The best history documentaries. Traveling from the Middle ages to the industrial revolutions, to understand the past that shaped today's world.
A glimpse into the great ancient Western and Eastern civilizations, America's
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Showing posts with label Biblical History. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Biblical History. Show all posts
History Documentary: Sodom and Gomorrah - Full Documentary. Ancient History: The Real Sin City of Sodom and Gomorrah
"In the Book of Genesis, God punishes the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah with fire and brimstone as punishment for their sins. Is the story just a cautionary tale, or did these cities really exist? To find out, Josh Bernstein travels to the southeastern edge of the Dead Sea to examine the archaeological record. In Jordan, he studies the charred ruins of Bab-Edh-Dhra and Numeira - thought by many to be the real Sodom and Gomorrah; he harvests pure sulfur and turns it into brimstone (then tests the material to see how powerful it is); in Israel, he scales a cliff to measure one of the greatest earthquakes to ever hit the region; finally, standing atop Mt. Sodom, he stands beneath a pillar of rock salt named "Lot's Wife," after the spouse who dared to gaze back on the handiwork of God."
Sodom and Gomorrah being destroyed in the background of Lucas van Leyden's 1520 painting "Lot and his Daughters"
The god Marduk and his dragon Mušḫuššu, from a Babylonian cylinder seal.
The story of Eden echoes the Mesopotamian myth
of a king, as a primordial man, who is placed in a divine garden to guard the
tree of life. In the Hebrew Bible, Adam and Eve are depicted as walking around
the Garden of Eden naked due to their innocence. Eden and its rivers may
signify the real Jerusalem, the Temple of Solomon, or the Promised Land. It may
also represent the divine garden on Zion, and the mountain of God, which was
also Jerusalem. The imagery of the Garden, with its serpent and cherubs, has
been compared to the images of the Solomonic Temple with its copper serpent,
the nehushtan, and guardian cherubs.
Mesopotamian religion refers to the religious
beliefs and practices followed by the Sumerian and East Semitic Akkadian,
Assyrian, Babylonian and later migrant Arameans and Chaldeans, living in
Mesopotamia (a region encompassing modern Iraq, Kuwait, south east Turkey and
north east Syria) that dominated the region for a period of 4,200 years from the
fourth millennium BCE throughout Mesopotamia, to approximately the 10th century
CE in Assyria.
Mesopotamian polytheism was the only religion
in ancient Mesopotamia for thousands of years before entering a period of
gradual decline beginning between the 1st and 3rd centuries CE. This decline
happened in the face of the introduction of a distinctive native Eastern Rite
(Syriac Christianity such as the Assyrian Church of the East and Syriac
Orthodox Church), as well as Judaism, Manicheanism and Gnosticism, and
continued for approximately three to four centuries, until most of the original
religious traditions of the area died out, with the final traces existing among
some remote Assyrian communities until the 10th century CE.
As with most dead religions, many aspects of
the common practices and intricacies of the doctrine have been lost and
forgotten over time. Fortunately, much of the information and knowledge has
survived, and great work has been done by historians and scientists, with the
help of religious scholars and translators, to re-construct a working knowledge
of the religious history, customs, and the role these beliefs played in
everyday life in Sumer, Akkad, Assyria and Babylonia during this time.
Mesopotamian religion is thought to have been a major influence on subsequent
religions throughout the world, including Canaanite, Aramean, ancient Greek,
and Phoenician religions, and also monotheistic religions such as Judaism,
Christianity, Mandeanism and Islam.
It is known that the god Ashur, among others,
was still worshipped in Assyria as late as the 4th century CE. Mesopotamian
religion was polytheistic, worshipping over 2,100 different deities, many of
which were associated with a specific city or state within Mesopotamia such as
Sumer, Akkad, Assyria, Assur, Nineveh, Ur, Uruk, Mari and Babylon. Some of the
most significant of these deities were Anu, Ea, Enlil, Ishtar (Astarte), Ashur,
Shamash, Shulmanu, Tammuz, Adad/Hadad, Sin (Nanna), Kur, Dagan, Ninurta,
Nisroch, Nergal, Tiamat, Bel and Marduk.
