Course Seven: Lore 311
de Danaan, etc. may once have been living people
who exerted a great impact during their lives on Earth,
and continued to do so long after their mortal demise.
In this Class, I have selected only a few of the
many pantheons in the world. Gods of India, the Orient,
the Americas, the Balkans, Pacific islands, and many
other countries had to be left out simply because of
space. To explore the myths and gods of other nations,
I recommend checking out the Encyclopedia Mythica
online at: http://www.pantheon.org/mythica.html.Successions
The longer a culture lasts, the more its pantheon
evolves and changes. In many areas of the world,
successions of new peoples moved in, invaded,
conquered, and intermarried with the previous
inhabitants. The old Neolithic agricultural civilizations
in India, Iran, Mesopotamia, Greece centered on a
worship of the Earth Mother Goddess with her sons
and daughters as minor deities. These peoples were
conquered some 3,500 years ago by the patriarchal
nomadic Indo-European warrior tribes, who mainly
worshipped male divine ancestors.
Each of these new waves brought their own gods,
requiring adjustments in the myths to account for them.
Most of the immediate pre-Christian religions were
syncretisms between Indo-European ancestor worship
and Neolithic goddess worship. Some, such as the
Neolithic Vanir and the Indo-European Aesir in Scandi-
navia, reached a peaceful accord, both pantheons being
merged. Others, such as in Greece, treated the new
gods as generational descendants of the old (the
Titans). Jewish, Christian, and Moslem myth regarded
the old gods of the peoples they supplanted as fallen
angels or demons.Lesson 2: Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia (“land between
the rivers”) is the fertile plain
of modern Iraq through
which the Tigris and
Euphrates rivers flow.
From about 3500 BCE,
this was the home of
the Sumerians, Baby-
lonians, Assyrians,
and Chaldeans (in
that order). The most
complete stories we
have are from the
Babylonian period
(612–538 BCE), but
these built upon the
older Sumerian my-
thology, as the Romans
did with the Greeks.In the Beginning...
Tiamet was the great dragon-serpent of the chaotic
primordial ocean. After a great battle, she was slain by
Marduk. He cut her body into two parts, thus creating
Heaven and Earth. He set the stars and planets in the
heavens, and established their motions. Then, on the
advice of his father Ea, he created humanity.
Ninhursag, the Earth Mother, planted the Garden of
Eden, and in it the two trees of Life and Knowledge.The Gods of Babylon
Adad (Sumerian Hadad)—God of thunder, lightning,
and rain. His wife was Shala.
Allatu (Sumerian Ereshkigal)—Goddess of the
Underworld. Her husband was Nergal, god of
pestilence and destruction.
Anu—God of the heavens, and father of all the gods.
Eldest of the gods, his was the North Star, and he
ruled Destiny.
Asshur—God of war.
Ea—God of the waters: sea, springs, and rivers. He
was also god of Air, Wisdom, and Life, and a potter
who formed both gods and humans.
Enlil—God of the Great Mountain (Earth) and ruler of
the Golden Age.
Girru—God of fire in all aspects.
Ishtar (Sumerian Inanna)—Queen of Heaven and
goddess of love and war, she was the daughter of
Anu. Her consort was Tammuz, god of vegetation.
Marduk—God of the Spring Sun, prudence, and
wisdom. He was the son of Ea, and his wife was
Zarpanit. He created the heavens and the Earth.
Nebo—Son of Marduk, he was the god of learning
and inventor of writing.
Ninib—God of fertility and healing. His wife was Gula,
the Great Physician and goddess of healing, who
could restore life.
Shamash—God of the Sun, champion of justice, and
giver of law. He was also a healer and life-giver.
Sin (Sumerian Nannan)—God of the Moon and son
of Enlil. His queen was Ningal.
Zu—God of the storm. He stole the Tablets of Destiny
from Enlil.Lesson 3: Egypt
Isolated along the fertile Nile River, bounded by
the sea at the north, the cataracts (falls) in the
south, and burning deserts to the east and west,
Egyptian culture was continuous for about 3,000
years before the Roman conquest.In the Beginning...
In Nu, the world-ocean, existed Neb-er-tcher
(“Lord to the uttermost limit”). Renaming himself
Khepri (“creator”), he established a place to stand.- Lore.p65 311 1/15/2004, 9:37 AM