which led to unification in about 3000 BCE. Kings eventually were all-powerful, which included being considered owners of the land. Human sacrifice was introduced as rulers began to take entire households with them into the afterlife.21
Peasants were tied to the land where they worked and taxes were collected as a portion of the land’s produce. Labor was more akin to serfdom than slavery. Writing developed to keep records of taxes, workers, and product distribution, but only scribes who needed to keep records learned to write, perhaps 1-2% of the population. Art was encouraged and supervised by the state in the forms of ceramics, jewelry, goldsmithing, woodworking, painting and statuary.22
The great period of pyramid building began under Sneferu in the Fourth Dynasty, about 2600 BCE, followed by his son Khufu who built the largest pyramid at Giza. Construction methods – which used 2.5 million stones each weighing tons – still are a mystery to this day.23 The Nile provided fertility that resulted in grain, fruit, oils and animal products that were sufficient in all but the most severe periods of drought. The Egyptian king was considered a god and only he could communicate with the other gods.
There is no generally accepted archeological evidence of the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt, but biblical scholars peg this account at about 1450 BCE.24 Around this time the Pharaoh Akhenaton replaced the pantheon of Egyptian gods with the one Sun God, Aten.25 He ordered the traditional idols to be destroyed. Worship of this One God replaced the hierarchy of priests – with their many gods – who had shared in ruling over Egypt. After the death of Akhenaton the priests removed his temples and Egypt returned to its traditional political and religious divisions.
Wine was an essential part of the culture of the Egyptians.
There is clear evidence of grapes having been planted and wine having been made in the Nile Valley from about the fourth millennium BCE. A colorful mural from the tomb of Nakht in Thebes from the fifteenth century BCE depicts harvesters picking ripe grapes from an arboretum.
— Wine, Page 14
Perhaps most importantly for the origins of democracy, the concept of the One God represented the idea of a single creator of everything, and thus a god accessible to everyone. It might be that the remaining practitioners of direct worship of the One God were forced from Egypt at this time or left of their own will. The account of the Israelites’ liberation from slavery is perhaps the oldest in western culture that affirms the intrinsic value of human beings – one that has affected the course of history to this day.
This idea of One God – and the unacceptability of worshiping idols – was the most essential teaching of Moses to the Israelites. But according to the Hebrew Torah (which later became part of the Bible), on their journey out of Egypt, they resumed their idol worship when Moses was out of sight.26 The book of Exodus tells us that the Israelites were left wandering through Sinai for forty years before reaching their promised land of Canaan (today’s Israel, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon) because of their failure to follow God’s commands.27
The concept of the One God still is affirmed by the daily Jewish prayer, the Shema:
Hear, O Israel
The Lord God is one Lord
And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart
And with all your soul
And with all your might.28
When they reached the Promised Land, the Israelites were told to destroy other cities completely – including Jericho29 and that of the Midianites.30 This is one of the earliest examples of one group being denied their own humanity and then turning around and doing the same to another. There are of course many similar examples throughout history – up to our own day – of those who claim the superiority of their own group or beliefs and deny the validity of others.
Long-term settlements became possible with the advent of agriculture, which allowed previously nomadic groups to remain in one place, vastly expanding the number of people who could be fed.31 It could be argued that agriculture was the greatest invention of all time. Clearly it had to be developed via a series of other innovations, including the plow, which was used throughout the ancient world, and the domestication of animals and plants. It seems likely that there was an element of cooperation and freedom in this development, because – as we will discuss – great inventions rarely are developed in a tyrannical state. Inventiveness requires long-term experimentation plus confidence and trust between individuals to yield viable results. Such an environment is rare under the distrust imposed by tyranny. In China, for example, innovations such as the voyages to discover new trade routes, or even the invention of the clock, were aborted due to lack of governmental interest in improving the lives of people.32
Hammurabi, King of Babylon in the eighteenth century BCE, formulated the first comprehensive code of law that has survived. It was written on a large stone and contains 282 laws, including “an eye for eye,” later reflected in the Hebrew Bible. This area of what is now the Mideast was called the Fertile Crescent due to the seasonal rainfall that allowed the development of agriculture. There was frequent warfare between the groups inhabiting the area. The inhabitants of what is present-day Syria and Palestine were known as Canaanites starting about 1600 BCE.33
Wine is a part of the weekly Shabbat ceremony in Jewish Homes on Friday night, which marks the beginning of the Sabbath. Wine also is included during the annual Passover Seder, as well as at other holidays. (The Passover Seder was the setting of the Last Supper by Jesus and his disciplines.) Jews are commanded by the Torah to keep Shabbat (the seventh day) as a day of prayer and rest, because that is the day that God rested from creating the universe. The Fourth Commandment states: “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.”
The prayer used before drinking the cup of wine:
The Jewish community in Palestine was divided between those who assimilated the lifestyle of their hosts and those who wanted to maintain a separate existence and engaged in rebellion that was put down brutally. According to the Hebrew Bible34 Jerusalem was destroyed after three rebellions against the Persians in about 600 BCE. They were allowed to return under Cyrus in 537 BCE. A Jewish rebellion against the Romans under Titus was put down in 70 CE, and after a revolt in 135 CE the Jews were expelled from the area.35
The earliest known Greek civilization goes back to the Minoans on the island of Crete starting about 2000 BCE, although evidence of human habitation there begins 5000 years earlier. Their religion was centered on the Earth Goddess and sacrifice of animals and children in times of danger. They engaged in trade with other Greek city states and societies as far away as Egypt and Palestine, but yielded to the Mycenaean culture from the mainland around 1600 BCE.36
