Shalom everyone! After considering the authorship of the Tanakh the day before, we accepted the Tanakh as an established fact and tried to understand the milieu in which it was written/revealed. One of the easiest ways to start to understand where civilizations developed in the middle east is to look at a satellite image of the region.
You can see clearly the huge swath of green that is the Nile Delta and the slightly less obvious green between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in what is today Iraq, but historically is known as Mesopotamia. I explained, based on Jared Diamond's book "Guns, Germs and Steel", that while the geographic conditions are necessary, they're not sufficient; you also need some good luck. The middle east, as opposed to America, for example, has many crops (wheat, chick peas) and animals (sheep, goats) that can be domesticated and can be used to create more calories per person (ever wonder why no one herds deer, which has perfectly good meat?). The creation of more calories allows for population growth and for some people to do something other than create food, which is the beginning of what we commonly call "civilization" (also a somewhat nebulous concept).
In communities based on river agriculture (such as the ones in Mesopotamia and Egypt), one of the most important and earliest public works is the irrigation system. These systems need constant care, and this leads to the development of some sort of government and/or hierarchy, which is made possible by the increased agricultural production. You can easily imagine how an irrigation system leads to increased production and population growth, which leads to a larger administrative system, which improves or enlarges the irrigation system, which leads to increased production, etc. As more and more people are living in close proximity to each other a social order begins to develop (if you're interested in the development of social order I highly recommend Dr. Yuval Harari's bookhttp://www.amazon.com/Sapiens-A-Brief-History-Humankind/dp/0062316095), which, in ancient times, was likely mostly based on their polytheistic religion.
Having learned a little bit about ancient middle eastern culture, the students were then able to start to look at it in comparison to our own Jewish culture. To do this, they read part of the Epic of Gilgamesh, a Mesopotamian religious text and compared its version of the flood story with our own flood story in Breisheet (Genesis). A really fascinating discussion ensued, but rather than share it here, I'll leave it to the students. What did you find interesting about the two stories? Are they similar? Different? How do the gods/God behave? Do you think the stories reflect the societies that believed/wrote them? If so, what do you think it says about those societies?
You can see clearly the huge swath of green that is the Nile Delta and the slightly less obvious green between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in what is today Iraq, but historically is known as Mesopotamia. I explained, based on Jared Diamond's book "Guns, Germs and Steel", that while the geographic conditions are necessary, they're not sufficient; you also need some good luck. The middle east, as opposed to America, for example, has many crops (wheat, chick peas) and animals (sheep, goats) that can be domesticated and can be used to create more calories per person (ever wonder why no one herds deer, which has perfectly good meat?). The creation of more calories allows for population growth and for some people to do something other than create food, which is the beginning of what we commonly call "civilization" (also a somewhat nebulous concept).
In communities based on river agriculture (such as the ones in Mesopotamia and Egypt), one of the most important and earliest public works is the irrigation system. These systems need constant care, and this leads to the development of some sort of government and/or hierarchy, which is made possible by the increased agricultural production. You can easily imagine how an irrigation system leads to increased production and population growth, which leads to a larger administrative system, which improves or enlarges the irrigation system, which leads to increased production, etc. As more and more people are living in close proximity to each other a social order begins to develop (if you're interested in the development of social order I highly recommend Dr. Yuval Harari's bookhttp://www.amazon.com/Sapiens-A-Brief-History-Humankind/dp/0062316095), which, in ancient times, was likely mostly based on their polytheistic religion.
Having learned a little bit about ancient middle eastern culture, the students were then able to start to look at it in comparison to our own Jewish culture. To do this, they read part of the Epic of Gilgamesh, a Mesopotamian religious text and compared its version of the flood story with our own flood story in Breisheet (Genesis). A really fascinating discussion ensued, but rather than share it here, I'll leave it to the students. What did you find interesting about the two stories? Are they similar? Different? How do the gods/God behave? Do you think the stories reflect the societies that believed/wrote them? If so, what do you think it says about those societies?
I have to say that I strongly agree with your idea of how irrigation systems lead to the formation of early government. Irrigation systems were needed for everyone who began to live a less nomadic lifestyle and began to settle in specific areas with four major factors; Water (often a river), Source of food (Agriculture, helped by irrigation from rivers), a defensive position ( Sometimes on a hill top), and way of trade ( Intersections of some types of common road).
ReplyDeleteI also like how you gave us questions to answer, which I am happy to do. I found that the two stories tie together very well, they both have similar characters and they both have almost identical events. In Gilgamesh, the character is not specifically saved, but since he was smart enough to survive the flood,he was rewarded by the gods by becoming a god. As we discussed in class, it really has no moral, it is just a story. On the other hand, in the story of Noah God specifically chooses Noah and his family because he is a righteous man. He is specifically told to save animals. This shows that it is possible that a long rain could have actually happened in ancient times, but there is still not enough evidence to say for sure.