A HOUSE IN THE LAND OF SHINAR

In this historical novel set in 3500 B.C.E., a Bedouin tribesman travels to Sumer in search of a new god.

Tiras grows up as part of a Bedouin tribe in central Saudi Arabia worshipping Martu, the bull god, an unmerciful master who exacts terrible sacrifices as punishment for even minor transgressions. Always inquisitive and even skeptical as a child, Tiras questions the tribe’s allegiance to such a vengeful god, a defiance that fatefully leads to tragedy. When he angers the tribe’s priest, Abu-Summu, Tiras’ daughter, Shallah, is summarily sentenced to a beating so vicious it kills her. Utterly despondent, Tiras blames himself for Shallah’s death, and when he hears of gentler gods in Sumer, he travels there to learn more. He is driven by a need to find a god superior to Martu but also by a “hunger for knowledge of the world.” There, he meets Mah Ummia, a physician and scholar happy to teach Tiras about his own religion, one in which the gods resemble men and not beasts, show pity toward the suffering, and promise a new life after death in paradise. Tiras returns home, eager to proselytize about “a powerful new god, El, who’d conquered all the other gods.” The traveler is excited about his new discoveries, but he meets fierce resistance, particularly from Abu-Summu. Tiras even fears punishment from Martu: “But how to tell his tribe about those gods? Surely Martu would grow jealous and demand terrible retribution. Dare he risk his family’s life to help his people?”

Miller deftly explores a historical possibility in literary terms—the emergence of Judaism out of contact between Bedouin Arabs and Sumerians. The author intelligently traces a potential theological genealogy, a captivating and nuanced account of how one religion emerges out of the influence of another. Tiras is first motivated by personal grief but then by curiosity and astonishment, a remarkable amalgam of practical and theoretical concerns, and a moral attraction to more than just gods: “Tiras listened intently, his eyes squinting in surprise. The Sumerian gods were smiling? Gentle? No human sacrifice? How had the Sumerians learned to attract such sympathetic gods?” Eventually, with the help of Tiras’ sons, a new mythology is born, one in which the protagonist is transformed from a grieving father into a prophet heralding a new faith. Miller doesn’t allow the historical elements of the story to overwhelm the dramatic ones—the plot is by turns as gripping as it is moving. Nonetheless, this is a historically impressive work, and it is precisely this authenticity that is the book’s principal strength. The author’s research is admirably rigorous—painstakingly meticulous as well as astonishingly expansive in scope. While she permits herself some considerable artistic license, especially given the timeline of this religious transmission—“the time period in the novel has been compressed to spread events over several generations rather than several millennia”—none of that literary latitude diminishes the work’s dramatic or historical power.

A deeply thoughtful tale that skillfully depicts the origins of Judaic tradition.