En esta última parte, retomamos el recorrido por los relatos de Génesis para observar cómo las formas heredadas del sistema religioso politeísta continuaron evolucionando sin desaparecer, permaneciendo activas en nuestras creencias religiosas, culturales y sociales. Estas formas están profundamente enraizadas en el inconsciente humano desde los inicios mismos de la civilización.
The religious system of polytheism was foundational—not only because it marked the human origin of the earliest beliefs about the divine, but because it laid the groundwork for social and cultural behavior. Everything human beings created in terms of social organization, family structures, rules of coexistence, and communal life was born and expressed out of those beliefs that became part of the first religion structured by man.
Understanding this matters because it allows us to see that many ideas and customs we assume today as “natural” or “right” are not so because of intrinsic value, but because we inherited them from ancient systems that reflected a different way of understanding life and the human being.
In the earliest stages of human history, there was no modern separation between religion, culture, and politics. Religion was the axis that generated culture and organized social life. That is why its structures shaped the human being so deeply that only a radical inner change can free us from behaviors that, though inherited, no longer benefit us.
That change begins with reconciliation: an internal transformation that makes it possible to live with freedom and detachment from what, though traditional, is no longer beneficial. Because what we inherit is not always harmless superstition—like believing that opening an umbrella inside the house brings bad luck—but also ways of living that failed and became embedded in social behavior.
For example, in the early centuries of Sumer, women enjoyed greater autonomy, but over time their role was restricted. If we think this inequality existed only in Paul’s era, we are mistaken: it is as old as the first civilization. We can say, then, that the first religion laid the foundations of our societies—and that those foundations still shape our way of living without our noticing, because they operate from the deepest level: from the spiritual realm, from within the human being.
Continuing with the Genesis story, we find Isaac—the son of Abraham—consulting Yahweh about the barrenness of his wife Rebekah. This implies a visit to a sacred place or sanctuary where he believed Yahweh manifested Himself. His father had already begun building altars and planting sacred trees as signs of that presence. We do not know whether the place Isaac visited had already become a formal sanctuary with a priest, following the model developed since the first human civilization.
Later, in the account of Jacob on his way to Haran, we are told that when the sun set he lay down to sleep in a certain place. There he had the famous dream of the ladder, with angels ascending and descending between heaven and earth. At that moment, God transfers to him the promise given to his grandfather: to give him that land, bless him, and make all the families of the earth blessed through his descendants. The same promise had also been extended to his father Isaac.
What is interesting about this passage is Jacob’s typically Mesopotamian reaction: “This is none other than the house of God and the gate of heaven!” That expression points to a very ancient belief—the idea that there was a point on earth that connected to heaven, a doorway between worlds—very likely inspired by the spiritual memory of the Tower of Babel and the Garden of God.
Jacob rises early in the morning, takes the stone he had used as a pillow, sets it up as a pillar, and pours oil on it. That gesture was not invented by him; it was a common practice in the Sumerian, Babylonian, and Canaanite world. Later, once the people of Israel were established, oil moved from being a personal gesture of spiritual consecration to becoming a formal liturgical element: it was used to anoint priests, kings, and objects of the tabernacle as a sign of separation, holiness, and divine authority.
This change marks the transition from an intimate and symbolic act—born from individual spiritual perception—into a ritualized practice controlled by the priestly system. What in the time of the patriarchs was a free expression of the bond with the divine became an institutional tool: oil shifted from being a sign of personal experience to a seal of religious legitimization. Anointing stopped flowing from encounter with God and became a ceremonial requirement. In this way, the system absorbed a practice inherited from the polytheistic environment and transformed it into an instrument of power, hierarchy, and separation.
After that act, Jacob speaks to God with conditions: “If God will be with me and keep me on this journey; if He gives me bread to eat and clothing to wear; and if I return safely to my father’s house, then Yahweh shall be my God. This stone that I have set up as a pillar shall be God’s house, and of all that You give me I will give You a tenth.”
What can we understand from this? That Yahweh was not yet his God. Jacob is also proposing a negotiation: if God fulfills His part, then Jacob will accept Him as his deity and build Him a sanctuary. What stands out first is the lack of humility: he sets conditions in order to accept Him as his God. We see Jacob treating God as if He were a man—as if the one who had something to lose, if the deal did not go through, were the Creator and not the creature.
What a contrast with the attitude of the centurion described in the Gospels—an attitude of faith that astonished Jesus. The Roman officer had a beloved servant who was gravely ill. When he heard about Jesus, he sent word that he did not consider himself worthy to receive Him in his home. Yet he trusted that with a single word his servant would be healed. When Jesus heard it, He marveled at his faith and declared, “Not even in Israel have I found such great faith.”
The Gospels speak of a man who did not know the written Word of God and had not been instructed in the promises given to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. His spiritual reference came from a polytheistic and military world. Yet his own experience as a soldier—accustomed to giving and receiving orders—allowed him to understand deeply what it means to believe in the authority of a word. As he himself expressed: “For I too am a man under authority, with soldiers under my command. I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes; and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”
Jesus did not find that faith among the scholars of the Law, nor among those who claimed to serve God in the temple, but in a foreigner outside the established religious system. This should make us reflect deeply: God is not limited to a religion, nor to an institution, nor even to a culture. He can be found by anyone whose heart is willing and whose understanding of His power is sincere.
It is not necessary to know every text or belong to a religious group in order to draw near to God. As the New Testament itself says, “God is not far from any one of us.” He is near to those who truly seek Him, and He reveals Himself even to those who never received the written revelation. This story shows that true faith does not need religious labels. What God values is a heart that recognizes His authority and trusts His Word with humility, even if it has never read a single line of Scripture.
In Jacob’s passage, he offers what he knows: to consecrate the stone as a sanctuary and to give a tenth. This latter practice was also common in his time. We already saw it in the encounter between Abraham and the pagan priest Melchizedek. Jacob’s faith was still in an embryonic stage, as happens with all of us when we first approach God: he still needed guarantees. Mature faith, by contrast, believes and is satisfied with the promise of God’s Word.
From what we know so far—according to archaeological evidence and the earliest records—the custom of the tithe originated in Sumer and spread from there to Babylon, Assyria, Canaan, and Israel. In the Sumerian system, the tithe was structured as a religious and economic obligation to sustain temples and their priests.
Later, Jacob prepares to meet his brother Esau, from whom he had been estranged. He sends a message through servants, and when he learns that his brother is coming with four hundred men, Jacob is terrified. Then he asks for help from the God of his grandfather Abraham and the God of his father Isaac. Even at this point, Yahweh is not yet his God, but the God of his ancestors.
After reconciling with Esau, Jacob continues his journey to Shechem. He buys a plot of land, pitches his tent, and builds an altar, calling it “The God of Israel.” In chapter 35, he again experiences an appearance of the same unnamed divinity who had manifested to him when he was fleeing. This time, the voice tells him to go up to Bethel and build an altar. Can we believe that God demanded altars when altars were a practice inherited from polytheism? Can we believe that a God who asks for justice and mercy would require sanctuaries and ritual stones, when He said through the prophets that altars had done nothing but lead them into sin?
Hosea prophesied: “They have built many altars that only serve them to sin. I gave them many teachings… but they despised them. They bring offerings and sacrifices… but all of that displeases me.”
From that command onward, the narrative describes Jacob as transformed, fervent in faith in his one God. He orders his household to get rid of foreign gods and purify themselves—changing their clothes—because they are going to build an altar. That purification, as we know, was also a Sumerian and Babylonian custom. In those cultures, changing garments, ritual washings, and abandoning “contaminated” objects were part of preparation rites to appear before a deity or perform a sacred act. Although Israel re-signified this gesture as holiness and separation for the one God, its external form came from the very religious system from which God wanted to liberate them.
His people give him the idols and the rings from their ears, and Jacob buries them “under the oak near Shechem.” That oak was not just any oak: it was the same sacred oak of the pagan Moreh, already used as a place of worship by Abraham.
They break camp and finally arrive at Bethel, where Jacob builds the altar. Then Rachel’s nurse dies and is buried under another oak. There should be no doubt that the choice of the tree was intentional, since oaks were regarded as sacred trees—something later prophets would denounce strongly when condemning worship under leafy trees.
After this, the narrative says God appears again to Jacob and changes his name to Israel for a second time. This chapter—with a God who wrestles with Jacob, pillars, stones, trees, libations of wine and oil—ends like this:
“Jacob set up a pillar at the place where God had spoken to him—a stone pillar—and he poured out a drink offering on it and poured oil on it.”
Jacob channeled his religious fervor through the polytheistic forms he knew. His grandfather and his father had done the same. The ritual he performs is indistinguishable from the worship of the idolatrous peoples around him: stone, wine, oil, pouring out. It is very similar to what would later be incorporated by the Levitical priesthood into Hebrew worship. Jacob simply used what he knew: the ritual language inherited from his polytheistic ancestors to express a personal bond with a God he was only beginning to recognize.
For the ancient Israelites, both oaks and stones marked places associated with divine energy. Generally, in the Old Testament, supernatural appearances occurred where there was an oak or a stone. After the appearance, the stone was sanctified as an altar for sacrifice or worship by pouring some liquid on it. In this way sanctuaries were created, which were often also used as resting places.
Thus we see Abraham and Jacob stopping there again and again during their journeys. Before the dream of the ladder, Jacob took a stone as a pillow. That decision was not accidental: he had reasons to seek communication with God, and the stone would serve as a means to establish contact with the divine. In that context, it functioned as an object of divination or omen.
This use of the stone was not Jacob’s invention but a common practice in the cultures of the Fertile Crescent. In Mesopotamian and Canaanite religion, certain stones were considered betyls—sacred objects or dwellings of the divine—and were used to mark places where gods were believed to manifest or could be invoked. They were seen as portals between the visible and the invisible, and therefore were often anointed with oil, erected as pillars, or surrounded by worship. This symbolism was so deeply rooted in ancient spirituality that it was natural for Jacob—formed within that worldview—to use a stone as a medium of spiritual communication, expecting a nocturnal revelation. His later consecration of the same stone confirms that its meaning went beyond practicality.
The reason he uses the same stone that had served as a pillow as an altar is that, after the night vision, he considered it sanctified. Upon that pillar he performed the same liturgy he would repeat in chapter 35: he poured a libation—a liquid that could be wine or oil.
When Joshua gives the people statutes and laws at Shechem, he does so through a ceremony inherited from polytheism:
“Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of God, and he took a great stone and set it up there under the oak that was by the sanctuary of Yahweh.”
That oak was considered sacred.
The angel of Yahweh appeared to Gideon under the sacred oak at Ophrah. Gideon offered food there: a young goat and unleavened bread. The angel touched the offering with his staff, and fire rose from the stone—under the oak—and consumed it. That stone and that oak were considered sacred. Then Gideon built an altar to Yahweh there. He had all the elements needed to establish a sanctuary according to the polytheistic model: an oak, a stone, a sacrifice, and a supernatural manifestation.
In the book of Kings, we also see King Jeroboam seeking a man of God “sitting under an oak.” He was there because that tree was considered sacred.
It is interesting to note that these stones or pillars have diverse meanings and uses in the Old Testament. There were altars for invocation and others for sacrifice. There was also the custom of slaughtering animals and then eating them on the stone, as Jacob and Saul did. Saul’s passage in Samuel is especially illustrative.
Jacob uses a stone as a pillow while expecting a word from God. In his urgency, he uses it like a talisman. Then, after receiving the revelation, he consecrates it as an altar. Saul, for his part, uses a stone to slaughter animals so that they would not be eaten “with the blood,” that is, without being cooked. Then he uses it as an altar. In the account of Rachel’s death, it says a pillar was set up, which we can regard as a tombstone.
The idolatrous beliefs of the era were deeply rooted in Abraham and his descendants. Although Abraham received the seed of monotheistic understanding and passed it to his children, both he and his descendants continued practicing forms of worship inherited from the Sumerian polytheistic environment. His stay in Egypt exposed him to the religion of that land, and once they settled in Canaan, they adopted elements of local worship.
The people then added to Abraham’s faith the practices of their ancestors and the religious rituals of Egypt and Canaan.
The ancestral customs the Hebrew people maintained until the destruction of the temple and the great dispersion were: the use of sacred stones and trees, worship in high places, sacrifices and burnt offerings, and the worship of the pagan gods of their neighbors and conquerors.
By the time of Jesus of Nazareth, of all these inherited practices, the most deeply rooted and still active was the sacrificial ritual. Although visible idolatry had been confronted and faith in one God had been affirmed as national doctrine, the heart of worship remained sacrificial—a practice inherited from the first religion structured by man in Sumer.
This is what Jesus called “their traditions”: practices inherited from men that, when elevated to the level of law, ended up nullifying the true Law of God. The external forms of worship remained, but the spiritual meaning had been lost. That is why Jesus, like the prophets before Him, denounced that system as an obstacle to true connection with the Father. He not only exposed the hypocrisy of the system, but made it clear that God did not desire ritual sacrifices, but mercy, justice, and obedience to His Voice.
Yet it is ironic—and revealing—that only a few decades later the author of Hebrews took up precisely those traditions Jesus questioned and argued that God did not want animal sacrifices because He wanted the sacrifice of a righteous man. In Hebrews 10:5–7, reinterpreting a psalm, these words are attributed to Jesus:
“Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, but a body You prepared for Me… behold, I have come to do Your will.”
However, the original Hebrew text of Psalm 40 does not say “a body You prepared for me,” but “You opened my ears”—an expression referring to obedience, not physical sacrifice. That is precisely what the Teacher of Nazareth taught. This variation comes from the Greek version—the Septuagint—and allowed the author to build his argument. If the faithful Hebrew wording had been kept, there would be no way to sustain the idea that God prepared a human body as a sacrificial offering.
Thus what originally was a critique of sacrifices—even in the mouth of the prophets and of Jesus Himself—was transformed into a theological foundation to justify the sacrifice of a human being as the means of universal salvation.
What is presented as a new revelation ends up reproducing the same system Jesus rejected through His life and teaching: a structure based on human traditions, such as sacrifices, now legitimized in His name.
In the same way, in ancient Israel that system of sacrifices and burnt offerings was legitimized with the Name of God, even though He Himself—through the prophets—warned that He had never ordered it.
The religious system human beings created became powerful, but it could not overcome the power of God. It was born alongside the first human civilization in Sumer and was transmitted first to invading populations such as Babylon and then to neighboring regions, expanding until it reached more distant tribes. It became powerful because it established religious structures that gave meaning, order, and control to entire civilizations, shaping cultures, rituals, governments, and even calendars.
And more than that: its traces have marked—unconsciously, deeply, and persistently—our way of thinking, our ideas about what is sacred and forbidden, and even today they influence daily life in small actions, customs, or beliefs that we repeat without knowing where they come from.
Yet without God, every system created by man—no matter how structured or long-lasting—ends up corrupting itself.
God was not defeated by that system. He tolerated it for a time and eventually exposed it. Today He is trying to bring order to our beliefs, not through visible force but through the inner call of His Spirit. And if the human being, apart from the true guidance of God, was capable of creating systems—like this religious one—with structures that lasted millennia, how much more could we become if we allowed ourselves to be transformed by His Spirit?
That religious system which man designed to explain and relate to the divine—with altars, sacrifices, and sacred objects—not only survived the destruction of the temple, but transformed and adapted into new religions. Those same forms were used to interpret the death of Jesus in human terms, forcing it into the mold of an ancient pagan rite: sacrifice to the gods.
And even though today we live in a world where robots are created, artificial intelligences imitate human thought, and people plan to inhabit other planets, the structures of the polytheistic system are still present. We see them in church altars, in the veneration of images carved in wood or plaster, in the use of candles, incense, or “holy” water to obtain favors, and even in popular superstitions such as carrying amulets or making conditional promises. All of this reflects an ancient way of thinking: the belief that we can control or attract the divine through rituals, objects, or external actions.
These practices are not new; they are heirs of the same system that began when man decided to create his own path to the divine without listening to or following the Voice of God with humility. I do not exclude myself from occasionally participating in those customs. My grandmother lovingly taught me as a child that if my right hand itched, money was coming, and that I should close it so it would not “escape.” Even today I still do it out of habit, and because it reminds me of her tenderness.
But the blessing we all desire does not come through altars, images, or the power of stones or amulets, but through our relationship with the Creator. As we focus on our spiritual growth or transformation, He will do the invisible—and powerful—part of bringing about the spiritual and material prosperity we long for.
We are the center of that growth and transformation. Yahweh is interested in each of us working individually on ourselves. Jesus’ words fit well here: “First remove the beam from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” That phrase can be interpreted in different ways, but essentially Jesus was saying that we must first see clearly ourselves before pointing at others. And to see well, we must open ourselves to the Spirit of God and allow Him, with His gentleness, wisdom, and power, to transform us.
It is delicate work: opening the mind, healing wounds, breaking patterns we repeat unconsciously that harm us; freeing ourselves from false beliefs inherited from our families, our social or religious environment; and also from ideas we have adopted without knowing their origin—ideas that limit us more than they help us. That work must begin in each person, because God’s purpose in it is clear: to bless us and do us good.
The true sanctuary God seeks is inside the human being—there, where His Spirit can dwell, speak, and guide without intermediaries; where no external sacrifice is needed, because the real sacrifice is abandoning pride, the idolatry of the system, and inherited fear. When that happens, then—and only then—true restoration and transformation begins: not the restoration of the religious system man invented, but the living relationship God always wanted to have with His children.