In northern Mesopotamia, by the 10th century B.C. at the height of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, the priests knew that if the planet Jupiter was visible as the eclipse passed overhead, the king was doomed.

Both the prophet and the pagan priests had altars piled with wood ... Baal is first mentioned in a list of Mesopotamian gods in an inscription at Abu Salabikh, near Bagdad in modern Iraq.

Although inspired by the Mesopotamian tradition, where law was the work of kings, the Israelite priests were pursuing a distinctly religious project. The Pentateuch (or Torah), the first five ...