Daniel C. Snell - Religions of the Ancient Near East

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Religions of the ancient near east

This book is a history of religious life in the Ancient Near East, from the beginnings of agriculture to Alexander the Great's invasion in the 300s BCE. Daniel C. Snell traces key developments in the history, daily life, and religious beliefs of the people of Ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, Israel, and Iran. His research investigates the influence of those ideas on the West, with particular emphasis on how religious ideas from this historical and cultural milieu continue to influence the way modern cultures and religions view the world.

Designed to be accessible to students and readers with no prior knowledge of the period, this book uses fictional vignettes to add interest to its material, which is based on careful study of archaeological remains and preserved texts. This book provides a thoughtful summary of the Ancient Near East and includes a comprehensive bibliography to guide readers in further studies of related topics.

Daniel C. Snell is L. J. Semrod Presidential Professor of History at the University of Oklahoma, Norman. He has also taught at the University of Washington, Connecticut College, Barnard College, Gustavus Adolphus College, and Otterbein College. He is the author of eight books, the most recent of which is A Companion to the Ancient Near East (2005).

Religions of the ancient near east

Daniel C. Snell

University of Oklahoma, Norman

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, So Paulo, Delhi, Dubai, Tokyo, Mexico City

Cambridge University Press

32 Avenue of the Americas, New York , NY 10013-2473, USA

www.cambridge.org

Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521683364

Daniel C. Snell 2011

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2011

Printed in the United States of America

A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication data

Snell, Daniel C.

Religions of the ancient near East / by Daniel C. Snell.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-521-86475-6 (hardback)

1. Middle East Religion. 2. Middle East Religious life and customs. I. Title.

BL1060.S64 2010

200.9394 dc22 2010026015

ISBN 978-0-521-86475-6 Hardback

ISBN 978-0-521-68336-4 Paperback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet Web sites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Web sites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Contents

Figures and Maps

Figures

Maps

Preface

Let us start without preconceptions. Of course, we all have some preconceptions about what religion is or should be, and how it got to be the way it is now. Here we delve into the distant past to see whether we can recognize what appears to have happened. We freely admit that in our self-conscious age, this is nearly impossible.

I do not write to prove or disprove any particular theory about religion. I have ideas about them, which I talk about toward the end of this book. However, I also have a, doubtless, Romantic conviction that one of the things historians should be doing is recounting what is known, usually in chronological order, to see whether we can sniff and feel the force of events, of ceremonies, and of words. My epigraphs are drawn especially from modern studies of religious life; I do not mean to endorse the views expressed by others, but I bring them in to show the continuities and discontinuities in human experience.

We will not be able to experience the same things that others have lived through and heard, but if we do not try to get close to their experiences, we consign our studies to the irrelevance of catalogs and the vapidity of technical detail. There was life back then human life and we cannot hope to catch it all. But we can try to feel. And we should.

Acknowledgments

My formulation of the issues and problems of the history of religions owes a great deal to my forebears, both in the disciplines I have studied and in my own family. Everyone in the generation that preceded mine was either an ordained minister of some confession or other or married to such a minister. I particularly recall my late aunt, the Rev. Marjorie Hawkins Call, longtime minister of the Free Methodist Church, who came to Oklahoma to grow old with my then small children, so that each of them would clearly remember what a determined woman of religion can now do in this world.

With regard to disciplines, I remember the noble effort of Thorkild Jacobsen, always kind to all, who wrote a challenging if idiosyncratic history of Mesopotamian religion. In what follows, all will see how I rebel against his views, but I cherish the clarity of their expression and the obvious depth of thought that he devoted to Sumerian developments. I have profited too from the intuition of Bill Hallo, from whom I learned to hold open the possibility of the continuity of traditions, even over millennia. Further, I owe much to scholars I have never met but have studied, including, especially, Henri Frankfort, who dared to think broadly and wrote more clearly than most on Egyptian religion.

I have also profited from discussions with a number of colleagues in various institutions on the nature and practice of religion. In the spring of 2008, the University of Oklahoma's president David L. Boren sponsored my dream course on Ancient Near Eastern religions. In that course, my students and I heard lectures and had extended discussions with Professor Gary Beckman of the University of Michigan, Professor Benjamin Foster of Yale University, Professor Ann Macy Roth of New York University, Professor Tonia Sharlach of Oklahoma State University, and Professor David Sperling of the Hebrew Union College and Jewish Institute of Religion in New York City; they cannot be held responsible for my interpretations, but they are to be praised for their openness and willingness to discuss religion. Professor Sharlach also kindly read and made useful comments on a late version of this work.

I thank my wife, Dr. Katie Barwick-Snell, for reading and commenting on the manuscript of this book, as well as working on its maps. My dear friend, artist Adrienne Day, created three wonderfully clear line drawings for it.

My brother, David Snell of Atlanta, Georgia, gave drafts of this book his sensitive readings. In thanks for his support over the years and that of his wife, Mary Lou Snell, I dedicate this book to them.

Defining Time and Space

The student who tries to penetrate the essence of Assyro-Babylonian literature will have to put aside all conventional methods of examination.

Edward Chierra, They Wrote on Clay , 1965, 44

It was a dry place back from the river, pockmarked by the recent rains and with weeds luxuriating in the basins. When there was a wind, it could be positively pleasant, even in the very hot afternoons of summer. It was not at all the blowing sand of other deserts that he had expected. It was not the American Southwest but more like the fruitful plains of the Midwest, which could in a bad year turn inhospitable, especially if the wind kicked up the dirt.

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