Ancient Semitic Religion

The term ancient Semitic religion encompasses the polytheistic religions of the Semitic speaking peoples of the ancient Near East and Northeast Africa. Its origins are intertwined with Mesopotamian mythology. As Semitic itself is a rough, categorical term (when referring to cultures, not languages), the definitive bounds of the term "ancient Semitic religion" are only approximate.

These traditions, and their pantheons, fall into regional categories: Canaanite religions of the Levant, Assyro-Babylonian religion influenced by Sumerian tradition, and Pre-Islamic Arabian polytheism. There is also a possible transition of Semitic polytheism into Abrahamic monotheism, by way of the god El, a word for "god" in Hebrew and cognate to Islam's Allah.

Read more about Ancient Semitic Religion:  Proto-Semitic Pantheon, Babylonia and Assyria, Canaan, Abrahamic Religions

Famous quotes containing the words ancient and/or religion:

    I am ... willing to admit that some people might live there for years, or even a lifetime, so protected that they never sense the sweet stench of corruption that is all around them—the keen, thin scent of decay that pervades everything and accuses with a terrible accusation the superficial youthfulness, the abounding undergraduate noise, that fills those ancient buildings.
    Thomas Merton (1915–1968)

    There is not enough religion in the world even to destroy religion.
    Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)