The World around the Old Testament, page 1
© 2016 by Bill T. Arnold and Brent A. Strawn
Published by Baker Academic
a division of Baker Publishing Group
P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
www.bakeracademic.com
Ebook edition created 2016
Ebook corrections 10.27.2016, 05.17.2017.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
ISBN 978-1-4934-0574-9
Unless indicated otherwise, Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1989, by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture translations labeled AT are those of the author.
Walter Burkert (1931–2015)
in memoriam
Contents
Cover i
Title Page iii
Copyright Page iv
Dedication v
List of Illustrations ix
Preface xiii
Introduction xv
Bill T. Arnold and Brent A. Strawn
List of Contributors xix
Abbreviations xxi
1. The Amorites 1
Daniel E. Fleming
2. Assyria and the Assyrians 31
Christopher B. Hays with Peter Machinist
3. Babylonia and the Babylonians 107
David S. Vanderhooft
4. Ugarit and the Ugaritians 139
Mark S. Smith
5. Egypt and the Egyptians 169
Joel M. LeMon
6. The Hittites and the Hurrians 197
Billie Jean Collins
7. Aram and the Arameans 229
K. Lawson Younger Jr.
8. Phoenicia and the Phoenicians 267
Christopher A. Rollston
9. Transjordan: The Ammonites, Moabites, and Edomites 309
Joel S. Burnett
10. Philistia and the Philistines 353
Carl S. Ehrlich
11. Persia and the Persians 379
Pierre Briant
12. Arabia and the Arabians 417
David F. Graf
13. Greece and the Greeks 467
Walter Burkert†
Index of Authors 501
Index of Scripture and Other Ancient Sources 511
Index of Subjects 519
Back Cover 532
Illustrations
Map: The Ancient Near East xxvii
2.1 Map: The Assyrian Empire 38
2.2 Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III 46
2.3 Statue of Assurnasirpal II 78
2.4 Relief of a dying lion 79
2.5 The Balawat Gates 80
2.6 Judean archer on black stone seal 81
2.7 Assyrian archers on Lachish relief 81
3.1 Map: Babylonia 108
3.2 Shitti-Marduk kudurru image 116
3.3 Sun-God Tablet 123
3.4 Mushhushu dragon on the Ishtar Gate 129
3.5 Site map of Babylon 130
4.1 Site map of Ugarit 140
4.2 Merenptah Stela 142
4.3 Ruins of ancient Ugarit 144
4.4 Bronze figurine of Baal found at Ras Shamra 152
4.5 Baal with thunderbolt 158
5.1 Map: Egypt 170
5.2 Table: Periods of Egyptian History 171
5.3 Akhenaten, Nefertiti, and three daughters beneath the Aten 176
5.4 Relief from the Mortuary Temple of Ramesses III 181
5.5 Bronze statuette of Taharqo 186
5.6 Ivory plaque from Megiddo 192
5.7 Ivory inlay of Isis and Nephthys 193
5.8 Tomb painting from Abd el-Qurna 194
5.9 Judean lmlk seals 195
6.1 Map: Anatolia 198
6.2 Plan of the Hittite capital at Hattusa 199
6.3 Table: The Kings of the Hittites 200–201
6.4 Relief of Tudhaliya IV 212
6.5 Section of Suppiluliuma II’s Südburg inscription 214
6.6 Reliefs on the rock outcropping at Yazılıkaya 219
7.1 Map: The Aramean kingdoms 237
7.2 Relief of Assurnasirpal II 247
7.3 Tell Dan Stela 250
7.4 Katumuwa Inscription 258
7.5 Hadad Statue 260
8.1 Map: Phoenicia 269
8.2 Table: Correspondence of West Semitic Consonants 281
8.3 Table: Qal Perfect and Imperfect 284
8.4 Azarba‘al Inscription 285
8.5 Ahiram Sarcophagus Inscription 286
8.6 Yehimilk Inscription 287
8.7 Shipitba‘al Inscription 289
8.8 Nora Inscription 293
8.9 The Kition Bowl 294
9.1 Map: Transjordan 310
9.2 Excavation of Iron I compound at Tall Abu Kharaz 314
9.3 Table: Kings of Iron Age Transjordan Appearing in Epigraphic Texts 321
9.4 Remains of Iron II fortress at Lahun 324
9.5 Fortification wall of copper-processing center at Khirbat en-Nahas 332
9.6 Iron II remains at Umm al-Biyara 334
9.7 Karak Inscription fragment 341
9.8 Basalt statue of an Ammonite king 344
9.9 Terra-cotta bull statue from Khirbat Ataruz 349
10.1 Map: The Philistine plain 354
10.2 Ekron Inscription 372
10.3 Tell eṣ-Ṣafi 374
11.1 Map: The Achaemenid Empire 380
11.2 Audience relief at Persepolis 384
11.3 Behistun relief 385
11.4 Cyrus’s tomb 386
11.5 Irrigation canal in the gardens of Pasargadae 388
11.6 Plan of Susa 389
11.7 Plan of Persepolis 390
11.8 Elamite delegation on the “tribute” reliefs at Persepolis 391
11.9 Ostracon of the hunt 396
11.10 Two subject peoples on the statue of Darius 400
11.11 Saqqara stela 404
11.12 Audience scene from Daskyleion 406
11.13 Persian king on painted beam from Tatarlı 408
11.14 Meydancıkkale reliefs 409
11.15 Taymā’ rider 410
12.1 Map: Arabia 418
12.2 Al-Jawf, the fortress of Qasr Mārid at Dumah 435
12.3 Palace of Qasr al-Hamra at Taymā’ 440
12.4 Taymanite text from the Mahaijah region 443
12.5 Mantar Bani ‘Atiya 445
12.6 Close-up of Mantar Bani ‘Atiya 446
12.7 Dedan 448
12.8 The necropolis at Khurayba in Dedan 449
13.1 Map: Greece 468
13.2 Bronze tympanon from Ida 480
13.3 Piraeus Apollo bronze 485
13.4 Alexander the Great 494
Preface
We wish to express our gratitude to our academic institutions, Asbury Theological Seminary and the Candler School of Theology of Emory University, for being places that make time for scholarly work, including the important but often behind-the-scenes work of editing. We lift up for special recognition the gifted assistance of Henry Huberty, who did preliminary screening of each essay and offered invaluable comments, and also thank T. Collin Cornell, who was instrumental in getting the project finished.
Jim Kinney and the good people of Baker Academic have been helpful throughout the project. As anyone who has edited knows, editorial work, especially on a complicated project like this one, can be a protracted affair, and not without its fair share of difficulties. Our labors have been gratifying nevertheless, not least because we have long schemed about a joint project that would allow us to work together more regularly. Jim and his team at Baker provided us with exactly such a project and eased our labor in key ways, making the entire venture that much better. Among many other things, we thank Baker for funding the work of Stephen Germany, who translated Professor Briant’s essay on Persia and the Persians.
Our deepest gratitude goes to our stellar roster of contributors. It is not always easy to get a project like this off the ground; it is even harder to bring it to completion. We thank the contributors who were on time with their contributions for their punctuality and for their extreme patience while we waited for those that arrived later. We are also thankful to colleagues who stepped in at later stages to fill in some missing pieces or even to pen essays that were originally assigned to someone else but, for whatever reason, could not be completed. We thank each of our contributors for their patience (often strained), good humor, and most of all for their excellent work. The volume’s delays are no doubt due in part to the fact that the contributors are world-class scholars, each with multiple projects and very busy professional lives. Despite a few unfortunate interruptions in the production schedule, we believe the volume is much better for the wait—we hope that the authors themselves and all who read their work will agree.
A final word: one of our contributors, the eminent classicist Walter Burkert, died as the volume was about to go to press. It seemed only right to dedicate the volume to his memory given all that he did to help us better understand the ancient world, including that around the Old Testament.
Bill T. Arnold
Lexington, KY
Brent A. Strawn
Atlanta, GA
Introduction
Bill T. Arnold and Brent A. Strawn
Perhaps second only to “What do you do (for a living)?,” the question “Where are you from?” must be the most frequent inquiry when people meet for the first time. When two people are becoming acquainted, the request to learn someone’s hometown or homeland reflects the belief that such knowledge is not only interesting information—a conversation starter, for instance—but also somehow fundamental. The point of origin is reckoned to be determinative, illustrative, even explanatory for who a person is now, in this particular moment of social exchange. Most of us assume as much, even if, and quite apart from the fact that, the person in question may be from a very different place presently or at least be a quite different person than the one they were whenever they hailed from wherever they hailed from originally.
This question of origin—where one is from—can be asked not only of people, of course, but of other subjects, including texts and, in the case of the book before you, even the Bible itself, or, still more specifically for present purposes, the Old Testament. In no small way the thirteen essays gathered here tell the story of where the Old Testament is from. They do that, however, in an oblique way. The essays deal with the world surrounding the Old Testament, whence comes the volume’s name: The World around the Old Testament (WAOT). Included here, then, are essays on the main regions and cultural groups that lived around ancient Israel, which gave us the Old Testament. Such books have been produced before, with volumes like Peoples of Old Testament Times and Peoples of the Old Testament World serving in their day as classic textbooks.1 Like those books, the present volume has essays on regions and groups from parts north, south, east, and west of ancient Israel/Palestine. If anything, we hope that WAOT is even more helpful in including some topics that have not always been included in works of this kind—specifically Arabia and Greece. The contributors and editors have done their best to make WAOT as up-to-date as possible and at the same time user-friendly so as to maximize its utility whether in a classroom or a reading room.
Two further brief points of introduction are in order—one concerns the structure of what is found in WAOT, and the other concerns what will not be found here.
1. As indicated already by its title, WAOT is not primarily about ancient Israel/Palestine or the Old Testament proper, so the essays are not overly oriented toward possible contacts with either. This caveat duly entered, each essay pays particular attention to that period (or those periods) that are most important for or pertinent to biblical studies. Within each essay, the reader may expect to find information on four important foci: (1) a general overview of the history and culture of the region or people group in view in that chapter; (2) special attention to ancient Near Eastern history from the Late Bronze Age to the end of the Persian Period (ca. 1550–332 BCE) as the time frame most apposite to Israelite literature and history; (3) a discussion of important items beyond political history proper, including religion, the arts, literature, and the like; and (4) remarks about the relevance of the region or people group for ancient Israel and/or the Old Testament. To be sure, these four foci are not always laid out by number in precisely this order, but we have been at pains to make sure that each focus is addressed in a way suitable to the topic of each essay included in WAOT. In this way, each chapter is a study of its primary subject matter—first and foremost in its own right—but is also not naïve about the importance of these areas and groups for the study of the Old Testament proper.
2. What the reader will not find in WAOT is a separate chapter on Canaan and the Canaanites. Although it is possible to make a case that such an essay should be included here, we believe that WAOT can proceed without it if only because—quite apart from the deeply vexed question of the Canaanite origins of ancient Israel—the land of Canaan is where the Israelites lived and so, technically, is not around the Old Testament but the place where Israel was from, though the essays gathered here show how it is not only from Canaan; it is also, if not equally, from other parts—those parts around the Old Testament.
This brings us full circle to where we started. “Where are you from?” is the question we often ask of new acquaintances. “Well, I’m originally from such-and-such,” they reply, “but I now live in such-and-such.” Where a person begins, initially, originally—where they are from—may be important, but it is rarely the last word. So also with the Old Testament. It is “from” somewhere—or rather, “somewheres” (plural)—the places and regions that surround(ed) it and that are discussed in WAOT, but it is equally true that the Old Testament now lives most of its days elsewhere and so it may “be” a different thing than it once was. Indeed, it does not seem to be stretching things too far to say that the history of biblical interpretation is in many ways the story of the Old Testament (and the New) moving to different places—many of which are far removed from the ancient Near East and the ancient Mediterranean. As the Bible traveled these miles and millennia, it has come to mean and come to be many different things. This is a crucial point and quite true, but it is equally true that points of origin remain seminal. Our standard, go-to question with new acquaintances reveals that origins are not only important, they are also, sometimes at least, definitive, determinative, or otherwise explanatory. And so, despite the many different places where the Old Testament now resides, and despite what it has come to be and to mean as a result, we still think that where it originally hailed from is of vital importance, not only for back then, initially or formerly, but also for here and now. In the end, then, we hope the essays in this volume shed significant light on where the Old Testament is “from” and also (and as a result) what it “is,” even for today.
1. D. J. Wiseman, ed., Peoples of Old Testament Times (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973); Alfred J. Hoerth, Gerald L. Mattingly, and Edwin M. Yamauchi, eds., Peoples of the Old Testament World (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994).
Contributors
Pierre Briant
Collège de France
Walter Burkert†
University of Zurich
Joel S. Burnett
Baylor University
Billie Jean Collins
Emory University
Carl S. Ehrlich
York University
Daniel E. Fleming
New York University
David F. Graf
University of Miami
Christopher B. Hays
Fuller Theological Seminary
Joel M. LeMon
Emory University
Peter Machinist
Harvard University
Christopher A. Rollston
George Washington University
Mark S. Smith
Princeton Theological Seminary
David S. Vanderhooft
Boston College
K. Lawson Younger Jr.
Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
Abbreviations
General
Akk. Akkadian
Ann. Annal/Annalen (German); annal/annals
Aram. Aramaic
BCE Before the Common Era
c. century
ca. circa, about, approximately
CE Common Era
col(s). column(s)
d. died
ed. edition; edited by; editor
Eng. English
esp. especially
fem. feminine
fig(s). figure(s)
fl. floruit, flourished
Fr. Fragment
ft. feet
Gk. Greek
ha. hectare(s)
Heb. Hebrew
KAJ Khirbet al-Jariyeh
KEN Khirbet en-Nahas
km. kilometers
lih. Liḥyanite texts
lit. literally
m. meter(s)
masc. masculine
mi. mile(s)
n. note
obv. obverse (front) of a tablet
OP Old Persian
pt. part
r. reigned
repr. reprint(ed)
rev. reverse of a tablet; revised, revised by
s.v. sub verbo, under the word
trans. translated by; translator
vol. volume
Sigla of Texts, Tablets, and Other Objects
A Objects in the Louvre Museum, Paris
ÄM Objects in the Ägyptisches Museum, Berlin
BM Objects in the British Museum, London
EA El-Amarna tablets. According to the edition of Jørgen A. Knudtzon. Die el-Amarna-Tafeln. Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1908–15. Repr., Aalen: Zeller, 1964. Continued in Anson F. Rainey, El-Amarna Tablets, 359–379. 2nd rev. ed. Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker, 1978.
