There is a fun argument that everyone with European ancestry is a descendant of Charlemagne. National Geographic has more on this idea developed by Joseph Chang
You had two parents. Each of your parents had two parents. Your grandparents had two parents and so on.
There was about 40 generations between us and Charlemagne. 2^40 = 1,099,511,627,776. That means that you had over a trillion great*39 grandparents.
Of course the binary tree of our lineage folds back in on itself, but the chances are that Charlemagne will appear somewhere in your genealogical tree.
If we had a complete genealogy of Charlemagne's family one would find his descendants marrying into other family lines until most everyone is descendant of Charlemagne.
There are a few geographic barriers, such as the Atlantic Ocean that may of cut some remote populations from direct descendancy from Charlemagne, but there is a good argument that, if we had a complete genealogical tree, we would find a large number of common points of ancestry.
The mathematics of direct male lineage and direct female lineage are a little bit different.
Back to Religious History
In my last post I mentioned that scholars at the Library of Alexandria translated and analyze the Hebrew scriptures.
The analysis of scripture is also called Theology. It seems to play an extremely important role in the Western Tradition. I personally do not enjoy Theology as much as the history of mathematics. However, since it is important to history. i think that people should work to find ways to discuss the ideas from the Bible.
IMHO, the best approach would be to talk about historical context of the bible and about the analysis of ideas in the Bible.
Wikipedia claims that Torah probably appeared sometime between 450 and 350 BC. During this period the Achaemenid Empire of Persia controlled most of the Middle East.
Zoroastrianism was the dominant religion of the Achaemenid Empire. The Zoroastrian world view presented God of Harmony with a nemesis God of Disharmony. This dualism might be the model for the God/Satan duo that we see in the Bible.
The Persian Empire made numerous stabs at establishing legal codes which may have inspired the legal codes within the Torah.
Prior to Persian rule the Assyrian King Nebuchadnezzar (604–561 BC) had conquered Judea and is said to have taken a large number of people prisoner to Babylon. A large number of people migrated from Babylon to Judea during Persia rule.
It is likely that the Torah was written to unite the people in Judea. The Torah tells a story in which everyone in the region was a descendant of a man named Abraham who had established an eternal covenant with the God of Creation.
Scholars tend to peg Abraham's birth at some time before 2000 BC. This idea that everyone in Judea descended from Abraham has the same mathematics as the claim that most people will find Charlemagne in their family tree.
BTW: There is about 180 generations between us and Abraham. If anyone is descendant of Abraham; then just about everyone is descendant of Abraham. 2^180 is a huge number.
It is clear from Persian efforts to write laws that people had been trying find a way to introduce the rule of law. Claiming that the law was revealed by God is not the worst way to introduce the concept.
The method fits surprisingly well with Plato's theory of forms. A law created by God would have a transcendent form. Note Plato had deduced the existence of a Demiurge that was behind the forms.
One benefit of the claim that law comes from God lays a foundation for a society that holds its rulers to the law.
Unfortunately, the claim that The Law came from God can lead to situations where people believe that the laws from ancient texts must somehow apply today.
This notion can lead to absurd scenes like that of religious zealots whipping women in the street because the women's faces were exposed.
I think that the antidote to such stupidity is to study ancient texts in the context of the ancient world. When one does this one sees that the religions, along with philosophy, was created by people trying to understand the world around them.
I was going to write about the Ten Commandments in this post, but I think I should do it as a second post because I want to reference it later.
For now I would simply want to recount the observation that, if Abraham existed, he lived about 4000 years ago. There would have been more than 180 generations separating us.
If anyone is related to Abraham. Then just about everyone would be related to Abraham. All people are of the same family.
The painting by József Molnár (1821–1899) shows Abraham traveling from Ur to Canaan
