Writing with/around milestones in major world religions

[Tom Colton]

In (sort of) writing my TL about the Biblical Exodus and attempting to historicise it and considering different outcomes of the post-Ides of March Roman Republic, I find myself encountering the same issue.

Namely, how do people here handle events which are major landmarks in traditions sacred to billions of people around the world, some of whom may be reading this forum?

Given that the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt, the birth of Jesus (and his preaching and even his death and resurrection, if you want to take things that far) and the revelation given unto Muhammad by the Archangel Gabriel are supposed to be divinely ordained events, is it possible to butterfly these away without seeming sacrilegious?

I've managed to circumvent this issue by writing about the Exodus through the lens of a YHWH-fearing Jew without contradicting the divine nature of the actions which occur, only in their details, but how about those which are nominally supposed to be from a secular perspective?

I'm not discussing different outcomes of these events, but the moments themselves; are we supposed to regard them as immutable "fixed points" in the timeline, or are they as interchangeable as the rise and fall of other mysteries and cults? How do have you guys handled it in your writing?

 

[The Professor]

is it possible to butterfly these away without seeming sacrilegious?

The whole idea of AH presupposes there isn't a set single path for humanity to follow anyway.
One can consider a need for divine intervention to fit this view. That gods or God intervene to push their people towards a set goal; further intervention depending how far from this goal their people is.
Whether this is sacrilegious to someone depends on whether they consider free will to exist.

 

[RGB]

I mean fundamentally if you believe that materialist causality makes sense (which you probably do if you're talking about the butterfly effect), then it is logical to eliminate whatever doesn't follow from your premise. If divine intervention is more your thing, then you can ignore all the butterflies if you like, and divinely intervene whenever.

It's going to be very difficult to hide your cosmology and your philosophical positions completely in this kind of exercise. It's all fiction at the end of the day, and what matters is your target audience and whatever approach makes you feel like you haven't compromised your integrity as a writer.

 

[The Professor]

One thing to bear in mind is that large elements of Christianity and Islam were about expanding the Jewish religion beyond the Jewish ethnos.
Christianity based this around a sacrificial messiah, Islam around a warrior prophet.

 

[Practical Lobster]

What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.

Alternate history is, first and foremost, a thought experiment, and secondarily it can be a literary exercise. It doesn't describe what happened but what could have happened. I don't worry about offense because I'm not saying that Jesus didn't exist or that Muhammad wasn't a prophet but rather talking about a world where that didn't happen - and frankly, not because of their nonexistence but because of completely different points of divergence.

Even to a devout Christian, the idea of Jesus of Nazareth appearing in an entirely different social context should be somewhat absurd. For example: one could not imagine a figure identical to the Buddha appearing in premodern Alaska or Muhammad in a world where Arabians worshiped an organized religion based on Serapis and Isis. Even if these individuals did emerge in those contexts, they would have no audience because their words would simply not apply and they would be drowned out by more practical concerns.

Genuine divine intervention is, in my humble opinion, a matter for alien space bats. True miracles are events which defy the laws of physics. Quite simply, they should not be. By contrast, possible miracles and alleged miracles are obviously a part of history. In my timeline, a Different Oikoumene, there may well be faith healers and individuals who are said to have banished demons. That doesn't mean that they banished demons, merely that people in the timeline reported that they banished demons. The same is true of OTL. According to the Bible, Christ banished demons. I wasn't there. I dunno if he did. But if someone in your timeline genuinely and incontrovertibly banished demons, and demons exist and that is a fact which can be proven (not dependent on faith) then that's an ASB timeline.

For Jesus to even exist in a timeline with a PoD three thousand years or so previously you basically have to kill every butterfly ever and demand the Roman Empire exist and a guy named Herod take power in Jerusalem and then this guy named Jesus to suffer under Pontius Pilate, is crucified, died, and buried and then reborn.

Anyways, my understanding is that even ancient Judaism was realistically probably a polytheistic religion that would be almost unrecognizable to a modern Jew. So I wouldn't worry too much.

I'm not sure when the idea of the messiah entered Judaism. Certainly it has not always been a facet of the religion. If your PoD doesn't butterfly that, you could well have another figure hailed as messianic. But that's a whole 'nother bag of worms.

So it goes.

 

[Don Corleone]

You could have Jesus or Muhammed show up at a different time (and even make references to prophecies that point to a different series of events).

Or you could just ignore them altogether - after all, it's alternate history. YHWH could do something different in an AH fictional piece.

I'm a lector and Eucharistic minister. I don't see a problem with a timeline that doesn't have those events.

 

[Admiral Matt]

It's not exactly hard alternate history you're writing anymore, once you mandate miracles.

That doesn't necessarily forbid it. If you want to sell pulp AH novels to certain markets in middle America, for example, Christian miracles occuring on schedule after Alexander dismembers the Mauryan Empire.... Hey, good business model.

Even if one has less mercenary aims, there can be merit to the practice. Years of Rice and Salt explores alternate history using the literal truth of the Hindu/Buddhist afterlife as a framing device. It isn't perfect, YMMV, but it works for what it is. One could argue for literary merit.

An alternate history written from the perspective of the medieval Catholic Church could be fascinating, actually. I imagine their interpretation would be that saints, at least, could butterfly their sainthood away - the miracles work through them due to their piety, as I understand the theology, and their piety would be something they control.

Calvinism might not take to alternate history quite so well. &)

Personally, I've considered writing a social/religious alternate history of North America interpreted through a Quaker religious worldview. That would entail operating on the assumption that God speaks to all humans, but that human beings can only express this connection to the divine through their own fallible worldview, language, and personal history. In practical terms, the angels that went to Muhammad and Joseph Smith couldn't be butterflied, but who they found in Mecca and upstate New York.... how that person interpreted/applied the message.... those absolutely would. Could be fun to write some day, a history all fraught with misplaced meaning.

Being forthright, though, this kind of project is in no way "pure" alternate history. Rather it's a literary experiment weighted with meaning, that may or may not be readable.

 

[The Professor]

You could have Jesus or Muhammed show up at a different time (and even make references to prophecies that point to a different series of events).

Or you could just ignore them altogether - after all, it's alternate history. YHWH could do something different in an AH fictional piece.

I'm a lector and Eucharistic minister. I don't see a problem with a timeline that doesn't have those events.

Absolutely. An alternate theological history would require alternate miracles.