The ANE Worldview

Although Mesopotamian theological thinking is manifest in diverse traditions that were probably, at least in their initial phases, independent of one another, it nevertheless betrays a systematic approach, as Lambert postulates. This approach is typified, among other factors, by a theological concept in which no distinction is made between cosmic and natural phenomena and man-made achievements: “The distinction we make between phenomena of nature, such as rivers, and human products, such as canals, was not part of their thinking.” [Lambert, “Ancient Mesopotamian Gods,” 119, 125, 127] In this kind of world-view a separation between a divine entity and its natural or man-made emanations is rather improbable. Consequently, the idea of the classification of deified stars, plants or constellations into a special category not included within the personified divine realm, as postulated by Bottéro, is hardly convincing. Moreover, looking at the systematic religious thinking of Mesopotamia as a holistic world-view, one may suggest that in cases of a deification of objects upon which the human imprint cannot be traced, the conceptual paradigm for such non-anthropomorphic divine agents was also centered in, and fitted to a human model.—Tallay Ornan in What Is a God?, 99