More on Nimrud Treasure Photos

Several months ago I posted on the extraordinary photographs of the Iraqi Museum treasures hidden in the flooded bank vault. Please see there for a link to the presentation. Photographer Noreen Feeney has commented. For those of you who have been keeping up more recently with well-illustrated introductions to Mesopotamian art, I was hoping that you could recommend a book or two for Noreen that would describe for her what were the items that she photographed. She didn’t know what they were, their ages, their importance, or any of that information which some of us take for granted, yet look at the amazing, indeed almost loving, attention that she paid the artifacts in her detailed photography, hands-down better than any photography of the items in history. So, if anyone can help out by recommending some well-illustrated books, please leave some titles for Noreen in the comments here or there at the older post. I recommended Pritchard’s ANEP, but that’s only black and white, and quite dated, though it should cover all or most of the Sumerian items and give at least a bare-bones idea of what they were. Something better than that would be more appropriate, I think.

As a note of appreciation in the very least, for her participation in documenting the rescue of all these precious items, it’s the least we can do. Thanks again, Noreen!

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Zondervan Archaeological Study Bible

Well, I got one. Now that Chris Heard is famous, no doubt he’ll roll his eyes behind his oversized sunglasses, and over his soy iced mochaccino no whip with a splash of crème de menthe. Yet, I jest, with such serious work ahead of us.

Chris was entirely spot on, of course, in his review of the preview materials for this new Bible. And that’s good for Chris, and for those of us who share his opinion, but it’s bad for readers of this Zondervan NIV Archaeological Study Bible. Here’s why.

First let me say the good I can say about this Bible. The presentation is beautiful. It has definitely benefitted from modern advances in printing technology. Every page has some color on it, a kind of faint sepia background and header at the very least. The paper (thin but opaque) and printing are of such excellent quality that the full-color photos are crisp on the pages and do not bleed through. The maps are the only glossy pages, with all the rest of the paper being non-glossy, which is what makes the quality of the printing so striking. It very likely heralds a new direction in Bible presentation. They’ve also chosen the single-column presentation of the NIV text, which is quite nice, despite the choice of a slightly cramped font. There are numerous short and some longer excerpts from other ancient literatures scattered throughout, which is quite nice, though the potential for such was insufficiently explored. There are numerous high-quality photographs of artifacts and so on scattered in roughly 500 inserts throughout the entire Bible (which they call “articles”).

Now to the basket of prunes . . . .

Continue reading “Zondervan Archaeological Study Bible”

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The Four-Letter Word

For many people, there seems to be no hesitation in spelling out and regularly using the Tetragrammaton. I’m not one of those. Perhaps it’s because the people that taught me Hebrew (Biblical, post-Biblical, and Modern Israeli) were Jewish that I’m entirely uncomfortable with pronouncing the currently favored scholarly reconstruction of this name. When reading the Hebrew Bible we always vocalized what the Masoretic Text was pointed to indicate, אדני or אלהים as the case may be. Anyhow, I just thought I’d explain, if anyone in fact had even noticed that I avoid this, or may, in a pinch resort to Y” in place of simply LORD or Lord or God, though I think I’ve only rarely used even that.

There are other reasons, too. Socially, I’m not on first name terms with God. Nor am I so with my father or my mother or any number of others whom I love and/or respect. That does it for me. The rest is icing on the cake.

Religiously, I find using that pronunciation suspect. It’s not part of any religious tradition carried down through the millennia. The Judaic tradition abandoned its pronunciation long ago. The Christian tradition never used it, though it was a curiosity, apparently. Had the syncretistic Hermetic magical tradition survived late antiquity, there might be a living connection there to a garbled version of it, but it was garbled and that tradition died out anyway. It’s a new thing in that sense, and its usage is no more necessary or required or necessarily correct than the use of the simplistically concocted “Jehovah.” The “Sacred Names” people can be all over it, with their syrupy CDs and ghastly Tshirts and coffee mugs and whatnot, in fonts with appropriatly Hebrewish-looking English letters (Lord. Have. Mercy!) but that doesn’t make it authentic. To me it just seems really, really wrong to be bandying about this name as though it’s some kind of proof or trophy badge of your authenticity when it’s not an authentic part of any tradition at all. It’s a scholarly reconstruction, utterly devoid of any traditional religious value.

I have some basic scholarly reservations, too, though they’re not so viscreally felt as my reaction to a tacky Tshirt sporting the supposed only name of God. It would be one matter if the pronunciation were preserved there in the Masoretic Text, but it’s not. Therefore, it’s another matter: that of taking the word of patristic Christian writers (who didn’t know Hebrew!) on Hebrew pronunciation. Aside from Origen and Jerome, apparently none of them, including Clement of Alexandria, Theodoret of Cyrrhus, and Epiphanius of Salamis, our star witnesses to the ancient pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton, knew Hebrew. Certainly the scribes doing the transmitting of the Greek texts of these fathers didn’t know Hebrew, and we can’t be certain that, textually speaking, these readings which we think are accurate indicators of ancient Hebrew are really such. So that’s the “traditional” pronunciation in a nutshell, based on writings from 100-200 years after the name had ceased to be pronounced by anyone, anywhere (with the date for its last pronunciation being the last celebrated Day of Atonement in the Jerusalem Temple in 66? AD). Yet with that in hand, it’s possible to back this up with data from the Masoretic Text, particularly other words ending with יה-, and some other hints, as described in HALOT. But that could also be a wild goose chase. I don’t think that’s necessarily the case, but it’s certainly possible. It’s a personal name, after all, not an actual verb or noun. How certain were scholars with “Jehovah”? It was also the unquestioned darling of the ink-stained for a time. One must avoid the apparently dogmatic representation of the currently favored pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton among scholars as being either probative or truly authentic, which is exactly the warning scholars worth their salt would give, if asked. It’s certainly the best guess we can make based on the evidence we have, and thus should be treated in that manner, but not as though it’s an established fact.

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The Face of the Deep (1.3)

I continue here with Christina Rossetti’s The Face of the Deep: A Devotional Commentary on the Apocalypse (London: SPCK, 1892). The other entries are found in the Poetry category in the right column.

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3. Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein, for the time is at hand.
“Understandest thou what thou readest?” asked Philip the Deacon of the Ethiopian Eunuch. And he said, “How can I, except some man should guide me?” Whereupon flowed forth to him the stream of light, knowledge, and love. Yet not then did his illumination commence: it already was his in a measure to enjoy, respond to, improve, even before his father in God preaced Christ unto him. What could he do before that moment? He could study and pray, he could cherish hope, exercise love, feel after Him Whom as yet he could not intelligently find.

So much at least we all can do who read, or who hear, this Book of Revelations: thus claiming, and by God’s bounty inheriting, the covenanted blessing of such readers and hearers. Any who pray and love enjoy already no stinted blessing. Even the will to love is love.Continue reading “The Face of the Deep (1.3)”

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biblical or Biblical?

shakespearean or Shakespearean? homeric or Homeric? Now both of those adjectives are based on personal names, but there is also a specific corpus in mind in the case of each, as in the case of biblical or Biblical. I usually see the former, but quite often the latter occurs.

The SBL Handbook prefers lowercase biblical (App. A, p. 154), following the Chicago Manual of Style, where we find recommended “Bible; biblical” (14th ed. §7.87; p. 269). Here’s what the CMS says about capitalization of religious names and terms:

In few areas is an author more tempted to overcapitalize or an editor more loath to urge a lowercase style than in religion. That this is probably due to unanalyzed acceptance of the pious customs of an earlier age, to an unconscious feeling about words as in themselves numinous, or to fear of offending religious persons is suggested by the fact that overcapitalization is seldom seen in texts on the religions of antiquity or more recent localized, relatively unsophisticated religions. Is is in the contexts of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism that we go too far. The editors of the University of Chicago Press urge a spare, down style in this field as in others: capitalize what are clearly proper nouns and adjectives, and lowecase everything else except to avoid ambiguity (CMS 14, §7.77, p. 265; emphasis theirs).

Now as far as these prescriptive sources go, they’re fine. There are a couple of reasons, however, that I’m coming out in favor of uppercase Biblical, despite my purely aesthetic typographical preference for the title of this blog! Note the confused recommended “Bible; biblical” of CMS. Why this mix of cases? We all recognize with CMS that uppercase “Bible,” as the title of a particularly well-known book that is itself a collection of smaller books, is valid. And yet, illogically, the recommended adjective is the lowercase “biblical.” My issue with this particular “down style” is related to my discomfort with the neologism “biblioblog.” To my eye, “biblical” is too close to the generic “bibli-” usage, as in bibliophilia, bibliography, etc, implying a connection to books in general, while “Biblical” is quite a bit more obviously referring to that compendium “the Bible.” Similarly, in the above quotation, the CMS recommends “capitalize what are clearly proper nouns and adjectives.” Is “biblical” not an adjective in Chicago?

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Forty

Adam and Eve had forty fingers and toes between them. God sent rain for forty days and forty nights to flood the world. There weren’t even forty righteous people in Sodom. Isaac was forty years old when he married Rebekah. Esau was forty years old when he married his two wives. The Egyptians took forty days to embalm Jacob. The Israelites ate manna for forty years. Moses stayed on Mount Sinai for forty days and forty nights without food or water, receiving the words of the covenant. The Israelite spies infiltrated Canaan for forty days. The Israelites wandered in the desert for forty years. Their clothes and shoes didn’t wear out for forty years. Caleb was forty years old when he was sent as a spy into Canaan. Under Othniel, the Israelites had forty years of peace. After Deborah and Baraq defeated Sisera, the Israelites had peace for forty years. During Gideon’s time, the Israelites had peace for forty years. Abdon had forty sons. The Philistines oppressed the Israelites for forty years. Eli led Israel for forty years. Goliath the Philistine challenged the Israelites to single combat for forty days, until David took him up. Saul was forty years old when he became king of Israel. David reigned over Israel for forty years. The central hall of Solomon’s Temple was forty cubits long. Each of Solomon’s mobile basins held forty baths. Solomon reigned over Israel for forty years. It took Elijah forty days and forty nights to reach Mount Horeb. Hazael brought forty camels loaded with gifts for Elishah. Joash reigned over Judah for forty years. The governors preceding Nehemiah charged a tax of forty shekels per man. Through the prophet Ezekiel, God threatened to make Egypt a ruin and exile its people for forty years. The central hall of Ezekiel’s Temple was forty cubits long. Jesus was in the desert, fasting for forty days and forty nights, and being tempted by Satan. After His resurrection, Jesus remained among His disciples for forty days, and then ascended to heaven. The Apostle Paul says Saul ruled Israel for forty years. And I am forty years old today. Happy birthday to me!

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Steiner Jerusalem III

I just got a copy, fortunately at quite a discount, of M. L. Steiner’s Excavations by Kathleen M. Kenyon in Jerusalem 1961-1967, Volume III (Copenhagen International Series, 9. New York: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001). I’m quite disappointed with it. Firstly, it’s a measly xvi+158 pages [at full price that’s roughly $1/page], which breaks down into widely spaced front matter, only 116 pages of text, a first appendix with is a 1.5 line-spaced “complete survey” of objects, and the odd second appendix which is a discourse on how long it would take to have built the MB II wall (by “Dr. Ir. Diny Boas-Vedder” — why is this here?), and the whopping five page bibliography. No index of course.

The book is an attempt at providing a synthesis of Kenyon’s findings, which were left in complete disarray, as Steiner notes (p. 2):

The documentation of the excavations was of varying quality. Some field notebooks could not be used because the location of the excavated layers was not noted while Kenyon’s own notes were largely undecipherable. On many section drawings deposit numbers and levels were missing, and on some plans the arrow defining orientation pointed to the south. Apart from such slovenliness there are more fundamental erros [sic, delightfully]. In most cases Kenyon herself drew the main sections, but she often did so only at the end of the season, when the square supervisors had already left. As a result the connection between her drawings and the data in the field notebooks was lacking. In some cases, the supervisor classified something as ‘rubble,’ whereas Kenyon plotted a series of floors. The main plans were all drawn at the end of the season by a surveyor, who plotted every stone present, without having any notion if these had been part of walls or just rubble. Needless to say, there are no deposit numbers on these plans.

Okay! Well, so much for the reputation of Kenyon as meticulous. This only confirms, in spades, what I’d heard of her methods elsewhere, the hushed whispers of “shoddy work.” Yet, she was so formidable that criticism was discouraged. So, what Steiner has here to work with is a bunch of non-data, the control over which is lost. If anything, this should all be a lesson to archaeologists everywhere: publish, or die and have everyone find out how wretched your methods really were.

Steiner also belongs to the camp of the “no Amarna age Jerusalem” which instantly made me realize I’d just wasted the money I did spend on this farrago. While she claims to be aimining for a synthesis of the Kenyon (non-)data with that from other earlier and later published excavations, such synthesis is cursory, more on the level of summary. In the entire book there is only one full plan of the City of David area, which doesn’t show all the requisite sites of Macalister, Shiloh, and other excavations mentioned in the text. Reich’s discoveries around the Gihon Spring, which reveal the city defenses around the spring and indicate the presence of a city wall upslope, are ignored (probably because they contradict her insistence on an unwalled city in the Late Bronze Age). Perhaps the most annoying aspect of this “synthesis” is the drawing of sweepingly dogmatic conclusions from the Non-Data of Slovenliness.

My recommendation: save your money. I have no confidence in either the presentation of the insufficiently detailed, indeed shockingly inadequate primary data, nor in any set of conclusions based upon such, especially when such conclusions contradict those of others, based on solid data.

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Valley of Siddim

I was just browsing through the Anchor Bible Dictionary (Doubleday, 1992) and ran across the article “Siddim, Valley of” (vol 6, pp 15-16) written by Michael Astour. It starts off nicely, giving a variety of translations and finally coming to the conclusion that śiddîm, from śādad, means “furrows,” so (yawn) the name means “Valley of Furrows.” Astour then asks, “Why did the author of Genesis 14 give such a name to the place of defeat of the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah?” His answer is interesting. He goes off on a wild tangent about the “Chedorlaomer Texts” (which, by the way, are almost entirely questionable in the readings thereof), Babylonian astronomy (!), and the “implication” in the biblical text (?) of the submergence of Sodom and Gomorrah by the Dead Sea. What the…?!

You know, yeah, of course, it must be something like that, because nobody ever heard of a valley with furrows in it….

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Na’aman on Solomonic Districts

In light of these conclusions, two alternative dates may be suggested for the district list. According to the first, it was composed in the late eighth century BCE and reflects in outline the combined province systems of Assyria and Judah. According to the second, the overlap between Solomon’s district system and the Assyrian provinces is the outcome of historical continuity between the Israelite and Assyrian administrative systems. The Assyrians had inherited the Israelite district system and organized their province system in accordance with the administrative division that had been established in the land for a very long time. The district list reflects the combined district systems of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah in the eighth century BCE.

page 115 in Nadav Na’aman, “Solomon’s District List (1 Kings 4:7–19) and the Assyrian Province System” 102-119 in Ancient Israel’s History and Historiography: The First Temple Period. Collected Essays, Volume 3. (Eisenbrauns, 2006)

This paragraph is significant. Well, the whole book is significant, of course, really, but for this particular article, this paragraph is quite striking. While Na’aman’s focus is on the eighth century as the time to which the districts belong, and he spends much of it investigating the borders and comparing them to what we know (which is not very much) about the Assyrian system, he even so leaves open this entirely likely possibility: continuity with the previous Israelite and Judahite district systems contributed to the formation of the Assyrian provinces. The other option is wholesale importation of the Assyrian system into the Solomonic narratives, essentially suggesting the text is an anachronism. It is, however, far more likely from what we know of how the Assyrians took over other territories (again, this isn’t much) that the former boundaries of larger territories, and smaller regional boundaries within them were left intact. Numerous entire kingdoms were annexed to the Assyrian state, with a name change being usually the most drastic alteration geography-wise. And most of the Aramaean states annexed were, like the United Kingdom of Israel, founded roughly around the early tenth century. I note this because there is absolutely nothing inherently wrong with seeing an overall continuity in the case of regional subdivisions in any kingdom over the course of a mere two centuries or so. The system was likely Solomonic in origin and changed little over the following two centuries, at which point the Assyrians simply coopted the entire system through the annexed territories of Israel.

Another possible factor, which Na’aman doesn’t mention, is that an alteration of nomenclature for conquered geographic territories was typical Assyrian practice, as several were formerly named after their ruling dynasties (Bīt-Adini, Bīt-Hazaili, Bīt-Humria, etc) which had of course been terminated by the Assyrian annexations. This would require renaming to avoid association with the old regimes. For those Aramaean territories like Bīt-Adini which were in Mesopotamia, older, traditional names would suffice (like Lāqē in place of Bīt-Halupê). For other places, particularly in the west, outside of the Akkadian toponymic tradition, apparently naming the territory after its regional capital city was the practice (Asdūdu, Dimašqa, Qarnīna, Dū’ru, Magidû, Sāmerīna), or local long-established regional names (Supāt, Gal’ad, Hauran). Is it also perhaps possible to suggest that it was the repeatedly rebellious states which were subdivided on annexation? I think there’s not enough evidence to specify this level of detail, but it’s a possibility, as it seems even roughly equivalent or larger territories to the north of Damascus and Israel were left intact.

Anyhow, as always, Na’aman’s articles provide much food for thought.

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Sailing to Byzantium

I

That is no country for old men. The young
In one another’s arms, birds in the trees
—Those dying generations—at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

II

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium,

III

O sages standing in God’s holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

IV

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

William Butler Yeats – 1927

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