Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Norman Cohn and Early Religions





Marduk, representing order, predictability, wealth, health, and success,
destroyed the Dragon-Mother Tiamat to both bring order out of chaos AND
to create the physical universe.

One of the earliest representations of the battle between order and disorder, cosmos and chaos occurred in the mythology of early Babylon. Read the following brief description at:
Battle Against Tiamat and Chaos
Read a review of Cohn's "Cosmos, Chaos and the World to Come" at:
Chaos Book Review
The late historian, Norman Cohn, developed the notions of "Chaos and Cosmos" we refer to several times in the early part of the semester. Read his obit from the New York Times:
Cohn obit