Great Books on ANE
Not exactly a latest resource, but a must-read book, which I only got hold of last year, i.e. almost 8 years after it was published!!!
The full reference is:
Frymer-Kensky, Tikva (1992). In the Wake of the Goddesses: Women, Culture and the Biblical Transformations of Pagan Myth. New York, Fawcet Columbine.
The book was reviewed by Thorkild Jacobsen, Professor of Assyriology emeritus, who said of it "remarkable for the vigor and conviction with which the argument is presented, for its wide range, and for its conscientious documentation of statements made".
I would add that it is very hard to find Assyriology, Feminism and pre-Biblical scholarship with such integrity and depth. Part 1 - The World of the Goddesses covers in special the Divine Feminine in Mesopotamia and explains why Goddesses little by little were marginalized to provide space for the more male-oriented pantheons of later times, which lead to the Biblical transformations and ostracism of the Divine Feminine in the Bible.
I must confess that I have read with extreme care and several times the first part, which is already a classic and compulsory reading for all those who want to understand ANE better. As Professor Frymer-Kensky proceeds towards Israel and the Master of the universe and the Unfinished Biblical Agenda especially in terms of Gender and Sex, the book lost a bit of interest to me, because I am much more pre-Biblical in my attunement to ANE.
I highly recommend this book. Remember that many times scholarly works on ANE are cheap and very easy to read. This one costs about US$ 14,00, and for at least the eighty initial pages you will have one of the best overviews of Mesopotamian social and religious history even made.
Or order it from your local library and ... enjoy!
From the Depths and To the Heights to share in all spheres
Newly released book on the poems of Enheduanna, the High Priestess of Ur and Royal Princess daughter of Sargon, the Akkadian, the military genius who unified South and Central Sumer to form the first major empire in Mesopotamia.
Author is Junguian analyst Betty de Shong Meador and the work is entitled Inanna, Lady of Largest Heart : Poems of the Sumerian High Priestess Enheduanna by Betty De Shong Meador, Judy Grahn, 2001.
From the Depths and To the Heights to share in all spheres
Re: Great Books on ANE
From The Scholar´s Source, the catalogue of Eisenbrauns, the US publishers who are specialized in the latest releases in Ancient Near East and Biblical Scholarship (online address www.eisenbrauns.com ):
Adapa and the South Wind: language has the power of Life and Death, by Shlomo Izre'el, published by Eisenbrauns, 2001. Price: US$ 34,50 plus postal charges.
Haven´t ordered it as yet, but will veeeeeeeeeery soon. Adapa is one of my favorite myths involving the Masculine that reaches out for the Divine, for Adapa, the SuperSage is the pre-Solomon, the ideal Priest-King and community-maker.
From the Depths and To the Heights to share in all spheres
Re: Great Books on ANE
Kuhrt, Amélie (1995) The Ancient Near East. London and New York, Routledge. Series Routledge History of the Ancient World in two volumes. Reprinted in 1998.
Routledge is a high profile publisher on the Near East, and the two volumes by Kuhrt are a credit both for publisher and author. Basically, the two volumes are an essential text both for those interested in the history of the region, because it examines the extant records from the earliest written documents to the conquest of Alexander the Great, i.e. covering from 3,000 BCE to 330 BCE. Besides, the author provides a lucid, up-to-date narrative which takes into account the latest archaeological findings and textual discoveries, and deals with the complex problems of interpretation and methodology.
From the Depths and To the Heights to share in all spheres
Since you´ve probably read the book Chaldean Magic, I wondered if you could enlighten me about its contents. I´ve only found a few rewiews, and they just scratched the surface.. Is it a book worth buying?
Re: Chaldean Magic
Hello hello and veeeery too, for I could not find my Chaldean Magick book...
Anyway, I did get the classic Chaldean Magic book and Ancient Whispers from Chaldea on Babylonian Astrology. There is one problem though... I am not much into astrology myself. I work magickally with myths, with lots of Cabalistic symbolism and alchemy. So I got these books but never really bothered to dive deeply into them...
hm.. shock horror I have even an astrology program. In my defense, can only say that the astrology program was given to me by one of the greatest Mages I had the pleasure to work closely with. She just uses it for ease in calculations, not for interpretations for sure...
Will try and find for you the exceptional URL of a Golden Dawn site that had some brilliant material on Chaldean Magic.
Sorry not to be Babylonian in this most Babylonian Craft...
And... great to see you posting!!! Apologies for the dealy though. Won´t take this long next time!
Now, can you tell us about Chaldean Magick???? picture me looking at the screen with eyes full of happy auguries...
From the Depths and To the Heights to share in all spheres
Re: Chaldean Magic
Morpheus, here below is the link to the Chaldean Oracles, a file of the excellent site of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn of Florida, if I am not mistaken. Close to you, Daryl?
Umm... Well... Okay, you´re forgiven
Thanks for posting the link, the article is great!
I guess I´ll buy the book, even though my wallet doesn´t like the idea
Re: Chaldean Magic
Morpheus, I am also on a tight budget... sighs Used to think that being so broke when I started in Magick was... sort of vow of poverty of a modern initiate *chuckles.
I am going to Helsinki. Yeah, I am veeeeeeeeeeery happy... today. Tomorrow will start saving... again!!!
Go to your local and/or university library. Sometimes it is cheaper this way. Let´s face it, a second-hand Chaldean Magick book is not such a bad idea... since Chaldean Magick hasn´t changed much in the last couple of hundred years!
Now, I am being serious
From the Depths and To the Heights to share in all spheres
I just saw the review of the book you mentioned: Inanna, Lady of Largest Heart at the new site you mentioned www.inannapaganqueen.com. This looks like it could be an awesome book!! Definitely something I will try to pick up in a paycheck or two from now Can't go buying everything I discover or I'd be broke too!
Both Betty deShong Meador and Judy Grahn are authors of some repute.
Of course, when I've got at least a dozen other Sumerian / Mesopotamian related books here from the library that I haven't read yet, why am I clamoring to get another one now?? Because I'm a book buying nut!
My Inanna by Meador is coming, i.e. ordered it from Amazon, but it may be a month as yet for it to reach me... snif
Inanna, Pagan Queen, the site is awesome as well. And I am crossing all the crossable this book is as inspiring as Enheduanna herself.
hm... there is another excellent addition on Priestesses which is a must in any personal library. The Women of the Golden Dawn, by Mary K. Greer Caitlín Matthews raved about this book, so I simply had to get it. Outstanding.
I was so very broke when I started in Magick and ... preferred sometimes to get books instead of food... and live them through experience.
There was no Internet in those times.
Now, why do you think Gateways also exist? I didn´t want people to have the difficulties I had when I started in the Path.
cyberhugs from
Lishtar
From the Depths and To the Heights to share in all spheres
Re: Great Books on ANE
This announcement I got from the ANE list of the University of Chicago. Professor Foster of Yale has two more excellent additions to one´s ANE library: Before the Muses, in two volumes, one of the best anthologies of Mesopotamian Literature ever written, and its smaller version, From Distant Days... Now you also know why I used the expression "before the muses and angels" in Gateways intro
Fresh from the ANE list to you!
THE EPIC OF GILGAMESH, A New Translation, Analogues, Criticism, Translated and Edited by Benjamin R. Foster, Yale University. The Sumerian Gilgamesh Poems, Translated by Douglas Frayne, University of Toronto, The Hittite
Gilgamesh, Translated by Gary Beckman, University of Michigan. W W Norton & Company, New York, London, A Norton Critical Edition, 2001. ISBN
0-393-97516-9 (pbk).
The Epic of Gilgamesh is the world's oldest epic masterpiece. More than a thousand years before Homer or the Bible, Mesopotamian poets sang of the hero-king Gilgamesh, who sought to crown his superhuman exploits by finding eternal life. This Norton Critical Edition presents translations by Benjamin R. Foster, Douglas Frayne, and Gary Beckman of the entire Gilgamesh narrative tradition, with some texts now in English for the first time. In addition to the eleven tablets of the great Akkadian epic,
written about 1700 B.C.E., the book includes seven Sumerian poems, written before 2000 B.C.E., as well as the later Hittite version and other related sources, among them a Babylonian parody of the epic.
"Criticism" provides interpretive essays by William Moran, Thorkild Jacobsen, and Rivkah Harris and concludes with a modern poetic response to the Gilgamesh epic by Hillary Major.
A glossary of Proper Names and a Selected Bibliography are also included.
********************************
* *
* Benjamin R. Foster *
* Yale University *
* Department of Near Eastern *
* Languages & Civilizations *
* P.O. Box 208236 *
* New Haven, CT 06520-8236 *
* *
* Phone: 203 432-2944 *
* Fax: 203 432-2946 *
* *
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From the Depths and To the Heights to share in all spheres
I just checked out the local college library for anything they had by Jean Bottero since in the Bright Minds, Formative Thoughts area you recommend his book, "Mesopotamia: Writing, Reasoning and the Gods". Well, it appears that he has updated his thoughts on this as there is a newer work with almost the same title that came out in 2000, "Ancestor of the West: Writing, Reasoning and Religion in Mesopotamia, Elam and Greece".
Has anyone seen this new work? Care to comment on it?
Re: Great Books on ANE
I guess I had this book in my hands and it was just one chapter by Bottéro, this is why I did not get it. Not sure though.
But Mesopotamia, writing and reasoning is well-worth having a deep look at.
(Have my copy by the computer now )
1. Assyriology - part 1 is great when Professor Bottéro defends the study of a "useless" science
2. Writing - quite scientifically correct *tease, from the avalanche of cuneiform decipherments to the progress of knowledge
3. Reasoning and Mentality - is the 3rd and most meaningful section, to my mind. There you will find the exceptional chapter on Divination and the Scientific Spirit. Have to read and study in depth Free love and its disadvantages... when I read it, was not impressed I guess you all know why by now...
4. Religion - two great chapters out of four. The first one is Intelligence as the Technical Function of Power, which I used a lot for my analysis of Enki/Ea. The second is Professor Bottéro´s interpretation of the Dialogue of Pessimism and Transcendence. I was moved to expand an article on this very difficult text as a tribute to Professor Bottéro. It is in Essays in Gateways.
The good news is that almost all standard ANE books are not expensive. This one is well-worth asking for an interlibrary loan from your local university library.
From the Depths and To the Heights to share in all spheres
Sunday I was over at the college library where my partner works and picked up the Frymer-Kensky's, "In the Wake of the Goddesses".
You're absolutely right!! I've only read the preface and the first introductory chapter and can already see what a gem it is! I tend to do this kind of reading right before bed NOT because it puts me to sleep, but because I find that whatever I am thinking about just before I turn out the light -- my mind continues to work on while I'm asleep. Things seem to go to a much deeper level when I do this. Of course, I can't take notes and such while I'm in bed reading (often some time after my sweetie has turned out her light), but the important points do stay with me!
I can't wait to continue reading it! And then I'll definitely have to get some of her other works via ILL (interlibrary loan) as the library only has this work.
On the other hand, I've had both the Meador and Perrera works for a while now, and find the Jungian analysis gets in the way of my enjoyment of the whole. Plus, Jungian thought can hardly be said to be the original intent of our Mesopotamian forbearers some 4000+ years ago!! I know it can help women today inasmuch as we are working to reclaim our power , but it can also cause one to err by trying to make the texts say what they never meant in the first place!
Blessed May Day to everyone... wherever you work, whatever you do!
Re: Great Books on ANE
While hardly a "new" ANE title... I wanted to share this I just received a book I bought from EBay early last month: Ancient Near Eastern Texts: Relating to the Old Testament, James B. Pritchard, ed., 3rd ed, 1969, Princeton Univ. Press.
It is huge! I was concerned about the subtitle which I didn't discover until AFTER I had bid on it, as I obviously wasn't in interested in Bible stuff.... However, I was quite wrong - This work has many of the major texts form which the Hebrews took/stole/borrowed their ideas in writing the OT. Even if the scholarship is a bit old, it has a massive amount of background information and translations of texts that I know I'd never be able to pull together in one place...
So, anyone else have this? Lish? Comments on how it has been helpful to you.
Re: Great Books on ANE
First, congratulations for the books you got because they are some of the BEST. Besides, not that expensive either! Professor Frymer-Kensky is outstanding and I simply can´t stop raving her work all the way through. Gods be blessed for her! Soul sister, could you tell us more about the other books she has written, when you get them? Pleeeeeeeease? I guess she has a book on prayer for mothers as well.
Second, Perera´s book "The Descent of the Goddess" is considered another classic, so a must-read work, but I sincerely find her better with Ereshkigal and Dumuzi than with Inanna HerSelf. It did not impress me much when I read it ages back, but I have it in my shelf for study, especially for the additions to Ereshkigal in Ladies (in Gateways). Don´t judge Jung and Inanna by Perera´s work. I guess Jung would luv Inanna loooooooots if he hadn´t died before most of the cycle of Inanna had been translated.
Thirdly, Pritchard´s two volumes are classics, thus another outstanding and wise purchase. I guess the Ninmesara poem by Enheduanna in Gateways was taken from there.
All these volumes are mainstream Assyriology. We can walk proudly with them all over the place and ... look exactly what we are: lovers of the Ancient Wisdom and Mesopotamia!
Many many congrats for your excellent taste in books!
From the Depths and To the Heights to share in all spheres
Re: Great Books on ANE
Latest from the Eisenbrauns´ catalogue:
1. The Standard Babylonian Etana Epic, by Jamie R. Novotny, in the State Archives of Assyria Cuneiform Texts, volume 2, Price US$ 25,00
2. Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia, by Jean Bottéro.
Bottéro draws on documentary and artistic evidence of hymns, prayers, incantations and rituals, as well as personal letters, to show how ancient Mesopotamian religion was practiced both in the public and private spheres, and how it developed over three millennia of its active evidence. In addition, he traces the many influences that Mesopotamian religion had on Western civilization, including the Hebrew Bible. Chicago, 2001, Due June. Price: US$ 30,00
I definetly intend to acquire this one!
best,
Lishtar
From the Depths and To the Heights to share in all spheres
Re: Great Books on ANE
An excellent basic historical reference for Mesopotamian and ANE is 'Cultural Atlas of Mesopotamia and Ancient Near East'
by Michael Roaf.
The book flows linearly with respect to time, and has color coded maps showing extents of cultures, empires and timelines from Jericho and Chatal Hyuk to Persian times.
It has come in handy many times when I get a particular period mixed up with another or forget when a particular event occurred.
Also wonderfully illustrated with full color pictures from archaelogical sites and museum pieces.
There is an incredible full 2-page full color overleaf of a reconstructed ziggurat at Ur, and enough coverage of my Goddess to recommend it strongly.
I've had it for ages, and don't know why I haven't mentioned it before. Probably assumed it was on everyones shelf...
Just to be sure, I looked at the book section again to make sure I wasn't suggesting a dupe. Nope.
Re: Great Books on ANE
Another Jacobsen work I've recently gotten (by the wonders of Inter-Library Loan... it's fantastic is
The Harps that Once
This has a lot more narrative analysis, footnoting and other relevant details than I've seen in other works as this is specific to Sumerian/Akkadian myths, hymns, lamentations, etc. I'm finding it extremely valuable... The only thing it's not doing for me is helping me to sleep at night since I can lay in bed and read until past midnight, but then have to drag myself out of bed in the morning
Ok... back to it here (I don't have spreadsheets to work on, however
too, for I could not find my Chaldean Magick book... 
I know it can help women today inasmuch as we are working to reclaim our power 
I was concerned about the subtitle which I didn't discover until AFTER I had bid on it, as I obviously wasn't in interested in Bible stuff.... However, I was quite wrong - This work has many of the major texts form which the Hebrews took/stole/borrowed their ideas in writing the OT. Even if the scholarship is a bit old, it has a massive amount of background information and translations of texts that I know I'd never be able to pull together in one place... 
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