The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man: An Essay of Speculative Thought in the Ancient Near East PDF
Preview The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man: An Essay of Speculative Thought in the Ancient Near East
oi.uchicago.edu THE INTELLECTUAL ADVENTURE OF ANCIENT MAN oi.uchicago.edu oi.uchicago.edu THE INTELLECTUAL ADVENTURE OF ANCIENT MAN AN ESSAY ON SPECULATIVE THOUGHT IN THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST H. and H. A. FRANKFORT • JOHN A.WILSON THORKILD JACOBSEN . WILLIAM A. IRWIN With Revised Bibliographies THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS CHICAGO & LONDON oi.uchicago.edu AN ORIENTAL INSTITUTE ESSAY THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS, CHICAGO 60637 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS, LTD., LONDON Copyright 1946 by The University of Chicago All rights reserved. Published 1946 First Phoenix Edition 1977 Printed in the United States of America 94 93 92 91 90 89 88 87 17 16 15 14 13 LCC Card Number: 47-1318 oi.uchicago.edu PREFACE T HIS volume contains lectures given as a public course in the Division of the Humanities of the University of Chicago. Except for minor changes, they are published in the form in which they were delivered, not in order to avoid transforming them into scientific treatises but because we believe that the direct exposi tory method involves something of a challenge. In effect, we are presenting Webster's definition of an essay—"a literary composi tion, analytical or interpretative in nature, dealing with its subject from a more or less limited or personal standpoint and permitting a considerable freedom of style and method." We believe that the essay form possesses potentialities, even in dealing with our frag mentary and intricate sources which impose attention to detail as a first duty on every worker in the field. Such essays may claim a new freedom of method; they may have to cut across a historical approach for the sake of a new perspective; they may have to ig nore the many-sidedness of a problem for the sake of a single as pect of it; sometimes their aim must be to evoke rather than to prove or argue. But, however varied their treatment may be, the essayists will have one characteristic in common. Bent on discov ering the meaning of cultural and historical phenomena, their ap proach will be humanistic, and they will express themselves in terms understood by the educated layman. Since these lectures address themselves primarily to a lay audi ence, the critical and documentary apparatus has been cut to a mini mum and placed at the ends of the chapters. Our professional col leagues, however, will have little difficulty in distinguishing where we propound accepted views and where we offer new interpreta tions. We intend to defend some of the latter with all necessary documentation in future publications. Unless otherwise indicated, the translations in the present volume are those of the individual author, except in the case of biblical quotations, a large number of which are taken from the American Standard Version (used v oi.uchicago.edu vi PREFACE with permission of the International Council of Religious Edu cation) . The four main contributions in these lectures have been inte grated through continued discussions and the exchange of prelimi nary manuscripts over a series of several months in advance of de livery. The result has been agreement on a unified point of view, which binds together divergent methods of presentation. Mrs. H. A. Groenewegen Frankfort, who was the first to suggest the subject of these lectures and who has contributed her special knowledge as a student of philosophy, serves with her husband as the author of the first and last chapters. She is also responsible for the poetical rendering of the translations from the Sumerian and Akkadian in chapters v-vii. ORIENTAL INSTITUTE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PUBLISHER'S NOTE In this Phoenix Edition the bibliography at the end of each part has been updated, for Parts 1 and 2 by authors Wilson and Jacob- sen respectively—Mr. Wilson completing his revision only a few days before his death last summer. For Part 3 Mr. Dennis Pardee of the Oriental Institute has kindly provided the current information. With this exception, the text remains as it was originally published, thus including the essay on the Hebrews omitted in the Penguin Edition, which was issued under the title Before Philosophy and which is now out of print. 1977 oi.uchicago.edu TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION By H. and H. A. FRANKFORT I. MYTH AND REALITY 3 EGYPT By JOHN A. WILSON II. THE NATURE OF THE UNIVERSE 31 III. THE FUNCTION OF THE STATE 62 IV. THE VALUES OF LIFE 93 MESOPOTAMIA By THORKILD JACOBSEN V. THE COSMOS AS A STATE 125 VI. THE FUNCTION OF THE STATE 185 VII. THE GOOD LIFE 202 THE HEBREWS By WILLIAM A. IRWIN VIII. GOD 223 IX. MAN 255 X. MAN IN THE WJRLD 293 XI. NATION, SOCIETY, AND POLITICS 326 CONCLUSION By H. and H. A. FRANKFORT XII. THE EMANCIPATION OF THOUGHT FROM MYTH . . .. 363 INDEX INDEX 391 vii oi.uchicago.edu oi.uchicago.edu INTRODUCTION H. and H. A. FRANKFORT oi.uchicago.edu
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