Breaking the Chains
Page 17
Bruce Lee rejected Christianity to embrace Zen Buddhism and Taoism. It is generally supposed that the teachings of Jesus Christ derive from Judaism. Judaism was engendered by promises made to Abraham by a god. Biblical tradition indicates that the god of Abraham promised kings and nations would come out of Abraham, and that the land between the Nile and the Euphrates would be given to him and his progeny. Revered writings of Judaism record that Abraham came from the city of Ur in Sumer. The people of Sumer produced the first written language. Sumerian literature influenced Akkadian, Hittite, Canaanite, and biblical literature. Under Sargon, the first Semitic empire builder (reigned circa 2334 BC - 2279 BC), the Akkadian language became adapted to the Sumerian ‘alphabet’. The term Akkadian stems from the name Akkad: the city Sargon built in honour of the goddess Ishtar. Early in the second millennium BC Sumer joined with Akkad to form the kingdom of Babylonia.
City of the moon god Nanna, Ur was an important city - at times the capital city of Sumer. Great treasures of gold, silver, and other materials were found in the royal tombs of Ur. Much overseas trade, including trade with the Harappan civilization, flowed through Ur. Towards the end of the 4th century BC, when the Euphrates changed its course, Ur was abandoned. Dating back to the 4th millennium BC, it was one of the oldest cities of Mesopotamia. It was already an old city when Sargon erected Akkad, and although the site of Akkad has not yet been identified the ruins of Ur lie in southeastern Iraq. Nanna, the moon god of Ur, was known as Sin in the Akkadian language. Depicted as an old man with a long beard, his emblem was the crescent moon - sometimes represented as a boat or the horns of a bull. Mesopotamian mythology says Enlil (the father of Sin) compelled Ninlil (the mother of Sin) to have sexual intercourse against her will. Sin had three younger brothers: Meslamtaea, Ninazu, and Ennugi. The wife of Sin was Ningal, a reed goddess. Utu (Akkadian Shamash), the sun god, was a child of Sin.
Mesopotamian mythology is a confluence of two traditions: Sumerian and Akkadian. It contains a non-Semitic stream and a Semitic stream. The non-Semitic stream flows from Sumer in southern Mesopotamia, and the Semitic stream flows from Akked in north central Mesopotamia. Sumerians spoke an agglutinative language: a language whose grammatical elements combine with little or no change of form to express compound ideas. How Sumerian is related to any other language is still unclear. Akkadian is the oldest Semitic language for which there is evidence. The Semitic group of languages includes: Arabic, Aramaic, Assyrian, Babylonian, Phoenician, and Hebrew. All Semitic people are traditionally descended from Noah’s son Shem. The story of Noah is clearly akin to the Sumerian Flood myth. In this story the hero, Utnapishtim, is warned of the Flood by the god Enki: he tells Utnapishtim to build a large boat. After the deluge Utnapishtim bent his knee in submission to the gods An and Enlil. As a reward for living a devout life Utnapishtim was given immortality.
An, Enlil, and Enki were important Sumerian gods. The Akkadian equivalent of Enki (Ea) controlled the craft of sorcery and the art of incantation - he was the father of Marduk, who slew Tiamat. Inanna was one of the most important Sumerian female deities. A complex myth, ‘Inanna’s Descent’, affined to mythi featuring sacred Pomegranates, apples of immortality, etc, describes Inanna’s attempt to depose the queen of the netherworld. She failed and was turned into a piece of rotting meat. In order to be released Inanna had to provide a substitute. It is unlikely Inanna was of Semitic origin; nevertheless she was identified with Ishtar. The Akkadian Ishtar is associated with the planet Venus, which is also known as the morning star. Her symbol is a star with various numbers of rays within a circle. Sargon of Akkad gave credit for his success to Ishtar. He may have concluded Ishtar’s blessing conferred upon him the title ‘Rightful King’.
Orthodox tradition represents Abraham as a member of a Semitic tribe from Ur. He probably spoke Akkadian, and the Akkadian counterparts of the Sumerian gods Enki, An, Enlil, Utu, Nanna, and Inanna would have been known to Abraham as Ea, Anu, Bel, Shamash, Sin, and Ishtar. Abraham’s tribe left Ur and travelled to Harran in southeastern Turkey. Harran was a pilgrimage city and centre of the Sin cult. It was while Abraham was at Harran that a god called him to leave his family and go to a country that he would show him. As there is nothing in the orthodox tradition to suggest it was the moon god Sin who called Abraham to do this, it is possible to conjecture Abraham may have undergone a religious conversion that forced him to change his beliefs. The foundation of his new religious perspective was his election by a god. Abraham would ever after have to live with the knowledge that he was special - a man to whom a god had made the most incredible promises. The possibility that Abraham may have been delusional should not be overlooked.