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Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament: Introducing the Conceptual World of the Hebrew Bible QUOTES

Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament: Introducing the Conceptual World of the Hebrew Bible QUOTES

21 " A modern empiricist historian’s response to ancient (especially Israelite) transcendent historiography might be: “It has not provided information that is reliable since it is so full of deity.” The ancient historian’s response to modern empiricist historiography might be: “It has not provided information that is worthwhile since it is so empty of deity. "

― , Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament: Introducing the Conceptual World of the Hebrew Bible

22 " What does it mean to say that a god exists or comes into existence? The question of ontology (what it means for something to exist) is important for understanding both theogony and cosmogony because we cannot productively talk about how something came into existence until we define in some way what it means to exist.
In the ancient world something came into existence when it was separated out as a distinct entity, given a function, and given a name. So the Ritual of Amun from the second half of the second millennium identifies creation as beginning "when no god had come into being and no name had been invented for anything." The first god arises on his own from the primeval waters (separates himself from them) and then separates into millions. Out of this fairly restrictive sense of ontology emerges the oxymoron of nonexistent entities. Prior to creation there was a unity expressed by the statement that there were "not yet two things." The realm of the nonexistent remains not only at the boundaries but throughout the cosmos, and that realm can be encountered. The desert and the limitless waters are two examples. The gods exist on earth only through their functions. "On earth...the gods live only in images, in the king as an image of god, in cult images in the temples, and in sacred animals, plants and objects."
...
Since their ontology was function oriented, a god who does not function or act fades into virtual nonexistence. "

― , Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament: Introducing the Conceptual World of the Hebrew Bible

23 " In Israel the sections of the Pentateuch that have in the past been considered as laws could now be considered as not carrying the obligatory force of legislation (if it is true that in conjunction with the literature from the ancient Near East these are not laws or legislation). They nevertheless do carry obligatory force for Israel as stipulations of the covenant.[1] "

― , Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament: Introducing the Conceptual World of the Hebrew Bible

24 " The roles assigned to humans bind them together in their common plight and bind them to the gods in servitude. Egyptian sources offer no explanation for the creation of humans. Sumerian and Akkadian sources consistently portray people as having been created to do the work of the gods—work that is essential for the continuing existence of the gods, and work that they have tired of doing for themselves. "

― , Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament: Introducing the Conceptual World of the Hebrew Bible

25 " In Israel people also believed that they had been created to serve God. The difference was that they saw humanity as having been given a priestly role in sacred space[43] rather than as slave labor to meet the needs of deity. "

― , Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament: Introducing the Conceptual World of the Hebrew Bible

26 " The following brief treatment of a few of the categories of wisdom literature has a single purpose for the scope of this study. Both the instructions of Egypt and the proverbs of Mesopotamia stand as further examples of the idea that wisdom compilations were used widely in the ancient world as a means of offering principles that could serve as guides for living. These principles are in effect mandated in the pursuit of wisdom if order is to be maintained in society. Unlike the treatises considered above (judicial, medical, and divination), these wisdom literatures do not characteristically introduce situations that undermine order, though such situations are often addressed. Instead, they tend to anticipate situations that will be faced and offer advice so that order will not be undermined, and in so doing they frame the values of society. "

― , Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament: Introducing the Conceptual World of the Hebrew Bible

27 " The most important aspect of the role of cities is to be found in their relationship to the temples and the gods. The patron deity of a city was typically considered the one who founded, built, and sustained the city. So the prominence and prosperity of the city and its god were inextricably intertwined. “Each Mesopotamian city was the home of a god or goddess, and each prominent god or goddess was the patron deity of a city.”[9] In Mesopotamia the gods were attached to cities, and temples were only in cities.[10] Worship as we know it therefore took place in cities. The archaeological record shows no evidence of sanctuaries in the mountains or plains, and no rivers or trees with cultic significance.[11] Likewise in Egypt there was an integral relationship between cities and gods. “The sum of landowning temples and deities embodied the state. . . . Just as the totality of deities embodied the political concept of ‘Egypt,’ the individual landowning local deity embodied the concept of ‘city.’ An Egyptian city was always the city of a deity.”[12] "

― , Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament: Introducing the Conceptual World of the Hebrew Bible

28 " In the ancient world the king stood between the divine and human realms mediating the power of the deity in his city and beyond. He communed with the gods, was privy to their councils, and enjoyed their favor and protection. He was responsible for maintaining justice, for leading in battle, for initiating and accomplishing public building projects from canals to walls to temples, and had ultimate responsibility for the ongoing performance of the cult. "

― , Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament: Introducing the Conceptual World of the Hebrew Bible

29 " When the legal treatises are viewed in this light, one can propose that these are not laws, but exemplary verdicts that can serve the intended didactic function.[9] It is in this sense that they offer model justice. To go the next step, one can infer that not only is what we find in documents such as Hammurabi’s stele not a “code,” it is not even “law.” These are not legislative documents. They report verdicts, they do not prescribe laws. "

― , Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament: Introducing the Conceptual World of the Hebrew Bible

30 " In the same way, if we are going to comprehend communication that took place between members of an ancient culture, we are going to have to adjust our thinking to be able to sit in the circle of communication with the ancient audience. The Bible has plenty of examples like “Iron Curtain” and “daylight savings time” that are not explained, and we do not intrinsically understand. But in many cases the key to understanding can be found in other ancient Near Eastern literature. When we study an ancient text, we cannot make words mean whatever we want them to, or assume that they meant the same to the ancient audience that they do to a modern audience. "

― , Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament: Introducing the Conceptual World of the Hebrew Bible