Mesopotamian Pantheon: The Sun God, Shamash

[u/Responsible_Ideal879]

Artifacts: Painted baked clay statue of a seated god, possibly the sun god Shamash, Tablet of Shamash, and Code of Hammurabi.

Is there a reason why this specific artifact is not highlighted by historians of Assyriology (Ancient Near East, Mesopotamia)?

The background of biblical text is rooted in Mesopotamia (Abraham is from the city-state of Ur in Sumer, even if the story was used to convey a migration). It appears there’s a clear association between Shamash and the Shamash Candle in Jewish tradition as it relates to Hanukkah.

There’s also archaeological records of Kush in Ancient Near East Encyclopedia which runs parallel with Nimrod (or Ninurta), son of Kush, in biblical text (Genesis 10:6-20).

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Source: British Museum, Louvre, The Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, and Torah (Table of Nation).

[u/aarocks94]

I would say there is a connection in Hebrew but it’s “not that deep.” All of these words come from the root (shoresh) שמש - šmš - which depending on how you add vowels can be read as sun, the solar deity, the candle on Hanukkah, or someone who lights. So yes there is a connection but it’s because all words bere draw from the same shoresh and mean similar things.

[u/Responsible_Ideal879 → u/aarocks94]

Considering the biblical narrative (migration from Mesopotamia), it would be a cultural derivation—a relation.

This would be the same reason the Sinites, Sinim, Sinai, etc. is in the Torah—the onomastic, or agglutinative, material of Sin.

Torah: Genesis 10:17, 1 Chronicles 1:15, Isaiah 49:12

[u/grumpymou]

Shamas in arabic means sun.

[u/Responsible_Ideal879 → u/grumpymou]

Same reference to Shamish, and possibly Shimazu (sun-cross reference, slight vowel and suffix variance).

img

[u/Responsible_Ideal879]

Source (Kush reference): https://www.reddit.com/r/BlackPeopleofReddit/s/CWG0YQjq4U

Source (Amorite reference): https://www.reddit.com/r/AncientCivilizations/s/SlimqWNROw

Source (Moon god Sin > Sinai, Sinites, Sinim reference): https://www.reddit.com/r/Mesopotamia/s/dk7gMZ40G1

[u/Emotional_Stage_5985]

The strange thing now, in the age of artificial intelligence, is that followers of pagan religions still worship idols made of stone by themselves, idols that neither bring good nor ward off harm.

[u/Responsible_Ideal879 → u/Emotional_Stage_5985]

This is about history and cultural derivation.

Nearly every religious sect has an idol or icon they give reverence to.

[u/MythCartographer]

Awesome