My semester has officially begun. I’m very excited about the classes I’m taking this semester. I’m constantly reminded that GCTS truly affords students some wonderful opportunities when it comes to studying the Hebrew Bible and Hebrew language. Mandy has already posted her classes and so, without further ado, my classes:

Middle Egyptian I – I’m taking this class at Boston University. So far it has been absolutely wonderful. The professor is very concerned with moving at a pace the entire class can handle, and because of this he’d rather move too slowly rather than too quickly. Either way I’m finding the material fascinating. I think I’m doing well, other than the fact that I can not draw to save my life. Luckily the professor is gracious in this regard, and so I won’t have to worry too much about my grade being negatively effected by a falcon that looks a bit…odd.

History and Archaeology of the Ancient Near East – Mandy actually took this class two years ago, and I am not playing a bit of catch up. This class is extremely interesting. It makes me wonder if maybe, just maybe I might like digging in the Levant at some point in the not too distant future. Eric keeps encouraging me to join him at Tell es-Safi, and this class might help him in that goal. I’m also finding the textbooks (Mazar’s Archaeology of the Land of the Bible and Kuhrt’s The Ancient Near East) engrossing. Because of this I think Mandy is finding me odd.

Advanced Hebrew Grammar – This is the single class that I have been looking forward to the most. Dr. T. Petter is doing a directed study with Mandy and I. Throughout the summer the syllabus has morphed and changed as the three of us (Dr. Petter, Mandy and I) have all given input. Now that the syllabus has been finalized I can say with confidence that I’m excited. We’ll be focusing on the Biblical Hebrew verbal system in prose. I will probably solicit your suggestions on additional readings that might be helpful to us in the coming weeks. The final evaluation for the course will be a paper dealing with the verbal system in prose via an analysis of a pericope in Judges, with special attention to the verbal system throughout the book. The specifics, of course, are subject to some small amount of change over the next couple weeks, but that’s the basic outline.

OT Prophetical Books – This will be my first class with Dr. D. Petter, and it seems like it’s going to be great. It has been a while since I’ve done any type of sustained study in the prophets, and so that alone makes this interesting. Dr. Petter is also extremely personable, and I’m sure that the class itself will be fascinating. It’s also another opportunity to work with the Hebrew text and that is always a worthwhile endeavor.

Akkadian – Finally, I will be taking Akkadian this semester. It might more properly be called “An introduction to Akkadian grammar,” since we won’t be learning any vocabulary, nor will we be learning the signs. Nevertheless I think this will be an interesting class as it will allow me yet more exposure to semitic languages. I fear my excite for this class is somewhat dimmed in light of the flaring beacon that is Middle Egyptian, but I still expect the class to be interesting.

The first post in this series is available here. The present post will continue the series by surveying several ancient near eastern parallels to the Book of Job. It will necessarily deal more with the Book of Job as a whole than with Job 5.2-7 specifically.

The Book of Job is not an unique example of disputation literature in the ancient near east. There are several works which fall into the category of disputation literature from the ancient world. Three examples will be briefly surveyed, the first is The Babylonian Theodicy, the second is The Dispute between a Man and his Ba, an Egyptian composition, while the third is also from Egypt and entitled The Protest of the Eloquent Peasant.¹

The Babylonian Theodicy has several similarities to the Book of Job, though these similarities are not so striking as to require literary dependence of the latter on the former.² The text revolves around the dispute between a sufferer and his friend. This is an obvious similarity between The Babylonian Theodicy and the Book of Job, though Job disputes with three friends, rather than one. The friend argues for the traditional understanding of things while the sufferer, much like Job, pushes out to the fringes, and argues that traditional explanations do not provide answers. One major difference between the Book of Job and the Babylonian Theodicy is that in the latter there is a “politeness which the two speakers maintain to the end.”³ In Job, Eliphaz’ first speech is moderate–even polite–but after he concludes his initial oration things quickly deteriorate. On the other hand the end of the Babylonian text, as Pope has noted, is somewhat perplexing.⁴

Perhaps the most striking similarity between these two texts is the friends’ persistent contention that the doctrine of retribution works. Lambert explains that on several occasions the friend defends the doctrine of retribution when he writes, “the friend repeats that in the end they [the unrighteous] are discomfited.”⁵ Of course, this is Eliphaz’ point in Job 5.2-7. In fact, the friend’s response in lines 235-242 of The Babylonian Theodicy has certain thematic similarities to Eliphaz’ first speech. Specifically, lines 237-238 appear to be a proverbial saying of some type.⁶ Eliphaz makes use of such sayings throughout his first speech, but especially in 5.2 and 5.6-7. In addition, the friend’s admonition in line 239 that the sufferer “seek the will of the god” is vaguely reminiscent of Eliphaz’ admonition in Job 5.8, “but as for me, I would seek God.”

The Egyptian story known as The Dispute between a Man and His Ba has similarities with both the biblical books of Job and Qohelet.⁷ In the words of Francis Andersen, when speaking about this Egyptian story, “a poignant longing for death is expressed in words which invite comparison with chapter 3 of Job. But here the similarity ends.”⁸ Job does not, however, cease longing for death after chapter three. Even so, the similarities between the two works are limited to the desire for death. Because of this the words of the man in the story have no direct bearing on the passage at hand. The man’s Ba, on the other hand, encourages the enjoyment of life.⁹ This appears to have more in common with the central sections of Qohelet, in which the reader is implored to enjoy life.

The Egyptian Protest of the Eloquent Peasant has several similarities with the biblical Book of Job. The story goes as follows: a peasant is bringing certain items to market. A rival robs him in a way so as to make his robbery seem legitimate. The peasant pleads with the magistrate that his goods be returned. After giving nine soliloquies the peasant receives his possessions back, as well as the entirety of the possessions of the one who robbed him. Pope notes the following, “the text is introduced by a prose prologue and epilogue…the central portion of the text is composed of…semipoetic appeals for justice.”¹⁰ The form is strikingly similar to Job, though there are narrative interludes between the speeches that serve to move the story along to a greater extent than the short prose portions embedded within the poetry of Job (cf. Job 31.40; 32.1-6; 38.1; 40.3, 6; 42.1). Setting aside for the moment the difference in the quantity of prose between the two works, the general form of Prose-Poetry-Prose is identical. The prologue for each even begins similarly, with the information that “there was a man named X.” Furthermore, the location of said man is specified (cf Job 1.1). There are major differences between the texts as well. An obvious, though still important, difference is that the eloquent peasant addresses his complaint to a human judge, whereas Job demands that he be allowed to plead his case before a divine judge. As Andersen has noted, the speeches made by the peasant are entirely concerned with human justice. ¹¹ Job, on the other hand, is concerned with divine justice. Furthermore, the eloquent peasant does not so much doubt the possibility of receiving justice, as feel the need to argue in order to receive said justice.

In summary, the three texts from the ancient near east which have been examined, The Babylonian Theodicy, The Dispute of a Man with His Ba, and The Protest of the Eloquent Peasant each provide certain similarities with the Book of Job. None of these similarities are great enough to suggest literary dependence, but they do serve to illustrate the fact that the author(s) of Job was not the only one struggling with the issues raised by belief in a strict doctrine of retribution. Furthermore, this confirms that the genre of disputation literature was well known in the ancient near east, and in use by scribes in dealing with difficult issues that challenged the status quo.

Although many readers may not realize this, because of my absence over the past month, I am taking a class entitled, “The History of Israelite Religion” at Boston University this semester. So far the class is proving interesting, and I hope that such continues to be the case throughout the semester. Adam is also taking this course (as is Mandy), and has blogged his thoughts about one of the readings. Since I’ve also read the Dever article which Adam mentions, and since I managed to make my way into one of Adam’s footnotes, I thought I’d respond with some of my thoughts on the topic of Israelite Religions. For those who would like to consult the Dever article first hand, here is the relevant information: William G. Dever, “Theology Philology, and Archaeology: In the Pursuit of Ancient Israelite Religion,” in Sacred Time, Sacred Place: Archaeology and the Religion of Israel (ed. Barry M. Gittlen; Winona Lake, IN.: Eisenbrauns, 2002), 15.

Adam gives a nice survey of his own thoughts on the matter, and I, generally speaking, agree. A few areas that I think deserve a bit more attention follow:

1. I don’t understand the penchant among scholars to insist that the Hebrew Scriptures are “orthodox” in their take on certain things, brushing under the rug the religion on the ground, as it were. Certainly the Hebrew Bible is coming from a particular idealogical standpoint. But it hardly makes it seem as if everyone in Israel was a practicing Yahwist–or if it does, it makes them out to be syncretistic Yahwists. I realize that part of the issue at hand is the argument that one cannot postulate syncretism on the part of Israel, since their religion likely grew out of the surrounding Canaanite culture. Nevertheless, I think that the textual evidence agrees quite well with the material culture.

At times I think we end up reading our own cultural battles against orthodoxy back into the Hebrew Bible, and so end up making certain assumptions that are not always the case. That is not to say that the Hebrew Bible does not represent the orthodox opinion, it does. However, the idea that it was written for the purpose of making it seem as if Israel had always had a unified faith is a bit nonsensical to me. If whoever wrote it was trying to say that the post-exilic religion was the way it had always been, he certainly did a horrible job of it. We have a Saulide with the name Ishba’al, we have David’s sons serving as priests, we have the time of the Judges, as well as the assertion that El divided the nations according to the number of the sons of God. Hardly a convincing way to argue for an orthodox religion from time immemorial. No, I find it much more likely that there are many pre-exilic pieces in the deuteronomistic history that were edited together at various points, with the final editing taking place after the exile. Certainly this came from a particular perspective, and certainly it was the minority perspective during the monarchy. It was not, as far as I can tell, a perspective that tried to more than quickly tidy some of the more “rogue” elements of Israelite religion. Quite possibly that was because the religion on the ground was, to some extent, not relevant beyond the assertion that it was not what YHWH wanted.

If anything, I find it more likely that our own presuppositions lead us to gloss over the bits of the text that clearly indicate a non-monotheistic Israelite religion early on. Such indicators are quite prevalent in much of Biblical poetry, as well as the deuteronomistic history. Perhaps it is the fact that the DH makes value judgments on these non-monotheistic elements that truly disturbs us. We would prefer, if possible, that it was more neutral in its assessment of Israelite religion, if not its communication of such.

2. Dever’s critique of the limitations of Biblical Theology is, I think, quite helpful. Although I had to wonder if he accurately acknowledged the reason many of the writers of so called Biblical theology are writing, I agree with him that it tends to denigrate the Biblical text. When authors make the point that understanding the Hebrew Bible must begin with the New Testament they have completely and utterly missed the point. Dever, in this case, is absolutely correct–although perhaps a bit polemical at times.

3. His critique of philologists I found to be overly harsh in some respects. I do not disagree that material culture and archeology must be consulted in reconstructing a history of ancient Israel, however. Dever states several times that he wants archeology and philology to work in tandem, but after reading the article, I must wonder if, perhaps, he wishes archeology to be the more equal of the two disciplines. Ultimately digging up stuff is great, and needful, but we also need texts (both sacred and secular, if we might borrow a modern distinction and apply it haphazardly to the ancient near east), to illuminate what we find. One without the other only provides an incomplete view of ancient culture/history/etc.

I look forward to discussing the article in class next week. I’d also love to hear what any one who has read the article has thought of it.

Calvin and I attended the national SBL meeting for the first time this year, and I had a blast. We live about an hour and a half from Boston, which made it ultra-convenient – though a very early start every morning. John Hobbins crashed at our place, and we had fun chatting with and getting to know him better.

Obviously, I sat through a ton of papers. Many were terribly boring, but there were also quite a few that were really profitable or interesting. Here are some of the session/paper highlights for me:

Saturday (As a side note, Saturday started off a little rocky for us. Our train on the Blue Line broke down and we were left waiting at Airport station in the blustering cold for 30 min before someone decided to tell us that the line had been shut down and no other train would be coming to get us. Thanks, MBTA! Your efficiency in dealing with unexpected situations is indescribable. To top that off, in the middle of the first paper below, the fire alarm went off on our floor. Whew. What a morning!)

Pentateuch Section, 9-11:30
The Angel Marriages (Genesis 6:1-4) and the Greek Framing of the Primeval History, by Andreas Schuele, Union Seminary Richmond.
Good presentation, and interesting content. There is, of course, a lot out there comparing the Hebrew Bible to Mesopotamian, Canaanite, and Egyptian mythology. However, not so much with Greek.

Pentateuch Section, 4-6:30
Bits of Bethel Cult behind the Golden Calf Complaint, by Daniel Fleming, New York University
Again, nice presentation quality, easy to listen to. The general consensus is that the HB tends to smooth over the reality of Israelite religion. Here, Fleming argues that we can see some of the historical memory of real cultic practices coming through the text.

Sunday

Book of Psalms Section, 9-11:30
The Most Important Text in the Bible and a Theology of the Psalms, by J. Clinton McCann, Eden Theological Seminary
Really, this whole section was decent, but this paper in particular caught my attention because it dealt with one of my favorite Psalms, Ps 82, and postulated on its theological import for the rest of the Bible.

Biblical Hebrew Poetry Section, 1-3:30
Patterned Language, by Frederic Clarke Putnam, Philadelphia Biblical University
Putnam’s presentation of the material was phenomenal. I wouldn’t have been able to fall asleep if I had tried. He was by far the best presenter out of all I listened to, in the quality and animation of his presentation. You couldn’t help but get excited about his paper! And, of course, the content was really fascinating, and hard to describe succinctly.

Women in the Biblical World Section, 4-6:30
Regulations Regarding the Purity of Priests’ Wives in Leviticus 21, by Hilary Lipka, University of California, Los Angeles
This was another section that was quite good as a whole, with some crazy but interesting stuff and mostly attention-keeping presentations. However, for some inexplicable reason, I found this particular presentation to be really interesting in content. Purity laws are not usually something I go for, but whether it be that the presenter just did a really good job of putting together the material, or something else – I really enjoyed this one.

Monday

Israelite Religion in Its West Asian Environment Section, 4-6:30
Divvying up the Divine Council: A New Perspective on the structure of the Divine Council in the Hebrew Bible, by Ellen White, University of St. Michael’s College
I have this sort of crazy obsession with the divine council in the HB, so this was a great presentation for me. I hope that I’ll get to hear further development on this topic from her next year.

Tuesday

Wisdom in Israelite and Cognate Tradition Section, 9-11:30
This whole section was phenomenal. It fit together really well and kept me awake (most of the time). The papers presented were:
Character Formation and Community Ethics in Canaanite Literature, by Richard S. Hess, Denver Seminary
Positive and Negative Human Types in the Egyptian Wisdom Literature, by Nili Shupak, University of Haifa
Character Formation and Community Ethics in Mesopotamian Wisdom Literature, by Alan R. Millard, University of Liverpool

There’s an overview of my favorite papers. Of course, I sat through a ton more and there were others that were mildly interesting as well, but didn’t make the top of the list. I was going to write a little about how my time was spent outside of sessions, but I will save that for another post as this is getting quite lengthy.

In Ugaritic this week we discussed our vocalization and translation of KTU 2.16. At lines four and five we ran into an issue that produced a good fifteen minutes of conversation on the various possibilities. I should make a disclaimer at this point that I have less than one semester of Ugaritic under my belt, so it is entirely possible that I will make some painfully stupid and unlearned remark in this post–I beg your forgiveness in advance. For those who don’t have the Ugaritic text handy, I’ve reproduced the two lines in question below:

2.16:4 – yšlm . lk . ily
2.16:5 – ugrt . tǵrk

The issue basically revolves around ily. In class we came up with a variety of possibilities on how to put these two lines together. It seems obvious that lines 1-3 are the introduction, and so we don’t need to worry about finding the subject of line four in line three. It also seemed plain to everyone in class that line six began a new clause. The question is, how should one take ily? That is, should it be vocalized as a plural or singular? What is the final y? Is it actually in construct with ugrt in line 5? Here are some of the possibilities we came up with:

1. The y is gentilic – I’m not sure how a gentilic makes sense in reference to the gods, but someone threw it out as a possibility.
2. The y is a mater – This would make sense, except that my understanding is that there is no agreement among scholars on whether or not mater letters exist in Ugaritic (I’m actually inclined to say that a majority say that Ugaritic does not have them, but I could be completely off base there).
3. The y is a textual corruption – This just seems like throwing ones hands up and saying “I don’t know!” but it is certainly a possibility, I suppose.
4. Enclitic y on analogy with enclitic m – Professor Kline actually proposed this as a possibility, though I don’t know enough about Ugaritic yet to make a judgment on the likelihood.
5. The y is the 1cs personal pronoun – This was actually how I had taken it in the first place, and others had done the same.

The majority of the class favored one of the first four explanations and translated: “May it be well to you. May the gods of Ugarit guard you.” A small minority favored the fifth option and translated “May my god grant welfare/health/wellness to you. May Ugarit guard you.” This second option obviously only works if Ugarit is grammatically feminine.

I know many of you who read The Floppy Hat are far more knowledgeable of Ugaritic than I am. I’d love your thoughts on this section of text. How would you explain ily? What would your rough translation look like?

So a couple months back I was given a copy of The Campaign of Pharaoh Shoshenq I into Palestine by the author himself. This past weekend I decided to sit down and read it. I’m glad I did.

A year ago I would have had no concept of who Shoshenq was. Mandy took a course in Ancient Near Eastern history and archeology last semester, and I remember helping her study for an exam dealing with Shoshenq. In addition, during my Exegesis in Samuel course, Dr. Petter mentioned Shoshenq as an aside (and spent a good 30 seconds muttering to himself trying to decide between various vocalizations of the name, it was most enjoyable). So, I knew that he had something to do with Israel and the book of Kings. As would seem to be the case with anything that directly mentions or interacts with the Bible, this poor Pharaoh was caught up in the eternal debate of whether or not the Deuteronomistic History (ie, Joshua-2 Kings) constitutes reliable history or not.

The basic issue, as Kevin discusses it, is that scholars have largely focused on the topographical list of Shoshenq’s triumphal relief at Karnak and attempted to reconstruct an itinerary for Shoshenq’s campaign into Palestine based on said list. Of course, the problem is that the account in 1 Kings mentions a campaign focused on Jerusalem, with no mention of any foray into Israel, whereas the topographical list doesn’t mention Jerusalem at all.

The book is divided broadly into six chapters, one each devoted to introductory materials and Kevin’s conclusions. Chapter two, a sizable portion of the text, is devoted to surveying various Triumphal Reliefs of other Egyptian Pharaohs. Namely, Thutmose III, Seti I, Ramesses II and Ramesses III. Kevin’s discussion of these reliefs are descriptive, enjoyable, helpful, and extremely relevant to his later discussion of the Shoshenq relief. Chapter three looks at the Shoshenq relief itself, while chapter four surveys other relevant Egyptian texts. Chapter five is devoted to the Biblical texts discussing Shoshenq (Shishak). Here Kevin excels at presenting a balanced and intellectual view of the material without thinking for others. It was a breath of fresh air compared to several of the books I’m being required to plod through for classes this semester. Chapter six briefly summarizes the conclusions that the author draws from the material.

Kevin’s arguments are lucid and convincing. In fact, processing through his arguments on the topic have caused me to come to the conclusion that I might really enjoy doing some research into the early monarchic period, or into the time of the judges. Given, both of those are earlier than Shoshenq, and tracing my line of reasoning would take far to long to include here, but I digress.

I enjoyed the book, which isn’t long enough to be called a tome, but contains quite a bit of data. Think about that first clause for a moment. The fact that I have just said “I enjoyed the book” in reference to a manuscript about Shoshenq I’s campaign into Palestine reveals one of two things:
1. I am an incredibly sick person.
2. Kevin is a very engaging writer.

I’ll opt for option #2, but you can judge for yourself by visiting his blog.