Search
Search the archive
Advanced search →Artifact 11 Entity 321 Page 3 Period 5 Person 144 Site 63 Study 100 Ancient text 19
-
Original photograph
Entity
Ninshubur
Inanna’s attendant in the Sumerian descent, following her instructions and seeking help during her absence.
K.162, Akkadian copy of Ishtar’s Descent from Ashurbanipal’s library at Nineveh, seventh century BCE, British Museum. Not a tablet of the Sumerian Inanna composition
Read the record → -
Original photograph
Entity
Ereshkigal
Ruler of the underworld in Mesopotamian traditions, exercising authority over death’s realm in the descent narratives.
K.162, Akkadian copy of Ishtar’s Descent from Ashurbanipal’s library at Nineveh, seventh century BCE, British Museum. Not a tablet of the Sumerian Inanna composition
Read the record → -
Original photograph
Study
Marduk’s Rise: Babylon and the Making of Divine Kingship
Enūma Eliš through battle, creation, recognition and fifty names: one god’s supremacy in a world that remains polytheistic.
Mušḫuššu dragon from Babylon’s Ishtar Gate decoration, Neo-Babylonian period; museum reconstruction using original bricks in Berlin. Associated with Marduk, not a confirmed depiction of Tiamat
Read the record → -
Original photograph
Entity
Tiamat
Primordial watery divine figure in Enūma Eliš, later Marduk’s opponent; her defeated body provides material for cosmic arrangement.
Mušḫuššu dragon from Babylon’s Ishtar Gate decoration, Neo-Babylonian period; museum reconstruction using original bricks in Berlin. Associated with Marduk, not a confirmed depiction of Tiamat
Read the record → -
Original photograph
Study
Mesha and Chemosh: How a King Narrates Sacred War
A reading of the Moabite inscription through divine anger, Yahweh’s vessels, violence and construction, separating evidence from royal rhetoric.
Mesha Stele, basalt from Dhiban, ninth century BCE, Louvre AO 5066. The displayed monument is reassembled with restored missing areas
Read the record → -
Original photograph
Entity
Chemosh
Prominent Moabite deity whose anger and favor explain defeat and recovery in Mesha’s royal inscription.
Mesha Stele, basalt from Dhiban, ninth century BCE, Louvre AO 5066. The displayed monument is reassembled with restored missing areas
Read the record → -
Original photograph
Study
Yahweh’s Temple at Elephantine: Worship beyond Jerusalem
What does the petition of 407 BCE reveal about Yaho’s temple, its priests and their links with Judah and Samaria?
Modern view of Elephantine Island and the Nile near Aswan; geographical context, not the remains of Yaho’s temple
Read the record → -
Original photograph
Artifact
Elephantine temple-rebuilding petition
Aramaic petition of 407 BCE from Jedaniah and fellow priests to Bagohi, requesting the rebuilding of Yaho’s destroyed temple.
Modern view of Elephantine Island and the Nile near Aswan; geographical context, not the remains of Yaho’s temple
Read the record → -
Original photograph
Site
Elephantine / Yeb
Island near Aswan at the Nile’s first cataract; Persian-period Aramaic papyri document a Jewish community and Yaho’s temple.
Modern view of Elephantine Island and the Nile near Aswan; geographical context, not the remains of Yaho’s temple
Read the record → -
Illustration
Study
Resemblance Does Not Establish Borrowing
From Moses and Sargon to flood narratives and the heavenly council: historical comparison, dates of traditions and copies, relationship and direction, common origins, mediation and independent development.
A working tool for this study, not an automatic test or universally weighted checklist
Read the record → -
Illustration
Entity
Oral transmission
Circulation through performance and hearing, potentially involving change.
Distinct claims: population contact alone does not prove reading or narrative transfer
Read the record → -
Illustration
Entity
Epic of Gilgamesh
Mesopotamian literary tradition whose standard Tablet XI contains Utnapishtim’s flood.
Compare specified witnesses; flood narratives do not share every detail
Read the record → -
Illustration
Entity
Literary motif
Recurring narrative element whose presence alone does not establish dependence.
Placement at the bank differs from release into the current; no scene is reconstructed
Read the record → -
Illustration
Person
Sargon of Akkad
Third-millennium BCE king associated with later birth and ascent traditions.
The protagonist does not date the story; the copy does not identify its first formulation
Read the record → -
Illustration
Entity
Dating texts
Distinguishing narrated time, composition and surviving copy.
The protagonist does not date the story; the copy does not identify its first formulation
Read the record → -
Illustration
Entity
Parallelomania
Exaggerating parallels into insufficiently supported dependence.
A working tool for this study, not an automatic test or universally weighted checklist
Read the record → -
Illustration
Researcher
Samuel Sandmel
Scholar whose influential “Parallelomania” appeared in 1962.
A working tool for this study, not an automatic test or universally weighted checklist
Read the record → -
Illustration
Entity
Independent development
Similar elements arising without historical transmission between them.
Alternatives can overlap; this diagram does not document a particular narrative’s route
Read the record → -
Illustration
Entity
Shared tradition
Inherited material reaching several texts without direct dependence between them.
Structural continuity proves neither a copied Ugaritic tablet nor a deity-to-angel identity
Read the record → -
Illustration
Entity
Literary dependence
A relationship explaining a text’s composition through another text.
Relationship, source, direction and route can have different levels of support
Read the record → -
Illustration
Entity
Literary borrowing
Use of material from an earlier text or tradition in a new work.
Alternatives can overlap; this diagram does not document a particular narrative’s route
Read the record → -
Illustration
Study
From the Embodied God of Ancient Texts to Philosophical Transcendence
From Genesis and Exodus to Philo, Maimonides, Augustine, Aquinas, Avicenna and kalām: changing rules for reading body and emotion, with distinct doctrines of incorporeality, immutability and simplicity and diverse schools.
Three distinct axes, not one historical transition or a doctrine shared by every school
Read the record → -
Illustration
Person
Al-Ghazālī
Eleventh- and twelfth-century Muslim thinker distinguishing treatments of attributes by audience.
Different interpretive patterns, not a fixed one-method-per-school table
Read the record → -
Illustration
Entity
Bi-lā kayf
Affirming attribute language without specifying modality or creaturely likeness.
Different interpretive patterns, not a fixed one-method-per-school table
Read the record → -
Illustration
Entity
Kalām
Islamic traditions of doctrinal reasoning with diverse approaches to attributes and transcendence.
Different interpretive patterns, not a fixed one-method-per-school table
Read the record → -
Illustration
Person
Thomas Aquinas
Thirteenth-century theologian linking incorporeality, simplicity and immutability through philosophical premises.
Positions in specific texts, not a consensus of early or later Christianity; no portraits depicted
Read the record → -
Illustration
Person
Augustine
Fourth- and fifth-century Christian author describing his changing grasp of nonspatial divine presence.
Positions in specific texts, not a consensus of early or later Christianity; no portraits depicted
Read the record → -
Illustration
Person
Origen
Second- and third-century Christian exegete; the surviving First Principles argues for an incorporeal God.
Positions in specific texts, not a consensus of early or later Christianity; no portraits depicted
Read the record → -
Illustration
Person
Tertullian
Latin Christian author of the late second and early third centuries with a distinctive body–spirit vocabulary.
Positions in specific texts, not a consensus of early or later Christianity; no portraits depicted
Read the record → -
Illustration
Entity
Christian incarnation
The Word becoming flesh; distinct from every divine body or sensible manifestation.
Positions in specific texts, not a consensus of early or later Christianity; no portraits depicted
Read the record → -
Illustration
Entity
Negative theology
Speaking of God through negating limitations while resisting comprehension of essence.
Different methods may coexist; they cannot all be reduced to one metaphor or delegation
Read the record → -
Illustration
Entity
Divine anthropomorphism
Human bodily or emotional descriptions of God; not alone proof of corporeal essence.
Analyzing a phrase differs from reconstructing divine corporeality; words provide different kinds of evidence
Read the record → -
Illustration
Entity
Divine simplicity
Metaphysical noncomposition, not simply belief in one God.
Three distinct axes, not one historical transition or a doctrine shared by every school
Read the record → -
Illustration
Entity
Divine incorporeality
Denial of a material divine body; distinct from image prohibition and simplicity.
Three distinct axes, not one historical transition or a doctrine shared by every school
Read the record → -
Original photograph
Study
When Israel’s God Encountered Greek Philosophy
From Greek Torah and Philo to Christian reception, Arabic philosophy and Maimonides: changing language of perfection, creation and logos, with distinct schools and graded transmission evidence.
Gold coin of Ptolemy II, Alexandria, ca. 261–246 BCE; the illustrated obverse bears Arsinoe II’s head. Context for Hellenistic Egypt, not a portrait of Philo or proof of a Torah translation commission. [24]
Read the record → -
Illustration
Person
Avicenna (Ibn Sina)
Philosopher in the Arabic Islamic tradition, distinguishing possible from necessary existence in itself.
Modern diagram of ontological dependence, not a temporal sequence or portrait. The argument does not make all Islamic schools agree
Read the record → -
Illustration
Entity
Neoplatonism
Modern label for later Platonic traditions associated with Plotinus, centuries after Philo.
Modern simplification of some Plotinian dependencies, not a spatial map or Christian Trinity. This third-century CE school postdates Philo
Read the record → -
Illustration
Person
Moses Maimonides
Medieval Jewish thinker; wrote the Guide in Judeo-Arabic and examined incorporeality and attributes.
Modern diagram of passages read in the Guide; neither a portrait of Maimonides nor a summary of the entire book
Read the record → -
Illustration
Entity
Divine immutability
Inquiry into divine change, distinguished from fidelity and impassibility.
Modern conceptual distinction; connecting the levels requires argument, and terminology alone does not deny love or providence
Read the record → -
Illustration
Entity
Allegorical exegesis
Reading narrative elements for further meanings; not inherently abolition of literal practice.
Modern diagram of Philo’s approach, not a rule for every Jewish reader. Migration of Abraham rejects neglecting laws because of symbolic interpretation. [11][12]
Read the record →