The Search for Monotheism in the Ancient World essays

The Search for Monotheism in the Ancient World essays As we look back on Early Civilizations and highlight every contribution they have significantly passed on to us, there is one thing that vividly stands out and has had the most lasting impact: religion. In the beginning, the thought of an omniscient, all-powerful God that created life and controlled the universe was irregular and not believable to people. The reason for this pessimism was because the belief in one God could not explain why natural disasters regularly occurred. People did not understand how an omnipotent God could let catastrophic events and terrible occurrences exist, leading them to conclude that a number of gods controlled certain sectors of the globe. They also could not understand why the good suffered and bad prospered. Polytheism, the belief in more than one God, nourished what people wanted to believe and it was the primary form of religion for many years. But more importantly, polytheism provided explanations of the fundamentals for understanding relig ion during the fourth millennium B.C. In this paper, I will compare and contrast the Enuma Elish, Genesis, and Hymns to the Sun and Nile. Each documentation will differ in belief and context because of each cultures concept, locale and source of agriculture, but all found a similar bond in religion: the search for monotheism. In the beginning, the existence of religious documentations was clearly present. With the help of archeologists and anthropologists, we have evidence today that ancient Mesopotamia devised stories of supernatural creations to explain the forces of nature and fundamental elements of science. The ideas and beliefs that the Mesopotamians shared lead one to believe they lived in a simplistic, anarchist society. The religious epic of the New Years Festival that defined their cultural origins was Enuma Elish. The story gives the notion that early religion in the ancient near east concentrated much on subjective folk...