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2 results

Reading Creation Myths Economically in Ancient Mesopotamia and Israel

Reading Creation Myths Economically in Ancient Mesopotamia and Israel
  • Eric J. Harvey
  • Published online:
    22 July 2025
    Print publication:
    04 September 2025
  • Creation myths in the ancient Middle East served, among other things, as works of political economy, justifying and naturalizing materially intensive ritual practices and their entanglements with broader economic processes and institutions. These rituals were organized according to a common ideology of divine service, which portrayed the gods as an aristocratic leisure class whose material needs were provided by human beings. Resources for divine service were extracted from the productive sectors of society and channeled inward to the temple and palace institutions, where they served to satiate the gods and support their human servants. This Element examines various forms of the economics of divine service, and how they were supported in a selection of myths – Atraḫasis, Enki and Ninmaḫ, and Enūma Eliš from Mesopotamia and the story of the Garden of Eden from the southern Levant (Israel).

  • 5 - On Artifacts and Agency

  • Brett E. Maiden, Emory University, Atlanta
  • Book:
    Cognitive Science and Ancient Israelite Religion
    Published online:
    17 September 2020
    Print publication:
    08 October 2020, pp 177-210

  • Summary

    This chapter likewise draws on ancient visual and material culture in order to examine the worship of divine cult statues in Mesopotamia, the anti-idol polemics in the Bible, and the power of images and ritual activities in the construction of religious beliefs. In particular, the ancient Mesopotamian “washing of the mouth” ritual is studied within a cognitive framework. The discussion highlights both the intuitive and non-intuitive (i.e., costly) aspects of the belief in divine cult statues, and proceeds to examine both the cognitive process and cultural mechanisms that contribute to the belief that an inanimate statue is or becomes the deity. In doing so, the chapter adds a nuanced layer to the nature of belief and also problematizes certain scholarly views about belief in cult statues in ancient Mesopotamia and Israel.