Becoming Well Versed in Ancient Near Eastern History
Offline One of the most unpleasant things about the Bible is its blatant and relentless vilification of the neighbors of the Israelites. The prejudices of the Bible are so impacting that in modern culture we use the word 'philistine' to refer to a boorish and uneducated person, we use the word 'jezebel' to refer to vicious and manipulative women, we use 'Babylon' to refer to a place of sin and corruption, and so on. For this reason I feel that learning the actual histories of the Egyptians, Canaanites, Phoenicians, Mesopotamians, etc. can be very eye-opening for an atheist and very useful in debates. The Exodus is perhaps the most powerful and most beloved story of the Bible, so if nothing else, I think it wise to at least get a superficial grasp on Egyptian history and archaeology.
Even a lot of atheists believe that the Hebrews were slaves in Egypt because they haven't been exposed to any factual material. Our media is very pro-Judeo-Christian and many archaeological discoveries (the grave sites of the true pyramid builders for example) are not highly publicized because they're too damaging to the Bible's pseudo-history.
A list of books that I greatly enjoyed were The Hittite Kingdom, Life and Society in The Hittite World, Letters of the Great Kings of the Ancient Near East, Handbook To Life in Ancient Mesopotamia, The Ancient Egyptians for Dummies, and Sumer and the Sumerians. Any good books that you recommend will be much appreciated.
Every society honors its live conformists and its dead troublemakers -Mignon McLaughlin
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I will try to check some of those out.
CJ
Awesome, thanks for the list!
Everything makes more sense now that I've stopped believing.
Look forward to reading some of those. I'm interested in the Anatolians as well. Visited Istanbul a few years ago and the ancient stonework, metalwork and jewelery suggested those guys really had something going on.
I agree that the whole judaeo christian thing is like a cork in the history bottle - it's as if christianity came from nowhere - as if there had never been anything good or any civilisation before it. But of course, this is just classic adhom.
Interestingly, the philistine fertility god's name was Beelzebub and the Jews used the name as the title of their devil.
I always wondered if it was partly to insult the Philistines or as a result of some cool tahitian-style fertility rituals now lost to history.
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
Two authors to look at are both Samuel-Noah-Kramer and Cyrus H. Gordon. They were well known in their respective fields. I would encourage a search on some of their lessor known works of each of them ANE region is mind-blowing and very vital !!!!
This is definitely not my usual cup of tea, but I remember Tom Robbins theorizing on the roman god Pan as being the inspiration for the Christian's Satan. I believe it was in "Jitterbug Perfume". It's most likely not his idea originally, but he's the only one I can relate it to. The book implied that in order for Christians to demonise pagans the physical attributes of Pan (horns, hoofs) were added to Satan. I guess this relates to what you mentioned as one religion demonising other religions' gods. I could be out to lunch on this, God-Bane should have more info judging by his reading material.
"Don't seek these laws to understand. Only the mad can comprehend..." -- George Cosbuc
The Hittites were Anatolians but their empire stretched from Anatolia to Syria and they had many client kings under their rule in the Near East. They also fought the Egyptians in one of the largest chariot battles of the ancient Near East (the Battle of Qadesh) and so they're always going to be part of Near Eastern history. Basically, the Hittites were to Anatolia what the Romans were to Italy. There's a pretty good documentary on Youtube called 'The Lords of Hattusa' for anyone who'd like a quick introduction.
Every society honors its live conformists and its dead troublemakers -Mignon McLaughlin
I've read Samuel Noah Kramer's book 'Sumerian Mythology' and I enjoyed it. I've never heard of Cyrus H. Gordon. I'll have to look him up.
Every society honors its live conformists and its dead troublemakers -Mignon McLaughlin
They had a general tendency to make foreign gods into demons, just like the Phoenician Baal. Likewise, they had a tendency to demonize the foreigners themselves. "Love thy neighbor" is a sentiment that they definitely did not live up to. I'm in no way saying that all of their neighbors were innocent angels, because they weren't, but they still do not deserve to be subjected to the sole criticism of the Israelites. Anyway, I saw a documentary on the Philistines some time ago and apparently, the Israelites hated the Philistines because they had a monopoly on iron.
Every society honors its live conformists and its dead troublemakers -Mignon McLaughlin
You're very welcome. There are lots of other books that I have but haven't read yet, and as soon as I check them out I'll probably post them in this thread.
Every society honors its live conformists and its dead troublemakers -Mignon McLaughlin
As if my reading list wasn't backed-up enough....Thanks a diaper load Mr. Bane... hahahahahaha
Nice meeting you... I am sure that you'll be a terrific addition to the board...
www.RichWoodsBlog.com
Lots of different mythologies could possibly encompass the origin of the Satan character.
The Egyptian god Set, who was the enemy of Osiris (Osiris and Horus being somewhat symbolic of the good guys and Set being an example of the evil one). Isis, Osiris, and Horus were always at odds with his diabolical plans.
Loki from the Norse traditions being another.
Those are just two that I can think of off the top of my head directly.
I am sure that every early pagan culture had some particular god that was supposed to encompass all of the bad things.
Excellent OP God-Bane.
“It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.”
― Giordano Bruno
Haha. Tell me about it man. I acquire books faster than I read them. There's stuff that I put on my book list years ago that I still haven't gotten to.
Every society honors its live conformists and its dead troublemakers -Mignon McLaughlin
Beautifully said. I'm not sure if Satan was based on any particular force of evil but it's obvious that his insertion into the Bible was meant to create a sense of good vs. evil. As Bart Ehrman pointed out, we have to remember that a lot of early Christian converts were Greeks and they heavily influenced the Bible. The Jews themselves had no concept of Heaven and Hell, but the Greeks had the Elysian fields where the good went, there was Tartarus, to which the wicked were sent to be tortured, and the Asphodel Meadows which is kind of like limbo. PS: 'The Origin of Satan' by Elaine Pagels is a book that's high up on my list but right now I have too much reading for school to do.
Every society honors its live conformists and its dead troublemakers -Mignon McLaughlin