The ancient traditions, legends, and myths, once committed to writing, would serve as a point of departure for further speculations.

The existence of a text to which any measure of value is attached, is bound to give rise to various attempts at interpretation, and if this value be connected with the religion of a people, the result is, invariably, that the ancient words are invested with a meaning conformable to a later age.

Each generation among a people characterized by intellectual activity has a signature of its own, and it will seek to give to the religious thoughts of the time its own particular impress.
Since, however, the material upon which any age works is not of its own making, but is furnished by a preceding one, it follows that much of the intellectual activity of an age manifests itself in a transformation of its literary or speculative heritage.

This process was constantly going on in Babylonia, and had we more material--and older material--at our disposal, we would be able to trace more clearly than we can at present, the various stages that led to the system of theology, as embodied in the best productions of the ancient Babylonian schoolmen.
The days of Hammurabi, as they were politically of great importance, also appear to have ushered in a new era in the religious life of the people.

Stirring political events are always apt to bring in their wake intellectual movements, and in a country like Babylonia, where politics react so forcibly on religious conditions, the permanent establishment of the supremacy of the city of Babylon would be fraught with important consequences for the cult.