The Religions A religion is a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a supernatural agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs of the Ancient Near East The Ancient Near East refers to early civilizations within a region roughly corresponding to the modern Middle East: Mesopotamia , ancient Egypt, ancient Iran (Elam, Media and Persia), Armenia, Anatolia (modern Turkey) and the Levant (modern Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Jordan, and Cyprus). As such, it is a term widely employed in the fields were mostly polytheistic Polytheism is the belief in or worship of multiple deities, called gods and/or goddesses. These are usually assembled into a pantheon, along with their own mythologies and rituals. Many religions, both historical and contemporary, have a belief in polytheism, such as Shinto, Ancient Greek Polytheism, Roman Polytheism, Germanic Polytheism, Slavic, with some early examples of emerging Henotheism Henotheism is a term coined by Max Müller, to mean worshipping a single god while accepting the existence or possible existence of other deities. Müller made the term central to his criticism of Western theological and religious exceptionalism (relative to Eastern religions), focusing on a cultural dogma which held "monotheism" to be (Atenism Atenism, or the Amarna heresy, is one of the earliest known, well-documented, monotheistic religions, associated with the eighteenth dynasty Pharaoh Amenhotep IV, better known under his adopted name, Akhenaten. In the 14th century BC it was Egypt's state religion for around 20 years, before subsequent rulers returned to the traditional gods and, Marduk Marduk was the Babylonian name of a late-generation god from ancient Mesopotamia and patron deity of the city of Babylon, who, when Babylon became the political center of the Euphrates valley in the time of Hammurabi (18th century BC), started to slowly rise to the position of the head of the Babylonian pantheon, a position he fully acquired by).
Especially the Luwian Luwian is an extinct language of the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family. Luwian is closely related to Hittite, and was among the languages spoken during the second and first millennia BC by population groups in Arzawa, to the west or southwest of the core Hittite area. In the oldest texts, eg. the Hittite Code, the Luwian- pantheon exerted a strong influence on the Ancient Greek religion Greek religion encompasses the collection of beliefs and rituals practiced in ancient Greece in the form of both popular public religion and cult practices. These different groups varied enough so that one might speak of Greek religions or "cults", though most shared similarities, while Assyro-Babylonian religion The religions of Babylonia and Assyria are the earliest attestation of Ancient Semitic religion[citation needed], in particular Mesopotamian mythology[citation needed]. As with other ancient cultures in Mesopotamia and elsewhere, the predominant religious model in the area was polytheism, a belief in many gods. Evolving out of earlier religions of influenced Achaemenid The Achaemenid Empire , also known as the Persian Empire, was the successor state of the Median Empire, ruling over significant portions of what would become Greater Iran. The Persian and the Median Empire taken together are also known as the Medo-Persian Empire, succeeding the Neo-Assyrian Empire. It was succeeded in turn by the Seleucid Empire-era Zoroastrianism Zoroastrianism is a religion and philosophy based on the teachings of prophet Zoroaster founded in the early part of the 5th century BCE. The term Zoroastrianism is, in general usage, essentially synonymous with Mazdaism, i.e. the worship of Ahura Mazda, exalted by Zoroaster as the supreme divine authority and Judaism Judaism is a set of beliefs and practices originating in the Hebrew Bible, also known as the Tanakh, and explored in later texts such as the Talmud. Jews consider Judaism to be the expression of the covenantal relationship God developed with the Children of Israel—originally a group of around a dozen tribes claiming descent from the Biblical. Both Greek and Jewish tradition in turn strongly influenced Christianity Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as presented in the New Testament.
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Foreign Religions in Central Asia and China up to the 14th Century A D Eastern Central and Southern Asia 1141 A D Inset The Ruins near Turfan The Ruins of Hui ning K ai feng and Hang chou Ancient and Modern Beginnings of the Mongol Empire Boundaries of 1234 A D
