The High Place in Ancient Religious Belief
Ziggurats and Mountain Tops Provide Communication with the Gods
Nov 15, 2008
The presence of God or “the gods” has always been identified with a “High Place.” In the ancient world, the gods were associated with the heavens. Hammurabi’s Code, the first codification of all laws, was given by the sun-god whose light streamed out unto all the world to ensure justice. Once gods became anthropomorphic, they lived on mountain tops such as the Greek deities on Mount Olympus. Significantly, the patron gods of city states were always built on high places or comprised great towers from which man communicated with the gods. In Mesopotamia this was the ziggurat; in Greece, the temple dominated the acropolis. The High Place continues to be an important part of religious belief and tradition.
Old Testament High Places
Many Christians today refer to a “mountain top” experience when they have had a particularly positive spiritual experience. An allusion to the Old Testament, the Hebrew God tended to meet man on the mountain. Noah’s ark came to rest on Mount Ararat. His descendants “moved eastward” to settle in a valley, no doubt the Tigris-Euphrates, and began to build an enormous temple-tower “whose top may reach unto heaven.” (Genesis 11) These towers or ziggurats could be found in every Mesopotamian city and in most cases the chief roads led from a city gate to the center of the community where the ziggurat stood. It was at the very top where High Priests or priestesses interacted with the gods at a chapel built on the highest tier. Ancient texts such as the Gilgamesh Epic refer to the gods “looking down” and observing the actions of mankind.
Moses was commissioned to lead the Children of Israel out of Egypt on the side of a mountain where God appeared to him through a “burning bush.” Once the task was completed, Mount Sinai was the peak from which God gave his laws to Moses, although some Christian traditions accept a different mountain. When Abraham was commanded to sacrifice his only son, he was to offer the sacrifice “upon one of the mountains” in the land of Moriah.
The Universality of the High Place
The tallest peak in Greece is Mount Olympus and served as the home of the gods, but in Southern Turkey not far from present day Antalya another mountain named Olympos served as a home for the gods in that region. Shrines scattered along ancient roads were elevated and the most famous ancient oracle at Delphi lay high along the slopes of Mount Parnassus.
In the early Christian tradition, the Transfiguration of Jesus took place on a “high mountain,” most probably Mount Tabor, where he conversed with Moses and Elijah. According to once accepted tradition, his mother, Mary, lived out her final days on Mount Koressos in Turkey near the ancient city of Ephesus.
As Christians built great basilicas, tall spires pointed to heaven. One historian referred to the many steeples as a “sacred landscape.” Additionally, the return of Christ is always equated with the heavens: “And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory…then look up, and lift up your heads, for your redemption draws nigh.” (Luke 21:27-28) In The Apocalypse of St. John, the author is carried “away in the spirit to a great and high mountain” from which he saw “the holy Jerusalem descending out of heaven from God…” (Revelation 21:10) St. John wrote this at the highest point on the Island of Patmos where an 11th century monastery was built in his honor and still dominates the island.
Why have the gods always been associated with the heavens? Is there a connection to prehistory notions of primitive animism when spirits controlled the forces of nature? Scholars disagree and on-going research continues. Modern notions still see God on the mountain top. In 1843 the followers of William Miller sold all of their possessions and waited on mountain tops for the return of Christ. But his calculations were wrong.
 |
