The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria

The religious architecture of Babylonia and Assyria is of interest chiefly as an expression of the religious earnestness of rulers and people, and only in a minor degree as a ma...

The problem of immortality, we have seen, engaged the serious attention of the Babylonian theologians. While the solutions they had to offer could hardly have been satisfactory...

There is a close connection between the various branches of the religious literature of Babylonia and Assyria that we have hitherto been considering. The magic incantations are,...

With these preliminary remarks, we may turn, as the first part of our subject, to a consideration of the oldest of the Babylonian gods. Our main sources are the inscriptions of...

The immediate result of Hammurabi's master-stroke in bringing the various states of the Euphrates Valley under a single control, was the supremacy secured for his capital, of th...

We have seen[844] that the religion of Babylonia permeates all branches of literature, so that it is not always possible to draw a sharp dividing line between sacred and secular...

_A_, or _Malkatu_, her names and their explanation, 74; position and relationship to Shamash, 74-5, 176, 685; temples of A and Shamash in Larsa and Borsippa, 70, 241; temple E-e...

An enumeration of the gods occurring in the inscriptions of the rulers of Assyria from the earliest days to the close of the empire, so far as published, will show better than a...

Various traditions were current in Babylonia regarding the manner in which the universe came into existence. The labors of the theologians to systematize these traditions did no...

Turning to the first subdivision of Babylonian religious literature, we find remains sufficient to justify us in concluding that there must have been produced a vast number of t...

Not many years ago the impression appeared to be well founded that the Semites were poor in the production of myths and legends as compared, for example, to the Hindus or Greeks...

In forming a general estimate of a religion, one's verdict will largely depend upon the point of view from which the religion in question is regarded. It is manifestly unjust an...

Until about the middle of the 19th century, our knowledge of the religion of the Babylonians and Assyrians was exceedingly scant. No records existed that were contemporaneous wi...

A strong element of magic, we have seen, was always present in the hymns and prayers of the Babylonians, and even in such as contained religious sentiments of an elevated and pu...

The Babylonians and Assyrians with whom we are concerned in this volume dwelt in the region embraced by the Euphrates and the Tigris,--the Babylonians in the south, or the Euphr...

From what has just been said, it follows that the step from magical formulas to prayers and hymns is but a small one, and does not, indeed, carry with it the implication of chan...

It will be recalled that both in the Ishtar hymn and in the one to Marduk above quoted, great stress is laid upon pacifying the deity addressed. Starting from the primitive conc...

It will be appropriate at this point, to give a brief account of the astronomical system as developed by the Babylonian scholars. The system forms a part of the Babylonian cosmo...

Coming back now to the historical texts and placing the minor deities together that occur in the inscriptions of Hammurabi and his successors down through the restoration of nat...

The Assyrian influence however was only one factor, and a minor factor at that, in maintaining the belief in countless spirits that occupied a place of more or less importance b...

The pantheon of a religion presents us with the external phases of the religion in question. In order to penetrate further towards the core of the religion, and to see it at its...

It requires no profound knowledge to reach the conclusion that the time has not yet come for an exhaustive treatise on the religion of Babylonia and Assyria. But even if our kno...

Both for the first and for the second periods we now have a large number of lists of offerings made to the temples of Babylonia and of thousands of miscellaneous legal documents...

Gudea manifests a fondness for giving to his pantheon as large a compass as possible. In this respect, he follows earlier examples, and also sets an example which is followed by...

When upon the fall of the Assyrian empire, in 606 B.C., Babylonia regained her full measure of independence, Marduk once more obtained undisputed sway at the head of the pantheo...

The Assyrian kings, in imitation of the example set by their Babylonian predecessors, are fond of introducing into their inscriptions, a series of gods under whose protection th...

We have thus passed in review the old Babylonian pantheon, so far as the discovered texts have revealed their names and epithets. The list does not claim to be exhaustive. That...

The Babylonian religion in the oldest form known to us may best be described as a mixture of local and nature cults. Starting with that phase of religious beliefs known as Animi...

Attention has already been directed to the comparatively small number of female deities that appear in the inscriptions of the first period of Babylonian history. We must, howev...