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Dromo's Den
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[Up] [Dromo's Den] Nebo Biography NEBO (from Bab. nabu, to call, name, proclaim). A deity of the Babylonians and Assyrians, mentioned in Isa. xlvi. 1. The name also occurs in the Old Testament as a geographical term. (See NEBO, MOUNT.) In cuneiform literature the form is Nabu or Nabium. It is no doubt Semitic and means "announcer," "proclaimer." He was consequently an oracle giver. He was the local patron deity of Borsippa, opposite the ancient city, of Babylon, and it is possible that be was likewise the god of Babylon before the ascendancy of the Sumerian god Marduk, seeing that he maintained his position of importance even after Marduk had become the head of the Babylonian pantheon. (See MARDUK; MERODACH ; BABYLON.) There was a shrine to Nebo in Marduk's temple at Babylon to which Nebo was carried in solemn procession on the New Year's Day, while the statue of Marduk was on the return trip carried part way back to E-zida (the true house), Nebo's temple in Borsippa. To express further the relationship to Marduk, Nebo was regarded as the son of Marduk. Nebo was the scribe among the gods (tupshar), the "bearer of the destiny tablets of the gods," the "writer of Esagil." As such naturally he became the god of wisdom, and it is in this capacity that he was chiefly worshiped by the Assyrians. To Nebo and his consort Tashmitum Assyrian rulers ascribe the art of writing on stone and tablets, and all learning is eventually traced back to him. In this respect he supplanted an earlier god of wisdom, Ea, whose cult reaches back to a still higher antiquity than that of Nebo or Marduk. Ile was identified with the planet Mercury. Consult: Morris Jastrow, Religion of Babylonia and Assyria (Boston, 1898); id., Die Religion Babyloniens und Assyriens (Giessen, 1902-12); Zimmern, in Eberhard Schrader, Die Keilinschriften and das Alte Testament (3d ed., Berlin, 1902); Alfred Jeremias, Das Alte Testament im Lichte des alten Orients (Leipzig, 1906); Condamin, in Joseph Huby, Christus: Manuel d'histoire des religions (Paris, 1912). The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. XVI (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 672. |