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    Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia

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    Gustavo Lima
    This document summarizes a book review of Jean Bottero's book "Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia". The reviewer provides the following key details: - Jean Bottero is a prolific scholar of Mesopotamian studies who has written numerous popular works to educate the public on Mesopotamian civilization. This book is a translation and revision of his work from 50 years ago on Babylonian religion. - The book takes a thematic approach to discussing Mesopotamian religion, covering topics like religious sentiments, representations, and behaviors based on textual and iconographic sources. - While comprehensive, the book only briefly addresses some topics like differences between periods and locations. It also

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    Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia

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    Gustavo Lima
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    This document summarizes a book review of Jean Bottero's book "Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia". The reviewer provides the following key details: - Jean Bottero is a prolific scholar of Mesopotamian studies who has written numerous popular works to educate the public on Mesopotamian civilization. This book is a translation and revision of his work from 50 years ago on Babylonian religion. - The book takes a thematic approach to discussing Mesopotamian religion, covering topics like religious sentiments, representations, and behaviors based on textual and iconographic sources. - While comprehensive, the book only briefly addresses some topics like differences between periods and locations. It also

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    This document summarizes a book review of Jean Bottero's book "Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia". The reviewer provides the following key details: - Jean Bottero is a prolific scholar of Mesopotamian studies who has written numerous popular works to educate the public on Mesopotamian civilization. This book is a translation and revision of his work from 50 years ago on Babylonian religion. - The book takes a thematic approach to discussing Mesopotamian religion, covering topics like religious sentiments, representations, and behaviors based on textual and iconographic sources. - While comprehensive, the book only briefly addresses some topics like differences between periods and locations. It also

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as doc, pdf, or txt
    703 views2 pages

    Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia

    Uploaded by

    Gustavo Lima
    This document summarizes a book review of Jean Bottero's book "Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia". The reviewer provides the following key details: - Jean Bottero is a prolific scholar of Mesopotamian studies who has written numerous popular works to educate the public on Mesopotamian civilization. This book is a translation and revision of his work from 50 years ago on Babylonian religion. - The book takes a thematic approach to discussing Mesopotamian religion, covering topics like religious sentiments, representations, and behaviors based on textual and iconographic sources. - While comprehensive, the book only briefly addresses some topics like differences between periods and locations. It also

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
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    Bottero, Jean

    Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia


    Trans. Teresa Lavender Fagan
    Chicago: University of Chicago Press
    246 pp., $30.00, ISBN 0-226-06717-3
    Publication Date: 1 August, 2001

    For: History:
    Reviews of New Books 29 (2001) 182.
    Reviewer, M. W. Chavalas

    Jean Bottero has for fifty years been one of the most prolific scholars in the field of
    Mesopotamian studies. In the past decade, he has written numerous popular works that
    have helped further an understanding of Mesopotamian civilization to an interested
    public. Some of those which have been translated include, Mesopotamia (1995),
    Ancestor of the West (2000), The Birth of God (2000), and Ancient Mesopotamia:
    Everyday Life in the First Civilization (2001). Although the present work is a translation
    of his La plus vielle religion: En Mesopotamie (1998), it is in fact a substantial revision
    of his La religion babylonienne, written nearly fifty years ago.
    It has been a generation since T. Jacobsen wrote, The Treasures of Darkness: A
    History of Mesopotamian Religion. Thus, this work is a welcome addition to the
    growing popular works on Mesopotamian religion and culture. It is certainly suitable as
    a supplementary text on Mesopotamian civilization.
    Bottero has a simple premise in which he has espoused in his recent works that
    Mesopotamia is our cultural ‘ancestor’; thus a study of its religion is fundamental to
    understanding our own traditions. Unlike Jacobsen’s historical study, Bottero’s work is
    thematic. After a brief introduction to the history of religion, Mesopotamian history, and
    the problem of sources, Bottero approaches his subject with three sweeping chapters,
    entitled, ‘Religious Sentiment’, Religious Representations’, and Religious Behavior’.
    Though these chapters are briefly outlined, they are very long, and thus not as useful to
    the student as they could be. Bottero uses his half-century of expertise to draw upon
    textual and iconographic information concerning Mesopotamian hymns, prayers,
    incantations, rituals, and other texts, which illuminate the study of Mesopotamian
    religion, the earliest known religious tradition. Bottero discusses the pantheon of the
    gods, their ranks, the nature of the gods, their origins, temple worship, divination, magic,
    and sorcery. His sections on the ‘care and feeding’ of the gods and the New Year festival
    are masterpieces. He ends the work with a study of the survival of this tradition into the
    biblical sphere and the West.
    Since the civilization of Mesopotamia lasted for over three millennia, any work that
    attempts to synthesize its religious tradition will be subject to criticism. For example,
    Bottero said very little about religious differences from period to period, differences in
    local traditions (e.g., Babylonia and Assyria), and family religion (see now, K. van der
    Toorn, Family Religion in Babylonia, Syria, and Israel, 1996). Just as problematic are
    his ubiquitous dated ideas concerning the unique racial characteristics of the Sumerians
    and Akkadians, the originators of Mesopotamian religion.
    Though Bottero writes in vivid French, the English translation will probably be
    considered cumbersome and wordy to undergraduate students. However, Bottero offers
    excerpts of numerous translations of religious texts, which are extremely useful to the
    student who will not have easy access to many of these obscure texts. Furthermore,
    Bottero has such a wealth of knowledge that even seasoned Mesopotamian scholars will
    find much food for thought in this little volume.

    MARK W. CHAVALAS, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse

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