1.1 Religion
1.2 The Absolute as a Divine Element and as Matrix
1.3 Structure of Religious Systems
1.4 Spirituality
1.5 Piety
1.6 Revelation and Intuition
1.7 Myth and History
1.8 Explanation and Faith
1.9 Competence and Sensitivity
1.10 Objectivity
1.11 Levels of Analysis
1.12 Culture and Experience
ERRORS in databases:
- "Boson1918Assiriologia.d": duplicate bibliography "Boson1918Assiriologia" for site "Akk-lg".
- "Bottero1992Reasoning.d": duplicate bibliography "Bottero1992Reasoning" for site "Mes-rel".
- "Buccellati1972Teodicea.d": duplicate bibliography "Buccellati1972Teodicea" for site "Mes-lit".
- "Cauvin2000Birth.d": duplicate bibliography "Cauvin2000Birth" for site "Mes-rel".
- "DMB.d": duplicate bibliography "DMB" for site "Mes-rel".
- "Edzard2003Sumerian.d": duplicate bibliography "Edzard2003Sumerian" for site "Mes-rel".
- "Oshima2014Sufferers.d": duplicate bibliography "Oshima2014Sufferers" for site "Mes-rel".
- "Trinkaus1983Shanidar.d": duplicate bibliography "Trinkaus1983Shanidar" for site "Mes-rel".
1.1 Religion
Religious sentiment: Bottero 1998 Plus.
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On the question of the “finality” of religion, see Burkert 1998 Creation.
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G. Buccellati presents in this section the very topic of the entire volume, i.e. the definition of religion and the basic distinction between polytheism and monotheism. For the definition of ancient Mesopotamian concepts of religion, polytheism/cosmotheism vs. monotheism, and the nature of Mesopotamian gods, see Mander 2009 Religione.
– [ Marco De Pietri, June 2020]
For an investigation on Egyptian religion, see Buccellati 1961 Egyptian Religion.
– [ Marco De Pietri, June 2020]
For the role of ‘faith’ in the definition of religion, see Buccellati 1973 Adapa.
– [ Marco De Pietri, June 2020]
For an investigation on ‘religion’ in ancient Mesopotamian texts (specifically wisdom literature), see Buccellati 1981 Wisdom.
– [ Marco De Pietri, June 2020]
The definition of the concept of religion in ancient Mesopotamian thought is a difficult topic, sometimes lying on a slippery floor of evidence (both textual and archaeological); J. Oates presents an interesting definition, related to the political growth of the first civilisations: religion is «a major ‘prime mover’ in the rise of civilized societies» (see Oates 1978 Religion, p. 117).
– [ Marco De Pietri, June 2020]
A definition of the concept of ‘religion’ in ancient Mesopotamia is also presented in Oppenheim 1964 Mesopotamia, where the author analyses Mesopotamian cultic practices within an interesting psychological perspective.
– [ Marco De Pietri, June 2020]
The definition of the concept of religion changes from culture to culture: Puech 1976 Storia displays a wide overview on the different religious thoughts of ancient Mediterranean basin. Chapters 3 and 4 are specifically devoted to Sumerian and Babylonian religion. An introduction by A. Brelich (cf. entry Brelich 1976 Prolegomeni) sketches some basic definitions and concepts (such as ‘religion’) pointing out a common fil rouge behind all Mediterranean religious systems.
– [ Marco De Pietri, June 2020]
A good, even though dated, introduction to many aspects of religion in ancient Mesopotamia (specifically Babylon) is offered in Sayce 1902 Religions (Part 2), presenting fruitful comparisons with Part 1 on Egyptian religion.
– [ Marco De Pietri, June 2020]
An overview on ancient and modern religious systems is presented in Snell 2010 Religions, dealing with different religious beliefs from the fourth millennium BC until the very present. The comparative approach is conducted in a peculiar way, trying to identify the influence of ancient religions on modern beliefs, reaching the conclusion that, because of an evident broken tradition, it is impossible for modern people to really experience the actual core of ancient religions («we cannot really experience Ancient Near Eastern religion. We can at most imagine. But we should»; p. 207).
– [ Marco De Pietri, July 2020]
A useful introduction to Mesopotamian religion is offered in chapter 12 of Von Soden 1985 Einfuhrungen, presenting many topics on Mesopotamian religious thought.
– [ Marco De Pietri, July 2020]
As stressed by G. Buccellati, ‘religion’ is a term difficult to be defined as it was perceived in ancient Mesopotamian mindset: a discussion on this topic is offered in Xella 2014 Dieux in its introductory note on the ancient concept of ‘religion’ (on p. 525: text in Xella 2014/Excerpt), not well defined in antiquity as it is nowadays, helping in understanding how to approach ancient polytheism and religious thought, avoiding any superimposition of modern terminology or concepts.
– [ Marco De Pietri, July 2020]
«By religion I mean the codification of the interaction with an absolute that 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 because it totally eludes all physical and tangible parameters» (Buccellati, §1.1). This definition of religion is quite different from others, e.g. that in Jacobsen 1976 Treasures, who considers religion as a response of the human beings to a specific need, thus avoiding any relationship with the ‘absolute’: see Jacobsen 1976/Excerpt.
– [ Marco De Pietri, July 2020]
An interesting parallel to Buccellati’s reasoning about the “finality” of religion can be found in S. Talbot’s work on form. See Burkert 1998 Creation.
– [ Jonah Lynch, October 2020]
Buccellati’s use of the word “finality” in reference to the inescapable character of death (for example) is not exactly the same as the Aristotelian theme of teleology, but it is related. Death is given as a negative example of a telos toward which human life inexorably proceeds. The inexorability of the outcome, notwithstanding the varieties of the way it is reached, is what characterizes the encounter with the Absolute. The same dynamic obtains, as Buccellati points out, in the explicit or tacit acceptance of the rules of logic in a discourse. Note how this analogy between the inevitability of death and the inevitability of logic, in the first section of the book, provides the structural basis for the ensuing discussion and conclusions regarding religion. Buccellati’s definition: «Religion is thus the codification of this polarity between the human sphere of the relative and that of the absolute.». See Burkert 1998 Creation.
– [ Jonah Lynch, October 2020]
For a critical perspective, which challenges definitions of religion such as the one proposed by Buccellati, see Asad 1993 Religion Anthropological Category.
– [ Jonah Lynch, January 2021]
See Panikkar 2010 Visione for an alternate view of religion.
– [ Jonah Lynch, January 2021]
For Giorgio Buccellati’s definition of religion, see previously Buccellati 1981 Wisdom, pp. 36-37: text in Buccellati 1981/Excerpt. For others definition of religion, somehow alternative to that given here by Giorgio Buccellati, see e.g. Brelich 1976 Prolegomeni, pp. 4ff.: text in Brelich 1976/Excerpt.
– [ Marco De Pietri, April 2021]
For a definition by Giorgio Buccellati on the term perception, see e.g. Buccellati 2014 Dalprofondo, pp. 36-37: text in Buccellati 2014/Excerpt.
– [ Marco De Pietri, April 2021]
For a discussion on the role and historical development of language, see e.g. Buccellati 2014 Time, pp. 70-71: text in Buccellati 2014/Excerpt.
– [ Marco De Pietri, April 2021]
For another definition of the term ‘religion’, see Brelich 1976 Prolegomeni, pp. 4, 13, 33: text in Brelich 1976/Excerpt.
– [ Marco De Pietri, May 2021]
1.2 The Absolute as a Divine Element and as Matrix
On three universal characteristics of the absolute, and on socio-biology as the source of natural religion, see Burkert 1998 Creation, p. 5-7.
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Spinoza proposes a modern interpretation of the absolute which is conceived in a way that is not dissimilar with polytheism. The extreme effort to maintain the purity of the absolute (to the point that divine intervention in history is denied explicitly, starting with creation) seems to work against the fragmentation of the absolute. The absolute has no face, not one nor many. But one observes that in the first place the notion of necessity inherent in a structural manner in the absolute recalls us to the amorphous and impersonal concept of fate that the Greeks called precisely “necessity” (ananke).
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For an investigation on the ‘absolute’ in ancient Mesopotamian religious system, see Buccellati 1981 Wisdom.
– [ Marco De Pietri, June 2020]
For a discussion about Mesopotamian pantheon as both an ‘open system’ and a ‘closed system’, see Buccellati 1981 Wisdom.
– [ Marco De Pietri, June 2020]
For an investigation on the ‘absolute’ in ancient Mesopotamia, see Buccellati 2014 Time, p. 77: text in Buccellati 2014/Excerpt.
– [ Marco De Pietri, June 2020]
For the ‘absolute’ in ancient Mesopotamian religion, see Buccellati 2012 Coerenza.
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For an investigation on the ‘absolute’ in ancient Mesopotamia, see Buccellati 2012 Trinità.
– [ Marco De Pietri, June 2020]
Buccellati’s account of “symmetric interaction” is reminiscent of a graphic figure Giussani frequently employed to describe the difference between human yearning and divine response. See Giussani 1994 Dio and here.
– [ Jonah Lynch, October 2020]
Here, both Buccellati and Eliade conceive of the absolute from a pivoted perspective, see Kang 2012 Eliade Duranki. Buccellati’s concept of a divine matrix by which all realities revolve around is akin to Eliade’s concentration on places of worship as the focal point of Mesopotamian ideology.
– [ Iman Nagy, October 2020]
For some reflections regarding a comparative method applied to the study of polytheism, see Brelich 2007 Politeismo.
– [ Jonah Lynch, January 2021]
1.3 Structure of Religious Systems
For new research on the origins of religion, see Anati 2020 Origins.
– [ Jonah Lynch, January 2021]
For the methodology to be applied in a comparative history of religions, see Brelich 1976 Prolegomeni, pp. 36, 54-55: text in Brelich 1976/Excerpt. Cf. section 6. History of the Discipline (by Jonah Lynch).
– [ Marco De Pietri, May 2021]
1.4 Spirituality
Religious sentiment: see (Bottero 2001 Religion).
– [ Giorgio Buccellati, January 2020]
Religious sentiment: (Bottero 1998 Plus).
– [ Giorgio Buccellati, March 2020]
[Cornelius, Geistesgechichte]
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As for a discussion about spirituality and faith in Mesopotamia, see Buccellati 1972 Teodicea.
– [ Marco De Pietri, June 2020]
On the topic of the origin of a spiritual thought and transcendence, see e.g. Buccellati 2014 Time, pp. 73-74: text in Buccellati 2014/Excerpt.
– [ Marco De Pietri, April 2021]
1.5 Piety
[Quoted (in Beola)]
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‘Piety’ is already attested on the base of archaeological finds from prehistoric times: for a specimen of an early development of the concept (or at least actual manifestations) of ‘piety’ shown in burial customs, see Trinkaus 1983 Shanidar.
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For an investigation on Egyptian religion and personal piety in ancient Egypt, see Buccellati 1961 Egyptian Religion.
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For the text of the Book of Tobias, see The New American Bible (English translation).
– [ Marco De Pietri, July 2020]
On the topic of funerary rites and burials see the bibliography presented on Urkesh.org/Topical index, sub voce “Burials” and “Funerary practices”.
– [ Marco De Pietri, April 2021]
For a discussion on the core difference between monotheism and polytheism, see e.g. Buccellati 2012 Trinità, pp. 31-32: text in Buccellati 2012b/Excerpt.
– [ Marco De Pietri, April 2021]
For an introduction to polytheism(s) in the Ancient Neat East, see e.g. Biga- Capomacchia 2008 Politeismo.
– [ Marco De Pietri, March 2024]
1.6 Revelation and Intuition
Relationship with the gods: Cicero 0045 Deorum.
– [ Giorgio Buccellati, July 2012]
[Newman, Grammar of Assent]
– [July 2012]
For an investigation on the divine speech in ancient Mediterranean world, see Anthonioz 2019 Divine Speech.
– [ Marco De Pietri, June 2020]
For an investigation on ‘revelation’ in ancient Mesopotamian religion, see Buccellati 1981 Wisdom.
– [ Marco De Pietri, June 2020]
For ‘revelation’ and ‘intuition’ in ancient Mesopotamia, see Buccellati 2014 Time.
– [ Marco De Pietri, June 2020]
Revelation as discussed by G. Buccellati in Chapter 1, Section 6 is obviously connected to the Book of Revelation Rev.. M. Kelly-Buccellati discusses in Kelly Buccellati 1996 Seals the symbolic meaning of seals mentioned in several Biblical books (also in the Book of Revelation, see e.g. Rev. 7), analysing their symbolic imagery (applied to Christ and the Holy Spirit) on the base of a comparison with ancient Syro-Mesopotamian sealing practices. It results that the metaphor of sealing is shared both by the ancient Mesopotamian culture and by the New Testament.
– [ Marco De Pietri, June 2020]
For Sumerian texts referring to Erra, see ETCSL. Specifically, on the poem Erra and Ishum, see Foster 2005 Before, pp. 880-911.
– [ Marco De Pietri, July 2020]
1.7 Myth and History
«Myth and History. At the core of each of these two perspectives lies the way in which we conceive factuality. Just as at the origin of inspiration we may or may not see an absolute acting as an external principle, in the same way we may consider the interaction of this principle with reality as something that is either factual or not. The foundational theme of creation is a specific example» (G. Buccellati, section 1.7). For a brief but useful discussion on Mesopotamian creation (and mainly for the role of gods in this process), see Jahn 2013 Creation.
– [ Marco De Pietri, July 2020]
See Schelling 1856 Mythologie for an early study of mythology.
– [ Jonah Lynch, January 2021]
1.8 Explanation and Faith
As for a discussion about spirituality and faith in Mesopotamia, see Buccellati 1972 Teodicea.
– [ Marco De Pietri, June 2020]
For the role of ‘faith’ in the definition of religion, and the figure of the ‘man of faith’, see Buccellati 1973 Adapa.
– [ Marco De Pietri, June 2020]
«In the historical vision, faith in the pure and simple factuality of the unexplained invites a dialogical relationship with the absolute; while in the mythical vision, “faith” in the ultimate explicability of data, seen as a closed systemic totality, calls for an attitude that is wholly inner-referential. The contrast is therefore not between faith and reason, but between faith and explanation» (G. Buccellati, Chapter 1, Section 8). About the reasonability of faith, see Ratzinger 2004 Introduction, where the author tries to define the limits and points of contact between religion/spirituality and reason/science.
– [ Marco De Pietri, July 2020]
For the relationship between ‘faith’ and ‘reason’, see e.g. the encyclical letter of John Paul II Fides et ratio: see J P I I 1998 Fides; cf. also a famous speech of Pius XII (Piu X I I 1951 Discorso) explaining how the Bible and science are not in contradiction (cf. entry: Ratzinger 2004 Introduction).
– [ Marco De Pietri, July 2020]
1.9 Competence and Sensitivity
[Develop the notion of semiotics here]
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[Refer to Reichenbach for “common cause” (Ralph Siegemund)]
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[Empathy in Husserl and Stein]
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On ‘repetition/reiteration’ of patterns in archaeology as procedural systems (a good comparison to explain the present concept), see the example of the production of microliths in prehistorical periods, in Wynn 1989 and Wynn and Coolidge 2011.
– [ Marco De Pietri, July 2020]
The topic of ‘dead’ civilizations, linked to that of ‘broken tradition’, is explained by G. Buccellati and A. Bezzera on CAR.
– [ Marco De Pietri, July 2020]
1.10 Objectivity
[Refer to my position in Communio articles]
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See Carbajosas, “De la fe”: the presuppositions of biblical criticism, neutrality as a chimera.
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Exegesis and historical-critical analysis of the Bible. See Carbajosas
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Human beings are culturally embedded. This concept of calibrated ‘assumptions’ can be compared with the archaeological concept on ‘inference’, explained by M. De Pietri in CAR.
– [ Marco De Pietri, July 2020]
1.11 Levels of Analysis
For a discussion about comparative method in the analysis of Biblical, Mesopotamian, and Egyptian religions, see Buccellati 1966 Bibbia.
– [ Marco De Pietri, June 2020]
In seemingly direct contrast to Buccellati’s approach of don’t argue in a given field of research with assumptions derived from another, Albright argues for a systemization of methodology that does not treat any civilization of the Ancient Near East as unique. However, both Buccellati and Albright are in favor of prioritizing a linguistic key, free of influence from historical or religious considerations. See Albright 1940 A N Ereligion.
– [ Iman Nagy, August 2020]
For a treatment of how Buccellati approaches ancient cultures, see Buccellati 2006 Emic.
– [ Jonah Lynch, January 2021]
For the methodology to be applied in the analysis of religions and their history, see Brelich 1976 Prolegomeni, pp. 36, 54-55: text in Brelich 1976/Excerpt.
– [ Marco De Pietri, May 2021]
1.12 Culture and Experience
For a discussion about the American Protestantism’s approach on the Bible, and the possible influence/impact of the latter on the former, see Buccellati 1960 B O 2.
– [ Marco De Pietri, June 2020]
For a discussion about actual experience of the divine in Mesopotamia, see Buccellati 1981 Wisdom.
– [ Marco De Pietri, June 2020]