2019 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

On the religion and social welfare relations in ancient Near East

Research Project

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Project/Area Number	17H02275
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Section	一般
Research Field	Religious studies
Research Institution	Sophia University
Principal Investigator	Tsukimoto Akio 上智大学, 神学部, 教授 (10147928)
Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha)	田澤恵子 (財)古代オリエント博物館, 研究部, 研究員 (30598587) 津本英利 (財)古代オリエント博物館, 研究部, 研究員 (40553045) 柴田大輔筑波大学, 人文社会系, 准教授 (40553293) 松村一男和光大学, 表現学部, 教授 (70183952) 下釜和也 (財)古代オリエント博物館, 研究部, 研究員 (70580116) 小野塚拓造独立行政法人国立文化財機構東京国立博物館, 学芸研究部, 研究員 (90736167)
Project Period (FY)	2017-04-01 – 2020-03-31
Keywords	治癒神 / 弱者保護としての正義 / 孤児と寡婦 / 寄留者保護 / 貧者保護
Outline of Final Research Achievements	In ancient Mesopotamia, a cradle of human civilization, people worshiped a deity named Gula as their patron goddess of healing widely. The apothecary deity Asclepios took over the same function in ancient Greece. It is the deity of law and justice that protected orphans and widows, both representatives of the vulnerable strata of society. In fact, the king, on behalf of the deity, took charge of the divine justice. This kind of Mesopotamian tradition was accepted into the Hebrew Bible. In addition to that, the Bible further prescribes protection of the alien and the poor who were deprived of landowning. Although these phenomena were clarified mainly based on philological researches, it also became clear that the practice of social welfare including medicine could be uncovered by means of archaeological studies of human bones as well as architectural remains that are to be interpreted as ancient clinics.
Free Research Field	古代オリエント学、旧約聖書学
Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements	古代西アジアにおいて、病気治癒をも含む社会福祉は宗教と密接に結びついていた。なかでも社会的弱者の保護は社会正義を司る神の命令として、王がその実践の責任を負っていた。このような古代の伝統は、聖書に受容され、さらに、そこに寄留者や貧しい者の保護が加えられた。このような宗教と福祉の密接な関係は、のちにキリスト教を介して近代の社会福祉思想へと継承されてゆく。今日では、政教分離の原則のもと、福祉と宗教は別領域として受けとめられているが、福祉を技術にとどめず、人間社会の基本の姿とするために、宗教と福祉の歴史的関連をあらためて問い直す必要があるだろう。