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Divine Power In Ancient Mesopotamia

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According to the documents, it can be inferred that in the ancient Egyptian religious system, the divine powers were seen as saviors and kings that would bring prosperity to Egypt as well as rule over and guide mankind. The Egyptians would worship them out of love and gratitude so long as the gods catered to mankind’s agenda. On the other hand, in ancient Mesopotamia, the divine powers appeared to be extremely formidable and were worshipped out of fear by mankind as there would be deadly repercussions if any human dared to defy Mesopotamian gods. Both of the religious systems used the features of the natural environment as embodiments of their gods.
A key element of the relationship between the divine powers in the two religious systems and humanity was the way the divine powers were portrayed by mankind. In ancient Mesopotamia, the divine powers were described as “destructive storms and evil winds”, “seven gods of universal sway” and “seven evil gods”, this shows that the Mesopotamians used characteristics of nature to represent their gods. In addition, these descriptive features have quite negative connotations associated with them; they lead us to believe that these gods were extremely powerful, nefarious, and dominant, as a result, mankind would worship them out of great fear. In the Mesopotamian religious system humans referred to themselves as ‘servants’, “O lord, do not cast aside thy servant!”, this shows that …show more content…

In addition, mankind referred to themselves as servants to the gods so this shows that mankind did not have a high status in the eyes of the gods. In the Egyptian religious system, mankind worshipped them out of love so long as they were getting their needs fulfilled. Mankind was also valued a lot more in the Egyptian religious system as they were seen as the children of the sun god’s

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There were also gods of lesser things such as love and scribal arts. Looking at Mesopotamia’s geography, you can see how it might have served as inspiration for deities. The Euphrates and Tigris rivers surrounding Babylon could’ve been inspirations for the many water gods like Apsu, Enki, and Tiamat, as could the Persian Gulf located nearby. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, the gods are depicted as harsh and wrathful because they decide to wipe out the human race with a flood just because they make too much noise (Ward p.20). The gods’ destructive nature is likely based off the chaos caused by flooding from the Tigris and Euphrates.

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The rivers that these civilizations were built around directly impacted the way they viewed their gods. The Nile was a very strong and reliable river. It flooded annually blessing the Ancient Egyptians with a richer agriculture then Ancient Mesopotamians. (pg 17) Because of this the Egyptians viewed their gods as reliable beings who wanted to help them.

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In the Epic of Gilgamesh interrelationships between the humans and gods are not what we are used to in most modern monotheistic societies. Perhaps the greatest difference between the power of humans and gods is when Gilgamesh is referred to as “Two-thirds of him was divine, one-third of him was human!” (39) as this reveals Gilgamesh to be the son of Lugalbanda the former king and the goddess Ninsun. This would indicate that the line between human and god is an extremely thin one and thus gods cannot and are not that vastly different from their human counterparts. Indeed, throughout the journey of Gilgamesh we are confronted by gods and goddesses who are similar to humans in their desires and means of achieving them.

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