Alpha Male Rule: Thomas Paine and the story of ‘Jewish royalty’
A timely excerpt from Making Global Sense by Judah Freed
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by Judah Freed
Modern Isreali-Palestiniian hatred and warfare traces back to ancient partriarch Abraham and his “Promised Land.” The confict is made worse by our global addiction to alpha male rule.
“The quiet and rural lives of the first patriarchs,” wrote Thomas Paine in his 1776 Common Sense, “hath a happy something in them, which vanishes away when we come to the history of Jewish royalty.”
What? Jewish royalty? Why does that matter ?
Behind the ancient Middle Eastern land dispute, I see the core issue of alpha male rule — men competing to be the top dog.
The ultimate form of male dominance is government by a king or dictator.
How prevalent is royalty? My research identifies 44 monarchies on earth today, 31 bound by constitutions, like the United Kingdom and Japan, and 41 monarchs hold thrones by hereditary succession.
We have 48 dictatorships, some calling themselves republic. Democracies risk becoming autocracies, as recently happened in Myanmar and nearly happend in the United States (and still could).
Paine’s pivotal pamphlet argued against monarchy, calling for the separate colonies to unite into an independent democracy. He shifted public opinion.
As part his case against monarchy, writing for mostly Christian colonials, Paine retold a Bible story of the ancient Israelite kingdom. Destruction of the nation, for Paine, proved God does not approve of government by kings.
No matter what title we give our leaders, like President, if the ruler is a despot, or a wannabe king, then Paine’s thoughts are relevant today.
The past illumines the present. As a frame for viewing current events, I’ll here summarize what scriptures and experts suggest occurred before and after the ancient Israelites chose a king from the line of Abraham. Believe it or not, from history and myth we may gain insights for today and tomorrow.
Abraham’s Promise
About 2000 BCE or 4,000 years ago, a Chaldean nomad, Abram from Ur (Iraq), freed his Bronze Age mind from polytheism — seeing distinct gods in all things, a rock god, a tree god, a pond god. He saw one god in everything. Monotheism was a radical revelation.
Like his ancestor Noah, Abraham could hear God, who promised that his seed would rule all the lands from the Euphrates to the Nile (Genesis 15:18), the Fertile Crescent. Abraham settled in Hebron (southern Israel). To satisfy his vision of empire, his loving but barren wife and half-sister, Sarah, gave him the hand of her slave, Hagar. She bore Ishmael as sole heir. Sarah raised the boy as her own.
Ten years after, post-menopausal Sarah conceived and bore Isaac. Such a miracle! Another decade later, Sarah ordered Abraham to cast out Hagar and Ishmael, so Isaac alone would be heir to all the land promised by God.
Abraham agreed only after God promised his firstborn also would sire a nation. Did El Shaddai promise the same land to both sons? Has Western civilization been at war ever since in a family feud over which half-brother inherits dad’s estate?
Ishmael’s daughter, Mahalath, married Isaac’s first son, Esau. His younger brother, Jacob (guided by his mom) tricked Esau into selling him the firstborn’s birthright to the land promised by God. Ishmael’s heirs felt twice cheated out of Abraham’s legacy.
Jacob later wrestled with an angel and was renamed “Israel.” The 11th of Jacob’s 12 sons, Joseph, was sold by his brothers into slavery in Egypt. Joseph rose to power. His family left Canaan to live on the Nile. Fruitful brothers multiplied into 12 tribes. Joseph died. Slavery ensued. God spoke to Moses (his wife was a descendant of Abraham). Moses lead maybe 600,000 Israelites out of bondage in Egypt.
The liberated Israelite tribes had no clue how to handle freedom. At Mount Sinai they made a Covenant with God, a social contract. They agreed to obey the Ten Commandments and the Law of Moses (Leviticus) in trade for the empire God promised to Abraham.
The Republic and The Kingdom
After two generations or 40 years wandering in the wilderness, say scripture, the Israelites invaded Canaan, displacing Ishmaelites and Philistine settlers in southern Philistia. Securing the conquest by 1200 BCE, the tribes elected sanhedrin assemblies and judges to rule them. The ancient Israelites created the world’s first republic.
Israelites were the only people in the region ruled by laws, not a king. Surrounded by strong kingdoms, maybe feeling inferior, tribal elders asked Gideon and his sons to be kings (Judges 8:22). Rebuking them, Gideon attested God alone rules Israel through the Law.
Around 1050 BCE, Philistines from the southern coast captured the Ark of the Covenant. Israel’s elders went to the judge and prophet Samuel and begged for a king. Echoing Gideon, Samuel said the Law should rule. God told Samuel to find a king to govern Israel, “for they have rejected me from being king over them.” (1 Samuel 8:7)
Samuel staged a rigged lottery, circa 1051 BCE. The lot fell to tall and handsome Saul. King Saul’s dark moods and darker deeds caused Samuel to anoint a replacement — David. The shepherd boy who slew Goliath is now a young man, a singer who soothes the king.
David won the throne in a civil war. Descended from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, King David’s anointed bloodline became revered as holy. David sired King Solomon, who built a famous mystical temple around the reclaimed ark, setting a seal upon the arcane.
Solomon died. His sons’ turf war for throne inheritance split the kingdom into Israel in the north (ten tribes) and Judah in the south (two tribes). Each nation had its own generations of kings.
Exile and Salvation
Sargon of Assyria (Syria) invaded Israel in 722 BCE and exiled it tribes north, where they were “lost.” Genocide? Assimilation?
Assyria was conquered in 609 BCE by Nebuchadnezzar. His Babylonian-Chaldean empire stretched from the Euphrates to the Nile, all the lands promised to Abraham. Babylonians occupied Judah in 604 BCE. To stop Judean revolts, the empire in 586 BCE destroyed Solomon’s Temple and exiled the Jews to Babylon (Iraq).
In Babylon the Jews absorbed Zoroastrian prophesies of a savior descended from Zoroaster (Zarathustra) who defeats evil in a cosmic final battle. They conflated this with faith in the Abrahamic bloodline. The Zoroastrian messianic ideas adopted in Babylon were and are as alien to natural Judaism as having any king at all.
Persia (Iran) conquered Babylon (Iraq) in 539 BCE. Cyrus the Great of Persia let about 40,000 Jews return to Philistine (Palestine). After 70 years of exile, the returning Jews rebuilt their Temple in Jerusalem. The Palestinians were displaced.
Across the Mediterranean, in 506 BCE, Athens instituted an aristocratic democracy, opening a Golden Age. In 509 BCE, Rome established a republic, that after Julius Caesar turned into an empire. Aristotle’s student, Alexander the Great in 333 BCE defeated Persian Darius III. The Greeks and their surrogates occupied Palestine.
Alexander died in 323 BCE. Hellenic Syrians took over and tried forcing the Jews to worship Greek gods. The Maccabean revolt in 167–164 BCE, with aid from Rome, restored an independent Judean kingdom, but not the old republic. Meager oil for the temple’s Eternal Light somehow burned eight days. Such a miracle!
By 63 BCE, Palestine was a province of Rome. Zoroastrian-influenced books (like Ezekiel, Second Isaiah, Daniel) moved Jews to pray for a messiah warrior king from the line of David.
Jesus had that lineage from Mary and Joseph, asserts Matthew and Luke, but few Jews accepted as the messiah this peaceful cousin of fiery John the Baptist, who had doubts (Matthew 11:3, Luke 7:19). John was beheaded at the behest of Herod’s dancing step-daughter, Salomé, who’s mother the queen suffered John’s pubic rebukes.
God’s Judgment
Rome ended unruly Judean nationalism in 70 CE (Common Era, called A.D.) by destroying the rebuilt Second Temple. Isaac’s heirs dispersed. Ishmael’s heirs reclaimed the Promised Land, which they always felt was rightly theirs.The religion founded by Paul to worship Jesus took root in Asia Minor and spread to Europe.
Christianity later battled Islam, founded in the 7th century by Muhammad, said to be descended from Ishmael. The Prophet died in 632. Islam spit over how to fill his vacant throne. Persian Shiites wanted hereditary succession. Arabic Sunnis wanted an election. They launched uncivil war over male rule that continues to this day, shaping events in the Middle East and the world.
After the Ottoman Empire fell in World War I, the British ruled Palestine under a mandate. After World War II and the Holocaust, under the auspices of the United Nations, Israel was reborn in 1948 as a social democracy, ending the Diaspora.
The UN also partitioned a state for the Palestinians, who rejected it, denying Israel has a right to exist again. Several Arab-Israeli wars later, despite peace activists on all sides, the family feud persists.
Putting all this his-story into perspective….
The desire for alpha male rule inspired Abraham to sire sons and nations, led Israelites to give up their basic republic for a king, led them to split into rival kingdoms, led to Israel being lost, led to a Babylonian exile and Jews seeking a messiah, led to Christians exalting Jesus, led to Muslims fighting Christians and Jews and one another. Observe how all three Abrahamic faiths venerate alpha males.
Paine wrote, “The will of the Almighty, as declared by Gideon and the prophet Samuel, expressly disapproves of government by kings.” He added, “’Tis a form of government which the word of God bears testimony against, and blood will attend it.”
Paine believed “Jewish royalty” failed and perished (plotzed) because God’s way is democracy, not monarchy. He’d argue today we live contrary to God’s law by tolerating kings in any guise.
Paine’s insights apply to those now fighting for land and power and survival in the Middle East. His insights also apply to those in any land, like in the United States of America, where a bully would end the republic to become a king.
Excerpted with a fresh opening passage from a new book by Judah Freed, Making Global Sense: Why a Billion of us Build Our World Anew. Grounded hope fore the 21st century inspured by Thomas Paine’s Common Sense.
