Exchanges: A Global History Reader Volume 1 Getz Hoffman Rodriguez First Edition

Exchanges: A Global History Reader Volume 1 Getz Hoffman Rodriguez First Edition

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Ancient Religions >> 9. Psalm 104 [ANCIENT HYMN; FINAL ARRANGEMENT IN SIXTH CENTURY B.C.E.] Psalm 104 1 Bless the LORD, O my soul. O LORD my God, you are very great. You are clothed with honor and majesty, 2 wrapped in light as with a garment. You stretch out the heavens like a tent, 3 you set the beams of your chambers on the waters, you make the clouds your chariot, you ride on the wings of the wind, 4 you make the winds your messengers, fire and flame your ministers. 5 You set the earth on its foundations, so that it shall never be shaken. 6 You cover it with the deep as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains. 7 At your rebuke they flee; at the sound of your thunder they take to flight. 8 They rose up to the mountains, ran down to the valleys to the place that you appointed for them. 9 You set a boundary that they may not pass, so that they might not again cover the earth. 10 You make springs gush forth in the valleys; they flow between the hills, 11 giving drink to every wild animal; the wild asses quench their thirst. 12 By the streams the birds of the air have their habitation; they sing among the branches. 13 From your lofty abode you water the mountains; the earth is satisfied with the fruit of your work. 14 You cause the grass to grow for the cattle, and plants for people to use, to bring forth food from the earth, 15 and wine to gladden the human heart, oil to make the face shine, and bread to strengthen the human heart. 16 The trees of the LORD are watered abundantly, the cedars of Lebanon that he planted. 17 In them the birds build their nests; the stork has its home in the fir trees. 18 The high mountains are for the wild goats; the rocks are a refuge for the coneys. 19 You have made the moon to mark the seasons; the sun knows its time for setting. 20 You make darkness, and it is night, when all the animals of the forest come creeping out. 21 The young lions roar for their prey, seeking their food from God. 22 When the sun rises, they withdraw and lie down in their dens. 23 People go out to their work and to their labor until the evening. 24 O LORD, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. 25 Yonder is the sea, great and wide, creeping things innumerable are there, Source: Psalm 104, The New Oxford Annotated Bible, (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 762 4. 98

Ancient Religions living things both small and great. 26 There go the ships, and Leviathan that you formed to sport in it. 27 These all look to you to give them their food in due season; 28 when you give to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are filled with good things. 29 When you hide your face, they are dismayed; when you take away their breath, they die and return to their dust. 30 When you send forth your spirit, they are created; and you renew the face of the ground. 31 May the glory of the LORD endure forever; may the LORD rejoice in his works 32 who looks on the earth and it trembles, who touches the mountains and they smoke. 33 I will sing to the LORD as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have being. 34 May my meditation be pleasing to him, for I rejoice in the LORD. 35 Let sinners be consumed from the earth, and let the wicked be on more. Bless the LORD, O my soul. Praise the LORD! >> Mastering the Material 1. Yehezkel Kaufmann argues that the essence of polytheism has nothing to do with the plurality of gods. What does Kaufmann identify as the critical feature that characterizes the polytheistic universe? What other characteristics does he see? 2. How does the evidence from Hesiod, the Popol Vuh, and ancient India illustrate the key points of Kaufmann s analysis? From these sources, how would you characterize the nature and functioning of the polytheistic universe? 3. Does Plato s characterization of ancient polytheistic religion in the Euthyphro coincide with Kaufmann s analysis? 4. Compare and contrast the attitudes toward the universe in the Hymn to the Aten and Psalm 104. Can the religion of Akhenaten be considered monotheistic? Why or why not? >> Making Connections 1. There are many ancient texts that concerned the gods and religion. How do these texts help illustrate Kaufmann s main points concerning polytheism and the polytheistic universe? 2. The gods and religion came up frequently in the ancient sources on the city-states and other forms of polity. Think about the material in this chapter. Why was religion so important to ancient peoples and rulers? What was the connection between religion and the political order? What was the connection between religion and society? 99

Ancient Religions >> Text Credits Credits are listed in order of appearance. Kaufmann, Yehezkel, The Religion of Israel, translated by Moshe Greenberg. Copyright 1960 University of Chicago Press. Used by permission of the University of Chicago Press. From The Works and Day: Theogony: The Shield of Herakles by Hesiod, translated by Richard Lattimore. Copyright University of Michigan, 1959 renewed 1987 by Alice Lattimore. Reprinted by permission of University of Michigan Press. Reprinted with the permission of Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group from Popol Vuh by Dennis Tedlock. Copyright 1985, 1996 by Dennis Tedlock. From The Laws of Manu translated with permission of Penguin Group (UK). From The Ramayana by R. K. Narayan, copyright 1972 by R. K. Narayan. Used by permission of Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. From The Laws of Manu translated with permission of Penguin Group (UK). Reprinted with the permission of Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group from Popol Vuh by Dennis Tedlock. Copyright 1985, 1996 by Dennis Tedlock. From Ancient Egyptian Literature: Volume I, The Old and Middle Kingdoms, edited by Miriam Lichtheim. Reprinted by permission of University of California Press and the Estate of Miriam Lichtheim. Psalm 104 from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1989 by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permission. All rights reserved. 100

The Axial Age From Chapter 7 of Exchanges: A Global History Reader, Volume 1, to 1500, First Edition. Trevor R. Getz, Richard J. Hoffman, Jarbel Rodriguez. Copyright 2009 by Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

The Axial Age New Reflections on Society, Religion, and Knowledge One of the principal features of the past that historians study is the way societies change over time. When changes are rapid and radical, we call them revolutions. While we usually think of modern political revolutions, revolutionary changes occurred in the premodern world as well. The Neolithic agricultural revolution was a radical change that affected a large part of the globe. Another significant revolution in antiquity was the sudden spurt of intellectual creativity and development across a region that stretched from Greece in the west to China in the east. Rivaling the later Enlightenment and the Age of Reason in its significance, these changes were collectively labeled the Axial Period, or Axial Age by philosopher Karl Jaspers. In this chapter we explore the Axial Age in Eurasia alongside analogous intellectual developments in the New World. Through the sources, we see how individuals in each of several societies in this period provided intellectual alternatives to the existing systems of thought. Jaspers observed that between about 600 and 200 B.C.E. parallel but totally independent cultural and intellectual transformations swept Eurasia. Thinkers arose in four, possibly five, societies who not only openly challenged the old ways of thought and action but also provided new visions to replace those old ways. In Greece, China, India, Israel, and arguably Persia, these critics and visionaries promoted new points of view that helped to redefine their own cultures and civilizations for all time. Central to their critique was a challenge to the polytheistic way of structuring and explaining the universe. The old orthodoxies, the old order whether embodied in priests and ritual, or in religiously sanctioned steel-fisted political and social hierarchies were both questioned and reimagined. Despite political tensions and antagonism, these new visions contributed to the intellectual foundation for the new politics that were coming into being. Around 585 B.C.E. in the polis of Miletus on the Ionian coast, the philosopher Thales predicted an eclipse of the sun. In so doing he began what historians call the Ionian Intellectual Revolution, a revolution that marks one of the most important cultural shifts in Western history. While Thales and other Ionian thinkers did not attack the gods or religion itself, they did question and challenge the polytheistic notion of the universe. Natural phenomena, like eclipses, lightning, or plagues, were not caused by Zeus or Apollo, they suggested, but occurred according to natural laws. They argued that the universe was orderly and rational, and that it could be understood and explained by reason and observation. By setting aside supernatural explanations and unquestioned traditional authority, a new method of thinking and discourse evolved over the course of the sixth century and beyond. Since no one now had a monopoly on 102