What is the Meta Divine Realm?

There is a concept in Near Eastern mythology called the "meta divine realm"; basically a few scholars have noticed that in several mythologies such as Egypt and Mesopotamia, polytheistic societies, a realm exists before the existence of any other deities. The deities are often birthed by this realm. So the ancient Egyptians called this Nun, and the ancient Mesopotamians called this Apsu. They describe the same concept though, deep primordial waters. These deep primordial waters act as the swells of creation; The Meta Divine Realm. The consequences of this "meta-divine realm" are the following:

1. Gods are limited - they can be born and they can even die in some cases

2. Evil is built into the universe - gods are born out of this meta divine realm but so too are demons and monsters. In fact, one could argue that there is no ethical morality because even gods can be evil, and in Mesopotamian mythology they frequently are.

3. Magic can exist - magic can exist within this model of cosmology because magic does not originate from the deities or the demons but rather by manipulating the "meta divine realm" itself. Curses that invoke the assistance of a deity against an individual, for example, illustrate the limitations of deities within such a mythological model.

The Ancient Egyptian Great Annead, note the artistic fluidity of the figures, as if they are floating

The Ogdoad, blue background. Need I say more

The Babylonian creation myth; Innuna Elish. The creator god Enki depicted within his water apode; The Apsu

There are more examples but those are the three biggest ones. Now compare this to monotheism; monotheism is often depicted as an evolution of polytheism but many scholars now believe that monotheism and polytheism have completely adverse world views. For example, there is no "meta divine realm" and because of this the whole system is completely different:

1. The deity cannot be limited - they were never born and there is no theogany (or biography ) for them. They are not born out of primordial chaotic waters; in fact natural elements like water are merely their tools

1. Evil is not built into the system - typically what the deity creates is a moral good and immorality rather springs from the free will given to their creations. There are no demons and there is no real concept or hell that is inhabited by demons

3. Magic cannot exist - magic exists because in a polytheistic system the deities can be manipulated by interacting with the "meta divine realm", it also holds true that without such a realm no magic can exist.

The Aten is the life creator and sustainer within the cult of Aten.

In the Hebrew Bible the Chaotic waters are something to be ruled, not the birth of creation.

To better understand the concept of the meta-divine realm; let’s look at two examples from polytheistic mythologies, and two examples from monotheistic mythologies. This will help to better understand the divergent world views underpinning these belief systems.

Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia

• Both cosmologies start with the primordial waters; Nun in Ancient Egyptian and Apsu in Ancient Mesopotamian.
• These primordial waters birth a first generation of Deities. The Mesopotamians called these deities Anunnaki. The ancient Egyptians actually had two sets of “first generation” deities; The Ennead and the Ogdoad. Both sets of deities emerged out of the primordial waters of Nun. Ancient Egyptian cities developed separately, this is what partly accounts for the difference. Yet both groups of deities are depicted as emerging from the primordial waters.
• After this Foundation event in both mythologies, the known universe is formed out of strife; deities fighting each other, gods smiting humanity, and the older generation of gods inevitably being supplanted by a newer generation, further underpinning the limitations of these beings.

Now let’s look at how different a monotheistic notion of the universe is looking at two monotheistic traditions; the worship of Yahweh and the worship of Aten. Atenism was a cult that developed in ancient Egypt around the worship of a solar deity, Aten. Most scholars believe this to be the first monotheistic religious practice.

Judaism and Atenism

• In both traditions, there are no primordial waters at the beginning. I should point out that in the Hebrew Bible, there are indeed deep waters, but the creator deity was not born of them and they are merely a tool and backdrop for its creations.
• Only one supreme created deity is depicted as creating the whole world as it is and sustaining it by its own power. Yahweh speaks the words of creation “Let there be light”, The Aten uses its rays to sustain the world.
• There is no divine strife between cosmic good and cosmic evil because both deities are “good”. What they create is fundamentally good. Evil comes into the world through moral agency and free will which is a gift from the deity.

So we can see now that these two systems of understanding the world; monotheism and polytheism, have completely different world views. The existence, or omission of a meta-divine realm, has awesome and divergent consequences for both traditions.