The Role of the Temple in Mesopotamia and Egypt
The religions of ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt have long been studied by fascinated students, scholars, and the like. The remains left behind from these civilizations have provided great insight into their culture, philosophy, and religion. For these and most ancient cultures, the temple was the center of the city, often playing many roles - religious, social economic, etc. It is important to view the religious concepts of these civilizations in light of their environment. Religion evolves in the context of the need for survival, and such needs are unique to a civilization given their environment. People believe in what they need to believe in order to survive. The Egyptians had two types of temples - cultic and funerary. Central to their religion were the concepts of divine kingship and consubstantiality. Mesopotamian religion tended to center around lament as well as the division between the earthly and the cosmos. Although the temples of the Mesopotamia and Egypt had significant similarities, the main disparities in the roles they played for each civilization mainly stems from (1) the challenges each had to face as well as (2) the resulting differing concepts of divine kingship and human existence.
Egyptian architecture tended to be durable, usually "built of stone to last 'for eternity. However, it is suggested that the temple did not stop here, but was directly involved in the administration of the redistribution of resources under a subsistence level economy. The Mesopotamian sought the numinous to save him in some way. Ward, "Temples and Sanctuaries: Egypt," Anchor Bible Dictionary, 1992, Vol. As mentioned earlier, the Egyptians operated on the concept that the Pharaoh was a divine entity. "How the Egyptian and the Mesopotamian civilizations came to acquire these very different moods - one trusting, the other distrusting, man's power and ultimate significance" may not be clear, but it seems to be a great factor in the differences in religious structure of the two. , "Temples and Sanctuaries: Mesopotamia,"Anchor Bible Dictionary, 1992, Vol. , "Temples and Sanctuaries: Mesopotamia," Anchor Bible Dictionary, 1992, Vol. Bibliography Carolyn Routledge, "Temple as the Center in Ancient Egyptian Urbanism," Urbanism in Antiquity, (Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997) 232. For the Mesopotamians, the temple was a powerful "visible assurance that the god was present. "Between god and man there was no point at which one could erect a boundary line.
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