Babylonian Theodicy

The ancient Babylonian poem known as the "Theodicy" or the "Babylonian Theodicy" is one of the oldest recorded discussions of the philosophical study of theodicy. It asks, and attempts to answer, some of the most fundamental questions regarding the nature of human existence and divine intention.

Structure

The poem is composed of 27 stanzas, each 11 lines long. The first letters of each line form an acrostic which names the writer and describes him as both a priest and a loyal devotee of the deity and the king. The poem is in the form of a dialogue between one person (the sufferer), who describes the ways in which he has suffered, and another (the friend), whose replies echo and reinforce the conventional understanding of the deity as good and just.

Philosophy

Like other theodicies, the Babylonian Theodicy represents an attempt to reconcile the believer's certainty that the deity is fundamentally all-good and all-just with his observation that the world is often neither good nor just. The Babylonian Theodicy pits the sufferer, who is afflicted by misfortune and injustice, against his friend, who explains that these things are not the deity's doing and do not reflect the deity's true nature. The deity, says the friend, is entirely good, wise and just; earthly suffering results from insufficient devotion or is irrelevant in comparison to the deity's ultimate plans. That is, humans can never fully comprehend the deity's motives, but they should instead have faith that in the grand scheme of things, good is rewarded. and evil is punished.

The Babylonian Theodicy's philosophy, arguments and conclusions are similar to those found in later works. It simply shows that human approaches to this difficult question, like humans themselves, have changed little over time.