Mesopotamian universalism

A previous blog once pointed to the cult of Anshar. The Assyrians promulgated this as the "original" name for their totem Asshur - Anshar was universalist. Certainly once they started moving their capitol around, to Dar-Sharrukin and Nineveh (now Mosul), it made sense. But then the Assyrians lost.

Michael C A Macdonald, mostly known for Arabic linguistics alongside Ahmad al-Jallad, has been linking a series of papers by Paul-Alain Beaulieu. These papers track Late Babylonian typoi. They sketch out, between them, Mesopotamian royal attempts to coöpt Assyrian universalism.

In "Official and Vernacular Languages", Beaulieu points out that as Assyria grew, the peoples their imperium grew into tended Semitic. The Neo-Assyrian language, although a vital one, was weak in literature and unspoken outside the heartland. (Think of it as Portuguese, against the Latin of the Classical Babylonian from Hammurabi's time.) The strongest Semites were the Canaani offshoot along the Euphrates - called Aramaeans, sometimes theomorphised as "Amurru", sometimes called Chaldaean. The Babylonians themselves abandoned their ancestral tongue and switched to this Aramaic. This frustrated the Assyrian kings still speaking their daughter language. Later of course a Chaldaean clan took over Babylon's own palace.

Beaulieu in "Nabonidus the Mad King" sketches an attempt at a top-down revolution. Nabonidus proposed to make the moon the high god of Babylon. The Babylonians interpreted this as a neo-Ansharism, foreign to Babylonian ways, which of course it was. It further didn't help that the moon has always been interpreted with erratic behaviour and bloodletting, sometimes with disease, especially here lycanthropy. Beaulieu does try to salvage this king's contemporary image, that the chroniclers did not name him mad at the time. But for my part, I suspect the Book Of Daniel has it about right. If it barks and quacks like a madman . . .

Then there's "Yahwistic names". Fifth-century Babylon, when it was Persian-run, was diverse, and sported a "Judaeopolis" near Nippur. I figure - sure, we all knew that already. Of interest here is that Babylon, it seems, finally took universalism to heart. People quit putting "Bel" and "Nabu" in their names here, and used "Anu" instead. (Could they actually see Uranus in the heavens...?) Beaulieu sees the hand of Ahura Mazda, in the form of the Achaemenid monarchy. I don't say general "Persian" here on account that, after Cambyses, Babylon tried to rebel under a Nabuchadrezzar or two. And "middle of the fifth century" points to Artaxerxes I Longhand and/or late Xerxes.

All this, Beaulieu notes, has implications for the proposed dates of ideological Hebrew texts. If the text disdains the gods of heaven, it reacts to Fertile Crescent ideology with an especial eye toward the east. If it touts YHWH as Gott im Himmel, we've got the long hand of Ahasuerus. ("Ahasuerus" is Xerxes but his traits blend to Artaxerxes I.)