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This chapter contains the argument that drives the rest of the book. The rejection of hierarchy is rooted in a major theological shift. Social and political hierarchy in the ancient Near East received metaphysical legitimation, as the heavenly order was construed as paralleling the terrestrial one. The common person in this scheme emerges as a servant, the lowest rung in the hierarchy, as evidenced in Mesopotamian creation epics Atrahasis, and echoed in Egypt and Ugarit well. The theology of covenant in the Pentateuch rejects this. In light of parallels with Late Bronze Age suzerainty treaties, the covenant narratives implicitly suggest that the whole of Israel—not its king, not his retinue, not the priests—bears the status of a vassal king entered into treaty with a sovereign king, God. While much of this material has been extant in the scholarship for some fifty years, the material is examined here in new light, and from two directions. The first borrows observations from the field of anthropology concerning the role and display of honor between superiors and subordinates that offers new insight into the suzerain‐vassal paradigm for the relationship between God and Israel. The second is a revisiting of the Hittite treaties whose form and language are paralleled in the covenantal material in the Pentateuch. This study concludes that not only does Israel as a collective whole attain the status of a subordinate king, but that, indeed, hierarchy is eschewed as every man in Israel becomes endowed with this status as well. Parallels are drawn between the Israel as vassal paradigm, and Israel as spouse paradigm.

Chapter 1 attempted a rough sketch of the uses of writing at Ugarit and, particularly, of the types of texts that are attested in the alphabetic script and the Ugaritic language. It showed that of the roughly 175 religious texts, only about fifty may be qualified as belletristic; virtually all of these are couched in poetry and all deal with aspects of the divine. It would be impossible to cover all of these texts even superficially in the space allotted, and, instead of flitting from one to another in a selection of these texts, this chapter concentrates on the longest literary composition from Ugarit, the six tablets making up the so-called Baal Cycle.

In spite of his close partnership with his father, and in spite of the role he had played in the restoration of the kingdom, Suppiluliuma was not intended for the mantle of kingship in Hatti after his father's death. But Suppiluliuma may well have felt aggrieved, after all he had done for the kingdom, at being relegated to a position of subordination to his brother. Tudhaliya's murder paved the way for Suppiluliuma to seize the throne. This chapter chronicles the reign of Suppiluliuma I as king of the Hittites, his opening moves in the conflict with Mitanni, Suppiluliuma's family, the war with Syria, alliance with the kingdom of Ugarit, the kingdom of Amurru, Suppiluliuma's consolidation of his Syrian conquests, his pressing problems regarding the eastern flank of his empire, the roles of the viceroys in Suppiluliuma's kingdom, and Suppiluliuma's legacy.

The literary portrayals of El worship must be complemented by a look at the aesthetically physical. Was El imagined in the form of an enthroned, benevolent patriarch or a majestic bull or even a solid block of stone? Chapter Five situates the iconography of El within a comparative study of ancient Israel’s neighbors, especially the robust El religion of Late Bronze Age Syria (Ugarit). Methodologically, the chapter examines the misuse of comparative iconography prior to articulating criteria for determining whether a material object represents the divine. The numerous cults of standing stones or masseboth (known elsewhere as betyls or “houses of El”) attested archaeologically throughout Iron Age Israel’s history are discussed including at the key sites of Shechem, the so-called “Bull Site,” Hazor, Arad, Tel Dan and Khirbet Ataruz. Possible theriomorphic representations of El (especially as a lion and bull) in text and material culture are also discussed.

Chapter Six examines the historical origin of Yahweh, the dominant deity of Israelite religion. Readers can evaluate the Hebrew Bible’s foundation stories about Yahweh (and vis-à-vis El worship) juxtaposed next to the epigraphic record with datable texts ranging from 14th-13th centuries BCE Egyptian geographical lists to a ninth century BCE Moabite inscription to multiple ninth-eighth centuries BCE Yahwistic inscriptions from a remote site on the Darb el-Ghazza caravan route just south of Qadesh-Barnea, a site with a long biblical pedigree. Additional topics include the meaning of the name Yahweh and its attestations in extra-biblical sources as well as the geographic origin of the deity. The latter includes a review of the Midianite-Kenite hypothesis studied alongside archaic Hebrew poetry (biblical and epigraphic) describing militaristic wilderness theophanies. Methodologically, the chapter also describes the Canaanite cultural continuum from the Middle Bronze Age through the Late Bronze Age and the Iron Age.

The subject of Chapter 7 is a second key area of contact, the NE corner of the Mediterranean comprising Cilicia, the Levant and Cyprus. This had long been an area of intense East-West contact, perhaps primarily mercantile in nature. This is the most likely route by which the so-called Kingship in Heaven Cycle of myths reached Greece, if it did, perhaps bringing with associated ideas about categories of celestial and chthonian gods. Paradoxically, although these myths are best preserved in Hittite translations or adaptations discovered in the archives of Boğaz-Köy, it is more likely than not that the lender culture was in this case Ugarit or some other state in NW Syria. The orthodox view that the main period of contact was the 8^th century BC could be right (though our ideas about this are changing in the light of new discoveries from Tell Tayinat and other sites). However, such links were probably already established in the LBA and they could be even earlier than that.

Syria and the southern Levant has a long and rich epigraphic tradition that was rediscovered in the last century through archaeological excavation. Written remains stretching from the Bronze Age (Ebla, Mari, Alalakh, Ugarit, and Emar) down into the Roman period (Qumran) provide ample evidence for the collecting of literary texts, broadly conceived, and the formation of ancient libraries. This survey gives an overview of the archaeological distribution of what modern scholarship has termed ‘libraries’ and considers the chronological, geographic, and textual depth of the data from the region as whole. It then considers the principal case studies from ancient Syria and the Levant—cuneiform libraries from the north Syrian sites of Ugarit and Emar dating to the last centuries of the second millennium BCE.

Egyptian Pottery

Nile Silt

Egyptian imitation of one-handled ‘Philistine’ cooking jug

Inventory number: Ashmolean Museum AN1890.910

Dimensions: H 9.4 cm; D 8 cm; T 0.4 cm; T of the handle: 0.8 cm

Fabric: Nile D

Technology: Wheel-thrown

Description...

This chapter argues that the Gilgamesh Epic underwent several phases of revision through introduction. First, the old Huwawa narrative was taken up and supplemented with a large block at the front. This is suggested by contrasts between Tablets II and III of the Old Babylonian Epic. A second act of revision through introduction pertains to the prologues. Typically, the first twenty-eight lines of the Standard Babylonian Epic have been seen as a secondary addition. This chapter argues that a school text from Ugarit may provide evidence of a prior phase in the development of the prologue. Finally, this chapter examines the addition of “Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Netherworld” to the end of the Standard Babylonian Epic, a move that involved the omission of the first 170 lines of the old Sumerian tale. It closes with reference to the oft-overlooked allusion to the Gilgamesh prologue in Psalm 48.

This chapter offers analysis of the conflict topos in Anzu, the Babylonian and Assyrian recensions of Enuma Elish, and the Ugaritic Baʿlu Cycle. It argues that these narratives present specific and socially contingent theological hierarchies, and explores how Mesopotamian authors used the conflict topos in political discourse. These narratives promote distinct arrangements of divine characters, elevate a particular deity within the divine hierarchy, and portray the political institution of kingship as a natural or given model of legitimate authority. Anzu and Enuma Elish also explicitly highlight specific cities and temples. Moreover, the characters and events of Anzu and both versions of Enuma Elish are referenced in Babylonian and Neo-Assyrian royal ideology. Additionally, the chapter develops comparative examination of the narrative taxonomies of these stories. Discussion of these texts provides the literary and cultural background for analyzing examples of the conflict motif in the subsequent two chapters.

This chapter first sketches out the history of scholarship on scribal education. The chapter summarizes new archaeological discoveries that point to the overlap between the Late Bronze Age cuneiform scribal culture and the emergence of early alphabetic writing in Canaan/Israel. This overlap provides a vector of transmission from cuneiform to early alphabetic education. Tangible evidence of this vector of transmission is found in cuneiform school texts dating to the Late Bronze Age, which is the only time such school texts are known in the southern Levant. Thus, scribal training in cuneiform overlaps the emergence of the alphabet in the southern Levant. Parallels of the borrowing from cuneiform and development of alphabetic school curriculum can also be adduced from the Ugaritic alphabetic tradition.

This chapter offers a new interpretation of the Kuntillet ʿAjrud inscriptions as a variety of scribal exercises that parallel the basic outlines of the early cuneiform school curriculum. Using the framework of cuneiform school curriculum, this chapter analyzes the evidence from Kuntillet ʿAjrud. Elementary curriculum was found on two large jars that show evidence of students writing, erasing, and repeating practice texts. Evidence of elementary curriculum includes abecedaries, vocabulary lists, model texts, and proverbial sayings. Inscriptions on the plastered walls of the fortress may have served as advanced texts, taken from liturgy, which students memorized and recited. This evidence can be supplemented from fragmentary evidence from other sites as well as comparative evidence from Ugaritic.

The first school exercises were simple abecedaries teaching young scribes the order, shape, and sound of the letters. These exercises can be compared to early cuneiform exercises like the Syllable B lists and the TU-TA-TI exercises, which also trained young scribes in the basic sounds and shapes. The order and shape of letters were standardized in the early Iron Age, and different orders for the alphabet were introduced in Canaan and Egypt. The abgad order become normative for Phoenicia and Israel, and the halaḥam order was used in Egypt and South Semitic (e.g., Ethiopic, Old South Arabic). Alphabetic exercises were then adapted into acrostic poetry.

In more advanced elementary education, scribes learned to write typical formulaic documents, such as letters. After making lists and receipts, writing letters was the most common type of ancient scribal activity. These model documents are known in the cuneiform school tradition, which served as a model in the development of the early alphabetic school tradition. The earliest alphabetic examples of model letters were excavated in Ras Shamra, that is, ancient Ugarit. They illustrate both aspects of borrowing from the cuneiform tradition as well as creative adaptation. Letter writing followed a formal template, but this template was made to be adapted. One of the most important adaptations of this scribal learning was in the prophetic messenger formula of biblical prophecy. The genre was also adapted for biblical storytelling. And, some of the technical and formal aspects, such as the use of “and now” as a new paragraph marker, were adapted and applied by scribes more generally to the writing of literature.

As Hittite kings communicated with their vassals, they routinely recounted the history of their relationship between the two kingdoms. Strikingly, the record reveals that each communication brought with it a redrafted version of that history which was often at odds with the history recounted in the earlier communications. Most significantly, as Hittite monarchs redrafted earlier histories, these past versions were not erased from the record—rather, even as the Hittite kings redrafted their historical accounts in accord with the needs of the moment, both they and their vassals would read these accounts while retaining and recalling the earlier, conflicting versions of events. A series of pioneering studies of the El-Amarna letters from the field of international relations sheds light on why the Hittite kings composed such conflicting histories and how, in turn, these were read and interpreted by their vassals.