Civilizations in Mesopotamia (1100-300 BC, or, 12th-4th centuries BC)

Overview: history of the Middle East in those centuries was contentious as ever.  The conflicts between the tribes and empires both contributed to the mutual influence of their cultures, and were immortalized in the Jewish Bible, one of the cornerstones of Western civilization.

The Hebrews (Israelites, Jews): while Hebrews initially referred to groups of semi-nomads, a part of them distinguished themselves with a tribal God, Yahweh, and were referred to as Israelites.  Around 900 BC, the kingdom of Israel split into Israel and Judah.  After the fall of Israel in 722 BC, the believers in Jehovah were called Jews, after Judah. 

The Assyrian Empire: It developed around the city of Ashur on the upper Tigris River and south of the later capital, Nineveh. Assyria, a Semitic state, was forming by the beginning of 3,000 B.C., but it was overshadowed by the greatness of Sumer and Akkad.  Its day of glory came around 800 BC.  722 BC, it destroyed the state of Israel.  It was overthrown by the Chaldeans in 612 BC.

The Chaldeans (new Babylonians):  a Semitic people who first came into S Babylonia c.1000 B.C.  They were a province under Assyrian rule and revolted in 612 BC, replacing the Assyrian rulers and establishing the Chaldean Empire. In 587 BC, King Nebuchadrezzar ransacked Jerusalem and sent the Jewish leaders on exile in Babylon. The Chaldeans were overthrown by the Persians in 539 BC, after which some Jewish leaders in exile were returned to Jerusalem.

The Persians, 550-330 BC. An Indo-European people from the Iranian plateau, under Cyrus the Great they established an empire that overran central and west Asia.  They would eventually be overtaken by the Hellenistic empire established by Alexander the Great.  The Persian religion Zoroastrianism (7th-6th c. BC) was the first to envision the existence of heaven.  This religion envisioned a battle between the god of light and spirituality and the god of evil and materialism, with a final day of judgement.

The Phoenicians: Phoenicia, from the Greek word for "red purple" in reference to Phoenician red dye, approximately the extent of modern Lebanon with an extension to the south.  A sea people who rose to prominence around 1100 BC, they were famous for trade in the red dye and other things, including exporting their alphabetical system to Greece.  
Byblos-Bible-Biblio: One of Phoenicia's busiest trade port, Byblos, exported many books, hence the word Bible (book), and the prefix biblio for books.


History of the Israelites 

Connection between Babylonian society and the Hebrews: the Israelites bore legacy of Sumerian influences.

The Babylonian story of creation, and the Biblical Genesis: the two share the concept of a primeval watery chaos and the subsequent creation of the heaven and the earth. Both speak of the existence of light before the creation of the sun, moon, and other heavenly bodies, which made possible the regulation of time. The Biblical account of the Flood, with which God destroyed a world grown wicked, saving only enough of it to make a fresh start, is powerfully foreshadowed in the famous Gilgamesh Epic. In the ancient Babylonian account, the gods were angry because they were annoyed by the noises of humans. But in the Biblical account, the anger of God was because of human corruption. The case and detail oriented nature of the Jewish laws, with an emphasis on "eye for an eye," were apparently an influence of ancient Mesopotamian laws.

 

 


The Israelites’ covenant with God

Covenant: tribal practice of entering into an agreement with one particular god, so that the deity would devote himself entirely to the covenanters, in return for their exclusive obedience and loyal trust. Abraham’s exclusive covenant of God ensured the latter’s protection of his family and his welfare. A national covenant with God came after exodus from Egypt, under the leadership of Moses.

The Israelite God was the first in human history that required exclusive obedience,  who rose above nature and controlled all in nature.  The covenant between Yahweh and the Israelites was based on moral grounds, providing certainty and purpose in life.

Q: Compare the concept of the human being in ancient Judaism and ancient Sumerian religions.
The Bible as revelation, laws, and history: the Jewish Bible left a legacy of various dimensions: the messages of God, laws that were to bind the Jewish community, and history to shape the Jewish identity.

Revelations (example): 

[1] the word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.
[2] And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the LORD's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it.
[3] And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
[4] And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
[5] O house of Jacob, come ye, and let us walk in the light of the LORD. (Isaiah, chapt.2)

[1] In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.
[2] Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly.
[3] And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.
[4] And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke.
[5] Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.
[6] Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar:
[7] And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged.
[8] Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.
[9] And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not.
[10] Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed.
[11] Then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered, Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate,
[12] And the LORD have removed men far away, and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land.
[13] But yet in it shall be a tenth, and it shall return, and shall be eaten: as a teil tree, and as an oak, whose substance is in them, when they cast their leaves: so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof. (Isaiah, chapt.6)

History: The Israelites visualized the earth as a space where God and humans interacted, but God gave humans free will so that independent human actions existed.  Therefore history, meaning individual events following specific causes, existed, but it was interpreted as a moral journey following or disobeying God's rules, and shaped by God's reward or punishment for human actions.

When Ab'igail saw David, she made haste, and alighted from the ass, and fell before David on her face, and bowed to the ground. She fell at his feet and said, "Upon me alone, my lord, be the guilt; pray let your handmaid speak in your ears, and hear the words of your handmaid. Let not my lord regard this ill-natured fellow, Nabal; for as his name is, so is he; Nabal is his name, and folly is with him; but I your handmaid did not see the young men of my lord, whom you sent. Now then, my lord, as the LORD lives, and as your soul lives, seeing the LORD has restrained you from bloodguilt, and from taking vengeance with your own hand, now then let your enemies and those who seek to do evil to my lord be as Nabal. And now let this present which your servant has brought to my lord be given to the young men who follow my lord. Pray forgive the trespass of your handmaid; for the LORD will certainly make my lord a sure house, because my lord is fighting the battles of the LORD; and ev! il shall not be found in you so long as you live. If men rise up to pursue you and to seek your life, the life of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of the living in the care of the LORD your God; and the lives of your enemies he shall sling out as from the hollow of a sling. And when the LORD has done to my lord according to all the good that he has spoken concerning you, and has appointed you prince over Israel, my lord shall have no cause of grief, or pangs of conscience, for having shed blood without cause or for my lord taking vengeance himself. And when the LORD has dealt well with my lord, then remember your handmaid."

And David said to Ab'igail, "Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, who sent you this day to meet me! Blessed be your discretion, and blessed be you, who have kept me this day from bloodguilt and from avenging myself with my own hand! For as surely as the LORD the God of Israel lives, who has restrained me from hurting you, unless you had made haste and come to meet me, truly by morning there had not been left to Nabal so much as one male."

Then David received from her hand what she had brought him; and he said to her, "Go up in peace to your house; see, I have hearkened to your voice, and I have granted your petition." And Ab'igail came to Nabal; and, lo, he was holding a feast in his house, like the feast of a king. And Nabal's heart was merry within him, for he was very drunk; so she told him nothing at all until the morning light. And in the morning, when the wine had gone out of Nabal, his wife told him these things, and his heart died within him, and he became as a stone. ( 1 Samuel 25)

[14] Thus saith the LORD, your redeemer, the Holy One of Israel; For your sake I have sent to Babylon, and have brought down all their nobles, and the Chaldeans, whose cry is in the ships. (Isaiah, 43)
[1] Thus saith the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut; (Isaiah, 45)

Laws: both categorical statements and detailed stipulations.

Ten commandments:

[1] And God spake all these words, saying,
[2] I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
[3] Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
[4] Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:
[5] Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;
[6] And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.
[7] Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.
[8] Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
[9] Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:
[10] But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:
[11] For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.
[12] Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.
[13] Thou shalt not kill.
[14] Thou shalt not commit adultery.
[15] Thou shalt not steal.
[16] Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
[17] Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's. (Exodus, chapt.20)

General laws (examples):

[1] Now these are the judgments which thou shalt set before them.
[2] If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing.
[3] If he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself: if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him.
[4] If his master have given him a wife, and she have born him sons or daughters; the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself.
[5] And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free:
[6] Then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the door post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an aul; and he shall serve him for ever.
[12] He that smiteth a man, so that he die, shall be surely put to death.
[13] And if a man lie not in wait, but God deliver him into his hand; then I will appoint thee a place whither he shall flee.
[14] But if a man come presumptuously upon his neighbour, to slay him with guile; thou shalt take him from mine altar, that he may die.
[15] And he that smiteth his father, or his mother, shall be surely put to death.
[16] And he that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death.
[17] And he that curseth his father, or his mother, shall surely be put to death.
[18] And if men strive together, and one smite another with a stone, or with his fist, and he die not, but keepeth his bed:
[19] If he rise again, and walk abroad upon his staff, then shall he that smote him be quit: only he shall pay for the loss of his time, and shall cause him to be thoroughly healed.
[20] And if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand; he shall be surely punished.
[21] Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished: for he is his money.
[22] If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine.
[23] And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life,
[24] Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,
[25] Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.
[26] And if a man smite the eye of his servant, or the eye of his maid, that it perish; he shall let him go free for his eye's sake.
[27] And if he smite out his manservant's tooth, or his maidservant's tooth; he shall let him go free for his tooth's sake.
[28] If an ox gore a man or a woman, that they die: then the ox shall be surely stoned, and his flesh shall not be eaten; but the owner of the ox shall be quit.
[29] But if the ox were wont to push with his horn in time past, and it hath been testified to his owner, and he hath not kept him in, but that he hath killed a man or a woman; the ox shall be stoned, and his owner also shall be put to death.
[30] If there be laid on him a sum of money, then he shall give for the ransom of his life whatsoever is laid upon him. (Exodus, chapt.21)

Q: Compare Judaic laws with Mesopotamian laws, what are the similarities and differences?

Different chapters of the Jewish Bible were written at different times between 1250 to 150 BC, and they fall primarily into the above categories. They began from Creation to the return to Judea after the Babylonian exile.