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Dialogue Of Pessimism
The Dialogue of Pessimism is an ancient Mesopotamian literary composition in the form of a dialogue between a master and his slave. Its interpretations have varied, but it is generally considered an unusual text which thematises the futility of human action. It is an example of ancient Near Eastern wisdom literature. Text and dating The Dialogue is a loosely poetic composition in Akkadian, written soon after 1000 BC in Mesopotamia. It was discovered in five different clay tablet manuscripts written in the cuneiform script. The text is well-preserved, as only 15 of its 86 lines are fragmentary. Two textual versions seem to survive, as a Babylonian tablet is substantially different from Assyrian versions. Ancient audiences may have known it by the Akkadian title ''arad mitanguranni'' ("slave, attend me"), the phrase at the beginning of every stanza. Content and style The Dialogue of Pessimism takes the form of a dialogue between a master and his slave valet. In each of the first ten ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. Today, Mesopotamia occupies modern Iraq. In the broader sense, the historical region included present-day Iraq and Kuwait and parts of present-day Iran, Syria and Turkey. The Sumerians and Akkadians (including Assyrians and Babylonians) originating from different areas in present-day Iraq, dominated Mesopotamia from the beginning of written history () to the fall of Babylon in 539 BC, when it was conquered by the Achaemenid Empire. It fell to Alexander the Great in 332 BC, and after his death, it became part of the Greek Seleucid Empire. Later the Arameans dominated major parts of Mesopotamia (). Mesopotamia is the site of the earliest developments of the Neolithic Revolution from around 10,000 BC. It has been identi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theodicy
Theodicy () means vindication of God. It is to answer the question of why a good God permits the manifestation of evil, thus resolving the issue of the problem of evil. Some theodicies also address the problem of evil "to make the existence of an all-knowing, all-powerful and all-good or omnibenevolent God consistent with the existence of evil or suffering in the world". Unlike a defense, which tries to demonstrate that God's existence is logically possible in the light of evil, a theodicy provides a framework wherein God's existence is also plausible. The German philosopher and mathematician Gottfried Leibniz coined the term "theodicy" in 1710 in his work , though various responses to the problem of evil had been previously proposed. The British philosopher John Hick traced the history of moral theodicy in his 1966 work, ''Evil and the God of Love'', identifying three major traditions: # the Plotinian theodicy, named after Plotinus # the Augustinian theodicy, which Hick base ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ancient Middle Eastern Wisdom Literature
Ancient history is a time period from the beginning of writing and recorded human history to as far as late antiquity. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, beginning with the Sumerian cuneiform script. Ancient history covers all continents inhabited by humans in the period 3000 BCAD 500. The three-age system periodizes ancient history into the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age, with recorded history generally considered to begin with the Bronze Age. The start and end of the three ages varies between world regions. In many regions the Bronze Age is generally considered to begin a few centuries prior to 3000 BC, while the end of the Iron Age varies from the early first millennium BC in some regions to the late first millennium AD in others. During the time period of ancient history, the world population was already exponentially increasing due to the Neolithic Revolution, which was in full progress. While in 10,000 BC, the world population stood at ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theodicy
Theodicy () means vindication of God. It is to answer the question of why a good God permits the manifestation of evil, thus resolving the issue of the problem of evil. Some theodicies also address the problem of evil "to make the existence of an all-knowing, all-powerful and all-good or omnibenevolent God consistent with the existence of evil or suffering in the world". Unlike a defense, which tries to demonstrate that God's existence is logically possible in the light of evil, a theodicy provides a framework wherein God's existence is also plausible. The German philosopher and mathematician Gottfried Leibniz coined the term "theodicy" in 1710 in his work , though various responses to the problem of evil had been previously proposed. The British philosopher John Hick traced the history of moral theodicy in his 1966 work, ''Evil and the God of Love'', identifying three major traditions: # the Plotinian theodicy, named after Plotinus # the Augustinian theodicy, which Hick base ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Deuteronomy
Deuteronomy ( grc, Δευτερονόμιον, Deuteronómion, second law) is the fifth and last book of the Torah (in Judaism), where it is called (Hebrew: hbo, , Dəḇārīm, hewords Moses.html"_;"title="f_Moses">f_Moseslabel=none)_and_the_fifth_book_of_the_Christian_Old_Testament.html" ;"title="Moses">f_Moses.html" ;"title="Moses.html" ;"title="f Moses">f Moses">Moses.html" ;"title="f Moses">f Moseslabel=none) and the fifth book of the Christian Old Testament">Moses">f_Moses.html" ;"title="Moses.html" ;"title="f Moses">f Moses">Moses.html" ;"title="f Moses">f Moseslabel=none) and the fifth book of the Christian Old Testament. Chapters 1–30 of the book consist of three sermons or speeches delivered to the Israelites by Moses on the Plains of Moab, shortly before they enter the Promised Land. The first sermon recounts the Moses#The years in the wilderness, forty years of wilderness wanderings which had led to that moment, and ends with an exhortation to observe the law. T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Agur
Agur ben Jakeh ( he, אָגוּר בִּן־יָקֶה, ʾĀgūr bīn-Yāqe) was a sage of Arab descent and a compiler of a collection of proverbs found in Proverbs 30, which is sometimes known as the ''Book of Agur'' or ''Sayings of Agur''. Biblical accounts The initial text of the chapter runs as follows ( JPS translation), and bears great similarity to . This translation is not universally accepted as correct; see below. The text (verse 1) seems to say that he was a "Massaite," the gentilic termination not being indicated in the traditional writing "Ha-Massa." This place has been identified by some Assyriologists with the land of Mash, a district between Judea and Babylonia, and the traces of nomadic or semi-nomadic life and thought found in and give some support to the hypothesis. Heinrich Graetz, followed by Bickell and Cheyne, conjectures that the original reading is ("Ha-Moshel" = "the collector of proverbs"). Even still, the root word ''maššā'' denotes something t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Book Of Job
The Book of Job (; hbo, אִיּוֹב, ʾIyyōḇ), or simply Job, is a book found in the Ketuvim ("Writings") section of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), and is the first of the Poetic Books in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. Scholars are generally agreed that it was written between the 7th and 4th centuries BCE. It addresses theodicy, why God permits evil in the world, through the experiences of the eponymous protagonist. Job is a wealthy and God-fearing man with a comfortable life and a large family; God, having asked Satan ( hbo, הַשָּׂטָן, haśśāṭān, , label=none) for his opinion of Job's piety, decides to take away Job's wealth, family and material comforts, following Satan's accusation that if Job were rendered penniless and without his family, he would turn away from God. Structure The Book of Job consists of a prose prologue and epilogue narrative framing poetic dialogues and monologues. It is common to view the narrative frame as the original core ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Old Testament
The Old Testament (often abbreviated OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew writings by the Israelites. The second division of Christian Bibles is the New Testament, written in the Koine Greek language. The Old Testament consists of many distinct books by various authors produced over a period of centuries. Christians traditionally divide the Old Testament into four sections: the first five books or Pentateuch (corresponds to the Jewish Torah); the history books telling the history of the Israelites, from their conquest of Canaan to their defeat and exile in Babylon; the poetic and " Wisdom books" dealing, in various forms, with questions of good and evil in the world; and the books of the biblical prophets, warning of the consequences of turning away from God. The books that compose the Old Testament canon and their order and names differ b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ecclesiastes
Ecclesiastes (; hbo, קֹהֶלֶת, Qōheleṯ, grc, Ἐκκλησιαστής, Ekklēsiastēs) is one of the Ketuvim ("Writings") of the Hebrew Bible and part of the Wisdom literature of the Christian Old Testament. The title commonly used in English is a Latin transliteration of the Greek translation of the Hebrew word ( or ). An unnamed author introduces "The words of Kohelet, son of David, king in Jerusalem" ( 1:1) and does not use his own voice again until the final verses (12:9–14), where he gives his own thoughts and summarises the statements of Kohelet; the main body of the text is ascribed to Kohelet himself. Kohelet proclaims (1:2) "Vanity of vanities! All is futile!"; the Hebrew word , "vapor", can figuratively mean "insubstantial", "vain", "futile", or "meaningless". Given this, the next verse presents the basic existential question with which the rest of the book is concerned: "What profit hath a man for all his toil, in which he toils under the sun?", expre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ludlul Bēl Nēmeqi
("''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 Šubši-mašrâ-Šakkan (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-Maruttaš (), 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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shamash
Utu (dUD "Sun"), also known under the Akkadian name Shamash, ''šmš'', syc, ܫܡܫܐ ''šemša'', he, שֶׁמֶשׁ ''šemeš'', ar, شمس ''šams'', Ashurian Aramaic: 𐣴𐣬𐣴 ''š'meš(ā)'' 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 mount ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
