The religions of ancient Egypt and Babylonia

The lectures offer a comparative survey of ancient Egyptian and Babylonian conceptions of the divine, combining archaeological evidence and translated texts to reconstruct beliefs and practices. The Egyptian section traces ideas about the soul, the afterlife, sun worship, animal cults, Osirian ritual, priestly literature, and popular devotion and their theological development. The Babylonian section examines animistic origins, the pantheon, solar and goddess cults, Sumerian and Semitic influences on notions of deity, cosmologies, myths and epics, temple ritual, and astronomical theology. Throughout the work the author notes the fragmentary nature of the sources and emphasizes both continuities and divergences in ancient Near Eastern religiosity.