Babylonian Theodicy
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Babylonian Theodicy
"Babylonian Theodicy" is a poem written within ancient Babylonia. The poem is inscribed onto clay in the Middle-Babylonian language, which is a form of language dating to the period 1600 to 900 BC. (via identification of iThe Babylonian World edited by Gwendolyn Leick (Jon Taylor - p.440)/ref> The poem has also been referred to as "An Akkadian dialogue on the unrighteousness of the world'' or ''The Babylonian Koheleth." Content The poem is an example of wisdom literature, which is a form of writing which shows two people providing contrary positions on a subject, in the form of a dialogue. The poem is a dialogue between two people who are friends. One of the persons is suffering, and the poem shows him revealing the acts of evil done by people in the society around him, while the other person is shown attempting to add perspective on these acts of dubious morality, by him stating the nature of the occurrence of justice within the order of everything that exists (in the universe) ...
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Akkadian Literature
Akkadian literature is the ancient literature written in the Akkadian language (Assyrian and Babylonian dialects) in Mesopotamia (Assyria and Babylonia) during the period spanning the Middle Bronze Age to the Iron Age (roughly the 23rd to 6th centuries BC). Drawing on the traditions of Sumerian literature, the Babylonians compiled a substantial textual tradition of mythological narrative, legal texts, scientific works, letters and other literary forms. Literature in Akkadian society Most of what we have from the Babylonians was inscribed in cuneiform with a metal stylus on tablets of clay, called ''laterculae coctiles'' by Pliny the Elder; papyrus seems to have been also employed, but it has perished. There were libraries in most towns and temples; an old Sumerian proverb averred that "he who would excel in the school of the scribes must rise with the dawn." Women as well as men learned to read and write, and in Semitic times, this involved a knowledge of the extinct Sumer ...
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Ashurbanipal
Ashurbanipal (Neo-Assyrian language, Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , meaning "Ashur (god), Ashur is the creator of the heir") was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 669 BCE to his death in 631. He is generally remembered as the last great king of Assyria. Inheriting the throne as the favored heir of his father Esarhaddon, Ashurbanipal's 38-year reign was among the longest of any List of Assyrian kings, Assyrian king. Though sometimes regarded as the apogee of ancient Assyria, his reign also marked the last time Assyrian armies waged war throughout the ancient Near East and the beginning of the end of Assyrian dominion over the region. Esarhaddon selected Ashurbanipal as heir 673. The selection of Ashurbanipal bypassed the elder son Shamash-shum-ukin. Perhaps in order to avoid future rivalry, Esarhaddon designated Shamash-shum-ukin as the heir to Babylonia. The two brothers jointly acceded to their respective thrones after Esarhaddon's death in 669, though Shamash-shum-ukin was r ...
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Šamaš
Utu (dUD "Sun"), also known under the Akkadian name Shamash, ''Å¡mÅ¡'', syc, Ü«Ü¡Ü«Ü ''Å¡emÅ¡a'', he, שֶ××žÖ¶×©× ''Å¡emeÅ¡'', ar, شمس ''Å¡ams'', Ashurian Aramaic: ð£´ð£¬ð£´ ''Å¡'meÅ¡(Ä)'' was the ancient Mesopotamian sun god. He was believed to see everything that happened in the world every day, and was therefore responsible for justice and protection of travelers. As a divine judge, he could be associated with the underworld. Additionally, he could serve as the god of divination, typically alongside the weather god Adad. While he was universally regarded as one of the primary gods, he was particularly venerated in Sippar and Larsa. The moon god Nanna (Sin) and his wife Ningal were regarded as his parents, while his twin sister was Inanna (Ishtar). Occasionally other goddesses, such as Manzat and Pinikir, could be regarded as his sisters too. The dawn goddess Aya (Sherida) was his wife, and multiple texts describe their daily reunions taking place on a mounta ...
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Problem Of Evil
The problem of evil is the question of how to reconcile the existence of evil and suffering with an omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and omniscient God.The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,The Problem of Evil, Michael TooleyThe Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy,, Nick Trakakis There are currently differing definitions of these concepts. The best known presentation of the problem is attributed to the Greek philosopher Epicurus. It was popularized by David Hume. Besides the philosophy of religion, the problem of evil is also important to the fields of theology and ethics. There are also many discussions of evil and associated problems in other philosophical fields, such as secular ethics, and evolutionary ethics. But as usually understood, the problem of evil is posed in a theological context. Responses to the problem of evil have traditionally been in three types: refutations, defenses, and theodicies. The problem of evil is generally formulated in two forms: the logical probl ...
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Nebuchadnezzar I
Nebuchadnezzar I or Nebuchadrezzar I (), reigned 1121–1100 BC, was the fourth king of the Second Dynasty of Isin and Fourth Dynasty of Babylon. He ruled for 22 years according to the ''Babylonian King List C'', and was the most prominent monarch of this dynasty. He is best known for his victory over Elam and the recovery of the cultic idol of Marduk. Biography He is unrelated to his later namesake, Nabû-kudurrÄ«-uá¹£ur II, who has come to be known by the Hebrew form of his name “Nebuchadnezzar.†Consequently, it is anachronistic but not inappropriate to apply this designation retroactively to the earlier king, as he does not make an appearance in the Bible. He is misidentified in the ''Chronicle Concerning the Reign of Å amaÅ¡-Å¡uma-ukin''''Å amaÅ¡-Å¡uma-ukin Chronicle'' (ABC 15), tablet BM 96273. as the brother of Å irikti-Å¡uqamuna probably in place of Ninurta-kudurrá¿‘-uá¹£ur I. He succeeded his father, Ninurta-nÄdin-Å¡umi, and was succeeded in turn by his son ...
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Ludlul BÄ“l NÄ“meqi
("''I Will Praise the Lord of Wisdom''"), also sometimes known in English as ''The Poem of the Righteous Sufferer'', is a Mesopotamian poem (ANET, pp. 434–437) written in Akkadian that concerns itself with the problem of the unjust suffering of an afflicted man, named Å ubÅ¡i-maÅ¡râ-Å akkan (Shubshi-meshre-Shakkan). The author is tormented, but he does not know why. He has been faithful in all of his duties to the gods. He speculates that perhaps what is good to man is evil to the gods and vice versa. He is ultimately delivered from his sufferings. It is thought to have been composed during the reign of Kassite king of Babylon Nazi-MaruttaÅ¡ (), who is mentioned on line 105 of tablet IV. The poem was written on four tablets in its canonical form and consisted of 480 lines. Alternate names for the poem include the ''Poem of the Righteous Sufferer'' or the ''Babylonian Job''. According to William Moran, the work is a hymn of thanksgiving to Marduk for recovery from illne ...
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Ancient Literature
Ancient literature comprises religious and scientific documents, tales, poetry and plays, royal edicts and declarations, and other forms of writing that were recorded on a variety of media, including stone, stone tablets, papyri, palm leaves, and metal. Before the spread of writing, oral literature did not always survive well, but some texts and fragments have persisted. One can conclude that an unknown number of written works too have likely not survived the ravages of time and are therefore lost. Incomplete list of ancient texts Bronze Age Early Bronze Age: 3rd millennium BC (approximate dates shown). The earliest written literature dates from about 2600 BC (classical Sumerian). The earliest literary author known by name is Enheduanna, a Sumerian priestess and public figure dating to ca. 24th century BC. Certain literary texts are difficult to date, such as the ''Egyptian Book of the Dead'', which was recorded in the ''Papyrus of Ani'' around 1240 BC, but other versions of ...
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Adad-apla-iddina
Adad-apla-iddina, typically inscribed in cuneiform mdIM- DUMU.UÅ -SUM''-na'', mdIM-A-SUM''-na'' or dIM''-ap-lam-i-din-'' 'nam''meaning the storm god “Adad has given me an heirâ€, was the 8th king of the 2nd Dynasty of Isin and the 4th Dynasty of Babylon and ruled 1064–1043. He was a contemporary of the Assyrian King AÅ¡Å¡ur-bêl-kala and his reign was a golden age for scholarship. Biography Provenance The broken obelisk of AÅ¡Å¡ur-bêl-kala relates that the Assyrians raided Babylonia, early in his reign: Depending on the exact synchronization of the Assyrian and Babylonian chronologies, this would have been shortly before, or at the very beginning of Adad-apla-iddina’s reign. His ancestor ''Esagil-Å aduni'' is named in the ''Synchronistic History''The ''Synchronistic History'' (ABC 21) column 2 lines 31 to 37. as his “fatherâ€, but he was actually â€a son of a nobody,†i.e. without a royal parent. This chronicle recounts that he was appointed by the Assyrian k ...
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Kassite
The Kassites () were people of the ancient Near East, who controlled Babylonia after the fall of the Old Babylonian Empire c. 1531 BC and until c. 1155 BC (short chronology). They gained control of Babylonia after the Hittite sack of Babylon in 1531 BC, and established a dynasty generally assumed to have been based first in that city, after a hiatus. Later rule shifted to the new city of Dur-Kurigalzu. By the time of Babylon's fall, the Kassites had already been part of the region for a century and a half, acting sometimes with the Babylon's interests and sometimes against. There are records of Kassite and Babylonian interactions, in the context of military employment, during the reigns of Babylonian kings Samsu-iluna (1686 to 1648 BC), AbÄ«-eÅ¡uh, and AmmÄ«-ditÄna. The origin and classification of the Kassite language, like the Sumerian language and Hurrian language, is uncertain, and, also like the two latter languages, has generated a wide array of speculation over the ...
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Acrostic
An acrostic is a poem or other word composition in which the ''first'' letter (or syllable, or word) of each new line (or paragraph, or other recurring feature in the text) spells out a word, message or the alphabet. The term comes from the French from post-classical Latin , from Koine Greek , from Ancient Greek "highest, topmost" and "verse". As a form of constrained writing, an acrostic can be used as a mnemonic device to aid memory retrieval. When the ''last'' letter of each new line (or other recurring feature) forms a word it is called a telestich; the combination of an acrostic and a telestich in the same composition is called a double acrostic (e.g. the first-century Latin Sator Square). Acrostics are common in medieval literature, where they usually serve to highlight the name of the poet or his patron, or to make a prayer to a saint. They are most frequent in verse works but can also appear in prose. The Middle High German poet Rudolf von Ems for example opens all h ...
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Babylonia
Babylonia (; Akkadian: , ''mÄt AkkadÄ«'') was an ancient Akkadian-speaking state and cultural area based in the city of Babylon in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq and parts of Syria). It emerged as an Amorite-ruled state c. 1894 BCE. During the reign of Hammurabi and afterwards, Babylonia was called "the country of Akkad" (''MÄt AkkadÄ«'' in Akkadian), a deliberate archaism in reference to the previous glory of the Akkadian Empire. It was often involved in rivalry with the older state of Assyria to the north and Elam to the east in Ancient Iran. Babylonia briefly became the major power in the region after Hammurabi ( fl. c. 1792–1752 BCE middle chronology, or c. 1696–1654 BCE, short chronology) created a short-lived empire, succeeding the earlier Akkadian Empire, Third Dynasty of Ur, and Old Assyrian Empire. The Babylonian Empire rapidly fell apart after the death of Hammurabi and reverted to a small kingdom. Like Assyria, the Babylonian state retained ...
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Edward L
Edward is an English given name. It is derived from the Anglo-Saxon name ''Ä’adweard'', composed of the elements '' Ä“ad'' "wealth, fortune; prosperous" and '' weard'' "guardian, protectorâ€. History The name Edward was very popular in Anglo-Saxon England, but the rule of the Norman and Plantagenet The House of Plantagenet () was a royal house which originated from the lands of Anjou in France. The family held the English throne from 1154 (with the accession of Henry II at the end of the Anarchy) to 1485, when Richard III died in ... dynasties had effectively ended its use amongst the upper classes. The popularity of the name was revived when Henry III of England, Henry III named his firstborn son, the future Edward I of England, Edward I, as part of his efforts to promote a cult around Edward the Confessor, for whom Henry had a deep admiration. Variant forms The name has been adopted in the Iberian Peninsula#Modern Iberia, Iberian peninsula since the 15th century ...
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