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In this volume, William L. Moran has collected seventeen of Jacobsen's widely scattered essays. Dealing with religion, history, culture, government, economics, and grammar, these pieces are representative of all aspects of Jacobsen's work, but stress his studies in history and religion, the fields in which he made his most important contributions to our knowledge of Mesopotamian culture and the origins of Western civilization. Moran has also included a bibliography of and a lexical index to Jacobsen's writings.
Modern-day archaeological discoveries in the Near East continue to illuminate man's understanding of the ancient world. This illustrated handbook describes the culture, history, and people of Mesopotamia, as well as their struggle for survival and happiness.
Mankind lived in Paradise for a long time, , God said to unnamed colleagues: "Is it possible that he may also take from the Tree of Life and live forever?" Having eaten the Fruit of Knowledge, but forbidden from reaching for the Fruit of the Tree of Life. Following Adam's eating of the Fruit of Knowledge.. Since then, man has sought Immortality withheld by God. Yet throughout the millennia, it has gone unnoticed that while concerning Yahweh's Tree of Knowing: Adam became a part of us after eating it, no such statement has been made regarding "From the fruit of the Tree of Life, we can live forever.. Was it because the promise of "Immortality," made to Mankind as a distinctive attribute of the gods, was nothing more than a grand illusion? A king of Uruk, Gilgamesh, son of Ninsun and Lugalbanda, was the first to try and find out. While the tales of Enmerkar and Lugalbanda are enchanting and intriguing, the post-Diluvial Luga has to be one of the most compelling! Gilgamesh was the demigod who ruled Uruk from 2750 to 2600 BCE and had the longest and most detailed records. Throughout Gilgamesh's long Epic, he searches for Immortality, believing that since two-thirds of him are gods and one-third are humans, he should not "peer over the wall" as a mortal. Genealogically, he was more than just a demigod, more than a fifty-fifty god. King Lugalbanda, son of Lnanna and High Priest of Uruk, possessed the "divine" determinative. Gilgamesh was described as having the "essence of Ninurta" (Enlil's foremost son) because of his mother, Nin. Sun ('Lady Who Irrigates') was the daughter of Ninurta and his spouse, Batu. Anu's youngest daughter Bau was of a noble family.
A Companion to Gender History surveys the history of womenaround the world, studies their interaction with men in genderedsocieties, and looks at the role of gender in shaping humanbehavior over thousands of years. An extensive survey of the history of women around the world,their interaction with men, and the role of gender in shaping humanbehavior over thousands of years. Discusses family history, the history of the body andsexuality, and cultural history alongside women’s history andgender history. Considers the importance of class, region, ethnicity, race andreligion to the formation of gendered societies. Contains both thematic essays and chronological-geographicessays. Gives due weight to pre-history and the pre-modern era as wellas to the modern era. Written by scholars from across the English-speaking world andscholars for whom English is not their first language.
This study examines how the cultures of Egypt, Mesopotamia and Greece, with their highly developed senses of religion and spirituality, provide a useful and even crucial context for a fuller study and understanding of the Bible. The beliefs and practices of these ancient civilizations embodied in such important literary works as the Egyptian Book of the Dead, the Sumerian/Akkadian Epic of Gilgamesh, and Homer’s perennially sublime Iliad and Odyssey, as well as the great Hellenic tragedies, are major cultural legacies that have enriched civilization and indubitably deepen our understanding of the Biblical Books, their cultural location, and their enduring moral authority.
This survey of ancient levels of lakes, rivers and sea, and changes in stalagmites and sediments shows an astonishing correlation between climate change and rise and fall of civilizations in the Middle East. Warm periods were characterized by aridization, economic crisis and mass migration. Cold periods brought abundant rain, prosperity and settlement. The authors conclude that climate change was the decisive factor in the origins of the "cradle of civilization".
The title of this volume, Sacred Marriages, consciously plays with the traditional concept of sacred marriage, but the plural form, “sacred marriages,” gives the reader an idea that something more is at stake here than a monomaniacal idea of manifestations deriving from a single prototype. Following the guidelines of one of the contributors, Ruben Zimmermann, the editors tentatively define “sacred marriage” as a “real or symbolic union of two complementary entities, imagined as gendered, in a religious context.” “Sacred marriages” (plural), then, refers to various expressions of this kind of union in different cultures that seek to overcome, to cite Zimmermann again, “the great dualism of human and cosmic existence.” The subtitle indicates that the contributors are primarily interested in different aspects of the divine-human sexual metaphor—that is, the imagining and reenactment of a gendered relationship between the human and divine worlds. This metaphor, which is essentially about relationship rather than sexual acts, can find textual, ritual, mythical, and social expressions in different times and places. Indeed, the sacred marriage ritual itself should be considered not a manifestation of the “sacralized power of sexuality experienced in sexual intercourse” but one way of objectifying the divine-human sexual metaphor.
A comprehensive biblical reference includes a wide range of articles about people, places, customs, events, religious concepts, and philosophical ideas mentioned in the Scriptures.
Beholders of Divine Secrets provides a fascinating exploration of the enigmatic Hekhalot and Merkavah literature, the Jewish mystical writings of late antiquity. Vita Daphna Arbel delves into the unique nature of the mystical teachings, experiences, revelations, and spiritual exegesis presented in this literature. While previous scholarship has demonstrated the connection between Hekhalot and Merkavah mysticism and parallel traditions in Rabbinical writings, the Dead Sea Scrolls, apocalyptic, early Christian, and Gnostic sources, this work points out additional mythological traditions that resonate in this literature. Arbel suggests that mythological patterns of expression, as well as themes and models rooted in Near Eastern mythological traditions are employed, in a spiritualized fashion, to communicate mystical content. The possible cultural and social context of the Hekhalot and Merkavah mysticism and its composers is discussed.