Baby Jesus-ancient Egypt, Islam, Christianity, Judaism

In Jerusalem, Sebag-Montifiore's biography of the city, a crusader discusses religion with a Moslem philosopher. He asks the philosopher if he wants to see god as a baby. The philosopher is rightly disgusted by the very notion. The crusader shows the philosopher a picture of Mary and Christ, as a child in her arms. The philosopher writes of this event with scorn.

On one level, the pared down concepts of Islam are attractive. The Mary and Christ motif/image seems to have been taken from Egyptian religion-Isis and Horus. Of course for Christians it expresses the human nature of god, the deities deep interaction with his/her/its creation. Islam totally rejects the pagan past, or appears to, but instead elevates the written word. This position it acquired from the Talmud, -in the beginning the word was god- and also Christianity (Gospel According to Luke). But this position can also be traced back to ancient Egypt, Ptah-one of its earliest supreme gods-and Mesopotamian literature, in which words were often magical. Fundamentalist Islam, as with fundamentalist Christianity and Judaism, rejects image and symbol. Meaning must be evident, not subject to thought.

Fundamentalists are rarely, if ever, intellectuals.