Jonathan Owens
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199290826
- eISBN:
- 9780191710469
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199290826.003.0005
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Historical Linguistics
Whereas the previous chapter examined only classical sources, this chapter turns exclusively to the dialects. Forty-nine features, 25 morphological, and 24 phonological in two Arabic dialect areas ...
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Whereas the previous chapter examined only classical sources, this chapter turns exclusively to the dialects. Forty-nine features, 25 morphological, and 24 phonological in two Arabic dialect areas are examined in detail, Mesopotamian Arabic and the western Sudanic (Chad, northern Cameroon, NE Nigeria). The data are compared using the statistical measure of standard deviation (SD). Two key points emerge. First, the Mesopotamian area is considerably more diverse (with a higher SD) than is the western Sudanic, a point explained in terms of longer settlement as well as other factors. Secondly, adding a further comparison with Uzbekistan Arabic — usually considered to be closely related to the Mesopotamian dialects — reveals that it is as close to western Sudanic in the feature comparison as it is to Mesopotamian. The significant similarities between Uzbekistan and western Sudanic are explained in terms of common retention, pointing to a pre-diasporic core dating to the 7th century.Less
Whereas the previous chapter examined only classical sources, this chapter turns exclusively to the dialects. Forty-nine features, 25 morphological, and 24 phonological in two Arabic dialect areas are examined in detail, Mesopotamian Arabic and the western Sudanic (Chad, northern Cameroon, NE Nigeria). The data are compared using the statistical measure of standard deviation (SD). Two key points emerge. First, the Mesopotamian area is considerably more diverse (with a higher SD) than is the western Sudanic, a point explained in terms of longer settlement as well as other factors. Secondly, adding a further comparison with Uzbekistan Arabic — usually considered to be closely related to the Mesopotamian dialects — reveals that it is as close to western Sudanic in the feature comparison as it is to Mesopotamian. The significant similarities between Uzbekistan and western Sudanic are explained in terms of common retention, pointing to a pre-diasporic core dating to the 7th century.
Jonathan Owens
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199290826
- eISBN:
- 9780191710469
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199290826.003.0007
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Historical Linguistics
This chapter shows that a process of vowel harmony termed imala, which was described in great detail by Sibawaih, is attested in various manifestations in four post-diasporic regions: Spain, Malta, ...
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This chapter shows that a process of vowel harmony termed imala, which was described in great detail by Sibawaih, is attested in various manifestations in four post-diasporic regions: Spain, Malta, Eastern Libya, and the Mesopotamian area. Imala is the change of /aa/ to /ie/ in the context of a conditioning high vowel /i/. After explaining the complex variational features of imala described by Sibawaih, its manifestations in modern regions are explained. It is shown that a reconstruction of imala based solely on its survivals in the modern dialects yields a form and distribution remarkably similar to that described by Sibawaih.Less
This chapter shows that a process of vowel harmony termed imala, which was described in great detail by Sibawaih, is attested in various manifestations in four post-diasporic regions: Spain, Malta, Eastern Libya, and the Mesopotamian area. Imala is the change of /aa/ to /ie/ in the context of a conditioning high vowel /i/. After explaining the complex variational features of imala described by Sibawaih, its manifestations in modern regions are explained. It is shown that a reconstruction of imala based solely on its survivals in the modern dialects yields a form and distribution remarkably similar to that described by Sibawaih.
David P. Wright
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195304756
- eISBN:
- 9780199866830
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195304756.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Biblical Studies
Most scholars believe that the numerous similarities between the Covenant Code (Exodus 20:23–23:19) and Mesopotamian law collections, especially the Laws of Hammurabi, which date to around 1750 BCE, ...
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Most scholars believe that the numerous similarities between the Covenant Code (Exodus 20:23–23:19) and Mesopotamian law collections, especially the Laws of Hammurabi, which date to around 1750 BCE, are due to oral tradition that extended from the second to the first millennium. This book offers a new understanding of the Covenant Code, arguing that it depends directly and primarily upon the Laws of Hammurabi and that the use of this source text occurred during the Neo-Assyrian period, sometime between 740–640 BCE, when Mesopotamia exerted strong and continuous political and cultural influence over the kingdoms of Israel and Judah and a time when the Laws of Hammurabi were actively copied in Mesopotamia as a literary-canonical text. The study offers significant new evidence demonstrating that a model of literary dependence is the only viable explanation for the work. It further examines the compositional logic used in transforming the source text to produce the Covenant Code, thus providing a commentary to the biblical composition from the new theoretical perspective. This analysis shows that the Covenant Code is primarily a creative academic work by scribes rather than a repository of laws practiced by Israelites or Judeans over the course of their history. The Covenant Code, too, is an ideological work, which transformed a paradigmatic and prestigious legal text of Israel's and Judah's imperial overlords into a statement symbolically countering foreign hegemony. The study goes further to study the relationship of the Covenant Code to the narrative of the book of Exodus and explores how this may relate to the development of the Pentateuch as a whole.Less
Most scholars believe that the numerous similarities between the Covenant Code (Exodus 20:23–23:19) and Mesopotamian law collections, especially the Laws of Hammurabi, which date to around 1750 BCE, are due to oral tradition that extended from the second to the first millennium. This book offers a new understanding of the Covenant Code, arguing that it depends directly and primarily upon the Laws of Hammurabi and that the use of this source text occurred during the Neo-Assyrian period, sometime between 740–640 BCE, when Mesopotamia exerted strong and continuous political and cultural influence over the kingdoms of Israel and Judah and a time when the Laws of Hammurabi were actively copied in Mesopotamia as a literary-canonical text. The study offers significant new evidence demonstrating that a model of literary dependence is the only viable explanation for the work. It further examines the compositional logic used in transforming the source text to produce the Covenant Code, thus providing a commentary to the biblical composition from the new theoretical perspective. This analysis shows that the Covenant Code is primarily a creative academic work by scribes rather than a repository of laws practiced by Israelites or Judeans over the course of their history. The Covenant Code, too, is an ideological work, which transformed a paradigmatic and prestigious legal text of Israel's and Judah's imperial overlords into a statement symbolically countering foreign hegemony. The study goes further to study the relationship of the Covenant Code to the narrative of the book of Exodus and explores how this may relate to the development of the Pentateuch as a whole.
Naomi Koltun-Fromm
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199736485
- eISBN:
- 9780199866427
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199736485.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, Biblical Studies, Religion and Society
This chapter focuses on the fourth-century Syriac Christian writer Aphrahat, known as the “Persian Sage” and his construct of holiness and celibacy. Aphrahat, who administered to the small ...
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This chapter focuses on the fourth-century Syriac Christian writer Aphrahat, known as the “Persian Sage” and his construct of holiness and celibacy. Aphrahat, who administered to the small Persian-Mesopotamian Christian community, recorded his theological understandings of holiness in his only extant writings, the Demonstrations. For Aphrahat, holiness is celibacy and celibacy is holiness. And while he depends in many ways on the early Syriac tradition, such as the Acts of Judah Thomas, one can trace other biblical trajectories of holiness in his writings. On the one hand, he suggests that sexual renunciation is obedience to the divine law, and its reward is holiness, and on the other, he proposes that sexual renunciation brings one closer to God in a mystical sense, such that the sexually renunciant mystic participates in God’s holiness through his celibacy. Aphrahat elaborates both concepts with biblical interpretive traditions and texts.Less
This chapter focuses on the fourth-century Syriac Christian writer Aphrahat, known as the “Persian Sage” and his construct of holiness and celibacy. Aphrahat, who administered to the small Persian-Mesopotamian Christian community, recorded his theological understandings of holiness in his only extant writings, the Demonstrations. For Aphrahat, holiness is celibacy and celibacy is holiness. And while he depends in many ways on the early Syriac tradition, such as the Acts of Judah Thomas, one can trace other biblical trajectories of holiness in his writings. On the one hand, he suggests that sexual renunciation is obedience to the divine law, and its reward is holiness, and on the other, he proposes that sexual renunciation brings one closer to God in a mystical sense, such that the sexually renunciant mystic participates in God’s holiness through his celibacy. Aphrahat elaborates both concepts with biblical interpretive traditions and texts.
Jan Assmann
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199206575
- eISBN:
- 9780191709678
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199206575.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Biblical Studies, Judaism
Taking Fishbane's groundbreaking methodological work in biblical mythology, this chapter explores the possibility of applying these insights to a range of non-Israelite historical and mythological ...
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Taking Fishbane's groundbreaking methodological work in biblical mythology, this chapter explores the possibility of applying these insights to a range of non-Israelite historical and mythological texts. It argues that such a thing as the narrative representation of the past is anything but normal and self-evident. It requires a general cultural option for change over against identity and continuity. The past, in order to become the subject of such a representation, must in itself possess a kind of narrative structure.Less
Taking Fishbane's groundbreaking methodological work in biblical mythology, this chapter explores the possibility of applying these insights to a range of non-Israelite historical and mythological texts. It argues that such a thing as the narrative representation of the past is anything but normal and self-evident. It requires a general cultural option for change over against identity and continuity. The past, in order to become the subject of such a representation, must in itself possess a kind of narrative structure.
JILL MIDDLEMAS
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- February 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780199283866
- eISBN:
- 9780191603457
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199283869.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This chapter turns to Lamentations as it is most widely regarded as stemming from Templeless Judah. Of the five poems in the book, chapters 1, 2, 4, and 5 have the greatest claim to belong to ...
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This chapter turns to Lamentations as it is most widely regarded as stemming from Templeless Judah. Of the five poems in the book, chapters 1, 2, 4, and 5 have the greatest claim to belong to Templeless Judah. These chapters of the book of Lamentations are used typologically to isolate prominent concepts. Five themes are found to be distinctive to the religious thought of Templeless Judah: (1) an emphasis on the extent of unalleviated human suffering, (2) the explicit assertion of uncertainty in future possibilities, (3) the downplaying of the association of human sin and judgement, (4) the need to witness to pain through the expression of grief especially within worship, and (5) the forming of grief in such a way as to limit it and evoke a future orientation. The delineation of themes distinctive to Judah provides a measuring rod with which to approach other material thought to stem from the homeland.Less
This chapter turns to Lamentations as it is most widely regarded as stemming from Templeless Judah. Of the five poems in the book, chapters 1, 2, 4, and 5 have the greatest claim to belong to Templeless Judah. These chapters of the book of Lamentations are used typologically to isolate prominent concepts. Five themes are found to be distinctive to the religious thought of Templeless Judah: (1) an emphasis on the extent of unalleviated human suffering, (2) the explicit assertion of uncertainty in future possibilities, (3) the downplaying of the association of human sin and judgement, (4) the need to witness to pain through the expression of grief especially within worship, and (5) the forming of grief in such a way as to limit it and evoke a future orientation. The delineation of themes distinctive to Judah provides a measuring rod with which to approach other material thought to stem from the homeland.
Lindsay G. Driediger-Murphy and Esther Eidinow (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- November 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780198844549
- eISBN:
- 9780191880032
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198844549.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Ancient Religions, European History: BCE to 500CE
The introduction to this volume describes the contribution that it makes to scholarship on ancient divinatory practices. It analyses previous and current research, arguing that while this ...
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The introduction to this volume describes the contribution that it makes to scholarship on ancient divinatory practices. It analyses previous and current research, arguing that while this predominantly functionalist work reveals important socio-political dimensions of divination, it also runs the risk of obscuring from view the very people, ideologies, and experiences that scholars seek to understand. It explains that the essays in this volume focus on re-examining what ancient people—primarily those in ancient Greek and Roman communities, but also Mesopotamian and Chinese cultures—thought they were doing through divination. The Introduction provides an overview of the content of each chapter and identifies key themes and questions shared across chapters. The volume explores the types of relationships that divination created between mortals and gods, and what this can tell us about the religions and cultures in which divination was practised.Less
The introduction to this volume describes the contribution that it makes to scholarship on ancient divinatory practices. It analyses previous and current research, arguing that while this predominantly functionalist work reveals important socio-political dimensions of divination, it also runs the risk of obscuring from view the very people, ideologies, and experiences that scholars seek to understand. It explains that the essays in this volume focus on re-examining what ancient people—primarily those in ancient Greek and Roman communities, but also Mesopotamian and Chinese cultures—thought they were doing through divination. The Introduction provides an overview of the content of each chapter and identifies key themes and questions shared across chapters. The volume explores the types of relationships that divination created between mortals and gods, and what this can tell us about the religions and cultures in which divination was practised.
J. David Pleins
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199733637
- eISBN:
- 9780199852505
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199733637.003.0007
- Subject:
- Religion, Biblical Studies
Redirecting the stream of tradition when analyzing the version of the flood story told in the Bible could possibly account for the Bible's uniqueness and connectedness if one looks into the influence ...
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Redirecting the stream of tradition when analyzing the version of the flood story told in the Bible could possibly account for the Bible's uniqueness and connectedness if one looks into the influence of Middle Eastern cultures and how this brings about certain modifications in human thought. Examining the major aspects of Mesopotamian literature would point out how focus is given to the Bible as Ziusudra, Atrahasis, and Utnapishtim—Noah's Mesopotamian counterparts—also experience the same fate as Noah. Although the Bible may have been able to preserve the elements that make the myth unique, Mesopotamian and Israelite story tellers may have exaggerated their versions of this narrative. In this chapter, the book looks into the counterparts of the flood story and provides a comparison with Mesopotamian culture.Less
Redirecting the stream of tradition when analyzing the version of the flood story told in the Bible could possibly account for the Bible's uniqueness and connectedness if one looks into the influence of Middle Eastern cultures and how this brings about certain modifications in human thought. Examining the major aspects of Mesopotamian literature would point out how focus is given to the Bible as Ziusudra, Atrahasis, and Utnapishtim—Noah's Mesopotamian counterparts—also experience the same fate as Noah. Although the Bible may have been able to preserve the elements that make the myth unique, Mesopotamian and Israelite story tellers may have exaggerated their versions of this narrative. In this chapter, the book looks into the counterparts of the flood story and provides a comparison with Mesopotamian culture.
Melissa Eppihimer
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- July 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190903015
- eISBN:
- 9780190903046
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190903015.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, History of Art: pre-history, BCE to 500CE, ancient and classical, Byzantine
The Akkadian kings (ca. 2334–2154 BCE) created the first territorial state in the ancient Near East and were remembered as model kings for more than two millennia thereafter. Exemplars of Kingship: ...
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The Akkadian kings (ca. 2334–2154 BCE) created the first territorial state in the ancient Near East and were remembered as model kings for more than two millennia thereafter. Exemplars of Kingship: Art, Tradition, and the Legacy of the Akkadians evaluates how later rulers engaged with Akkadian visual models and memories of Akkadian kingship in their own images. Through analyses of post-Akkadian victory monuments, votive statues, cylinder seals, and other works of art, the book explores the intersection of visual traditions and cultural memory in ancient Mesopotamia. Exemplars of Kingship also deconstructs the modern reception of Akkadian art to reveal its impact on our perception of ancient responses to Akkadian art and kingship.Less
The Akkadian kings (ca. 2334–2154 BCE) created the first territorial state in the ancient Near East and were remembered as model kings for more than two millennia thereafter. Exemplars of Kingship: Art, Tradition, and the Legacy of the Akkadians evaluates how later rulers engaged with Akkadian visual models and memories of Akkadian kingship in their own images. Through analyses of post-Akkadian victory monuments, votive statues, cylinder seals, and other works of art, the book explores the intersection of visual traditions and cultural memory in ancient Mesopotamia. Exemplars of Kingship also deconstructs the modern reception of Akkadian art to reveal its impact on our perception of ancient responses to Akkadian art and kingship.
Sara J. Milstein
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- September 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780190911805
- eISBN:
- 9780190911836
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190911805.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion in the Ancient World
Outside of the Bible, all of the known Near Eastern law collections were produced in the third to second millennia BCE, in cuneiform on clay tablets, and in major cities in Mesopotamia and in the ...
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Outside of the Bible, all of the known Near Eastern law collections were produced in the third to second millennia BCE, in cuneiform on clay tablets, and in major cities in Mesopotamia and in the Hittite Empire. None of the five major sites in Syria to have yielded cuneiform tablets has borne even a fragment of a law collection, despite the fact that several have yielded ample legal documentation. Excavations at Nuzi have turned up numerous legal documents, but again, no law collection. Even Egypt has not yielded a collection of laws. As such, the biblical blocks that scholars regularly identify as law collections would represent the only “western,” non-cuneiform expressions of the genre in the ancient Near East, produced by societies not known for their political clout, and separated in time from the “other” collections by centuries.
Making a Case challenges the long-held notion that Israelite and Judahite scribes either made use of older law collections or set out to produce law collections in the Near Eastern sense of the genre. Rather, Milstein suggests that what we call “biblical law” is closer in form and function to a different and oft-neglected Mesopotamian genre: legal-pedagogical texts. In the course of their education, Mesopotamian scribes copied a variety of legal-oriented school texts: sample contracts, fictional cases, sequences of non-canonical law, and legal phrasebooks. When “biblical law” is viewed in the context of these legal-pedagogical texts, its practical roots in legal exercises begin to emerge.Less
Outside of the Bible, all of the known Near Eastern law collections were produced in the third to second millennia BCE, in cuneiform on clay tablets, and in major cities in Mesopotamia and in the Hittite Empire. None of the five major sites in Syria to have yielded cuneiform tablets has borne even a fragment of a law collection, despite the fact that several have yielded ample legal documentation. Excavations at Nuzi have turned up numerous legal documents, but again, no law collection. Even Egypt has not yielded a collection of laws. As such, the biblical blocks that scholars regularly identify as law collections would represent the only “western,” non-cuneiform expressions of the genre in the ancient Near East, produced by societies not known for their political clout, and separated in time from the “other” collections by centuries.
Making a Case challenges the long-held notion that Israelite and Judahite scribes either made use of older law collections or set out to produce law collections in the Near Eastern sense of the genre. Rather, Milstein suggests that what we call “biblical law” is closer in form and function to a different and oft-neglected Mesopotamian genre: legal-pedagogical texts. In the course of their education, Mesopotamian scribes copied a variety of legal-oriented school texts: sample contracts, fictional cases, sequences of non-canonical law, and legal phrasebooks. When “biblical law” is viewed in the context of these legal-pedagogical texts, its practical roots in legal exercises begin to emerge.
Peter Sluglett
Paul Collins and Charles Tripp (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780197266076
- eISBN:
- 9780191851469
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197266076.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, Middle East History
Gertrude Bell was the only senior member of the Mesopotamian Administration to have had any significant experience of the Ottoman Empire before the First World War. Percy Cox had spent most of his ...
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Gertrude Bell was the only senior member of the Mesopotamian Administration to have had any significant experience of the Ottoman Empire before the First World War. Percy Cox had spent most of his career in Persia and the Gulf before coming to Iraq. Arnold Wilson had spent his career in India, south-west Persia and the Gulf. Reader Bullard is probably the only exception, as he had served in Constantinople, Trebizond and Erzurum between 1907 and 1914, after which he was posted to the consulate in Basra and subsequently to Baghdad and Kirkuk. In contrast, Gertrude Bell had made extensive visits to various parts of the region, beginning with a visit to Iran in 1892. She spent 1899–1900 in Palestine and Syria, and also travelled elsewhere in the region, as described in Syria: The Desert and the Sown (1907) and From Amurath to Amurath (1911). The chapter discusses what Bell wrote about the Ottoman Empire, both in these books and in her letters, and the extent to which her views of its politics and administration may have influenced her thoughts on the future administration and structure of Iraq.Less
Gertrude Bell was the only senior member of the Mesopotamian Administration to have had any significant experience of the Ottoman Empire before the First World War. Percy Cox had spent most of his career in Persia and the Gulf before coming to Iraq. Arnold Wilson had spent his career in India, south-west Persia and the Gulf. Reader Bullard is probably the only exception, as he had served in Constantinople, Trebizond and Erzurum between 1907 and 1914, after which he was posted to the consulate in Basra and subsequently to Baghdad and Kirkuk. In contrast, Gertrude Bell had made extensive visits to various parts of the region, beginning with a visit to Iran in 1892. She spent 1899–1900 in Palestine and Syria, and also travelled elsewhere in the region, as described in Syria: The Desert and the Sown (1907) and From Amurath to Amurath (1911). The chapter discusses what Bell wrote about the Ottoman Empire, both in these books and in her letters, and the extent to which her views of its politics and administration may have influenced her thoughts on the future administration and structure of Iraq.
Lamia Al-Gailani Werr
Paul Collins and Charles Tripp (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780197266076
- eISBN:
- 9780191851469
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197266076.003.0012
- Subject:
- History, Middle East History
It is unfortunate that most of what is written and researched on Gertrude Bell tends to give a scant or short account of her work on the Antiquities Department. Most of the documents on her work in ...
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It is unfortunate that most of what is written and researched on Gertrude Bell tends to give a scant or short account of her work on the Antiquities Department. Most of the documents on her work in the last four years of her life are in the Iraq Museum (1922–1926), and were, until recently, not accessible to the public. This chapter explores the surviving documents to give a picture of the main issues that occupied Bell during this period – from her constant search for a place to store the deluge of artefacts coming from excavations such as Ur and Kish to the legislation of the Antiquities Law. Bell’s legacy for the antiquities of Iraq is as important as the creation of Iraq.Less
It is unfortunate that most of what is written and researched on Gertrude Bell tends to give a scant or short account of her work on the Antiquities Department. Most of the documents on her work in the last four years of her life are in the Iraq Museum (1922–1926), and were, until recently, not accessible to the public. This chapter explores the surviving documents to give a picture of the main issues that occupied Bell during this period – from her constant search for a place to store the deluge of artefacts coming from excavations such as Ur and Kish to the legislation of the Antiquities Law. Bell’s legacy for the antiquities of Iraq is as important as the creation of Iraq.
David M. Carr
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- June 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780190062545
- eISBN:
- 9780190062576
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190062545.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion in the Ancient World
There is general agreement that study of the formation of the Pentateuch is currently in disarray. This book turns to the Genesis Primeval History, Genesis 1–11, to offer models for the formation of ...
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There is general agreement that study of the formation of the Pentateuch is currently in disarray. This book turns to the Genesis Primeval History, Genesis 1–11, to offer models for the formation of Pentateuchal texts that might have traction within this fractious context. Building on two centuries of historical study of Genesis 1–11, this book provides new support for the older theory that the bulk of Genesis 1–11 was created out of a combination of two originally separate source strata: a Priestly source and an earlier non-Priestly source that was used to supplement the Priestly framework. Though this overall approach contradicts some recent attempts to replace such source models with theories of post-Priestly scribal expansion, the author of this volume does find evidence of multiple layers of scribal revision in the non-P and P sources: from the expansion of an early independent non-Priestly primeval history with a flood narrative and related materials through to a limited set of identifiable layers of Priestly material that culminate in the P-like redaction of the whole. Finally, the book synthesizes prior scholarship to show how both the P and non-Priestly strata of Genesis also emerged out of a complex interaction by Judean scribes with nonbiblical literary traditions, particularly with Mesopotamian textual traditions about primeval origins.Less
There is general agreement that study of the formation of the Pentateuch is currently in disarray. This book turns to the Genesis Primeval History, Genesis 1–11, to offer models for the formation of Pentateuchal texts that might have traction within this fractious context. Building on two centuries of historical study of Genesis 1–11, this book provides new support for the older theory that the bulk of Genesis 1–11 was created out of a combination of two originally separate source strata: a Priestly source and an earlier non-Priestly source that was used to supplement the Priestly framework. Though this overall approach contradicts some recent attempts to replace such source models with theories of post-Priestly scribal expansion, the author of this volume does find evidence of multiple layers of scribal revision in the non-P and P sources: from the expansion of an early independent non-Priestly primeval history with a flood narrative and related materials through to a limited set of identifiable layers of Priestly material that culminate in the P-like redaction of the whole. Finally, the book synthesizes prior scholarship to show how both the P and non-Priestly strata of Genesis also emerged out of a complex interaction by Judean scribes with nonbiblical literary traditions, particularly with Mesopotamian textual traditions about primeval origins.
Karen Polinger Foster
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- October 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780190672539
- eISBN:
- 9780190672560
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190672539.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
This chapter discusses the role of exotica in the Mesopotamian mind. By 1875, The Epic of Gilgamesh had begun to emerge from the thousands of clay tablet fragments freshly unearthed in the remains of ...
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This chapter discusses the role of exotica in the Mesopotamian mind. By 1875, The Epic of Gilgamesh had begun to emerge from the thousands of clay tablet fragments freshly unearthed in the remains of the great royal library of Assurbanipal at Nineveh. Gilgamesh’s drive to possess the exotic is rooted in long-standing Mesopotamian tradition. From the third millennium on, when he supposedly reigned, scholar-scribes organized and classified nearly all aspects of the natural world. Thematic lists of flora and fauna, heavenly bodies, precious and semiprecious materials, and topographical features provided the educated elite with a means of conceptualizing patterns and interrelationships. For Gilgamesh, as for many Mesopotamian rulers, the acquisition and display of exotica were key aspects of kingship. Once secured within the walled, urban cores of Mesopotamian cultural identity, exotica offered tangible signs of wide-ranging military might, commercial enterprise, and political status and control.Less
This chapter discusses the role of exotica in the Mesopotamian mind. By 1875, The Epic of Gilgamesh had begun to emerge from the thousands of clay tablet fragments freshly unearthed in the remains of the great royal library of Assurbanipal at Nineveh. Gilgamesh’s drive to possess the exotic is rooted in long-standing Mesopotamian tradition. From the third millennium on, when he supposedly reigned, scholar-scribes organized and classified nearly all aspects of the natural world. Thematic lists of flora and fauna, heavenly bodies, precious and semiprecious materials, and topographical features provided the educated elite with a means of conceptualizing patterns and interrelationships. For Gilgamesh, as for many Mesopotamian rulers, the acquisition and display of exotica were key aspects of kingship. Once secured within the walled, urban cores of Mesopotamian cultural identity, exotica offered tangible signs of wide-ranging military might, commercial enterprise, and political status and control.
Sara J. Milstein
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- December 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780190205393
- eISBN:
- 9780190205416
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190205393.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
In the ancient Near East, “master scribes”—those who had the authority to produce and revise literature—regularly modified their texts in the course of transmission. One of the most effective ...
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In the ancient Near East, “master scribes”—those who had the authority to produce and revise literature—regularly modified their texts in the course of transmission. One of the most effective techniques for change was to add something to the front, or “revision through introduction.” This method allowed scribes to preserve their received material while simultaneously recasting it. As a result, numerous texts from the Hebrew Bible and from Mesopotamian literature manifest multiple and even competing viewpoints. Due to the primary position of these additions, such reworked texts are often read solely through the lens of their final contributions. This is true not only for biblical and cuneiform texts in their final forms but also for Mesopotamian texts that are known from multiple versions. Rather than “nail down every piece of the puzzle,” Tracking the Master Scribe demonstrates what is to be gained when we engage questions of textual transmission with attention to how scribes actually worked. Working from the two earliest corpora that allow us to track large-scale change over time, this book provides broad overviews of the available evidence for revision through introduction as well as a set of detailed case studies that offer fresh insight into well-known biblical and Mesopotamian literary texts. The result is the first comprehensive and comparative profile of this key scribal method: one that was not only ubiquitous in the ancient Near East but also epitomizes the attitudes of the master scribes toward the literature that they produced.Less
In the ancient Near East, “master scribes”—those who had the authority to produce and revise literature—regularly modified their texts in the course of transmission. One of the most effective techniques for change was to add something to the front, or “revision through introduction.” This method allowed scribes to preserve their received material while simultaneously recasting it. As a result, numerous texts from the Hebrew Bible and from Mesopotamian literature manifest multiple and even competing viewpoints. Due to the primary position of these additions, such reworked texts are often read solely through the lens of their final contributions. This is true not only for biblical and cuneiform texts in their final forms but also for Mesopotamian texts that are known from multiple versions. Rather than “nail down every piece of the puzzle,” Tracking the Master Scribe demonstrates what is to be gained when we engage questions of textual transmission with attention to how scribes actually worked. Working from the two earliest corpora that allow us to track large-scale change over time, this book provides broad overviews of the available evidence for revision through introduction as well as a set of detailed case studies that offer fresh insight into well-known biblical and Mesopotamian literary texts. The result is the first comprehensive and comparative profile of this key scribal method: one that was not only ubiquitous in the ancient Near East but also epitomizes the attitudes of the master scribes toward the literature that they produced.
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226101583
- eISBN:
- 9780226101590
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226101590.003.0003
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Asian and Middle Eastern History: BCE to 500CE
This chapter examines the documents from the Mesopotamian archives. It describes the conditions of their transmissions and evaluates the contribution of diplomatics to Assyriological studies. It ...
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This chapter examines the documents from the Mesopotamian archives. It describes the conditions of their transmissions and evaluates the contribution of diplomatics to Assyriological studies. It suggests that Middle Babylonian tablets came to be published as coming from the late Old Babylonian period because purely philological criteria prevailed over a diplomatic approach. This chapter argues that one of the contributions of diplomatics was the detection of forgeries.Less
This chapter examines the documents from the Mesopotamian archives. It describes the conditions of their transmissions and evaluates the contribution of diplomatics to Assyriological studies. It suggests that Middle Babylonian tablets came to be published as coming from the late Old Babylonian period because purely philological criteria prevailed over a diplomatic approach. This chapter argues that one of the contributions of diplomatics was the detection of forgeries.
Karen C. Pinto
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780226126968
- eISBN:
- 9780226127019
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226127019.003.0005
- Subject:
- Earth Sciences and Geography, Cartography
Chapter Five, “Iconography of the Encircling Ocean” is the first of three chapters that focus on the Encircling Ocean form in the world maps. The goal of the three chapters collectively is to conduct ...
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Chapter Five, “Iconography of the Encircling Ocean” is the first of three chapters that focus on the Encircling Ocean form in the world maps. The goal of the three chapters collectively is to conduct an iconographic exploration of the Encircling Ocean form, establishing the KMMS maps in their place within a tradition of great breadth in both time and space. This chapter begins this task by offering a broad look at encircling meta-form occurrences across prehistoric, Mesopotamian, Iranian, Semitic, Indian, Chinese and East Asian mapping traditions.Less
Chapter Five, “Iconography of the Encircling Ocean” is the first of three chapters that focus on the Encircling Ocean form in the world maps. The goal of the three chapters collectively is to conduct an iconographic exploration of the Encircling Ocean form, establishing the KMMS maps in their place within a tradition of great breadth in both time and space. This chapter begins this task by offering a broad look at encircling meta-form occurrences across prehistoric, Mesopotamian, Iranian, Semitic, Indian, Chinese and East Asian mapping traditions.
Joe Carlen
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780231173049
- eISBN:
- 9780231542814
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231173049.003.0002
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Business History
What role did the entrepreneur play in shaping Ancient Mesopotamia, the “cradle of civilization”? This chapter demonstrates how the entrepreneurial drive transformed this pagan Middle Eastern ...
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What role did the entrepreneur play in shaping Ancient Mesopotamia, the “cradle of civilization”? This chapter demonstrates how the entrepreneurial drive transformed this pagan Middle Eastern society. Most relevantly, it helped spur Mesopotamia’s transition from an agrarian Bronze Age economy to a bustling hub of urban commerce, now a defining characteristic of Western Civilization. It will also highlight how this transformation spurred similar development throughout the then-known world.Less
What role did the entrepreneur play in shaping Ancient Mesopotamia, the “cradle of civilization”? This chapter demonstrates how the entrepreneurial drive transformed this pagan Middle Eastern society. Most relevantly, it helped spur Mesopotamia’s transition from an agrarian Bronze Age economy to a bustling hub of urban commerce, now a defining characteristic of Western Civilization. It will also highlight how this transformation spurred similar development throughout the then-known world.
Sarah Eltantawi
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780520293779
- eISBN:
- 9780520967144
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520293779.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Islam
This chapter explores the deepest layer of the sunnaic paradigm, the Islamic legal history of the stoning punishment. This chapter contrasts the stoning punishment’s perceived stability and ...
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This chapter explores the deepest layer of the sunnaic paradigm, the Islamic legal history of the stoning punishment. This chapter contrasts the stoning punishment’s perceived stability and incontavertability among contemporary Northern Nigerians against early Islamic intellectual historical accounts which understand the stoning punishment as highly contested and unstable legally and epistemologically. The chapter surveys early pre-Islamic societies’ legalization of the stoning punishment, including Mesopotamia and Judaic sources, and shows how the punishment made its way into the Islamic tradition. This chapter also surveys Qur’an, hadith, linguistic, aphoristic and Islamic legal treatment of the stoning punishment, and explores the analytic tools used by Islamic jurists to make a debatable punishment legal over time.Less
This chapter explores the deepest layer of the sunnaic paradigm, the Islamic legal history of the stoning punishment. This chapter contrasts the stoning punishment’s perceived stability and incontavertability among contemporary Northern Nigerians against early Islamic intellectual historical accounts which understand the stoning punishment as highly contested and unstable legally and epistemologically. The chapter surveys early pre-Islamic societies’ legalization of the stoning punishment, including Mesopotamia and Judaic sources, and shows how the punishment made its way into the Islamic tradition. This chapter also surveys Qur’an, hadith, linguistic, aphoristic and Islamic legal treatment of the stoning punishment, and explores the analytic tools used by Islamic jurists to make a debatable punishment legal over time.
Peter Richmond, Jürgen Mimkes, and Stefan Hutzler
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- December 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199674701
- eISBN:
- 9780191780066
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199674701.003.0008
- Subject:
- Physics, Theoretical, Computational, and Statistical Physics
This chapter traces the origins of the use of derivatives to the era of Mesopotamian farmers and compares it to similar transactions widely used by businesses today. Mesopotamian farmers routinely ...
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This chapter traces the origins of the use of derivatives to the era of Mesopotamian farmers and compares it to similar transactions widely used by businesses today. Mesopotamian farmers routinely sold the following year's grain harvest due for delivery at the time of harvesting at a ‘future’ price, agreed today. The actual future price went up and down according to the market. Today, for a fee, an agreement is made to engage, at some point in the future, in a trade at a fixed price. The fee is the price of the so-called derivative contract that clearly should depend in some way on the price of the underlying asset. All businesses seek to reduce uncertainty in the financial state of their businesses by trying to fix the price of the underlying commodity. As a result, they are all natural buyers and sellers of derivative contracts.Less
This chapter traces the origins of the use of derivatives to the era of Mesopotamian farmers and compares it to similar transactions widely used by businesses today. Mesopotamian farmers routinely sold the following year's grain harvest due for delivery at the time of harvesting at a ‘future’ price, agreed today. The actual future price went up and down according to the market. Today, for a fee, an agreement is made to engage, at some point in the future, in a trade at a fixed price. The fee is the price of the so-called derivative contract that clearly should depend in some way on the price of the underlying asset. All businesses seek to reduce uncertainty in the financial state of their businesses by trying to fix the price of the underlying commodity. As a result, they are all natural buyers and sellers of derivative contracts.
