Mesopotamian Religion

8. Excerpts

Jean Bottéro
1992 Reasoning

Jonah Lynch – March 2021

Jean Bottéro 1992 Reasoning

Bottero 1992 Reasoning
Writing, Reasoning, and the Gods,
The University of Chicago Press

[About this author, cf. also the section History of the Discipline]

ToC of Bottero 1992 Reasoning

Table of Contents

I. Assyriology
1. In Defense of a Useless Science
2. Assyriology and Our History
3. A Century of Assyriology

II. Writing
4. The "Avalanche" of Decipherments in the Ancient Near East between 1800 and 1930
5. From Mnemonic Device to Script
6. Writing and Dialectics, or the Progress of Knowledge

III. "Reasoning": Institutions and Mentality
7. Oneiromancy
8. Divination and the Scientific Spirit
9. The Substitute King and His Fate
10. The "Code" of Hammurabi
11. "Free Love" and Its Disadvantages

IV. "The Gods": Religion
12. The Religious System
13. Intelligence and the Technical Function of Power: Enki/Ea
14. The Dialogue of Pessimism and Transcendence
15. The Mythology of Death

General topic(s)
of the book and comparison to When on High...

Bottéro's beautifully written work entitled Writing, Reasoning, and the Gods advances the conviction that the Mesopotamian world is the birthplace of the West. In contrast to the "not very eloquent" un-named writers he mentions in his introduction, it seems that Bottéro intends to apply great eloquence to the exposition of his argument. In the context of this website, one of his central concerns is the idea that the Mesopotamian religious system was mostly ordered around the principle of royal power. On some issues, his proposal is quite close to what Buccellati offers in the present work. For instance, Bottéro too sees in divination an intellectual stance close to modern science; Bottéro presents the multiplicity of gods as a "mechanism" rather than as "persons". On other issues, such as whether or not the gods control fate, there is a difference between the perspective of the two scholars. Following are a selection of relevant quotations.

Excerpts from Bottero 1992 Reasoning

Distinction between inspired and deductive divination

Topic	Page	Excerpt
Distinction between inspired and deductive divination	p. 126	Inspired divination is rather badly known and is confined to a few areas that are chronologically and geographically restricted. It does not seem to be typical for Mesopotamian civilization, and we will not discuss it further. Deductive divination, on the other hand, is attested, without interruption, from the beginning of the second millennium to the Seleucid period shortly before the Christian era. It must have been the subject of an enormous mass of works and documents, if we judge by the considerable amount that is preserved to us. Not counting the numerous pieces dealing with practice, we have found more than thirty thousand oracles divided over some one hundred Treatises at the very least.

The divine plan

Topic	Page	Excerpt
The divine plan	pp. 105-106	They were convinced that the world around them did not have a raison d'etre within itself. It depended entirely on supreme forces that had created it and that governed it primarily for their own advantage. The images of these gods were based on a human model; they were greatly superior, however, by their endless life, by their intelligence, and by their power that was infinitely above our own. Everything on earth, all objects and events, came forth from the gods' actions and their will, and fitted into some kind of general plan that they had in mind. This plan was impenetrable, as such, to humans, who discovered its unfolding from day to day. Nothing that we are ignorant of in the past, the present, and, of course, the future, escaped the gods’ knowledge and their decisions. But they could report on it to mankind at their pleasure: this was the entire meaning of divination.

A passage challing Buccellati on fate

Topic	Page	Excerpt
A passage that challenges Buccellati's exposition of the relation between gods and fate	p. 209	A passage from a liturgical poem, composed in Sumerian, at the latest near the end of the third millennium, in honor of the god Enlil, who was then considered to be the ruler of gods and men: "1. Enlil his authority is far-reaching his word is sublime and holy. His decisions are unalterable he decides fates forever!" [cf. also "Sources 2", mentioned by G. Buccellati in his book].

What is a god?

Topic	Page	Excerpt
What is a god?	p. 211	They [i.e., the Mesopotamians] grouped all the personalities under a common denomination, a species indicator, that we ordinarily translate as god, divine being. But this term – dingir in Sumerian, ilu in Akkadian – can in neither language be analyzed into otherwise known semantic elements which would give us a basic meaning. In other words, we do not know whence the Sumerians and the Semites could have derived their representation of the “divine.” Cuneiform writing gives us, however, an interesting indication: the sign that is used to designate a divinity – the sketch of a star – is the one that also marks what is “on high”, what is “elevated”, and concretely, the upper level of the “universe”, “heaven”. Thus the divine world was fundamentally imagined as being “superior” to anything here below, and in some way “celestial”.

Hypothesis regarding the development of gods

Topic	Page	Excerpt
Hypothesis regarding the development of gods	p. 217	The gods were detached gradually from the phenomena of nature and of culture to which they had been tied and took a certain distance from them. Certainly they maintained their "human" configuration and their purely anthropomorphic character, but they became increasingly refined, freed from what had been "too human," "too primitive," too rough, too unpolished, too wild and animal-like in their humanity. We know of myths in Sumerian, all from before the second millennium, that tell us, for instance, how Enlil in heat pursued the young and still virgin Ninlil in order to throw himself brutally upon her and to impregnate her, and this he did three times (it is true that she later gave in to him and wanted him). It was so outrageous that his own colleagues were angered at such beastly behavior and exiled him to the Netherworld. We know how Inanna was raped by her father's gardener; or how she had given herself with passion to her "first love," Dumuzi (Tammuz), before betraying him. Certainly the literary tradition has preserved the memory of these excesses, but the myths composed in Akkadian do not have the same coarse tone. Clearly the morals must have improved accordingly. But, in any case, starting from the beginning of the second millennium gods are only portrayed as very high, very dignified, majestic, and honorable personalities. Even when they give in to a passion they remain respectable and imposing - as is proper for this "upper class" invested with power.

Intransitiveness

Topic	Page	Excerpt
Intransitiveness	p. 9	As the tendency to see numinous power as immanent led the ancient Mesopotamian to name that power and attribute form to it in terms of the phenomenon, so it also determined and narrowed his ideas of that power's function. The numinous power appeared fulfilled in the specific situation or phenomenon and did not reach out beyond it.

Morality

Topic	Page	Excerpt
Morality	p. 187	With regard to morality (all that could dictate or animate individual behavior in the areas where law did not interfere), its main rule among the Mesopotamians seems to have been to succeed, in a positive or a negative way. Good was regarded by everyone as being that which brought the best conditions in life, or at least did not worsen it by setting in motion a "punishment" inflicted by the human or the supernatural authorities. They did not develop any conception resembling the one given to us by Christianity, i.e. that of sin, which would have involved some type of conscience in one's innermost heart.

What is a religion?

Topic	Page	Excerpt
What is a religion?	pp. 202-203	Religion presents itself at first sight to the observer as an ensemble of representations and of collective behavior, that controls an entire social group with regard to its relations to a universe considered to be superimposed on ours. … I prefer to bypass social issues, without, of course denying their existence, to identify religion first of all among the individuals who practice it. It is well understood that each of these individuals realizes in his own way and personal circumstances the definition of religion, whatever that may be, just like each exposes in his own way the nature of mankind, without the latter ever losing its fundamental characteristics. … We have a confused feeling that there exists an order of things that is entirely superior to us, and to all that surrounds us here on earth. We feel an inclination to submit ourselves to this order, or we feel urged to orient ourselves to it if we want to fulfill ourselves. This "order of things" is what is called, in this context, the supernatural, the sacred, the numinous. And what ties us to it, be it admiration and attraction, or fear and retreat, is the religious sentiment.

Royal power as an image of god

Topic	Page	Excerpt
Royal power as an image of god	p. 224	Numerous myths extend explicitly or by allusion the same transposition of royal power over the whole of human history "after the Flood." Since the world and mankind were created, the gods could not give up directing them and ruling them, thus assuring the continuous functioning not only of the entire machine but also of its smallest parts. They proceeded with effective decisions – as did the kings with their commands, ordinances, and decrees, which were obeyed by obligation. The divine decisions were called destinies. These they fixed or decreed and "inscribed" in things, as we have scen elsewhere, and communicated in that way to the parties involved according to a known and decipherable "code," thus making possible the divinatory techniques. The image of royal power, transposed into the supernatural world, was thus not a simple matter of style, a lyrical metaphor, but a real analogy, i.e. a means of knowing: the gods were indeed the authors and the governors of the universe and of each of its elements, as the kings owned and were responsible for their territory and for all of its resources and each of its subjects. Thus, from Heaven to the bottom of Hell, ever since the creation of the world, if not even before that, this obstinate and universal analogy with the royal institution flourished and appeared ubiquitously. Thanks to this analogy, which formed an unshaken backbone for the ancient religion of Mesopotamia, it is impossible for us not to see a real system, maturely thought out and constructed little by little, intelligently and solidly. However far removed it may be from our views, it is worthy of our admiration and honorable. These ancient worshipers had thus formed a "logical" ideal that allowed them to live, not too fearfully, with their sense of a supernatural and sacred world, a world that was sublime, inaccessible, and formidable. They felt that they were led by the gods as they were by their kings. They were used to such subjection. They had even attempted to find in it the means to free themselves of their worries and their sufferings, without which they thought their lives sufficiently tolerable, if not enjoyable, because they did not strive for a superhuman happiness. It was a distant era when man accepted that one never escapes one's ultimate destiny whatever one does, an antiquated period when man had not yet discovered ‘the contestation of power.’

Science derives from divination

Topic	Page	Excerpt
Science derives from divination	p. 125	In the history of scientific thought it has been suggested more than once that the Greek science of astronomy had its origins in one of Mesopotamia’s divinatory practices: that of astrology. But the proof for that has never been given, and perhaps it is impossible to do so, as there are so many basic differences between the two. … in Mesopotamia itself, from very early and long before the Greeks, divination had become a scientific type of knowledge and was, essentially, already a science. [cf. also, on this topic, Cornford 1957 Philosophy and Frankfort 1949 Before; note by mDP]

Going to the source

Topic	Page	Excerpt
Going to the source	p. 18	If the entire universe is really the potential object of our inquiries, why should we limit our curiosity to abstractions? Why should we give a place of honor to the so-called "pure" sciences, when there are so many captivating and capital questions about living and moving human beings; when one of the most natural and most praiseworthy instincts guides our attention to those who surround us, and to those who preceded us and have left us such a rich heritage? Besides an explanation by laws and by principles, is there not a place for explanations by individual causes and by precedents? Do we have to understand a river only in terms of chemistry, hydrology, and the mechanics of fuids? Could we not also walk upstream to find its source?

Sources of knowledge about Mesopotamian religion

Topic	Page	Excerpt
Sources of knowledge about Mesopotamian religion	p. 207	It is indispensable that we first say a few words about the sources that inform us about the religion. Those revealed by archeology – which we refer to in the broader sense as the "monuments" fabricated by man – are countless in number. The ancient soil of Iraq and the Middle East has been dug so much for one hundred and fifty years – and continues to be dug – that we know its riches: cities, temples, statues, images, and a prodigious warehouse of remains and utensils of all types. Whether they are intact or, as is most often the case, in ruin, these "monuments" are precious because they give us the actuality of what they represent. But they are not very talkative, and if we make them speak they are only able to respond to a questionnaire that is very limited in comparison to the matters of the mind that mainly interest us here. What remains are the "documents," the written sources that are infinitely less equivocal, more detailed, more precise, and much more in a position to satisfy our curiosity as historians. A good half a million at least have been found, and our treasure grows with the smallest excavation. In a period and a society where the supernatural kept close to the world and penetrated it throughout, and where the entirety of life was steeped in religion, much more than in our "disenchanted" and rational (if not rationalistic) minds, we can say that the enormous mass of documentation is almost in its entirety, directly or indirectly, exploitable for a knowledge of the religious universe. A quite substantial portion deals directly with it: hymns and prayers that represent the religious sentiment more immediately; myths and diverse "manuals" of the religious ideology often in a mythological form; rituals that allow us to become falmiliar with religious behavior and the cult – not counting the numerous works that cut across categories. The only thing that we have no chance of finding is exactly that which provides the strongest foundation of the "historic" religions: the "sacred writings" derived directly or indirectly from the Founder to which the faithful constantly refer in order to rule and regulate, to define and correct the thoughts and the behavior of each and everyone according to the founder's wishes. Such normative writings and [sic] inconceivable in a "primitive religion" which is a simple product of the traditional culture and which stagnates or evolves like this culture, according to the current of events.

Mesopotamian religion is connected to our civilization

Topic	Page	Excerpt
Mesopotamian religion is connected to our civilization	p. 201	In contrast to ancient Egypt, the indirect but genealogical connections of the ancient Mesopotamian civilization with ours are now recognized, although we are far from paying proper attention to them. Hence, this religion also gives us the oldest verifiable stage of our religious thoughts and practices, the first recognizable source of our religiosity in the remoteness of time. For those who have not forgotten that one needs to know whence one comes to understand oneself better, there should be some interest in obtaining at least a summary idea of this religion. Although, taking into account the state of our documentation, many nooks are still dark to us and a number of insoluble problems still remain, we know enough of Mesopotamian religion to discover in it, perhaps to our amazement, a structure that is not only impressive but also coherent and "logical," a reaI system perfectly joined to the other system that was the local civilization.

The nobility of “useless” knowledge

Topic	Page	Excerpt
The nobility of "useless" knowledge	pp. 15-16	The highest nobility of mankind lies in knowledge, in knowing, and that man has it in his nature to want to know everything: everything about the order and the evolution of the universe. … My consolation during all this was the conviction that I was never going to learn anything that would be useful or usable for anything else than the enrichment of my mind. … Insofar as our actions are necessarily inspired by our knowledge, the higher, the larger, the more loyal and unselfish knowledge becomes in each of us, the more righteous and irreproachable our behavior could be. But, without trying to take away anything from the nobility and the detachment that I have assigned to Assyriology, I am not as convinced as I was before that it can be really useless and unusable, and as a consequence I am not so convinced of its independent and autonomous nature.

True and false values

Topic	Page	Excerpt
True and false values	p. 24	In our countries for some time now a great hurricane of subversion has arisen, pushed forward by I do not know what vicious demons -- and doubtless in accord with the life-style that we have made our own, unfortunately. This hurricane tries to reverse our traditional order of values, to throw out all that we put forward as being unselfish, gracious and open to the world, open to things and to others, all that is active in dilating our minds and our hearts. It wants to replace it by the single, brutal, arithmetic, and inhuman motivation of profit.