![]() ![]() Yet in spite of this rhetoric, other texts show that Lamaštu was very well integrated into the Mesopotamian pantheon and beliefs. Lamaštu is described as an Amorite woman in ancient Babylonian texts (tablet of the Yale Babylonian Collection 9846, 1-4), when the Amorites posed problems for Babylonian kings, between the third and second centuries BCE. A reflection of historyĥBut where do these intermediary beings come from? Often, the demons come from the outside, as in the case of Lamaštu, and convey a historical concern. Thus, the intercession formulas used for Mesopotamian kings (Royal Archives of Mari 10 156: 4-33) or their wives became copies of the intercession formulas used in religions to address the “supernatural” world. The human origin of the king’s court that motivated the description of the divine world’s “angels” and “demons” is equally found in the Judeo-Christian and Mesopotamian worlds. It is highly likely that the figure of the devil was inspired by the messengers and accusers who worked in the Persian court for their king (sixth to fifth centuries BCE). We need to remember that even in the Judeo-Christian tradition, the devil originally belonged to the divine council (Job 1-2 Zacharia 3), before becoming an entity opposed to God. Generally speaking, this symposium has therefore shown the extent to which the boundaries between “demons” and “angels” are permeable. Are they genii or agents of evil? The Assyrian nomenclature is ambiguous and the “demon” ( udug=utukku) should be defined as a neutral entity rather than understood through our categories of “good” or “bad”. Several papers of the symposium addressed the question as to the nature of the intermediary beings that inhabit the Assyrian world. A reflection of the earthly king’s courtĤThe intermediary being is often highly ambiguous. ![]() In the ancient Mazdaism of the Avesta, the situation is again different, since there are multiple subordinate gods who are however not really intermediaries between a deity and humans. The hero, for instance, is clearly considered to be a demi-god in The Iliad, while his Hebrew counterpart seems more earthly. Such fluctuation is also found across cultures distinguished by the role intermediaries play in them. This conception of the intermediate ancestor would subsequently have disappeared, with the rise of the conception of a more neutral sheol, where the dead no longer played this intermediary part. Thus at the time of the monarchy in Israel (the Iron Age), deceased ancestors were likely invoked as spirits, which could be attested to by the presence of naked feminine figures in tombs, who were perhaps in some instances the sign of an appeal for healing sterility. Historically, certain figures acquire this status and then lose it. These figures are not always intermediaries to begin with, but subsequently become so without always remaining that way. Some are human, others are “supernatural”, and yet others replace gods. Human or divine?ģThe “in-between world” is populated with figures in Mesopotamian, Judeo-Christian, Greek and many other cultures. ![]() ![]() Such beings can also play roles that believers are loathe to attribute to their gods, or act as mediators with gods that are too occupied or distant to have a direct relationship with humans. But at the same time, there is also the idea that between gods and humans there exists a host of intermediary or hybrid beings, which shows that the boundaries between them are not impermeable. Many myths and other texts reflect on what distinguishes humans from gods. In many religions and philosophical systems, the question of humans’ place and their relationship with gods or higher powers plays an important role. Römer to examine the question of the intermediaries that inhabit the spaces between gods and human beings. 2This symposium was an opportunity once again to bring together Biblicists, Assyriologists, Egyptologists, Hellenists, an Iranologist, and a Medievalist, who were invited by Prof. ![]()
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