Mesopotamian Religion

5.Monographs
The absolute

Mesopotamia and the Bible

Giorgio Buccellati – October 2023

A basic asymmetry

The two areas to which the terms refer are, in and of themselves, not properly comparable. There is, we may say, a terminological asymmetry: “Mesopotamia” refers to a geographical area and to the civilization that developed in it, while “Bible” refers to a canon of texts gathered into a book. In addition, neither term stems from the native understanding, both being later Greek terms and concepts applied from without.

Beyond terminology, there is also a substantive asymmetry.

“Mesopotamia” rests on a set of data for which we have, and will continue to obtain, countless new pieces of evidence derived from archaeological excavations. The “Bible,” on the other hand, is a self-contained literary entity, closed to any possible addition.
“Mesopotamia” refers to a civilization while the “Bible” is but a book or, as the Greeek original (biblía) implies , the “books”. The plural is in itself indicative: there is in fact no literary uniformity in the components that make up the Bible, and contradictions and ambiguities abound.
If we go beyond the literary limits of the Bible aiming to study the wider dimension of the social,-poliitcal and cultural fabric out of which the “book” came, we see that it was a marginal and insignificant reality when compared to Mesopotamia.
Finally, while this reality behind the Bible, which we may broadly call Israel, was acutely aware of the Mesopotamian world, which was in many ways the matrix that conditioned its development, Mesopotamia was never even aware of Israel, other than seeing it as a distant and minor province of its much greater world.

If we can still make a case for going, in our website, beyond this stated asymmetry, it is in part because we are exploring here only the religious dimension – and this is a dimension that is accessible as such in both cases, however different the documentary record may be.

It is valid, in any case, to speak of “people” of Mesopotamia and of the Bible, where people “of the Bible” refers to people who were directly involved with the contents of “the book,” whether as authors or ss receivers.

A deeper asymmetry

There is, however, an even more basic asymmetry, one that pertains to the mode of reception of the two respective traditions.

Mesopotamia is, on the face of it, a broken tradition: there are no living carriers of its forms and values. We can rightfully claim to have a good knowledge of it, in some ways a better knowledge than he ancients had, given the fact that we have a fuller knowledge of their historical development than any of them ever had. We also claim a high degree of empathy for the human dimension of the civilization, i. e., ultimately, for their experience. But we are not claiming to be natively identified with the tradition: we do not give assent to their system of gods and rituals, however well we may think we know them.

The Bible, on the other hand, is seen by many as their living tradition: they feel they are carriers of this tradition as it extends back in time to when Mesopotamia itself was a living tradition. This entails a high degree of assent on the part of those who identify with it. Hence the rift: assent establishes a relationship with the data that cannot really be measured and factored into a standard type of analysis.

The case for symmetry

And yet. It may be claimed that the spiritual core of Mesopotamian religion is in fact still alive and present among us. I mean to attribute a specific sense to the concept, along the lines indicated above: “spiritual core” refers to the presuppositions which underlie the formal traits of religion as a system. Thus polytheism is seen as a stage in the quest to fragment the absolute as part of the effort to achieve full control over reality.

We may call it the Mesopotamian ethos. With the Egyptian, and differing from it, this is the first known formalized effort at achieving the goal just stated, and, with it, to deal explicitly with such notions as fate and death, or, even more generally, with universals and inferences. This ethos is very much present in our current sensitivity, our current ethos. And in this regard we may say that the Meslopotmian is not, after all, a broken tradition.

If so, we may identify a shared ethos not only between Mesopotamia and us, but also between Mesopotamia and the Bible. They both seek to deal with the same issues, if from radically different points of view. We should look at these two points in slight more detail, looking first at the notion of spirituality as seen in Mesopotamia and the Bible, and then at the nature of the structural contrast between the two.

Mesopotamian and biblical spirituality

Spirituality is then the key that helps us solve the problem of a double and seemingly contrasting path we need to follow when dealing Mesopotamia as a broken tradition and the biblical ethos that many claim as their own. Understood in the specific sense discussed above, spirituality gives us a key to meaningfully comparing the two traditions. Ultimately, this means that we are in effect dealing with plain and simple human experience when facing the absolute.

The biblical ethos has a very special status: it is limited in size, tied to a tradition that is very vocal in claiming essential continuity through time, and is, epseically, accessible trough a complex series of filters. As a result, the scholarly tradition is very different in approch and methods. On the one hand, Mesopotamian scholarship tends to ignore spirituality and to consder biblical scholarship as excessively obfuscated by the filters – thus tending to appear too positivistic to biblical scholars. On the other, biblical scholarship may mix levels of analysis and introduce views derived from the filters that have accrued – thus tending to appear too detached from reality to Mesopotamian scholars.

My goal is to be aware of these limits and to make explicit their import and role. Focusing on the distinctive nature of the two scholarly traditions can help enhancing a properly critical approach to both, in a converse sort of way. When dealing with Mesopotamia, the tendency is to be too shy and avoid thinking and speaking of spirituality, with what we may call an excessive positivism. When dealing with the Bible, the tendency is to be too defensive and avoid accepting what seems like an overdose of spirituality. The analysis we are undertaking of the literature in this website aims to consider both aspects, in such a way that a well tempered view of both traditions mat emerge.

A structural contrast

There is certainly no lack of comparative interest between the two traditions, but it tends to focus on surface elements such as isolated themes, individual figures or textual similarities.

A structural contrast, on the other hand, builds on the whole of the two traditions. There is of course the question of considering in a synchronic manner taditions that cover a very long span of time. But this is an issue that is certianly not limited to the field of religion. In the same way that we can and do speak regularly of Akkadian or Hebrew as coherent linguistic whole, however long may be the span of time during which gthey are attested, so is it legitimate to speak of

In this light, the contrast becomes much sharper than is generally acknowledged. It is especially in this sense that recourse to spirituality becomes relevant: spirituality is in effect a reflection of the deeper structural level at which each tradition can be seen as more truly itself. And at this level the consonance sinks to the lowest possible level – sharing, in particular, the urge towards an absolute, but disagreeing on evry other aspect of what this absolute may be.

Research trends

The emphasis on spirituality and on a structural contrast is central to the core argument that informs this version of the website. But it goes without saying that our coverage is not so restricted: we aim to discuss the full gamut of publications dealing with Mesooptamian religion in the first place, and then with publications dealing with the biblical tradition to the extent that they have some bearing on Mesopotamia.

The Absolute

The definition given in the book which serves as the core argument for the current version of this website runs as follows:

an absolute [...] remains empirically unknown but is nevertheless empirically assumed. It is an absolute because our perception of things is conditioned by it in ways that are beyond our control. An empirically unknown absolute is one that totally eludes all physical and tangible parameters. Unknown, but whose reality we presuppose because of the coherence with which our experience is conditioned. (p.2)

The absolute is thus seen as a universal: it touches everyone and is so acknowledged. It is a firm point of reference even though it cannot be analyzed in the same way we analyze its effects. There are, however, different parameters or, we might say, universes within which different absolutes may be operative.

The ultimate absolute (1)

But then there is the case of what we may call the ultimate absolute: this remains wholly undefined and unlimited, and yet just as conditioning as the vanishing point or the grammar. It is unlimited because there is no outside expert (like the linguist or the painter) who can define it. And yet it is pervasive as we attribute to it countless events in our lives for which we have no explanation.

It is ultimate in a dual sense.

On the one hand, it is seen as being at the highest level of significance because it conditions the deepest moments of our lives: death is one such moment, as it irreparably affects both the dying person and the survivors. It is ultimate spatially, we may say metaphorically, because it is the highest.
On the other hand, it is ultimate because it is beyond control. We do not have the equivalent of a linguist or a painter who can define rules and limits: this is the boundary where our analytical ability stops. It is ultimate temporally, we may say, because it is the last, the one that has not (yet?) been “solved.”

Metaphor and antinomy

There is an inherent paradox in the use of the plural “absolutes” and in the notion of a “limited absolute” – and we will look at this more closely below. At this point, two considerations are in order.

On the one hand, the notions of the vanishing point and the grammar as “limited absolutes” may be viewed as metaphors to explain the dynamics intrinsic to the notion of absolute: a person may not know the details of a conditioning factor (the grammar, perspective), but will nonetheless feel that facto as real and operative, in the sense that the actions of the speaker or the viewer must take that factor fully into account.

On the other hand, the metaphor may emerge as a reality: in this case, the “ultimate” absolute is viewed as only temporarily unlimited: given enough time, continued analysis will yield full control of everything and remove all limits, bringing it eventually under the control of an expert.

The ultimate absolute (2)

Whether the ultimate absolute is viewed as being inexhorably unlimited, or only temporarily so, it is clear that, in our historical condition, as well as in that of Mesopotamia and the Bible, we have what we may call an operationally ultimate absolute. It is a proper universal that can be so acceped by everyone – and it is in this sense that we will understand the term in the rest of our discussion.

The confrontation

How, then, do we face this ultimate absolute? How did, more specifically, the people of Mesopotamia and of the Bible face it?

I see spirituality as the moment of realization, when the absolute is felt as a conditinoing factor. The argument is inferential becuase there is no explicit evidence in the sources, but it can be seen as the implicit explanatory factor for a number of cultural phenomena that are otherwise well attested.

And how did they cope with it?

I see religion as the moment of codification, when specific and well documented cultural mechanisms articulate the response, on the individual and especially on the communal level.

Mesopotamia and the Bible provide two excellent benchmarks in this regard: : it is here that the strong structural contrast between the two emerges, because we are dealing with the fundamental issues that define the respective mindsets. There is no word for “absolute” in any of the pertinent languages, but the concept is very much operative.

Religion

● Mesopotamia

In Mesopotamia, the notion of fate or destiny emerges as a close approximation to an explicit definition of the absolute, all the way from myths to folk proverbs (this is brought out in several places in the core argument).

However, fate or destiny are never the subjet of action in the myths nor is there any form of cult to it – no prayers, rituals, statues, temples. In other words, fate or destiny are not within the institutional framework of the religious system.

Nor can the many gods and goddesses be properly identified with the absolute: their “divine nature” (ilūtum) is an attribute that is diluted by virtue of the reciprocal limitations among the various consituents of the pantheon.

It appears then that the absolute has in effect no real explicit presence in the religious system of Mesopotmia

● Bible

There is no word

My Giussani article ,

Spirituality

Spirituality is the locus where the experience of the ultimate absolute is felt and made manifest.

● Mesopotamia

decreeing the fate

Ludlul

Cerutti

● Bible

A topic which is frequently found, for instance in the first writings of Luigi Giussani (1966, republished in 1994), on p. 20: «… that first fundamental sense of being that does not depend on me, while I depend on it, implacable presence that imposes itself upon me» (my emphasis).

(Un)predictability

Predictability is a central aspect of any analytical effort to set limits

Whatever factor is at work is not only unknown except for the way it affects us, it is also unpredictable.

biblical predictability: God’s faithfulness

The paradox / The structural contrast

Not only the use of the plural “absolutes,” but even more the qualification of the absolute as “limited” are paradoxical. Etymology helps us in stating the terms of the paradox. The term (first used in the late Middle Ages) comes from ab-solvere, where ab has a negative or privative meaning (getting away from) and solvere means “to loosen, to set free (of limits).” If it is free of limits, it cannot be limited, and once there are no limits, there can also be only one absolute.

And yet.

In a historical perspective it is fair to say that the development of our species has been punctuated by a constant striving at limiting one absolute after another, bringing them progressively under our theoretical and practical control (anaysis and experimentation). Whether it was an early paleolithic individual who developed, with the heightened perception I have called “para-perception,” ever more refined ways of chipping tools; or the alloying of copper and tin to make bronze; or the splitting of the atom – in each case there was a removal of limits to what unutil then appeared as an unsolvable (ab-solute) problem.

We may then say that, at some level, the notion of progress, pushed to its extreme (if unproven) extreme, implies that there in fact is no ultimate absolute: the belief is that the ultimate absolute is but a congeries of absolutes that can be progressively, if slowly, be brought under full control – just as grammar or the vanishing point in the case of language and painting. There is faith in the assumption that even what is ultimately “un-solvable” can in fact be “solved.”

We may say that an absolute as experienced when speaking grammatically without knowing the grammar is a limited absolute. It is absolute for the speaker, but not for the linguist:

The question that arises is whether the ultimate absolute can be so limited and relativized. To which there can be two, and only two, answers. They take shape in the form of two diverse religious configurations, but they extend beyond the level of religion (see also the theme about innumerability).

structural contrast ~ universal it is here that the strong structural contrast between the two emerges, because we are dealing with the fundamental issues that define the respective mindsets.

The absolute as a sum

Polytheism is the classical historical manifestation of the quest to relativize the ultimste absolute. The absolute is “effable” in the sense that it can be analyzed: within the religious framework the “gods”

Outside the religious framework – progress, science

The absolute as a whole

ironically, the “logos” but “made flesh” – hence mystery

Buddhism

(In)transitivity

a judge decreeing the fate of a defendant

dinat misharim

Relevance

Mesopotamia

Interactions

relative absolute accepts the whole, not the other way around

Presumptions of uniqueness

Mesopotamian Religion

5.MonographsThe absolute

Mesopotamia and the Bible

A basic asymmetry

A deeper asymmetry

The case for symmetry

Mesopotamian and biblical spirituality

A structural contrast

Research trends

The Absolute

The ultimate absolute (1)

Metaphor and antinomy

The ultimate absolute (2)

The confrontation

Religion

● Mesopotamia

● Bible

Spirituality

● Mesopotamia

● Bible

(Un)predictability

The paradox / The structural contrast

The absolute as a sum

The absolute as a whole

(In)transitivity

Relevance

Mesopotamia

Interactions

Research trends

5.Monographs
The absolute