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Friday, January 27, 2023

What Is The Oldest Religious Holy Text On The Earth?

The following article was obtained through the Grunge website. Story by Dylan Hofer • Jan 16, 2023

Religion has been a fundamental part of human civilization for what seems like time immemorial. For thousands of years, people have tried to make sense of this mysterious universe through stories of divine beings, monsters, and other supernatural creatures. Even in modern times, 84% of people worldwide view themselves as religious, belonging to a wide variety of different groups and organizations, some of which are thousands of years old (via Visual Capitalist).

Though not all religious or spiritual communities have kept written holy scriptures, making it impossible to know what the world's first religion was, historians and archaeologists have collected a fair amount of old manuscripts, providing keen insight into how ancient humans practiced religion. So, what is the oldest religious holy text experts have uncovered? Well, it doesn't come from Hinduism, Judaism, or any of the other major religious denominations today (per the Abrahamic Study Hall). Rather it comes from a time long before ours, found in an ancient city more than 4,000 years old in modern-day Iraq (via Ancient Origins).

The Kesh Temple Hymn

Ancient cuneiform © Viacheslav Lopatin/Shutterstock

The text is known as the Kesh Temple Hymn, and it dates back to roughly 2600 B.C., found in what would be Sumer, one of the world's oldest civilizations (via Ancient Origins). This ancient empire began building religious buildings around 5200 BC, dating more than 7000 years ago, states History. The Sumerians are also credited with creating the oldest known written language, as well as pioneering technologies like crop irrigation, farming, and even advancing certain medicinal practices (via History).

The Kesh Temple Hymn was found in the Sumerian city Tell Abu Salabikh, written in cuneiform, a form of writing that describes events through different pictures on clay tablets. The text was 134 lines long, divided into eight different sections, portraying the city of Kesh as a righteous city that was near Ekur, the supposed place where the Sumerian gods gathered together (via Ancient Origins).

Sumerian Religion

Sumerian statue hands together © Heritage Images/Getty Images

The Sumerians were polytheistic and believed that at one point, the world had been nothing more than the ocean, known as Nammu. Eventually, Nammu gave birth to the gods An and Ki, the former being the god of the sky and the latter the god of the earth, according to Study.com. Eventually, these divine beings procreated and gave birth to other gods, such as Enlil, the chief god of the Sumerian pantheon that controlled storms (via CK-12).

Sumerians thought that the gods were much like us and were swayed heavily by emotions. Therefore, it was of the utmost importance to keep them in a happy state of mind, or else they would curse the Sumerians with all sorts of natural disasters such as floods, storms, droughts, famine, disease, or some other catastrophe that was uncontrollable. As a result, priests were very respected in this society, and it was believed that they communicated directly with the gods.

Gods Amongst People

Sumerian ziggurat © Abbas Al Yasiri/Shutterstock

Though no one knows who actually wrote the Kesh Temple Hymn, the Sumerians believed that it was transcribed directly from Nisaba, the Sumerian goddess of literature, according to Ancient Origins. The Sumerians believed that the gods and goddesses actually lived and dwelled on Earth, within the ziggurats the people constructed. However, lay people weren't allowed direct access to the gods — that was something only permissible for priests, states CK-12.

In the hymn, Enlil allowed the people of Kesh to build the temple, which was to be devoted to the goddess Ninhursag, also known as Nintu. She was believed to be the goddess of fertility and mountains (via New World Encyclopedia). In the text, the temple is compared to the moon as being the life of Sumer itself. The tablets also outline where the gods will reside in the temple, explain how the structure reaches heaven and the underworld, and discusses Ashgi, the son of Ninhursag, who was supposed to protect the city of Kesh (via "How To Do Things With Tears" and Ancient Origins).

How Sumerians Worshipped

Sumerian cuneiform © Swisshippo/Getty Images

Another detail highlighted in the Kesh Temple Hymn is how many cattle ought to be owned by the temple, according to Ancient Origins. This makes sense, as temples in Sumer weren't just places of worship — they were also businesses. Though there was a chief priest who was in charge of pleasing the gods and providing religious guidance for the community, there was another person who managed the logistical part of things. Many temples owned loads of land and employed a good amount of people from the city, according to History on the Net.

The city of Kesh was no different, and the Kesh Temple harvested crops and livestock and even loaned money to certain citizens. Becoming a priest or priestess was not an easy task in ancient Sumer, however — aspirers were required to be physically fit and come from a well-off family. It was also important for a priest(ess) to learn how to read and write, given that they would manage much of the legal records for the city.

Impacts On The Modern World

Painting of Noah's Ark © Javier Cruz Acosta/Shutterstock

Far after their fall as a kingdom, the Sumerians' religious beliefs affected other cultures, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. One ancient Sumerian story, the Epic of Gilgamesh, is fairly similar to the story of Noah's ark and the flood. In the former narrative, there is a man named Utanapishtim, who at one point felt the wrath of the gods (via HowStuffWorks). Before the time of Gilgamesh, the chief Sumerian god Enlil had become annoyed with humanity, so he looked to get rid of the species with a flood. Sound familiar? Enlil instructs the other gods not to relay this plan to any mortal being, but the god of wisdom, Ea, creates a roundabout way to do so. Specifically, he tells a reed wall Enlil's plan, speaking loud enough so Utanapishtim, who was behind the reef at the time, could hear the message.

Ea commands Utanapishtim to construct a boat filled with all sorts of different riches — as well as animals and seeds — to rebuild the world after Enlil's upcoming apocalypse. Eventually, Enlil and the gods stop their reign of terror after Utanapishtim makes sacrifices to them. Even more interesting, in the Dead Sea Scrolls, some of the oldest Biblical texts ever found, there is a giant in the Book of Enoch named Gilgamesh. Undoubtedly, the world's oldest civilization and its religious system still create ripple effects through our culture in the modern world, making the study of these peoples of the utmost importance.

Wednesday, January 4, 2023

The Books of Enoch

In its entirety, The Books of Enoch are made up of five sections – The Book of Watchers, Book of Parables, The Astronomical Book, The Dream Visions, and The Epistles of Enoch – containing around 100 chapters. 

These chapters tell the story of the 7th patriarch in the Book of Genesis – Enoch, the father of Methuselah and grandfather of Noah.

Wikipedia describes the First Book of Enoch as follows:
The Book of Enoch (also 1 Enoch; Ge'ez: መጽሐፈ ሄኖክ mets’iḥāfe hēnoki) is an ancient Jewish religious work, ascribed by tradition to Enoch, the great-grandfather of Noah. The older sections (mainly in the Book of the Watchers) of the text are estimated to date from about 300 BC, and the latest part (Book of Parables) probably to the first century BC.
It is not part of the biblical canon as used by Jews, apart from Beta Israel. Most Christian denominations and traditions may accept the Books of Enoch as having some historical or theological interest, but they generally regard the Books of Enoch as noncanonical or noninspired. It is regarded as canonical by the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church, but not by any other Christian groups.
It is wholly extant only in the Ge'ez language, with Aramaic fragments from the Dead Sea Scrolls and a few Greek and Latin fragments. For this and other reasons, the traditional Ethiopian belief is that the original language of the work was Ge'ez, whereas non-Ethiopian scholars tend to assert that it was first written in either Aramaic or Hebrew; Ephraim Isaac suggests that the Book of Enoch, like the Book of Daniel, was composed partially in Aramaic and partially in Hebrew. No Hebrew version is known to have survived. It is asserted in the book itself that its author was Enoch, before the Biblical Flood.
Some of the authors of the New Testament were familiar with some of the content of the story. A short section of 1 Enoch (1:9) is cited in the New Testament, Epistle of Jude, Jude 1:14–15, and is attributed there to "Enoch the Seventh from Adam" (1 En 60:8), although this section of 1 Enoch is a midrash on Deuteronomy 33. Several copies of the earlier sections of 1 Enoch were preserved among the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Enoch was the seventh patriarch in the book of Genesis, and the attributed author of the Books of Enoch. Enoch is best known for his sudden disappearance from the ancient world, which accredited him with "being taken by God" personally. According to Genesis 5: 21-24,
"And Enoch lived sixty and five years, and begat Methuselah: And Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred years, and begat sons and daughters: And all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years: And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him."
The First Book of Enoch goes into extended commentaries on angels and giants [of the land in those days], as well as proscribing parables, foretelling astronomical events and recording historical information of that ancient epoch. His dream visions were well known to show an apocalyptic future.

The Second Book of Enoch, or The Book of the Secrets of Enoch, is preserved only in an Old Slavonic translation. The book deals with Enoch's journey through the seven tiers of heaven (the descriptions correlate with the First Book of Enoch), the explication of Enoch's reception of God's secret wisdom and an account of the patriarch's life and advice to his sons.

The Books of Enoch was 'at first' accepted and recognized by the early Christian Church, but it was later excluded from the biblical canon in the early 17th century. But this ancient patriarch was the subject of abundant apocryphal literature, especially during the Hellenistic period of Judaism from around the 3rd century BC to 3rd century AD.

It is interesting to note, in the 1st century AD Jesus fulfilled some of the prophecies of Enoch - almost word for word - which had been foretold over 2,000 years earlier.

Quotes from Jesus and Enoch...

Enoch: The elect shall possess light, joy and peace, and they shall inherit the earth. (Enoch 5:7 {6:9})
Jesus: Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. (Mat 5:5)

Enoch: The principal part of the judgment was assigned to him, the Son of man. (Enoch 69:27 {68:39})
Jesus: The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the son (John 5:22).

Enoch: Those who will inherit eternal life (Enoch 40:9 {40:9}) "
Jesus: Shall inherit everlasting life (Mat. 19:29)

Enoch: Woe to you who are rich, for in your riches have you trusted; but from your riches you shall be removed. (Enoch 94:8 {93:7}).
Jesus: Woe unto you that are rich! for ye have received your consolation. (Luke 6:24)

Enoch: I will place each of them on a throne of glory (Enoch 108:12 {105:26})
Jesus: Ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. (Mat. 19:28)

Enoch: Where will the habitation of sinners be . . . who have rejected the Lord of spirits. It would have been better for them, had they never been born. (Enoch 38:2 {38:2})
Jesus: Woe unto that man through whom the Son of man is betrayed! It had been good for that man if he had not been born. (Mat. 26:24)

Enoch: by a chasm . . . [are] their souls are separated (Enoch 22: 9,11{22:10,12})
Jesus: Between us and you there is a great gulf fixed. (Luke 16:26)

Enoch: In that day shall the Elect One sit upon a throne of glory, and shall choose their conditions and countless habitations. (Enoch 45:3 {45:3})
Jesus: In my Father's house are many mansions (John 14:2)

Enoch: The good from the generation of light (Enoch 108:11 {105: 25})
Jesus: That ye may be called the children of light (John 12:36)

Enoch: All the thirsty drank, and were filled with wisdom, having their habitation with the righteous, the elect, and the holy. (Enoch 48:1 {48:1})
Jesus: The water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. (John 4:14)

Biblical scholars of all faiths agree that Enoch was a piteous man; but other scholars and theologians also believe he was the recipient of a secret knowledge of God. However, the most significant reason the Book of Enoch is not included as a canon in the Holy Bible is the majority of scholars claim it was not inspired by the Holy Spirit. The argument for this decision mainly goes according to Christian values and teachings, which claims this theory incorporates paganism.

Whether the Books of Enoch were divinely inspired will remain a mystery. 

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