Writing Mesopotamian religion

I believe that Oppenheim makes a very interesting point about how our limited knowledge of ancient Mesopotamian religion causes us to make incomplete conclusions about these people’s religious practices. Oppenheim argues that there is not enough coherent information to make a “systematic presentation of Mesopotamian religion” (172). I somewhat agree with his conclusion, but I also think that it is very useful to attempt to put together what we do know about these cultures in order to better understand them.

It seems, from Oppenheim’s argument, that “Mesopotamian religion presents itself as a complex, multilayered accumulation” (180) rather than a structured religion. Based on the information that he presents, however, I feel that there is enough available information to understand a good amount about at least certain facets of ancient Mesopotamian spiritual life. For example, Oppenheim describes in great detail certain rituals that were performed annually along with the process of exorcism that seemed to be fairly common.

To conclude, it is clear that there is much left to the imagination in terms of knowledge of ancient Mesopotamian religion. But I believe that Oppenheim might be taking this lack of lack of knowledge a bit to extremely when he declares that we should not even attempt to write Mesopotamian religion.