Glenn S. Holland - Gods in the Desert: Religions of the Ancient Near East

Gods in the Desert

Gods in the Desert

Religions of the Ancient Near East

Glenn S. Holland

ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.

Lanham Boulder New York Toronto Plymouth, UK

ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.

Published in the United States of America

by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.

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Copyright 2009 Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.

First paperback edition 2010

All rights reserved . No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

The hardback edition of this book was previously cataloged by the Library of Congress as follows:

Holland, Glenn Stanfield, 1952

Gods in the desert : religions of the ancient Near East / Glenn S. Holland.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Middle EastReligion. 2. Mythology, Middle Eastern. I. Title.

BL1060.H635 2009

200.939'4dc22 2009009444

ISBN 978-0-7425-6226-4 (cloth : alk. paper)

ISBN 978-0-7425-6227-1 (pbk. : alk. paper)

ISBN 978-0-7425-9979-6 (electronic)

The Scripture quotations used herein are taken from the New Revised Standard Version
Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council
of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., and are used by permission. All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

The Great Pyramid at Giza

Mask of Tutankhamun

Head of Hathor

Akhenaten and his family receiving blessings at the hands of Aten

Partially reconstructed mortuary temple of Hatshepsut

Tutankhamun between the goddess Sekhmet and Ptah, flanked by Horus as a crowned falcon and Wadjit, goddess of Lower Egypt

The weighing of the heart in the Judgment Hall of Osiris.

Procession of the sun bark of Ra

Figure of a scribe

Sargon II and the Tree of Life

Akkadian seal from Mesopotamia

Clay mask of Huwawa or Humbaba

Partial reconstruction of the Great Ziggurat at Ur

Reconstruction of the Ishtar Gate of the city of Babylon

Cuneiform tablet containing part of the Flood narrative from the Epic of Gilgamesh

Bronze Canaanite figure of Baal

View of modern Jerusalem

Ancient Egypt

Ancient Mesopotamia

SyriaPalestine in the Ninth Century BCE