Mesopotamia Egypt Analysis

This chapter is an extension of the previous one how people perceived the present; specifically, looking at the context of life in relation to the city and the kingship. In both the Egyptian and Mesopotamian cultures believed that the cities existed before human beings. Walton points out the importance of this discussion in understanding the cities as the social context of life because, “the ancients themselves considered all of this, as is to be expected, as reflexes of the activity of the gods.” The king was viewed as a direct mediator between the city god and the people. He helped maintain control and kept chaos at bay on earth, just as the deity did in the cosmos. Walton points at various similarities between Israelite kingship versus Mesopotamian and Egyptian cultures. Both view their king as the mediator of their god’s will. Additionally, the kingship had the responsibility of justice throughout the kingdom. Some of the clear and critical differences, between the Israelites and their

What is the future after death? In the ancient near east when people considered the future, they saw it as unchanging, there was no better world to come. This thought process differed from the Israelites, who had expectations for a better future into a world that had not yet existed. There are only a few sources of literature from Mesopotamian culture that reference the afterlife. In contrast, the Egyptian culture reference several types of literature that address their view on life after death. Walton points out, “if the nature of the literature is any indication, people in the Levant and Mesopotamia did not profess near as much knowledge of the afterlife as did the Egyptians, and their hopes are much more vague.” Walton discusses four major corpora of literature: The Pyramid Texts, The Coffin Texts, The Book of the Dead, and The Books of the