Concepts of the Other in near Eastern Religions.

• Author: Smith, Mark Stratton

Edited by ILAI ALON, ITHAMAR GRUENWALD, and ITAMAR SINGER. Israel Oriental Studies, vol. 14. Leiden: E. J. BRILL, 1994. Pp. 386. HF1 150, $85.75.

This volume brings the contemporary concern for the category of "the other/Other" to bear on various ancient Near East cultures, Judaism and Christianity, and Islam and India. I. Gruenwald ("The Other Self: Introductory Notes," pp. 7-16) considers in general terms the relationships between "the other" and "the self." The "self" culture may demonize another culture, identify its various characteristics with facets of another, and/or syncretize aspects of the two. Gruenwald reflects on how modern analyses on ancient religion and society are based on contemporary biases about "other" cultures. I. Singer ("The Ancient East," pp. 19-22) introduces the four essays on the ancient Near East. Egypt, Hatti, and Mesopotamia show a relative tolerance of non-indigenous deities, compared with the later religions of Israel and Judaism, Christianity and Islam. According to J. Bottero ("Les Etrangers et leur dieux, vus de Mesopotamie," pp. 23-38), the distinction made about others lies in the domain of culture. Over the course of history, many foreign groups penetrated into the Mesopotamian heartland and adopted its cultural mores. The importation of foreign deities seems less problematical, as they may be equated with indigenous deities. C. Zivie-Coche ("Dieux autres, dieux des autres: Identite culturelle et alterite dans l'Egypte ancienne," pp. 39-80) studies how foreign deities were absorbed into the Egyptian royal cult. These deities were distinguished little more than by their names (and in some cases their geographical epithets). I. Singer ("'The Thousand Gods of Hatti': The Limits of an Expanding Pantheon," pp. 81-102) shows how the Hittites did not claim to have a culture superior to those of Mesopotamia or Egypt. Instead, they honored foreign deities by seeking to appease them and according them a place within the Hittite pantheon. The inclusion of foreign deities in Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Hatti is traced to their rulers' policies during the Late Bronze Age: growing empires required strategies for dealing with foreign peoples as well as their deities. Ancient polytheistic societies of these regions often equated various foreign deifies with their own, producing a harmonic, unified worldview reflecting the ideologies of the great Near Eastern empires of the Late Bronze Age. The essays here do not ask...