Mesopotamia meaning

Meaning

Between Rivers, Imperial Mix, Melting Pot

Etymology

From (1) μεσος (mesos), middle or in between, and (2) the plural of ποταμος (potamos), river of flow.

The name Mesopotamia occurs in the New Testament in Acts 2:9 and 7:2 only. It is the name the Greeks gave to the area that was in Hebrew (and similarly in related languages) known as Aram-naharaim, namely the land dominated by the rivers Tigris and Euphrates. This proverbially fertile area was the homeland of Abraham and Sarah, Rebekah, and Rachel, Leah, Zilpah and Bilhah, which means that Isaac and Jacob (and Esau) and all the sons of Israel were full-blood Mesopotamians (the only grandchildren of Jacob who also became tribes were Ephraim and Manasseh, who were sons of Joseph and the daughter of an Egyptian priest; hence, like the tribes of Ishmael, half-Egyptian).

As we discuss in much more detail in our article on the Gospel of Impurity, the House of Israel was never "pure" and has always been a catch-all for all sorts of folks, who were driven out of their native homes and ended up on the strain on the drain of human refuse: the old world's version of Rick's Café Américain (because yes, that's what Casablanca is all about), albeit not in Morocco but in Canaan, in between the great empires of Egypt and Persia.

The Bible is not at all interested in politics and military endeavors, and really only in wisdom (and information technology: writing, story-telling, mail delivery). Hence, the Bible uses the familiar names of the Tigris and Euphrates really solely to refer to wisdom traditions and not so much any geographic locations (although there's an obvious and inescapable link between some place and the wisdom of that place). As such, Mesopotamia is the north-eastern counterpart of the south-western region of Egypt and Cush. In the Bible, the People of the Promise swing like a pendulum between these two centers, with a curious oscillating pattern of hate when moving into Mesopotamia but love when moving out, and love for Egypt when moving in and hate when moving out.

Note that Egypt is associated mostly with the sun, while Joseph rose to the top because of his ability to explain dreams. That same ability had Daniel in Persia (the empire that at that time dominated Mesopotamia), where astrology dominated (hence queen Esther, or Star, and the Persian magi who came to look for Christ by following a star).

The name Mesopotamia consists of two elements. The first one is μεσος (mesos), middle or in between:

The second element of our name comes from the noun ποταμος (potamos), river:

The name Mesopotamia means Between Rivers, but does not simply denote the geographical land between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates but much rather the principle of the mixing of various wisdom traditions into a single multi-cultural entity, emphatically not a single and "pure" tradition but a Federation or Imperial Mix consisting of the best of many kingdoms: a φυραμα (phurama) or mix, that in a sufficiently great fire becomes a αρτος (artos), a bread, that feeds the world.

In modern times, the United States formed precisely such an integrated Melting Polt, with a level of success that easily compares to that of ancient Persia. As modern analysts increasingly realize, the founding of the US legislative state was strongly informed by the Hebrew Scriptures — Madison was fluent in Hebrew, and several other founding fathers showed strong interest in it, and even considered reviving Hebrew as spoken language in the US (also see The Hebrew Republic: Jewish Sources and the Transformation of European Political Thought by Eric Nelson, 2011).

An example of a modern empire that formed from a single-source by assimilation would be China. Note that, like Egypt "for most of its history, China maintained the highest standard of living in the world — even England only really overtook it in perhaps the 1820s, well past the time of the Industrial Revolution" (says David Graeber in chapter ten of his most excellent book Debt; the first 5000 years, 2011).

And in case you're wondering: the obelisk is essentially a giant sun dial. It symbolizes the sun, which in turn symbolizes the tyranny of government. Egypt was obsessed with them (and dabbed a few stars here and there on walls), whereas Mesopotamia (Assyria, specifically) was obsessed with stars and toyed with an obelisk here and there to commemorate a particularly memorable king or emperor. The world's tallest obelisk is the Washington Monument, but unlike its Egyptian counterparts, is not solid and consists of many elements. (And it's hollow.)

With its Star Spangled Banner, its star-wreathed Statue of Freedom, and even its Hollywood "stars", the US is decidedly star-obsessed. China rather favors solar symbols: the single five-pointed "star" is not actually a star (also see the Bue Sky with White Sun flag of ROC), and the Monument to the People's Heroes on Tiananmen Square is an obelisk. The government is China's unmovable sun; its former emperor strongly associated with the number 9 (and see our article on the importance of the number nine, εννεα, ennea, in Indo-European mythology).

As said above, the polar opposite of Mesopotamia is Egypt, whose Hebrew name Mizraim (מצרים, mizraim) is a plural so as to emphasizes that Egypt is the result of the assimilation of two previous states (or even its 42 provinces; see our article on Bethel). That means that Mesopotamia relates to Egypt the way Integration relates to Assimilation — this same dynamic exists between Star Fleet and the Borg (and between young Skywalker and Darth): it's the old tension between Republic and Empire, between democracy and tyranny, between the Body of Christ and Rome.

And while solar Egypt was considered an enemy of House Israel and was subsequently abandoned and left for destruction, the homeland of starry Mesopotamia was honored and respected until long after Biblical times. The Jews maintained schools there (the Talmud was written in Mesopotamia in the fifth century CE), whose insightful wisdom is alluded to in Matthew's magi and Luke's "shepherds" abiding in "the field" and keeping watch over their flock by night — the magi and the shepherds are rather obviously the same people, namely the leaders of the Jewish communities in Babylon.

Despite its glory in Biblical times, John the Revelator foresees the complete destruction of Babylon's celebrated and unequaled market (Revelation 18:2), having to do with the "drying up" of the Euphrates (Revelation 16:12). There are many ideas but no consensus on what that might allude to — here at Abarim Publications we don't know either, of course, but if we were to guess, we would guess that the Euphrates in this context is not so much anybody's currency (like the dollar) that will collapse in favor of crypto (say BTC or Cardano), but rather the great conversation between all the languages of the world upon which the global economy is founded. Or even more specific: the English language in which most international trade is conducted.

English is the "melting pot" of languages and probably the least pure language in the world: part Germanic, part Latin, part Norsk and part Celtic, with etymologies that go all over the place — so that very few people actually know what words historically mean and most English speakers use words like they are index numbers (thing one, thing two, and so on). English is the world's largest language; the language with the most words — and if that sounds positive: the more words you need, the less clever you really are (to illustrate this: the Hebrew Bible has 300,000 words, whereas its English translation has 600,000).

English is also the world's most spoken language. This means that people who speak English natively, don't have to bother with learning another one. This sounds wonderfully convenient but actually, people who speak multiple languages are notably better at problem solving and adapting to new circumstances, have a less insular view of reality and are less prone to think that "we" are the good guys whereas "they" are incomprehensible barbarians.

Furthermore, despite its many native speakers who know no other language, most people who speak English speak it as a second language. That in turn means that the English language is the one in which the most mistakes are made, while most of its speakers couldn't care less about correctness and only about whether the meaning of their (usually very short) message gets across. English is the world's public toilet.

Today's Twitter English is what Koine Greek was in Alexander's time: little more than a handy tool for short instructions but not exactly something to cherish or honor. In fact, despite the marvels of thought that were once penned down in it, today the English language is little more than the world's biggest prostitute (who sits on many waters, so to speak), in whom the merchants of the world get their business done, but to whom they withhold any further affections.

As we discuss in more detail in our article on the name Jesus: here at Abarim Publications we suspect that the Anglophone world has not enough respect for language to keep itself together. The Anglophone world simply lacks a foundational text (now that the King James has been largely abandoned), and an overwhelming majority of modern speakers can't be bothered with the intricacies of, say, the perfect tense, let alone past perfect, or phrasal verbs and irregular spellings. Because why bother? Thanks to conveniences such as YouTube and Zoom and clickable icons and such, literacy rates are going south like ducks in winter, and people's breadth of interest and depth of perception is shrinking, and folks increasingly cluster around conflicting bumper-sticker convictions.

In addition to not having a foundational text, English also has no genders or cases or even proper diminutives (apart from some arcane ones that nobody uses). That means that real-life phenomena that were originally encased within the languages that do, cannot natively be understood by people who only speak English. Some extreme unfortunates may even completely lose their ability to understand femininity and masculinity, or tell the difference between them.

English can't natively consider self-similarities, or how big relates to small, let alone how the One relates to the Many, and thus how the individual relates to the collective. With its tenses, English tethers its verbs to the temporal axis of progression (the timeline), which it requires to be linear and infinitive. So doing, it cannot consider what "happens" before time "began" or after it ends. Since time is an effect of the way the universe works (the universe did not begin at some point in time but time "began" at some point in the universe), English cannot natively consider the nature of physical reality. Since a human experience has no mass and takes up no volume, human experience (and consciousness in general) exists not in spacetime and can also not be natively comprehended by English.

English doesn't comprehend the cyclic nature of time, or the relativity of reality, or the variation of perspectives, or even the divine Oneness of All Things from which all things come and in which all things relate. English has no Theory of Mind. It understands the essence of things to be absolute and fixed, independent of their contexts. English doesn't cherish the etymological origins of words, and has no native sense of family and the interconnectedness of identities, and emphasizes absolute existence rather than relative existence.

English lacks the wisdoms that are native to most other languages, and that would not be so worrisome if all these obvious deficiencies of the English language didn't create the English-speaking mind and the English-speaking consciousness. The qualities (and lack thereof) of the English language go a long way in explaining much of the popular theology, philosophy and even scientific theory that arises from the Anglophone world.

A sick person who doesn't realize they are sick, is certainly sicker than they think, and telling them this is surely the first step of their recovery, should they choose recovery (Zephaniah 3:9). Entirely likewise, people who only speak English cannot realize how fantastically obtuse and murky their language really is, particularly compared to certain others. But those others are presently on the rise, like yeast that wafts in on the breeze, and ever more people are exposed to them, and reach for them as if for water on a hot day. Learning another language (i.e. learning to think, learning to "put one and one together" in another language) literally changes one's mind and renews the "spirit of the mind" (Ephesians 4:23, Romans 12:2, Colossians 3:10, also see Luke 24:45, 1 John 5:20, Psalm 119:18).

Like an egg that hatches, the consistency of the English language will fracture, because common words will have lost their meaning to such an extent that communication in English will essentially mean nothing, and the dry land of certainty turns to a swamp of doubt. The same thing that happened to the Greek and Latin language basins will happen to English. Pools of regional and occupational slang will pinch off from the standard and form their own daughter languages, but daughters that are mutually unintelligible and hate each other's guts.

When English collapses it will take the entire Indo-European language basin with it, and a monstrous wall of madness will sweep over the earth as international conversation goes up in smoke. When that happens, only the people who speak Hebrew (and Arabic and perhaps some other languages) will keep their sanity. Everybody else will go bonkers — or rather more precise: they will lose their speech and thus their humanity and become animals again and either learn to eat grass (Daniel 4:32) or else begin to prey on each other for food. Civilization for those many unfortunates will stop to exist, and most will die within a few years.