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Admonition and Curse: The Ancient Near Eastern Treaty/Covenant Form as a Problem in Inter-Cultural Relationships
The occurrence of treaties throughout the Ancient Near East has been investigated on a number of occasions, generally in order to resolve certain questions arising in the biblical field. As a result of that focus, the existence of a similar institution in a number of different cultures has not been treated as a problem in itself. Generally the existence of treaties throughout the area has been taken for granted, or a simple borrowing model has been used to explain how similar forms came to be used in different cultures. Why forms were similar across the area has not been probed.
This work investigates treaty occurrences in different cultures and finds that the forms used correlate with ways of maintaining political control both internally and over vassals. Related concepts are projected in official accounts of history. Thus one can roughly distinguish threats based on power from persuasion based on benevolence and historical precedent, though various combinations of these two occur. There is a likely further connection of the means chosen to the degree of centralisation of power within the society. Underlying the local traditions is a common tradition which has to be dated to the pre-literate period. Biblical covenants fit within this pattern. The cultures treated are Mesopotamia, the Hittites, Egypt, Syrian centres and Israel.
This work investigates treaty occurrences in different cultures and finds that the forms used correlate with ways of maintaining political control both internally and over vassals. Related concepts are projected in official accounts of history. Thus one can roughly distinguish threats based on power from persuasion based on benevolence and historical precedent, though various combinations of these two occur. There is a likely further connection of the means chosen to the degree of centralisation of power within the society. Underlying the local traditions is a common tradition which has to be dated to the pre-literate period. Biblical covenants fit within this pattern. The cultures treated are Mesopotamia, the Hittites, Egypt, Syrian centres and Israel.
222 pages, Hardcover
First published August 1, 1991
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September 21, 2019
I was motivated to read this book because Mark Jones implied in a Ref21 blog post that Weeks has refuted Kline’s use of the ANE treaties to illuminate biblical covenants. Jones wrote that “published scholars of ANE history, such as Noel Weeks, have done such a good job of exposing the deficiencies of trying to understand biblical covenants as reflective of Suzerain treaties.”
So I got a Scribd subscription and the read the book by Weeks as a PDF. Short story, I think it is misleading for Jones to speak of this book as a “devastating critique” of Kline. It is not even a particularly polemical work. It is a patient exploration of a complex historical issue. Weeks weighs and sifts and speaks in probabilities like a true historian. He quotes Kline a few times (pp. 135, 140-41, 155, 167, 169), not to refute him, but to interact with him, because Kline was one of the researchers who also published on this topic. In fact, Weeks agrees with Kline 90% of the time and displays no particular animus against Kline.
Here are some money quotes by Weeks that directly contradict what Jones claimed:
“It is my conviction that there is enough similarity between treaty/covenant forms from different cultures that one is justified in asking historical questions about that similarity ... I have argued that the use [in the biblical covenants] of history, the combination of elements such as historical prologue, stipulations and blessings and curses, the provision for depositing of the treaty text and so on are analogous to what we find in Hittite treaties ... I would insist that the similarity between the extra-biblical data, particularly as shown with the Hittites, and the biblical is too great to deny” (pp. 3, 164-65).
Contrary to Jones’s representation, Weeks fundamentally agrees with Kline on the main point, namely, the recognition of the significant parallels between the various expressions and renewals of the Mosaic covenant (e.g., the Decalogue, Deuteronomy, Joshua 24) and the ANE treaties, especially the Hittite treaties.
Again, Weeks writes: “The point which I shall defend below is that the similarities between some biblical covenants and treaties are real and that often there is more similarity with Hittite treaties than Assyrian ones” (p. 134, and more similar quotes on pp. 151-56).
Weeks displays particular appreciation for Kline’s argument that the treaty format is given as a documentary whole, with explicit curses against additions or changes, thus refuting the JEDP theory that the Pentateuch is a composite document that grew gradually over centuries (p. 169). Weeks also agrees with Kline that Gen 15 is a divine self-maledictory oath (p. 150).
Of course, Weeks does have his points of difference with Kline, but after the substantial agreements, the differences hardly amount to a refutation of the covenant theology of Meredith G. Kline. The only significant disagreement I can discern is that Weeks takes issue with Kline’s use of Mendenhall’s form-critical argument about the supposed differences between the 1st and 2nd millennium ANE treaties to support the conservative date of Deuteronomy. (This was one of Kline’s apologetic aims in his first book, Treaty of the Great King.) But this is a minor point and does not undermine Kline’s use of the ANE treaties in his positive construction of biblical-covenantal theology.
It is true that Weeks makes some comments that would give aid and comfort to those (such as Jones) who want to see law covenants and promise covenants on a continuum rather than a contrast (pp. 9, 144, 155, 166). But as far as I can tell, Weeks’s predilections on this score are determined by his own reading of biblical theology and not by his scholarly analysis of the ANE treaties.
So I got a Scribd subscription and the read the book by Weeks as a PDF. Short story, I think it is misleading for Jones to speak of this book as a “devastating critique” of Kline. It is not even a particularly polemical work. It is a patient exploration of a complex historical issue. Weeks weighs and sifts and speaks in probabilities like a true historian. He quotes Kline a few times (pp. 135, 140-41, 155, 167, 169), not to refute him, but to interact with him, because Kline was one of the researchers who also published on this topic. In fact, Weeks agrees with Kline 90% of the time and displays no particular animus against Kline.
Here are some money quotes by Weeks that directly contradict what Jones claimed:
“It is my conviction that there is enough similarity between treaty/covenant forms from different cultures that one is justified in asking historical questions about that similarity ... I have argued that the use [in the biblical covenants] of history, the combination of elements such as historical prologue, stipulations and blessings and curses, the provision for depositing of the treaty text and so on are analogous to what we find in Hittite treaties ... I would insist that the similarity between the extra-biblical data, particularly as shown with the Hittites, and the biblical is too great to deny” (pp. 3, 164-65).
Contrary to Jones’s representation, Weeks fundamentally agrees with Kline on the main point, namely, the recognition of the significant parallels between the various expressions and renewals of the Mosaic covenant (e.g., the Decalogue, Deuteronomy, Joshua 24) and the ANE treaties, especially the Hittite treaties.
Again, Weeks writes: “The point which I shall defend below is that the similarities between some biblical covenants and treaties are real and that often there is more similarity with Hittite treaties than Assyrian ones” (p. 134, and more similar quotes on pp. 151-56).
Weeks displays particular appreciation for Kline’s argument that the treaty format is given as a documentary whole, with explicit curses against additions or changes, thus refuting the JEDP theory that the Pentateuch is a composite document that grew gradually over centuries (p. 169). Weeks also agrees with Kline that Gen 15 is a divine self-maledictory oath (p. 150).
Of course, Weeks does have his points of difference with Kline, but after the substantial agreements, the differences hardly amount to a refutation of the covenant theology of Meredith G. Kline. The only significant disagreement I can discern is that Weeks takes issue with Kline’s use of Mendenhall’s form-critical argument about the supposed differences between the 1st and 2nd millennium ANE treaties to support the conservative date of Deuteronomy. (This was one of Kline’s apologetic aims in his first book, Treaty of the Great King.) But this is a minor point and does not undermine Kline’s use of the ANE treaties in his positive construction of biblical-covenantal theology.
It is true that Weeks makes some comments that would give aid and comfort to those (such as Jones) who want to see law covenants and promise covenants on a continuum rather than a contrast (pp. 9, 144, 155, 166). But as far as I can tell, Weeks’s predilections on this score are determined by his own reading of biblical theology and not by his scholarly analysis of the ANE treaties.
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