Idle musings by a once again bookseller, always bibliophile, current copyeditor and proofreader. Complete with ramblings about biblical studies, the ancient Near East, bicycling, gardening, or anything else I am reading (or experiencing). All more or less live from Red Wing, MN
Wednesday, January 10, 2024
What about diseases?
Mesopotamians seem to have been of two (or three?) minds about the nature of diseases; the case of bennu [epilepsy] itself is illustrative of this, since in some cases it is referred to as a demon (itself a type of minor, perhaps supernatural, entity sometimes but not always labeled with a DINGIR determinative), sometimes it is marked as a DINGIR, and sometimes it is not marked or treated as a deity in any way, but discussed as what we might now call an inanimate phenomenon of nature. Although it seems not to have been always understood as a DINGIR, the evidence suggests that it was thought of as a DINGIR at least some of the time, or by some people.—Barbara N. Porter in What Is a God?, 159 n. 18
No comments:
Post a Comment