Page 5 - Biblical Backgrounds

commerce. The government often codified laws similar to what they do
today. Once, such a law code was carved in stone and was found by
archeologists. This stone is the famous Code of Hammurabi, seen in the
picture above. If you look closely at the two figures, there is ancient writing
recording the laws.

Now, let’s look at the religious practices and thoughts of Ancient
Mesopotamia.

Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia:
In the time of Abraham, the people of Mesopotamia, specifically in Ur, were
polytheistic. This means they worshipped many gods. We are told that Abraham’s own father had many
gods he worshipped. Joshua 24:2 confirms this: “And Joshua said to all the people, 'Thus says the Lord,
the God of Israel, ‘Long ago, your fathers lived beyond the Euphrates, Terah, the father of Abraham and
of Nahor; and they served other gods.” (ESV) According to John Walton, these gods were formed
through function. If it did not rain, you would try to identify the God that needed to be appeased. If the
appeasement worked, and it rained, you added that god to your list of gods. Many in ancient Sumer had
family and personal gods. If following a personal god paid off, you kept following that God. This practice
can help us understand why, when Abraham was told by God to leave and go to a place God would show
him, Abraham obeyed. In their culture, this may not have been unusual.

Religious life centered around the temple. In the time of Abraham, there were resting places for the
gods known as Ziggurats. This picture is an aerial view of the ziggurat at Ur.
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It is a common misconception that the
ziggurat was a temple. According to John
Walton, the
Ziggurat was a multi-tiered structure with a

building on top. This building was a house. It was the
resting place for the god of that ziggurat. The temple of
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that God would be nearby at the base. When god was deemed to “need a break,” the image of the god
would be carried to the house on top until it was time to bring it back down. This reconstruction of a

3 John Holmes. Biblical Backgrounds Course Notes.
4 John H. Walton, Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament: Introducing the Conceptual World of the
Hebrew Bible, second ed. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, a division of Baker Publishing Group,
2018), 79.

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