The Genealogy of the Sacred
How traditions descended from, influenced, and reacted against one another across 300,000 years.
Religion evolves like life — through descent with modification, adaptation to new environments, extinction, and the occasional explosive radiation. Click any node to explore the tradition. Hover to see its connections. Use the filters to isolate specific types of relationship.
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The biologist Ernst Mayr described evolution as "descent with modification." The same phrase describes the history of religion. Every tradition inherits something from what came before — and then modifies it in response to new conditions, new questions, new crises.
Judaism inherited the flood narrative from Mesopotamia and the concept of cosmic justice from Egypt — and transformed both into something new: a covenant with a personal God who cares about history. Christianity inherited Jewish monotheism and the prophetic tradition — and added the radical claim that God had become human. Islam inherited Jewish and Christian monotheism — and stripped away what it saw as corruptions, returning to the pure unity of the divine.
Buddhism was a reform movement within Hinduism. Zen was a fusion of Buddhism and Taoism. Protestantism was a reaction against Catholicism. Sufism was the mystical interior of Islam. Every branch on this tree is both a continuation and a departure.
"There is no creation ex nihilo in religion. Every new vision stands on the shoulders of the visions it is trying to transcend."
— Karen Armstrong, paraphrase