Back to top: Chapter 15
Materializations
1 Materializations of the individual search for the divine include somatic externalizations (such as gestures), generic dispositions (expressing receptivity to the divine) and ways the perception of the divine is represented in a concrete way.
2 Various prayer gestures are represented on Mesopotamian objects, including postures of the body and arms, and touching the nose.
3 In both Mesopotamia and the Biblical world, we find asceticism as behaviors that bear witness to internal feelings (rather than disciplines). Examples are mourning, abstention from food according to divine commands, and martyrdom, which only occurs in the Bible.
4 There are many examples of deities worshiped on an individual level outside of the temple context in Mesopotamia. This activity is also present in Palestine, but on a much smaller scale, showing that aniconicity had taken roots in popular spirituality and was not confined to the elite.