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Hymn to Babylon, missing for a millennium, has been discovered

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Re: Hymn to Babylon, missing for a millennium, has been discovered

#71

Post by FridayoLeary »

yayitswei wrote: post #49

Interesting literacy regression: this newly discovered Babylonian hymn was routinely copied by schoolchildren 3,000 years ago, while yesterday's article about why English doesn't use accents showed that by 1100 AD European literacy had contracted so much that monks were essentially writing only for other monks. If I'm interpreting this correctly, ancient Babylon had institutionalized childhood education for complex l…

It's known as the Dark Ages for a reason. Society regressed in most ways. Maybe because of the collapse of the Roman Empire? Europe only started finding their feet during the Reneissance.

Re: Hymn to Babylon, missing for a millennium, has been discovered

#72

Post by defrost »

FridayoLeary wrote: post #71
yayitswei wrote: post #49

Interesting literacy regression: this newly discovered Babylonian hymn was routinely copied by schoolchildren 3,000 years ago, while yesterday's article about why English doesn't use accents showed that by 1100 AD European literacy had contracted so much that monks were essentially writing only for other monks. If I'm interpreting this correctly, ancient Babylon had institutionalized childhood education for complex l…

It's known as the Dark Ages for a reason. Society regressed in most ways. Maybe because of the collapse of the Roman Empire? Europe only started finding their feet during the Reneissance.

Why are the European "Dark Ages" considered a misnomer?

https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/235w3l/why_a...

Re: Hymn to Babylon, missing for a millennium, has been discovered

#73

Post by torben-friis »

empath75 wrote: post #55
ARandomerDude wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> El, YHWH, and Baal were all different deities merged into one as the people groups unified. How does this theory account for the overt hostility to Baal et al. in the Bible?

"The Bible" is not a single coherent text, but rather a collection of hundreds or thousands of years of oral tradition that was created and passed on by various people at various times for various purposes, and then collected and edited again by different people for different purposes. There are layers of edits that you can tease out with careful reading, and they can be supported by archeological evidence from sites…

>Even just reading the very first part of Genesis, there are two creation stories with very clear signs of a pantheon of gods.

What do you mean by this? I can think of signs of a pantheon in general but not particularly in the creation myths.

Re: Hymn to Babylon, missing for a millennium, has been discovered

#74

Post by bentley »

octopoc wrote: post #5

The Fall of Civilizations podcast has an interesting episode about Assyria. The cities in Mesopotamia were polytheistic and each city has its own deity. Apparently the way they viewed their deities was similar to how we view sports teams. There was an expectation that if you traveled to another city, you should sacrifice to its god. They viewed inter city warfare as the gods competing in heaven.

> There was an expectation that if you traveled to another city, you should sacrifice to its god.

The Bible even has the example of Naaman the Aramean, who after being convinced of the might of Israel’s God, asked for a gift of two mule‐loads of Israeli earth so he could worship Him after returning home. (2 Kings 5:17)

Re: Hymn to Babylon, missing for a millennium, has been discovered

#75

Post by verbify »

torben-friis wrote: post #73
empath75 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The Bible" is not a single coherent text, but rather a collection of hundreds or thousands of years of oral tradition that was created and passed on by various people at various times for various purposes, and then collected and edited again by different people for different purposes. There are layers of edits that you can tease out with careful reading, and they can be supported by archeological evidence from sites…

>Even just reading the very first part of Genesis, there are two creation stories with very clear signs of a pantheon of gods. What do you mean by this? I can think of signs of a pantheon in general but not particularly in the creation myths.

Presumably "and god said let us make man in our image". Although the monotheists can claim it is the pluralis majestatis, that doesn't seem to be a feature elsewhere when god talks.

Re: Hymn to Babylon, missing for a millennium, has been discovered

#76

Post by nrclark »

empath75 wrote: post #55
ARandomerDude wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> El, YHWH, and Baal were all different deities merged into one as the people groups unified. How does this theory account for the overt hostility to Baal et al. in the Bible?

"The Bible" is not a single coherent text, but rather a collection of hundreds or thousands of years of oral tradition that was created and passed on by various people at various times for various purposes, and then collected and edited again by different people for different purposes. There are layers of edits that you can tease out with careful reading, and they can be supported by archeological evidence from sites…

It's also worth noting - the Bible isn't a single book, and it never was. It's 66 or 73 separate books (depending on the flavor of Christianity), bound together in a single binding. Much more of an anthology than a single book. The books were separated in time, authorship, culture, and even language. Never intended to be taken together as a single document.

Re: Hymn to Babylon, missing for a millennium, has been discovered

#77

Post by pfdietz »

pfdietz wrote: post #68
octopoc wrote: post #5

The Fall of Civilizations podcast has an interesting episode about Assyria. The cities in Mesopotamia were polytheistic and each city has its own deity. Apparently the way they viewed their deities was similar to how we view sports teams. There was an expectation that if you traveled to another city, you should sacrifice to its god. They viewed inter city warfare as the gods competing in heaven.

That was a great episode; the ending was haunting.

The video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpAphcaVJIs

Re: Hymn to Babylon, missing for a millennium, has been discovered

#78

Post by adgjlsfhk1 »

torben-friis wrote: post #73
empath75 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The Bible" is not a single coherent text, but rather a collection of hundreds or thousands of years of oral tradition that was created and passed on by various people at various times for various purposes, and then collected and edited again by different people for different purposes. There are layers of edits that you can tease out with careful reading, and they can be supported by archeological evidence from sites…

>Even just reading the very first part of Genesis, there are two creation stories with very clear signs of a pantheon of gods. What do you mean by this? I can think of signs of a pantheon in general but not particularly in the creation myths.

compare Genesis chapter 1 with Genesis chapter 2. they are 2 pretty different creation myths. chapter 1:27 and chapter 2:21 certainly read like 2 separate creation stories for humans that have been jammed together without really fitting

Re: Hymn to Babylon, missing for a millennium, has been discovered

#79

Post by adgjlsfhk1 »

lo_zamoyski wrote: post #66
sapphicsnail wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Pagan gods are personifications of natural forces, hence Thales's famous remark that "the world is full of gods". There were all kinds of gods. The Christian conception of God is taken from "pagan" philosophers. There's also a difference between theologian's/philosopher's conception of the Divine and religion and how lay people actually understood their faith. Even early Christians were divided on how they understo…

> There were all kinds of gods. And if you look at all those quintessentially pagan gods of the myths, you will find that they share this in common: that they are beings among many. > The Christian conception of God is taken from "pagan" philosophers. I'm not sure what you're implying, but traditional Christian theology draws from both biblical sources and philosophical analysis, and yes, that includes the philosophi…

Christianity is a really interesting case here since it is theoretically monotheistic, but the Trinity is basically a way to have 3 separate gods in a monotheistic religion. It's a fascinating bit of theology.

Re: Hymn to Babylon, missing for a millennium, has been discovered

#80

Post by xeonmc »

cogman10 wrote: post #31
ARandomerDude wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> El, YHWH, and Baal were all different deities merged into one as the people groups unified. How does this theory account for the overt hostility to Baal et al. in the Bible?

Unification. The authors of the Torah are laying down what correct worship is supposed to look like. I believe (and I'm not a biblical scholar, just like learning) the theory is that the priests at the time were dealing with a mixed culture and differing beliefs. One way to handle that is "Look at these evil/dumb heathens worshiping their weak gods". Painting the gods which likely some of the population still believe…

Also similarly: The Orange Catholic Bible
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