# Old-time religion **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 25, 2018, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-time-religion/826656 "2018-12-25T00:35:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2018, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-time-religion/826656/21 "2018-12-25T21:06:58Z")
> [@Kimera757](#): > > Judaism underwent numerous changes over time, going from polytheistic, to monolatrist (only have one god but did not deny the existence of other gods) to monotheistic, to the destruction of the Temple (twice), with heavy modifications due to the Babylonian Captivity, the return, and any time something bad happened to Jerusalem. (This isn’t including related religions, such as that of the Samaritans, which is basically an early offshoot.) It’s hard to say Judaism was ever polytheistic. Perhaps it developed from a Polytheistic religion, but pretty much from the start it was henotheistic and monolatrist, but yes, the Big Guy did have the goddess Asherah as a consort. Some fragmentary things suggest there may have been lesser deities or perhaps only servants like angels. That was kinda the thing in the Holy lands about then, each “kingdom” (using the term loosely) had it’s own deity, Chemosh for Moab, Moloch for the Ammonites, Qaus for the Edomites, etc. But it was apparently assumed they were all legit and in fact it was Ok to sacrifice to a neighboring deity when in his lands. I’d say you could pin the start to around 9th century BCE, but if it was really the 10th that wouldn’t be a shock. Hinduism is likely older, but since it was a gradual change, it’s hard to define the start of Hinduism. ---
**Author:** ![EscAlaMike](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/escalamike/32/4177_2.png) [@EscAlaMike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EscAlaMike)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2018, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-time-religion/826656/22 "2018-12-26T02:45:51Z")
Thanks to everyone who clarified my misunderstandings re: Judaism. ---
**Author:** ![EscAlaMike](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/escalamike/32/4177_2.png) [@EscAlaMike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EscAlaMike)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2018, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-time-religion/826656/23 "2018-12-26T02:48:59Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Whats interesting and sad is that the world probably once had endless thousands of religions. Now it basically has 2. Abrahamic faiths (Christianity and Islam) and Indian religions (hinduism and buddhism). Combined they have almost 6 billion adherents in a world that is almost 8 billion (many of those remaining 2 billion are secularists). > > Looking into it, there are 400 million practitioners of ‘folk religion’ out there. If one were so inclined, one could make the argument that this movement (from many to few) is an example of mankind’s progress ever closer to truth. ---
**Author:** ![EscAlaMike](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/escalamike/32/4177_2.png) [@EscAlaMike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EscAlaMike)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2018, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-time-religion/826656/24 "2018-12-26T02:54:36Z")
> [@cmkeller](#): > > Christianity believes that the New Testament overrides the Old (where applicable) A nitpick: The Catholic Church does not teach this. The OT is just as much authoritative Scripture as the NT. St. Augustine wrote something to the effect of: “The New Testament lies hidden in the Old and the Old Testament is unveiled in the New.” There is no overriding, only fulfillment/completion. ---
**Author:** ![EscAlaMike](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/escalamike/32/4177_2.png) [@EscAlaMike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EscAlaMike)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2018, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-time-religion/826656/25 "2018-12-26T02:56:24Z")
> [@IvoryTowerDenizen](#): > > Using the terms OT and AD (or BC) when discussing Judaism is a little tone deaf. Not a huge deal, but it always jumps out at me as someone discussing Judaism through a different lens. My apologies. It’s true that I definitely see Judaism through “a different lens”. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2018, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-time-religion/826656/26 "2018-12-26T03:25:47Z")
> [@EscAlaMike](#): > > It’s my understanding that Judaism as we know it today is a product of the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in AD 70. > > Since the Jews haven’t had a religion based on temple sacrifice since then, isn’t it accurate to say that it’s somewhat of a different religion from the religion of the OT Hebrews, even though they worship the same deity? > > If today’s Jews can claim the OT religion as their own, then couldn’t Christians and Muslims too, since it’s the same deity? > > Please correct me if I’m wrong. > [@IvoryTowerDenizen](#): > > Using the terms OT and AD (or BC) when discussing Judaism is a little tone deaf. Not a huge deal, but it always jumps out at me as someone discussing Judaism through a different lens. > [@EscAlaMike](#): > > My apologies. It’s true that I definitely see Judaism through “a different lens”. So much so that I, a Jew, didn’t entirely understand you. I knew what you meant by “AD”, because that is a ubiquitous way of identifying dates, but I completely glossed over “OT”, reading it as “old time”. If you’d spelled it out, I would have understood you, of course. FWIW, I refer to the scriptures I commonly discuss as the Bible (or it’s important subset, the Torah), the Talmud, the New Testament, the Koran, and the Book of Mormon. If I’m afraid “the Bible” might be misunderstood, I refer to it as “the Jewish Bible”. ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2018, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-time-religion/826656/27 "2018-12-26T03:30:37Z")
> [@EscAlaMike](#): > > My apologies. It’s true that I definitely see Judaism through “a different lens”. Many people (not saying you do this) see Judaism as “Christanity light” or simply as a precurosor to Christianity. Reality is that our philosophies and world views are very different is most areas, including such fundamental things as the concept sin, the afterlife, and what is necessary to be considered “in compliance”. Our Torah is not the Old Testament, not only philosophically but also factually. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2018, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-time-religion/826656/28 "2018-12-26T03:33:12Z")
I believe that all cultural artifacts change over time, and if yourwant to find a modern example of a bronze age religion, you need to find people who are still in or recently left the bronze age. So, the Sentinelese islanders or the ǃKung, but not Hinduism, Judaism, or the animistic practices of modern Thailand. Religion is to a large extent a way of organizing daily life and our understanding of the world. The day to day practice of our lives and our understanding of the world are so different than that of a person in the bronze age that I have to believe all “continuing” religions have mutated to adapt to those huge changes. ---
**Author:** ![am77494](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d2c977/32.png) [@am77494](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/am77494)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2018, 10:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-time-religion/826656/29 "2018-12-26T10:55:10Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > …So, the \*\*Sentinelese islanders \*\*or the ǃKung, but not Hinduism, Judaism, or the animistic practices of modern Thailand…,. \ Can you please provide a cite as to how the Sentinelese Islanders are related to Hinduism ? This Wikipedia article [Negrito - Wikipedia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negrito) seems to trace all Andamanese (including Sentinelese) to Australia / Africa. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2018, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-time-religion/826656/30 "2018-12-26T11:36:49Z")
> [@am77494](#): > > \ > > Can you please provide a cite as to how the Sentinelese Islanders are related to Hinduism ? > > This Wikipedia article [Negrito - Wikipedia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negrito) seems to trace all Andamanese (including Sentinelese) to Australia / Africa. I believe the point is that, while no one here is in a position to confirm that Sentinelese religious practices stretch back in an unbroken tradition of thousands of years, that they haven’t all recently been converted to Christianity for example, and they are not known for their open-armed embrace of multi-culturalism, so there is a better than average chance their beliefs still hew close to ancient traditions. It would be interesting to get an account of religion among other, closely related, Andanamese Islanders like the Onge. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2018, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-time-religion/826656/31 "2018-12-26T13:57:32Z")
I am not claiming either that they are Hindu (huh!? How’d anyone think that? The !Kung aren’t Hindu, either) nor that that their current practices are ancient, but rather that since they are currently pre-iron-age, and don’t seem to have taken on any of the world’s major religions, their current religious practices ARE effectively “old time religion”. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2018, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-time-religion/826656/32 "2018-12-26T14:10:54Z")
Although, the various San peoples started being displaced by the Bantu in the 11th century, and Europeans showed up in the late 15th century, and a lot of them converted, intermarried, etc. So it’s not clear how “bronze age” or traditional the traditional !Kung (or other San groups) religious practices are. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2018, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-time-religion/826656/33 "2018-12-26T14:39:14Z")
The San trance dancing and shamanism, at least, is generally considered to be linked to depictions in rock art which predate the Bantu incursions by at least a millennium, going back to many millennia BCE in some sites, like _Apollo 11_ in Namibia. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2018, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-time-religion/826656/34 "2018-12-26T15:25:22Z")
On the other hand, I’m a very different person than I was 39 years ago, but I’m still a person from before the year 1980. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2018, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-time-religion/826656/35 "2018-12-26T17:30:07Z")
EscAlaMike: > [@](#): > > St. Augustine wrote something to the effect of: “The New Testament lies hidden in the Old and the Old Testament is unveiled in the New.” > > There is no overriding, only fulfillment/completion. Potato, potah-to. Bottom line is, if something in the New Testament seems to contradict something written in the Old Testament, then the New Testament statement is seen as the authoritative statement, and the Old is interpreted, or re-interpreted, in light of it. ---
**Author:** ![EscAlaMike](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/escalamike/32/4177_2.png) [@EscAlaMike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EscAlaMike)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2018, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-time-religion/826656/36 "2018-12-26T20:37:51Z")
> [@cmkeller](#): > > EscAlaMike: > > Potato, potah-to. Bottom line is, if something in the New Testament seems to contradict something written in the Old Testament, then the New Testament statement is seen as the authoritative statement, and the Old is interpreted, or re-interpreted, in light of it. Well yeah, that’s pretty standard textual analysis. If you receive new information, then that inevitably brings a new understanding to the information you already had, and sometimes re-interpretation. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2018, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-time-religion/826656/37 "2018-12-26T21:30:36Z")
Right, but since in Judaism there isn’t that “new information”, it’s a different scriptural authority and therefore a distinct religion. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2018, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-time-religion/826656/38 "2018-12-26T21:42:58Z")
[Somebody has to](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPLsASyoc1g). ---
**Author:** ![EscAlaMike](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/escalamike/32/4177_2.png) [@EscAlaMike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EscAlaMike)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2018, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-time-religion/826656/39 "2018-12-26T21:44:30Z")
> [@cmkeller](#): > > Right, but since in Judaism there isn’t that “new information”, it’s a different scriptural authority and therefore a distinct religion. Yes, I get that. My question earlier was whether post-temple Judaism is the same religion as pre-destruction of the temple Judaism. You succinctly clarified for me that indeed it is, and I thank you. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2018, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-time-religion/826656/40 "2018-12-26T22:13:12Z")
You’re welcome. I’m sorry, I thought there was a misunderstanding of why I disagreed with the statement that Christianity is the same as Judaism due to worshiping the same deity. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-time-religion/826656.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-time-religion/826656.md?page=3)