Adiabene 101

Adiabene(ܚܕܝܐܒ) was a small kingdom that made up part of the Armenian empire. though this country was only around for about a century, it's history contains religious shifts, two kings, ethical-political tension, martyrdom, Jewish rabbinic academies, and catholic archbishoprics.

now, before i go any further, i have to make clear the fact that i am definitely still taking about Mesopotamia. i had been searching out the earliest things i could find on Mesopotamia since i was assigned the culture. i then realized that there were people assigned Sumerians and Hittites, both of whom had excellent cuneiform posts yesterday. so rather than fight for the early mesopotamian culture spotlight, i though it might be interesting to examine a time period of extreme transition (since i figured that paradigm shifts count as knowledge turning points, why not look at the Mesopotamian cultures around the time Christianity is really catching on?) so i found this little gem of a case-study-in-a-country.

the Adiabene empire was a subservient empire to Persia, Assyria, and other Mesopotamian powerhouses, then in the first century BC, the country gained independence(not in the flag waving revolutionary war way America did, they just sort of were all of a sudden good enough to have a little respect). Izates, the king-to-be, converted from to Judaism at about the same time his mother did, followed by a large enough chunk of the general populace to make Judaism the primary religion in the country. the second most popular choice was that newfangled Christianity with all their Jesus talk, and in third came Zoroastrianism, a more traditional Mesopotamian religion.

now, this next part gets a bit inferrence-heavy, so bear with me and if my logic seems off, let me know. picture yourself as if you lived at the beginning of this kingdom. life's gotta be a little uncertain, seeing as how the country you live in didn't exist when you were born. not only that, but the king and a WHOLE BUNCH of your neighbors are either going to church at the synagogue, where they believe in a dude who got some fancy rocks from god, or to the christian church, where they believe that the head of their church is some dead-but-not dead guy who's alive but not here.... right..... .anyways - the world seems a bit turbulent (it gets better when you add in the fact that your dear sweet homeland will be no more by the time your kids die). so, this brings a few questions into my Adiabene mind. what the heck is going on?? where am i supposed to go to get a bit of stability? the Jews have their big rolls of paper, and seem to be the most stable non-traditional choice for a life direction, but grandma's ghost would haunt me forever if i stopped going to the Zoroastrian church (you can tell i haven't studied Zoroastrianism very thoroughly) but those Christians aren't completely crazy either - they have some letters written by their leaders, who have spoken to the not-dead guy, apparently. since the political vicissitudes are a bit uncontrollable, all i can do is choose a way to live life, and one of these churches has to tell me the right way to go, right? so a logical choice seems to be to READ THEIR TEXTS. (the idea of hearing something you've never heard before, but reading the text and basing life decisions on what you read is NOT foreign to those of us who are Latter Day Saint Returned Missionaries). so. my musings aside on what the situation might be like and how i might deal with it aside, there is a point here. in this volatile environment of constantly changing knowledges, written texts give an individual a good chance to objectively become informed (something that oral and folk knowledges may not accomplish so well) and to adapt to the changes. adaptation is what survival is all about - so those individuals who best adapt to changing knowledge systems are the ones who survive, the ones who get their names in history books, etc.

how do you see this adaptation in today's society - seeing as how we are on the cusp of the data age?

images: The sarcophagus of Queen Helena of Adiabene, Frieze from the Tomb of Queen Helena of Adiabene near Jerusalem, roman coin depicting Bound Arab and Adiabene captives seated back to back on shields