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الخطاب الديني في العراق القديم 300 - 539 ق.م == Religious discourse in the Ancient Iraq (3000 - 539 B.C).
Author name:
الهام هادي مطلك الشمري
Supervisor name:
سعدون عبد الهادي برغش الامير
General topic:
History
Specific topic:
Ancient History
Degree:
Master
University:
Wasit University - Faculty Of Education - Department Of History
Language:
Arabic
University location:
Wasit
First pages:
11T3397 - p.pdf
Abstract:
The study of religious discourse has attained a prominent role in understanding the thoughts of beliefs of ancient peoples. The effects and impacts of religion could be easily followed in every possible aspect or element of Mesopotamian civilization. In addition to religious myths and epics, prayers and hymns, there is a great deal of murals and wall tablets, full of religious messages, through which religious institutions worked to direct and control human activities for the common good, as it seemed, or to urge people into accepting or refusing a given idea or cause.This study aims to explore the role of religious discourse in Ancient Iraq and its effects on different aspects of life, whether political, economic, or social. Humans have an incessant need for someone to direct them religiously or spiritually, since this aspect is of psychological importance to their religious instinct and of crucial implications on other aspects of their lives. Hence the role of religious discourse in satisfying and enforcing certain beliefs in the Mesopotamian consciousness; constant provision of such ideas and concepts to maintain people’s psychological balance; furnishing justifications for the sacrifices and acts of worship they have to perform; in addition to the arduous and difficult tasks their kingdom or state undertakes, for which they become more accepting when they believe that they were the will of the gods, for which they created them on Earth in the first place.The nature of this study required us to adhere to the descriptive - analytical method throughout its course, as we are restricted to cuneiform texts, pictures and murals as our source material, and studying discourse according to modern methods is wholly dependent on analysis, in order to construe the goals and intentions of the authors.The study was divided into four chapters, with an introduction and conclusions. The first chapter was entitled “Introduction to Religious Discourse,” in which we investigated the concept of discourse, its importance, and the language it employed.The second chapter, which bore the title “Forms of Religious Discourse,” focused on studying the different forms that contained religious messages in Mesopotamia : written—as in myths, epics, prayers, hymns, homilies, and other extant forms of literature—and
