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    onl

    y those who shared the same genes could share the same God.  That

    was the tribal concept held by primitive peoples the world over.

    But as Leo W. Buss, a biologist at Yale University, says, "at each

    stage in the history of life in which a new self-replicating unit

    arose--the rules regarding the operation of natural selection changed

    utterly."15  One result: two to three thousand years ago, the gods who

    had been mere labels for a genetic stock detached themselves and took

    on a new purpose.

    You can see the gene-free god unfolding in the days of the New

    Testament.  Jesus was a Jew.  All available evidence indicates that, like

    the other Jews of his time, he felt his God was a genetic one.  The only

    people to whom Jesus preached were other Jews.  They alone were the

    folks to whom his God and his DNA were attached.  When Jesus was

    crucified, most of his disciples followed in his footsteps, trying to

    convince Jews that Jesus was, indeed, the Messiah.16  Like the tribal

    God he served, a Messiah would aid only the people who carried the

    chosen genes.17

    Then, after his death, Jesus acquired a new kind of apostle.  The

    original followers of the carpenter from Nazareth had been simple

    people from the hills of Galilee, poor backwoods folk with only the

    most rudimentary education.  The figure who would transform

    Christianity was a city sophisticate with a university education.

    His name was Saul.  And he knew aspects of the world the

    original disciples had never dreamed of.   He had grown up in the

    cosmopolis of Tarsus, a bustling center of trade where men from all

    over the vast Empire of Rome did business.  Saul's father, though

    Jewish, had been a Roman citizen.  Saul had been educated in Israel's

    greatest urban center, Jerusalem.  And he spoke the language of

    international high culture--Greek.

    Saul was a Johnny-come-lately to the teachings of Jesus.  He

    didn't even get involved until after Christ was dead.  When Saul first

    heard of the redneck sect, he was so infuriated that he organized

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