Theology of Liberation in the Second Millennium BCESeptember 7, 2016 at 7–8 p.m.

Lecture: Theology of Liberation in the Second Millennium BCE by Eva von Dassow, Associate Professor, Dept. of Classical and Near Eastern Studies, University of Minnesota.

Around 1400 BCE, Hittite scribes recorded a Hurrian epic poem entitled "Song of Liberation ein a bilingual Hurro-Hittite edition, in cuneiform script on clay tablets.Fragments of these tablets were discovered in 1983 CE in the excavations at Hattusha, capital city of Hatti.The poem tells a mytho-historical tale turning on the gods' demand that the city of Ebla release the people of another city, Igingallish, whom they have subjected.The storm god promises prosperity and military success if the Eblaites release the people of Igingallish, and threatens to annihilate their city if they do not.But the senate of Ebla refuses to grant release, exercising their liberty as a body of free men to deny liberty to those who serve them.The city of Ebla was indeed destroyed around 1600 BCE, and this poem explains why.What was the condition of liberty to which the gods demanded that the subjected people be released, and why did this interest the scribes of Hatti two centuries later?