Anu/Yahweh/Saturn tried to replace Anshar/El/Uranus - Saturn tries to overthrow Father Heaven?

originally posted by: booyakasha
It sounds like the sun overtaking the moon turning night into day, or the moon overtaking the sun along with a star and planet turning day into night.

Firstly, the Sun can never overtake the Moon. The Moon moves way faster across the sky than the Sun. The Sun moves about 1° each day, while the Moon moves a staggering 13° each day. So the Moon overtakes the Sun several times a year producing anything from four up to seven eclipses (lunar and solar) annually at different places around the globe. This display/mechanism (look up Saros-cycle) has been observed by most astrological religions, like in Babylon and Egypt. In Egypt they visualised the Moon chasing the Sun as the serpent Apep chasing Ra.

a reply to: arpgme
a reply to: Sahabi
a reply to: Utnapisjtim



Thanks for all the replies and stars everyone. I'm glad you all got something out of the piece.

If arpgme is OK with it, as the questions do kind of deviate from the subject of the thread, I'll reply to the new questions tonight, once I get home from work and have time to draft responses.


~ Wandering Scribe

a reply to: Wandering Scribe

Ok, can't wait to read more.

originally posted by: booyakasha
These gods are metaphors for the actual planets. Overthrowing the father in heaven has something to do with one of the planets, maybe the morning star (venus/lucifer) overthrowing the sun of god/jesus turning night into day, or day into night.

It sounds like the sun overtaking the moon turning night into day, or the moon overtaking the sun along with a star and planet turning day into night.

It is not so in the instance of this thread. There are separate deities used to anthropomorphize the Sun, Moon, and Venus, however, the deities mentioned in the op are the (1) Most High Creator of existence, (2) Saturn (Cronus/Enlil/El), and (3) Jupiter (Zeus/Baal/Yahweh).

Unless I am missing some information, I do not see how the mythological succession/usurpation of the Creator, Saturn, and Jupiter relate to the phases of the Sun/Moon and night/day.

All the gods are based off of the 7 visible orbs of the sky, the constellations, and earth itself.

This phrase is too limiting. Although many deities were based upon the "7 Heavenly Bodies," constellations, and earth,.... there are a plethora of gods who were not.

In addition to your words, many gods are based upon archetypes of the human mind, emotions, perceptions, instincts, desires, endeavors, hopes, pleasures, fears, and suffering,... others based upon natural forces/phenomena and elemental archetypes,... while some deities are based upon legendary warriors, heroes, kings, rulers, philosophers, and wisemen.

Your words are true under certain circumstances and you raise a great point, but they are too broad for this discussion.

a reply to: arpgme

Hello again arpgme.

Would you be willing to accept that the Old Testament of the Bible promotes the same 3-Tier succession/usurpation as seen in the various mythologies of the Mediterranean, Levant, and Fertile Crescent?

While researching comparative-religious elements between the various Canaanite mythological cultures as compared to the Old Testament, I have come to a conclusion that I can no longer step away from.
(I specifically chose to compare the Old Testament to the Canaanite myths because the Hebrew-Israelites established their kingdom in the land of Canaan.)

As we see in Canaanite mythology, the Most High Creator was known as (1) Elyon. His son (2) El became known as Father of the Gods (in some beliefs, one of El's siblings were worshipped in place of El, such as Dagon). And then depending on which family, tribe, village, or society one subscribed to, one of the many children of El were worshiped, such as (3) Baal Hadad, Yam, Mot, Anat, etc.

To summarize, in Canaanite mythos, we see (1) Elyon, (2) El, and (3) Baal Hadad.

In the Hebrew Bible, similarly, we have (1) Elyon or El Elyon, then we have (2) El or Elohim, and finally we have Yahweh. Through this 3-Tier succession of divine authority, the Hebrew Old Testament has a clearer parallel to the other 3-Tier successions found in such systems as the Babylonian, Greek, and Canaanite mythologies.

What do you think?

a reply to: Sahabi

You are right, i was making a broad generalization of what i thought about it at a quick look, i should have taken more time, thanks for clarifying for everyone what it really was.

a reply to: arpgme

Honestly, I also want to know about this too (but sometimes afraid to ask), about the existence of 'these entities' that ancient people perceive as gods, LOL

Because, most of the time, I see that most of these gods (including biblical god) in the myth (and also other stories like LOTR) are like symbolic representations of our inner struggles, happy, selfish, anger, etc.

Thanks for the thread, arpgme
And also thanks for the replies from everyone in this thread.
Although, I dun understand most of the replies, but somehow they felt like 'unlocking' something within.

I will just revisit this thread just for reading since I dun have much knowledge to add regarding these kind of topics.

peace

a reply to: Utnapisjtim

That said, I am somewhat confused about Assyria, and exactly where and when they were doing their thing down there. For Assyria fell to Babylon, didn't they? And Babylon ultimately fell under Persia's gauntlet Cyrus, not Assyria. Please help me here if you can.

On Assyria

Unlike the effects of "empire" on Mesopotamian consciousness that I covered in the previous post, the turbulent history of the Assyrian empire is a bit harder to summarize, as the events cover not only a lengthy history (nearly 2000 years), but also involve a cast of very colorful characters.

To begin with I have to preface this by stating that although archaeological evidence exists for Assyrian history from roughly 2500 BCE until its collapse, I myself am mostly familiar with Assyrian history during what is known as the Adaside Dynasty (different from Sargon's Agaside Dynasty), which came to power around 1700 BCE.

Before this, Assyria has a turbulent history of being governed by the Sumerians and Akkadians (c. 2600-2153 BCE), then briefly freed during the Guti invasion (2150-2112 BCE), before coming under Semitic domination again during the short lived Neo-Sumerian Ur III Renaissance (2112-2004 BCE), after which Assyria was dominated by Hammurabi and his Amorite-Babylonian empire (c. 1890-1720 BCE).

In 1726 BCE however, a King named Adasi came to power in Assyria and managed to wrest control of the nation from the hands of the Amorite-Babylonians. Adasi succeeded in suppressing the civil wars that were erupting every few years in the city of Ašur. Although only ruling for a short time, Adasi had inadvertently begun a series of back-and-forth events which would find Assyria and Babylonia (northern and southern Mesopotamia, respectively) in a kind of tug-of-war for control of the empire.

From the beginning of Adasi's dynasty Babylonia began to weaken and wane until, in 1595 BCE, the Kassites (a people from the eastern Zagros mountains, like the Guti) raided and sacked the city, destroying the Old Babylonian Empire, and beginning a period of Assyrian dominance in Mesopotamia.

The Old Assyrian Empire (1585-1393 BCE) was a time of internal restructuring. After the collapse of Hammurabi's Amorite-Babylonian empire, the Kings of Assyria spent much of their time fortifying walls, rebuilding damaged temples, securing trade routes, and generally being pretty awesome. This period of peace and internal growth continued until roughly 1450 BCE when, at the request of Egypt, the Assyrian empire formed a coalition intent on stopping the approach of a new northern enemy: the Mitanni.

The Mitanni, who had conquered much of the ancient Hurrian-speaking peoples of Anatolia, proved fatal for Assyria when, c. 1444 BCE, they raided Assyria and sacked its capital city, Ašur (named after the state-god of Assyria, Aššūr). The Old Assyrian Empire ends, roughly 50 years later, with Assyria still a vassal-state of the Mitanni, forced to pay heavy tributary.

The Middle Assyrian Empire (1392-1050 BCE) begins with King Eriba.Adad I, who stopped paying tributary to the Mitanni. Eriba.Adad I was followed by Aššūr.uballiṭ I who, in 1355 BCE succeeded in overthrowing the Mitanni and gained Assyria its independence once more. The next important event in the Middle Assyrian Empire came in 1272 BCE when Salmānu.ašarēd I became King of Assyria and declared war on Šattuara, King of the Mitanni. Salmānu.ašarēd was victorious and the Assyrian empire took control of the northern Mitanni lands, adding more territory to their rapidly expanding empire.

The Middle Assyrian Empire started to wind down when, c. 1100 BCE, the Aramaean people began to migrate in from the west. Tukultī.apil.Ešarra, then-king of Assyria, was unable to stem the tide and, as happened with the Mitanni invasion, the Aramaean people destabilized the Empire. By 1000 BCE the Aramaean migrants had succeeded in taking over Assyria.

During both the Old and Middle Assyrian empires the nation of Babylon was, well, kind of just getting by. Plenty of kings and court espionage are recorded in the official records, but the empire itself was, more or less, in a perpetual state of rise and decline, never quite gaining enough power to flex its muscle, but never growing so weak that it was conquered by Assyria, or destroyed by Elamite and Chaldean pressure from the east and south. Suffice it to say Babylon was several times bullied by Assyria during this time, but never completely destroyed or stripped of its former glory.


Continued in part 2 below

Continued from part 1 above


The final period of the Assyrio-Babylonian empire begins c. 950 BCE, with the re-emergence of both a Babylonian and a Neo-Assyrian state after the so-called "dark age" that the Aramaean migration had caused. Admittedly, the first 230 years or so are kind of boring. Some Babylonian kings with complicated names wage war against some Assyrian kings with complicated names. First the Assyrians claim some land, then the Babylonians take it back.

The most historically important figures of the Assyrian empire during these 230 years were probably King Aššūr.nāṣir.pal II, who reigned c. 880 BCE, and succeeded in re-establishing the Assyrian state by creating a new capital city, Kalḫu. A close second was Šammur.amat, the Biblical Semiramis, who was the first female Queen of Assyria, and who ruled without a King from about 811-809 BCE.

Overall, both Assyria and Babylonia spent the time rebuilding their respective empires, and plotting how to best undermine each other.

In 745 BCE the Babylonian king Nábû.nāṣir was defeated by the Assyrian king Tukultī.apil.Ešarra III, who successfully made Babylon a vassal-state of the Assyrian empire. For the next 100 years Babylon would remain a vassal-state of Assyria. Coincidentally, almost all of the historically famous Assyrian kings reigned during the Assyrian occupation of Babylon. These included:

Sîn.aḫḫē.eriba, or Sennacherib, who reigned from 704-681 BCE
Aššūr.aḫa.iddina, of Esarhaddon, who reigned from 681-669 BCE
Aššūr.bani.pal, or Ashurbanipal, who reigned from 668-627 BCE

Sennacherib is famous for his devastation of Judea and his looting and pillaging of Babylon, an act for which he was murdered in a court-coup by two of his sons. Sennacherib has also been suggested as the original owner of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, although they would have likely been in Assyria.

Esarhaddon, in response to his father's blasphemous actions, restored Babylon to its glory, and lead a series of wars against almost every enemy of Assyria imaginable, succeeding in a number of his campaigns. Before his death, Esarhaddon named Ashurbanipal the King of Assyria, and Šamaš.šuma.ukîn the King of Babylon, in hopes of staving off future revolts.

In 652 BCE however, Babylon rebelled against Assyria again, and was defeated again, thus making Ashurbanipal the sole king of both empires. Besides being the final powerful king of Assyria, Ashurbanipal is also known for having created the Library of Nineveh, a collection of cuneiform works from which much Assyrio-Babylonian history has been gleamed.

Assyrian supremacy began to decline after Ashurbanipal's death however, and, in 625 BCE a Chaldean chieftain by the name of Nábû.ápal.uṣur, or, more commonly, Nabopollasar, succeeded in conquering Babylon and killing the final two kings of Assyria: Sîn.šar.iškun and Aššūr.uballiṭ II. Nabopollasar's military campaign marked the end of the Neo-Assyrian empire as well as the end of the Assyrian empire itself.

What followed is known as the Neo-Babylonian, or Chaldean, empire, which controlled both Babylon and Assyria. The Chaldean empire persisted for about 100 years, ending with the Persian conquest of Babylon by Cyrus the Great in 539 BCE. There are a number of interesting Chaldean Kings of Babylon, but, in order to keep this from getting ungainly, I'll leave off here, as I believe the prior contents cover the Assyrian and Babylonian empires quite well.

A brief recap follows:

c. 2500 BCE - Early Assyrian city-states emerge
c. 1900 BCE - the Old Babylonian empire of Hammurabi begins
c. 1726 BCE - Adasi gains Assyrian independence
c. 1595 BCE - Elamites sack Babylon, ending the Old Babylonian empire
c. 1585 BCE - the Old Assyrian Empire begins
c. 1444 BCE - the Mitanni conquer Assyria
c. 1355 BCE - Assyria gains independence
c. 1350 BCE - the Middle Assyrian Empire begins
c. 1272 BCE - Assyria conquers the Mitanni
c. 1100 BCE - Aramaean migrants invade Assyria
c. 1000 BCE - the Middle Assyrian Empire ends
c. 950 BCE - the Neo-Assyrian Empire begins
c. 745 BCE - Assyria conquers Babylon
c. 625 BCE - the Chaldeans conquer Assyria and Babylon
c. 539 BCE - the Persians conquer Mesopotamia


~ Wandering Scribe

originally posted by: Sahabi
Unless I am missing some information, I do not see how the mythological succession/usurpation of the Creator, Saturn, and Jupiter relate to the phases of the Sun/Moon and night/day.

How about the old Sumerians designing the seven day week to correspond to the seven astrological stars. You still recognise Sun in Dies Solis (Sunday) and the Moon in Dies Lunae (Monday) and Saturn in Dies Saturni or Saturday. It's been like that for thousands of years. Keeping a calendar was equalled to controlling time back then, stuff normally attributed to gods and deities.

a reply to: Wandering Scribe

This really helps us to see things in context, thanks


a reply to: Utnapisjtim

Just to add more information:

Sunday - Sun - Sun Day (Helios/Sol)
Moonday - Moon - Moon Day (Selene/Luna)
Tuesday - Mars - Tyr's Day (Ares/Mars)
Wednesday - Mercury - Woden/Odin - Woden's Day (Hermes/Mercury)
Thursday - Jupiter - Thor's Day (Zeus/Jupiter)
Friday - Venus - - Frigga's Day (Aphrodite/Venus)
Saturday - Saturn - Saturn Day (Chronos/Saturn)

a reply to: Sahabi

Ah, another! Just as I was about to curl up and treat myself to read the wandering scribe's latest spells on Mesopotamia, what do you know, you show up, literally sparkling from insight into things Canaanite. Firstly, what books or authors would you recommend on Canaanite religion and culture? All I have is a collection of stories translated and edited by Michael D Coogan and Mark S Smith called 'Stories from Ancient Canaan'. Great book btw, including quite a few of the stories needed to get an overview. I also own another of Smith's books that I cherish, called 'The History of God', another invaluable resource in these matters.

The Canaanite pantheon/religion is perhaps THE most important influence on the ancient Hebrew culture and vocabulary and things Biblical. For instance, Yam (sometimes written Yamm, also Leviathan) was one of the sons of El, and is an anthropomorphic representation of the Nile system (compare to the Mesopotamian Tiamat, with her ten horns, the Behemoth I think, Leviathan's ladyfriend). It has seven heads, just like there are seven steps of the Nile divided by six natural cataracts, the flowing river itself is called the Tongue of Yam. It is the Dragon referred to in the Apocalypse.

To study the bible without considering these parallel cultures and religions is pointless. Please carry on

originally posted by: arpgme

Friday - Venus - - Frigga's Day (Aphrodite/Venus)

It's Frigg's day for Frigg's sake

Jokes aside, below you can see the corresponding Latin and Hebrew names:

Sunday - Dies Solis - יום חמה
Monday - Dies Lunae - יום לבנה
Tuesday - Dies Martis - יום מארים
Wednesday - Dies Mercurii - יום כוכב
Thursday - Dies Jovis - יום צרק
Friday - Dies Veneris - יום נוגה
Saturday - Dies Saturni - יום שבתאי

As you'd know by now this system of planetary days is ancient and consistent, it's been like this for at least 6000 years.

a reply to: Wandering Scribe and Wandering Scribe

Thanks again for the refill. Came to think about it, I own a book I bought from some used books shop called 'Religion in Judah under the Assyrians, 732 - 609 BC' by John McKay, some theology maverick. It's one of those books where half the book is references and there are four pages of abbreviations. With introduction and postscript the book itself is 75 pages, just less than half of the pages between the covers Anyway, I've been meaning to read it for quite some time, but I thought I'd try and get an overview of the Assyrian history first in order to better put this book in context. Your last posts in this thread is gold, thanks a million