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Jealous Gods and Chosen People: The Mythology of the Middle East
Here, David Leeming offers the first comprehensive narrative study of the mythology of the Middle East. Leeming offers an in-depth discussion of the mythology of the region, covering individual pantheons, cosmic myths, mythic heroes, and much more. He ranges from prehistoric figures such as the Mother Goddess of Çatal Hüyük to Mesopotamian gods such as Marduk and mythic heroes such as Gilgamesh, to the pantheon of Egyptian mythology, including the falcon-headed sky-sun god Horus and jackal-headed Anubis. The author also offers an illuminating exploration of the mythology of the three great monotheistic religions of the Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In a provocative Epilogue, Leeming notes that fundamentalists in the area's three religions all see their way as the only way, forgetting that myths represent truths that are spiritual and philosophical--not historical events that can be used to justify acts of violence. With key maps, illustrations, bibliography, and
index, Jealous Gods and Chosen People provides an inclusive, authoritative, and captivating account of a mythology that remains a potent--and often destructive--force in the world today.
index, Jealous Gods and Chosen People provides an inclusive, authoritative, and captivating account of a mythology that remains a potent--and often destructive--force in the world today.
160 pages, Paperback
First published January 15, 2004
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
January 17, 2012
Jealous Gods and Chosen People is an anthropological look at the religions spawned in the Middle East beginning thousands of years ago. Leeming traces the Bronze Age mythologies of the Mesopotamians, Egyptians, Hittites and Western Semites (whose descendents would spawn first Judaism and later Christianity and Islam), and ends with brief treatments of the mythological (as opposed to historical) aspects of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Throughout, Leeming highlights what these varied mythological traditions share, how they have interacted and borrowed from each other over the millennia. He provides a very compelling picture of modern monotheistic religions as inheriting and interpolating the ancient pagan religions of the Mesopotamians, et al. He demonstrates quite clearly how Judaism, Christianity and Islam share far more than they do not and laments the state of contention among these religions that has reigned in the area for centuries down to today. Moreover, he ties these land conflicts to the fact that modern people insist on reasserting ancient claims based on even older mythologies and tend to do so in violent ways that contrast sharply with the kernels of peace and mercy that ultimately live at the heart of all three major monotheistic religions. This is a thoughtful and thought-provoking work.
December 6, 2024
This jumped out from the library shelf as I was looking for a similar title. I always enjoy books that can tie together pieces that I've gathered from other sources, and this is such a helpful overview. Jealous Gods and Chosen People: The Mythology of the Middle East focuses on cultures that inhabited the region from the 4th millenium BCE to the 7th Century century CE, such as the Sumerians, Elamites, Akkadians, Amorites, Egyptians, Babylonians, Hurrians, Assyrians, Amorites, Babylonians, Hittites, Mesopotamians (there's a broad term for you), Canaanites (there's another), Palestinians, Phoenicians, Arameans, Israelites, Samarians, and Arabians. I'm mostly familiar with these groups through their intersection with biblical history, which is often cursory and biased. David Leeming jumps around in time and geography and talks about various cultural inventions and clashes, but the real focus is on what we know of their mythologies around creation, the origin of human life, the operation of the weather, the organization of the cosmos, fertility, flooding, and all the rest.
Leeming starts by discussing the use of "Middle East", as opposed to terms like Mesopotamia, the Levant, the Near East, the Fertile Crescent. Each comes with its own associations and slices of the map. Though demarcations of the Middle East vary, he found it to be the most inclusive term for the area in question, stretching from Egypt on the west to the border of Pakistan in the East, and far enough north to include Turkey. I've heard proposals to change the term to less Eurocentric phrases such as "Southwest Asia", "West Asia", or "The Arab World".
We begin on a journey through time, looking at how people groups arrived in various locations, from prehistory to the Bronze Age, Iron Age, and the era of the major monotheistic faiths. I really liked his definition of history's origin: "History can be said to begin when records are kept for later people to read." He then gives overviews of various regions and their mythologies: Mesopotamia, Egypt, Anatolia, the Western Semites, and Arabia and the Muslims. I knew least about Anatolia (the modern area of Turkey), so that was both fascinating (for being new) and less interesting (for having fewer connections to the biblical topics I'm typically interested in).
One source of constant fascination was the evolution of names across cultures. For example, the Egyptians referred to a group of mixed-race wanderers in the 15th century BCE (LONG before the Bible) as the "Habiru", which is related to the later "Hebrew", etymologically if not actually (which is possible but not certain). The land where Philistines lived was Philistia, which became Palestine. The regional father god was often "El" or "Il", who was variously conflated with or overthrown by Baal or Yahweh, and the related "al-ilah", or Allah. Various wife/consort goddesses shared similar names, from Ishtar (Assyrians) to Ashtart/Ashtoret (Phoenician), to Astarte (Greek), to Anat (Baal's consort), to Athirat (consort of El), to Asherah (consort of El/Yahweh). The Phoenician Adonis shared an etymological connection to Adonai ("my lord"). And there was a predecessor to Eve (or Hava): a Canaanite fertility goddess named Hava who had a serpent companion.
Another point of interest were the prefigurings of Biblical stories, characters and themes. The more I learn, the less original the Bible becomes. Many cultures developed writing long before the Hebrews (whose oldest records are from the 10th century BCE). The Sumerians originated writing as far back as the 4th millennium, so we have many records that vastly predate the Bible, which itself was composed over centuries. For example, 1000 years before the legendary Moses, Sargon of Akkad was placed in a basket and left in a river as a child. The Ishtar story involves a tree with Lilit (Lilith) and a serpent inside. Isis and Eurydice traveled to the underworld long before Jesus was said to descend into hell (which is not actually in the Bible, but included in the Apostle's Creed). In the Epic of Gilgamesh, Utnapishtim (and the earlier Ziusudra) survived a flood with details of boat and occupants clearly borrowed by the authors of Genesis. The Babylonian creation epic, the Enuma Elish, has many specifics found later in Genesis, from a void, to separation of light, to separation of waters, to six days of creation, to man created in the gods' image. The Egyptian creation narratives begin (in Heliopolis) with a void, and Atum-Re speaks world into being with a spoken word (or depending on the account, by masturbating to create air and moisture - you never know where a penis is going to pop up in Egyptian mythology, but it will surely be there). In Memphis, it is Ptah who is self-begotten, and creates the world out of his mouth by speaking. In various Egyptian myths, humans are created from clay, a god's tears or sweat, or from Shu's breath breathed into the nostrils of humans. Around the start of the Middle Kingdom, we learn that humans are god's "images who came from his body". There were many gods who died and rose again, from Osiris to Dumuzi, Adonis, Attis, Dionysos, to Telipinu.
There were lots of other fascinating asides and connections, but I won't burden you with all of my notes. I was confused at some apparent conflicts in details about the myths and figures mentioned, but I realize that these stories are by nature fluid and change across time and even within cultures. There were also occasional mistakes that I was suspicious about and looked up. For example, when talking about the book of Jeremiah referencing worship of "The Queen of Heaven" (Asherah), the citation pointed to Jeremiah 7:44, which doesn't exist. The real reference is Jeremiah 7:18 and 44:17-25. Another passage suggests Yahweh told Moses to strike a rock, which was probably said for brevity, but of course Moses got in a lot of trouble for striking the rock when Yahweh told him to speak to it instead [Edit: I take back my own correction here; thanks to commenter Shai for pointing out that there are two stories: the one I was thinking of in Numbers 20:7-11, and another that matches Leeming's description in Exodus 17:5-6]. Leeming also seemed bullish on the idea that there was some migration of Israelites from Egypt to Canaan that served as a template for the Exodus story, which is possible but not established. Little details here and there made me suspicious about the level of fact checking Oxford University Press did here, so I'd double-check anything before taking it with 100% certainty. Still, lots of great themes and useful knowledge.
Leeming starts by discussing the use of "Middle East", as opposed to terms like Mesopotamia, the Levant, the Near East, the Fertile Crescent. Each comes with its own associations and slices of the map. Though demarcations of the Middle East vary, he found it to be the most inclusive term for the area in question, stretching from Egypt on the west to the border of Pakistan in the East, and far enough north to include Turkey. I've heard proposals to change the term to less Eurocentric phrases such as "Southwest Asia", "West Asia", or "The Arab World".
We begin on a journey through time, looking at how people groups arrived in various locations, from prehistory to the Bronze Age, Iron Age, and the era of the major monotheistic faiths. I really liked his definition of history's origin: "History can be said to begin when records are kept for later people to read." He then gives overviews of various regions and their mythologies: Mesopotamia, Egypt, Anatolia, the Western Semites, and Arabia and the Muslims. I knew least about Anatolia (the modern area of Turkey), so that was both fascinating (for being new) and less interesting (for having fewer connections to the biblical topics I'm typically interested in).
One source of constant fascination was the evolution of names across cultures. For example, the Egyptians referred to a group of mixed-race wanderers in the 15th century BCE (LONG before the Bible) as the "Habiru", which is related to the later "Hebrew", etymologically if not actually (which is possible but not certain). The land where Philistines lived was Philistia, which became Palestine. The regional father god was often "El" or "Il", who was variously conflated with or overthrown by Baal or Yahweh, and the related "al-ilah", or Allah. Various wife/consort goddesses shared similar names, from Ishtar (Assyrians) to Ashtart/Ashtoret (Phoenician), to Astarte (Greek), to Anat (Baal's consort), to Athirat (consort of El), to Asherah (consort of El/Yahweh). The Phoenician Adonis shared an etymological connection to Adonai ("my lord"). And there was a predecessor to Eve (or Hava): a Canaanite fertility goddess named Hava who had a serpent companion.
Another point of interest were the prefigurings of Biblical stories, characters and themes. The more I learn, the less original the Bible becomes. Many cultures developed writing long before the Hebrews (whose oldest records are from the 10th century BCE). The Sumerians originated writing as far back as the 4th millennium, so we have many records that vastly predate the Bible, which itself was composed over centuries. For example, 1000 years before the legendary Moses, Sargon of Akkad was placed in a basket and left in a river as a child. The Ishtar story involves a tree with Lilit (Lilith) and a serpent inside. Isis and Eurydice traveled to the underworld long before Jesus was said to descend into hell (which is not actually in the Bible, but included in the Apostle's Creed). In the Epic of Gilgamesh, Utnapishtim (and the earlier Ziusudra) survived a flood with details of boat and occupants clearly borrowed by the authors of Genesis. The Babylonian creation epic, the Enuma Elish, has many specifics found later in Genesis, from a void, to separation of light, to separation of waters, to six days of creation, to man created in the gods' image. The Egyptian creation narratives begin (in Heliopolis) with a void, and Atum-Re speaks world into being with a spoken word (or depending on the account, by masturbating to create air and moisture - you never know where a penis is going to pop up in Egyptian mythology, but it will surely be there). In Memphis, it is Ptah who is self-begotten, and creates the world out of his mouth by speaking. In various Egyptian myths, humans are created from clay, a god's tears or sweat, or from Shu's breath breathed into the nostrils of humans. Around the start of the Middle Kingdom, we learn that humans are god's "images who came from his body". There were many gods who died and rose again, from Osiris to Dumuzi, Adonis, Attis, Dionysos, to Telipinu.
There were lots of other fascinating asides and connections, but I won't burden you with all of my notes. I was confused at some apparent conflicts in details about the myths and figures mentioned, but I realize that these stories are by nature fluid and change across time and even within cultures. There were also occasional mistakes that I was suspicious about and looked up. For example, when talking about the book of Jeremiah referencing worship of "The Queen of Heaven" (Asherah), the citation pointed to Jeremiah 7:44, which doesn't exist. The real reference is Jeremiah 7:18 and 44:17-25. Another passage suggests Yahweh told Moses to strike a rock, which was probably said for brevity, but of course Moses got in a lot of trouble for striking the rock when Yahweh told him to speak to it instead [Edit: I take back my own correction here; thanks to commenter Shai for pointing out that there are two stories: the one I was thinking of in Numbers 20:7-11, and another that matches Leeming's description in Exodus 17:5-6]. Leeming also seemed bullish on the idea that there was some migration of Israelites from Egypt to Canaan that served as a template for the Exodus story, which is possible but not established. Little details here and there made me suspicious about the level of fact checking Oxford University Press did here, so I'd double-check anything before taking it with 100% certainty. Still, lots of great themes and useful knowledge.
October 16, 2021
Interesting and informative, if a bit detached and (at least to me) missing something of the "soul" of the mythology in its scientific portrayal. Leeming begins with an exhaustive history of the region, then moves through the mythologies of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Anatolia, Canaan, and Arabia, finishing with a brief reflection on the current state of violence and unrest, and its connection to fundamentalist perspectives on myth. The information was generally solid, the bibliography was pretty extensive, and an impressive amount of content was packed into only around 130 pages.
February 18, 2017
A solid (if brief) overview of myths/gods/religions that originated in the Middle East. Unfortunately it reads a little bit like a Wikipedia article from time to time with a lot of straight facts and related myths/stories with comparatively little analysis and arguments. Still very much worth the read!
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January 3, 2015the mythology and accompanying pantheons of: mesopotamia, the semitic tribes which began the abrahamic faiths, the hittites and egyptians. (basically the whole mideast aside from the vedic influenced persians).
i found it a timely book. the early roots of islam, judaism and christianity are incestuous, familial - examining these religions from this distance actually provides a startlingly clear perspective. here the children of the first wife and the children of the second wife (or slave) live out, generation after generation, the melodrama of a family warring over inheritance.
the death and subjugation of the goddess/divine marriage faiths at the hands of the trickster god of the nomad tribe is examined. even the early moslems fought against the death of their goddess.
what a different world it could be had the metaphysical mysticism of ancient egypt dominated rather than the perplexingly inconsistent god of job. in ancient egypt the words for 'humans' and 'tears' are the same. a devotion to the tragedy of human life in such a brutal world.
re-examining assumptions and exploring lost metaphors.
i found it a timely book. the early roots of islam, judaism and christianity are incestuous, familial - examining these religions from this distance actually provides a startlingly clear perspective. here the children of the first wife and the children of the second wife (or slave) live out, generation after generation, the melodrama of a family warring over inheritance.
the death and subjugation of the goddess/divine marriage faiths at the hands of the trickster god of the nomad tribe is examined. even the early moslems fought against the death of their goddess.
what a different world it could be had the metaphysical mysticism of ancient egypt dominated rather than the perplexingly inconsistent god of job. in ancient egypt the words for 'humans' and 'tears' are the same. a devotion to the tragedy of human life in such a brutal world.
re-examining assumptions and exploring lost metaphors.
October 18, 2011
The history of the mythology of one of the oldest inhabited regions of civilization is certainly a large task, but this short book delivers just that. A comprehensive survey, it lists all major gods and myths of the middle east region reaching back some 5,000 years. There are far too many stories to cover in great detail. This book is complemented by an interest or knowledge of external sources as many of the fascinating myths are described very briefly. Additional to the maps and figures in this book, a timeline graphic would have been a great help in conceptionalizing the ebb and flow of different ideas and peoples in the region.
April 21, 2013
This book is mainly description of religions of the Middle East and their myths/gods/heroes. Here and there you can also find some the author's opinion on how these religions and their myths/gods/heroes (1) are perceived by members of non-Middle-East religions, and (2) influence today's political events in the Middle East. Easy read. Informative. Plenty of data. It will leave you wanting more "opinion".
October 5, 2007
Includes two very cool things - the Old Testament precurses from which the Bible steals heavily along with the Jewish history that didn't make it into the OT (Torah, Tanakh, whatever you call it), and an historical look at the violence inherent in Middle Eastern religions.
May 9, 2008
Overview of middle east myths/history
October 28, 2012
A short read on a very volatile part of the world.
The religions here had related beginnings but have she'd more blood than almost any others.
The religions here had related beginnings but have she'd more blood than almost any others.
September 7, 2018
This book is set up almost like a miniature encyclopedia. The order of the information in the chapters is a little unusual, but the information is fascinating. It is not exhaustive, but is a good starting point if you are looking into further study and already have a clue what a myth is. [return][return]If you don't handle a book hinting that your faith (if you are one of the 'book religions') stems from various ancient cultures' odd sounding belief systems, skip this. Otherwise, you'll be offended and your cries of outrage will irritate those around you.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews