The Bible and the Ancient Near East [4 ed.] 0393039420

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Cyrus H. Gordon and Gary A. Rendsburg

ISBN 0-393-03942-0

USA

$32.50

CAN.

$42.50'

The Bible \nd the

Ancient Near East The

stories collected in the

Hebrew

and

vide for

many an

a moral

and coherent universe.

essential

Bible pro-

original vision of

thus surpris-

It is

ing to learn that these stories were not simply

the product of a single culture, of

and

prophets,

priests;

Hebrew

poets,

they had strange

and

diverse origins in the various civilizations of the

ancient Near East. Recent archaeological and

tions

and

shows that these

research

linguistic

civiliza-

—among them Egyptian, Hebrew — shared many common

Persian, Greek,

legends

and even characters. Furthermore, each season of archaeological

work brings new discoveries that allow

Among ies

and the ancient Near East

in general.

the most notable of the recent discover-

have been the

extrabiblical references to

first

the house of David, found in an inscription stela at

fill

our knowledge, of both Israel in par-

in gaps in

ticular

us to

on

a

Dan. This and other exciting discoveries

animate

this

Gordon’s

classic text,

revision

combined

expertise

Near East u

aa

of

The Ancient Near

Gordon and Rendshurg

Professors

cohesive

thorough

Cyrus East.

bring their

on the Bible and the ancient

produce a comprehensive and .

i

Israelite history, literature,

(continued on back flap)

RICHMOND LIBRARY RICHMOND CA

III

:il

3t 11,43

III

041104

7.

the absence of our phrase from A.

M. Honeyman,

Journal of Biblical Literature 71, 1952, pp. 11-18. Biblisch-Hebraischen

significance

und Nordwestsemitischen,

It is

Rome,

p.

Merismus in Biblical Hebrew,

Jozy Krasovec, Die Merismus im 102, but without discussion of its

listed in

1977,

“

the Beginning

In

37

knowledge, and to that extent shares with been a divine prerogative.

Why

God

a faculty that

had

human beings, unlike animals, ashamed of nudity? Because mans newly won knowledge included a knowledge of decency, about which animals in their blissful ignorance know nothing. Why are snakes vile and why are snakes and men hostile to one are

another?

Adam,

It

is

to eat of the forbidden fruit;

the snake must crawl on

this,

heels;

with men,

men work

m

because the snake induced Eve,

in

its

and

belly,

for a livingr

such

turn induced

divine punishment for

as a

eat dust,

and

bite at

men’s

Why

must

This was Adam’s punishment for his share

And why

woman

does

have

being subject to her husband’s authority, and to childbirth? This is her punishment for violating the

as

suffering pain in

divine decree.

in

retaliation, bruising snakes’ heads.

the transgression against divine will.

disabilities

who

Why

does mankind not

forever in a paradise?

live

Mankind was driven out of paradise for all time because God saw that man could not be trusted to obey His will and to refrain from eating the magic fruit of another tree in the Garden of Eden that would give man immortality. God decided that man should not

obtain immortality

lest

he become

like the gods.

examine the story in Genesis objectively, we see elements go into making up the whole picture, it account of the “Fall of Man” but rather of the rise

we that, while many is not so much an of man halfway to

Accordingly,

if

He

obtained one of the two prerogatives or characteristics of the gods: intelligence; but he was checked by God from obtaining divinity.

which would have made him quite divine 9 The next problems that confronted the Hebrews had to do with how Adam and Eve gave rise to the nations of the world. The immortality,

Hebrew answer was

.

that families

and nations developed

in a

way

that

can be traced through genealogy: genealogy of actual people, from father to son, with certain individuals giving rise to groups and nations. Society originated, according to the

Hebrews, through the

contributions of individual historic characters.

The

first

children of

Adam

and Eve were Cain and Abel, Cain being the farmer and Abel the herdsman, each representing different ways of life and reflecting

9.

The element of disobedience

“evil”

and overlook the “good”

exegetes

who

is

present in the story but only circumstantially.

in

the text

To stress the even on the part of

would have no justification, meaning of antonymic pairs.

are not familiar with the inclusive

The Bible and the Ancient Near East

38

the age-old hostility

between the two

pursuits.

God

liked the offering

of the herdsman Abel better than that of the farmer; meat ble to vegetables as an offering. Gods preference reflects standard of values

whereby the

is

prefera-

a

Semitic

nomadic pattern represents the good life. But Cain, the farmer, killed Abel, which may reflect the victory of stable societies depending upon agriculture over nomadic societies that depend on herding. Cain was the father of an Enoch associated with a city named Enoch: the first city in history austere

10

according to

Hebrew

tradition. Later *he genealogies take us to

Lem-

who had two wives, Adah and Zillah. Adah gave birth to two sons. One was Jabal, who gets credit for founding the nomadic way of life; the other was Jubal, who instituted music, both on stringed instruments and on pipes. Zillah had two children who occupy a lower scale on the social ladder. Her son was Tubal-Cain, who ech,

founded the

art

of metallurgy.

a status inferior to

ter

Naamah

those

Among nomadic

who own and

should, according to

pattern as the founder of some

she

is

tend the herds. Zillah

some

scholars,

way of life.

It

has

be

s

daugh-

fitted into the

been suggested

that

either the prototype

even of prostitutes. such

Semites the smith has

of dancing or singing girls, and perhaps However, there is no textual evidence to support

a patternistic reconstruction.

was Seth, of Yah we

Another child of Adam and Eve whose son was named Enosh, to whose time the worship

traced (Genesis 4:26). This tradition, to the extent that relegates Yahwism to pre-Hebraic antiquity and ascribes is

non-Hebraic outside the

origins,

Hebrew

is

confirmed by early references

it

Yahwism to to Yahwism

sphere."

There follows another set of genealogies, of heroes before the Flood. A few of them may be singled out because of particular interest. There is a second 2 Enoch' who “walked with God and he was not, for God had taken him” (Genesis 5:24). This is the first recorded

assumption, that into

where someone, instead of dying, is taken aloft heaven. Another character, Methuselah, lived 969 years: not very

much 10.

The

is,

longer than

some of his

best statement in Scripture

A

fellows in the genealogy; but because

comes from

late in

Judean history (Jeremiah 35:1-19).

me na of Mes °P° tan,,a and w ma stand for the same divine v ^eti^«rT-n?,, h Yh WaS knOWn ln Syria &r n° rthy° flsrael YahWe we sha " See in cha P ter XV, pp. 2-T,

'’T

T

the

-

™°

Enochs

’

for

“

with n parallel parallelTrT, traditions about the same antedeluvian hero.

is

possible that

we

are confronted

the Beginning

In

39

Ik lived a bit longer, his

name

household term for longevity Then comes Noah, who is the father of Shem, Ham, and Japheth; each son being the ancestor of a major division of mankind. Man and creation proved to be a disappointment to God, a

is

13

.

so that

God

regretted His

were taken,

work and decided

to punish the world.

120 years of man’s hitherto phespan; but even that was not enough. Drastic pun-

God

and

for,

found grace because of his

decided on

of creation, as well as supplies.

flood destroyed

Noah

a pair

of each of the animals

entered the ark

other living things.

all

at

the appointed

The

ark eventually

landed on the mountains of Ararat in Armenia, but

open the door of the ark dry. To determine this he on the

alone

virtue, so

including his sons and their wives, and

a raven

Noah

a flood.

God instructed him to build an specifications. He was told to take his family,

aik according to exact

a

steps

like the -reduction to

nomenally long life ishment was called

time and

Some

first trip,

Noah

did not

he was sure the earth was sufficiently sent out birds on four successive occasions: until

and for the

rest a

dove.

When, on

the final

the dove did not return,

Noah knew there was a place for birds to nest on dry land and it was safe to come out. Noah left the ark and sacrificed to God to show his gratitude. The sweet savor that rose was so pleasing to God that He promised never again to curse the land and the living because of mans innate evil. God realized by this trip,

time that man’s imperfections were permanent and that the best would have to be made of a bad job. He promised man that the seasons

would continue,

that nature

would be plowing time and heat,

ogy

summer and

is

winter, day and night.

14 .

Each thing

sons are regular there

is

welcome

a feeling

is

according to rules by God.

13.

The

14.

in

This

Then came

in Semitic ideol-

season and a

is

overlooked by those

who

assume

season and

who came

that rain

back to

life

out of season was

as

biblical life spans

god of

Near

fertility

The

East the

who

disturbing as drought out of season is

fantastically

look quite

yearly with the return of the rains.

Moreover, the god in control of life-giving water (Baal or Yah we) no less than of winter rain.

the sea-

Noah and

a blessing for

that in the ancient

for a

when

world run properly

longevity of ancient worthies harks back to an old tradition.

of the dry season was received with weeping

mind

its

of security in

of their Mesopotamian counterparts make these

lives

Nowhere

the desire expressed that the best time of the year should prevail

the time

all

harvest

would not be upset, that there time. There would be cold and

It

a

long

brief.

normal advent

died yearly

at that

must be borne

in

Samuel 12:17-20). the god of summer dew (i

The Bible and the Ancient Near East

40

down. The main article in this code regards blood. Man’s blood must not be shed. If it is shed it will be sought not only from the hands of a man but even from an animal guilty of murder. Furthermore, since blood contains holy life, it must not be drunk but poured into the ground. This law, according to Hebrew tradition, is binding on all mankind. The obligations of Mosaic Law are binding only upon Jews; but God demands of both Jew and Gentile obedience to the Noachian Code. As a final touch, God put the rainbow in the sky to remind man He had made this covenant and would code was

laid

never again destroy the world by flood

15 .

To proceed with the next questions: Why is it that nations are unequal? Specifically, why were non-Hebrew inhabitants of Canaan, who are called Canaamtes, inferior to the Hebrews? With what justification did the Hebrews dislike and subjugate the Canaanites? According

after the Flood.

Ham,

Noah

to Scripture,

One

day,

he was lying in

came

quite by accident,

made wine

planted a vineyard and

and saw

in

naked and drunk.

a tent

his fathers nakedness,

who

whether intentional or not. He informed his brothers, walked in backward and covered their father When Noah

woke

up, he blessed his

which

is

a sin,

16

.

cursed

Ham who

Canaan

cursed.

It

will

bad

light.

who

had covered

his

nakedness and

But even more than

Ham

be noted that the story puts

Ham,

had seen

it.

whom the

ot the Egyptians (with thy), in a

two sons

Furthermore,

Hebrews shared it

is

Ham’s son

the ancestor

a reciprocal antipa-

removes the Canaanites from the

Semitic tamily, in which they properly belong, and

Hamites. Thus the story

is

used to explain

a

classifies

them

as

number of relationships

of basic importance to the Hebrews.

We now ment.

It is

the nations

turn to Genesis io, which remains a great historic docu-

an attempt, containing considerable

known

to the

Hebrews

ing their interrelationships. There

into an organic

is

noting. For instance,

historicity, to

put

all

framework show-

much of technical interest worth known from excavation are men-

two cities well tioned in verse io: Babylon and Erech. But it is interesting to note that two other cities, Akkad and Calneh, have not been discovered 15.

Such

causal explanations

of origins

(like

the origin of the rainbow) are

common

in the

Bible; they are called “etiological.” 16. In

European

art the

scene

is

mistitled

would be The Nakedness of Noah, According

to the

account

in

The Drunkenness of Noah. More

for his being

drunk

only circumstantial to

nearly correct

nakedness. Genesis (9:20—27), not the intoxication of the father but only

the sons beholding his naked father was the offense.

is

his

In

the Beginning

4

1

though from other Mesopotamian sources we know that the former was the capital of the first Semitic empire. In verse 1, Assur (the envisaged ancestor of Assyria) is credited w ith building Nineveh and C .alah, Assyrian capitals that have been excavated. But between them is Rehoboth-Ir about which nothing else is known. The following verse, 12, names --Resell as “the great city” between Nineveh and yet,

1

#

C.alah; the identity ot

Resen

shrouded

While we must always consider the possibility that the text is in error, we must do so with the knowledge that the trend of archeological discovery is to confirm even points that opinion had rejected as false. is still

in obscurity.

17

As we continue to read the genealogies, we note that the focus grows more and more narrow. The emphasis is now on Shem (verses 21-30), the ancestor of the Semites, including

who embrace

(verse 21)

all

the “sons of Eber’’

the Hebrews.

The

next question (Genesis 11:1-9) is why mankind has so many mutually unintelligible languages. Man in his haughtiness aspired to power through the building of a great tower at Babel whose top

would reach the heavens. God thwarted

human speech with language,

a

the plan by confounding

multitude of languages. Without

a

common

men

cannot engage in great cooperative enterprises; so the project was abandoned and men were scattered over the face of the earth.

We now come

to the final

narrowing of the genealogies with the descendants of Eber (Genesis 11:16-26) down to Nahor. Nahor begat Terah,

who

who

in turn begat

Abram, the

occupy the center of the they were encompassed by nations are to

keeping with included to

Haran

died in

its

17.

patriarchal

Abram and

the

stage

of biblical

far greater

wife Sarai, from

latter’s

history,

people,

although

than they. Terah, in

moved

authority,

Hebrew

his

family,

which

Ur of the Chaldees

northwest Mesopotamia, en route to Canaan. But Terah Haran, whereupon Abram assumed the role of patriarch. in

This brings b.c.e.

his

father of the

11s

to the traditions

From now on

relation to the

The confirmatory

the focus

God Who

is

Hebrew about 1400 evolution of Abrams seed in

of the

on the

had chosen

trend of archeology

is

it

first

as

His people. However,

applicable not only to Sacred Scripture but also

to profane writing such as Herodotus,

whose most amazing “yarns” have in a number of instances turned out to be sober truths. The absence of suitable mounds to account for lost cities near the Tigris may be due to the destructiveness of the river, which often overruns and devastates the countryside during the spring

floods.

The Bible and the Ancient Near East

42

the Bible does not narrate the experience of the

though

isolated,

Chosen People

as

but rather within the framework of world history.

The Mesopotamian accounts of the origin of the universe and of human institutions are more complex than the Hebrew account.

Some of

this

complexity

is

due

to the pluralistic attitude that goes

with polytheism. But part of the complexity

results

from the

fact that

which to some extent harmonized its traditions in the Mesopotamia never established one canonical recension of its

unlike Bible,

Israel,

of all others. This

is

fortunate for the his-

ability to reconstruct the past

is

the greater

traditions to the exclusion torian,

whose

when

the

sources are abundant and varied.

The chief Mesopotamian creation account is called Enwna Elish (When on High), the first words of the text. It tells of the creation of gods who, not surprisingly, became embroiled in plots and strife. One of the deities, the sea-god Apsu, was so bothered by the noisy young upstart gods that he wanted to wipe them out. But his wife Tiamat, the sea-goddess, was more moderate, and pleaded: “How could we destroy what we have created? Their way is grievous but let us act kindly!” (1:45-46). Apsu’s resolution brought upon him the hostility of the gods, headed by the wise Ea, who lulled Apsu to sleep by magic and then attacked and slew him. This act of violence stirred

Tiamat

to rebel, with the aid

community

of the god Kingu, which obliged the

ol the gods to take action against her.

To destroy her they

Marduk, who was beautiful and wise; so wise that he had four ears and four eyes the better to hear and see and accordingly to be more intelligent than other gods. Furthermore, to make him a created

king

among

gods,

Marduk was suckled by

goddesses, in keeping with

motif whereby kings (regularly in Egypt, sometimes in Mesopotamia, and often elsewhere, as in Ugarit) claimed divinity through the a

had suckled divine breasts. Marduk fulfilled his mission, slaying Tiamat and subduing her whole host of minor deities. Then Marduk proceeded to create the universe from Tiamat s corpse. fiction that they

Among

his

month,

to fix

18

were three constellations of stars for each the days of the year. The moon he created not only to

creations

shine by night but also to fix the monthly cycle and to maintain a relationship with the sun. Details of this sort reflect the scientific

sophistication of the Babylonians as

compared with the Hebrews,

Such notions may have been quite functional. The acceptance of the bolstered his authority and so contributed to law and order. 18.

divinity

of the king

,

In

the Beginning

who were

with

satisfied

ceeded to form

a

Marduk needed decided that

43

man,

less

who

astronomical data. bears the

materials with

a guilty

Marduk then pronon-Semitic name “Lullu.” 1

which fo

god would have

man, and

create

to give

up

his life to

it

"

was

provide

them. Kingu was chosen because he had incited and helped Tiamat in her revolt. He was put to death’" and his blood was used for creating man. Thus man was created out of divine stuff albeit from a rebellious god. This last item may suggest the source of man’s troublesome qualities. The purpose in creating man was that he might seive the gods. The underlying idea is clear enough: there is no use being a god unless you have men to worship you. Mankind was created to make life agreeable for the pantheon; to perform work, to provide food and drink, and to practice religion for the benefit of the gods. The gods were so grateful that they awarded the great temple of Esagila to Marduk in Babylon. They made a housewarming for him there and offered him lavish praise 22 21

,

.

Although the mythology of the Creation Epic stems from Sumerian and perhaps earlier non-Semitic origins, the Babylonian recension that we have just outlined has been recast in such a manner as to show that Babylon is the chief of cities and the center of empire; that its

shrine Esagila

is

foremost

among

shrines; that

Marduk of Babylon

the greatest of the gods, the creator of the world, and the deity to worship above all others in the Babylonian Empire 23 It is interesting is

.

to note that

transferred

when

some

Assyria

made

its

version of the Creation Epic,

Marduk

of the glory of

to Assur (the patron

it

god of

the capital Assur and of the Assyrian Empire) in order to reshape the epic for its own political ends. In addition to Enutna Elish

ation accounts to

19.

Tins points to

a

there are

which we may

some

refer briefly.

cuneiform creof them is a text

lesser

One

non-Semitic origin of the Babylonian Creation Epic.

Note that a god can die. Nor is Kingu a god who was resurrected. We must avoid generalizing on the nature of divinity. Thus, far from being omniscient, the gods of Mesopotamia are often ignorant and error-prone. In the Egyptian pantheon, all the gods except Thoth are 20.

illiterate.

21.

Compare

22.

For

a

the biblical creation of man “in the image of God” (Genesis 1:27).

good introduction

see A. Heidel, 23.

to the

The Babylonian

The Babylonian

Enuma

Genesis,

Elish

b.c.e.,

of creation, though

later in date,

to other

Mesopotamian

creation texts,

Chicago, 1951.

Creation Epic was recast in

second millennium

and

its

basic classical

form

in the first half

of the

Hebrews appeared on the scene. The Hebrew accounts drew (as a rule indirectly) upon the earlier traditions of other

before the

people including the Mesopotamians.

The Bible and the Ancient Near East

44

that tells

of the creation of cities, gods, and man, the creation of the

Tigris and Euphrates, the creation of plants and animals. According to another tablet,

Thus the the

creation

is

creates out

man and

a

of clay the gods of the

of gods, not of men, and

and sciences

arts, crafts,

divine

Ea

24

Another

.

woman

divine

it is

tablet tells

and

arts

crafts.

gods that institute

of the creation of a

for serving the gods

and performing

the occupations of society such as herding, irrigation, and agriculture.

The

may

divinity of the pair

importance of the

first

ancestors of

have been occasioned by the

mankind or by the

fact that

they

had been made with divine blood.

The

greatest literary

accomplishment of Mesopotamia

is

the Gil-

gamesh Epic, which was translated in antiquity into other languages of the Cuneiform World. The best preserved versions are in Akkadian, though the epic has Sumerian and perhaps earlier non-Semitic antecedents

We

25 .

have fragments of Hittite and Hurrian translations,

and fragments of the Akkadian original have been found as

Megiddo

in Israel

and

el-Amarna

Tell

in Egypt. Also, the heroes

of the epics are frequently portrayed on works of cylinders, in ancient

The

Mesopotamia

who

the tyrant of the

is

(like Achilles) his

such

city, is

mother was

At

for himself.

rescue them.

last

.

and magnificent

a goddess.

Gilgamesh was highhanded

men

to

of

clay,

who

the waist up, to

his tyranny.

placed in the fields where he

Enkidu, lives

Hebrew account where

there

as that

among

and an enemy of the hunter.

24. Contrast the

Gilgamesh,

work and took

accordingly designated one of their

down and human from

ot nature

won-

girls

the people of Erech cried out to the gods to

The gods

him from

walls.

its

and partly human, for

partly divine

to fashion a powerful creature out

deflect

as seal

26

toward the populace; he forced young

waist

art,

epic starts out with praise for the city of Erech, with

derful brickwork, fine city plan,

away

as far

is

He

number

from the oppose Gilgamesh and was

a bull

creature was called,

the animals, and releases animals

no theogony, and where

is

a lover

from

crafts

is

traps

and sciences

back to men.

are traced 25. Scenes

from the Gilgamesh Epic appear on seal cylinders prior to any written version. Popular and loosely connected episodes current in the fourth millennium b.c.e., were welded (apparently in the third millennium) into the literary masterpiece.

leled,

on

grander

The development

is

paral-

Homeric Epic, which imposed form and finesse on earlier episodic fragments current throughout the earlier East Mediterranean (e.g., at Ugarit).

On

a

scale, in the

the growth ot the Gilgamesh literary tradition, culminating in the canonical version, see Jeffrey M. Tigay, The Evolution the Gilgamesh Epic, Philadelphia, of 1982. 26.

In

the Beginning

and thwarts Enkidu,

45

the devices of the hunters.

all

realizes

A

certain hunter,

on seeing

why

the hunters have not been catching any game. He goes home to tell his father of the sight he has beheld. The father sends the young hunter to Erech to fetch a girl named Shamhat who is

to alienate

him

to

Enkidu from nature, introduce him Erech where he will fulfill his mission by

to society,

and bring

battling the tyranni-

Gilgamesh. Shamhat has carnal relations with Enkidu, whereupon all of nature is alienated from him; the beasts no longer trust him, and he finds himself a changed but wiser creature. cal

Enkidu comes

back to the

girl

who

tells

him he

is

much

too heroic

a

character to

waste his time in the fields with the beasts and he should big city where there is scope for his talents.

She

tells

where people wear festive garb, where every day where he can meet Gilgamesh. Enkidu realizes that

is

come to the him of Erech

a holiday,

there

is

and

no more

turning back to nature and that he must go to the big city where, he tells Shamhat, he intends to shout (referring

as

to heroic challenges

and the war cry of victory ). But she warns him that he had better not plan on shouting because Gilgamesh outclasses him. Then Sham27

hat introduces

bread,

Enkidu

which he

to other aspects of civilization such as eating

finds difficult because

he had been grazing on grass until that time. He also has trouble learning to drink from vessels, for he had hitherto been lapping water from streams. Finally he learns of some of the joys of civilization like anointing himself with oil and putting on clothes. After zation,

Enkidu

becoming

familiar with such facets

of civili-

ready to go to the city where Gilgamesh has been behaving outrageously toward the people. The two heroes meet and is

Enkidu challenges Gilgamesh, who has been apprised of Enkidu in dreams. The two fight on a monumental scale and so impress each other with their might that they decide not to wear each other out but instead to practice heroic virtue, by slaying evil dragons and enabling uprightness to triumph.

Their forest.

first

The

victory

elders

is

of the

against the city,

dragon

Humbaba

in the

cedar

and Enkidu, do their best to dissuade

Gilgamesh from undertaking the perilous mission, but Gilgamesh, preferring fame to security, resolves to go through with it. He obtains the blessing and

good advice of everyone including

mother Ninsun, who is troubled by the restless spirit of her son. With the help of Enkidu, Gilgamesh makes the dangerous journey and locates 27.

Discussed below in Chapter VII,

p. 101.

his divine

The Bible and the Ancient Near East

46

the dragon.

By

hurling, through magic, eight

winds into the wicked

mouth, our two heroes overcome and capture it. Humbaba mercy but in vain. They cut off his head and win immortal

dragon’s

begs for fame.

After that the

handsome Gilgamesh,

dresses himself so attractively

that the goddess Ishtar proposes marriage to him.

marriage

but he points out that he

gifts,

food and drink and dess

is

is

in general the standard

He

accustomed.

She

offers

him

rich

not prepared to give her

of living to which

a

god-

then reminds her of her long and shameful

marital history: she had once loved a horse, but

when

she had tired

of him, she treated him brutally and beat him to make him run. She had also loved a shepherd but tired of him and turned him into a wolf so that his own dogs drove him away. Gilgamesh enumerates all the instances of Ishtar

s

treachery to her mates, and rejects her proposal.

His rebufl infuriates her and she determines to avenge the affront. She goes to her father, the great god Anu, and asks permission to have the Bull of Heaven placed

at

her disposal.

The

Bull of

Heaven

human-headed bull of great strength that she hopes will slay Gilgamesh. To extract permission from her unwilling father, she makes threats of violence. Anu, in granting permission, reminds her that the a

is

slaying of a hero will cause a seven-year famine.

She had anticipated

consequence and assures Anu that she has laid up a sevenyear supply of food. Thereupon Anu commissions the goddess Aruru to make the Bull of Heaven. She obeys; but in the combat this dire

;s

that ensues,

Gilgamesh and Enkidu kill the Bull of Heaven 29 Ishtar is this and complains, but Enkidu cuts off a leg of the Bull .

dismayed ol

at

Heaven and

flings

it

at Ishtar as a terrible insult

30 .

She, in revenge,

plans the death of Enkidu, for such an indignity to a goddess cannot

go unpunished. Pathetically Enkidu perishes and vainly does Gilgamesh try to bring him back to life. He touches and talks to him but gets no answer. Finally, after watching his body with pious devotion,

28.

he notices

Two

in

One

is

the motif of a seven-year famine in

theme of anticipating a seven-year famine by laying first motif is matched in Ugarit where such a cycle of famine years follows Aqhat; while the second is familiar from the biblical story of Joseph in Egypt.

29. Fighting the Bull

That

here.

the

is

The

supplies.

particularly

the corpse and realizes that death takes

combined

for a slain hero; the other

the slaying of

30.

worm on

different motifs are

sympathy

up

a

on

this

of Heaven

seal cylinders

(see

one of the most frequent themes

in

Mesopotamian

art,

of the Akkad Dynasty.

symbolized, over

Homers Odyssey

is

a

wide

area, a serious affront,

Chapter VII,

p. 106).

is

demonstrated by

its

recurrence

the Beginning

In

beyond

victims

its

with fear

47

since he

for,

The

recall.

awful reality of death

fills

Gilgamesh

not completely divine, he too must die. Hence he becomes obsessed with the driye to obtain immortality.

Only one man had nian “Noah,”

immortal nal

is

become immortal. That was

ever

named Utnapishtim, who with

his

the Babylo-

wife had

become

after the Flood.

Gilgamesh reasons that the way to get eterto go to the immortal Utnapishtim and find out the secret

life is

He knows

from him.

the road

is

difficult, beset

with

many

obstacles,

but Gilgamesh cannot refrain from his quest. On the way he meets divine bar maid, who is used to tales of woe and has observed

a

personal

She gives him

frustrations.

sensible advice:

‘Gilgamesh, whither runnest thou?

The

life

When They

which thou

seekest thou wilt not find.

the gods created mankind,

allotted death to

mankind;

Life they retained in their

O

Gilgamesh,

let

own

thy belly be

keeping.

full,

Day and night be thou merry! Make every day one of rejoicing, Day and night, dance and play! Let thy clothes be clean.

Thy head washed And thy self bathed Cherish the

little

in water.

one holding thy hand

Let (thy) wife rejoice in thy bosom.

This

is

the lot of [mankind].” (X:iii: i-iq.) 3

'

But Gilgamesh cannot get himself to make the most of mortal reality and persists on his dangerous mission to far-off Utnaphistim. When he at long last beholds the old man, he is surprised. Gilgamesh,

who

thought he was going to see

men, looks

at

“I

him and

art like

is

from other

not different

me.

R. Campbell Thompson, The Epic of Gilgamesh:

1930, pp. 53-54-

different

look upon thee, Utnapishtim.

Thou

.

mighty hero

says:

Thine appearance

31

a

Text,

Transliteration

and Notes; Oxford,

The Bible and the Ancient Near East

48

Yea, thou art not different

Thou

My

art like

heart had fancied thee as

[But] thou

How And this

liest idly

one perfect

didst

obtain immortality?” (XI .-2—7.)

and come from

the

whole

the

Hebrew and

story,

different, their flood epics

common

a

him While

tell

Babylonian creation accounts are radically

is

battle

thou enter the company of the gods

which includes the flood epic of Babylonia*,

Gilgamesh

waging

on thy back.

point Utnapishtim decides to

are quite similar

for

me!]

[Tell

At

me.

source. 32

told that Utnapishtim lived before the

Flood

in the

of Shuruppak. The gods had decided to destroy mankind. One god, Ea, was friendly to Utnapishtim and determined to give him the city

information necessary for saving him. Ea did not venture to talk to him directly but instead went to the reed hut of Utnapishtim and addressed the hut. 33 Utnapishtim was there to hear the message,

which

instructed

him

to disregard his possessions, to construct

an ark

according to exact specifications, to take the seed of all living aboard, to include his wife, and to secure adequate supplies and a crew. The

Babylonian account

is

more

detailed

and

version because the Mesopotamians were

Hebrews

in material civilization in general

than the biblical

realistic

more advanced than and

the

specifically in the arts

of naval construction and operation. It is interesting to note that the wall of the reed hut was to be converted into the ark. This was a

well-known technique

in ancient

Mesopotamia, where the reed wall

of a house could be converted into

The

a

a boat.

34

came and, as in the biblical narrative, the ark landed on mountain from which Utnapishtim sends out first a dove, then a rains

swallow, anci finally a raven before he determines, that the earth

was

dry.

Again

like

Noah, he

much

gets out

and

like

Noah,

sacrifices to

This becomes especially clear upon contrasting these accounts with the Egyptian myth of the Destruction of Mankind. 32.

The

device of addressing an inanimate object with a message meant to be heard by people, occurs also in i Kings 13:2, where a prophet, whose message is to be heard by Jeroboam and 33.

the public, addresses the 34.

The

qinnim,

ark vessel,

altar.

consonantal text ot Genesis 6:14 has qnym, which should be read qanim, “reeds,” not nests (which does not mean “compartments of a ship”). The Hebrew word for the

occurs elsewhere only in the story of Moses,

which

is

explicitly described as constructed

who

as a

baby was exposed

of reeds (Exodus

2:3).

in

such a

n

the Beginning

49

who

the gods,

hover over the sweet-smelling sacrifice like flies. One particularly malicious god, Enlil, is angry because the flood secret has bun divulged, and a man and his wife have been spared. Enlil wants to destroy

out of sheer malevolence. But Ea appeases him and counsels moderation so successfully that Enlil puts his all life

hand on the man and woman and confers immortality upon them. Utnapishtim, as he closes his narration, reminds Gilgamesh that special circumstances had accounted for the conferring of immortality forehead ot the

after the Flood,

but that no such circumstances are a similar favor from the gods for Gilgamesh. The by his shattered hopes.

at

hand

latter

is

to secure

dismayed

Utnapishtim then asks Gilgamesh to try to stay awake for seven days and seven nights. Apparently the idea was that if

man

a

to immortality,

he ought

cannot fight off ordinary

be able to overcome

to

first

how

sleep,

can he hope to

one escape from

sleep. If

the sleep of death? But Gilgamesh, unable to stay awake,

whereupon Utnapishtim

wife to bake bread,

tells his

aspires

falls

a loaf

asleep,

each day,

for Gilgamesh.

She does so day after day until the seventh day, when he wakes up and claims he had only been dozing a little. But the loaves of bread, each in a different stage of mold, prove he had been asleep for a week; and so Gilgamesh who could not resist sleep is hardly a candidate for immortality. Just before

Gilgamesh

to leave

Utnapishtim and his wife, the latter tells her husband to give Gilgamesh a parting gift: the secret of how to find the elixir of youth, which happens to be a plant at the

bottom

of the sea.

is

By

putting stones on ones feet and diving to the ocean floor, one can obtain the plant that restores the aged to vigorous youth. Gilgamesh gratefully goes off with Utnapishtim s boatman and together they get the plant; but instead of eating it right away, Gilgamesh keeps it against the time when he will be old and decrepit,

and when eating

it

Gilgamesh stops at and a snake steals sloughs off

its

will rejuvenate a it

him.

On

the

way back

to Erech,

pool to refresh himself, leaves the plant there,

and

eats

it

old skin and thus,

—which

as

it

explains

was believed,

is

why

the snake

rejuvenated in

new

skin every year. Disconsolate, Gilgamesh goes into a bitter plaint, for he had gone through countless woes, not for

a

com-

himself but

for the serpent;

Gilgamesh visit that

plan,

and

and

his quest

asks the

had ended

boatman

great city and behold its

to its

go on

in utter failure.

Erech with him. The two wonderful brickwork, its fine city to

magnificent walls. Thus the epic repeats the note on

The Bible and the Ancient Near East

50

which

began. For though

it

men

cannot win immortality, they can

The

appreciate their earthly abode.

least

share eternal

life

fact that

it is

not our

at

lot to

with the distant Utnapishtim need not prevent us

from enjoying the advantages of our native city. Here we need to say a special word about the relationship between the flood accounts as preserved in the Bible and in the Gilgamesh Epic.

It is

obvious that the two versions are strikingly similar and must

be related to one another in some way. The consensus of scholars is that the Babylonian version influenced the Israelite version. The reasons for this are manifold. ety

is

more

likely

to

things being equal, a greater soci-

First, all

influence a lesser society than vice versa.

Babylonia was the dominant culture of the Asiatic Near East and Israel represented a backwater of sorts. Secondly, the manner of destruction,

i.e.,

by flood,

is

typical

of Mesopotamia, where the great

Tigris and Euphrates Rivers regularly flood their banks and cause

havoc and destruction.

anyone

Israel,

by

contrast,

is

very arid;

it is

unlikely

of the Near East would conceive of a divine destruction of the people through flooding. Third, the geography of that

in that part

the biblical account points to a lands

on the mountains of Ararat,

Euphrates;

if

Mesopotamian at

the headwaters of the Tigris and

the story had originated in

Mount Hermon

(c.

origin. Noah’s ark

Canaan we would expect

7,500 feet high), for example,

arks resting place. Fourth,

as

we

as

the locale of the

have seen, the Gilgamesh Epic was

the literary masterpiece of antiquity, and one fragment even has been found in the land of Israel (at Megiddo). Fifth, the earliest Hebrews

come from Mesopotamia, and

it

is

unlikely that

entourage would have been unfamiliar with the

There

some t°

(0

is

also a sixth point to

be made. The

significant additions lacking in the

Abraham and

his

story.

biblical version has

Babylonian version.

We refer

^e

the issue

importance placed upon morality and immorality, and (2) of covenant. In the Mesopotamian story, the gods decide to

destroy the world capriciously, and

we

are not told

why

Utnapishtim

was selected to survive, other than the fact that he was Ea’s favorite. In the Bible, by contrast, the world is to be destroyed because of peoples depravity, and Noah is chosen to survive the Flood because of his righteousness. Further, in the

Babylonian version, there

is

a

great distance

between the gods and man, but in the Bible there is a closeness between God and man as indicated by the establishment of the covenant.

Accordingly, there can be no doubt that the Israelite flood story

the Beginning

In

5

has

Mesopotamian precursors

parallel, less

(either the

well-known, flood

clearly that Israel did

not

which ancient

itself,

or

This demonstrates very vacuum, but rather was part and

traditions).

live in a

parcel of the ancient

the relationship

Gilgamesh Epic

1

Near Eastern between the two

cultural world.

At the same time,

stories points to the

manner

in

incorporated polytheistic literary traditions. The basic outline of the story is accepted, but the underlying theology is altered to

There

I

s/a el

conform

to Israelite religion.

numerous other Mesopotamian mythological texts dealing with similar and other problems. An important text, with its own are

creation and flood traditions,

is

the Atrahasis Epic

35

We

conclude our a brief discussion of one text that deals with the quest for immortality. It is about a wise hero called Adapa, who while fishing was infuriated by the South Wind that upset his boat. He retaliated by breaking the South Winds wings and was consequently summoned before the gods. Ea instructed him to refuse the water of death and the food of death that the gods would offer him. As things turned out, he was offered the water of life and the food of life; yet, following Ea s advice, he refused them. Thus again is sounded the sad note of mans aspiring in vain to immortality, which the gods withhold as their own prerogative. Like the biblical Adam, Adapa .

survey with

acquired

wisdom but not

eternal

life.

The theme

kind from attaining immortality out the Bible World.

35

W. G. Lambert and A. R.

is

of the gods preventing

man-

accordingly widespread through-

Millard, Atra-Hasis: Vie Babylonian Story of the Flood, Oxford, 1969. See also Tikva Frymer-Kensky, “The Atrahasis Epic and Its Significance for Our Understanding of Genesis 1—9,“ Biblical Archaeologist 40, 1977, pp. 147—55. -

CHAPTER Egypt

to

Am am a

the

O

III

Age

ur discussion of the biblical account brought us

down

to about

by which time the Near East had experienced considerable development both in the Nile Valley and in Asia. In this and the next chapter we shall summarize the historical experience of the

1400

Near

East

b.c.e.,

down

to that time, starting

with Egypt.

Inhabitable Egypt was the long river valley divided into districts called

nomes, each with

cated to the local god.

Egyptian history long

nomes tended

to

a capital city that

The

division into

after

contained

The

temple dedi-

nomes remained

a factor in

the country had attained unity.

be divided into two groups

those in the south.

a

—

The

those in the north and

development was the unification of Upper ( = south) Egypt and Lower ( = north) Egypt around 3000 b.c.e. From about that time, a predynastic king named Narmer has final

monument, on which he is shown wearing on one occasion the flat red crown ol Lower Egypt and on another occasion the elongated white crown ol Upper Egypt, indicating that he was in a posius a

left

tion to claim sovereignty over both halves of the country. Shortly alter his time, Menes, the hrst king ol the first official dynasty, ruled

over the two Egypts and he, according to the tradition of the country, was credited with the achievement of uniting the two Egypts, 1

and with him begins the

The

full light

ol actual Egyptian history

around

authority tor the accepted division of Egyptian rulers into dynasties 'is Manetho, an Egyptian who wrote a history of his nation in Greek during the third century b.c.e. 1.

52

Egypt to the Amarna Age 3000

name king

His personal

b.c.e.

in hieroglyphs,

known

By

monuments and

relics,

inscribed with Ins

have been found; so that he

only from

rary evidence.

53

late tradition

but

is

fully attested

not

shadowy by contempoa

time Egypt had 'already developed a welldefined and distinctive civilization with an art (and system of writing)' whose basic canons were in large measure established. 4 Egypt had a strong love of tradition. The marks of its civilization rarely died out. Other elements could be added but this resulted in an accumulation of mixed traditions, because the Egyptians could learn new things more readily than forget old ones. Thus, along with his

the development of hieroglyphic writing was included an alphabet. Each consonant in the language could be represented by a separate hieroglyph, but the Egyptians were not systematic enough to see the advantages in writing in a purely alphabetic way. Instead they combined three different systems of writing: (1) the logographic, whereby each sign stands for a word; (2) the syllabic, whereby each sign stands for a syllable, and (3) the alphabetic, whereby each sign stands for a single sound.

Often

a

word

written in two or even in all three systems simultaneously and there might be in addition a “determinais

2.

tive,”

which

hieroglyph that places the word in a semantic category.^ Script is not the only manifestation of the Egyptians’ inability conveniently to forget during the process of accretion. In religion, is

a

gods were added but not dropped from the pantheon, with the result that the growing host of deities became an unwieldy clutter. So, too, myths weie added to myths, with the sum total growing ever more complicated. Early in the third millennium the Egyptians began to exploit the

The

between Narmers and Menes’s work may have been that Narmers unification was ephemeral, whereas Menes’s endured. For the problems involved in identifying Narmer with Menes, see E. Drioton and J. Vandier, L’Egypte, 3d ed., Paris, 1952, PP 16162; and W. Helck, “Gab es ein Konig ‘Menes’?” Zcitschrift der Deutschen difference

.

Morgenlandischen

Gesellschaft 103, 1953, pp. 3.

354-59.

Egyptian hieroglyphic writing remained, to the end,

a

branch of the graphic

arts.

Standard works on Egyptian history are the following: James H. Breasted, A History of Egypt, 3d ed., New York, 1943; Drioton and Vandier, L’Egypte; Alan Gardiner, Egypt of the Pharaohs, London, 1961; and John A. Wilson, The Culture of Ancient Egypt, Chicago, 4.

The

1956.

best collection

of Egyptian

historical

documents remains James H. Breasted, Ancient

Records of Egypt, 5 vols., Chicago, 1906-7. 5.

A

determinative

“cute,” or “cat.”

tells,

so to speak,

whether

a

consonantal combination

like

ct

means “cut

”

The Bible and the Ancient Near East

54

mineral resources of the Sinai Peninsula. tian history that activities,

whenever Egypt was

It is

characteristic

of Egyp-

strong, she left traces

of her

including inscriptions, in Sinai. Thus, although compared

with Mesopotamia, Egypt was

relatively isolated,

had contacts with

it

the outside world, not only at the north and south ends of the long

Nile Valley, but also through conquest and trade with the continent of Asia

and with the

islands

and coasts of the Mediterranean and

Red

Seas.

two Early Dynasties, the period of the Old Kingdom was ushered in by the Third Dynasty. Thev most important king of that dynasty was Joser, whose adviser Imhotep was a remarkable man later to be deified and appear in Egyptian history as a giant in the development of civilization. He was a physician, sage, counselor, and After the

first

the architect of the imposing Step Pyramid (the

stone building,

standing, in the world) that

still

eler at Saqqara, near Cairo.

The king

at

first

monumental

amazes the trav-

still

the beginning of the Fourth

Dynasty, Senefru, had contacts with Western Asia, so that already in the third millennium Egyptian influence was

felt in

Canaan.

The Old Kingdom (around the middle of the third millennium) was in many ways the most noteworthy of all the periods of Egyptian history. It has left us the greatest monuments and the finest art of Egypt, and

was

it

embraced the

essential pattern that

to follow for almost three millennia.

there was the tendency to place

built for his worship.

whereby the

deities

of natural, universal

Already in

Re, the Sun,

the Egyptian pantheon; and in

Egyptian civilization this early

period

god in Old Kingdom times temples were as

the foremost

This ran against another current in Egypt,

were

local

gods rather than the personifications

phenomena. Nomic

deities are

more numerous

than those with claim to universality. In spite of the early beginnings of the cult of

Re,

it

took over

worship to gain enough

amazing revolutions

The

fact that the

in

a

thousand years for Egyptian solar

momentum

world

to

produce one of the most

history/’

that real religious differences existed

underlying ideas were the same for

nome

nome did not mean between nome and nome. The

gods varied from

all

to

the nomes.

But Egyptians,

depending on which was their nome, worshiped at different shrines and had gods with different attributes. The different gods might be represented each by a different animal, and each might have different

6.

The

revolution culminated after 1400 b.c.e., during the

Amarna Age

(see

Chapter V).

Egypt to the Amarna Age

55

But an Egyptian who changed his residence from one nome another had little difficulty, emotionally or intellectually,

festivals.

to

in getting

used to the change. The differences between the cults were only externally varying expressions of tfie

that prevailed

same

as a rule

religious character

from one end of Egypt to the other.

The

Egyptians visualized the universe as divided into three parts: the land of (1) the gods was located in the east where the sun rises; (2) in the middle was the Nile Valley, the land of the living; (3) to the west lay the land of the dead. Such was their universe. They were not particularly concerned with foreign lands, for which no Egyptian cared to leave Egypt; nor with foreign nations, which the Egyptians viewed with contempt. The common man was not interested in for-

eign contacts nor in conquests, however

embark upon them.

Egyptians lived in

homogeneous

much

his

sovereign might

7

a rich

where they developed their own of changes partly brought about by

country,

civilization in spite

periodic infiltrations from the north or south. They were ideally situated to develop their own distinctive culture, which far excelled anything that men had achieved anywhere else. The Egyptians knew this, whence their national pride and disdain for other civilizations and other people.

—

They believed in the existence of an otherworldly paradise in fields where the dead could enter if they had lived meritorious lives world. In paradise no chores had to be done by the blessed, enjoyed plenty and happiness.

in this

who

The king was country where

considered divine,

vital

was perhaps indicated in a projects of nationwide scope had to be corre-

lated, particularly in irrigation.

as

The whole

length of the river valley

had to be under one “Nile Valley Authority”; and the best way to get the people to cooperate throughout the vast length of the land was to have them respect the king as divine and follow his authority

unquestioningly.

The

of the dead during Old Kingdom times was reserved for the king and eventually extended to the nobles (but not to the

cult

common

people), and so the magnificent funerary structures and the elaborate rituals and sacrifices in them all of

—

—were

necessitated onerous taxation and forced labor

7.

he

The modern Egyptian Arab is

nity,

unlike the Lebanese Arab

much

like his

feels

who

much

the

same way and

gladly goes to the ends

Phoenician predecessors.

rarely

which

just

for the

wants to go abroad. In

of the earth

in quest

this

of opportu-

The Bible and the Ancient Near East

56

king and

immediate

his

administrator,

who

circle.

The pharaoh was

a busy,

enlightened

kept the country united by holding his governors

in check.

In family

life,

women

had

important position, for

a peculiarly

inheritance passed through the mother rather than through the father. Accordingly, the oldest

daughter was normally the

own

the chief protector ol a person was not his

when

times

and

father but his

and

moth-

well hark back to prehistoric

only the obvious relationship between mother and child

was recognized, but not the

less

apparent relationship between father

child.

A wisdom against vice,

But the

we

may

oldest brother. This system

er’s

heir;

grew up, whose authors warned the reader admonishing him to live the good life and to shun evil. literature

evils that the sages refer to are

described so graphically that

can see the corrupt social usages that evoked

this

wisdom

litera-

ture.

The

royal circle maintained a standard

imagination, while the peasants, poverty. Yet there

was no

of luxury that almost defies

always in Egypt, lived in abject

as

caste system

ented lad of humble birth to attain the

and

circle

it

was possible for

a tal-

of officialdom by getting

The motive to learn to read and write was to qualify for government work. Any boy, by excelling first in his studies and then in government service, had just as much chance to rise to the prime ministry as an American boy has to become president. an education.

In spite of such ideas as the divinity

dead," the mentality of the Egyptians practical.

Even the

of kings and the

was

of the

basically materialistic

dead was quite

cult of the

cult

materialistic.

and

The body

was mummified because corporeal existence was the only existence acceptable to the Egyptian. Offerings of bread and of beer figure prominently because an afterlife without food and drink would be

no

life

for an Egyptian.

Included

among

the practical

arts,

however misguided

been, was magic, which was designed,

produce

cal

Superficially an Egyptian

and

it is all

spiritual outlook.

seem out of

custom

like

But such

writing

reach. Naturally

letters to the

may have

over the world, to

practical effects: to restore or ensure health,

things that otherwise

S.

as

it

and

to obtain

magic was not

dead might convey an impracti-

conclusion would be just

as false as it would be to conclude that American messages addressed in the second person to the dead (such messages can be found nearly every day on the obituary page of The New York Times under the title In Memoriam ) indicate that the United States is an impractical, spiritual nation.

a

Egypt to the Amarna Age

57

used where the Egyptians could accomplish their ends scientifically. Only when science and rational technique broke down would

magic

be invoked. For example, Egyptians might resort to magic in an attempt to cure a disease they did not understand; but they would never depend on magic for the construction of a pyramid, which they did understand.

Already

Old Kingdom times sculptured

in

portraits

are

often

superb likenesses. This again was practical. I he identity of the dead had to go on and this could best be achieved through an exact portrait likeness, which explains why such statues as the one known as Sheikh el-Beled' are superb portraits of definite individuals; in that

particular case, ot a

man

upper

of the

used to exerting authority, but one calculated to fulfill

classes, well fed, sure

self-satisfied. It a

is

of himself,

not an idealized portrait

purpose that called for

faithful individu-

ality.

Old Kingdom in

Egyptian

reliefs

already

show

the canons that were to remain

throughout antiquity. The eye and shoulders had to be front-view. The feet and trunk, however, are in profile. This is a strange combination for us until we get used to it, but once we accept it

as

art

the standard, as the Egyptians did,

All art has

its

from

detract

between our

moment to

One

part

becomes quite

acceptable.

1

"

conventions; and Egyptian conventions in no way the greatness of Egyptian art. Another difference

art

and Egyptian

represented in an

combine

it

is

artistic

that while

we

like to

have only one

composition, the Egyptians

felt free

number of different moments in the same composition. of a scene may represent one stage of the action, while a

another part of the same scene represents a later stage. Thus in battle scenes of the Empire Period,” one and the same scene can show a

number of operations ranging in time from the launching of an attack upon a city to leading off' captives and booty after the victory. The temples had only straight lines, upright and horizontal. The arch was already known; it was reserved for vaults in funerary buildGood comprehensive volumes on

9-

the art of ancient Egypt are H. Ranke, Meisteruvrke der dgyptischen Kunst, Basel, 1948 (see plate 53 for the Sheikh el-Beled); and W. Stevenson Smith,

The Art and Archaeology of Ancient Egypt, Harmondsworth, 1958. 10.

The

ancients never developed a science of perspective such as the

artists

of the Renaissance

created. 1

1

.

This

is

not limited to Egyptian

an example from the

art

art;

it is

also

common

in

of Mesopotamia, correlated with

Rendsburg, “L/7 68 and the

Tell

Asmar

Mesopotamia and elsewhere. For a text from Ugarit, see Gary A

Seal,” Orientalia 53, 1984, pp.

448—52.

The Bible and the Ancient Near East

58

ings,

but was not used in temples because the Egyptians did not

how

to buttress walls sufficiently for taking the thrust

know

of an arch. In

thick-walled tombs the thrust offers no problem.

Cheops, est of all

The

a

king of the Fourth Dynasty, was the builder of the great-

pyramids, the

first

one

average weight of the blocks

of the pyramid

481

is

feet;

Giza containing 2,300,000 blocks.

at

is

two and

the base has sides 755 feet

gin of error in construction

is

for

all

intents

The height long. The mar-

a half tons.

and purposes

sion, organized labor, planning, varied personnel (from

masons and up

nil.

Preci-

drudges to

to the master architect)

and the backing of an entire economy were necessary for accomplishing the greatest of the Seven Wonders. And it may be worth noting that of all the Seven Wonders, the pyramids alone survive.

The governors were Other

officials, too,

strong

men who

increased their

power

inherited their position. as

great pyramid of Cheops, the subsequent

time went on. After the

Old Kingdom pyramids

progressively diminished in size, because the resources of the king-

dom

were being exhausted and power was passing from the pharaohs to the governors and officials. Decentralization was setting in. However, it was in this period, when the process of disintegration had begun, that the

finest artistic

work

(as

in painting)

and the

finest

of the Old Kingdom were produced, during the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties. As is often the case, the arts flowered most as power began texts

With

to decline.

comes

the

tall

of the Sixth Dynasty, the Old Kingdom

Not only has the Old Kingdom left some of the monuments ever put up by men, but it was an age that had

to an end.

greatest

seen the building of ships for sailing and exploring lands and seas, and, more than that, an age that had seen the beginning of a concept of personal

judgment based on character and merit

in this world.

The

intermediate period that followed (toward the close of the third millennium) is not one of glory. For the Eighth Dynasty we

have

or no trace of activity in the fine arts. No monuments were then erected by the pharaohs. There are texts of local governors, in little

which the pharaoh is disregarded, indicating that he had become more or less a figurehead. The Ninth and Tenth Dynasties need not delay us. For present purposes ter

was Heracleopolis

shiped.

of

The

rulers are

in the

known

we may note nome where as

in passing that their cen-

the crocodile was

wor-

the Heracleopolitans.

With the Eleventh Dynasty, however, the rulers of the ancient city Thebes asserted themselves, first locally and later uniting the two

Egypt to the Amarna Age

59

Egypts to inaugurate the Middle Kingdom. a

succession of kings,

some

called

The ruling family formed hitef and some called Mentuhotep.

Expeditions were resumed and a Mentuhotep put up a mortuary temple that was the prototype of one of the greatest temples in the Nile Valley; namely, the one built at Deir el-Bahri by Queen Hatshepsut, whom wg shall discuss later. Out of the Theban ruling family

came

around 1950 B.C.E., Dynasty. His name was Amenemhet a leader,

control of

who founded the great Twelfth He emerged from Thebes, got I.

of Egypt,

and checked the nomarchs (as the heads of the nomes are called). However, in his rise to power he had to depend on friendly nomarchs, so that feudalism was a foregone conclusion.

The

all

Twelfth Dynasty, which marked the height of the

the Middle

Kingdom,

is

classical

age of

characterized by feudalism. Yet the king was

able to control the

nomarchs so that the country could function efficiently as a whole, though at the same time local sensibilities and local initiative were not crushed. Because Thebes was in Upper Egypt, and therefore not in a central position, the capital was

point south of

Memphis

moved

north, to a

Middle Egypt, where control could be better kept over the northern and southern parts of the land. The king was able to exert authority through his treasury, for all taxes had in

through from the nomes into a central treasury. Another unifying factor was the palace schools, where reading and writing were taught for the training of officials. The officials thus had contact with the royal circle and felt allegiance to the divine king. The masses to filter

were

in abject poverty as usual.

But again there was always the opportunity for the individual, regardless of the station in which he was born, to rise by showing his ability, to get an education, and enter government service.

The

local

gods continued, but their

associated with, or subordinated

Thebes, the royal priests

with

city,

was

into

“Amon-Re,”

in

in the land. Yet

order to

gods had to be connected with

Re

had to be

Re. For example, the god of

Amon who became

were the most powerful

Re

to,

cults, to survive,

so important that his

Amon

was combined

with the trend whereby in order that their cults might fit

in

continue.

Egyptian religion developed Osiris, the

12

.

Osiris died

god

of the dead,

a

kind of Passion Play concerning

showing

his suffering, death,

and rose from the dead once. The idea

foundation in the ancient Egyptian sources.

that

and

revival.

12

he died and rose annually has no

The Bible and the Ancient Near East

60

Each dead person was identified with Osiris on the assumption that the deceased would undergo, but emerge triumphant like Osiris from, a trial full of vicissitudes to qualify for the life eternal. This

each

fully

man

developed concept of

enters paradise

appears quite remarkable

was

still

no such

idea in

if

his character

when we

of the Bible, the afterworld

place called Sheol,

and

life

it.

on

earth warrant

it,

consider that centuries later there

Mesopotamia and

and Assyrians never developed

judgment, whereby

a personal

And

Israel.

throughout nearly

in Israel,

was considered

The Babylonians

a dreary

where the good and B^d

all

underground

alike led an eventless

existence. Indeed the later Jewish, Christian,

the

one

afterlife, as

depending on to those

The

in

and Islamic concept of which the individual is rewarded or punished

his earthly record,

of the Hebrew Bible

aggressive

its

convinced him that

son, Sesostris

I,

more akin

13

Amenemhet

his

A

palace plot

made

on his

coregent, a precedent that was followed throughout at

associated

that

the son was already enthroned. (This was to

death .)

organized the realm

throne was not secure, so he

Kingdom. That is, each king the crown prince with him so

e.g.,

I

second era of splendor.

the Middle

tory;

to Egyptian views than

.

and progressive

and brought Egypt into his life

is

when David made Solomon

some point

when

happen

in his reign

the father died, in

Hebrew

coregent before

his

his-

own

14

The most charming

piece of Egyptian literature comes from this

While Sesostris I was performing military service in the field, news came secretly of Amenemhet s death, whereupon Sesostris hasperiod.

tened to the capital to

forestall trouble

and to make sure of the throne.

One of Sesostris s courtiers was a man named Sinuhe, the hero of the Romance of Sinuhe. This story relates that when Sinuhe got wind of Amenemhet s death, he feared that evil consequences might befall him,

as so

often happens to courtiers in times of political change. Sinuhe therefore fled from the camp of his master and went stealthily

from Egypt

to Asia as a fugitive. In the desert,

around the Isthmus of Suez, he was saved by hospitable Semitic Bedouins. He had nearly died of thirst and they gave him water and then cooked milk, like the

13.

As we

that the 14.

cles

shall see in

subsequent chapters,

concept of personal salvation comes

it

is

only toward the close of the

Kings 1.32-40. Also Jotham was regent ol Judah before 26:21 with verse 23).

1

Hebrew

Bible

in.

his fathers

death

(cf.

2 Chroni-

Egypt to the Amarna Age modern Bedouins who

6

regale their guests with leben.

wandered north into Canaan where he ruler, who respected him because of experience

in

Pharaonic

circles.

He

with

Thence, Sinuhe

fell

in

his

Egyptian origin and

offered

him

1

a

sheikh, or local his

a frontier post to

be defended against invading Semitic Bedouins. Sinuhe accepted deposition as well as the rulers eldest daughter in marriage and soon attained wealth 2nd success. The Bedouins made attacks

on him but got the best of them. His orchards and vineyards yielded rich harvests of figs., olives, and grapes. His sons had grown strong and were helping him. He had everything an Asiatic could want. But to an Egyptian, even an Asiatic paradise was bitter exile. All Sinuhes Ik

prosperity was vain because of Ins longing to return to his native land.

At

he got

touch with emissaries on diplomatic missions of Sesostris, and after many years of waiting and growing old, he received in writing from the pharaoh a clean bill of health and a last

in

welcome home. Without any hesitation, he liquidated his interests, turned his power over to his sons, and apparently qualms about leaving the wife

who

had borne them.

He

Asiatic felt

no

put

his

affairs in order, as

his

way

an upstanding administrator should, and wended back to Egypt, going through the frontier posts, and then

boarding

Nile boat provided by the king. Sinuhe tells us about the wonderful service aboard the Egyptian boat, on which every member a

of the crew knew his job and performed it smoothly. What a change from “barbaric” Asia! As he sailed up the Nile to the palace, his heart rejoiced, foi he was glad to be back in his homeland, and on his way to the court where he belonged. The king received him well and

summoned

the

queen and

royal children.

When

came into the court and saw Sinuhe, about whom they had heard so much, they screamed on seeing him clad like an Asiatic. They could not believe that the exotic person before them was Sinuhe, but the king assured them it was he. Then Sinuhe was clad in fine linen, perfumed, shaved, and given an estate and royal support. a funeral

endowment and

his existence in the

world

a statue

they

The king

also gave

him

covered with gold to perpetuate

come. Gratefully Sinuhe put behind him all the years of exile, and settled down to enjoy the rest of his life in honor, as a favorite in the court of Ins sovereign, with the prospect to

of proper burial indispensable for securing immortality.

The Romance of Sinuhe without any religious or

is

composed for enjoyment, motive. It is of some special interest

literature

political

to Bible students because in the course

of the narrative conditions

in

The Bible and the Ancient Near East

62

Canaan and

are reflected, such as the fertility

Egyptian

(“East”),

geography

Sinuhes

influence.

of the land, Bedouin

where Bedouins were commonly

tent-dwelling Job (1:3)

from the Egyptian viewpoint, the

text

was

The

seen.

also designated as

is

includes

Qedem

raids,

Qedem

land of the

But

(“East”).

literature written for the

been

sake ot entertainment. Papyri inscribed with the story have

found in tombs; they were placed there so

good reading matter

in the future world.

that the

dead might have

15

The greatest conqueror of the Middle Kingdom was Sesostris III, who made the first real Egyptian invasion of Canaan. Among the towns he encountered there was Sekmem, which is either the biblical Shechem in central Israel or another Canaanite town of the same name.

Middle Kingdom

Old Kingdom eflort traits

art

The

masters.

was spent on

size

of this period are

does not have the originality and genius of figures

than

artistic

now

More

begin to get bigger.

merit.

However, the best por-

excellent.

still

Another phenomenon of this period is prophecy. There is for example a prophet called Ipuwer; Neferrohu is the name of another.

A prophet,

according to the Egyptian pattern, appears before the king and gives him sad news. He tells him that because of evil, the land is

going to

suffer.

An enemy

will invade

Egypt and

inflict

upon

all

it

kinds of misery including the inversion of all social relationships, until a righteous king will arise as a savior, drive out the destructive

and

invader,

institute a

had an influence on religious

One

and

godly order. Egyptian prophecy

ethical content.

of the

prophecy, though

Israelite

Israel

may

have

added further

16

literary masterpieces

of the Middle Kingdom

is

the

Song of the Harper, in which the minstrel appears before a banquet, where he sings to the guests that everything in life is vain, that we cannot take our possessions with us thing to do

is

and

that the only

and be merry because the future holds us; nor have the dead ever come back to

to eat, drink,

nothing certain in store for tell

after death,

of the future

life.

This represents an inquiring, skeptical attitude

of oriental origin that

may

have eventually influenced (centuries

Magical and religious compositions such as the Book of the Dead were for the grim business of securing salvation. The Sinuhe story and other Middle Egyptian pieces of 15-

literature

are the

worlds hrst secular

literature

composed

for reading

enjoyment.

For extensive translations (with bibliography on the originals) of Egyptian Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, vols., Berkeley, 1973—80. 16.

3

literature, cf.

Egypt to the Amarna Age

63

the author of Ecclesiastes,"

later)

thoughts expressed by the the biblical

course

to

is

whose musings run the gamut of Harper; although in good Hebrew fashion,

book concludes fear God.

that after

all

said

is

and done, the best

,H

As the Harper shows, there were Egyptians who doubted the make-believe future world, where the blessed eat, drink, and play, with no work to do. Thinking people, even in Egypt, questioned the

widely accepted tenets of the cult of the dead, which should warn us against the temptation to generalize.

The splendor

Middle Kingdom was not to last. It ended with usurpers seizing the throne one after the other. Finally, foreign invaders called the Hyksos entered the country from Asia, imposing then rule that was intolerable to the Egyptians. However, the Hyksos of the

introduced the horse-drawn chariot and modernized warfare to the degree that made possible the next step of Egyptian history:

the

Empire Period. The Hyksos ruled an empire, not merely an Egyptian kingdom. They chose as their capital the city of Avaris in

the Delta

from which to govern

on two continents. A capital in Upper or Middle Egypt would not have been sufficiently central. That the Hyksos ruled not only over Egypt but also over some of Western Asia paved the way for the Egyptian Empire that was their holdings

to see

maximum

Egypt’s

the capital of the a

expansion beyond her

Hyksos was

own

natural borders. Since

in the far north, the rulers

position to control the far south; and

it

was from there

were not

in

that Egyptian

nationalism, as has always been the case, rose again, finally to drive the invader out and establish the Kingdom (as the Empire

New

Period

is

also called).

The Hyksos ites

consisted of a

along with other Asiatic

the year 1570 b.c.e. by

mixed multitude, including many Semelements. With their expulsion around

Ahmose

(about 1550-25 b.c.e.) of Thebes, the founder of the Eighteenth Dynasty, the New Kingdom begins. I

The Middle Kingdom had been an age of feudalism. The New Kingdom (coinciding approximately with the second half of the second millennium land, as

17.

Some

is

b.c.e.)

depicted in

ownership of the Genesis 47:19-20, where the system is attrib-

attribute the skeptical outlook in Ecclesiastes to

Harper shows that notions such borrowed from Greece. 1

8.

fear

was to be an age of

The Hebrew language of God

(or

Yahwe).”

has

as

“you

no word

can’t take

it

for “religion.”

royal

Greek with you”

The

sources. (etc.)

true religion

The Song of

the

need not have been

is

designated as “the

The Bible and the Ancient Near East

64

The people were nearly all serfs bound to land. The taxes included one fifth of the

uted to Joseph’s planning.

who owned

the king

crops that the

the

had to pay into the royal

serfs

treasury. This, too,

is

The Joseph Kingdom gov-

attributed to Josephs administration in Genesis 47:23-27.

shows the

story

biblical writers familiarity

ernment, national economy, and

society.

with

New

The only

were those ol the priesthood, again specified

in the

tax exemptions

Joseph

story.

The

maintenance from the crown and, being tax

priests received their

exempt, were able to hold on to their lands.

The

state

plish feats in tactics

was military and the Egyptians were

now

of warfare that they had never been able to

and in the

strategic distribution

The worlds

of troops,

accomdo before. Both able to

new features were

well-documented accounts of strategically conducted campaigns come from the New Kingdom. The new added.

first

branch of the army was the chariotry, whose charioteers formed the

uppermost military

class.

Members of

to retain a privileged position

who

the old nobility

sought their way into the

charioteers, because caring for horses

wished

circle

and serving the king

chariotry constituted the most important source of

of

in his

New Kingdom

power. Public opinion was of no consequence. Egypt was an absolute dictatorship. Accordingly, the

king had to be strong. Thus,

there was a succession of strong Pharaohs, the able to survive.

doom

of the

The in

prime

able leadership

New Kingdom

old nobility, as

place

its

When

came an

minister,

who

we

was

show

officialdom.

The king

needed able

civil

picture ol Egypt as

we know

it

common

next to the king

people.

man

able to

civil

service

rise

fits

of Joseph

in with the

from native sources.

The name Thutmose figures prominently in Dynasty. Thutmose invaded Syria and his records I

such, but

servants to administer

throughout Egyptian history, a young merit and to rise first in school and then in

a slave to the highest position

as

always needed an able

could aspire to the highest positions. Accordingly, the

Irom

was

sealed.

typical

his

as

was lacking on the throne, the

the land. There was thus opportunity for talented

As was

long

New Kingdom

have mentioned, disappeared

in turn

as

the

Eighteenth

are consequently

important for the study of Canaan. The complicated succession to the throne at this time iorms one of the most interesting chapters of

There were three kings named Thutmose whose careers and succession to the throne were complicated by a woman, Queen Hathistory.

—

Egypt to the Amarna Age

65

shepsut (about 1479 57 b.c.e.). She assumed not only queenship but kingship, and she even wore a false beard to simulate masculinity in posing for some of her monuments. The able woman sent expeditions abroad

was Senmut,

and

built edifices at

who

the architect

temple, which,

as

we

home. The man of her confidence built at I)eir el

have observed, was copied from the older

neighboring temple of Mentuhotep. The ambitious naturally hated her.

ily

ablest

monarch of the

her funerary

13 a h r 1

1

hutmose

(about

III

men

1479—25

in her

famthe

b.c.e.),

dynasty, was related to her by marriage as well

through other family

She suppressed him, obliging him to wait until she died before he could rule by himself and carry out his grandiose plans. When she died, male resentment expressed itself in as

ties.

defacing her monuments, erasing her name, and trying to obliterate her memory from history.

Thutmose

king of Kadesh,

mose

Ills

invaded Canaan against

III

by the Orontes River

a city

account of the way he conducted

(around 1455

b.c.e.), in

headed by the

a coalition

the course of the war,

in central Syria. his battle at is

now

Thut-

Megiddo

classical.

There

were three routes by which he could go. The shortest, now known as Wadi Ara, happened to be the most dangerous because it was so narrow in places that men had to march in single file. Accordingly, if

enemy had

the

intelligence of his passage through the

him with

they could attack

forces. Against the advice

few troops and wipe out his counselors, he insisted on taking

relatively

of all

his

daring, shortest, and least expected route.

this

out to be

narrow wadi,

The gamble turned

complete success and he vanquished the coalition of kings near Megiddo. In defeat, Megiddo shut its doors on its defenders so that the

had

to

were

a

men who

saved their

be hauled up over the

rarely captured.

The

own

lives

and got back into the

city

wall. In those days strongly walled cities

Egyptians did not yet

effective siege warfare, for the Assyrians

were yet

know

the science of

to invent such basic

mining under city walls. Accordingly, expedition after expedition was necessary to win control over Canaan. The walled techniques

cities

as

provided refuge and perpetuated the resistance. In

lar case,

although

“conquest,”

gifts

were offered

Megiddos

to

Thutmose

this particu-

in recognition

of

remained closed to him. Moreover, the king of Kadesh escaped so that another battle had to be fought in his

gates

of Kadesh, where again Thutmose was victorious, though none of his victories had permanence for the reason already the

vicinity

given.

The Bible and the Ancient Near East

66

Thutmose

introduced naval adjuncts to supplement his land movements. His ships landed troops to help in the attack on North Syrian points.

Thutmose

III

reached the Euphrates River, which was the natural Syrian boundary of the Egyptian Empire at its greatest extent. On the other bank was the Mitanm Kingdom. The river surprised the Egypti ans

III

who

had not realized

to flow south, instead ol

whom

upstream

and

north south

that nature permitted a great stream like the Nile.

To the Egyptians

(to

were mdentical), the Euphrates was

the river that paradoxically flowed “upstream.”

Biographies of generals that served under Thutmose III are interesting compositions of the period. One of them tells how an elephant

broke loose and menaced the king near Carchemish on the Euphrates, until the general slashed off its trunk with a sword. The story incidentally shows that elephants were still known in the area.

Another

ol his generals,

Thutiy by name, tells in his biography how he captured the Canaanite city of Jaffa, by hiding his soldiers and their equipment in baskets. These were gotten into the city stealthily as goods, and once they were behind the fortifications, captured the city ol Jaffa.

The

tale

is

thus a forerunner of Ali Baba and

the Forty Thieves. In any case, deception could lead to the capture of walled cities that were invulnerable to the force of arms. 19

Year after year the great conquering pharaohs of the New Kingdom returned to Canaan, ravaged the countryside, carried off all the

booty and tribute they could

and kept the land within the empire. Yet the conquest was never complete because of the impregnability of the walled cities. It is

interesting to note that

Heliopolis are

now

get,

two of Thutmose

Ills obelisks

in the English-speaking world.

One

is

from

on the

Thames Embankment in London; the other is in Central Park, New York. They are reminders in our midst of Egypt’s greatest conqueror. Thutmose IV (around 1400-1390 b.c.e.) married Mutemuya, a Mitanni princess, and thereby inaugurated an era of close diplomatic contacts between Egypt and Asia. It is true that such princesses did not

become

the official queens in the royal harem, but nevertheless they were wives of the king and cemented friendships with Asiatic

royalty. III

19-

Mutemuya and Thutmose IV were

(about 1390-52

b.c.e.),

The most famous example of this

the

first

in literature

the parents of Amenhotep

of the two Amenhoteps

is,

of course, the Trojan Horse.

who

Egypt to the Amarna Age ruled Egypt during the

wife of

queen

we

Amenhotep

at this

observe

a

III

67

Amarna Age (see Chapter V). The favorite was Tiy, a commoner but an Egyptian. The

time could not be anyone except an Egyptian. However, certain breaking down of old traditions, in that he mar-

ncd the daughter of a commoner. Amenhotep III also married a number of princesses from Asia, one of them a Mitanni princess

named Giluhepa. He tep IV (about

hepa.

The

also

1352-36

obtained

b.c.e.)

in

marriage for

his

another Mitanni princess

Amenhonamed Tadu-

son

prestige of

country of the

day.

Egypt stood higher than that of any other Egypt would take princesses into the royal harem

but would never give an Egyptian princess, or for that matter any

Egyptian woman, in marriage to any of the

With Amenhotep

Asiatics.

and IV the political decline of the New Kingdom had begun. But in their time internal and international developments combined to make the period one of the most fascinatIII

ing in the pages of history. direct contact with the

The Egyptian Empire had come

into

Cuneiform World. To understand the events, we must now turn back to Mesopotamia and follow its course down to the

Amarna Age.

CHAPTER Mesopotamia

IV

to the

Amarna Age

T

he physical geography of Mesopotamia standing the history of the country.

Tigris and Euphrates Rivers to be

it

were able

area.

to settle

important for under-

The converging of

possible for a

dug and maintained, giving the land

any other

in

made

1

is

the

network of canals

a productivity

unheard of

Accordingly, enterprising invaders in early times

down and by

their industry establish the agricul-

tural basis lor a stable, civilized society,

and eventually to conquer and

rule over a vast empire.

When

written

who predominate

Sumerians

who

have

first left

and religious

Mesopotamia (around 3000 both in the land. But it is the

in

in warfare, politics,

3

and

culture.

It

is

numerous business records that give us a economic hie. They also produced a classi-

us

detailed insight into their cal

dawns

Semites and Sumerians are

b.c.e.),

they

history

was translated into Semitic Akkadian and then into other languages. As long as the Babylonians and Assyrperpetuated

ians

their classical

Note

1.

that far

rivers

and

Many

southern

the

fifth

a culture ol their

own, they regarded Sumerian as language and studied it as such. There was no cultural

southern Mesopotamia has been formed by

that the land

2 Herodotus,

literature that

is

still

cities that are

who

century

H, story,

ew

Culture,

York,

68

Mesopotamia more productive than Egypt

in

b.c.e.

and

Character,

Iraq,

Mesopotamia

Samuel Noah Kramer, The Sumerians: Their Chicago, 1963; H. W. F. Saggs, The Greatness that Was Babylon, are

Leo Oppenheim, Ancient Mesopotamia, Chicago, 1977; and George Harmondsworth, 1992.

1962, A.

Roux, Ancient

now

describes both lands, found

Basic treatments ot ancient

3.

silt brought down by the two of expanding southward into the Persian Gulf. inland were at or near the waters edge in antiquity.

in the course

Mesopotamia to the Amarna Age hostility

between the Sumerians and

69

their Semitic

contemporaries

and successors. The Semitic inhabitants of Mesopotamia recognized their debt to Sumer and cherished its cultural heritage.

Sumer was divided politically into city-states, each with its own cult. The city of Ur was a center for the worship of the moon-god Nanna (who was called Sin by the Semites). Nippur was the center of the cult of Erilil. Gods like Nanna and Enlil formed part of the pantheon known and revered throughout Mesopotamia. But some cities had cults .dedicated to the worship of local gods. Thus Lagash was the center

worship of Ningirsu, the patron god of the that in more than one period reached high levels of for the

little city-state,

By

culture.

the happy accident

records of Lagash

One

of the

—

of discovery, many outstanding both written and artistic are in our possession.

rulers

—

of early Lagash (shortly

third millennium)

was Ur-Nanshe,

uments including

a relief

bers are

it

is

has

royal family,

named. The sculpture in detail that

“literal

of the

who

after the

left

middle of the

number of mon-

us a

on which various

undeniably crude; but

is

a valuable factual

mem-

it

is

so

source of information.

The

last

ruler of this early period

who

like

other heads of Sumerian city-states in the standard tradition,

was the remarkable Urukagina,

erian), but the

An ensi was not a human agent of the

the population

as a

bore the

title ensi.

“king”

(for

Government

human executor was

as

is

god appointed

city

shepherd takes care of his master’s

words, the city god was viewed his executor.

king

lugal in

Sum-

to look after

flocks. In

other

the actual ruler; the ensi was merely

name of gods

in the

is

The

theocracy.

and implementing the god’s commands, which could be conveyed by the god directly to the ensi in a dream, or as an oracle through a priest As Urukagina rose in regarded

as relaying

4

.

power, he assumed more ambitious

he

later

became

was able to

call

4.

himself King of Lagash and Sumer.

Gudea, that the

no

his conquests,

have the written record.

The

clearest description a later ensi at

Lagash,

who

relates a

111

is

as ensi,

his

He

is

most

reforms, of which

the fees extorted by a rapa-

provided by two long inscribed cylinders of

detail

how

he received and

community where

difficulty in accepting the necessary

modern

but for

He reduced

of the process

gods revealed to him. In

may appear

Though he began

the king of Lagash and finally through conquest, he

famous, however, not for

we

titles.

fulfilled the

commands

theocratic ideals are fostered, there

assumptions and techniques, however exotic the

is

latter

Forms of theocracy appear in the Bible. The clearest example is perhaps the period of Samuel’s ministry (1 Samuel 3—16). The simplest formulation is Samuel’s “Yahwe, your God, is your king” (1 Samuel 12:12). Samuel’s granting the people a human king could only be justified by God’s order to do so (1 Samuel 8:22). to the

reader.

The Bible and the Ancient Near East

70

cious priesthood, and reduced prices in general in the interest of the

common

man. The modern idea of a prosperity that consists of high prices and scarcity of goods is unknown in antiquity. Thus, in the Bible World, material prosperity implied abundant goods and low prices.

Urukagina s reform a ruler to

citizens,

may

is

the

first

evidence

we

have of an attempt by

improve society by lightening the economic

although

it

remains

a possibility that

strains

on the

some Sumerian mound

yet reveal an earlier one.

Near Lagash was situated the between them often waxed to burst into the flames of war. In

rival city

of

Umma,

and the

rivalry

which in turn sometimes Urukagina s time, Umma was ruled friction,

by an able conqueror named Lugalzaggisi, who vanquished Urukagina and destroyed Lagash. The catastrophe is lamented bitterly in a

poem

on

that has survived

clay.

This type of composition

the characteristic forms of literature in the ancient classic

example

in the Bible

is

the

Near

is

one of

East.

Book of Lamentations about

The the

destruction of Jerusalem in 586 b.c.e. Lugalzaggisi not only conquered

conquests far beyond and laid

of Sumer but extended his the foundation for the first empire all

emanating from Mesopotamia. However,

his success

duration because in his reign there arose the

first

was of short

Semitic conqueror

in history:

Sargon of Akkad (around 2251-2196). 5 Since Sargon s establishment of Semitic supremacy, which was to be eclipsed only for short periods by the Sumerians, the Semites have remained the

dominant ethnic element through the Assyro-Babylonian, Aramean, and Arabic periods down to the present. Before presenting the history of Sargon and his successors, we need to diverge for a moment and turn our attention to Ebla, the large city-state of north Syria. Strictly speaking, Ebla lies outside the traditional

boundaries of Mesopotamia, but since much of its culture was closely linked with Mesopotamia, we include our discussion of this

important

site in

the present chapter.

By

at least

fourth century b.c.e., Sumerian culture had spread from

the twenty-

homeland the northwest, no its

southern Mesopotamia to an area 700 miles to longer within Mesopotamia proper, but in the neighboring in

region of

Scholars continue to debate the absolute chronology of the ancient Near East. The dates presented herein often are approximate, especially for the earlier periods. Readers can follow the debate about chronology in Paul Astrom, ed., High, Middle or Low? Acts of the International Conference on Absolute Chronology, vols., Goteborg, 5

-

3

1987-89.

Mesopotamia to the Amarna Age The thousands

northern Syria. at

Ebla

Sumerian and Eblaite. earliest

numerous

to

attest

These

of cuneiform documents discovered

professional scribes proficient both

in

the native Semitic language called by scholars

in

produced lengthy bilingual dictionaries, the world history; the largest of them contains sev-

scribes

such works in

hundred

71

Sumerian words and their Eblaite equivalents. Nor is there a single exemplar of this important text; rather, there are several dozen copies of it, pointing to a well-established eral

entries listing

On

ope occasion, the academy of Ebla imported a mathematics expert from Kish in southern Mesopotamia. The economic base of Ebla was its textile production; wool and fabrics were traded academy.

throughout the region. There were also contacts with Egypt, attested to by the discovery of a stone lamp fragment bearing the cartouche of

Pharaoh Pepi

I

(Sixth Dynasty) at Ebla. 6 Before the discovery of

the Ebla tablets in the 1970s, scholars had assumed that Syria was a

backwater

in the third

millennium, populated largely by

illiterate

nomads. The evidence from Ebla, of course, shows that just the opposite was the case. A major cosmopolitan center existed there in the century prior to the reign of Sargon of Akkad. Eblaite

the earliest attested Semitic language; texts in Eblaite

is

antedate Akkadian documents by about a century or

so.

Scholars

continue to debate the classification of the language; suffice

comment

that

it

has connections both with

Semitic branch and with Hebrew, Aramaic, branch.

The

biblical scholar

needs to have

Akkadian

etc.,

a

in the

it

to

in the East

West Semitic

control over the wide

no matter how temporally or geographically removed those may be from ancient Israel. For example, Isaiah 26:20 and Habakkuk 3:4 refer to a demon of some variety of sources

known

from the ancient Near

Haby(on).

East,

The same word with

same connotation is attested not only in Ugaritic from the Late Bronze Age, but also in Eblaite from the Early Bronze Age. Similarly, there exists in biblical sort

Hebrew

a

as

the

construction in which the conjunction w-

is

followed by

an enclitic m, thus producing an emphasizing conjunction

wttt-.

This

known from no other Semitic language, except for Eblaite. These and many other examples that could be put forward demonusage

is

strate a cultural

and

linguistic continuity in the

West Semitic world

On

Ebla in general, see Giovanni Pettinato, The Archives of Ebla, Garden City, N.Y., 1981 (though many conclusions reached in this book have been questioned upon further analysis

6.

of the Ebla material); and Giovanni Pettinato, Ebla:

A

Neu> Look

at History,

Baltimore, 1991.

The Bible and the Ancient Near East

72

from Ebla

nium

in the third

B.C.E.

We

millennium

b.c.e. to Israel in the first

millen-

7

now

return

our discussion of Sargon of Akkad. According to legendary tradition, Sargon was born of obscure parents and was exposed as a baby in a basket set afloat on a stream. An irrigator to

found the child and took care of him. The goddess Ishtar loved him and facilitated his stellar rise to the throne. The tale has features typical of a

number of stories about

among them,

the birth and career of famous

men,

Moses. Being the favorite of some deity is a frequent motif in the legendary biographies' of ancient characters. Kings in Sargon’s Dynasty (about 2251-2071) sometimes put the of course,

star for divinity in front

kingship had

made

its

of their names showing that the idea of divine appearance in Mesopotamia. This had not pre-

viously been typical of Sumerian rulers,

not

who

governed

for

gods but

as gods.

Sargon

King of the Universe, a claim that rested on his conquests extending from the Persian Gulf to the .Mediterranean Sea, even up into Asia A/linor. For Sargon s period, the meager hiscalls

toric records

himself

must be supplemented by the epic and

omen

that have preserved the record of events (often containing

traditions

some

his-

The King of Battle epic tells of his exploits in Minor. Quite popular among future Mesopotamian kings were

toric truth) in his reign.

Asia

omens, whereby observations of livers and other innards of animals were interpreted as implying such and such, even as such and such had taken place during Sargon s career when a similar observation 8 had been made. Sargon s palace.

came

end through an upheaval in his own Though he perished, his Akkad Dynasty continued. Ever life

to a violent

since his time, Babylonia could be referred to as

Sumer being

the

more Sumerian

south;

“Sumer and Akkad.” and Akkad, the more Semitic

north.

Sargon s greatest successor was Naram-Sin (about 2171— 2135).

For

on these and other examples, consult the on-going series of collected studies edited by the authors of the present volume: Cyrus H. Gordon and Gary A. Rendsburg, eds., Eblaitica: Essays on the Ebla Archives and Eblaite Language, Winona Lake, Ind., vol. i, 1987; vol 2, 1990; vol. 3, 1992. 7.

details

This analogic type ot reasoning is characteristic of thought in ancient Mesopotamia; Contenau, Everyday Life in Babylon and Assyria, London, 8.

1954, pp.

and

syllogistic

i

5 8ff.

cf.

G.

Inductive, deductive,

ways of reasoning were not typical of Mesopotamia (or of the ancient Near

East in general).

Mesopotamia to the Amarna Age Fins

11

*

1

c

set

i

73

out to expand Akkadian rule over large areas of the

ancient Near East. Naram-Sin was successful in his military endeavors, and among his conquests was Ebla. Only after his defeat of the great city-state of northern Syria did the lour quarters of the world.

I

I

Naram-Sin claim

stone

is

stela

of victory

remarkable composition in the early history of art. Like so tei

pieees,

in the

seal cylinders

Akkad Dynasty are often large and well number of mythological scenes, which in

cases can be correlated with texts

much more

tics;

anywhere

of the

of later

date,

prove the early existence of the myths in question. is

many mas-

stands isolateel as a peak, and was not equaled

They include a great

many

the most

is

world for centuries to come.’

The cut.

it

over

his rule

vigorous and

the musculature

realistic

though the

Akkad

seals

glyptic art

than the earlier Sumerian glyp-

becomes more pronounced and the scenes

are

more convincing. Under the impact of invaders from the mountains of the northeast, the Akkad Dynasty collapsed. The principal invaders were from the land oi Gutium in mountainous Iran. The Guti, as they are called, were looked upon as destructive barbarians. Their invasion was part of a recurrent pattern in Mesopotamian history: the hostility between the hardy men of the hills against the more civilized men of the plains. Wave after wave of mountaineers have descended on the plains,

lured by agricultural and urban wealth,

only to become

plainsmen whose descendants would be menaced by further invaders from the highlands.

With the passing of the Akkad Empire, Sumer and Akkad split into their component city-states, among which Lagash is outstanding culturally. Under the ensi Gudea, after the Guti conquest the city 10

,

rose to unprecedented heights of artistic achievement.

neither of aggressive wars nor of any

human

overlord.

Gudea

He

speaks

apparently

when central authority was either weak or nonexisand when small city states could once more come into their

lived in an era tent,

own. His statues are the apex of Sumerian sculpture in the round. While the bodies are somewhat dwarflike, the faces are superb. His two great cylinders mark the zenith of Sumerian literature; and his

9 Cf. C. Zervos, L’Art de -

la

Mesopotamie, Paris, 1935,

of Ancient Mesopotamia, London, 1969, 10. this

The Guti seem

pi.

p.

164;

and Anton Moortgat, The Art

155—56.

to have introduced a turban

type of headgear, must follow the time of

with

its

a short,

heavy brim. Gudea,

introduction to Mesopotamia.

who

wears

The Bible and the Ancient Near East

74

literary

compositions form the

of the standard textbook on the

basis

Sumerian language." In keeping with the best traditions of Sumer, he was an ensi concerned with piety and construction. He obtained by trade and peaceful expeditions the materials he needed for greatest undertaking, the

Gudeas

Eninnu temple of Ningirsu

furnishings in, Eninnu.

name given

to,

Thus

Gudea or

a pillar

and inscribed on,

Gudea s dreams were accepted

names

gives

divine

a

This

it.

and “Boaz”: the names ascribed to Kings 7:21).

the Bible; see

need not be 12

An

1

Samuel

28:6).

pillars in

Solomons temple

ensi

might have

Dreams, to be

to

go

(i

delivered through a regu-

as oracles

clear to ordinary people, not

will have a

keeping with “Jachin”

in

is

to parts of, or

emblem

channel used by gods in giving instructions to

cities.

in Lagash.

cylinders are leading sources for ideas and institutions in

the Bible World. For instance,

lar

his

sure,

men

(as

often in

have meanings that

even to rulers of cultured

to priests or priestesses, skilled as

meaning. But once the dreams are interpreted, the ruler knows what the god wants, and if the ensi is virtuous, he

interpreters, lor the

proceeds to

Gudeas dreams conveyed to him divine orders to build a temple. The fact that dreams figure in the authentic records of Mesopotamian rulers is important for biblical fulfill

studies, as lor IS’,

text

9*2-9)

on

the divine wish.

example

Solomons dreams

in the case ol

which need not be taken

(1

Kings 3:5—

additions to the biblical

as late

grounds. For against the background of royal inscriptions from the Bible World, we know that dreams formed an integral a priori

part ol kings

actual accounts ol their

own

reigns.

The

difference

between ancient and modern attitudes toward dreams obliges us to evaluate dreams in Scripture in proper historic context. To write off all dreams as apocryphal accretions is unhistoric. The fact that a number ol dreams in historic inscriptions might have been invented by the ancient rulers who claimed to have dreamed them does not affect the case. Since dreams

ii* 12.

^ ee

The

—even invented ones—could be accepted by

reference to A. Falkenstein’s

Hebrews never need

biblical

Hebrews

grammar

in chapter

I,

p.

19, n. 2.

interpreters to explain their dreams, although individual

Joseph or Daniel) may interpret dreams for foreigners. Were it not for texts like Gudeas, showing that Gentile rulers admitted their need for interpreters, we might suspect the

(like

Hebrews

ot prejudice (for

interpretation).

greater and

It

may be

more popular

the Bible World.

Gudeas dreams,

like

pharaohs, seem too obvious to require of the Hebrews included a

that the undeniable religious genius

exercise of psychic qualities than characterized the other people of

Mesopotamia to the Amarna Age the public as divinely inspired, they

75

would be included

pronouncements and texts concerning current events. The foreign yoke of Gutium was thrown off by Utuhegal (about 2041-34), a ruler ofErech in Sumer. The expulsion of the invaders made possible a Sumerian revival that culminated about 2000 b.c.e. under the Third Dynasty of Ur (about 2028-1920), whose first king was Urnammu* (about 2028-11). He united the land, extended his conquests beyond

Sumer and Akkad and promulgated so

•

known anywhere

Ti^r

in

(in

Sumerian)

in the world.

His son,

Shulgi (about 2010—1963), who reigned for almost half a century, not only claimed divine kingship but had a religious cult established to

adore him.

The

events ol the dynasty are

known

largely

from the

date formulae

on the countless business documents of the period. Instead of numbering years, the Sumerians (and Akkadians) named each year after some event of a military, religious, or commemorative character. Thus the names of the years provide us with a list of military operations, ecclesiastical developments,

The month

tablets are frequently

and building

dated even to the

projects.

month and

day.

The

importance for the host of Third Dynasty tablets whose provenience is unrecorded. Because each town had its own set ol month names, it is usually possible to identify the town in is

ol considerable

which the tablet was written. Most ol the tablets deal with economic gram,

fruit,

transactions regarding

vegetables, large and small cattle, slaves,

employment,

and the whole gamut of business contracts. Business dealings were concentrated in the town temple in keeping with the tendency for the temple to be the social and economic, as well as family

life,

religious, center.

No

obscure shepherd had

on

a tablet.

transaction was too small to be recorded. If an a single

sheep assigned to him,

Accurate ledgers were kept for

daily,

Sumerian life was meticulously recorded, bookkeepers standpoint. totals.

The

courts of law

made

it

was recorded

monthly, and yearly especially

decisions in keeping with the accepted

standards and accumulated social experience of the land.

law was more akin to the

from the

common

Thus

the

law of the Anglo-Saxons than the

code law of continental Europe. The idea of codified law existed in the Bible World after Sumerian times. However, the codes were not followed by the people or the law courts,

numerous

contracts and lawsuits.

The

as

we know from

the

contracts often violate the law

codes promulgated in their respective periods; and the decisions of

The Bible and the Ancient Near East

76

the judges regularly omit any reference to the codes.

common

was thus the

The concept

law, representing

of a written law

for the definite

whose

The

real

law

custom and public opinion.

statutes

should be consulted

answer to every conceivable dispute

13

was

a different

emanating not from the people or the courts but from the crown. The first law code to be accepted as permanently binding was the part of the Bible known as the Law of Moses. The latter institution,

14

15

win chronologically unbroken adherence until 621 b.c.e., an event we shall take up later. Among the nations of the Cuneiform World, none before the Medes and the Persians (starting in the sixth did not

century

The That

b.c.e.)

oldest

had

in practice accepted the idea

known law code

is

that

of

of absolute

Urnammu

(in

law.

Sumerian).

Sumerian law codes existed is quite probable. The oldest known law code written in Babylonian comes from Tell Abu Harmal earlier

which in antiquity formed Eshnunna. These Laws of Eshnunna show (near Baghdad),

1704-1662) was not the

first

to

Kingdom of Hammurapi (about

part of the that

promulgate

code

a

in the Semitic

language of the land, even though Hammurapi’s formulation is by far the best organized and most comprehensive of antiquity. Fragments

of

law code in Sumerian have

a

from

also survived

a ruler

named

Lipit-Ishtar (about 1850-40).

From time immemorial, but

from the time of the Akkad Dynasty, the Semites kept pouring into Mesopotamia from the desert that lies to the west. As the Semites grew more numerous, their Akkadian language became the predominant speech, while Sumerespecially

though persisting as a classical written medium, was dying out as spoken language. Although the Third Dynasty of Ur was a Sumer-

ian,

a

ian revival, the land ol Sumer, as well as

Akkad, was

linguistically

Semitized; and even the names ol the later kings of the dynasty are Semitic. Thus Shu-Sin (about 1953—45) meaning “He of the Moon-

god” and Ibbi-Sin (about 1944-20), generally taken

Moon-god last

has called,” are Semitic.

The

latter

monarch,

of the dynasty, was carried off in chains

We

adhere to

though common sense tells us that conditions constantly render the best of law codes inadequate. 13.

to

this ideal,

as

it

is

his

mean “The

who was

the

empire was

impossible.

Changing

To be sure, code law was studied, as we know from Neo-Babylonian copies of parts of Hammurapi s Code. However, code law remained essentially a theoretical 14.

subject, while the

actual law practiced in courts

opinion but did not 15. Earlier

was

at

the discretion of judges

who

respected custom and

cite codes.

codes, such as

Hammurapi s, claimed but

did not

win permanent

validity.

Mesopotamia to the Amarna Age

77

destroyed. For the hapless king and his destroyed

city, a

lament,

in

the

tradition of lamentation literature, has survived.

he breakdown in central authority resulted

I

Sumer and Akkad

known

the splitting

in

into the older system of city-states.

up of

The period

is

the Isin-Larsa Age, because the leading city states that

as

emerged from the ruins of the Third Dynasty of Ur were Isin (about 934 709) and Larsa (about 1937-1675). By this time, the western 1

1

Semites,

known

as

Amorites,

who

were pouring

had established the Semitic element ever, in cultural

and

the definite majority.

as

How-

the Sumerian pattern continued.

official circles

Thus the law code of Lipit— Ishtar of is

from the desert,

in

Isin, to

which we have

referred,

written in Sumerian.

By now (nineteenth century was

felt

and wide.

tar

Assyria,

Sumer and Akkad, adhered included language,

b.c.e.) the

though

to

influence of Mesopotamia

independent of

politically

same cultural complex that and art. There were differences

the

script, religion,

between Assyria in the north and Babylonia in the south, but they were not great. Assyrian merchants had penetrated Cappadocia, where they established communities that maintained trading relations

—

with the Assyrian homeland. The Cappadocian tablets as the abundant documents of those Old Assyrian colonists are called constitute a

—

major branch of Assyriology.

Virtually

all

of Mesopotamia

fell

into the hands of

Amorite

rulers

during the Isin-Larsa Period. Assyria was governed by an Amorite king,

Shamshi-Adad

I

(about 1727-1695): an able

monarch who

established his sons as the rulers of a realm along the middle Euphra-

Their

was Mari, where French archeologists unearthed about 20,000 tablets of military, administrative, and diplomatic contes.

capital

One of the interesting features of the tablets is the of how Shamshi-Adad trained his sons for leadership by tents.

clear picture

giving

them

reasons as well as orders so that they might understand as well as act.

The Mari Age was one of numerous coalitions in the struggle for terrain

power or

kinglets entering ever shifting to avert ruin.

of those kinglets included several

One

sites in

The

interrelated

Canaan, most promi-

Akkad was Babylon, now ruled by its First Dynasty (around 1806-1507), whose greatest king, Hammurapi (about 1704-1662), was a junior contemporary of Shamnently Hazor.

of the

city-states in

shi-Adad. Both monarchs were fine

commanders.

Of the

two,

civil

administrators and military

Hammurapi emerged triumphant, by

shift-

ing adroitly from coalition to coalition, in the course of his long reign

The Bible and the Ancient Near East

78

and eliminating

his rivals,

one by one,

until

he achieved the unifica-

tion of Babylonia and adjacent areas. Babylonian unity

reflected

is

by

the spread throughout the land of a single calendar,

whose month names persisted to the end of Babylonian history, and which live on in the religious calendar of the Jews, who adopted it during the Babylonian Exile.

Numerous

business documents, lawsuits,

during the

activity of the land

language

now

is

First

the Semitic,

Many

ancient

Near

attest

the

Old Babylonian, though Sumerian

commonly enough. The

dated by formulae, usually in Sumerian, alluding to

still

events.

letters

Dynasty of Babylon. The normal

ideograms and technical formulae appear years are

and

with Hammurapfs personal interest in the administrative details of his empire. His crowning achievement was the law code, never to be to surpassed in scope or quality in the tablets deal

East.

On

the top of the stone stela

is

carved

Hammurapi alongside the sun-god Shamash. The society reflected in the law of Hammurapi three classes:

(i)

an upper

class,

is

whose members have

a relief

of

divided into the greatest

rights but also the greatest responsibilities; (2) an intermediate class;

and

Society was carefully regulated. Prices were pegged at Fees varied according to the social class of the client or

(3) slaves."

fixed levels. patient.

Laws

for

all

situations in society, ranging

the care of children to river traffic

Rights, are

worked out

devoid of obscure

in detail

legalistic

from marriage and regulations and a Veterans’ Bill of and lucidly phrased in language

jargon.

Hammurapi s

stated

aim was

to

enable the average citizen with a legal problem to go to the stela and have the appropriate section read to him so that he would

understand

the law

17

.

Hammurapis Code

has a comprehensive literary form.

The

pro-

logue and epilogue are in poetry, whose form is parallelistic 18 and whose language is archaic. The laws in the middle, however, are in

16. In

Babylonian, the

members of the three classes are called, in descending order: awilum, mushkenum, and wardum. For a more detailed breakdown, see Cyrus H. Gordon, “Stratification of Society in Hammurapis Code,” The Joshua Starr Memorial Volume, New York, 1953,

pp. 17-28. 17-

For

New

general introduction to the document, see Cyrus H. Gordon, Hammurapi’s Code, York, 1957. a

The

essence of pre-Greek poetic form is parallelism. Exact meter was introduced by IndoEuropeans; see C. Watkins, “Indo-European Metrics and Archaic Irish Verse,” Celtica 6 pp 194 - 249 18.

-

Mesopotamia to the Amarna Age whole composition

prose, so that the

ABA; A being

79

which we

has a pattern,

call

B

being prose. This has an important bearing upon other oriental compositions including the Bible. Thus the

Book of Job the

book

epilogue

poetry,

out with

starts

prose prologue; but the main body of

poetry with parallelism and archaic language; and the

is

Some

in prose.

is

a

scholars are inclined to detach the pro-

logue and epilogue because they are in prose, whereas the

book

is

Such an argument

in poetry.

composition

as

whole, which,

a

to reckon with the literary

Hammurapi’s Code, has the

like

form ABA. Although

architectural

fails

of the

rest

in the

Book of Job

the prose and

poetry are reversed, the architectural balance remains the same. Similarly the biblical Book ot Daniel begins and ends in Hebrew, though the middle

is

in Aramaic.

The

possibility

ture deserves earnest consideration

of an intentional

ABA struc-

and should deter us from

hastily

dissecting the text. In the poetic sections of the

Code

stela,

Hammurapi

of the

tells

pious deeds he performed for the various city gods and their shrines.

However, Marduk

as

the

god of Babylon the

inent position as the god of the empire.

of the Creation Epic (and other

duk

literary

It is

preem-

capital attained a

probable that the version

compositions) in which Mar-

supreme god, came from the time that the Dynasty of Babylon reached its zenith under Hammurapi. figures as the

Strong

as

it

was, the First Dynasty of Babylon eventually

foreign invaders.

First

fell

to

A

people called the Kassites invaded the land, and divided the rule of the land with Hammurapi s successors. The First

Dynasty of Babylon ended with the b.c.e.

Then

fall

of the

capital

around

the Kassites ruled the country from Babylon for

centuries without adding luster to the nation’s history. Art

1

some

went

decline and Kassite texts are relatively few, though there are

507

into

some

sculptured and inscribed boundary stones to indicate the limits of land grants. In Asia Minor, from about 1800 to 1200 b.c.e., the Hittites 14 were in in

power and have 1507

Dynasty

b.c.e.,

there.

many

behind them. They brought about, the destruction of Babylon that ended the First left

The

texts

Hittites politically

absorbed

a

varied population,

including people that had long been in Anatolia. However, the otfi-

19.

They probably came from Central

Asia,

which

is

the most likely

home of

the Indo-

Europeans. See A. Goetze, Kleinasien, 2d ed., Munich, 1957, for the standard study of ancient Asia Minor.

The Bible and the Ancient Near East

80

language, the ruling

cial

and

class,

a

number of cultural elements were

Indo-European. Hittite documents are our related to Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, English,

with which

we

are familiar. Like so

Hittites reared horses.

The

earlier

many

Near

knew

written records

and the other languages

other Indo-Europeans, the

East

both riding and drawing chariots) and,

earliest

knew of the donkey

in the case

of the nomads,

The Indo-Europeans introduced

also of the camel.

area.

The

Near of war

to the

East the horse for pulling chariots, thus revolutionizing the art

and the economy of the

(for

aristocracy of charioteers, called

maryannu, spread from the Indo-Europeans throughout the civilized

Near East

The

in the

Hittites

second millennium

were important

20

in several ways.

ically situated so as to constitute the

World and the Greeks

b.c.e.

They were geograph-

land bridge between the Semitic

Chapter

Moreover, their imperial interests carried their influence into Canaan, so that Canaan came to be called Hattu (“Hittite Land”) by the Assyrians and Heth by the (cf.

VII).

Hebrews. In Chapter VIII we shall see that Genesis 23 hinges on Hittite law, and that intermarriage between Hebrews and Hittites occurred from the earliest period of Hebrew history. The ethnological

contribution of the Hittites to the

stated clearly

by Ezekiel

the Amorite, and thy

(16:3),

mother

is

who

says

makeup of

Hebrews ofjerusalem: “Thy father the

is is

the Hittite.”

Another great cultural center that flourished throughout the second millennium b.c.e. was the Aegean and Minoan sphere, including Crete (Caphtor) V

The

civilization of that sphere

was closely connected by trade and migration with the Asiatic and Egyptian mainland. 22

As we

shall see in the

ensuing chapters of

this

played an important role in the international order.

book, “Caphtor”

One

However, on a limited basis horses were known in the Near East even third millennium b.c.e. See David I. Owen, “The ‘First’ Equestrians:

of its major

20.

as early as

An Ur

Scene, 21.

III

the late

Glyptic

Acta Sumerologica 13, 1991, pp. 259—73.

The

area is called Caphtor in the Bible and Ugaritic tablets. Actually Caphtorian (Minoan) culture goes back to the third millennium and should be considered a major cradle of Near East and European civilization, contemporary and parallel with the Old Sumerian and Old

Egyptian

civilizations.

The most important

and Canaanites, with the result that the one of their common denominators. 22.

The

Athena,

reader will

New

now want

Brunswick,

effect

earliest

to consult the

N.J., vol.

1,

of Caphtor was

Greek and Hebrew

its

impact on both Greeks

literatures

have in Caphtor

multivolume work of Martin Bernal, Black

1987; vol. 2, 1991; vols. 3-4, forthcoming.

Mesopotamia to the Amarna Age contributions to Near Eastern civilization is

remarkable for

ness into the art

its

vivacity

and

it

8

is its

artwork. 1

'

Minoan

1

art

injected a notable degree of liveli-

of the Near East (including Egypt) of the Amarna

Age. 11

23.

See the

illustrations in

C. Zervos,

L'art de

U1

Crete, Paris, 1956.

For example, beautiful Minoan-style friezes were discovered recently Egyptian Delta. 24.

at

Avans

in

the

\

CHAPTER V The Amarna Age

T

he Amarna Age (when Amenhotep

III

and IV ruled Egypt

in

name from Tell elUpper Egypt by Amenhotep IV, where

the fourteenth century b.c.e.) derives

its

Amarna, the capital built in nearly four hundred documents of singular interest were discovered. The texts are written in Babylonian on clay, for Babylonian cuneiform had become the medium for international correspondence and there was a school to train Egyptian scribes to write

it

in Tell el-

Amarna.

The Amarna Age is the focal period of the ancient Near East, when extensive and unprecedented international contacts produced of cultures from Babylonia in the east to Egypt in the west, and from Anatolia and the Aegean in the north to the Arabian border and the Upper Nile in the south. Into the Amarna Age flowed the a fusion

cultural resources

of the Babylonians, Assyrians,

Hittites,

Hurrians,

Caphtorians, Canaanites, Egyptians, and numerous other ethnic ele-

ments ol pre-Amarna antiquity. Out of their synthesis emerged, first and foremost, the historical Greeks and Hebrews: two primary fountainheads of Western civilization; and also the post-Amarna Phoeni-

Arameans, Neo-Assyrians, Neo-Babylonians, Late Egyptians, and many others. The hub of the Amarna Age was Canaan, so that cians,

the

Hebrews appeared

heir to the

Between the

maximum

82

the right time and in the best place to

cultural legacy

of the ancient Near

fall

East.

Amarna Age in the fourteenth century Hellenistic Age in the fourth century b.c.e. fell

international

and the international a

at

period of nationalism during which the distinctive course of

The Amarna Age

83

He bit w nationhood was

Bible ran their entire course between the Ages.

The Amarna

tablets are

The lebrews of the Amarna and lellenistic

historically possible.

mostly

I

I

exchanged between the phaand Cyprus, including among

letters

raohs and the rulers of the Near East, the latter the kings of Kassite Babylonia,

Assyria, Mitanni, the Hit-

and especially the kinglets of Canaanite city-states. The documents from Canaan have nothing to do with the Hebrew Conquest, tites,

come-from the earlier period when the Hebrew Patriarchs flourished. There is but little in the patriarchal narratives that can be lor they

expected to

into the political or military history of the Near East, great exception of Genesis 14, which supplies the

fit

with the one

names

of nine kings

and

kings against

five,

their realms.

who

That chapter

tells

of a coalition of four

fought near the Dead Sea.

The

invaders were

from the Mesopotamian sphere. The forces were small, by Abrahams ability to defeat the victors, although his

as

is

shown

men num-

bered only 318' (Genesis 14:14). The incident fits into the Age, when Canaan was the scene of petty strife, foreign

Amarna

infiltration,

and

restless folk.

Typical of the period was small-scale interference. Until the actual personages of Genesis tered in other documents,

we cannot be

Mesopotamian 14 are encoun-

sure of the situation.

Mean-

while that chapter will remain the most tantalizing historic problem of the Bible.

Canaan was divided Hittite.

Many a

little

two spheres of

into

city-state tried to pit those

each other in the hope of bettering real hostility in the

engaged

influence, Egyptian and

land was

its

among

in international intrigue

own

major powers against

Thus the whose kinglets

position locally.

rival city-states

and fought petty

local wars.

The

would pretend loyalty to an imperialistic power, such as the hope of getting assistance against local enemies. Roving

belligerents

Egypt, in

The number 318

conventional, to judge from the fact that Princess Giluhepa of Mitanni, with her 317 maids, was in a party of 318. The number was apparently proper in the Amarna 1.

is

Age for groups of people, such as a company of troops, or a bevy of maidens. The scarab of Amenhotep 111, recording the arrival of Giluhepa, is conveniently reproduced 111 A. de Buck, Egyptian Readingbook I, Leiden, 1948, p. 67. See further Stanley Gevirtz, “Abrahams 318,” Israel

2.

Exploration Journal 19, 1969, pp. 110-13.

The Mitanni Empire was

but

it

the leading

was gradually eclipsed by the

Assyrians

111

the thirteenth.

power of Western

Asia at the start of the

Hittites in the fourteenth century

Amarna Age

and conquered by the

The Bible and the Ancient Near East

84

bands of ‘Apiru' infested the country and menaced the settled

com-

munities, thus adding to the general insecurity.

Egypt was

capable of cultural achievement, and

still

international prestige, but

The

its

power was

actual

outstanding personality of the

IV: a sensitive intellectual,

He was

enjoyed

thing of the past.

Amarna Age was Amenhotep the beautiful Queen Nefertiti.

the head of a group of religious revolutionaries dissatisfied

at

with the

married to

a

still

and complicated polytheism of Egypt. His theology

crass

among

had developed

of priests

a circle

at

Heliopolis,

where the sun-

god was worshiped. As the Amarna Letters sKow us, he neglected his empire so that Egypt lost its grip on Canaan. Instead he dedicated

whereby all the gods were suppressed except the Sun, called Aton (or Aton-Re), which was elevated to the position of the one and only god of the universe thus culminating the trend toward solar monotheism that had begun back in Old Kingdom times. The change was thoroughgoing. Art was revolutionhimself to

a religious

revolution

—

ized as well as religion, with the breaking

the introduction of

new

suddenly appear in the

Up

country.

vative

remained

that

revolution

of the

came

trends.

art

to

canons, and

Modernistic realism and distortion

of what had been the world’s most consertime the Egyptian written language

this

classical

Middle Kingdom

break with the

a

down of old

classical past,

texts.

and

With

the

Aton

new forms were

allowed to penetrate the written language from the spoken, thus inaugurating the New Egyptian stage of the language.

So thoroughgoing was the pharaoh’s fanaticism that he changed his own name, because “Amenhotep” contained the name of the

god “Amen”

“Amon”;

(or

the vowels are unexpressed in Egyptian

writing). Instead he called himself “Akhenaton” containing the

name

sun-god “Aton.” The names of Amon and of other gods were eradicated from monuments, even where they only formed part of ol the

the

names of royalty or commoners

The Apiru

4 .

Mesopotamian cuneiform Ha-bi-ru) often have been equated with the Ibrim Hebrews. The 'Apiru appear all over Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Canaan, and Egypt. For surveys and discussions of the relevant material, see Moshe H. Greenberg, The Hab/piru, 3.

New

(in

Haven, 1955; and Jean Bottero,

ed.,

Le probleme

des Habiru, 4th

Rencontre Assyriolog-

ique Internationale, Paris, 1954. 4.

This trend has

a

counterpart in

Chronicles 8:33; 9:39) is

changed

Hebrew

(1

= Yah we)

Kings 15:1,

7,

so that the royal

8),

and

where the

name

tradition,

to Ish-bosheth (2

substituted for the pagan deity Baal;

Abijam (

is

is

where the name of Saul’s son Eshbaal (1 Samuel 2:8, 10), where boshet, “shame,”

a still closer parallel in last

the

name of the Judean king

element Yam, “Sea-god,”

is

changed

altered to Abijah in 2 Chronicles 13:1, 4.

to

Yah

The Amarna Age

85

Akhenaton founded a new capital, Akhenaton (“The lorizon of Aton”), whose site is today called Tell el-Amarna. But neither I

his

capital

nor

stirred

up through his religious persecution, and devotees of the powerful Anion

priests

his religious revolution

was

The resentment particularly among the

to endure.

was profound.

cult,

Shortly after Akhenatons rather early death, a counterrevolution burst loose, destfoying his fanatical reforms. Akhenaton

was for

time abandoned.

he Anion cult was restored

I

in

all

its

all

glory and

Akhenaton s memory was held in bitter hate. But the Amon counterrevolution could not wipe out all the traces of Akhenaton s reform.5

The

New

canons ot

Egyptian language was there to

were

art

stay.

reinstated, the modernistic effects

school occasionally peer through later works in

Akhenaton religion.

tory ot

ning and

of Akhenatons

some of the

details.

it

had behind

it

the long his-

theology and worship, owed

much

implementation

The purity of the Hebrew circles for centuries

monotheism to

while the old

certainly to be ranked as a genius in the history of

is

Aton monotheism, although

Re

And

tar

exceeded

come. The hymns

of the

to the fanatical plan-

pharaoh.

that in biblical

Aton reach heights of beauty eclipsed only by much later Hebrew Psalms. Yet we must recognize that Akhenatons reform was stamped out so thoroughly that it had no influence on the to

subsequent history of religion. Akhenatons son-in-law Tutankhaton (“The Living Image of Aton”) changed his name to Tutankhamon (

The Living Image

ot

Amon

thoroughly obliterated from circle.

Accordingly,

(whose career

it

a

falls

).

Aton monotheism was quickly and

official

Egyptian

life,

including the royal

out ot the question to assume that Moses century and a half later) could have shaped is

Hebrew monotheism directly on the inspiration of Akhenatons reform. Nor is chronology the only reason for dissociating Mosaic monotheism from Akhenatons Typologically the two are Aton was the sun disc, representing a single phenomenon 6

.

and elevated to

sole

unrelated. in nature,

god of the universe through the suppression of

Yahwe was never a specialized phenomesun. Yahwe is represented in the patriarchal

the other deities of Egypt.

non of nature, such

as

narratives as being the

the

supreme God,

Who

created heaven and earth

The minor pharaoh who has won modern fame because of his tomb discovered by archeologists. 5.

6.

In the preceding discussion

the distinction difference

between

we

rich

and

virtually unrifled

use the term “monotheism,” without necessarily this brand of religion and the type known as “monolatry.”

between these two terms,

see

below Chapter IX,

p.

149.

making

On

the

— The Bible and the Ancient Near East

86

(Genesis 14:22). As His

name

indicates,

He

the

is,

One Who

“Calls

into Being,” or the Creator. 7 In the

Amarna Age, Egypt ranked

She had attained

nations.

this status

as

the aristocrat

among

the

through the spread of her culture

wake of her conquests under the pharaohs of the Eighteenth Dynasty, notably Thutmose III. But a true internationalism cannot flourish if one nation exercises a monopoly of power; and the Amarna Age was no exception. Egypt could no longer control Canaan up to the Euphrates, as she had done in the days of Thutmose III. There were other nations that shared in varying degree the control of the Near East. and commercial enterprise

in the

Babylonia under the non-Semitic Kassites,

who

supplanted

Ham-

more pretension than power. It could claim to of Sumer and Akkad, and of the Hammurapi Age,

murapi’s Dynasty, had

be the successor

but genuine cultural attainment and military prowess were lacking.

The

Kassite king of Babylonia

ladies

of his family

for the daughter

as gifts to

would send

his

daughters and other

the pharaoh; but in vain

would he beg

of the pharaoh or for any other Egyptian

beautiful albeit picked

common

from the

pharaoh s daughter to save face for the

people

Kassite.

—

The

to

woman

be sent

as

the

latter also repeat-

edly begged for gold because Egypt, unlike Mesopotamia, was rich in the precious metal.

The

stated

purpose for seeking the gold was

adornment of temples and similar cultic embellishment. Assyria was a rising power, soon to be ruled by Assuruballit (about 1362—27), who made encroachments on Babylon and Mitanni. The Mitanni Kingdom was the leading power in Asia during the early part of the Amarna Age. We have already mentioned its close for the

alliances

through marriage with the Pharaonic House. The Mitanni

King Dushratta sought the brotherly love of the pharaoh, but he wanted that love to be expressed in terms of gold. In Anatolia the Hittites

were

rising at the

expense of Mitanni and

Egypt. Although relations in the diplomatic correspondence are cor-

making encroachments in Syria to the detriment of Egypt. North Canaan fell into the Hittite sphere of influence and the little kingdoms of the area became vassal states. A tablet from dial,

7.

the Hittites were

Such

is

the

meaning

that

“Yahwe” came

to have

(though secondarily) in Hebrew

(for

it

on the appearance of the causative of the verb “to be”). However, the name may be an expansion of a shorter form (cf. Yo-, Yeho-, Yah, and -Yahu, which also occur). has taken

The Amarna Age

87

Ugarit records the tribute sent by Niqmad, king of Ugarit, to master, Suppiluliuma (around 1355-1321), king of the

his

Hittites.

Canaan

is

a

country chopped up by mountain ranges and,

north, also by rivers.

in the

The

geographical barriers worked against the unity of the land, which was fragmentized along the coast and inland into

might join into coalitions against a common enemy but otherwise remained rivals. However, the fact that the influence of Egypt from the south, of the Cuneiform World from the north, and of Caphtor from the west, converged in Canaan, preconditioned the land of Israel as the land in which the Hebrews could grow and make contributions of momentous effect on world history Canaan was the crossroads of all the great cultures of the day, so little

city-states that

that

Hebrews had the richest possible international background on which to draw before adding the contributions of their own distincthe

tive

Semitic genius.

While the Amarna Letters do not give us any evidence about the Hebrews as a people, they do provide important data on the language of Canaan, which the Hebrews adopted as their own. In the letters, Babylonian words are sometimes translated into Canaanite, showing that what was later known as Hebrew was already spoken in the country. Inasmuch as these Canaanite words are written in the Babylonian syllabary, the vowels are indicated. This is of considerable linguistic interest because the inscriptions of the Hebrews, Phoenicians,

Moabites, and other Canaanites are written in a consonantal alphabet so that scholars have to infer what the vowels might have been by working back from later tradition and by theoretical deductions from comparative linguistics. 8

The Amarna Age

is

richly

documented from

several other sources,

notably the texts from Ugarit (which illuminate the origins of

Hebrew literature) and Nuzu (which clarify the social institutions of the Hebrew Patriarchs). In the following chapters we shall investigate those sources.

The Amarna

evidence, and cognate material from Ugarit, Alalakh, and Taanakh, is collected in Daniel Sivan, Grammatical Analysis and Glossary the Northwest Semitic Vocables in of Akkadian Texts of the 15-ijth c.b.c. from Canaan and Syria, Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1984. A work devoted to a detailed study of the texts from one site is Shlomo Izre’el, Amurru Akkadian: 8.

A

Linguistic Study, 2 vols., Atlanta, 1991.

V

CHAPTER

Ugar

T

VI

it

he most important corpus of ancient Near Eastern literature for the study of the Bible

the group of texts discovered at the

is

north Syrian port of Ugarit.

The documents

date to the

Age, during which time the city of Ugarit emerged

mopolitan center. The

texts are written

by

stylus

on

as a

Amarna

major cos-

clay in the fash-

ion of the Mesopotamian scribes; but the system of spelling alphabetic: each sign stands for a single sound,

contribution. As

we

which

a

is

is

Canaamte

have noted above, the Egyptians had already

invented alphabetic values, but since the ancient Egyptians never got themselves to use alphabetic signs without syllabic signs, logograms,

and determinatives, they did not reap the benefits of pure alphabetism. Pure alphabetism goes back to Canaan, whence one of the groups (the Phoenicians) passed it on to Greece. Among the texts

found

at

Ugarit were copies of the

ABCs

schools; their fixed order of the letters

own

English

The

ABCs

the one from

is

are ultimately derived.

taught in the Ugaritic

which our

1

Ugaritic language belongs to the northwest branch of Semitic,

along with Hebrew, the other Canaanite

dialects,

and Aramaic.

No

student of the Bible today can progress far without a working knowl-

edge of the Ugaritic language and literature. The literature of Ugarit is mostly mythological and concerns the pagan gods of Canaan, such the male Baal and female Asherah,

as

the

Bible. El,

whom the Bible identifies with

the head of the Ugaritic pantheon.

as

i.

Hebrew

Cyrus H. Gordon, "The Ugaritic

88

whose worship

ABC”

The

is

forbidden in

Yahwe, appears

Ugaritic tablets confront

Orientalia 19, 1950, pp. 374—76.

Ugarit

89

us with so is

many

striking literary parallels to the

universally recognized that the

Canaanite tradition. To the is

often

more than

little

poetic imagery. Just as

two

Hebrew

literatures are variants

writers, however, the

1

who

it

of one

mythology

background on which to draw for John Milton was a good Christian in spite a literary

of his profuse allusions to

monotheists

lebrew Bible that

I

pagan mythology, the lebrew poets were worshiped Yahwe and Yahwe alone. 1

he prose as well as poetic

documents from Ugarit enable

us to

describe the society and ideas of the times in considerable detail. The king was considered divine by dint of being suckled by the goddesses

Anat and Asherah. The kings duty was

to exercise justice

and benev-

olence in the land. His virtuous deeds include help to the widow, fatherless, and other unfortunates.

The army uments

that

prominent in the numerous administrative dochave been found in the archives of Ugarit. It consisted is

rather

of infantry, including

bowmen and

slingers.

The

pride of the

army

was, however, the chariotry.

The

of the army and the priesthood were sometimes selected from the tribes of the ruling class, including the king’s own family.

chiefs

By

planting

members of trusted

families in the priesthood

and

army, the king could exercise better control over the realm. Some of the priests were assigned on regular duty with the army. This resulted

from

a theocratic ideal that

but also

among

permeated

Not only in Ugarit Mesopotamians and Hebrews the army on occa-

the

society.

would have on its staff, in the field, a seer or priest to give oracles. Thus not only were wars embarked upon in accordance with sion

divine will as revealed by oracles, but even tactics in the midst of military campaigns were frequently undertaken only after the will of the god(s) had been consulted.

Taxation,

and other government functions were exercised through three channels: tribes, towns, and professional guilds. The tribe, the oldest of these classifications, still functioned in Ugarit. 2

conscription,

However,

as

throughout Near East

history, the

encroaching upon

tribal organization, so that in

no longer known

as

citizens

2.

many

members of such and such

of such and such

a

cases

a tribe

Indeed, in the Near East today, tribalism

The

agricultural population

men were

but rather

as

town.’ Furthermore, the guilds of various

is

still

an important element

in society,

ment, and economy. 3.

town was

was dealt with through the provincial towns.

govern-

The Bible and the Ancient Near East

90

professions,

and of the

that a guild

member

and

arts

crafts,

could be related to the

The

wives. for

family had

at its

man who

a

after his fathers needs,

washing

rites,

cups

5 .

The

A

rights.

such

model son was one who

the performance of religious

as

his father’s stained clothes, plastering his fathers

and holding up

against leaks,

more

possessed one or

obligations to their parents in return

filial

which they had inheritance

looked

not through tribe

.

head

owed

children

state,

to such a degree

4

or town, but through the guild

The

were organized

ideal

his father

daughter was one

who

when

looked

roof

the latter was in his after the

food supply,

fetched water, and was gifted with the art of divination. She was thus possessed of both domestic and psychic qualities.

The

oldest son

of the favorite wife would normally inherit the

chief share. However, the father had considerable latitude in such matters.

One man

had

charge of the

full

of Ugarit wrote

that treated her best.

estate,

Thus

whereby

the father puts the

toward her by the children,

premium on good

he

after

widow

is

no longer

among

widow

to the son

in control filial

alive to

So while the widow did not have the right

estate to

his future

which she could bequeath

the purse strings, so as to place a

her.

a will

of

conduct

provide for

to dispose

of the

an outsider, she did have the power to select the heir from

the children

Of course,

6 .

However, the plight of the slaves was not always hopeless. We have one document that tells of how a man in consideration of twenty shekels of silver married off one of his slavery existed.

slave girls so that as far as

own home.

we know,

she

became

the mistress of her

Slaves could be freed.

Education was complicated because it consisted of scribal training in a cosmopolitan community where not only Ugaritic but also Babylonian, Hurrian, Sumerian, and still other languages were in use. As in

ancient communities, education was not popular but profes-

all

sional.

Only

scribal

education in so polyglot

The

4.

art

and write. In order to facilitate community, vocabularies in two,

scribes learned to read

guilds represented the latest

a

and most advanced aspect of

follow agricultural development, which in turn represents a

society, for industry

more advanced

and

stage than

nomadism. 5.

The

desirability

of children for holding up drunken parents

is

also reflected in Isaiah

18. 6.

Cf. A. van Seims, Marriage and Family Life in Ugaritic Literature,

London, 1954.

51:17—

Ugarit three, late.

9

and four languages were prepared

1

for training scribes to trails-

7

1 he literary texts include legends primarily about men, and myths dealing entirely with gods. One of the legends is about a king called

him.

who feared that his line might He prayed to the god El, who

who

will bear

Kict,

at

him

divine breasts so

will also

be

a

die out because his wife had tells

him how

eight sons, the youngest of as to qualify to rule after

daughter (whose

who

to regain his wife

whom

him.

left

will

Among

be suckled

the children

name means “Eighth” = )

Octavia,

although the eighth will be elevated to the place of firstborn. These tacts constitute interesting literary themes. The announcing of children yet to be born is a recurring feature in the Bible, starting

with Hagar,

who

receives an annunciation

from an angel predicting

the birth ot Ishmael. This repeated characteristic ot

Hebrew

literature

thus harks back to an ancient tradition. Also the idea of a younger child eclipsing the older one(s) is a recurrent theme in Scripture, which we shall have occasion to discuss, particularly in the Patriarchal Period.

More

specifically,

it is

interesting to note that the elevation of

seventh or an eighth child over his elder siblings is paralleled in the account ot David, whom Samuel anoints as king after looking over and rejecting the seven older brothers (i Samuel 16:6-13). In the a

Legend

of Kret

(at least as

it

is

not the oldest son

who

succeeds to the throne

far as the story goes)

but apparently the youngest who so often happens in biblical literature. 8

eclipses the elder siblings, as

Another legend concerns Aqhat, the son of the heroic king Daniel, who ruled his people justly and protected the widowed and fatherless. Daniel had only a daughter as the story opens, but he longed for a son.

He

therefore prayed to the gods and performed the necessary rituals, so that he was blessed by the birth of a model son Aqhat. To celebrate that event, he

seven days.

The

summoned

songstresses

songstresses to sing joyously for

were called the Kosharot,

who

appear

Psalm 68:7, where they celebrate the happy occasion of prisoners being released by God. Like so many passages in the Bible, this also in

one was not understood until the discoveries at Ugarit. The god of arts and crafts, Kothar-and-Hasis, who 7.

The

polyglot dictionaries

now may

be studied

in

John Huehnergard,

hails

from

Ugaritic Vocabulary in

Syllabic Transcription, Atlanta, 1987. 8.

Thus Jacob

is

singled out as

ture.

eclipses Esau, his senior; similarly

Ephraim eclipses Manasseh; etc. This feature worthy of saga precisely because it runs counter to the norm of primogeni“Man bites dog” is more newsworthy than “dog bites man.”

The Bible and the Ancient Near East

92

Caphtor, fashions

refuses to give her, in spite

El,

from

may have been

state

of the

whom, by

persistent refusal impels her to

of violence, she wrings

threats

Daniel,

her intention to bring

tablets precludes certainty),

cursed with

is

who

a

seven-year

effectively

it

covets the bow,

permission to assassinate Aqhat and thereby get it

uses

which of her promises not only to make

him wealthy but even immortal. His go to her father

who

for Aqhat,

The impetuous goddess Anat

in the hunt.

Aqhat

wondrous bow

a

his

him back Aqhat

is

bow. Even though

to

life

(the defective

slain so that the area

eight-year) drought by

(or, climactically,

retrieves for burial his son’s remains

from the crop of an

eagle.

One

of Daniel

of the epithets

to his tribe.

Some

is

“The Man of Repha,”

scholars have taken the references to people called

the “RephaiirT (in Genesis 14:5, etc.)

word

also

borne by

people in the

Legend of Aqhat and the esis 14:5),

as

mythological because the

means “shades of the dead.” However, real

referring

Amarna Age

biblical

is

name was

that the

indicated not only by the

account of the Patriarchs

name

but also by the occurrences of the

(e.g.,

Gen-

in administrative

9

from Ugarit, where legend and myth are out of the question. To be sure, there are some tablets that contain references to divine texts

Rephaim, who may be “shades of the dead”

associated

legendarily with Daniel. 10 Their attachment to the legend

may have

chariot-riding

been

facilitated

by verbal

identity;

resemblance in the sound of names

often accounts for the association of elements that

would otherwise

not be placed together.

The end ars are in

Aqhat

to

of the story of Aqhat

agreement life.

The

and Daniel

that the legend

is

not extant. But schol-

ended happily with the return of

reasons for this will be discussed below, in con-

junction with the mention of Daniel in the book of Ezekiel.

Most

11

of the mythological texts

concern the god Baal and his beloved Anat. Baal seized kingship by vanquishing the sea-god Yamm and then petitioned for a palace in which to live up to his newly won position.

The

fact that

Kothar-and-Hasis from Caphtor fashioned the

palace shows that Caphtor was already recognized in

center par excellence for arts and

9.

See Cyrus H. Gordon, Ugaritic Textbook,

10. Ibid., texts 121 to 124. 1

1.

See Chapter XVII,

p.

For

289.

a

crafts.

Rome,

The

Canaan

as

saga of Baal’s palace

1967, texts 91:7, 119:24, 300:rev. 14.

mythological reference, see 62:45.

the is

a

Ugarit 93

mythological forerunner of the historical account of building Yahwe’s Temple in Solomons reign. After Baal wins his palace, he is challenged by Mot, the god of death, who kills him. On another occasion Baal killed Mot for seven years. Since Mot remains dead for seven years, this cannot be seasonal conflict. The significance of the fighting

between

and Lethal Mot, leading to the death of one or the other for seven years, can have nothing to do with the seasons, but

Fertile Baal

rather with the sabbatical cycle of seven years appearing in the Bible. In any event, we know from Hebrew' 2 and Egyptian' 1 ties in

sources that seven years of famine was the most feared scourge that could befall a nation. The Canaanites accepted the dry summer as an inescapable aspect of nature and wished only to get rain in its season.

Moreover, the dry summer, season

What

far

from being

sterile,

is

precisely the

when many

prized fruits ripen to the joy of the populace. the Canaanites feared was a succession of famine years due to

drought, locusts, or other sources of calamity.

Hebrews

the earth

let

cycle in the

hope

it

is

possible that the

fallow in the seventh year of the sabbatical

lie

that

It

would induce the next

cycle to be fertile in

accordance with an assumed principle of alternation. The problem was so important to the Ugariteans that it transcended the myths and cult of Baal. Indeed the main Ugaritic text (number 52) touching on the problem is a myth wherein the spirit of privation is banished and

god El begets auspicious deities for whom a cycle of abundant food and drink is inaugurated. The theme of seven' permeates the great

lt

the text. Baal

is

not even mentioned, which shows that the question

went beyond Baalism. That Ugaritic is the

greatest literary discovery

from antiquity since the decipherment of the Egyptian hieroglyphs and Mesopotamian cuneiform is generally recognized. That it lies closer than any other literature to the

mean

Hebrew

that the ethical

be found

in Ugarit.

Bible

is

The

from being looked

12. 2 13.

who

in the Bible are to

analogies are literary rather than spiritual. is

to a great extent a conscious reaction

against the Canaanite milieu. This

adored Baal,

known. This does not

and moral heights reached

Indeed the Hebrew view

ality, far

also well

is

illustrated

by the

fact that besti-

askance in Ugarit, was practiced by the copulates with a heifer as is celebrated in the reliat

Samuel 24:13.

See James

13 .

Pritchard, ed., Ancient Near Hasterti Texts, Princeton, 195s,

p.

31.

The Bible and the Ancient Near East

94

gious texts (67:v:i7—22)

of

a bull

,4 .-

If it

be argued' that Baal assumes the shape 5

same cannot be

for the act, the

reenacted his mythological career, bestiality, expressly states that

it

cultically.

said for his priests

The

Bible, in forbidding

was an abomination wherewith the

Canaanites had defiled themselves (Leviticus 18:24). Other tions

who

illustra-

of the consciousness of the Hebrews’ reaction against Canaanite

usage can be found in the Bible and corroborated in Ugarit.

We

will

return this issue in greater detail below in Chapter X.

The impact of Ugarit on biblical studies is growing constantly as new organic parallels are being pointed out by many scholars active in the field. Our sketch here has been brief, but not due to any 16

dearth of evidence. Rather, iceberg.

The

chapter merely touches the

a

prominent

Apparently no moral issue was made of

bestiality

had no significance

however,

it

was

a

tip

of the

reader will notice that in the chapters ahead the evi-

dence from Ugarit plays

14.

this

role in

manifold ways.

bestiality in Ugarit.

in Ugaritic criminology. In Israel

Or

to state

it

differently,

(whose attitude we

inherit),

heinous crime.

15.

See A. Kapelrud, Baal

16.

The

in the

Ras Shamra

Texts,

Copenhagen, 1952,

p.

20, n. 7.

annual Ugarit-Forschungen, published in Neukirchen-Vluyn, Germany,

is

publication for readers of the Bible to keep abreast of the impact of Ugaritic studies.

the best

CHAPTER

VII

Homer and

the

Ancient East

hat the Bible

1

text

also lie

must be understood

in

its

ancient Near East con-

generally recognized. But the origins of Greek culture to an appreciable extent in the ancient Near East. is

At no time during the broad sweep of ancient Near Eastern history were Greece and the Near East not in contact. We may begin our discussion with the early third millennium b.c.e., during which era the Sumerians apparently had reached the Balkan peninsula (specifically Taitaria in present-day

From nium

Romania)

in search

of precious metals.

millennium and from the early second millenthere are attestations ol Egyptian and Akkadian artifacts and inscriptions from Cythera in the Aegean. The major civilization in the

later in the third

Aegean during the greater

part of the second

millennium

b.c.e.

was the Minoan one. The Minoans were Northwest Semitic sea lords, and most likely they had arrived on Crete after leaving the Egyptian Delta around 1800 b.c.e. The art, architecture, and script of the

Minoans have unmistakable Egyptian

At Ugarit we have evidence of extensive contact with Crete, and from Amarna we know that Cyprus was part of the international order. A recent discovery that points to the elaborate trade relations

Burun shipwreck. The 2

Anatolia served

as

roots.

1

of the period

is

the

Ulu

Hittite factor also needs to

be considered, for the overland route that connected the Semitic and

Greek worlds. 1.

This

is

discussed in detail by Sir Arthur Evans. The Palace of Minos at Knossos, 4 vols..

London, 1921-36. 2.

See George

F.

Bass,

“Oldest

Known Shipwreck

National Geographic 172:6, 1987, pp. 693-733.

Reveals Splendors of the Bronze Age,”

The Bible and the Ancient Near East

96

In

when

time,

Minoans

in the

the

Mycenean Greeks began this

Egypt

at

left

the

regard they appear as the

we

Sea Peoples, including the Philistines. 3 As

the

pressure

Aegean, the peoples of Crete and elsewhere

region for the mainland Near East. In

Israelites left

to

on, the

shall see later

approximately the same time,

i.e.,

the twelfth

one of the Sea Peoples, the group known the Danuna, became one of the tribes of Israel, namely, Dan.

century

b.c.e. In time,

Out of this

as

came the heroic ages that inspired the early literatures of both the Hebrews and the Greeks. During this period peoples from Caphtor (i.e., Crete and other East Mediterranean islands and coastal areas) came to dominate the two main centers, mainland Greece and the land of Canaan. The Myceneans from Caphtor dominated southern Greece, and their impact on Greece is universally recognized. The Philistines meanwhile came to dominate much of Canaan; during the period of the interaction in the East Mediterranean

Judges (1140— iooo

were the overlords and the

b.c.e. ), the Philistines

Hebrews were frequently

their subjects. Later,

around 1000

David’s sojourn in the Philistine city of Gath provided

b.c.e.,

him with

the

military experience to shake the Philistine domination.

The

events leading to the establishment of the Davidic

monarchy

and the memories of the Trojan War provided the material for the epics and sagas of both Hebrews and Greeks. Besides, there was conand take among the poets and minstrels

siderable international give

who composed and the early graphical,

parts ol the Bible.

and

and Hebrew

and recited the epics and sagas that underlie

historical reasons,

literatures

compartments

—

This

far

it is

these chronological, geo-

all

not surprising that early Greek

from belonging

are related branches ot

East Mediterranean

3.

—

For

Homer

to different watertight

one and the same ancient

complex of literatures.

4

not to say that the Philistines of the Bible are the exact equivalent or the descendants

is

Minoans of the Middle Bronze Age. Future evidence well may show this to be the case, but it would be premature to make such connections uncategorically. However, we may say that the Minoans and Philistines are part of the same cultural phenomenon: Semitic sea of the

lords of the East Mediterranean.

H. Gordon, Evidence

for the

On

the Semitic identity of the

Minoan Language, Ventnor,

N.J., 1966. Little

language of the Philistines, but note that Philistines and

and

that

many

tine words,

Philistines bear Semitic

such

as seren

Minoan

Israelites

language, see Cyrus

can be said about the

do not require

translators

names. By the same token, certain presumably Philis-

“lord” and koba'/qoba' “helmet,” are not Semitic.

Only

future discov-

ery will resolve this dilemma.

See Cyrus H. Gordon, The York, 1965. 4.

Common

Background of Greek and Hebrew Civilizations,

New

Homer and the Ancient East A

look

strongest

Near

map of the Ancient Near East will indicate that the contacts between Homer and the East are to be found at at the

This

Ugaiit.

East

city

is

the largest and closest seaport

on the mainland

Western Asia and Egypt) to the Greek-speaking specific textual link is the Phoenician port city of Sidon.

A

woild.

97

(i.e.,

we

In the Iliad (6:290)

read that the Trojan

embroidered robeS from Sidon. prominently in the Kret epic. 6

Queen Hecuba

In the Ugaritic texts,

wears

Sidon figures

That general concepts are shared between Homer and the ancient Near East does not prove much, though it is of some interest. Thus Zeuss epithet of Father of Men’ (Iliad 1:544; 11:1X2; 22:167)

same of

as

Men

The

Els at Ugarit.

The

and of Gods,” which

Father of

Man”

is

Homeric

full

at least

is

epithet for

implied

also the consort

Zeus

is

the

“Father

is

Ugarit where El

in

of Asherah

who

bore the

7

“seventy gods.” In the following discussion there are

many

such points that have

a

general character so that individually they prove little or nothing. Collectively, they have a cumulative value; but without supporting

evidence they would add up to something

less

than

the specific and striking parallels in the paragraphs relationship between Homer and the earlier East.

a

proof. However,

below

The

establish the

reader should

view the evieience as a whole. Then, if one wishes to test individual points, one should remember that the cogency of the thesis rests on the parallels of a specific nature and not on those of a therefore fust

general character that are given only to round out the picture.

There Ugarit

as

is is

Calypso asks

common

a

atmosphere shared between

Homer

and

number of typical situations. For example. Hermes why he came and then offers him refreshments

attested in a

(Odyssey 5:87-91). Similarly El greets Asherah thus:

“Why

Why

has

Lady Asherah of the Sea come?

came

the Creatress of the Gods?

Art thou hungry? 5. It is

Minor

always possible that future discoveries in Phoenicia, Cyprus, or on the coast of Asia will provide still stronger contacts with Homer. But we can only base our discussion

on the material now 6.

Cyrus H. Gordon,

7.

The number

is

available.

Ugaritic Textbook,

a literary cliche for a large

the Bible as well (see

Exodus

of the seventy sons of Noah at this figure

Winona

Rome,

1:5;

1967,

brood;

Judges 8:30;

2

p. it

is

Kings

(the Bible does not use this

one must do so some juggling;

Lake, Inch, 1986, pp. 17—18).

see

472, no. 2145.

not to be taken 10:1)

and

number

literally.

It

occurs in

in the postbiblical tradition in

Genesis

Gary A. Rendsburg, The

10,

and

to arrive

Redaction of Genesis,

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