The Lord of Spirits Podcast

Episode 99: Bible, the Prequel?
Date: September 13, 2024
Theme: The Seen and Unseen World in Orthodox Christian Tradition—Exploring Prehistory, the Meaning and Origins of Religion, and the Consistency of Orthodox Worship from Prehistoric Times Onward

Episode Overview

In this episode, Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick and Fr. Stephen DeYoung journey deep into prehistory—spanning from the Stone Age through the Axial Age—to challenge and clarify what we mean by “religion.” They investigate how the Orthodox Christian experience connects to humanity’s oldest spiritual impulses, discuss the pitfalls of modern definitions, and highlight the profound unity in right worship of the true God from the dawn of human history to today. The episode balances scholarship, humor, and a compelling call to self-reflection for believers today.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Defining “Religion”: Origins, Problems, and a Proposed Solution

• Modern and Ancient Definitions:
  • The word “religion” is a relative newcomer, entering English in the 13th century, originally describing monastics—those “bound” to a disciplined life (13:00–14:00).
  • Pre-modern societies lacked the concept of “a religion” as a separable department of life; religious, social, national, and political life were entwined (21:00–24:00).
  • Ancient Greeks and Romans spoke in terms of “piety” and duty, an ethical virtue alongside courage or justice (16:00–17:45).
  • Religion as a “socket” into which various options can be “plugged in” is post-Enlightenment thinking (26:31).
• Pitfalls of Modern Comparative Religion:
  • Comparing religions often results in vague or forced analogies (e.g., “virgin birth” comparisons between Jesus and Adonis) that flatten differences and obscure true meanings (29:05–33:18).
  • There is a persistent tendency to understand others’ religion through one’s own background, leading especially Protestants and secular Westerners to universalize their framework (e.g., religion as “beliefs” rather than practice) (41:05–45:21).
• A Workable Definition Proposed:
  • “Religion is a way of being in the world that encompasses all levels of reality and expresses itself in practices.” (49:49–55:03)
    1. Way of being in the world (not just belief or worldview).
    2. Encompasses all reality as perceived by that culture (not just “supernatural”).
    3. Expresses itself in practices—worship, ethics, rituals, community structure.
  • This definition avoids false binaries between religion & philosophy and accounts for the fluidity and breadth of religious life.

Notable Quotes:

• “If you say the term ‘religion,’ everybody kind of thinks they know what that means. But if you press people...they can’t tell you a definition.” – Fr. Stephen (6:00)
• “Religion is a way of being in the world that encompasses all levels of reality and expresses itself in practices.” – Fr. Stephen (49:49)

2. How Comparative Religion Skews Our Perception

• Taxonomies and “Evolution” of Religion:
  • 19th-century European scholars grouped religions (monotheism, polytheism, Abrahamic, etc.), often concluding their own tradition (e.g., German Lutheranism) was history’s spiritual apex (34:00–36:08).
  • The real historical situation is far more complex and locally variable.
• Misconceptions About “Beliefs” and Sacred Texts:
  • Most world traditions—ancient and modern—are not centered on “statements of belief” or a single text as doctrine in the Protestant sense (42:14–45:21).
  • Salvation means different things in different religious traditions; reduction to a single pattern is misleading (42:29–43:19).

Notable Quotes:

• “You can compare a raven and a writing desk. You can compare chalk and cheese...but are you really learning anything?” – Fr. Stephen (29:05)
• “If you love God, you will keep his commandments.” – Fr. Andrew (173:30)

3. The Axial Age: Worldwide Spiritual Revolution (~800–200 BC)

• What Was the Axial Age?
  • Massive parallel religious/philosophical change across Europe, Asia, and the Near East.
  • In China: rise of Confucianism, Taoism.
  • In India: emergence of Buddhism.
  • In Persia: rise of Zoroastrianism.
  • In Greece: from mythic storytelling (Homer, Hesiod) to philosophy (Plato, Aristotle).
  • In Judea: Second Temple Judaism, synagogue system, textual scholarship (74:25–80:25).
• Key Features:
  • Depersonalization and Relativization of Spirits and Gods:
    • Gods become less capricious personages, more cosmic principles (e.g., Plato’s forms) (81:45).
    • In India/Buddhism: gods become tools or provisional entities, de-emphasized in ultimate spiritual pursuit.
  • Ethics and Community Flourish:
    • Shift from appeasement of fickle gods toward seeking harmony, order, ethical living, the “should” of communal, not merely individual, life (86:32–89:16).
• Example – Judaism:
  • Shift from Torah as the king’s and priests’ administrative manual pre-exile to post-exilic synagogue reading and individual ethical focus (92:27–95:56).

Notable Quotes:

• “We don't understand there was not any real fundamental connection, or even really a sense of ethics [in pre-Axial cult].” – Fr. Stephen (86:47)
• “A new dimension for them”—referring to Torah’s ethical role post-exile (95:45)

4. The Neolithic Revolution: The Dawn of Paganism

• Neolithic Revolution (~10,000–8,000 BC):
  • Domestication of plants and animals leads to settled life; human population still tiny compared to today (113:41–122:27).
• Religious Shifts:
  • Before settlement, most hunter-gatherers had a single sky or heavenly deity (136:10–136:48).
  • With settlement, mystical reverence for earth and fertility arises—earth goddesses, bull-figures, place spirits. The first step toward multiple deities and “paganism” as seen by the Israelites and early Christians (137:09–138:01).
  • Sacred sites predate settlements; settlements grow around cultic (worship) centers (e.g. Gobekli Tepe, Çatalhöyük) (139:55–146:05).
• Ritual, Afterlife, and Sacrifice:
  • Burials with goods, family ancestor worship, evidence of sacrifice and spirit invocation appear alongside settlement (149:49–151:12).
  • The masculine storm/bull god and feminine earth/chaos goddess—archetypes found in earliest sites and later mythologies (153:19–154:44).
• The Roots of Paganism:
  • Pagan polytheism emerges from the association of various deities and spirits with fixed locations and elements of the natural and social environment, in contrast to earlier, simpler recognition of a universal spirit or god (155:01–155:47).

Notable Quotes:

• “Those megalithic structures were there before anything else...these were built as spiritual sites to which nomadic peoples would come at a certain time of year.” – Fr. Stephen (143:36–145:21)
• “The point is to know and to worship the one true God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and not to worship these other gods.” – Fr. Andrew (172:34)

5. What About the “Other” Religions?

• Native American and Hunter-Gatherer Religions:
  • Many Native American and Pacific religions, which seem “closer” to monotheism, represent the retention of pre-urban, pre-Neolithic spirituality.
  • Civilizations that underwent Neolithic and urbanization (e.g. Aztecs, Mayans) adopted similar patterns of paganism as Old World societies.
  • Christianity finds resonance—sometimes even a kind of preparatio evangelica—where a memory of a high, universal God is retained (157:35–159:22).

6. The Consistency of “Right Worship” and Its Implications

• Orthodox Christianity as the Right Worship of the True God
  • The “triumph of Orthodoxy” is not a modern or parochial victory, but continuity with all right worship throughout history, from prehistoric times, through Abraham and Moses, kings, prophets, apostles, church fathers, and the modern Orthodox liturgy (161:00–167:53).
  • Faithfulness in worship, even with poor or undeveloped concepts, is more important than intellectual mastery or “correct” formulae (169:03–173:30).
  • Warning against “absolutizing” formulas and reducing religion to intellectual constructs:
    • True religion requires both right faith and embodied faithfulness; “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” (173:30–175:54)

Notable Quotes:

• “Orthodox Christianity is the right worship of the true God...Anywhere in history where the right worship of the true God has taken place, we could say that was Orthodox Christianity.” – Fr. Stephen (163:11–163:47)
• “There is...incredible consistency between Old and New Testaments. Even within the arc of human history that forms the context of the Old and New Testaments.” – Fr. Andrew (175:22)

Memorable Moments and Notable Quotes

• “Good evening, giant killers, dragon slayers, demon dodgers, and hammerers of homunculi.” – Fr. Andrew, opening greeting (01:05)
• “Even the people who talk about religion the most—by that I mean atheists on the Internet—can’t come up with a good definition.” – Fr. Stephen (06:27)
• “If you ever tried to argue..., you would get these interesting things...non-religious people never go and murder religious people for being religious. [What about Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Lenin?] ‘That’s a religion, not atheism!’” – Fr. Stephen (11:11–12:00)
• “If you love God, you will keep his commandments…” – Multiple times as a unifying refrain throughout.

Structured Episode Timeline

| Time | Segment / Discussion | |-------------|----------------------------------------| | 00:00–03:00 | Show intro, greeting, course announcements, light banter | | 03:27–16:45 | Origins of the concept “religion” and its early use (Latin, Greek, English) | | 18:06–21:22 | Ancient perspectives: "piety," no concept of "religions" as such | | 23:37–36:24 | Modern taxonomy: religion as separable domain, consequences for modern discourse | | 39:57–45:21 | Common pitfalls: seeing all religion in light of one’s own background (esp. Protestant) | | 49:49–55:03 | Proposed working definition of religion: way of being, all of reality, practices (detailed explanation and implications) | | 61:59–64:02 | No firm distinction between philosophy/religion in the ancient world; practices shape all (with reference to Aristotle, Platonists, etc.) | | 74:25–80:25 | The Axial Age: religious/philosophical revolution, global impact | | 81:45–89:35 | Features of religious change: depersonalization of gods, emergence of ethics, communal flourishing | | 92:23–96:23 | Torah’s role then and post-exile; new layer of ethical/communal obligation | | 113:41–121:23 | Neolithic Revolution, domestication, world population, setup for religious change | | 136:10–138:12 | From “sky God” monotheism to settled life, emergence of earth deities, pagan polytheism | | 139:55–146:05 | The pattern: sacred sites precede settlements (Gobekli Tepe, Çatalhöyük, Jericho) | | 149:07–154:44 | Burial customs, family worship, bull and storm gods—transition to “full” paganism | | 155:01–156:02 | Ubiquity of paganism; exceptions (indigenous hunter-gatherer spirituality) | | 161:07–167:53 | Reflection: continuity of “right worship” as the heart of Orthodoxy, from prehistory to now | | 169:03–175:54 | Final thoughts: the danger of formula-idolatry, the priority of faithfulness and worship |

Notable Callers & Interactions

• Caleb: Fact-checks on Deuteronomy, asks about public Torah readings pre-exile (124:36–128:15)
  • Fr. Stephen: “The story of Judges is about the people forgetting everything...there’s just this immediate falling away...” (126:23–127:04)
• Catherine: Asks about the timing of the Neolithic period in relation to the biblical flood and Babel narratives (129:20–135:06)
  • Discussion of different models for correlating biblical and archaeological timelines.

Tone and Style

• Warm, humorous (“giant killers, dragon slayers”), engagingly didactic.
• Self-deprecating banter (e.g., “edible arrangements,” “emotions – usually rage”).
• Academic rigor with approachable language; exemplified by running jokes about Protestant “statement of faith” pages and the Flintstones as a post-apocalyptic fable.
• Continual pastoral application (“if you love God, keep his commandments”) and warnings against spiritual reductionism.

Conclusion: Takeaway for Listeners

“Bible, the Prequel?” offers a sweeping, deeply integrative look at how humanity’s oldest spiritual yearnings remain fulfilled and unified in the Orthodox worship of the true God. The episode challenges simplifications and warns believers—especially in our age of “meaning crisis”—not to substitute formula or ideology for a lived, faithful orientation to God in worship and life. The take-home message, echoing the Church’s own confession, is that Orthodoxy is not an invention or a late arrival, but the full flowering and faithful continuity of the original, living relationship humanity was always meant to have with its Creator.

For Further Study:

• See the full transcript for in-depth discussions of ancient texts, terminology development, and anthropological sites.
• Links: Orthodox Studies Institute (orthodoxstudies.org), OrthodoxIntro.org for those seeking to learn more about Orthodoxy.

Next Episode:

• The Lord of Spirits 100th episode and 4th anniversary—details, special location, and celebration promised.