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The Similarities Between Judaism And Mesopotamia

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Mesopotamians were a highly religious people, that believed in thousands of gods that had a hand in every aspect of one’s life. Like Mesopotamians, Egyptian people had various gods that they believed controlled the natural and supernatural worlds. Judaism has one sole creator, that is God, the single God that formed everything on earth. The difference between each of these religions are that they serve and worship different gods. As well as how many they believed in. Mesopotamians believed in Ea, Anu, and Enlil along with many smaller scale gods. In comparison Egyptians believed in several big gods such as Osiris, Isis, Seth, and each god connected from their family tree. Judaism believed in Yahweh, the divine being of the universe. Egyptians have the …show more content…

Thus, this belief encouraged Egyptians to live a pure life so that they could go to the life after death. Mesopotamians believed in Hammurabi’s code, which demonstrates the importance of religion, probity of hard work, and one’s social status. All of these based off the ruling of the Babylonian king Hammurabi. Judaism’s moral law are the Ten Commandments, which were laws from their God, such as one should love their neighbor as themselves. The greatest similarity between the religions is that they worshipped at least one god, but both the Egyptians and Mesopotamians worshipped several. The difference between each is which god they believed in, because neither believed in the same god(s). What was important to the civilizations that worshipped Judaism was the Hebrew Bible. The Bible held answers to their creator’s being. The civilizations that worshipped Egyptian religion thought that their kings and gods were important. This was because they ruled over everything in their land therefore, they worshipped them and thought highly of them. They did this by daily preforming rituals with offerings. Mesopotamians’ civilizations held their gods in the highest

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The main gods then created less powerful gods who ruled different aspects of the Earth like Utu and Nanna, gods of the sun and moon, respectively. Not knowing much on how the world worked, religion filled in the blanks for people living in Mesopotamia. Their gods had divine ruling and conducted every natural action -- including forces of nature, life and death, good and evil etc. Ziggurat, a local temple, was where everyone met to praise the gods.

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The Mesopotamian and Hebrew societies lived in two very distinct sphere of influence, as they were Polytheist and monotheist, respectably. This difference ensured that each society would operate using different methods. The Gods ruling over the Mesopotamian people were extremely negative toward their subjects. Each group of Mesopotamians from the Sumerians to the Babylonians had different names for their gods; however, the gods operated in similar roles. Mesopotamian gods acted with the same feelings, attitudes, and dispositions as humans.

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Those four empires were Assyria, Akkadia, Sumer and Babylonia. The four of those empires were in the lands of what today is known as Iraq. When it comes to religion, Ancient Egypt and Ancient Mesopotamia have both similarities and differences. In the Egyptian culture religion was included in everything they did. Life revolved around religion to them, because life was seen as

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The people of Mesopotamia ( Tigris and Euphrates River Valley), and the Nile River Valley had a very strong belief in polytheism. The belief in a religion called polytheism, or the belief of many gods not just one in particular. The Egyptians worshipped as many as 2,000 gods, but the chief god was known as Ra the sun god,

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Egyptians believed in the multiplicity of deities, as they differed in power and status, just as the people themselves did. Individuals would have gods they worshiped in the home or cities would have gods they thought watched over them, as well as the state ceremonies that brought them all together, there was no discrimination or persecution for one’s beliefs, only in monotheism does this

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In contrast, the Egyptians were polytheistic, worshiping an immense amount of gods in an attempt to describe and understand daily behaviors and change of their environment, while the Chinese did not typically worship gods; They worshiped their ancestors in a complex system. “Religion dominated everyone’s lives in ancient Egypt. Nearly everything was seen as being controlled by hundreds of deities (gods and goddesses). Their religion influenced how the ancient Egyptians built.” The

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They both had organized and centralized religion. The Ancient Israelites and the Mesopotamians were also different in many ways. One way was that the Israelites practiced monotheism, while the Mesopotamian s practiced polytheism. Also, Mesopotamians laws was based on the Hammurabi's Code.

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Let’s start by talking about each of their politics and governments. According to our ‘Religion in Mesopotamia notes,’ Mesopotamia was ruled by kings, who were thought to be chosen by the god Enlil. Egypt was also governed by one individual called the Pharoah, who was like a king. The kings and pharaohs were believed to be superior beings that were in contact with the gods.

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Religion played an important role in civilization as government laws and divine kingship derived from it. Both civilizations were quite similar, but acquired some differences unique to each civilization. These differences include the environment, divine kingship, and sense of security from either nature or law. The idea and practices of ancient Mesopotamia originated from the Sumerians. Moreover, both Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilization diffused their practices and ideas to other ancient civilizations like the Hebrews and the Greeks.

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In all civilizations the people were supposed to serve there gods or god. In fact the Mesopotamian people were thought to be created for the purpose of serving their gods. In their interactions the gods of all civilizations were harsh in their punishments. In the Hebrew and Mesopotamian civilization there was a great flood. The Greeks differed in that there was no flood, but the gods punished the people in ways like Pandora.

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The Egyptians had gods for every aspect of their lives and afterlives. Although the Mayans had many gods, they also practiced Animism. Both cultures had places for rituals and ceremonies. The gods they believed in were different from each other and some were worshiped more than others. With very few differences, the religious aspects of both cultures influenced both cultures equally.

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The religious beliefs centered on the worship of numerous deities who signified various features of ideas, nature and purposes of power. Religion played a part in every aspect of the lives of the ancient Egyptians because life on earth was seen as only one part of an eternal journey, and in order to continue that journey after death, one needed to live a life worthy of continuance. So, the information about what did religion affect and how did religion affect the lives of the ancient Egyptians will be provided in this paper. First of all the belief in many gods and goddesses was crucial part of everyday life in ancient Egypt.

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Thesis Statement: Mesopotamians and Hebrews are depicted as very different when it comes to religious beliefs, but actually seem to have many similarities in many ways and has led to many of their laws and social stratification correlating. Topic Sentence 1: Since the ancient Hebrews were Monotheistic and the Mesopotamians were Polytheistic, they are naturally assumed to be completely unlike each other; that is simply not the case with these specific civilizations. Topic Sentence 2: The Gods or God in both the Polytheistic and Monotheistic religions have similar traits, but the beliefs of the civilians in both cultures can be viewed as different.

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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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