The Meaning of Sacrifice

In ancient Babylonia, an enormous amount of resources were funneled into offerings to the gods as a part of ritual sacrifices, which formed the operational basis for the ideology that the gods gave out blessings in the physical world when their own physical needs were met. The gods required worshipers to attend to them and when they were satisfied, they would bless the people with prosperity, protection, and victory. The paradoxes of the gods' apparent vulnerability and supremacy, and the gods' and humanity's interdependence on each other enabled the manipulation of religion as ideological power for organizing and redistributing resources in the ancient near east.

Food offerings illustrate the paradox of the ancient gods' supposed needs and humanity's obligation to satisfy them, and also illustrate how this ideology was manipulated to act as a source of power. The gods' need for food is based on the Babylonians' concept of the gods' characteristics; the gods' presence was deeply rooted in the physical world, very human-like (Joannes 177) and none of the gods was supreme (179) and all weren't self-sufficient and dependent on worshipers for food (182) and a physical body (181). This creates a very unique relationship between the gods and man: the gods are superior yet dependent to man. Part of this is a result of the polytheism of and competition within the pantheon because the pantheon was syncretistic and gods were more prominently worshiped in different cities (176). Because the gods were dependent on man their need was subject to manipulation. This is seen in the way the foods of the gods was consumed; food wasn't actually eaten by the god but consumed by the priests and erib biti (183). This was distributed according to status (183), but is also a way of establishing or conveying status. These resources even were used to carry out other tasks for the temple especially seen in the action of prebendaries (187-189). Thus, the paradoxical relationship of the gods and man enabled the temple to take in resources and use them for their own purposes.