Bible 101: the Ancient Near East
A little history lesson because I know you forgot everything your high school history teacher taught you.
Now that you have a basic understanding of the first five books, it’s important to then look at them contextually.
What does that mean? It means looking at the material from the perspective of the circumstances when it was written. In this case, we need to take the Bible and compare it to the ancient Near East.
If you haven’t heard that term before, or if you read the other Substack’s where I casually mentioned it and you thought “wtf is that??”… let me key you in.
Everywhere that is deemed the “Near East” is what we could consider the Middle East to be now. Add in the word “ancient” and we are talking about the Middle East back in the day. Call it the OG Middle East. Whatever you want. That is what ancient Near East means.
Today, we think Iraq, Iran, Israel, etc. when talking about the Middle East. In the picture below, all the Middle East countries are the lighter color.
Thus, the ancient Near East (ANE) would be these countries…..but a long time ago. In your early schooling, I imagine your history teacher told you about Mesopotamia, Babylon, Sumeria, Akkadia and Assyria and then pointed at a map with a laser pointer, but you probably didn’t understand a lick of what they said because all the information at that level is incredibly vague.
Let me clear this up on behalf of them: Mesopotamia was the main region of the ANE and contained Babylon, Sumer (Sumeria), Akkad (Akkadia) and Assur (Assyria). Think of it as Mesopotamia being the country and all those other areas (Babylon, Sumer, Akkad and Assur) being the states. Bad way of thinking about it…but it gets the point across. Below is my sad hand drawn map:
Everything in the area I drew, that kind of looks like a deformed peanut, is Mesopotamia. Don’t you find it a smidge interesting that, in the grand scheme of everything, that area is kind of….small? Considering all the conquests, I figured Mesopotamia would have been as big as Russia maybe, but no. It’s not. If you consider that almost all of the Old Testament is riddled with constant battles between Israel and Mesopotamia, it makes sense. They were neighbors. And that is why it makes even MORE sense that a lot of major things about Israel’s tradition and society are similar to those of Mesopotamian culture.
Now, don’t get confused about this. Mesopotamia wasn’t the only ANE area. Everything you still see on the map that is a lighter color is still the ANE. Mesopotamia just tends to be the most popular region (other than Egypt because Egyptology is fun and cool).
So, let’s do a quick deep dive into a couple topics so that you can better understand “wtf” you are reading.
Religion
All of the ANE, and I mean all of it, was polytheistic. Every single area was polytheistic.
Think about this contextually. Imagine you are an ancient Babylonian. You are probably wearing a loin cloth of some kind and maybe have your ears pierced. You look up at the sky, not understanding it is just space above your head, and you see little lights above. In your head, it would make sense that a god put some lights up there, sure. You look down at the ground covering and think that it would make sense that a god put some green stuff on the ground. In your tiny little mind, without knowledge of science or math or anything of consequence, it would make the most sense for you to believe it was two different gods. Why would the same god who put lights in the sky ALSO put green stuff on the ground? It makes more sense to consider gods to be almost human, where each god is given a specific job. That is ancient polytheism in a nutshell, and honestly, it makes sense.
Now, compare that to the insanity of Israel. For them to believe that there was one god, and one god only, who created everything imaginable would have been LAUGHABLE. This “god” would have had to have help. There is no way he did everything himself. If an ancient person did a job, they were normally accompanied by other people to fulfill that job. They believed in teamwork. It was the ultimate High School Musical moment. *cue We’re All In This Together*
If you read the first five books with that in your mind, about how insane other religions thought they were, and continue reading the Old Testament with that knowledge, a lot of things that happen start to make A LOT more sense.
Laws & Contracts
In Exodus, the laws having to do with animals are similar to laws in the Code of Hammurabi (Babylonian) and the Laws of Eshnunna (Akkadian).
In Leviticus, it can be noted that the “law” portions are incredibly similar to Mesopotamian and Hittite laws, especially when it comes to sexual immorality. If a law was broken, the penalties were practically the same (usually death).
As I mentioned in “The Basics of: Deuteronomy”, that book in particular can be read very similarly to what an ancient contracts (i.e. treaties) from the ancient world would have. It is often compared to Hittite (modern day Turkey) treaties from the second millennium (2000 BC to 1001 BC), the Code of Hammurabi (Babylonian), Sumerian Laws of Ur-Nammu and laws of Lipit-Ishtar. If you want to look them up, go for it. I’ve read through all of them and I really dislike them, but it does make you grateful for the Bible (because if you think the Bible is tough to read, you got another thing comin’).
Why does this matter? Because it is important to remember that the humans of the Bible were real people. Sometimes reading a book, including the Bible, can dehumanize the characters. If you read them knowing that the areas that were constantly laying waste to Israel (and vice versa) had laws just like ours, it makes the reading material a bit more solemn, but it also shows the terror of the battlefield. To quote Edwin Starr’s only major Motown hit, “war, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing.”
What is also shows, incredibly more so, is that our laws, beliefs and our God were unique. Where one ancient law said “do not steal,” ours said “do not steal from babies, women, men, cats, dogs, etc.” Our Bible goes into great detail about protecting the vulnerable and invulnerable, and about protecting the rights and dignity of anyone who lives with breath in their lungs. ANE laws may have been thorough and tedious, but ours were God-breathed.
There you have it: a quick introduction into the ancient Near East.
Go read with confidence. Thanks for being here.
