*Includes E.A. Wallis Budge's explanation of the Seven Tablets of Creation, the creation myth that bears striking similarities to the Book of Genesis.
*Includes the Ancient Mesopotamian account of the Descent of the Goddess Ishtar into the Underworld.
*Explains the role religion played at the national level, city level, and personal level in all aspects of life.
*Includes pictures depicting gods and events in the religion.
*Includes a Bibliography for further reading.
A lot of ink has been spilled covering the lives of history's most influential figures, but how much of the forest is lost for the trees? Throughout time, people have been religious by nature, and billions today adhere to unique faiths across the world. In Charles River Editors' Religions of the World, readers can get caught up to speed on today's religions and yesterday's religions in the time it takes to finish a commute, while learning interesting facts long forgotten or never known.
Throughout history, the world's most prominent religions have had intricacies that made them unique, yet many of them have also shared similar characteristics and stories. Nowhere is this clearer than in the religion practiced by people in Ancient Mesopotamia, which also happens to be the oldest documented religion in the world.
Ancient Mesopotamian religion continues to captivate people for many of the same reasons today's best known religions and their histories fascinate people. The religion practiced by the Ancient Mesopotamians provides a certain mix between the mundane and the surreal, and at the same time aspects of it are both familiar and bizarre to people today. Some find themselves drawn to it based on its preeminent position in religious history as the oldest documented religion in the world. Others become fascinated with the close connections between some of the Mesopotamian religious texts, which include a flood story, a creation story and a story of the righteous sufferer, and their parallels in the Hebrew Bible. There are also many who learned about the mythological tales of the Greco-Roman world as children and revel in the mythological battles, love affairs and intrigue depicted in the Mesopotamian texts.
Today the Ancient Mesopotamians and their religion are a source of curiosity, but thousands of years ago the religion was an integral part of their lives. From their birth to their death, deities surrounded them, and whether their social interactions