Chapter 5, Symbols of the Judeo-Christian Tradition Summary and Analysis

The Flood story preserves both the "old-city mythology of cyclic karma" common in India, and one in which a vengeful Creator punishes the disobedient. The latter God decides to do something and it happens. The "procession of the equinoxes" takes 25,920 years to cycle through the zodiac. Dividing that by 60 yields 432, a number that links agricultural mythology with cycles of time and is found in Sumeria, Babylon, India, and Iceland. In the night sky, the human imagination sees a Great Mother whose womb holds all things. Festivals correlate with cycles of seasons and rules are in harmony.

In the second millennium BCE, a radical "great reversal" occurs as people disengage from an "overheated" world. In Persia, Zoroaster teaches that a God of Light, creates a perfectly good world that "The Deceiver," God...