... as the two characters are much older than Christianity and apparently older than Judaism. Hell, Satan/the devil.. it's "too modern" concepts for Jacob and MIB.

The characters were trying to understand this according to the religion/cosmology they know, evil is the Devil etc. Jacob and MIB seem to consider all they say as "approximate truths" at best, as if the modern religions of the characters had distorted some more ancient truths (the Island could have gotten distorted as the Garden of Eden in Judaism for instance, the snake-y Smoke Monster becoming the serpent).

This stuff goes way back to the pilot episode, where the writers told us in the clear in one scene what it's all about - but out of context, as a kind of metaphor, and not long after in season 1 the whole good vs. evil angle was turning out more and more to be a red herring and that scene got largely forgotten (well, *I* didn't remember that scene until it got revealed that Jacob had a foe)

In the wreckage of the plane in the pilot, Locke found a game of backgammon. As he explains to Walt, this is the oldest board game known to mankind. It's traced back to Ur in Mesopotamia, 5000 BC from where it spread throughout the world. As Locke told Walt in the scene: "There's two sides, one's light and one's dark. Do you want to know a secret?".

It's interesting that they chose to have a contemporary character born in Mesopotemia (Iraq), and Sayid's the latest one to have become "infected".

Interesting also that when Ben turned the wheel to leave the Island, he ended up in a desert (not in Mesopotemia but in northern africa, IRRC. Tunisia or something.).

Interesting as well that all the way in the pilot, Locke was already connected to these elements (and his favourite playing partner was... Walt. Will he make a comeback before the end on Jacob's side?).

The mythology behind the show is almost certainly pre-judaic, the name "Jacob" itself sounds like a red herring, making everyone look for biblical answers and biblical references, bringing the ladder, the fight with the angel, Esau, Isaac etc., when it's apparently quite the wrong direction.

I'm not extremely familiar with the details of Babylonian/Sumerian mythologies, but I know a strong element of it is the male/female opposition and complementarity, which unless you make the Island the female element (the garden of Inanna?) and Jacob something like its steward, doesn't fit very well. I guess they might be referencing (but if so, much altering) the myth in which Marduk (the god of light) defeated the ancient gods Tiamat and Apsu, who were upset by the chaos of the younger gods and tried to destroyed creation. Marduk defeated them and remade the world out of Tiamat's body. If Marduk is Jacob or Jacob is tied to him, he may have remade the world with this stop-gap that is the Island to keep chaos out. There's an element related to chaos and chaos theory in all of this (Hugo's numbers were always a big clue).

Another possibility is that the show's mythology will not be going as far back as that. Instead of Sumer, the writers could be taking their inspiration in ancient Persia's religion. It's still pre-Judaism, and it still works for the backgammon reference. In many ways, it fits much better. The God of Light seeks to destroy the Un-God of Chaos. Ahura Mazda (the Creator, or Uncreated God) is not omnipotent but would triumph over his evil counterpart eventually. In the beginning, Ahura Mazda offered peace to his foe Angra Mainyu (Ahriman), but the god of chaos refused. AM then proceeded to create his spiritual army, creating the "divine sparks", the six stewards to watch over and protect each creation, and keep chaos at bay.

The names of the stewards mean approximately:

- (Good) Purpose (male) - guardian of animal creation
- Truth/Righteousness (male) - guardian of fire and light
- (Desirable) Dominion (male) - guardian of metals/minerals
- Holy Devotion (female) - guardian of earth
- Wholeness (female) - guardian of water
- Immortality (female) - guardian of plants.

Plus on top of them Ahura Mazda, represented by Spenta Mainyu (that's about as complex as God vs. the Holy Spirit), as guardian of humankind against Ahriman/chaos. Another interesting element (in the light of the Richard episode) is that Ahura Mazda can only give eternal life, which is the primeval natural state of humankind. It's Ahriman who brought death in creation. The dead belong to Ahriman, so to speak.

The six guardians have an antithesis as well. Jacob's six would likely face MIB's six, then.

Zoroastrianism sees the chaos of Ahriman as a disease that entered Creation and touched mankind (the whole concept of virus/disease/infection is always very present in Lost), and that must be kept at bay until eventually it's extirpated from Creation by the followers of Ahura Mazda. The religion focusses heavily on good deeds and action from the believers. Good thoughts, good words and good actions are the only weapons with which chaos can be fougth and order can be maintained. The central revelation is that it's the purpose of mankind to assist God in maintaining order in the world, and that God has left humans the free will to choose between order and chaos.

If that's the mythology they chose to adapt for the show, this explains the many similarities to Wheel of Time, as Jordan has borrowed many concepts for his theology from Mazdaism, giving it a more manichean twist that possibly the Lost writers will have too (will MIB be painted clearly as "evil" as evil is seen in Judaism/Christianity/Islam/Manicheanism or as Chaos as in Mazdaism? We'll see. Right now it doesn't seem so clear cut between Jacob and MIB).

A distinct possibility, I guess, is that the writers have decided that Jacob and MIB go all the way back to the dawn of time, that Sumerian, Babylonian, Persian, Jewish, Christian and Islamic, Buddhist etc. religions have interpreted these two differently in the myths of genesis/creation, but they're older than Ahriman and Ahura Mazda, older than Satan and God etc.

Aaron still seems to be the wildcard in all of this. Aaron, Walt, and Penelope/Desmond. Now that Widmore has returned, they're the four characters still off the island. Aaron remains the only one who's born on the island, which is probably meaningful, especially since the writers are going out of their way recently to remind us of Aaron's existence. And there's the unknown boy who has appeared to MIB too, which some tought was a new Jacob of some sort. Could he have ben a "future" Aaron, I wonder?