Horus, Isis, Osiris, and Min . . . El, Anat, Asherah, and Baal . . . Kothar-wa-Hasis, Dagon, Mot, and Yamm . . . An, Enlil, Ninharsag, and Enki . . . Nanna, Inanna, Dumuzi, and Ereshkigal . . . These are just a few of the gods and goddesses that populated the ancient Near East in the second millenium BCE - that time when the stories of the Exodus and of Abraham and Sarah’s journey out of Ur were evolving.  And these are just a few of the gods and goddesses whose names have been floating around in my head over the past few years.   You may ask why.

For a number of years my husband and I have had the good fortune of doing our continuing education at Lawrence University’s extension campus in Door County, Wisconsin.   And we have had the further good fortune of learning at the feet of Bill Urbrock, retired professor of religious studies from the University of Wisconsin in Oshkosh.   Over the past three years Bill has taken us on quite a journey - first to ancient Egypt where the Sun and the Nile and the quest for eternity are foundational to its life, its culture, its society, its  beliefs, and its religious ritual.  Then we went to Canaan where ancient tablets reveal a preoccupation with kingship and death, and divine imagery and poetry show startling parallels to biblical literature.  Then last month we went to Sumer whose culture spread throughout lower Mesopotamia from modern-day Basra to Baghdad, and  produced the earliest known law code, considerably earlier than the Code of Hammurabi; whose mythology formed the basis of the better-known Babylonians creation and flood myths;  and whose gods were called “good shepherds.”

    What I’d like to do today is perhaps a bit unconventional for a sermon, but I’ve been asking myself how I might share with you the experience of these past three summers as Bruce and I danced around the Holy Land.  One caveat:  I don’t pretend to be an authority on any of these ancient cultures.   But I would nonetheless like to take this sermon time to share some thoughts with you  with the hope that this will not become a lecture so much as an opportunity to deepen our understanding of our religious roots.  Many years ago Jack Spong, the well-known retired bishop of the Diocese of Newark, said that too many people think the Bible fell from heaven fully written in King James English.  If nothing else, I hope our exploration during the next few minutes will help remind us of the rich and complicated tangle of roots out of which our sacred history was born.

    The first fifteen chapters of the book of Exodus form a heavy piece of propaganda against the religious system in Egypt.  In Egypt Pharaoh reigned as a superhuman, divine being with supreme power over a society and political system believed to have been established at creation and to form the universal order.  Pharaoh reigned by divine right, and all was considered part of a divine plan.  Any bureaucracy that formed the state was formed at the will of the Pharaoh, and all people labored in his service.  Pharaoh’s knowledge and authority were absolute and not to be questioned.  The presumption that any other god, let alone an individual like Moses, could challenge Pharaoh’s authority was anathema.  Yet throughout the first part of Exodus Pharaoh has none of these attributes.  In fact, the only times Pharaoh shows any authority are those times when he does precisely what Moses tells him to do.    A great polemic to undercut that which was held most divine in Egyptian life and religion.

    Fleshing out the religious system of Egypt, there was an elaborate pantheon of gods and goddesses whose stories reflect the Egyptians attempts to engage every aspect of life and death.  Egyptian religion “ was not exclusive [but] recognized an unlimited number of gods.  It possessed neither a central dogma nor a holy book.  [and] It could flourish without postulating one basic truth.”   This leads to what appears to us as a confusing and often contradictory set of doctrines and beliefs which apparently were not disconcerting to the Egyptian mind at all.   One important exception to Egypt’s established religious tradition was a short-lived cult initiated by Amenhotep IV who championed monotheism and worshiped the sole god he called Aten.  Could this cult have planted important seeds for the development of the monotheistic religion that flourished among the Israelites?  Perhaps so.

    In Syria, the city-state of Ugarit (modern-day Ras Shamra) flourished in the second millenium.   In 1928, a peasant was plowing his field and bumped into a tomb which led to the discovery of the necropolis of Ugarit.  Further excavations uncovered a major city with a rare natural harbor on the Mediterranean.  Thousands of clay tablets were found written in cuneiform, and from these tablets we have received our first full account of Canaanite religion immediately preceding the Israelite settlement of the area.  In Canaan  El was worshiped as the creator of all, the father of humankind.  His home was on a mountain, and in Ugaritic art - take note - he is depicted as a bearded patriarch.  In the book of Genesis El was one name for the God of Israel.  In fact, scholars have longed believed that Genesis is a compilation of four documents, and one of those is called the Elohist document because in those passages God is always referred to as El.  In Canannite religion  El’s consort is Asherah, mother of the gods, and there are numerous references to her in the Hebrew scriptures because apparently statues of her or poles representing her presence were set up in Yahweh’s temple in Jerusalem.  One interesting aside is that the Bible is quite tolerant of El, but it is always thumbs down to Asherah! 

    Because of the story of Elijah and the contest of the gods on Mt. Carmel, probably the best known Canaanite god is the fertility god Baal.  In the contest Baal fails to demonstrate his power, while Yahweh, God of Israel, triumphs in a fiery demonstration of power and strength.  Baal’s influence, however, should not be discounted, for in the Ugaritic myths the description of Baal’s house is the primary analogue for the temple of Yahweh in Jerusalem.   His story also includes his struggle with the Sea when Baal falls into the hands of Death from which he must be rescued by his sister, the goddess Anat.  Note that this triumph is celebrated by eating a sacrificial meal and drinking offertory wine.

    In lower Mesopotamia, preceding the better-known Babylonian civilization, ancient Sumeria thrived as a civilization of city-states.  Each city was a theocracy ruled by a specific god.  The city was the god’s estate, the temple the god’s house.  The god An was the god of heaven, and his sacred house was at Uruk in the Tigris Euphrates valley.  His consort was Ki, goddess of earth, and their most famous offspring was Inanna, Queen of heaven.  Not far away in the city of Eridu resided Enki, god of water, a god who notably saved the people from a great flood.  Dumuzi, the shepherd and god of spring vegetation, was Inanna’s lover, and their courtship is recorded in startling erotic poetry.  Worship of Dumuzi maintained its appeal for centuries, and he apparently continued to be worshiped during the time of the prophet Ezekiel when he was called Tammuz.

    The two stories of Sumerian mythology probably most relevant for us are the account of “The Huluppa-Tree” and the story of Inanna’s descent into the underworld.  The story of the huluppa tree seeks to describe the creation of the earth.  What is intriguing here is that for both the Sumerian culture and the Bible it is a tree which is the first living thing on earth.  Furthermore, in both cultures this tree becomes a source of the knowledge of good and evil.  And finally, in both cultures it is a serpent that becomes a threat.  Unlike the Bible where Adam and Eve succumb to the temptation of the serpent, in the Sumerian myth Inanna’s brother, Gilgamesh, slays the serpent, and ultimately a throne for Inanna is fashioned from the wood of the huluppa tree.  The story of Inanna’s descent into the underworld parallels many similar stories in the ancient Near East and reflects the universal struggle human beings have with understanding death.  To make her descent, Inanna must give up her earthly powers, and in the underworld she succumbs to the anger and willfulness of  Ereshkigal who reigns there as the queen of death and who is enraged by Inanna’s intrusion.  Significantly, Inanna enters the realm of death and destruction, but through an elaborate series of events she ultimately is saved and reborn.

    I have provided you with just a smattering of thoughts and observations, but the ultimate question, I guess, is whether or not these ramblings of mine matter at all?  As I said earlier, I certainly don’t pretend to be an expert on any of these subjects.  But as these many gods and goddesses have floated through my mind, I have wondered about the people for whom they were important and have felt a strange kinship, for were they not just like you and I, longing to answer those universal questions that underlie the human journey of life? Where did we come from?   Who made the earth?  Who set the stars?  Who moves the sun?  Who rises the moon?  Is the earth good or bad?  Is the universe predictable or unpredictable?  . . . Who are we?   What is our purpose?  Why are we here?  Are we good?  Why do we do bad things?  What is our real nature?  . . . Where are we going?  Is there existence beyond the grave?  Is death our final destiny?  Is wherever we go a place of peace or a place of anguish? . . . How are we going to get there?   Does God have any concern for me at all?   What is my life meant to be? Is there ultimately hope?  Is there anything I can do or must do to ensure a safe passage to the next world?   So I feel a kinship with these ancient people.

    I feel more of a kinship, however, with the ancient Israelites.  While the themes of the religions that permeated the ancient Near East wrestled with universal questions of creation, of the meaning of human life, of ultimate purpose and the nature of death, their answers emerged in the guise of polytheism and physical representations of deities that became themselves objects of worship and adoration.  In these images the deities were believed to actually live, and that presence was manipulated and ensured through ritual offering and proper care of the statue.   But to the Israelites it was revealed that there is but one God whose name is Yahweh and who is not to be manipulated but who ever present and ever faithful to God’s creation.  They were called out to be strictly faithful to God, to go where God called them to go and be what God called them to be.  When Moses brought the law from Mt. Sinai, it began with God’s command to have no other gods other than Yahweh and “never to make an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.”  And that is our heritage.  That is what we affirm.  That is the truth that was further revealed in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ who reiterated the commandment to first love God with all that we are and then to love each other.  And if ever there is any question of what to say or what to do, all the law and the lessons of the prophets must be understood and interpreted in the light of these two commandments.   All those ancient pantheons of gods are gone now, but the monotheism proclaimed by the Israelites stands firm today and is the foundation of the three great monotheistic faiths which have emerged from this tangled web we call the ancient Near East.  And so I would invite you to stand together and affirm together once again your faith in the one God, Yahweh, the God of Abraham and Sarah, of Isaac and Rebecca, of Jacob and Rachel, of Mary and Joseph . . . the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

    Let us do so by saying together a portion of the Brief Statement of Faith found in the back of the hymnal.  We will say together lines 1-6, 27-51, 77-80.