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Egyptian culture and religion were dominated by the Nile. The river was the springboard of life for the civilization, but unlike certain other rivers (as we will see in the next section) the Nile was quite predictable, flooding at regular times. This allowed the mighty river to be used by rulers as an example of their power, overreaching its banks only at their explicit command. Civilization in the West declares, “As divine incarnation, the king was obliged above all to care for his people. It was he who ensured the annual flooding of the Nile, which brought water to the parched land.” This bit of trickery allowed transmutation of the river’s power into one all powerful person, yet despite all his incantations the Nile (or basically nature itself to these people) was still ruler over all. The Egyptians had many gods of the river, which they regularly appeased with offerin
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Mesopotamian beliefs are even more interesting than Egyptian. The creation account is as follows in Genesis 1:26-29; “Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. They believed that the river held much power, as shown in this excerpt from the Code of Hammurbi, “If a seignor brought a charge of sorcery against another seignor, but has not proven it, the one against whom the charge of sorcery was brought, upon going to the river, shall throw himself into the river, and if the river has then overpowered, his accuser shall take over his estate; if the river has shown seignor to be innocent and he has accordingly come forth safe, the one who brought the charge of sorcery against him shall be put to death, while the one who threw himself into the river shall take over the estate of his accuser. ” As with the Egyptians, Mesopotamians devoted a large part of their agriculture to their gods, often at the expense of their civil authorities. One can see this process at work even today; when a pasture is not grazed enough, or the grass reaped often enough, the soil becomes looser and the amount and type of vegetation falls off considerably. Basically the Judeo Christian attitude is one that man is a transcendent creature, completely set apart from the natural kingdom, second only to God who has given him the task of being a steward to his kingdom. This point of view was taken by much of the west during many important points in its history, allowing the west to move much farther in a shorter amount of time than eastern civilizations in general. This line of thought was adopted and still persists in Eastern thought and has recently been making a comeback among Western academia as well. From Civilization in the West, “Although Mesopotamians looked to hundreds of personal divinities for assistance, they did not attempt to establish personal relationships with their great Gods.
In short, this duality between Hebrew and Egyptian/Mesopotamian thought, and now the Western and Eastern iterations, was and is one of the most important concepts in philosophy. A temple in Lagash, for example, owned over eleven thousand acres of land. This approach to nature may be deemed as superior by some, but I believe I will share an informal personal illustration to attempt to rebuke this.
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