4.1 The Nature of the Encounter
4.2 The Epistemological Approach
4.3 The Ethical Approach
4.4 Guilt and Sin
4.5 Modes of Contact
4.6 Personal Intuition and Social Organization
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- "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".
4.1 The Nature of the Encounter
On “repetitive patterns” of human perception and behavior, it is interesting to note that a strong neural correlate exists for this activity. One influential work on the issue is D. Hebb’s The Organization of Behavior. See an introduction here.
– [ Jonah Lynch, October 2020]
4.2 The Epistemological Approach
The biological substrate affirmed by Yalom is coherent with the religious behavior of humans: an attempt to order random events and thereby gain control over them. The alternative presented in biblical monotheism is a radically different perspective, attending, within apparent randomness, to a «mystery», a personal actor, who is eventually revealed as a lover.
Yalom also mentions what he considers a two-sided illusion common to most humans: the belief that one is special, and therefore immune to the ordinary disasters of life (death, in particular); and the belief that there is a savior, «Though we may falter, grow ill, though we may arrive at the very edge of life, there is, we are convinced, a looming, omnipotent servant who will always bring us back.» p. 34 See Yalom 2012 Love.
– [ Jonah Lynch, April 2020]
In this section G. Buccellati outlined a distinction between ‘religion’ and ‘magic’; even though such a demarcation is difficult to be traced for ancient Mesopotamia, an useful discussion on this topic can be found in Oates 1978 Religion, dealing with the definition of ‘religion’ and the description of Mesopotamian ritual (specifically funerary) practices.
– [ Marco De Pietri, June 2020]
‘Religion’ and ‘magic’ are particularly discussed in chapter 12 of Von Soden 1985 Einfuhrungen: the author perceives these concepts as two specific spheres (exemplified by texts of different ‘genre’) strictly connected and interacting each other.
– [ Marco De Pietri, July 2020]
The conversion of Abraham is well-known from Gen. 12.
In an apocryphal text of the Old Testament, called The Apocalypse of Abraham, in the first part it is also described the conversion of Abraham from idolatry to God. The full text of the volume publishing the apocrypha is Box 1918 Apocalypse.
For Abraham and his origins, see Berlyn 2005 Abraham; on his spiritual features, see Buccellati 2015, with video.
– [ Marco De Pietri, July 2020]
On the main work of Gianbattista Vico (1744 – Principj di scienza nuova, Napoli), see e.g. the entry by G. Buccellati on Urkesh.org/e-Library.
– [ Marco De Pietri, July 2020]
Buccellati’s affirmation that divination, astrology, and magic are eminently rational procedures may suggest that these practices are the beginnings of what we call science. Oppenheim cautions against too rapid a conclusion in this sense: «Unwarranted seem to me to be the claims that the word lists with names of plants, animals, and stones, are the beginnings of botany, zöology, and mineralogy, respectively. Such claims originate in the climate of today’s opinion in which achievements in what we choose to term “science” are considered essential in an alien civilization if it is to be worthy of study. What we have to see in these numerous and diversified lists is much the same process of growth by accretion, the same preference for additive elaboration and amplification (rather than structural changes) which we can observe in Mesopotamian legal practices, in the evolution of the votive inscriptions, in the layout of a temple, to mention some few examples. A formally very simple and short pattern is utilized by the scribes to render a large variety of complex and elaborate contents. In this way the form as such does not exercise any tyranny, nor does it coerce the content, but serves as vehicle; in fact, it forms a matrix for a progressive development.» Chapter 5, Oppenheim 1964 Mesopotamia
– [ Jonah Lynch, October 2020]
Buccellati’s account of the radical difference between biblical “faith” and mesopotamian polytheism is reminiscent of the theological term “event”, as used by L. Giussani, R. Guardini, and E. Fuchs, among others.
– [ Jonah Lynch, October 2020]
4.3 The Ethical Approach
For a discussion about the ethic in ancient Mesopotamian (connected to wisdom texts, the problem of suffering, and Theodicy), see Buccellati 1972 Teodicea.
– [ Marco De Pietri, June 2020]
As stressed by G. Buccellati in this section, «gods are liable to death»: on this topic, see Xella 2001 Quando, dealing with ‘death’ or ‘disappearing’ of a god, sometimes provoking famine or drought. The ‘death’ or ‘disappearing’ of a god is unbelievable and unconceivable within a monotheistic thought (believing in God as an eternal entity) while in ancient polytheist systems many examples of ‘dying gods’ can be detected (e.g. Ištaran equated to Dumuzid); cf. on this topic Buccellati 1982 Descent, dealing with the epic poem Inanna’s Descent into the Underworld, for which see ETCSL 1.4.1).
– [ Marco De Pietri, July 2020]
As stressed by G. Buccellati in this section, «gods are liable to death»: on this topic, see Xella 2014 Dieux, dealing with ‘dead and resurrected gods’ (Paragraph 2, on pp. 526-527: text in Xella 2014/Excerpt).
– [ Marco De Pietri, July 2020]
On the topic of the ‘death of gods’ in Mesopotamian religion and literature, cf. Chapter 5, Section 1, point (6): text in Buccellati 2021/Excerpt.
– [ Marco De Pietri, July 2020]
On the ‘Ten Commandments’ of the Judeo-Christian tradition, see of course the two parallel versions in Ex. 20, 2-17 and Deut. 5, 6-17.
– [ Marco De Pietri, July 2020]
4.4 Guilt and Sin
A common idea (for instance in (Bettini 2014 Polytheism) holds that polytheism is more tolerant and less violent than monotheism. However, the two different religious views cannot be compared “straight across” and used for their civil effects. They differ at the level of grammatical structure, as it were, between transitive and intransitive verbs. – [March 2020]
– [ Jonah Lynch, April 2020]
The difference between a law-based morality and the relationship-based morality (which includes themes such as love, pardon, mercy, and the like) that Buccellati emphasizes in the biblical tradition clarifies Mendenhall’s distinction between values and “interests” (the latter being those motivating factors referred to under the titles of power, prestige, and wealth). Mendenhall clarifies that the Kingdom of God is “the leaven—the qualitative functioning—of a transcendent factor that the Bible calls God, which is radically other than social control systems, which society benefits from, but which it can neither produce nor control” (p. 177). Laws are still necessary, but they are “simply not the way the Rule of God operates” (p. 177). See Mendenhall 1975 Conflict.
– [ Jonah Lynch, April 2020]
Note that the source of evil in Mesopotamia is “dissonance”, “noise”, not disobedience, as it is in the Biblical account. See the discussion in Anthonioz 2016 Deluge.
– [ Jonah Lynch, June 2020]
For a comparison on ‘faith’ and ‘sin’ in the Bible and in Mesopotamian culture, see Buccellati 1973 Adapa.
– [ Marco De Pietri, June 2020]
A discussion about the concepts of ‘sin’ and ‘guilt’ can be found in chapter 12, sub-paragraph 4 of Von Soden 1985 Einfuhrungen, discussing the perception of sin in ancient Mesopotamia, connecting this topic to the definition of ‘ethics’ leading to the establishment of specific norms and rules. Human behaviour is judged by the gods, as it is clear in Mesopotamian theodicy and in Mesopotamian perspective on the afterlife.
– [ Marco De Pietri, July 2020]
On ‘sin’ and ‘guilt’, the ‘death’ or the ‘disappearing’ of a god, sometimes provoking famine or drought, was perceived in antiquity as a punishment caused by human sins: the analysis of such a phenomenon helps in clarifying how ancient men explained natural events as a consequence of a human mistake or offense towards a specific god (see entry: Xella 2001 Quando).
– [ Marco De Pietri, July 2020]
G. Buccellati tells about ‘harmony’, implying the polarisation ‘order’/’cosmos’ vs. ‘chaos’; this topic has been analysed in Jahn 2013 Creation, paragraph 2.4 on pp. 32-36, with a specific reference to the Alla gods.
– [ Marco De Pietri, July 2020]
4.5 Modes of Contact
For an investigation on the divine speech in ancient Mediterranean world, see Anthonioz 2019 Divine Speech.
– [ Marco De Pietri, June 2020]
4.6 Personal Intuition and Social Organization
«In Mesopotamia there are no founding personalities of the religious system, let alone human personalities who are conceived as historically valid and who propose their own intuition of divine reality as a specific expression of a manifestation or revelation deriving directly from that reality».
This passage is wholly agreeable. It is true that in ancient Mesopotamia there were not such ‘founding personalities’. Nevertheless, it is at least possible to detect some specific historical figures (mainly kings) who focused on a specific deity, in a kind of henotheism, such as Akhenaten in Egypt, elevating Aten over other gods, or Nabonidus at Babylon, who preferred Sin to the polyad god Marduk (although, the latter’s religious ‘swing’ is still historically discussed, as, to be honest, also the former’s religious ‘revolution’).
It is also interesting to recall a passage in Liverani 2009 Oltre, pp. 337 [2005 English edition] (text in Liverani2005/Excerpt), where the author investigates the topic of ‘founding personalities’ in the realm of Israelite cultic activities.
– [ Marco De Pietri, July 2020]
On the topic of Biblical ‘alliance’, see e.g. the lemma ‘covenant’ (בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית, berît(https://4Banks.net/STATIC/PDF/Mes-rel/Berit.pdf)) in Freedman 2000 Eerdmans, pp. 288ff..
– [ Marco De Pietri, July 2020]