17 of My 37 Years

Christy and I celebrated our 17th wedding anniversary today by going to Davis, CA for the afternoon, without the kids. We ate Thai for lunch, browsed some book and music stores, indulged in a dish of gelato, and generally had a nice time walking about and looking in the various shops. Even the drive there and back was pleasant since we could enjoy one another's company and actually have an adult conversation without concern about or interruption from the kids.

I could wax eloquent about Christy: her intelligence, grace, kuzbu and many other attributes. But this may say more about her than anything else: I was a student for the first 14 1/2 years of marriage, and she was always my greatest source of emotional support.

She's just wonderful . . . .

Divine Authority, or This Blog Post is Not Mine; It is Ea's Post

Here's a glimpse of what I've been working on the last two weeks. All I have here is the Introduction and the first section, Methodological Caveats. The full article will appear next year I hope, depending on the publication schedule.

Several scholars have stated that the common phrase šiptu ul yuttun, “the incantation is not mine,” intends to deny the human origin of an incantation containing the phrase, which thereby opens the potential for empowering it with divine authority—something often achieved by following the phrase with šipat DN, “It is an incantation of DN.” According to this interpretation, šiptu ul yuttun is simply a legitimating formula.[1] This general conclusion is accurate, but a more intensive analysis of šiptu ul yuttun yields a clearer view of its particular rhetorical strategy for legitimating incantations and a more nuanced understanding of its distribution. Moreover, expanding the number and kinds of contexts brought to bear upon the interpretation of this phrase gives opportunity to reflect upon Mesopotamian ritual broadly conceived.

The structure of the following reflections is as much perspectival as it is sequential. In order to exploit the phrase under consideration for the present purposes, I consider it from several different, complimentary perspectives that build upon one another. From the broadest conceptual perspective, we shall investigate the relationship between the inherent power of the spoken word and divine fiat in order to recognize explicitly the purpose of the words šiptu ul yuttun within Mesopotamian ritual. From the textual perspective of incantations, we shall examine our phrase’s general function as one of several incantation legitimation formulae. From a social perspective, we shall learn that the phrase under discussion is effective in incantations because of its analogical relationship with legal pronouncements. From a compositional and scribal perspective, we shall discuss both the distinctive usage of šiptu ul yuttun within medical/exorcistic incantations as well as offer an explanation for its anomalous deployment within prayers to deities. And finally, from the perspective of the Mesopotamian ritual corpus, we shall note this phrase’s broad similarities to other ritual denials as well as its small differences, which will bring us back to a consideration of broader issues for the interpretation of Mesopotamian ritual.

Methodological Caveats

Before I begin, I should note several issues that we must bear in mind throughout. Several of these are obvious, but past interpretations of Mesopotamian ritual have shown how easily we forget them. First, we only have access to texts and artifacts in the study of Mesopotamian religion; we have no informants and no performances. The following analysis is based on what I believe are warranted interpretations of written documents. Proving the correspondence of these interpretations to actual ritual performances (thousands of them over millennia) and /or the (un)conscious reflections of countless ancient ritual participants—in all their presumable variety—is impossible.[2] I do not intend this recognition to elicit paralyzing skepticism; rather, I mention it to keep our limitations clearly in view and to remind us of the tentativeness of our understanding.[3] Second, it is essential to maintain a distinction between what is a plausible understanding or description of ritual activity within the Mesopotamian indigenous worldview(s) and what is a plausible interpretation or re-description from a modern, theoretically-driven outsider’s perspective, whose questions and concerns are legitimately different from the insiders’.[4] This is the classic insider/outsider distinction in Anthropology and Religious Studies. Although this distinction raises important philosophical problems, which cannot be pursued here,[5] the general distinction will prove useful for the present purposes. Third, our evidence in Assyriology spans millennia. Despite all that structural and synchronic analyses have taught us, especially about the fallacy of origins as explanation, a diachronic component in our analysis is not only desirable but in some cases essential for interpreting data that otherwise seems incongruent.[6]

---

[1] See, e.g., W. G. Lambert, “A Catalogue of Texts and Authors,” JCS 16 (1962): 73; Walter Farber, “Magic at the Cradle,” Anthropos 85 (1990): 145–46; Beate Pongratz-Leisten, Herrschaftswissen in Mesopotamien: Formen der Kommunikation zwischen Gott und König im 2. und 1. Jahrtausend v. Chr (SAAS 10; Helsinki: The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 1999), 293; and Paul-Alain Beaulieu, “The Social and Intellectual Setting of Babylonian Wisdom Literature,” in Wisdom Literature in Mesopotamia and Israel (ed. Richard J. Clifford; SBLSS 36; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2007), 18n.41. Van Binsbergen and Wiggermann believe the phrase šiptu ul yuttun is an example of the paradoxical relationship between theistic and non-theistic elements of Mesopotamian religion in that the non-theistic power of words is utilized as part of an assertion to transform an incantation into divine speech (Wim van Binsbergen and Frans Wiggermann, “Magic in History: A Theoretical Perspective, and Its Application to Ancient Mesopotamia,” in Mesopotamian Magic: Textual, Historical, and Interpretive Perspectives [ed. Tzvi Abusch and Karel van der Toorn; Ancient Magic and Divination 1; Gronigen: Styx Press, 1999], 3–34, here 26).

[2] See the similar remarks in Rebecca Lesses, “The Adjuration of the Prince of the Presence: Performative Utterance in Jewish Ritual,” in Ancient Magic and Ritual Power (ed. Marvin Meyer and Paul Mirecki; Leiden: Brill, 1995), 185–206, here 206.

[3] Of course, new documents may also at anytime require our interpretations to be altered or abandoned; that is simply the nature of all historical knowledge.

[4] See Bruce Lincoln, “How to Read a Religious Text: Reflections on Some Passages of the Chāndogya Upanis[ad,” History of Religions 46.2 (2006): 127–39, especially 127. See also William K. Gilders, “Why Does Eleazar Sprinkle the Red Cow Blood? Making Sense of a Biblical Ritual,” JHS 6 (2006): 3, who is careful to note the issues of the outsider as well as our textual dependency, which in the case of biblical ritual includes broader narrative considerations.

[5] For some of the issues, see Thomas N. Headland, Kenneth L. Pike, and Marvin Harris, eds., Emics and Etics: The Insider/Outsider Debate (Newbury Park: Sage Publications, 1990) and Russell T. McCutcheon, The Insider/Outsider Problem in the Study of Religion: A Reader (London and New York: Cassell, 1999).

[6] See Marshall Sahlins, Islands of History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), especially chapter 5, entitled “Structure and History.” As representative of his approach, I note the following comment: “[C]ulture functions as a synthesis of stability and change, past and present, diachrony and synchrony. . . . Every reproduction of culture is an alteration, insofar as in action, the categories by which a present world is orchestrated pick up some novel empirical content” (144). Simply put, structures change through time. In light of our present purpose we might say that every time a scribe employs a stock phrase in a new incantation there is the potential for that phrase to take on new significance.

Moses and Jewish Identity

In my SAAS 19 book, I argued that Moses was an Israelite apkallu for later Jewish scribes. That is, just as the Mesopotamian scribes claimed the ancient apkallū as their forbears to give them legitimation and status so the Jewish scribes behind the latest redaction of the Pentateuch claimed Moses (pp. 362-373). The textual locus for this is Deuteronomy 34:10-12.

This idea develops the work of Hindy Najman (Seconding Sinai: The Development of Mosaic Discourse in Second Temple Judaism. JSJSup 77; Leiden: Brill, 2003), who had already argued that Moses was invoked by authors during the Second Temple period in works like Jubilees, 11QTemple, and Philo to create their authority.

Both of these works treat Moses as a figure that was invoked to create a specific scribal identity. Moses is not viewed as a historical personage; rather, he is a mytheme utilized and exploited by authors for their own ideological purposes.

In the latest article from JHS, Thomas Römer explores this idea even further by looking at the figure of Moses as a means for the creation of Jewish identity more broadly conceived ("Moses Outside the Torah and the Construction of a Diaspora Identity").

Here's the official abstract:

This article deals with how, in texts inside and outside the Torah, Moses became a figure of identification for the different Jewish Diasporas during the Persian Period The following themes are investigated: 1. The Shared Figure of Moses and the Pentateuch; 2. The death of Moses outside the land; 3. Moses, the magician; 4. Moses, the leprous; 5. Moses and the foreign women; 6. Moses, the warrior.

Perhaps a better indication of what he tries to do is in the following paragraph lifted from his introduction:

Moses was not only the figure of identification for the two major ideological and economical groups inside the Land, but also for Diaspora Judaism. Some texts and hints reveal the importance of Moses for this Judaism outside the Land. They refer to Moses in order to legitimate theological options different than those that were about to become standard in Jerusalem. Some of these attempts were finally integrated into the Torah and some were not. The ‘non orthodox’ traditions about Moses can nevertheless be detected through some allusions in the Biblical text and through traditions about Moses that can be found in the work of Jewish and Greek authors of the Hellenistic period. I would like to briefly present the most interesting of these traditions. Before doing so, it is important to draw attention to the end of the Torah, which tries to present Moses as a possible model for Diaspora Judaism.

Although the connections he makes are not definitive, Römer presents some very interesting and suggestive ideas. Perhaps even more important is the fact that this article reminds us that extra-biblical Jewish traditions are not always midrashic developments of biblical materials; rather, sometimes these texts preserve fuller treatments that the Bible only hints at laconically.

I highly recommend this brief article.

One Year Anniversary

Just about a year ago I got a new bike (see here for the new bike and here for the city commuter look). Since then I've ridden about 1800 miles, most of which, let's say 1700, were ridden to and from school. Over at commutebybike.com, they have a calculator that lets you see how much commuting by bike saves on gas. I've added the widget on the sidebar here in case you feel like playing with it.

For the calculator to work properly, I figured my 1700 work miles over 52 weeks, which puts me around 33 miles per week on average. (I've learned recently that my actual route door-to-door is longer than I thought: 4 miles exactly, which means I ride about 40 miles in a normal week.) If gas averaged about $3.75 and my car gets about 20mpg in the city, I saved $321.75 on gas this year (and just about that last year, too). The savings on gas alone this year almost paid for my bike! Add the $75 for a parking permit to the savings, and it puts me right in the zone for what I paid for the bike.

Of course, there were many other savings and benefits of commuting by bike. For example, I didn't have to pay for insurance or upkeep on a second car; I didn't gain weight; my cholesterol levels remain at a very healthy low (my actual score didn't even register on the machine last time I checked, which means it was below 150; contrast this with my dad and brother who score over 200); my practice is eco-friendly and nearly oil-free (I did use some chain lube); and I get the pleasure of the wind on my face as I whiz by cars stuck in traffic.

I have to admit, I have good weather for riding. But there have been cold, rainy days---36˚ in the rain is no picnic! But generally, riding here in Stockton is a pleasure. I hate the thought of ever having to go back to commuting by car!

Need a biblical connection? Here's a blog entry on "Cycling Through Israeli Wine and Biblical History" and a link to "The Cyclist's Bible."

K.63a obv ii 20-28 (= 4 R2 25)

The ancient Mesopotamians used a ritual called Mīs Pî (reconstructed in SAALT 1) to consecrate and induct a new or repaired divine image--a deity--into his or her temple. (See, e.g., Berlejung's summary and interpretation here [Google Books put the whole chapter up!]). The rite was elaborate, taking a couple of days and requiring numerous incantations and ritual paraphernalia. It also varied from place to place as the Ritual Tablets from Nineveh and Babylonia attest.

I've been looking at the passages in this ritual that describe the symbolic (bloodless) amputation of the hands of the craftsmen who worked on the divine image. While doing so, I came across a couple of references in SAALT 1 (pp. 14, 16, and 23) that indicated the same kind of thing occurred in a ritual for consecrating a divine symbol, Sin's uskāru, "crescent," preserved by K.63a and the unpublished K.3367. So I wanted (needed) to look at this ritual.

As some of my readers will know, looking up a text in Akkadian materials is not always easy, especially when stranded at a liberal arts college whose Assyriological collection is non-existent. So I set out to see what I could find. The result: not much. The best help, though out-dated, came from Thureau-Dangin's Rituels accadiens, 54 note 63 (which I actually own in photocopy form). So I decided I would just decipher part of the ritual from the tablet myself. All I needed was a photo.

No problem. According to SAALT 1, p. 129n.6 the CD-ROM, included with the book, contains a photo of the obverse of K.63a, the very part I needed to see. Cool!

But there was a problem. Did I mention that I had to ILL (that's Inter-Library Loan) SAALT 1? And did I mention that the library didn't send the CD with the book? That hadn't mattered when I first got the book. But now the absence left me dead in the water. . . .

Until Inana showed up. I put out a few (OK, seven) emails to friends and colleagues asking if they owned SAALT 1 and if so could they email the image. The answers were negative until my friend Inana answered my plea from the cyber-blue. So yesterday afternoon I started deciphering away and incorporating my findings into my paper.

I'm presenting what I've found so far here for three reasons:

A) When I was an Akkadian student, I didn't get to read from real tablets. Hand copies were the best we could do and these are very different from real tablets. It's important to get experience reading from real tablets. So here's an opportunity to see what you can see on the next best thing: a high-quality image of a tablet.

B) I need help on the mysterious GIŠ.DUB.NUN.NA in line 25. I've taken it as gištuppi nunni, "copper plaque(?)," tentatively. But I'm not confident that this is right. So I thought I'd throw it out there and see what others think. UPDATE: The GIŠ made me think the following signs were a logogram. But the word is very likely tupnunnu, tupninnu, "chest." See CAD T, 475. The GIŠ is frequently written in front of the word. I still need to think about how this fits in with the context. It is mentioned again in line 30, but I don't see it elsewhere (yet). UPDATE 2: There is other paraphernalia (belonging to the god) mentioned earlier in the ritual. Two of these are also mentioned in line 29 just before the chest in line 30; the three items were left in an orchard overnight for ritual reasons (irradiation by the stars). So the chest is just one of several items being made here. Also of interest: Line 15 mentions the LÚ.KÙ.DÍM DINGIR DÙ-šú (= kutīmu ila īpušu), "the goldsmth, who made the god." So there is no question that the workers are involved in making divine items.

C) I know of no modern transliteration of these lines. (But I wasn't able to consult HKL, so maybe there's one out there somewhere.)

Here's the tablet (click to enlarge):


Here's my transliteration (as a jpeg to avoid retyping the diacritics, etc.; click to enlarge):
UPDATE: Correct line 25's GIŠ.DUB.NUN.NA to GIŠ tup-nun-na.

(If you have tabbed browsing you could open each in their own tab and work back and forth between windows through the text.)

And finally, here's my rather literal translation:

As for the goldsmith, on his left hand, red, blue,
and combed wool you tie on. On his left hand a sash you tie on.
new break . . . *of tamarisk you cut off his hand.
new break . . . Thus he says, “Kusibanda,
“Ea of the goldsmiths, indeed made it,
“I swear I did not make it.” And the carpenter, who made the wooden chest(updated),
ditto. Thus he says, “Ninildu,
“Ea of the carpenters, indeed made it,
“I swear I did not make it.”

* restore based on parallels: [knife] of tamarisk

It seems a little weird to just end the post on that note. But that's what I'm going to do. Have a good weekend.

Fast Check-Out at SBL Book Exhibit

The SBL conference planners announced today that a barcode would be temporarily attached to all conference attendees in order to expedite book purchases. They are denying that this has anything to do with the Mark of the Beast.

Ancient Near Eastern Gestures

Photo from here

I've noticed several gestures lately in my reading of texts, mostly Akkadian and Hebrew. Tonight I was struck by a gesture in Isa 57:4: על־מי תתענגו על־מי תרחיבו פה תאריכו לשׁון, "Of whom do you make sport? Against whom do you widen (your) mouth (and) stick out (your) tongue?" This is either a gesture of contempt or something suggestive of sexual activity (see the context)---the key here is the meaning of the HtD of ענג. I haven't thought a great deal about it yet really and most of my tools are at the office. So the options listed above are just first stabs. But the example is not really the point here. Rather, it's the number of gestures I'm noticing lately.

Be it resolved that . . .

I'm going to start a list of gestures that I notice in texts. I imagine the list will be quite small for a while. But it will grow over the years. Eventually, maybe I'll have enough ideas about the various kinds of gesture in the ANE that we can put together an encyclopedia of gestures. I've often thought such a thing is needed, especially for those studying ritual (ahem, Jim Getz, are you reading?). UPDATE: There are some things already available. See the comments. Thanks, Judith.

Anyway, do you have a favorite gesture (from the ancient word) that you can add to the list?

A Simple Question

I'm looking for yes or no answers followed by about three sentences:

Does awareness of the ANE archaeological, linguistic, cultural, and textual materials discovered in the last 150 years or so fundamentally alter our understanding of the Hebrew Bible?

Satire Hurts

I posted a satirical job opening recently (not this one, but this one), lampooning Westminster's inevitable need to replace Pete Enns (and probably the rest of the OT department). If you'd like to see the reaction this is getting from students and associates of WTS, please visit here (the link may go dead; people are calling for the post to be deleted since it makes WTS look so bad; last I saw was comment 41). This may also give you an idea of the kind of atmosphere the whole debacle at WTS has generated.

Now we all know that satire is an exaggeration for rhetorical effect. What I posted in the satire is not really true in all its details. But it does a good job of pointing out some of the problems at Westminster in a humorous way. (Sometimes one has to laugh to keep from crying.)

I expected some fall out, so I'm not super surprised that some people didn't see the humor. But some of the comments, though coming from "reverends," are quite inflammatory and presumptuous--verging on libel, it seems to me. That was surprising, I guess. Apparently, some of these guys know me well enough to judge my character (not just my post) and my professional motivations. I'd be funny if I knew it wasn't so mean spirited.

The thing that is really amazing to me is that the people who engage in name calling and misrepresentation don't have the humility to apologize when called to account. They'll apologize for a mistaken reading. But to apologize for name calling or misquoting me, to an apostate? No way, I'm practically a non-person. (Notice how they sometimes talk about me as if I'm absent despite the fact that I was the first commenter and was engaged in the forum, too?)

It just goes to show what kind of authority carrying the banner of truth for a transcendent power allows the banner bearers to presume. The flames of Hell await me, apparently. Whatever. I'm just glad I'm not living in the 16th century or I could be feeling the flames a lot sooner! (Ask Michael Servetus, even the Reformed burned a heretic.)

A New Trilemma

N. T. Wrong has discovered that I (inadvertently) discovered a new "trilemma." I'm proud to have discovered it, even though I didn't know I had discovered it until N. T. told me that I had, you know, discovered something new. I usually don't discover that I discovered something until I discover that the discoverer of my discovery actually tells me what I discovered then goes on to say that I am in fact wrong in my discovery, you know, the one I didn't know I had discovered until the discoverer told me that I had. So it was pleasant to discover that the present discoverer of my previously unknown to me "trilemma" discovery was in agreement with my discovery, at least I think he is. So I am grateful to N. T. for helping me discover my discovery. Well, now that that's clear . . . .