Ancient Near East Religions vs the Hebrews

The first civilizations in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Palestine, and the Near Eastern States had many different and yet many similar religious views. The Hebrew’s religion became one of the chief religions of the Near East. While most of the other religions of the ancient Near East were polytheism, the Hebrew religion was monotheism. Some of the ancient Near East religions believed that the king ruled in service of god or that the king was a god. The Hebrew religion, however, believed that there god was a spirit and spoke to his people and his prophets. Most of the ancient Near East religions had different social classes where the kings, priests, and noblemen were first, the commoners were second, and the slaves were third. The Hebrew religion believed that they were all of Gods people and that everyone was equal according God. Women, in most ancient Near East religions, were considered as “baby makers”, house keepers, and sometimes were involved in property ownership and business. Since the Hebrew’s believed in a patriarchal family, women still weren’t respected as much as men but were still prophets and “heroes”. One ancient Near East religion, Zoroaster, was very common to the Hebrew religion. They both were monotheism, and believed in good deities such as “truth”, “righteous thought”, “devotion”, etc. for laws and way of living. They also both believed in dualistic power, or two divine forces, but that only one true god in whose messages we are to hear. These forces were God and an evil omen; or devil. The ancient Near East religions and Hebrew religion had many differences but were also similar in several ways.