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Discussion of belief origins.

ShamashUruk

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I have read and agree with the guidelines.

Long before Christianity emerged there was a formula used buy Mesopotamian Kings to show that their power extended over the whole land of the two rivers; King of Sumer and akkad. The great alluvial plain from the site of the modern city of Baghdad this is where the Tigris and the Euphrates approach closely together and then down to a little point below Kurna, this was where the head of the gulf was and it was divided into two parts. Keep in mind the boundary between these both Rivers was not properly defined, shifting this way and that with the vicissitudes of Conquest and of course with the rise and fall of rival elements in the population the two main countries stood in opposition of each other and we're distinguished by race and language. We have the akkad in the North who were predominantly Semitic and Sumer in the south, which are not Semitic but pre Semitic. Both inhabited Mesopotamia and of course lower Mesopotamia included Sumer and the akkadians (acadians). So the Upper Euphrates Valley and the high plateau of the Syrian desert were inhabited by man long before the Gulf Waters had receded. In this area there would be monuments of Paleolithic Age and later Stone Age has left its traces in The Valleys of the Euphrates and the the Khabur and Sajur. However, in Mesopotamia itself nothing of this kind is found and in the earliest human settlements Flint instruments indeed are common but they are associated with metal or betray the influence of metalworking and we can only conclude that it was comparatively late in human history when man had already advanced into calcholithic age, that the Lower Valley became fit for this occupation. The modern town of Muhammerah in Old Days stretch the Waters of the greater Gulf, the river karun will empty into shatt-al-arab and this is opposite of the Wadi al-batin it's now dry but was a river at one time and it ran up and down in the heart of Arabia. The karun brings down from Persian Hills as much silt as do the Waters of the Tigris and the Euphrates the Old River al batin stream. The bar neutralize the scouring action of the gulf tide and enable The Tigress and the Euphrates River to deposit at their mouths of silt which had been swept out to sea and at the same time the seal to the southern rivers begin to fill in what is now the great Lagoon. the mud of the to Northern streams that did not go to swell the Delta now formula thermals were dropped and the current was check by the bar over the whole of the old Gulf Waters and help raise the level of its bed so while Dryland was formed first and most quickly in the north and in the South the Lagoon between grew more and more shallow so Islands appeared and at last we're all had been a waste of water they're stretched a fast Delta of clay of sand and mud. it was a Delta periodically that flooded and in the summer Scorch the pitiless Sun, but it's dirt soil, light and stoneless, was as rich as could be found anywhere on Earth, and rarely needed man's labor to produce men's food. this is the same description in Genesis of the creation of the Earth as man's home and agrees admirably with the process of formation of the Mesopotamian Delta. "let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place and let the dry land appear and it was so," this passage is written much later by St Moses but is adopted by Moses to show what had already occurred naturally. because the manner in which land is formed is important as serving to explain the differences in the population that occupied it. a country so rich potentially invited settlers, but these settlers came and gradually as a process of transformation took place and they did not come from the same regions, but from all the shores of the ancient Gulf.
the north part of the Syrian desert and the upper Euphrates Valley we're inhabited by people of Semitic speech known and when they first appear in history as the martu and later known as the amurru. so it would be natural that the delta formed in the north at the mouth of the Euphrates the new land should be calling Eyes by these the new land should be colonized by these neighboring folk, following the retreating Waters and cultivating the freshly dried alluvium. They occupied Sippar and opis on either side of the neck of land where the two rivers come closest together, and thereby secured possession of the northern triangle which was to be the land of Akkadian. so St Moses has these ideas as he is already educated by the Egyptians and this reflects so in the Book of Genesis concerning land formations and how land formations worked historically.
 

Tolworth John

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It is not clear just what you are getting at.
I'll make one point that is rarly concidered by those who dispise believe in God.
The sumarians were polythesitic, worshipping many imoral and arbitary gods/goddesses. In comparison the hebrews worship One, Moral, and Reasonable God.
There is evidence among anthopologists that polythesistic societies once worshipped One God and that their religious believes became corrupted into worshipping many gods.

The impilcation of this is that the bible is a more reliable and accurate record of creation that the myths and legends found else where in the world.
 
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ShamashUruk

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If you were a well studied Biblical scholar this would be a lot easier to discuss or if you truly understood Biblical literature and how ancient cultures worked it would also be a lot easier, but I am going to make an assumption that you are not. Just based upon the way you make classifications concerning Ur Monotheismus, without truly understanding it in totality.

So let's start with your first point that it isn't clear what I am getting at. The issue is that a Pre Semitic (meaning the Sumerians were not at all Semitic) Polytheistic culture such as the Sumerians began and remained Polytheistic. While, the (and I will use the people of Akkad) Akkadians who developed the Semitic language in the North remained Polytheistic, we don't see an adoption of Monotheism until the influence of Henotheism by the Babylonian's on the Israelite's when they leave Babylonian captivity.

You also bring up Ur Monotheismus, a school of thought originated by Andrew Lang. Essentially there is an alleged trace of primitive monotheism concerning the deities Ashur and Marduk in Assyrian circles, and Hebrew YHWH concerning the Polytheistic Israelites. The claim is that those Semitic culture's (the Assyrians and Israelites) were monotheistic, while Christian apologetics also disregarded Ur Monotheismus as well. So, Ur Monotheismus is the rephrased that certain early Polytheistic cultures were not true Monotheist, but show that they were theistic, meaning they had a belief but it wasn't Monotheistic. The Israelite's would have recognized YHWH as a cohort to El, but even that remains in the OT a Polytheistic theme, I hope this clarifies for you.

You could assert that in Sumer since Anu creates everything and then his children create mankind and his children save mankind from the deluge, that life starts with monotheism. But, this would then indicate a few problems for monotheism itself. One problem being that the Sumerians are actually Polytheistic. Another, that Anu being the supreme sky God allows and gives power to his children to intervene, making the Sumerian population Polytheistic as there are many children that are honored and worshiped. Another, is that the Sumerian's are Pre Semitic, even the language dictates so. We for example see loan words in Semitic Akkadian (Pre Israelites) from the Sumerians, or a much more relevant example is that the Israelite language itself is defunct Canaanite language. Meaning that Hebrew today is Canaan language and this partly has to do with emergence of the ancient Israelites out of Canaan as they are a mix of people (races) who begin in Canaan, making them similarly Polytheistic.

The claim that the Sumerian Gods are immoral and arbitrary (random) is ill stated as the Sumerian God Enki intervenes and removes Ziusudra from the deluge, as Enki has Ziusudra build an ark to escape the flood. So in this sense we see a first of first saviors, of course to be fair Christianity views salvation of the soul, wherein I am merely showing the conceptualization. Or, we see that there was a Ziggurat built by the Sumerian's to reach the Heavens to the Gods and the Gods destroy the Ziggurat, in this we see a Pre Babylonian tower epic. Also, as translated by Sam Noah Kramer we see in Sumerian Cuneiform that Enki intervenes among the Sumerians and splits or divides the languages. We see in the Sumerian kings list the epic of Etana who rides on an eagle to Heaven, similarly and much later in a younger scroll writing epic of Nimrod he is said to fly to Heaven with birds, and in Biblical myth he is a rebel. So by stating immoral and arbitrary you'd have to make that claim for the ancient Israelite's as well (where Christianity develops from) in order to state that the Gods of Sumer are immoral and or arbitrary, as we adoption myths, motifs, and themes from culture to culture and society to society.

Something else to consider Christianity is a much younger monotheistic religion, as the Ankh being Pre Christian are already monotheistic in ancient Egypt and flee from Egypt under rule.
 
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Tolworth John

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Something else to consider Christianity is a much younger monotheistic religion
As Christianity is only 2000 years old it is younger than other beliefs.
What you also wrote confirms what I wrote that there is a monotheistic element in what became polytheistic and that the hebrews in keeping to monotheism represent a more accurate tradition.
 
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ShamashUruk

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No there is not, the Sumerians who are Polytheistic pre date any Monotheistic cultures. The eldest trace of Monotheism we see is with the Egyptians. There is no Monotheism found in Polytheistic Sumer, it would be hard pressed to couple all Polytheism as the same. And if you missed it I stated that anthropology has disregarded Ur Monotheism, but equated early cultures as being theistic, theism does not equate monotheism.

If anything we see Polytheism in Monotheism as El bears the title, “Bull” (CAT 1.1 III 26, IV 12, V 22; 1.2 I 16, 33, 36, III 16, 17, 19, 21; 1.3 IV 54, V 10, 35; 1.4 I 4, II 10, III 31, IV 39, 47; 1.6 IV 10, VI 26, 26; cf. 1.128.7). In this connection, the personal name ’iltr, “El is Bull,” is noted (4.607.32).37 Baal is presented as a bull-calf (1.5 V 17–21; 1.10 II–III, esp. III 33–37; cf. 1.11; see more later), and here we note the P source. The characterization of the bull as the storm-god’s “attribute animal” in Syrian glyptic.

In this connection, the bull or bull-calf seen in the Bible reflects the iconography associated with El and Baal. El’s iconographic representation underlies the image of the divine as having horns “like the horns of the wild ox” in Numbers 24:8, for this passage shows other marks of language associated with El. Many scholars are inclined to see El’s rather than Baal’s iconography behind the famous “golden calf” of Exodus 32 and the bull images erected by Jeroboam I at Bethel and Dan (1 Kings 12), but this iconography has been traced back to Baal as well. Here we might include not only the depiction of Baal in the Ugaritic texts but also the “fierce young bull” (symbol) of the storm-god, Adad. Nonetheless, the tradition in ancient Israel favors Bethel originally as an old cult-site of the god El (secondarily overlaid—if not identified—with the cult of Yahweh), perhaps as the place-name Bethel (literally, “house of El”) would suggest (Genesis 28:10–22).

The origins of Biblical monotheism begin in Polytheism to simply state.
 
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