If you’ve read any portion of the Old Testament, you might quickly get the impression that ancient Israelite beliefs were endemic to their culture. However, this can be a somewhat simplistic perception. While the potential complexities of ancient Israelite mythology and religion are still being studied and discussed, it’s interesting to note how ideas from Sumerian, Canaanite and other civilizations in the region may have impacted the chapters and verses we read in modern translations of the Bible today.
Mesopotamian Views of the Cosmos
The first chapter of Genesis contains a narrative of the Israelite god creating the universe, the earth and the life that would teem upon it. In verse 6 in the New International Version, he commands there to be “a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” While other translations use the word “firmament” or “canopy” instead of “vault,” the general concept is that of a barrier that separates the oceans on Earth from what the ancients believed were bodies of water beyond the heavens.
In a chapter of N.F. Gier’s 1987 book “God, Reason and the Evangelicals” archived on the University of Idaho’s website, Gier explains that the “vault of heaven” concept was common among ancient Middle Eastern cultures and not exclusive to the Israelites. For instance, their Egyptian neighbors thought that the sky was a roof supported by pillars and the Sumerians perceived it as a large metal dome covering the earth. As far north as Europe, the Celts held similar views, believing that their father god’s skull was the dome of heaven.
A Divine Assembly in the Heavens
In the first chapter of Genesis, the deity who speaks our physical universe into being is called “Elohim” in Hebrew. As a member of the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic language tree, Hebrew shares some similarities with other languages in the region such as Aramaic and Ugaritic. In fact, Hebrew is classified by linguists as being in the Canaanite family, along with Phoenician and dialects such as Edomite and Moabite. Thus, it’s no surprise that “elohim” is a plural form of “el,” which can translate to either the generic term “god” or refer to the Canaanite supreme deity El. Nevertheless, the authors of Genesis usually employed “Elohim” with a verb conjugated in singular form, signifying one entity as opposed to a group. In contrast, other portions of the Old Testament refer to the Israelite god as “Yahweh.” In the King James Version, these segments render his name as “the LORD,” with the capitalization to denote a difference from other words translated into English as “lord.”
The Book of Job, however, best reflects the older Mesopotamian idea of a “divine assembly.” In her 1988 Harvard University publication “An Adversary in Heaven,” Peggy L. Day explains that Job’s narrative depicts Yahweh presiding over a council of heavenly beings known as “bene Elohim,” or “the sons of God.” Day details that this assembly would gather to dispense justice and determine the fate of humans and heavenly beings alike. However, the “divine council” shown in Job may have earlier ideological origins. Sumerian writings refer to the Annunaki led by the sky god An, while the Babylonians envisioned Marduk as the head of their divine council and the Canaanites depicted El and Ba’al as leading their heavenly assemblies.
Cultural Influences From Israel’s Neighbors
As demonstrated by the heavenly dome and divine assembly concepts, some of the Bible’s ideas may not be completely Israelite in origin. Biblical scholars and archaeologists speculate that the Israelite tribes that wandered the ancient Middle East may come from previous indigenous Canaanite peoples. Given earlier legends among Bronze Age Sumerians and contact with other cultures, an amalgamation of beliefs should not be surprising to anyone.