Knicks & Knacks

An Introduction To Temples in the Ancient Near East

At that time, when David saw that the Lord had answered him on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, he offered sacrifice there. For the tabernacle of the Lord, which Moses had made in the wilderness, and the altar of burnt offering were in the high place at Gibeon at that time. But David could not go before it to inquire of God, for he was terrified by the sword of the angel of the Lord. Then David said, “This is the house of the Lord God, and this is the altar of burnt offering for Israel.” So David gave orders to gather the foreigners who were in the land of Israel, and he set stonecutters to hew out stones to build the house of God. David prepared large quantities of iron to make the nails for the doors of the gates and for the clamps, and more bronze than could be weighed; and timbers of cedar logs beyond number, for the Sidonians and Tyrians brought large quantities of cedar timber to David. David said, “My son Solomon is young and inexperienced, and the house that is to be built for the Lord shall be exceedingly magnificent, famous and glorious throughout all lands. Therefore now I will make preparation for it.” So David made ample preparations before his death. (1 Chronicles 21:28-22:5, NASB)

In our day and age of damned, godless sinners and "separation of church and state", it can be hard to properly appreciate the role of the temple within the context of the ancient near east. This post is designed to, briefly and incompletely, explain their significance so proper appreciation of them can be attained. In upcoming posts, I'll be discussing the layouts of both temples and their complexes within three regions of the ancient near east: Egypt, Mesopotamia (Babylon & Assyria) and Syria-Palestine.

The House Of God

First and foremost, the temple is the house of god. I mean that as literally as possible - the temple was the home where the deity dwelt; they were the "master of the house". This was even seen in some temple construction, like Mesopotamian ones, which had their layouts designed after actual house layouts. God lived in the temple; not as a presence or "feeling" or whatever other silly sophist crap you tickle your ears with. The image, sanctified by various purifying rituals, lived within the inner sanctuary of the temple. The image of the deity in the temple was the representative of the deity itself - it could accept the offerings and mediate between priest and deity. Through it was the deity actually present.

The fact that deity had chosen a specific spot to dwell, and that the temple was their house, made the temple the most important building in a city, oftentimes even above the palace (the palace only seemed to gain consistent prominence near the mid-to-late 1st millennia BC). As such, it quickly became the largest administrative, academic, cultural, economic, judicial, and religious center in a region.

Performance of the Cult

The temple was a shadow of the heavenly one, but within its walls was the image of the deity which could accept the offerings given to it. This was the primary purpose of a temple - to take care of the needs of the deity. Food and drink offerings were given with the explicit purpose of meeting the deity's needs; the temple represented order within the cosmos, allowing the deity to descend from heaven where they fought the forces of chaos to rest. Temple complexes often had gardens, orchards, or parks to further the enjoyment of the deity.

What mattered most was not "worship", but performance of the cult ritual. Man's "end of the bargain" was to meet the deity's needs; deity's "end of the bargain" was the ensure peace and prosperity for the city. In this way, man could partake in the cosmic struggle of order against chaos through performance of the cult. If the cult ritual was performed inappropriately, or not at all, the deity would have to leave to meet their own needs.

Extraneous Gifts

Most cultures did not have deities who laid out all the rules and expectations, save the Hebrew people/Israel. The cultures of the day, most without any proper instruction from the deity itself on what pleased it, assumed a deity wanted to be treated as a king. Thus, those who wanted additional blessing from the deity would often gift things to temples. Temples became the greatest land-holding, economic centers because of this.

The Center of Civilization

It is not an exaggeration to say temples, at their peak, owned the vast majority of land within an area. Far and away, they had the most, as many would gift land to temples to increase the area the deity had to enjoy and reap the sweet divine blessings. Alongside land also came gifts of human slaves. Temples could employ well beyond 10,000 people at a time, especially in the larger cities of the empire. Slaves were put into press gangs and made to do whatever the priests called for to expand, improve, or renovate the temple. It was often the case that temple slaves were the worst treated of any slaves; these were also the ones most likely to run given the chance.

However, as the ancient near east was not a society dependent on slave labor, majority of those employed by a temple were free persons. Slaves were not usually trusted with skilled labor, so it was the artisans and craftsmen who worked for the temple. Additionally, those "without a man" (widows, orphans, foreigners) would be cared for by the temple in exchange for their labor. If you were to walk into an ancient city, chances were good you would talk to someone employed by the temple, or, if not, the palace.

The amount of administrative, economic, and societal weight a temple carried is frankly absurd. Allow me just to list some of the various occupations within a temple complex:

Temples trained students and scribes in reading and writing; temples produced household idols; temples had walls and doors overlaid in precious metals; temples own massive tracts of land which were used both for agriculture and animal husbandry; temples made alcohol; temples made clothing; temples taught and trained musicians; temples had merchants which conducted international trade; temples provided advisers via diviners for the palace; in some cases temples even performed judiciary acts on behalf of the deity in deciding court cases. And they employed people who could do all this.

The temple was often the place where the most precious metals, gems, artisanal works, fine clothes, food stuffs, rare or exotic items were found. After all, the more glorious and awe-inspiring the temple, the more glory and awe the deity within received, and the better the deity's stay. But they had non-glorious and non-awe-inspiring stuff in spades too; they had to feed thousands upon thousands of people daily. Other than the palace, the temple had no rival, and even then the palace was usually second fiddle.

Sacred Space

This was the space cut off from the "profane" or "unclean". The weight or glory of the presence of deity demanded certain actions against contamination or desecration. As such, whole complexes often had a wall around them, separating them from the rest of the city. Within the complex would be a second wall, usually containing the temple and its immediate surroundings (gardens, orchards, and parks). To enter sacred space without "proper clearance" was a crime punishable by death, similar in a lot of ways to entering into the king's presence without permission.

Within the temple were usually more walls, though this did vary based on culture. But all cultures had the image removed from line of sight, often using walls or doors to partition a temple building. All of this was done to protect the holy from the profane; to not anger the deity who chose to live within the temple.

The Cosmos to Scale

I'll conclude with this section, because I think it is the most important in grasping how the temple was thought of as the "house of God". The temple, as a whole, was an earthly representation of the cosmos itself. Common around and within temples were creation motifs - gardens, orchards, and parks reflected peace and prosperity; temples were built on springs of water, physically representing deity's power over chaos and the life-giving power of the deity; temples were built on the highest point in an area, either a mountain or a mound, to signify their prominence and importance; walls were etched with waves representing the primordial forces of chaos now quelled; columns and walls had plant and animal motifs to further depict peace and life; the ceilings were painted blue or had stars and suns etched into them because it represented the heavens; even pillars were seen as the mountains which held up the world.

The temple represented creation as it should be - ordered. The deity dwelt among the people; that they could dwell within their temple to rest meant the cosmos itself was ordered and secure. Now that the cosmos was ordered and secure, life could flourish. Life flourishing is the closest thing to "good" in ancient near eastern understanding one can get.

And it all comes from the house of God.

Additional Resources

Majority of this information, in its very short form, comes from larger works on the topic. My first and biggest recommendation is the 2nd edition of "Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament" by John H. Walton. It is, hands down, the greatest introductory and comparative work on every aspect of the ancient near east. Majority of this post is derived from chapter 5 "Temples and Rituals".

Other scholarly articles worth reading if you can get your hands on them:

Various articles from Civilizations of the Ancient Near East (CANE) Vol. 1 which I don't have at ready to cite, but will be cited in upcoming blog posts.