Matthew 1

[JLG]

1)

Mesopotamia: The Rise of Cities
Once upon a time, in the land known as Sumer, the people built a temple to their god, who had conquered the forces of chaos and brought order to the world. They built this temple at a place called Eridu, which was "one of the southernmost places, on the very edge of the river plain and near the marshes: the transition zone between sea and land, with its shifting waters, its islands, and its deep thickets of reeds" (Leick, 2).

 

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2)

Mythological Origins
This marshy area, surrounded by dry land and sand dunes, represented to the people the life-giving force of their god and provided the physical manifestation of the order that god had created out of chaos. The fresh waters of life were celebrated at Eridu because they were associated with what the Sumerians called the abzu, the primordial source of all existence, the realm in which the gods lived and from which they emerged.
The god Enki emerged from the abzu and dwelt in Eridu, and the Sumerian king list states that "once kingship had descended from the heavens, it was located in Eridu." This cultural center became the first city for the Sumerians: Historian Gwendolyn Leick writes:
So the Mesopotamian Eden is not a garden but a city, formed from dry land surrounded by waters. The first building is a temple... This is how Mesopotamian tradition presented the evolution and function of cities, and Eridu is the mythical paradigm. Unlike the biblical Eden, from which humans were banished forever after the Fall, Eridu remained a real place, imbued with sanctity but always accessible.
Eridu was not only the first city in the world for the Sumerians, but also the beginning of civilization. All other cities that emerged later, the Sumerians believed, had their origin in the sand and waters surrounding Eridu.

 

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3)

Modern Theories
Modern scholars disagree on why the world's first cities arose in the Mesopotamian region and not elsewhere. Theories range from ancient alien hypotheses to social or natural upheavals that forced people to coalesce in urban centers, environmental problems, and even the forced migration of rural communities to cities. None of these theories is universally accepted, although every reputable scholar rejects the ancient alien hypothesis. However, what they do agree on is that, at the very moment the ancient Sumerians of Mesopotamia decided to begin the process of urbanization, they changed the way human beings would live forever. Historian Kriwaczek writes:
This was a revolutionary moment in human history. The [Sumerians] aimed for nothing less than to change the world. They were the first to adopt the principle that has driven progress and advancement throughout history, and that still motivates most of us today: the conviction that it is humanity's right, its mission and its destiny, to transform and improve nature and become its master.

 

[JLG]

4)

The Eridu site doesn't offer much to suggest that it was once anything more than a sacred center; perhaps something we would define today as a large town or village.
The principle Kriwaczek refers to may be nothing more than the natural inclination of human beings to gather together for safety from the elements, or it may be rooted in religion and shared religious practices, which, among the benefits they offer, offer reassurance that there is order and meaning behind the seemingly random events of life. Historian Lewis Mumford states that "the habit of resorting to caves for the collective celebration of magical ceremonies appears to date back to an earlier period, and whole communities, living in caves and hollowed-out rock faces, have survived in widely scattered areas to the present day." The design of the city as an external form as well as an internal pattern of life may have had equally ancient origins". Whatever led to the development of the first cities in Mesopotamia, the world would never be the same again.

 

[JLG]

5)

Kriwaczek writes:
From before 4000 BC, for the next ten to fifteen centuries, the people of Eridu and their neighbors laid the foundations for almost everything we know as civilization. It has been called the Urban Revolution, although in reality the invention of cities was the least of it. With cities came the centralized state, the hierarchy of social classes, the division of labor, organized religion, monumental construction, civil engineering, writing, literature, sculpture, art, music, education, mathematics, and law, not to mention an enormous range of new inventions and discoveries, from things as basic as wheeled vehicles and ships to the potter's kiln, metallurgy, and the creation of synthetic materials. And to top it all off, there's the enormous collection of notions and ideas so fundamental to our way of seeing the world, such as the concept of numbers, or weights, completely independent of the objects being counted or weighed (the number 10, or a kilo), which we've long since forgotten had to be discovered or invented. Southern Mesopotamia is the place where all this was first achieved.

 

[JLG]

6)

The Rise of Uruk
The concept of a city, first expressed in the construction of Eridu, did not remain there for long. Urbanization spread rapidly throughout the Sumerian region beginning around 4500 BC with the rise of the city of Uruk, now considered the world's first city. Eridu may be the world's first city, as Sumerian myths proclaim, but Eridu was founded around 5400 BC, long before the invention of writing (around 3000 BC), and by then, Uruk had been established for some time and had created and discarded numerous artifacts that today attest to its size and population, thus substantiating the claim that Uruk is the world's first city. The Eridu site, on the other hand, does not offer much to suggest that it was ever anything more than a sacred center, perhaps something that today we would define as a large town or village.

 

[JLG]

7)

Uruk and Eridu in Mythology
Sumerian mythology supports the claim that Uruk replaced Eridu in the poem "Inanna and the God of Wisdom." In this work, the goddess Inanna, whose home is in Uruk, goes to Eridu to visit her father, Enki. Kriwaczek points out that,
The Mesopotamians recognized Enki as the god who brings civilization to humanity. He is the one who gives rulers their intelligence and knowledge; he "opens the doors of understanding." He is not the ruler of the universe, but the wise counselor of the gods and their elder brother. Most importantly, Enki was the custodian of the meh, what the great Assyriologist Samuel Noah Kramer explained as the "fundamental, unalterable, and complete array of powers and duties, norms and standards, rules and regulations, related to civilized life."

 

[JLG]

Fonne Deleeuw said:

That Uruk replaced Eridu as a religious center is not a claim I think. Eridu already existed 5400BC.
The area around Eridu was also where the family Adam and Eve of Eden lived, And their creation story runs strongly parallel to the religious beliefs about the creation by Enki. The god who brought order to chaos, separated the waters of heaven and earth, sculpted man from clay, …

My answer:

- When we look at the history of Mesopotamia, we can see how different cities develop, some become bigger and more powerful, others regress!

- We can say the same with cities in Grecia and many other places in the world!

- We can say the same with empires!

- But there is one thing we can be sure, nothing remains the same in human history!

- I said human history!

- The Bible says that it will be different with Yah.weh’s kingdom!

- It will last forever and no one will be authorized to rebel!

- But it won’t be any dictatorship, men will participate!

- And everything will be done to improve everything, not to deteriorate everything!

 

[JLG]

8)

At the beginning of the poem, Inanna says, "I will direct my steps to Enki, to the Apsu, to Eridu, and I will speak persuasively to him at the Apsu, at Eridu. I will make a request to the lord Enki," clearly indicating that she wants something from her father. Enki seems to be aware of her coming and orders his servant to make her feel welcome, to "serve her beer, in front of the Lion Gate, so that she feels she is in the house of her friend, so that she feels like a companion." Inanna sits down to drink beer with her father, and as they grow drunk together, Enki offers his daughter meh after meh until she has over a hundred. Afterward, Enki seems to faint from drinking, and Inanna, with the meh, quickly leaves Eridu, back to Uruk. When Enki wakes up and discovers he has lost the meh, he sends his servant Isimud to retrieve them. The rest of the poem recounts Isimud's futile attempts to prevent Inanna from reaching Uruk with the Meh. Inanna succeeds in bringing "the ship of Heaven to the gate of bliss" in Uruk, and "where the ship docked at the wharf, she named it White Harbor" to commemorate the triumph. The interpretation of the poem is that it symbolically presents the transfer of power and prestige from the city of Eridu to Uruk.

 

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9)

Archaeological Evidence

Sumerian Origin

However, what is clear is that, for whatever reason, the urban revolution began in Mesopotamia and seems certain to have begun in the region of Sumer. The oldest cities mentioned are Eridu, Bad-tibira, Larak, Sippar, and Shuruppak, all of which are located in Sumer.
Regarding the various theories as to why it arose in Sumer and not elsewhere, Kriwaczek writes that some scholars see the rise of civilization as an inevitable consequence of evolutionary changes in the human mindset since the end of the last Ice Age... But human beings aren't really like that; we don't react without thinking. There should be room in history for the everlasting conflict between progressives and conservatives, between people who look to the future and those who look to the past, between those who propose "doing something new" and those who think "the traditional way is best"; between those who say "let's improve this" and those who think "if it ain't broke, there's no need to fix it." No major cultural shift has occurred without this confrontation first.

 

[JLG]

10)

Long ago, in the land known as Sumeria, people built a temple to the god who had conquered the forces of chaos and brought order to the land. These people later continued their god's work and established order throughout the land in the form of cities. The answer to the question of why this happened in Mesopotamia and not elsewhere can be more easily found by considering the culture of that particular society. The people of Mesopotamia, regardless of region or ethnicity, shared a common concern for establishing and maintaining order and, due to their religious beliefs, an almost obsessive attention to controlling the natural world. Therefore, it is not surprising that this culture was the first to conceive and build the urban entity that most completely separates humans from their natural environment: the city.

 

[JLG]

1)
Mesopotamian Government
The government of ancient Mesopotamia was based on the concept that human beings were created to assist and serve the gods. The high priest, the king, the assembly of elders, the governors, and any other officials were recognized as representatives chosen by the gods to care for the people in the same way a father would care for his family.

- It looks like demons organize themselves to control everything on earth!

- Once you realize that, all the pieces of the puzzle can be put in their place easily!

- You can also easily understand why religion became essential right at the beginning!

- But not for the use people usually think of!

- On the contrary, to serve demons!

- As the devil did it right at the beginning, they turned everything upside down!

- We could say the other side of the mirror!

- Then you can easily understand why the majority of religious practices come from the beginning and from the demons!

- Then it is easy to understand why the majority has the mark of the beast on his forehead as the book of revelation says it in chapter 13!

 

[JLG]

1)
Mesopotamian religion, polytheistic in nature, was based on the worship of numerous gods and goddesses, with a religious hierarchy that reflected the social structure of the time. In this system, the gods were considered human-like, yet immortal beings with their own personalities, roles, and responsibilities. Mesopotamian religious beliefs and practices influenced other cultures, including monotheistic ones.
Beliefs:
Main Gods:
Anu (god of the sky), Enlil (god of the earth, storms, and agriculture), Enki (god of wisdom and water), among others.
Practices:
Worship of the Gods:
Offerings (food, precious objects), prayers, and religious rituals.
Gods Associated with Cities:
Each Mesopotamian city had its own patron gods, reflecting a strong identification between religion and local identity.
Influence on Daily Life:
Religion permeated all aspects of Mesopotamian life, from politics and economics to art and literature.
Beliefs about Death:
Funeral rituals, although not exactly known, could include cremation, burial, or throwing the body into a river.
Influence on Other Cultures:
Mesopotamia, as the cradle of civilization, had a great influence on the development of other cultures, including monotheistic religions.
Temples and Ziggurats:
Religious structures, such as ziggurats, were stepped towers dedicated to the gods.
Divinatory Practices:
Use of astrology, divination, and other methods to understand the future. Funerary rites:
Burials, cremations, or rituals related to the transition to the afterlife.
Writing:
Cuneiform writing, used on clay tablets, allowed for the documentation of myths, rituals, and religious beliefs.

 

[JLG]

2)
Mesopotamian religion, beliefs and practices of the Sumerians and Akkadians, and their successors, the Babylonians and Assyrians, who inhabited ancient Mesopotamia (now in Iraq) in the millennia before the Christian era. These religious beliefs and practices form a single stream of tradition. Sumerian in origin, Mesopotamian religion was added to and subtly modified by the Akkadians (Semites who emigrated into Mesopotamia from the west at the end of the 4th millennium bce), whose own beliefs were in large measure assimilated to, and integrated with, those of their new environment.
As the only available intellectual framework that could provide a comprehensive understanding of the forces governing existence and also guidance for right conduct in life, religion ineluctably conditioned all aspects of ancient Mesopotamian civilization. It yielded the forms in which that civilization’s social, economic, legal, political, and military institutions were, and are, to be understood, and it provided the significant symbols for poetry and art. In many ways it even influenced peoples and cultures outside Mesopotamia, such as the Elamites to the east, the Hurrians and Hittites to the north, and the Aramaeans and Israelites to the west.

 

[JLG]

3)
Historical development
Cultural background
Human occupation of Mesopotamia—“the land between the rivers” (i.e., the Tigris and Euphrates)—seems to reach back farthest in time in the north (Assyria), where the earliest settlers built their small villages some time around 6000 bce. The prehistoric cultural stages of Ḥassūna-Sāmarrāʿ and Ḥalaf (named after the sites of archaeological excavations) succeeded each other here before there is evidence of settlement in the south (the area that was later called Sumer). There the earliest settlements, such as Eridu, appear to have been founded about 5000 bce, in the late Ḥalaf period. From then on the cultures of the north and south move through a succession of major archaeological periods that in their southern forms are known as Ubaid, Warka, and Protoliterate (during which writing was invented), at the end of which—shortly after 3000 bce—recorded history begins. The historical periods of the 3rd millennium are, in order, Early Dynastic, Akkad, Gutium, and 3rd dynasty of Ur; those of the 2nd millennium are Isin-Larsa, Old Babylonian, Kassite, and Middle Babylonian; and those of the 1st millennium are Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian, Achaemenian, Seleucid, and Parthian.
Politically, an early division of the country into small independent city-states, loosely organized in a league with the centre in Nippur, was followed by a unification by force under King Lugalzagesi (c. 2375–2350 bce) of Uruk, just before the Akkadian period. The unification was maintained by his successors, the kings of Akkad, who built it into an empire, and—after a brief interruption by Gutian invaders—by Utu-hegal (c. 2116–c. 2110 bce) of Uruk and the rulers of the 3rd dynasty of Ur (c. 2112–c. 2004 bce). When Ur fell, about 2000 bce, the country again divided into smaller units, with the cities Isin and Larsa vying for hegemony. Eventually Babylon established a lasting national state in the south, while Ashur dominated a similar rival state, Assyria, in the north. From the 1st millennium bce onward, Assyria built an empire comprising, for a short time, all of the ancient Middle East. This political and administrative achievement remained essentially intact under the following Neo-Babylonian and Persian kings down to the conquests of Alexander the Great (331 bce).

 

[JLG]

4)
Stages of religious development
The religious development—as indeed that of the Mesopotamian culture generally—was not significantly influenced by the movements of the various peoples into and within the area—the Sumerians, Akkadians, Gutians, Kassites, Hurrians, Aramaeans, and Chaldeans.
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Rather it forms a uniform, consistent, and coherent Mesopotamian tradition changing in response to its own internal needs of insights and expression.
- A UNIFORM, CONSISTENT, AND COHERENT MESOPOTAMIAN TRADITION CHANGING IN RESPONSE TO ITS OWN INTERNAL NEEDS OF INSIGHTS AND EXPRESSION.
- A UNIFORM, CONSISTENT, AND COHERENT MESOPOTAMIAN TRADITION
- LET’S KEEP IN MIND SUCH TRADITION!