The vast personage employed by the temple during the second Babylonian period sheds light on how powerful the temple was in Mesopotamia at that time. In contemporary America, though religious institutions can be powerful, we tend not to think of them as huge employers of laborers or direct managers of the government/economy, and the view of religious power one might develop living here does not perfectly apply to its role in the ancient near east. In this reading, the huge workforce wielded by the temple drove that point home to me.
Joannes describes the staff of the temple and its function in the latter half of the sixth chapter of Age of Empires, which ranges from slaves to high priests. Among the higher positions in the temples were administrators who oversaw the production of food, making of artisans, the preparation of food, and the trade that the temple conducts. That the temple produced enough food and artisans to necessitate full time administrators demonstrates how involved it was in the economy of neo-Babylon. The wealth this activity produced along with donations they received is evident by the number of merchants they employed to trade for precious stones and other materials the temple wanted.
The large workforce controlled by the temple depicts an institution very much involved in economics. I think it is helpful to see this day to day description of how the temple operated in order to break separate it from the way we think of religious institutions in the present day, which limits our ability to understand the expanse of the temple’s centrality in the neo-Babylonian period.
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