Ancient Middle Eastern Religions

B

Gods and Temples

From written sources that gradually became more frequent during the 3rd millennium bc, it is evident that the Mesopotamian flood plain was densely populated with a network of cities, towns, and villages grouped into political, religious, and military alliances. Each city was home to a major deity, visualized in human form and residing in a cult image, or statue, that stood in a house or temple. The relationships among the different city deities were defined by a pantheon in which both kinship and status were important: The moon god was frequently viewed as the father of the planet Venus, for example, and the gods of large cities were usually more important than the gods of small villages. Although often identified with a specific city or cult place, the major deities were honored everywhere, sometimes in local forms with local names. After the Sumerian civilization was absorbed by speakers of Semitic languages, many Sumerian deities were called interchangeably by Sumerian and Semitic names.

B

1

Gods

The gods had specific areas of responsibility; for example, the sun god oversaw justice, honesty, and fairness. Major Babylonian deities included the sky god, An (Semitic Anu, whose wife is Antu), with his major sanctuary at Erech (Uruk); Enlil, wife Ninlil or Mulliltu and son of Anu, god of the wind, major sanctuary at Nippur; Utu (Semitic Shamash), the sun-god, with sanctuaries at Sippar and later Larsa; Nanna (Semitic Suen or Sin), the moon god, with sanctuaries at Ur in Sumer and Harran in Asia Minor; and hundreds of others. A late Mesopotamian list of gods contains more than 1800 names.

With the growth of nation-states and empires in the second half of the 2nd millennium bc, certain city gods became national gods, especially Ashur in Assyria and Marduk in Babylonia. Marduk, for example, was portrayed in the Babylonian creation epic, called Enuma Elish (When on High), as assuming supremacy over the other gods in return for protecting them from attack by Tiamat, the ocean. Marduk then reorganized the universe, placing Babylon and his own temple at the center, thereby supplanting Nippur, the city of the god Enlil, who had previously been the chief god of the land. In this way religion expressed Babylonian nationalism. Marduk was thought of as the son of Ea and father of Nabu (Nebo), god of scribes; his wife was Sarpanitum.

B

2

Temples

The temples of the gods were considered their manors or households. The deity, in the form of a statue, was clothed, entertained with music, and taken on ritualized journeys. A divine staff of servants, including couriers, stewards, cooks, gardeners, and herders, all had human counterparts. The humans who lived in the temple estates were headed by a high priest (for a female deity) or high priestess (for a male deity). In later times high priests or priestesses would often be sons or daughters of ruling kings, and would be appointed for life. They were sustained by temple income, offerings, and plots of land assigned to provide them with food. The temples controlled a great deal of farmland, especially in Sumer. They also had vast flocks and herds, wealth in the form of luxury goods and surplus, and large labor forces. The temples provided social services, such as employment of the poor, blind, and orphaned. They could serve as banks, making loans with or without interest; as the place for oaths taken in law cases; and as repositories for documents, such as treaties and land grants, that called on the gods as witnesses. They were also centers of learning and artistic production.

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During the 3rd millennium bc, temples were often the center of their communities, even though political and military rule was in the hands of city rulers or kings who were not priests. There is no evidence that religious services in temples allowed for the participation of the community as a whole. Rather, individuals could make gifts to the temple for their well-being, leave written petitions for the gods to consider, participate in the city festival, and view the image of the deity when it was carried in public procession. The annual festival of the new year, called akitu, took place in a special chapel outside of the city walls. Temples were increasingly controlled and maintained by kings, who kept them in good repair, rebuilt and refurbished them, and took charge of their lands and wealth. Toward the end of the 3rd millennium bc, some kings proclaimed themselves gods and had temples built in their own honor. During the 2nd millennium bc, the temple seems gradually to have yielded its central position in the Mesopotamian community to the palace, or king's household. An important ritual of the early 2nd millennium was the sacred marriage, in which the king had intercourse with a priestess, representing a goddess, in a ceremony to ensure fertility of the land.

In Assyria, temples were fully subordinate to the king, who also held from earliest times the title of high priest of the god Ashur. In Babylonia, temples maintained a separate identity, although under royal supervision, until the Persian conquest (612 bc). After this the great Mesopotamian temples were damaged during civil strife, they were looted and taxed by the Persian rulers, and their rites and scholarship were accessible only to a select few. Despite occasional renewals and local prosperity, they gradually faded from existence after the conquest of Mesopotamia by Alexander the Great (331 bc).

C

Mythology

Various Mesopotamian myths tell how the cosmos, or universe, was organized (see Creation). Others explain the cycles of the natural world, clarify the place of human beings in the scheme of things, and relate the deeds of ancient heroes.

C

1

Creation

One early Sumerian myth, called “Enki and the World Order,” portrays Enki organizing the universe in a form rather like the great temple estates described above. In another, called “Lugale,” a victorious young god, Ninurta, reorganizes the universe after a great victory. In the Anzu myth, Ninurta defeats Anzu, a monstrous bird, and gets control of the tablet that assigns responsibilities to all the gods. The Babylonian creation epic was modeled on the Anzu story. In the creation epic, Marduk seized the so-called tablet of destinies after defeating Tiamat (the ocean) in battle. Inanna (Ishtar) is the subject of many myths and stories. In some she is a warrior, triumphing in battle. In others, she is a young girl falling in love with Dumuzi (Tammuz), god of shepherds and spring vegetation. She later turns on him in a jealous rage, leaving him to die. In other myths she descends to the underworld, where she is killed by her sister, Ereshkigal, queen of the underworld, but is restored to life by a trick of Ea (alternate name for Enki, god of wisdom, skill, magic, and knowledge). Other Babylonian myths include theogonies (stories of how the gods were born) or recount the origins of human institutions, such as kingship, or of such harms as disease and death. There are various versions of a flood story, in which the gods send a deluge but a man escapes by building an ark. Heaven and the underworld were visualized with gates, palaces, and sanctuaries just like those on earth.

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