MASTER THIS

• More than a list of names and books, the Bible is a legacy of a people, a rich testimony of cultures from the past and a way of life different from our own. To appreciate the Bible is to discover such past, and to find the crucial nexus between experiences and universal meanings which both bind the past and the present.
• Fertile crescent


  Canaan, the promised land to Abraham and his descendants, was a country located at the heart of the ancient Near East
• Regions of the ancient Near East

  • Egypt (southwest to Canaan)
  • Assyria (north)
  • Babylon (east)
• Fertile crescent


  Enriched by the twin rivers of Mesopotamia in the east: the Euphrates, and the Tigris river, as well as the Nile of Egypt in the western part
• Mesopotamia

  The land between two rivers - the Tigris, and the Euphrates
• Amorites


  Semitic people who had been pressing in on the Fertile Crescent since late in the 3d millennium and had overrun Palestine and turned Upper Mesopotamia into an Amorite land
• Mesopotamians


  • They knew how to drain the marshes for agriculture, developed trade and industries, including weaving, leatherwork, metalwork, masonry, and pottery
• Ubaid people


  The pre-Sumerian people
• Sumerians


  • They developed city-state government providing a model of harmony, and order in ancient societies but shifted to the way of the ruler
  • They developed a legal system, and the invention of pictographic (cuneiform) writing...the lunar calendar; water clock; sundial; the chariot and military phalanx; the potter's wheel; the use of the vault, arch, dome, column, and tower in architecture, plus a highly developed polytheistic religion that had an enormous influence on all the later civilizations of the ancient world
  • They were credited for having developed a highly developed polytheistic religion that had an enormous influence on all the later civilizations of the ancient world
• Ziggurat


  A temple dedicated to the chief god or goddess of a Sumerian city
• Sumerian religion


  Concept of man and his relationship to the gods - a great contrast between Abraham, and YHWH
• Sumerian myth


  • Epic of Gilgamesh
• The story of Gilgamesh, a powerful king and hero, two-thirds divine, without a peer in the world, may have influenced the Bible's story of creation, and most important, the concepts of God-man relationship and man's inevitable fate, death
• Gilgamesh, having learned the plot of the gods, used his cunning strategy, and sent whores to seduce Enkidu, a wild and innocent man created by the gods equal to Gilgamesh in strength. After six days and seven nights of lovemaking, Enkidu was tamed. Later, Gilgamesh fought Enkidu, defeated him, and in an unexpected turn of fate, became his only friend and ally.
• Enkidu killed the bull sent by the goddess Ishtar but met the inevitable consequence of death, which was revealed to him in a dream. The death of Gilgamesh's only friend, Enkidu, flooded his heart with grief. After realizing that death awaits all men as an inescapable end like Enkidu's, Gilgamesh undertook an epic journey of finding the fruit of immortality and seek Utnapishtim, the only survivor, along with his family, of the Flood, and the only man to whom the gods had granted everlasting life.
• Akkadians


  • Sargon managed to subdue all the Sumerian city-states, and put an end to Sumer as a major political power, and took over the entire Tigris-Euphrates basin and expanded into neighbouring countries
  • The Akkadian language became the common medium of Mesopotamia, and took over Sumerian cuneiform writing
• Babylonians


  • King Hammurabi conquered Isin, Larsa, Eshnunna, and Mari and created an empire which extended the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean
  • The Law of Hammurabi, and the Mosaic Law are similar yet contrasting - Hammurabi received the Law from the Babylonian god of justice, Shamash, while Moses received the Ten Commandments from YHWH
• Assyria

  A military empire with its army as the backbone of the nation, giving its structure and hierarchy
• The Assyrian conquest, particularly in the province of Samaria, left a painful, divisive scar on Israel. The Assyrians brought their own citizens in Samaria and had inter-marriages with the local inhabitants (known to be the descendants of the Northern tribes of Israel) an event that would eventually be used to project unjustified discrimination against the Samaritans, due to their mixed blood with the pagan Assyrians.
• Egyptians


  • The Nile had its regular season of flood, allowing the Egyptian for an ample time of preparation, and enabling them to set their time for plowing, planting, and harvest, reflecting stability and prosperity
  • The Egyptians willingly paid their tribute and offered thanksgiving to their gods, and were faithful to the view that kingship was a divine institution and the pharaoh was even described as a god
  • The Egyptians believed in the concept of an afterlife, similar to what Christians believe today - to win eternal life, each soul had to pass a test where Osiris weighed a soul's heart against the feather of truth
• Canaanite religion


  • EL - Chief god, spouse of Asherah, father of all gods (except for Baal)
  • BAAL - Universal god of fertility; also called as the Lord of Rain and Dew; Baal's epithet as the storm god
  • ASHERAH - Consort of El and mother of the gods; also cited as the consort of Baal
  • ANATH - Goddess of love and war, the sister and helpmate of the god of Baal
• The practice of offering the firstborn as a holocaust sacrifice was uniquely Canaanite. Such Canaanite influence can also be noticed in the Bible, such as the story of Abraham's test of offering his firstborn, Isaac, and the story of Jephthah who pledged to YHWH a sacrifice of the first person who will meet him upon his return from a victorious war.
• Persians


  • King Cyrus issued a decree for the release, and return of foreigners from their places of origin - the context that enabled the Diaspora Jews (Jews in exile) to return to Judah, and to start the rebuilding of their nation, and the renewal of their faith
  • The Persians, like the Israelites, were monotheists: they believed in Ahuramazda (the "Wise Lord")...who brought all things into being...and gave all humans the freedom to choose between right and wrong, but this good god Ahuramazda was in conflict with Angra Mainyu, the evil spirit, thereby, producing a dualistic struggle between good and evil
• Greeks

  • The young Greek emperor Alexander the Great defeated the Persian king Darius III in 333 BCE and initiated the spread of Hellenism
  • In 165 BCE, the Seleucid King Antiochus IV Epiphanes invaded Judaea, tried to Hellenize the Jews, and desecrated the Second Temple in Jerusalem by placing the statue of Zeus in the Holy of Holies, the most sacred place for the Jews
• From experiences, it is truly a fundamental consideration to investigate and understand the historical past of a specific people and their culture. By taking into account these rich heritage, traditions, beliefs, and key leaders, we get glimpses and pieces of their identity and significance in the world. We are also humbled by these feats and legacies. We are also ushered to greater maturity as we became less and less judgmental of their people.