Axial Age Essay

Emerging Concepts for the Axial Age

Religion has not always existed in the world according to academia. Preceding religion was an age of magic where man attempted to manipulate nature by force with enchantments alongside preliterate religious activity.1 Once people realized the failure in their “magic”, religion started evolving and an appeal to a more superior, supernatural divinity that ultimately controlled their security. The intricate pattern of ritual, myth, and faith explains the transition from food-gathering societies to food-producing states.2 Development of “more civilized” cultures attracts the most attention in religious history, but the indigenous religions that are even older are important
The Paleolithic period (c. 20000 to 8000 BCE) was the essential stepping stone to understanding life and survival through the earliest form of mythology. Crucial to their existence, “[it was] natural for these indigenous people to think in terms of myth and symbol because... they are highly conscious of a spiritual dimension in their daily lives….more real than the material world.”3 Tribes attributed skill-requiring activities, crucial for survival, to ancestors. Hunting and gathering was the center of life needing a particular sacredness. Ordinary experiences of these early people had distinguished meaning and recognition. The supernatural did not necessarily dictate their mythology; it was the human encounters that allowed myth to thrive.4 Myth of Paleolithic people prepared them for transition between monumental life
4000 to 800 BCE), where organization and civilizations began, was the step before humans was introduced to the large religions of today. Early biblical characters arose in this period. They describe the new way of life as “the separation from God that had followed the expulsion from Eden.”7 Obviously, people change their opinion on humanity and divinity when entering new eras, and, in these new civilizations, people were forwardly thinking. Men and women had realized their control on their destinies; making them “disillusioned with the old mythical vision that had nourished their ancestors.”8 This began the thought of independence, away from gods, and a necessity for self-liberation. These new ideals initiated the upcoming beliefs found abundantly in the Axial