#amorite-mythology

[bronzegods]

Baal of Ugarit ⛈️

Commissioned from Kiwibon

[yamayuandadu]

I am interested to know about the 4 winds and what is their role in mythology

You’re in luck because while there isn’t much material, it’s fairly easily accessible - by reading Wiggermann’s The Four Winds and the Origin of Pazuzu you can learn 90% of what there is to know. However, since he doesn’t cover the myth(s) involving the South Wind, I figured a brief summary is in order - you can find it under the cut. All images are taken from Wiggermann’s article, and have been reproduced here for educational purposes only.

The four winds are the West Wind (Amurru; not identical with the god Amurru), the East Wind (Šadû), the North Wind (Ištānu; no relation to the phonetically similar Hittite designation for sun deities) and the South Wind (Šūtu; I’m not aware of any connection to the goddess Sutītu, who was essentially a deified Sutean - ie. “Southerner” - stereotype much like how Amurru was a deified stereotypical Amorite). The names are virtually always translated into English, so I’ll stick to following this convention here. The South Wind, who has a plenty of solo attestations as a literary character, is usually female, and the other three male; this reflects the grammatical gender of their names. However, there is at least one case where the North Wind is referred to with feminine terms regardless of that. It seems fairly consistent that regardless of their gender the four are treated as siblings, though. We know they shared the same mother but her identity is never specified. Not that unusual, really. In Mesopotamian astronomy, the winds’ names could also refer to specific constellations: North Wind is Ursa Major, South Wind is Piscis Austrinus, West Wind is Scorpio and East Wind is Perseus and the Pleiades. Note that some of these connections are not exclusive to them; Scorpio or individual stars forming it could be instead associated with Ishara, Ninigirimma, or even Lisin.

While it can be difficult to identify minor deities in Mesopotamian art, the four winds are distinct enough to make this fairly straightforward to researchers. All of them are depicted with wings and windswept hair (of course), but there are additional traits unique to each. The South Wind, as expected, looks feminine and typically has entwined legs; the North Wind is partially theriomorphic (the rest has no animal traits save for their wings); the West Wind is bent over in an acrobatic pose; and the East Wind is, essentially, a “generic wind” iconographically. The oldest example of a depiction of the group is a seal from Sippar from the nineteenth century BCE, which shows the four of them surrounding a weather god, presumably Adad:

Wiggermann based on this attestation suggests that the group might have originally emerged from the theological speculation of Adad’s clergy from Sippar, and that the seal might depict a set of statues displayed at his local temple. Hard to prove, but compelling, imo. However, personified winds occasionally can be found in earlier sources too: one of Gudea’s inscriptions poetically described the North Wind as a winged man, there’s also a seal from roughly the same period showing Adad, his spouse (presumably Shala) and a winged attendant who might similarly be a wind. However, they were not exclusively associated with the weather god - there is also at least one reference to them acting as messengers of Anu instead. South Wind sometimes appears as a servant of Ea, as well.

With time, the South Wind essentially overshadowed her siblings, and could be recognized as an independent wind deity. She eventually lost part of her original iconography: the wings vanished, but a standard horned crown started to appear on her head, indicating stabilization of her status as a deity. She plays a major role in the myth Adapa and the South Wind. The eponymous hero breaks her wing (or both of her wings) with a curse (notably no physical contact occurs), and as a result she stops blowing. Anu therefore summons Adapa to heaven. He plans to essentially deify him, but this doesn’t come to pass because Ea convinced him to refuse any gifts he might receive. 

In this article you can learn more about the history of this myth. Most notably, recently a new version has been discovered during excavations at Tell Haddad (ancient Me-Turan). This is relevant to your question since it seems to its compilers it was South Wind who mattered more than Adapa - the narrative is more concerned with her restoration than with its expected protagonist! Anu asks Adapa why did he break her wings, he seemingly does not answer, and instead the focus shifts to declaring a new destiny for the South Wind. Her arrival is said to bring an unspecified disease, which however is also cured by her departure. By breaking her wings, Adapa made her unable to leave, which seemingly meant the disease could not be cured. Interestingly, this might actually be the original form of the myth - in other words, it was originally about the South Wind, with Adapa as a side character, with the switch of importance only occurring later. 

Next to the South Wind, the West Wind probably fared the best once the group ceased to be depicted together. He absorbed his brother’s non-human traits, and in the Middle Babylonian period sometimes had the tail of a bird or stinger or a scorpion, and on top of that a set of talons. The acrobatic pose remained consistent, though. Wiggermann thinks that he was subsequently fused with the apotropaic image of Humbaba’s head to create a prototype of Pazuzu, but this remains speculative.

[dubhdove156]

I'm currently in the process of writing a book about my experience on the "otherside", and my ensuing philosophy and outlook when I returned.

I'll attach here some select quotes from what is, for the moment, a disjointed brainstorming session.

"The most fascinating book to me then, and now as an adult with a better understanding of the context and history behind it, was Genesis. It’s a creation myth: a bastard child that mirrors its mother, the Babylonian Enuma Elish. It follows many of the tropes that various other creation myths of the Fertile Crescent brought forth.

In reading the first few verses, it is notable to me that God’s creation is an act of turning ultimate simplicity into ultimate complexity; of division. Every act of creation is an act of seperating one into two, from the skies and the oceans, to the lands and the seas, to the days and the nights, to sun and the stars, to the fish and birds, etc. Every act of creation is one of an inherent binary, to define or create one thing, first its opposite must be defined. It follows then that if creation is an act of division, then destruction is an act of unity.

Another point of note in Genesis is the story of the serpent tempting Eve. To eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is to become aware of the intrinsic binary; the division needed to create. What is most notable to me as an adult interpreting this book in a new light, is that it isn’t stated, not once, that the serpent lied to or deceived Eve. Instead, God confirmed the serpent’s testimony by not only cursing the serpent against Woman, but also by banishing mankind from the Garden in an effort to prevent them from eating of the Tree of Life as well; so that they could not gain everlasting life upon their newfound ability to create, and truly become like Him.

It is my theory, that if you were to read Genesis from the perspective of those who spoke it; nomadic Semites, it’s clear that civilization was the Original Sin. At the time, the division between peoples was largely between the nomadic and the settled. Invasions and battles were commonplace between this dichotomy in the Agricultural Revolution. From a nomad’s perspective, Genesis reads clearly as a warning against civilization. Once men begin to create the walls of their cities, and have to work in fields for the fruit that should’ve been given freely, suddenly man turns on man, Cain kills Abel.

Civilization is, in essence, mankind’s Magnum Opus. It is a reflection of our collective egos, our fear of suffering and need to escape the natural order of the world and the suffering that is inherent to division, and thus creation.

Once the Amoritic peoples settled in Babylon, and Babylon went from being a lowly Sumerian city-state to being its own proper kingdom, a particular man of note came into power: King Hammurabi. With King Hammurabi in power, an interesting text was publicized and largely popularized. I believe that the king himself commissioned its release, though that is up for debate in the anthropological community. It was titled the Enuma Elish, and I for one, believe it to be the most impactful piece of literature ever produced, and we see its stark effects to this very day. If you have not read it, I highly recommend that you do. In summary, it was the origin for the trope that consumed the world; child killing parent, and the deification of the child. In this story, a god named Marduk, or if given his proper title, Bel-Marduk, defeated the primordial gods Tiamat and Apsu. He was then granted kingship among the gods. This story is reflected well in Greek mythology, with Zeus defeating Cronos, and being hailed among the gods.

Many interesting things happened in Babylon’s culture with the release of this text, as well as in the wider Mesopotamian and Mediterranean regions. In Babylon, Bel-Marduk superceded the fertility goddess Ishtar as the patron god of the city. The city went from relying on the archetypal feminine intuition of priests and priestesses, who interpreted signs of the highly unstable gods, to being run by the archetypal logic of men and kings.

The release of the Enuma Elish, which demonized the unpredictable forces of nature as “chaos” and deified the secondary gods as harbingers of “order”, made a major shift in society, from matriarchy to patriarchy. In essence, we began vilifying the natural order of the world and deifying our own egos, our own ideas of how and why the world should operate; thus, civilization.

I think the original cities reflected our egos well, with large, ornate walls to defend and protect people from outside influence. The cultures within reflected that which people could collectively agree upon, and which objectively worthless material had arbitrary value – silk, gold, gems: useless outside of their walls, but suddenly priceless. Suddenly, we as a species went from worshipping primary constructs to deifying secondary and tertiary constructs. We went from praising the primordial fundamentals of nature to looking towards gods of constructs such as masonry, shepherding, etc. A notable god of this sort was Yahweh, a god of metallurgy. With the release of a single text, we lost sight of what holds true objective value, and the question of value became human-centric; what has value to us and us alone? Despite the divinity of life, we separated ourselves from the world, and placed value in our own creations.

As a separate thought, per this rough draft, Yahweh being synchratized with El in Canaan by Yahwehists, is of extreme note. I think there is substantial symbolism there. Yahweh, a god of metallurgy; of war and suffering. What is it that a metallurgist does? He places impure material into a crucible, then heats it into dividing purities from impurities, and by repeating this cycle, he turns a simple stone into strong and resiliant bronze. A god of metallurgy, is in essence, a god of alchemical transmutation, and a god of value in a Bronze Age society.

I think this deification of Yahweh by the Hebrews reflects the essence of existence well; and even reflects the Hindu constructs of Samsara and Moksha. Life itself is growth and change; matter in motion. Suffering is the aforementioned fire to the crucible; the catalyst. Put into metaphorical terms, Yahweh is the alchemist and we are his material, and throughout the aeons, throughout repeated cycles of suffering, repeated separation and unification, life and death, a purified, powerful, and resiliant product is produced; the philosopher’s stone. In this sense, think of the fundamental law of alchemy, which is etched into Baphomet’s forearms, “Solve et Coagula”, Solution and Coagulation."

"I had this thought some time ago, and this draft seems the perfect spot to preserve it.

If God is pure white light, Satan is the material; the prism through which the light divides into infinite variation. Satan is everything that makes you, you; and them, them. Satan is the timespace between you and every blade of grass.

In many cases, I would define our post-modern idea of Satan as simply timespace. In Western Mysticism, Satan is defined as the Self, the ego. Personally, I see that as just a symptom of Satan’s greater role.

In Greece, Cronos was demonized, and in Rome, it was Saturn who was vilified and first created the idea of a Satan or devil that is inherently separate to God. Prior to Roman Catholicism, the Jewish idea of Satan was not separate to God, but rather seen as any number of things that opposed God’s order. There was no singular, defined Devil.

Cronos and Saturn in their respective mythologies were gods of time. On this basis, I see our modern idea of Satan being a deciever, Bel’ial being the Demon of Lies, as timespace being illusory. Timespace is the essence of the cycle we find ourselves in, the underlying substance of suffering.

Satan is the essence of the infinite diversity and awe-inspiring variation we find ourselves in. He is what makes me separate from the very keys I type on; the space between every word, sentence, and paragraph.

Satan is the personification and demonization of complexity, while God is the personification and deification of simplicity. I for one, as a pantheist, consider these highly abstract concepts of “God” and “Satan” as essentially two sides of the same coin. They are two faces of the same head. I worship in my own reverence the All, or the equalization of division and unification, life and death, fear and love, matter and spirit. When I am asked what it means to be a pantheistic Satanist, my response is always the same: it means to see the Self in the All, and the All in the Self. In other words, I consider myself being separate from you, or the very technology that I filter my thoughts through, as being inherently illusory and worthless. The truth is that there is nothing that separates me from the stars over my head aside from my personal perception of spacetime.

You can consider it in this sense – the Universe, or whatever you wish to call it is, objectively, a massive soup of information. We as individuals can do our best to translate this soup with the tools we’ve been granted; our senses and perception that have been evolved specifically for the means of maintaining division and individuality. But what is in front of us; what we see, feel, hear, are all constructs of our mind – our best attempt at understanding this incomprehensible soup. But at the end of the day, at the end of the cycle, we are not separate from said soup, and we never were. It is a dream-state that we find ourselves in, a false belief that we perpetuate that I am not simply the same universal and mathematical information as a simple stone or dose of water.

This soup is also entirely undefined. It’s us who divides and defines everything, our own minds and egos acting as filters, that tell us a rock is separate from a stream, and that the inanimate and animate are not the same thing. We have a term for everything, and the further we get into definition, the more complex the language becomes."

"I have personally been heavily drawn to Western Mystical practices such as Hermeticism and Kabbalah, solely because these practices put my ideas into consumable terms. But Western and Eastern practices are the same essence, passed through the filter of culture. The fundamentals; the truisms, lessons, goals are the same. They are only different in form and practice. Judaism and Hinduism carry far more commonality than expected once one can see past literal dogmatism."

"In my current form of spirituality, I have divided Satan into two aspects, and consider his essence multifaceted. I have divided him between masculine and feminine archetypes, and work with each in accordance to my needs and introspection.

I have termed Satan as both the primary Daemon of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Bel’ial, and the modernized thelemic concept of the divine feminine, Babalon. I see these as the quintessential dichotomy of existence; the ebb and flow, push and pull, fear and love, give and take. I have conceptualized these two archetypes as the basis of holding on and letting go, be it of material, people, or life. True fear is to hold on in desperation, true love is letting go in faith. Put simply, when your only options left are fight or flight, choose acceptance.

The Beast and the Harlot, Binah and Chokmah, Adam and Eve, Saturn and Venus, Space and Time, it does not matter what names you give to the essence of division, it matters only how you manage to unify them."

"I believe, in my misanthropy, that human intelligence and an increase in cognition is not the blessing of the “wise man”, rather, it is the curse of a foolish species. Due in large part to our complex and nuanced neurology, we seek in a very simple natural state, complexity and nuance. We seek to stuff every minute detail of our world into tiny, well-defined boxes, and when we are out of boxes, we only need to create more. We have, over the course of our cognitive dominion, found an immense number of tiny boxes of nuance and definition, of which was once an ultimately simple existence, and with which we have created our civilizations; definitions may vary, and so too do cultures.

We have taken this awe-inspiring limitless and incomprehensible plane that we find ourselves on, and limited it; made it consumable for our own cognitive pleasure. We have invented fluid, ever-evolving languages, maths, sciences, etc to aid ourselves in mastering a world that only ever wished to provide.

In our grandeur we have culturally deified figureheads such as Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Carl Sagan as genius men with the capacity to reign in on what is beyond the layman, but they are in their own right, extremely limited. They have tried only to further the fruitless aims of mankind; of distinguishing the truth from the lie, of once more dividing what was always whole.

I care little for people in this current state of my life, let alone for secondary and tertiary constructs such as morality and money. Humanity has become largely enslaved by cultures; the boxes with which they are accustomed to agree with by means of influence and social pressures. There is no such division between Good and Evil, Rich and Poor – only an illusion, a prison of our own design."

[darkmaga-returns]

Throughout mankind’s history, the worship of Saturn — and all his many manifestations — has evinced itself as one of the most grotesque expressions of idolatry. Saturn, known as Cronos/Kronus in Greek mythology, became a symbol of the cyclical destruction and consumption of life. Many disparate ancient civilizations engaged in rituals to appease this dark deity, almost universally through the offering of human lives — most notably, the lives of children — as sacrifices.

Holy Writ stands in stark opposition to this practice, repeatedly condemning it in the strongest terms. Yet, time and time again, we find the tribes of Israel succumbing to the same temptations that ensnared their pagan neighbors. The worship of Ba’al, Moloch, and other deities tied to Saturn’s image wormed their way into their culture: in the wilderness and the Promised Land alike, Israel struggled to remain of the world, but not in it.

The first part of this essay established the historical roots of Saturnian worship and its voluminous connections to human sacrifice and sexual debauchery, tracing this influence from the Amorite religion into the broader cultural practices of the Mediterranean peoples. The Saturnian cultus is also tied deeply to magickal cannibalism — a practice whereby adherents believe that through consuming vital essences, they could transcend the boundaries of time and space. We also explored the compelling Scriptural evidence for the Saturnian corruption of the tribes of Israel; how that bore itself out in the syncretistic, antinomian religion of the Pharisees; and the repeated

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

LOL. Someone doesn't know where the bible came from.

The Ten Commandments originate from the Egyptian Book of the Dead, the Laws of Ma'at, for starters. The Creation and the Fall originate from the Epic of Gilgamesh; there's an entire subsection on Wikipedia covering Gilgamesh's influence on the bible. Genesis itself borrows heavily from Mesopotamian mythology. The Exodus can be traced to an Egyptian expulsion narrative. The Moses origin story comes from the Egyptian story of Horus, who was set adrift in a basket on the Nile and suckled by Hathor, a goddess in the form of a cow, which itself is a retelling of the story of the Mesopotamian ruler Sargon, who was set adrift in a basket on the Euphrates. The magical fight between Moses and the pharaoh’s magicians comes from 'The Raid on Aratta.’ from Mesopotamian mythology. The Mount Sinai narrative can be traced back to a 'meeting of elders’ story in the Amorite religion. The story of god tricking Jephthah into killing his own daughter can be traced back to Greek legend. Even Jesus is just a derivation of the scapegoat superstition - substitutional atonement, dying for the sins of others - from Syrian mythology. The "lamb of god" comes directly from that; symbolically they just switched the goat for a lamb.

You... didn't know any of this, did you?

People actually study the evolution of mythology. It's an actual discipline that traces linguistic and thematic offshoots through their ancestral line, similar to how genetic ancestry is traced through gene inheritance.

Hell, we don't even have to go that deep. The Church itself was overt about appropriating paganism; it was literally a policy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretatio_Christiana

Reformatting traditional religious and cultural activities and beliefs into a Christianized form was officially sanctioned; preserved in the Venerable Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum is a letter from Pope Gregory I to Mellitus, arguing that conversions were easier if people were allowed to retain the outward forms of their traditions while changing the object of their veneration to God, “to the end that, whilst some gratifications are outwardly permitted them, they may the more easily consent to the inward consolations of the grace of God”

There's very little in the bible or Xianity itself that's actually original. All the stuff that is original is violent and horrible and quite demented.

Like when the "righteous" Lot offered up his daughters to be raped instead of the angels who were visiting (Genesis), and then later they got him drunk and raped him so that he could father his own grandchildren (who were simultaneously cousins and siblings). Or when the host offered his daughter and his visitor's concubine to be raped instead of his visitor, and they raped the concubine to death, and the visitor then cut her up into pieces and mailed her dismembered corpse out to the coasts of Israel (Judges 19). Or when god sent two bears to murder 42 children (2 Kings). Or when the sun stopped moving across the sky so Joshua's army could finish their murdering (Joshua). Or when Saul demanded 100 foreskins as a dowry, and David brought him 200 (1 Samuel).

As we say, the good stuff isn't new and the new stuff isn't good.

There's nothing historical about the bible. There are no civil records to validate it, there aren't even any dates, and very few locations given, and it's extremely obviously written as a story, not a historical record. Even Jewish scholars accept that the Exodus is a myth, for example. And not only were the anonymous gospel writers not alive during Jesus' purported lifetime, but they either copied directly from each other, or made up stories that were completely contradictory to the other gospels. Try and do a coherent timeline for what happened on Easter (itself a pagan festival, Oestre) and see how far you get.

What's really weird about the bible is that it's the only "record" of anything it claims. The most amazing person who ever lived, who was doing literal miracles, and no scholars, no record keepers, no historians followed along to document the amazing events. Nobody in the cities was talking about it. None of the major schools or libraries or institutions heard the buzz about these incredible events and sent people to see what was up. Only people who weren't there lying about being one of his buddies, pretending to actually be characters in the story.

“In the entire first Christian century, Jesus is not mentioned by a single Greek or Roman historian, religion scholar, politician, philosopher or poet. His name never occurs in a single inscription, and it is never found in a single piece of private correspondence. Zero! Zip references!” -- Bart Ehrman

The bible doesn't even make a claim of historicity for itself, so why are you?

https://www.wondriumdaily.com/synoptic-gospels-historians-approach/

The term “Gospel” comes from the Old English word for “good news.” These books do not claim to be objective histories; they claim to be proclamations of good news. In other words, these books are not historically accurate accounts of things that Jesus said and did. These are books that are proclaiming information about Jesus that is meant to provide information needed for salvation. These books are the good news of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.

Much of it even announces outright that it was written as propaganda to proselytize, not accurately record. Paul openly states that he lies - he becomes like one of whomever he wants to convince. The author of John, in a section literally called “The Purpose of John’s Gospel,” claims to have written it so “that you may believe,” not to state reliably what happened.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-bible-telling-lies-to_b_840301

Apart from the most rabid fundamentalists among us, nearly everyone admits that the Bible might contain errors — a faulty creation story here, a historical mistake there, a contradiction or two in some other place.  But is it possible that the problem is worse than that — that the Bible actually contains lies? Most people wouldn’t put it that way, since the Bible is, after all, sacred Scripture for millions on our planet. But good Christian scholars of the Bible, including the top Protestant and Catholic scholars of America, will tell you that the Bible is full of lies, even if they refuse to use the term.  And here is the truth: Many of the books of the New Testament were written by people who lied about their identity, claiming to be a famous apostle — Peter, Paul or James — knowing full well they were someone else.  In modern parlance, that is a lie, and a book written by someone who lies about his identity is a forgery. Most modern scholars of the Bible shy away from these terms, and for understandable reasons, some having to do with their clientele. Teaching in Christian seminaries, or to largely Christian undergraduate populations, who wants to denigrate the cherished texts of Scripture by calling them forgeries built on lies? And so scholars use a different term for this phenomenon and call such books “pseudepigrapha.” You will find this antiseptic term throughout the writings of modern scholars of the Bible.  It’s the term used in university classes on the New Testament, and in seminary courses, and in Ph.D. seminars. What the people who use the term do not tell you is that it literally means “writing that is inscribed with a lie.”

Bible scholars know that it contains lies.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pseudepigrapha

Etymology From Ancient Greek ψευδής (pseudḗs, “false”) +  ἐπιγραφή (epigraphḗ, “inscription”), literally “false title”. Noun pseudepigrapha pl (normally plural, singular pseudepigraphon or pseudepigraph) Writings falsely ascribed to famous persons (historical or mythical) to lend them greater legitimacy, typically composed many centuries after the ostensible author's death.

Here's an easy one: everything after Mark 16:8 is a known forgery.

Here's another easy one: the nativity tale was invented long after Mark was written (it's not present in Mark), and bible scholars regard it as ahistorical.

Here's another easy one. What's Jesus' family tree? There are literally two contradictory genealogies for Jesus. If the bible is historical, why would they not be able to get it right? Why would they publish a wrong one? Or are they both wrong? Or do they not know at all, and if so, how is it a historical record? If they couldn't get his descendants right, how can we trust their claims of what those descendants did? Do they even cite their sources? What kind of historical record wouldn't tell us where any of this information came from?

And why would historians require "faith"? They're historians. They have records and evidence and such, right? Why would we need "faith" to accept a documented historical record? That makes no sense at all. "Faith" is only needed for things that are false. "Faith" is the substance of things we wish were true... but aren't.

That's without even getting to all the magic, such as the talking donkey, or the stupid tales, like Jesus killing a fig tree because it wasn't the season for figs.

This isn't even controversial among people who study the origin of the bible. You should actually look into it.

I won't tell you any more, though. Don't want to spoil it in case one day you get around to reading it.

"'Thou Shalt Not Steal' Steals all its content from paganism."

[yoga-onion]

Sumerian Mythology - The earliest deities of ancient Mesopotamia (69)

The end of the Sumerian state and its later lagacy

Following an Elamite invasion and sack of Ur during the rule of Ibbi-Sin (c. 2028–2004 BC), Sumer came under Amorite rule (taken to introduce the Middle Bronze Age).

At the time when the poems, Lament for Ur were composed, it is believed that there were still many Sumerian speakers.

At the top of the political hierarchy were the Amorites and other Semitic tribes, and the Sumerians, who survived as slaves in the rural areas, would have had no idea of the self-preservation of "Sumerian culture". The Sumerians were absorbed by other tribes over time.

The independent Amorite states of the 20th to 18th centuries BCE are summarised as the "Dynasty of Isin" in the Sumerian king list, ending with the rise of Babylonia under Hammurabi c. 1800 BCE.

[Origin of the Amorites (Sumerian: Martu)]

The Amorites appear in records from the 3rd Dynasty of Ur, and entered Mesopotamian society in various ways, including as mercenaries. In the second half of the 3rd Dynasty, a large number of Amorites settled in Mesopotamia, including urban areas, and the same dynasty built walls and sent expeditions to repel repeated invasions by Amorite tribes. Some of the Akkadian literature of this era speaks disparagingly of the Amorites and implies that the Akkadian and Sumerian-speakers of Mesopotamia viewed their nomadic and primitive way of life with disgust and contempt:

“The MAR.TU who know no grain.... The MAR.TU who know no house nor town, the boors of the mountains.... The MAR.TU who digs up truffles... who does not bend his knees (to cultivate the land), who eats raw meat, who has no house during his lifetime, who is not buried after death.”

Today is the last edition of the Sumerian Mythology, which you have been reading for a while. Thank you very much. From the next issue, we will focus on Buddha and other aspects of Buddhism.

シュメール神話～古代メソポタミア最古の神々(69)

シュメール国家の終焉とその後の伝承

紀元前2028〜2004年頃のイビシンの支配下でエラム人がウルに侵入して略奪された後、シュメールはアモリ人の支配下に入った（青銅器時代中期の導入とされる）。

ウルの滅亡哀歌が詠まれた時代には、まだまだシュメール語を話す人々が多かったと考えられている。

頂点で政治を司る階級はアモリ人などのセム系民族であり、奴隷として農村に生き残ったシュメール人たちにとって「シュメール文化」の自己保存などおよびもつかなかったはずである。彼らは時代とともに他民族に吸収されていきった。

紀元前20世紀から18世紀にかけてのアモリ人の独立国家は、シュメールの王のリストでは「イシンの王朝」としてまとめられており、紀元前1800年頃のハムラビによるバビロニアの台頭で終わる。

[アモリ人（シュメール語：マルトゥ）の起源]

アモリ人はウル第3王朝時代から記録に登場し、傭兵等様々な形でメソポタミア社会に入り込んでいた。ウル第3王朝の後半には多数のアモリ人が都市部を含むメソポタミア周辺地域へと定住していき、同王朝は度重なるアモリ系部族の侵入に対して城壁の建造や撃退のための遠征を行っている。この時代のアッカド語の文献には、アモリ人を軽蔑するような記述があり、メソポタミアのアッカド語やシュメール語を話す人々が、彼らの遊牧民的で原始的な生活様式を嫌悪し、軽蔑していたことがうかがえる。以下原文：

“マルトゥの手は破壊的であり、その特徴は猿のものである。…敬意を表す事を知らず、神殿を憎悪する…麦を知らず、家も町も知らぬ山の住人であり、神域の丘でキノコを掘り起こし、膝を曲げること（耕作）を知らず、生涯家に住むこともなく、死者を埋葬する事も知らない。…”

しばらくご愛読頂いた「シュメール神話」は本日を持ちまして最終回です。ありがとうございました。次回からは、ブッダをはじめとする「仏教」を特集します、お楽しみに。

[natasa-pantovic]

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[scarletarosa]

Arabian Deities List

A list of the pagan gods who were worshipped by the Pre-Islamic Arabs. Much of the evidence of these deities and their worshippers were destroyed during the rise of Islam, but this is the majority of those remembered:

Elder Gods:

Allah - the supreme deity (both male and female) of the pagan Arabs. Allah is the one who existed before all things and had created the universe. Afterwards, they retired into the position of a silent and remote spectator who dwelt in 'Aliyyin, the highest heaven, and only intervened in human affairs in extreme cases of drought or danger. Despite being the supreme deity, Allah was rarely directly worshipped.

Al-Lat - goddess of war, peace, combat, and prosperity. Al-lat was the Meccan mother goddess and the chief deity of the tribe of Banu Thaqif. She is one of the three daughters of Allah- all of whom were the supreme goddesses of the Arabs and were widely worshipped. 

Al-Uzza - goddess of might, protection, love, and the planet Venus. One of the three daughters of Allah and wife of Hubal, god of war

Manat - goddess of fate, destiny, and death. She is the eldest of her three sisters (making her the eldest deity after Allah). She is wife of Quzah, the god of thunder.

Younger Gods:

Hubal - god of war, victory in battle, fortune, and rainfall; husband of the goddess Al-Uzza.

Manaf - god of mountains

Quzah - god of storms, thunder, and clouds; husband of Manat. Thunder, said to be the battle-cry of Quzah, was believed to scare away spirits of disease and misfortune. The rainbow that appeared after rain was considered by the people of Mecca to be a ladder to the heavens.

Isaf and Na'ila - Meccan water deities: the dual guardian spirits of the holy well of Zamzam 

Duwar - goddess of maidens; she was worshiped by the youngest women of the Banu Quraysh

Al-Ikrimah - god of fertility; his idol was a statue of a dove carved from aloe wood 

Dhātu-Anwāt - goddess of trees

Suwā - goddess of night, beauty, and freshwater springs

Ar-Rā'iyu ('The One Who Sees') - god of dreams and prophecy. All dreams were considered to be messages from the gods in pre-Islamic Arabia and oracles specialized in interpreting them. This god was believed to be an all-seeing guardian.

Al-Mundhir - a west Arabian god of justice, whose name means ''The Cautioner''

Yaghuth - ("He Helps") the south Arabian god of strength, courage, and war; had an idol that was a statue of a lion which was situated on a hill in Yemen

Yahwah - north Arabian weather god, worshiped as a divine warrior who rides on the clouds and leads the armies of Heaven. In the religion of the Hebrew tribes of ancient Palestine, their deity Yahweh was originally one god among many; although in later times he developed into a major tribal god and eventually the Hebrews elevated him to the status of an all-powerful creator god above all the others: a position that was held previously by El, who became an epithet of Yahweh. 

Bahar (or Bajar) - god of the ocean

Rudā - a central Arabian rain goddess; brought droughts when angered

Nahastāb - a south Arabian fertility god who was worshiped by the Minaean Arabs. This god was associated with serpents who were recognized as omens of bounty and fertile ground.

Su’ayr - north Arabian god of oracles

Al-Jalsad - south Arabian god of pastures and fields

Ashar - north Arabian god of war

Ni'mat - north Arabian goddess of fortune

Hāwlat - goddess of magic and power; patroness of the oases of Dumah and Hejra. The name of the goddess means ''to change (fortunes)'' and ''to avert''.

Abgal - north Arabian tutelary god; god of the desert and the patron of Bedouins and caravan drivers 

Amm’anas - south Arabian god of agriculture

Nasr - god of the deep desert whose idol was a sculpture of a large vulture (in some sources an eagle) that was situated in a temple in the village of Balkha in Yemen. The sacred animal of Nasr, the vulture, was venerated by his worshipers as a totem of insight and sharp character; as well as this, the god represented the hostile and unforgiving aspects of nature, in particular, the desert.

Dhātu-Ba'dan - south Arabian goddess of oases, nature, and the wet season 

Taraha - north Arabian goddess of fortune and prosperity. This goddess was also known as Tadha and was believed to watch over the tombs of the dead. 

Al-Ghurab - god of the dead; his idol was in the form of a raven that was housed in the Ka'aba along with 360 other idols of gods and goddesses. Ravens were sacred to this god as guardians of the spirits of the dead

Kuthrā (''The Most Rich'') - central Arabian goddess of prosperity and fortune

Khomar - south Arabian god of wine and vineyards 

Ya’uq is the south Arabian god of protection and preservation who was associated with swift thought and intelligence 

Salman (or Salim) - god of oases, peace, and harmony. In the religion of the western Semites, Shalim was a god of the underworld and the dusk, and his name 'Shalim' (Peace) was meant as an allegory for the peace of the grave. 

Rahmaw (or Rahmanan) - south Arabian god of mercy and protection, whose mythology was later absorbed into that of the creator god Allah. 

Al-Jadd - god of luck

Jihār - west Arabian god of longevity, wisdom, and marketplaces

Isāt - south Arabian goddess of fire; counterpart to the Canaanite fire goddess Ishat, wife of Moloch

Yurhim - god of joy and happiness 

Harimtu (or 'Athiratan) - south Arabian goddess of fertility; the mother of the gods and the wife of the sky god Ilmaqah

Ilmuqah (also known as Ilumquh and Almaqah) - south Arabian god of the sky and the chief tribal deity of the Sabaean Arabs. He was worshiped as the protector of artificial irrigation and his divine symbol was a cluster of lightning bolts surrounding a curved sickle. Bulls were the sacred animals of Ilmuqah. His name means ''The God Who Gives Health''

Shay al-Qawm - god of war, valour, and the night

Qaynan - god of metalworkers and smiths

Al-Kutbay (or al-Aktab) - god of writing, prophecy and merchants who was the scribe of the gods and recorder of all deeds and events 

Raziqa (or Razeka) - goddess of the earth and fertility who was worshiped by the ancient tribes of Thamud and 'Ād as a provider of food and sustenance.

Nuha (or Nahi) - north Arabian goddess of wisdom and intelligence

Hafidha - goddess of travel and journeys 

Thu'ban - god of snakes; believed to be a giant serpent who guarded the treasures in the well of the Ka'aba of Mecca. 

Celestial Deities:

Hilāl - god of the moon; provided relief and dew for the weary desert nomads and their flocks. The waning crescent moon which was first visible before and after a new moon, heralded the start of Ramadan: this was a sacred time for the pagan Arabs of Mecca and the Hijaz, during which they fasted and feasted.

Shams - goddess of the sun and the chief goddess of the Himyar tribal confederation; believed by the inhabitants of the fertile lands of south Arabia to be a preserver of crops and domestic life, while other tribes with more intense heat viewed her as a destroyer of lands. She was both respected and feared.

Athtar - god of the planet Venus (linked with the Canaanite god Attar).  Athtar is the provider of water and a protector of irrigation systems. His sacred symbol is a spear-point as he is also a war god, and his sacred animal is the Arabian oryx (antelope).

Akhwar - god of righteousness and the planet Jupiter

'Utarid - god of intelligence, learning, writing, eloquence, and Mercury

Azizan (also known as Azizos) is the north Arabian god of the planet Mars who was associated with victory in battle and was depicted as riding on a camel alongside his brother Mun'im

Nakruh - god of the planet Saturn

Dhu’l-Samawi - god of the night sky, the stars, and the constellations whose name translates as "Lord of the Heavens". Bedouin tribes would bring their animals to the shrine of Dhu’l-Samawi when they were injured and they also sent sick people to reside at his shrine in order to receive healing.

Shangilā - north Arabian god of stars

Ash-Shi'rā - goddess of the Sirius star; believed to bestow wealth and good fortune

Ath-Thurayya - goddess of the Pleiades star cluster 

As-Simāk ('The Uplifted One') is a west Arabian star god who was the deification of the star Arcturus in the constellation of Bootes and was worshiped to bring riches, renown and honor. The symbol of the god was the lance (ar-rimah) and was also named as Haris as-Samā', 'the Guardian of Heaven'.

Al-Dabaran (''The Follower'') - god of the star Aldebaran

Underworld Deities: 

Mawt - god of death and sterility; the Arabian counterpart of the Canaanite god Mot; sacred animals of Mawt are owls. After a person died, their soul (nafs) was believed to descend to the land of Mawt, the akhirah; where they lead a calm, yet gloomy, existence as spirits (arwah) and as shades (ashbah). The Arabs believed the Underworld to be neither a place of reward nor punishment, but simply as a state of existence without pain or pleasure that most people would lead as a shabah or shade. But the spirits of priests and powerful and honoured people were believed to ascend to a heavenly otherworld (al-Munqalab) or the sky (as-Sama') itself, where they would enjoy the company of the gods and angels (mala'ikah) and would have power over human affairs in the Dunyā (the material world).

Hawkam - god of justice and the Judge of the Dead 

Ba'alat-Sahra - a north Arabian goddess of the Underworld and the desert; she was an important goddess of the nomadic Semites; known to the Amorite tribe of southern Syria as Belet-Seri, the wife of their chief god Amurru.

Qaysha - south Arabian funerary goddess

Hawran - underworld god who presided over the spirits of disease which he could protect from or send at will as punishment; protected people from the venom of snakes. 

Al-Muharriq - underworld god who was represented as a fierce deity at a red shrine and whose sacred animal was an adult male lion (usamah). Al-Muharriq, like his Babylonian counterpart Nergal, had a wrathful disposition; he was believed to send diseases and plagues if he was angry with the population. The name of the god means ''the Burner'' as he represented the scorching heat of the desert, as well as the heat of disease and fire.

Source

[argyrocratie]

“According to Michael Hudson, echoing Trigger, the evidence shows that in Mesopotamia “private property” was introduced from the top and gradually flowed downwards.

The contrast between public usufruct-yielding lands and family-held subsistence lands is reflected in the fact that no terms for “property” have been found even as late as the Middle Bronze Age (2000–1600 BC in Babylonia). The closest relation is “domain of the Lord,” evidently the first land organized to produce a systematic usufruct or land rent. Rentier income thus seems to have originated in the public sector. Only after private individuals adopted public-sector modes of enterprise to produce regular surpluses of their own could taxes as such be levied. Indeed, it was the private appropriation of the land and large workshops that brought in its train a reciprocal liability for paying taxes.

The privatization process started with the ruler’s family, warlords and other powerful men at the top of the emerging social pyramid. After 2300 BC, Sargon’s heirs are found buying land from the families of subject communities (as documented, for instance, in the Stele of Manishtushu). As palace rule weakened, royal and public landholdings came to be privatized by palace subordinates, local head-men, creditors, and warlords. Land formerly used to support soldiers was charged a money-tax, which governments used to hire mercenaries.89

And elsewhere:

THREE types of landed property emerged in southern Mesopotamia’s cradle of enterprise: communal land (periodically re-allocated according to widespread custom); temple land endowments, sanctified and inalienable; and palace lands, acquired either by royal conquest or direct purchase (and often given to relatives or other supporters).

Of these three categories of land, “private” property (alienable, subject to market sale without being subject to repurchase rights by the sellers, their relatives or neighbours) emerged within the palace sector. From here it gradually proliferated through the public bureaucracy, among royal collectors and the Babylonian damgar “merchants”. However, it took many centuries for communal sanctions to be dissolved so as to make land alienable, forfeitable for debt, and marketable, with the new appropriator able to use it as he wished, free of royal or local communal oversight….

(1) The first real “privatizer” was the palace ruler. Rulers acted in an ambiguous capacity, treating royal property — and even that of the temples, which they took over in time — as their own, giving it to family members and supporters. In this respect “private” property, disposed of at the discretion of its holder, can be said to have started at the top of the social pyramid, in the palace, and spread down through the royal bureaucracy (including damgar “merchants” in Babylonia) to the population at large….

(2) A derivative form of private ownership developed as rulers gave away land to family members (as dowries), or companions, mainly military leaders in exchange for their support. The recipients tended to free themselves from the conditions placed on what they could do with the land and the fiscal obligations associated with such land. As early as the Bronze Age, such properties and their rents are found managed autonomously from the rest of the land (viz. Nippur’s Inanna temple privatized by Amorite headmen c. 2000-1600 BC). Likewise the modern system of private landholding was catalyzed after England’s kings assigned property to the barons in exchange for military and fiscal levies which the barons strove to shed, as can be traced from the Magna Carta in 1215 through the Uprising of the Barons in 1258-65.

Much as modern privatization of the national patrimonial assets often follows from the collapse of centralized governments (e.g. in the former socialist states and Third World kleptocracies), so in antiquity the dynamic tended to follow when centralized palace rule fell apart. Royal properties were seized by new warlords, or sometimes simply kept by the former royal managers, e.g. the Mycenaean basilae, not unlike how Russia’s nomenklatura bureaucrats have privatized Soviet factories and other properties in their own names.

(3) A third kind of privatization occurred in the case of communal lands obtained by public collectors and “merchants” (if this is not an anachronistic term used for the Babylonian tamkaru), above all through the process of interest-bearing debt and subsequent foreclosure. Ultimately, subsistence lands in the commons (or more accurately the communally organized sector, which often anachronistically is called “private” simply because it is not part of the public temple-and-palace sector), passed into the market, to be bought by wealthy creditors or buyers in general.90

So the Lockean model of individual private appropriation is largely an ahistorical myth. Private property in land has been the result, rather, of forced privatization by states, sometimes in concert with landed nobilities.

In fact, anything closely resembling the classical liberal ideas of private individual property — whether obtained by “homesteading” or not — appeared in relatively few places until the modern era (most notably ancient Rome and late medieval Europe). So it’s probably not coincidental that libertarian defenses of private property as natural and ubiquitous typically start with Greek and Roman law and leap from there to the common law of property as explicated by Blackstone (although even in these cases their mythology requires ignoring the robbery by which such forms of property came about).91 And while Roman legal conceptions of property to some extent foreshadowed modern private property, and have been consciously drawn on in its development, nevertheless — as Widerquist and McCall quote Chris Hann arguing — “in fact the great bulk of land in the ancient world was farmed by peasant smallholders and transmitted within their communities according to custom. Most historians would argue that the same was true under feudalism.”92

— Kevin Carson, Capitalist Nursery Fables: The Tragedy of Private Property, and the Farce of Its Defense

[bronzegods]

The first book that I wrote in the Pantheon universe was the Baal Cycle. Drama? Political intrigue? Reckless violence? Fuck yeah.

Ugarit is being squeezed between two powerful pantheons, the Kemet pantheon and the Hatti pantheon. The latter, run by the self-assured storm god Tarhunt and his temperamental son, expects Baal to be king. But as much as Kemet’s smug envoy Sutekh would enjoy a new vassal storm god to hassle, Yam, Baal’s elder brother, would be far easier to intimidate and simple to control.

El chooses Yam as his successor, subtly allying Ugarit with Kemet. But Baal refuses to tolerate his kingship being ripped out of his hands and challenges Yam for the throne. He never expected that murdering his brother will upend his pantheon’s stability and force god against god into a civil war. Nor does he know that his actions will ultimately drive him into a violent confrontation with Ugarit’s death god, Mot - a confrontation Baal doesn’t realize he will lose until it’s too late.

Art commissioned from Igurumi

[mybeautifulchristianjourney]

Excerpted from Rut, Rot or Revival

by Aiden Wilson Tozer

East of the Jordan in the territory of Moab, Moses began to expound this law, saying: The Lord our God said to us at Horeb, "You have stayed long enough at this mountain. Break camp and advance into the hill country of the Amorites; go to all the neighboring peoples in the Arabah, in the mountains, in the western foothills, in the Negev and along the coast, to the land of the Canaanites and to Lebanon, as far as the great river, the Euphrates. See, I have given you this land. Go in and take possession of the land that the Lord swore He would give to your fathers - to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob - and to their descendants after them." (Dt. 1:5- 8) In the Old Testament, the enemy that threatened Israel the most was the dictatorship of the customary. Israel became accustomed to walking around in circles and was blissfully content to stay by the safety of the mountain for a while. To put it another way, it was the psychology of the usual. God finally broke into the rut they were in and said, "You have been here long enough. It is time for you to move on."

To put Israel's experience into perspective for our benefit today, we must see that the mountain represents a spiritual experience for a spiritual state of affairs. Israel's problem was that they had given up hope of ever getting the land God had promised them. They had become satisfied with going in circles and camping in nice, comfortable places. They had come under the spell of the psychology of the routine. It kept them where they were and prevented them from getting the riches God had promised them.

If their enemy, the Edomites, would have come after them, the Israelites would have fought down to the last man and probably would have beaten the Edomites - Israel would have made progress. Instead they were twiddling their thumbs, waiting for the customary to keep on being the customary.

What is the worst enemy the church faces today? This is where a lot of unreality and unconscious hypocrisy enters. Many are ready to say, "The liberals are our worst enemy." But the simple fact is that the average evangelical church does not have too much trouble with liberalism. Nobody gets up in our churches and claims that the first five books of Moses are just myths. Nobody says that the story of creation is simply religious mythology. Nobody denies that Christ walked on the water or that He rose from the grave. Nobody gets up in our churches and claims that Jesus Christ is not the Son of God or that He isn't coming back again. Nobody denies the validity of the Scriptures. We just cannot hide behind liberalism and say that it is our worst enemy. We believe that evangelical Christians are trying to hold on to the truth given to us, the faith of our fathers, so the liberals are not our worst enemy.

Neither do we have a problem with the government. People in our country can do just about whatever they please and the government pays no attention. We can hold prayer meetings all night if we want, and the government would never bother us or question us. There is no secret police breathing down our backs watching our every move. We live in a free land, and we ought to thank God every day for that privilege.

[scalarlight]

Mesopotamian Deities

To talk about the Mesopotamian Deities, it is necessary to locate ourselves geographically, and for this, it's worth mentioning that it is a land that is equivalent to the heart of the Middle East, and that is dominated by a valley that is accompanied by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. It is there where of course, the Mesopotamian mythology is born.

Mesopotamian mythology is the name given to the mythologies of the Mesopotamian civilizations before the Persian civilization: Sumerian, Akkadian, Assyrian, and Babylonian.

The Sumerians practiced a syncretistic religion with a multitude of gods, demons, and spirits that represented natural forces or presences in the world.

Despite the many deities that the Mesopotamian culture had, seven deities were the most important and most powerful: Inanna, Marduk, Nabu, Nanna-Suen, Nergal, Ninurta, and Utu. These were many times associated with celestial bodies. Later, the following inhabitants of Mesopotamia adopted these associations, even assigning their own deities to the classical planets. The organization of the 7-day weeks derives from this association with the seven planetary deities.

List of Mesopotamian Deities

Inanna

Inanna, the deity of love, war, and protector of the city of Uruk. With the arrival of the Akkadians, Inanna is syncretized with the goddess Ishtar. His representation was a bundle of vertical reeds with a curved top.

Associated with the planet Venus, she is identified with the Greek goddess Aphrodite and the Phoenician Astarte. Among the Akkadians, she was known as Ishtar. According to Sumerian mythology, she was the daughter of Nannar (Sin in Akkadian, the god of the Moon) and Ningal (the Great Lady, the Moon), and the twin sister of Utu, known in Akkadian as Shamash. His consort was Dumuzi (hero and demigod of Uruk). Inanna or Ishtar represents the archetype of the Mother Goddess.

Marduk

Marduk, the firstborn Babylonian god of Ea, was the ruler of men and countries. It is mentioned in the Code of Hammurabi, where Hammurabi himself declares that Marduk is the temple's daily servant. He is Nabu's father, tutelary god of writing, son of Ea and Ninhursag, consort of Sarpanitu, and heir of Anu.

In the system of astronomy, Marduk is associated with Jupiter during the Hammurabi period.

Marduk is associated with the Imhullu weapon, whose name is also a Babylonian variant of it.

Nabu

Nabu was a Western Semitic deity, introduced by the Amorites to Mesopotamia, probably at the same time as Marduk. While Marduk became the chief divinity of Babylon, Nabu resided in nearby Borsippa, in his temple at E-zida. He was first called "Marduk's scribe and minister" and later assimilated as the beloved son of Marduk. 

Nabu is assigned the position of patron of the scribes, taken from the Goddess Nisaba of Chaldean mythology. Its symbols are the tablet with the writing tools. He wears a cap with horns and stands with folded hands, in the ancient priestly gesture. He rides on a winged dragon (mušhuššu) that originally belonged to Marduk.

His power over human existence is immense because he is the one who writes the destiny of each and every person, as the Gods have decided, on the tablets of the sacred records. Therefore, it has the power to increase or decrease the duration of people's lives according to its will.

Nanna-Suen

Sin, Sinai, Nanna, Nannar, Suen, or Zuen is the god of the Moon. For the Sumerians, he was known as Nanna or Nannar, son of Enlil, the deity of the wind and sky, and Ninlil, goddess of the air. Sin was his name in Akkadian and Babylonian. He was commonly referred to as En-zu, which means 'Lord of wisdom.'

During the period when Ur was supreme over the Euphrates Valley (between 2600 and 2400 BC), Nanna-Suen was naturally regarded as the supreme god of the pantheon. It was then that he was designated as "father of the gods," "head of the gods," or "creator of all things." The "wisdom" personified by the moon god is also an expression of the existing science of astronomy or the practice of astrology, to which observation of the phases of the Moon was an important factor.

Nergal

Nergal or Nirgal is the Sumerian-Babylonian lord of the death and deity of the underworld. He is considered the sinister aspect of the sun god Utu. He rules the underworld with his consort, Ereshkigal. He appears as the son of Enlil and Ninlil, and according to legend, he was sired when Enlil was confined to spend time in the underworld for raping Ninlil. When Ninlil goes to ask for Enlil (to the city of the underworld), it used to be represented by a human figure.

Ninurta

He was the god of Nippur, also identified as Ningirsu, Ninib, or Ninip. He formed a triad of gods together with his father, Enlil, and his mother, Ninlil. It was usually depicted holding a bow, a spear, and a magic mace called Sharur, which could speak and transform into a winged lion.

The cult of Ninurta dates back to the origins of Sumeria. It is found in a Lagash inscription where it appears under the name Ningirsu, "the lord of Girsu" (one of Lagash's neighborhoods).

Ninurta has a double face in the hymns and praises addressed to him. On the one hand, he is a farmer and a beneficent god who cures diseases and drives away demons, and on the other, as the son of Enlil, he is the angry and jealous god of the air.

Among the Assyrians, he was very popular, and several of their kings adopted his name. Ashur-nasir-pal II built him a palace in his new capital Kalhu. In the astral system, Ninurta is associated with Saturn.

Utu

Utu was a solar deity and a god of justice in the ancient Mesopotamian pantheon, and he was also a judge in the underworld. Although Utu was the name of God in Sumerian, in Akkadian, he was known as Shamash. This god was considered to be part of a divine trio and was worshiped alongside the moon god Nanna (Sin in Akkadian) and Inanna (Ishtar in Akkadian), the goddess of the planet Venus.

The Sumerians believed that Utu was the son of the moon deity Nanna and Inanna's twin brother. On the other hand, the Akkadians believed that this god was the son of Anu or Enlil.

[shadowsofthecedars]

A record of some patron gods

To add to my earlier post about patron deities, the mythology does give us some indication of which deities were worshiped by which peoples/kingdoms/nations/cities:

Baal Hadad was regarded as the god of the Aramaeans, who lived around Dimashq (Damascus);

Ashtart was goddess of the Sidonians, and worshiped in Sidon;

Amor, god of the Amorite peoples;

Adon and Baalat Gebal for Gebal (Byblos);

Shadrapa for the Arvadites, worshiped in Arvad;

Melkart for the Tyrians, worshiped in Tzura (Tyros);

Yam and his sons at Biruta (Berytos);

Chemosh for the Moabites, worshiped in Dibon;

Milkom for the Ammonites, worshiped in Rabbath-Ammon;

Yahweh for the Israelites, worshiped in Samaria and Jerusalem;

Qaush for the Edomites;

Dagon for the Philistines, worshiped in Gaza;

Anat was goddess of the warlike sons of Javan, the Greeks of the western lands (through her association with Attik Athene);

Kushor-and-Khasis has his home in Egypt (with his Ptah associations), and also in the distant ports of the Kaphtorim (Cretans).

[yoga-onion]

Sumerian Mythology - The earliest deities of ancient Mesopotamia (67)

The Lament for Sumer and Ur – Poem 2: The gods who were forced to leave [Part3: the story so far]

We turned to Father Enki in the abzu of Eridug. …… whatever we shall say, whatever we shall add, …… we came out from the …… of Eridug." "While were in charge of …… during the day, the shadows ……. While we were in charge of …… during the night, the storm ……. What do we receive trembling on duty during the day? What do we lose not sleeping on duty during the night? Enki, your city has been cursed, it has been given to an enemy land. Why do they reckon us among those who have been displaced from Eridug? Why do they destroy us like palm trees which we have not tended? Why do they break us up like new boats we have not caulked?"

After Enki had cast his eyes on a foreign land, …… have risen up, have called on their cohorts. Enki took an unfamiliar path away from Eridug. Damgalnuna wept bitter tears.

In Ur no one went to fetch food, no one went to fetch water. Those who went to fetch food, went away from the food and will not return. Those who went to fetch water, went away from the water and will not return. To the south, the Elamites stepped in, slaughtering ……. In the uplands, the vandals, the enemy, ……. The Tidnum (Amorites) daily strapped the mace to their loins. To the south, the Elamites, like an onrushing wave, were ……. In the uplands, like chaff blowing in the wind, they …… over the open country. Ur, like a great charging wild bull, bowed its neck to the ground.

This is what Enlil, who decides the fates, did: Again he sent down the Elamites, the enemy, from the mountains. The foremost house, firmly founded, ……. In order to destroy Kis, 10 men, even five men ……. Three days and three nights did not pass, …… the city was raked by a hoe. Dumuzid left Kuara like a prisoner of war, his hands were fettered.

……She rode away from her possessions, she went to the mountains. She loudly sang out a lament over those untravelled mountains: "I am queen, but I shall have to ride away from my possessions, and now I shall be a slave in those parts. I shall have to ride away from my silver and lapis lazuli, and now I shall be a slave in those parts. There, slavery, …… people, who can …… it? There, slavery, Elam ……, who can …… it? Alas, the destroyed city, my destroyed house," she cried bitterly.

The enemy is walking around Ur, the city of the god Nanna. The Elamite army slaughtered like a billowing wave, and the people were scattered like chaff blown about by a great wind. This was the fate that Enlil had ordained.

シュメール神話～古代メソポタミア最古の神々(67)

シュメールとウルの滅亡哀歌〜第2歌：退去を余儀なくされた神々・その3（これまでの話）

私たちは、エリドゥグのアブズでエンキ神を頼った。...... 何を言おうと、何を付け加えようと、我々はエリドゥグの ...... から出てきたのだ。」「日中に ...... を担当している間、影 ....... 夜間に ...... を担当している間は、嵐....... 昼間の任務に怯えることで何を得るのか。夜間の任務で眠らずにいたとて、何を失うというのだ？エンキ、あなたの都市は呪われ、敵国に与えられた。なぜ彼らはエリドゥグから追放された者の中に我々を入れようとするのか？なぜ、彼らは我々を手入れをしなかったヤシの木のように破壊するのか？なぜ彼らは、コーキングしていない新しい船のように、私たちを破壊するのか？」

エンキが異国の地に目を向けた後、...... が立ち上がり、仲間に呼びかけた。エンキはエリドゥグから離れて慣れない道を進んだ。ダムガルヌンナは苦い涙を流した。

ウルでは誰も食べ物を取りに行かず、水を汲みにも行かなかった。食べ物を取りに行った人は、食べ物から離れて行ってしまい、帰ってこない。水を汲みに行った人は、水から離れて行ってしまい、戻ってこない。南では、エラム人が踏み込んで、....... を虐殺した。高地では、荒らし、敵、.......ティドヌム（アムル人）は毎日、槌鉾を腰につけている。ティドヌム（アムル人）は毎日、メイスを腰につけている。南では、エラム人が、押し寄せる波のように、 ....... 高地では、風に吹かれた籾殻のように、広い土地を ......。ウルは、突進してくる大きな野牛のように、その首を地面に下げた。

これは、運命を決めるエンリルの行為である。再び、敵であるエラム人を山から降ろした。しっかりとした最上級の家 .......キシュを破壊するために、10人、いや5人 .......  三日三晩が経たず、...... 都市は鍬でかき回された。 三日三晩が経たず、...... 都市は鍬でかき回された。ドゥムジッドは捕虜のようにクアラを去り、彼の手は拘束されていた....... 彼女は自分の持ち物を捨てて馬に乗り、山に行った。彼女は大声でその未踏の山を嘆き叫んだ。「私は王妃なのに、自分の財産から離れて、あの地で奴隷にならなければならない。私は女王なのに、私の財産から離れければならない、そして今、私はあの地域で奴隷になるだろう。そこでは、奴隷制、...... 人、誰が...... できるのか？そこでは、奴隷、エラム人 ......、誰が ...... できるのか？嗚呼、破壊された都市、破壊された私の家よ」と彼女は苦々しく叫んだ。

ナンナ神の都市ウルを敵が闊歩している。エラム軍が逆巻く大波のように殺戮し、人々は大風に吹きまくられた籾殻のように散り散りになってしまった。これがエンリル神がお定になった運命である。

[ammg-old]

The first war in recorded history took place in Mesopotamia in 2700 BCE between Sumer and Elam. The Sumerians, under command of the King of Kish, Enembaragesi, defeated the Elamites in this war and, it is recorded, “carried away as spoils the weapons of Elam.” At approximately the same time as this campaign, King Gilgamesh of Uruk marched on his neighbors in order to procure cedar for construction of a temple. While it has been argued that Gilgamesh is a mythological character, the archaeological evidence of a historical King Enembaragesi, who is mentioned in the Epic of Gilgamesh, lends weight to the claim that the latter was also a real historical figure. The region of Sumer traditionally looked upon Elam as `the other' to the point where, in the Ur III Period of Sumer's history (2047-1750 BCE) King Shulgi of Ur constructed a great wall to keep the Elamites and Amorites at bay.

[frederickwiddowson]

Genesis, chapter 48 comments: Jacob blesses Joseph's sons

Genesis 48:1 ¶  And it came to pass after these things, that one told Joseph, Behold, thy father is sick: and he took with him his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. 2 And one told Jacob, and said, Behold, thy son Joseph cometh unto thee: and Israel strengthened himself, and sat upon the bed. 3  And Jacob said unto Joseph, God Almighty appeared unto me at Luz in the land of Canaan, and blessed me, 4  And said unto me, Behold, I will make thee fruitful, and multiply thee, and I will make of thee a multitude of people; and will give this land to thy seed after thee for an everlasting possession. 5  And now thy two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, which were born unto thee in the land of Egypt before I came unto thee into Egypt, are mine; as Reuben and Simeon, they shall be mine. 6  And thy issue, which thou begettest after them, shall be thine, and shall be called after the name of their brethren in their inheritance. 7  And as for me, when I came from Padan, Rachel died by me in the land of Canaan in the way, when yet there was but a little way to come unto Ephrath: and I buried her there in the way of Ephrath; the same is Bethlehem.

Upon hearing that Jacob was ill Joseph took his sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, to see him. Jacob was apparently pretty out of it as he had to be told they were there. He then relates the blessing God bestowed on him through his father Isaac and his grandfather Abraham.

Genesis 28:13  And, behold, the LORD stood above it, and said, I am the LORD God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed; 14  And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. 15  And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.

Remember that it was Abraham who would be told that Canaan was to be an everlasting possession.

Genesis 17:7 ¶  And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee.

8  And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.

Jacob states that Joseph’s sons are just as much a part of this blessing as are Joseph’s brothers, Jacob’s own sons Reuben and Simeon. He established them as tribes included in the inheritance by saying that their descendants would be named after them. Then, Jacob mentions his beloved Rachel and where she was buried. It has been many, many years but the pain is still there as it is with many of us who have lost a loved one decades in the past.

Genesis 35:16 ¶  And they journeyed from Bethel; and there was but a little way to come to Ephrath: and Rachel travailed, and she had hard labour. 17  And it came to pass, when she was in hard labour, that the midwife said unto her, Fear not; thou shalt have this son also. 18  And it came to pass, as her soul was in departing, (for she died) that she called his name Benoni: but his father called him Benjamin. 19  And Rachel died, and was buried in the way to Ephrath, which is Bethlehem. 20  And Jacob set a pillar upon her grave: that is the pillar of Rachel’s grave unto this day.

Genesis 48:8 ¶  And Israel beheld Joseph’s sons, and said, Who are these? 9  And Joseph said unto his father, They are my sons, whom God hath given me in this place. And he said, Bring them, I pray thee, unto me, and I will bless them. 10  Now the eyes of Israel were dim for age, so that he could not see. And he brought them near unto him; and he kissed them, and embraced them. 11  And Israel said unto Joseph, I had not thought to see thy face: and, lo, God hath shewed me also thy seed. 12  And Joseph brought them out from between his knees, and he bowed himself with his face to the earth. 13  And Joseph took them both, Ephraim in his right hand toward Israel’s left hand, and Manasseh in his left hand toward Israel’s right hand, and brought them near unto him. 14  And Israel stretched out his right hand, and laid it upon Ephraim’s head, who was the younger, and his left hand upon Manasseh’s head, guiding his hands wittingly; for Manasseh was the firstborn. 15  And he blessed Joseph, and said, God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk, the God which fed me all my life long unto this day, 16  The Angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads; and let my name be named on them, and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; and let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth. 17 And when Joseph saw that his father laid his right hand upon the head of Ephraim, it displeased him: and he held up his father’s hand, to remove it from Ephraim’s head unto Manasseh’s head. 18 And Joseph said unto his father, Not so, my father: for this is the firstborn; put thy right hand upon his head. 19 And his father refused, and said, I know it, my son, I know it: he also shall become a people, and he also shall be great: but truly his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his seed shall become a multitude of nations. 20  And he blessed them that day, saying, In thee shall Israel bless, saying, God make thee as Ephraim and as Manasseh: and he set Ephraim before Manasseh. 21  And Israel said unto Joseph, Behold, I die: but God shall be with you, and bring you again unto the land of your fathers. 22  Moreover I have given to thee one portion above thy brethren, which I took out of the hand of the Amorite with my sword and with my bow.

Many times questions are asked in the Bible in a sort of rhetorical way. The understanding is that the person asking the question knows the answer but the requirement for an answer confirms a greater principle. For instance, in Genesis we know that God knows everything so this question becomes a requirement for someone to admit to something.

Genesis 3:8  And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden.

   9 ¶  And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? 10  And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.

Jacob is blind, or nearly so, as a consequence of age. As part of the judgment we in this world are enduring, old age leads to many physical failings on the part of even the noblest and upright of God’s men and women of destiny.

1Kings 14:4  And Jeroboam’s wife did so, and arose, and went to Shiloh, and came to the house of Ahijah. But Ahijah could not see; for his eyes were set by reason of his age.

Also read the metaphorical speech regarding old age that Solomon gives in Ecclesiastes

12.

1 ¶  Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them; 2 While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain: 3 In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened, 4  And the doors shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of the grinding is low, and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird, and all the daughters of musick shall be brought low; 5  Also when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets: 6  Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern. 7  Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.

Joseph acknowledged that God had given him his sons and then Jacob said he wanted to bless them. Jacob expresses his joy and satisfaction that he never thought to see Joseph’s face again and yet now he has not only gotten to see Joseph’s face but also his children. One of the laments of we parents who have lost a child to death is that we will not only never see their face again in our earthly life but we will not see the children they might have had. It is an enduring pain and grief for some.

Joseph is holding his boys close and presents them to his father to be blessed and bows himself to the ground, this second greatest man in the world’s greatest superpower acknowledging the authority of his sheepherding father. It is a lesson we should learn as many of those reading this have risen to a higher social, economic, or political strata than their father but still honor him in respect. Position often has nothing to do with worthiness for respect.

Joseph presented the children in a specific order, so that Manasseh, the eldest, would receive the right hand of blessing from his grandfather, Jacob. Jacob crosses his hands and places his right hand, instead, on Ephraim’s head, and blessed Joseph. He mentions the Angel, capital A, as protecting him and asks that Angel for a blessing on the children and asks that they be included in his posterity and in the inheritance promised to his descendants. We’ve already seen what the word angel refers to but let’s review as Roman and Persian mythology have dominated a significant part of Christian history and have polluted our thinking ability and colored the lenses through which we view the Bible’s clear statements.

Remember, an angel is a presence, an appearance of something that is somewhere else, representing that person or thing but with power and ability that would prevent us from distinguishing the difference.

Isaiah 63:9  In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old.

Matthew 18:10  Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven.

Acts 12:15  And they said unto her, Thou art mad. But she constantly affirmed that it was even so. Then said they, It is his angel.

Revelation 1:20  The mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in my right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches: and the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven churches.

Christ is the appearance of God; the angel of the Lord, His presence. I want to repeat the definition of an angel in Isaiah 63:9.

Isaiah 63:9  In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old.

Galatians 4:14  And my temptation which was in my flesh ye despised not, nor rejected; but received me as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus.

(Even can link two things that are the same such as I, even I, in Genesis 6:17 and over a dozen other verses.)

Who led the Hebrews out of Egypt.

Judges 2:1 ¶  And an angel of the LORD came up from Gilgal to Bochim, and said, I made you to go up out of Egypt, and have brought you unto the land which I sware unto your fathers; and I said, I will never break my covenant with you.

You can imagine the angel of the LORD (LORD with all letters capitalized is Jehovah) or the angel of God as this Angel.

Joseph tried to remove his father’s hands, which Jacob had placed very deliberately where they were in full understanding of what he intended, onto the proper child in the order that he thought they should be placed. Jacob insisted, though, that Ephraim the younger would be greater than the elder. This is not the first time we have seen this, is it? Jacob himself was the younger child who supplanted the elder. But, this isn’t trickery or deception here. This blessing is from the beginning done wittingly.

The great leader to come, Joshua, a type of Christ in His Second Coming to conquer and rule, came out of Ephraim.

Numbers 13:8  Of the tribe of Ephraim, Oshea the son of Nun… 16  These are the names of the men which Moses sent to spy out the land. And Moses called Oshea the son of Nun Jehoshua.

Jehoshua is a different spelling of the name Joshua.

Ephraim has its issues as a tribe which shall come out in the narrative as you read. Jacob admits he is dying but tells them they will see the land, meaning their descendants will, that was promised to them. Again, verse 22 is also a prophecy of time to come.

Genesis 15:16  But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.