message of Jesus shared by disciples and propagated by his apostles, especially Saint Paul would be transformed by the religion which would grow with the growth in numbers.
I had known of Constantine in the study of history but came to a greater awareness of him through hearing a lecture  at Regent College by a visiting English scholar considered the foremost authority on Constantine.  He said that Constantine had been a Sun God worshipper and hence we have sabbath on Sunday rather than the Saturday of the Jews.  He also said that Constantine was a pragmatist and great general who saw that the Christians were the force of righteousness and backbone in the armies.  Despite or because of persecution they had a greater strength in the military than the pagan elements.  Further their messages got through to distant groups without disclosure and in tact.  It was therefore ‘good news’ for an Emperor in a fight to the death for prime leadership to have a ‘revelation’ somewhat imitative of the one that St. Paul was said to have.  Constantine won at Milvian Bridge and Christianity as a state religion was established.  The orthodox religion came out of the council of Nicea later in Turkey where those elements of Christianity, reincarnation for one, as but an example along with other less ‘useful’ beliefs were ‘expunged’ from the mainstream religion, a religion which while personal and maintaining much of the original message of Jesus would not conflict with the political authority of Constantine as emperor.
Yet Jesus was an outlaw and his religion was that of the rebel.  It was a difficult juggle and orthodoxy till today remains a tension embedded in that relationship of Father and Son.  The trinity of Father and Son and Holy Spirit which depicts the one god as triune being of equal and whole is intellectually so gnarly as to demand truly a leap of faith.
Psychiatrists argue that if you don’t adopt a group delusion then you are at highest risk of psychosis for developing your own alienating and isolating paranoia.  Central to the religion of Christianity is the Mother and Child, God as vulnerable as a baby needing a human mother and the mother as fulfilled in her creation of a child.  This is clearly so at variance with the death cult of radical feminism which would freely abort  creation in exchange for the withered womb of the virgin spinster. Yet here is a Virgin Mother celebrating the continuity of life in her god child.
Definitely heady stuff. But also heart felt and soul full.
Here was an Emperor who had come from a long line of Emperors who had persecuted Christians inviting them into the greatest house the world had ever known, Hagia Sophia (Divine Wisdom)  to debate and lead and be well fed and sleep safely protected now by albeit a strange bedfellow.   Just as it is understandable why an Emperor would want to use a spirituality and proto religion for his own those underground leaders of the early and diverse church would naturally gravitate to the attractiveness for them of the new relationship and possibility of greater evangelism.  There were no doubt dissenting voices but out of this divine and human combination would come the birth of a new religion.
The monotheism of Judaism had God the father but now Christianity had God the Father and God the Son.  The Holy Spirit which ideologically might well represent the all present mother, the elephant in the living room of men, was definitely mysterious and much mystery would follow along with intrigue and ceremony.
Mohammed when he created the Moslem religion would build on the religion of Judaism and Christianity and perhaps emphasize  the mystery more.  In the Hagia Sophia the invading Turks in 1453  led by Sultan (or King)  Mehmed II  took over the Hagia Sophia and turned it into a mosque.  First they removed the crosses and then they painted and plastered over all the pictures for in their houses of prayer there can be no images.  So entering the Hagia Sophia the crosses that were once on the door have had their wings removed.
When Attaturk (Mustafa Kemal Ataturk)  chased out the Sultan to become the first president of the new Republic of Turkey in 1923, he declared the largest mosque of Turkey, the Hagia Sophia, that which had been at the centre of the original Turkish conquest of the Constantinople, which had changed the city to Istanbul, now became a museum. My guide told me that while Mustafa was Moslem as my guide is Moslem in the struggle for power and division of state and church this act of changing the Hagia Sophia to a museum was truly a major political act.  Today the paint which concealed the images that had adorned the original dome  are visible today because they are viewed as ‘art’ in this museum.  Yet the feeling of the Hagia Sophia is something more than that of a museum.  The Moslem name of God, Allah, and the name of his prophet, Mohammed, are written on two great discs in the Hagia Sophia as in other mosques.
Mehmet told me to become a Moslem is relatively easy. “You must simply accept and declare that there is one God Allah and Mohammed is his prophet. “  Of course as in all things religions there is much that follows and the devil could well be said to be in the details.  For to be a Christian one must simply declare that Jesus in Lord and Son of God.  But there can be only one God and while the Jews have but one god, their God’s name is Yahweh and the Moslems one god’s name is Allah which a Christian might accept either as a ‘father’, it is to Jesus as God and advocate that he says his prayer.  And while Hindus might accept Mohammed as a prophet as Christians saw John as a prophet and Jews saw Isaiah, the bugbear is that Moslems see Mohammed as his last prophet. Naturally science which has been called by some as secular religion sees no end but scientific insight going on into perpetuity.
In their mosques Moslems celebrate the names of his first four caliphates and subsequent leaders.
Mehmet explained to me that the first division of the moslem church occurred with the fourth and fifth leaders and while Sunni held to the teachings of the first four the Shiites accepted the fourth and fifth. This lead to the time of persecution for the Shiites which places a ritual of mourning and despair in the centre of their subsequent religious devotions. I look forward to learning more of the theological significance of these divisions as important to Moslems as Martin Luther's division of Christianity into Catholicism and Prostestantism.
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk is called simply Ataturk, a title today meaning Father of Turkey.  He was a military officer during World War I and following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire he became leader of the Turkish National Movement. He lead the Turkish War of Independence and defeated the troops sent by the Allies.  He then lead the development of Turkey as a modern and secular nation-state. It was he that changed Hagia Sophia to a museum and viewed it as art and architecture.





Hagia Sophia means Divine Wisdom and is a dedication thereby to the “Logos” or second person of the Divine Trinity.  It is famous for it’s massive dome and was said to have changed the very history of architecture.  It remained the world’s largest building till the Seville Cathedral was completed in 1520.  The present building was constructed between 532 and 537 under orders of Emperor Justintine, the two previous buildings having been destroyed.  The first dome made on the site collapsed with an earthquake while the second church ordered by Theodosius II was destroyed by fire in riots. That Nika Revolt had followed dispute  between the Patriarch of Constantinople John Chrysostom and Empress Eudoxia, wife of the Emperor Arcadius.  The first church on the site was called the Great Church and commissioned by Constantine the Great though built by his son Constantius II and inaugurated in 360.
The Hagia Sophia served as the Eastern Orthodox cathedral and seat of the Patriarchate of Constantinople.  It became a mosque in 1453 and then was secularized as a museum in 1935.
My guide Mehmet and I entered the Hagia Sophia through the Imperial Gate which had only been used by emperors.  The mosaic above the Gate is of Christ seated on his throne. The emperor with a halo is bowing to him. On left side of Christ is the archangel Gabriel and on his right His Mother Mary.

By the main dome of Hagia Sophia are mosaics of four angels. Two are shown with their faces while two have their faces concealed. Mehmet explained that in the mosque the faces of the angels had been covered over but their six winged bodies could still be seen.

Ofnthe floor was the marble circle Omphalion. I’d seen the Omphalos first at Dephi.  Omphalion means ‘navel’ of the world.  Mehmet explained that this was considered the ‘centre’ of the body of the earth and that Constantine had moved it east along with himself.  It was the site of coronation of the Byzantine emperors thereafter.

In the Apse is the Virgin and child mosaic. I love to contemplate the faces and how each artist captured or portrayed divinity and the sacred.


Remaining from the period of time as a mosque are the names of God, Allah
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and his prophet, Mohammed.










The Christian church was pointed to the east which is the location of the main stained glass window but as Moslems must pray facing Mecca to the South east the church orientation is offset in the interior.
On the second floor the women prayed. I stood where the Empress had prayed and could look down into the body of the church. The Empress did not walk but was carried to the second floor.






Further along on the second floor was a doorway for the area exclusive for the clergy. Here there are more mosaics. The Deesis Mosaic probably dates from 1261 and commemorated the time of the Roman Catholic use by the Crusaders and return to the orthodox faith. Virgin Mary and John the Baptist stand on either side of Christ. A picture of the mosaic showed what it would look like fully restored .



A comedic element was pointed out to me by Mehmet. It’ was Viking script essentially saying “i was here” carved on the bannister.
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The Empress Zoe mosaic is in the best soap opera tradition and I’m thankful to Mehmet for sharing
the story.  Apparently Empress Zoe had several husbands and when each died she changed the face on her mosaic. This is her last husband.



There were two great marble urns in the Hagia Sophia. I enjoyed that one had a cat perched beside it watching all the people coming and going.

We exited through the gate over which was the mosaic of the Virgin and Child flanked by Justinian I and Constantine I.

After Mehmet and I had coffee in the lovely garden.  When the cathedral became a mosque the minarets were added as was the building for ritual ablution and another where the tombs of five Sultans were buried.




It was a wonderful tour of the Hagia Sophia that reminded me of my time in Rome at St. Peters.  Such magnificent structures and such love and care in all the details and design.  I was very moved by the experience and hope to return.