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For example, twice every year in most of the United States and in many other places around the world we encounter the phenomenon known as “daylight savings time.” If someone from another culture came to the United States and heard the phrase “daylight savings time,” no study of the individual words would alert them to its meaning. They would need information that would enable them to adapt to the culture. These are issues that go beyond language to culture.
Methodology need not be tailored to detect literary borrowing or govern polemical agendas. When comparative studies are done at the cognitive environment level, trying to understand how people thought about themselves and their world, a broader methodology can be used.
Whatever cases might be made for literary dependence concerning one text or another, in this book we are going to give more attention to how the Israelites are embedded in the ancient world than to how one piece of literature might be indebted to another.
The significant difference between borrowing from a particular piece of literature (indebtedness) and resonating with the larger culture that has itself been influenced by its literatures (embeddedness) must be taken into account in our analysis.
Given this backdrop, we can now introduce the discipline of “cognitive environment criticism” as a branch of critical scholarship. Critical scholarship as a whole represents an attempt to bring scientific rigor and thereby a putative objectivity to an interpretation of a text by recovering the historical, literary, and cultural world behind the text as a means to unravel the layers that have brought it to its current state. “Cognitive environment criticism” specifically focuses on the cultural element. It includes both background/cultural studies and comparative studies.
Whether we are looking at wisdom literature, hymnic literature, historical literature, or legal literature, we find generous doses of both similarities and differences.
Another aspect of comparative study concerns comparative religion. One of the most consistent claims made within the biblical text concerns the distinctiveness of the Israelite religion. Yet at the same time the text does not hide the fact that the distinctions that were articulated in theory often did not translate into practice.
Furthermore, the material culture often draws our attention to the similarities.
We must not make a mistake in our assessment in either direction. Both similarities and differences must be observed, documented, and evaluated, not for the sake of critiquing but for the sake
of understanding. Though some use comparative studies to contradict claims made in the biblical text, the data need not be so employed.
am not as convinced as some in comparative studies that the Old Testament regularly engages in polemics against the surrounding cultures and
The literature of the Old Testament never forthrightly refutes or undermines an ancient myth; it only lampoons or denies the power of the gods.
E. Frahm alternatively adopts the designation “counter-texts” to describe works in the ancient Near East that he concludes have been composed as reactions to earlier texts (e.g., Erra and Ishum as a reaction to Enuma Elish).
Is the writer trying to disprove his counterpart’s claims (polemics) or simply presenting his own alternate perspective (counter-texts)? In counter-texts, one form of reaction would be to reverse the plots of earlier works. Less obviously, “small but significant manipulations of older works were another way to adapt texts to the needs of a later era and produce new meanings.”16
A third perspective understands similarities as reflecting an even lower threshold as a form of intertextuality.
These approaches are not mutually exclusive options. Theoretically we might find examples of each of them scattered throughout the Hebrew Bible. They share some common ground in that in all but the last option the Hebrew writer shows an awareness of the cognate literature. He is a protagonist in a conversation, whether engaged in borrowing
and reworking, debate (polemic), reflection (counter-text), or casual intertextuality, or working from a general awareness of the way that ideas were framed or approached in the ancient world.
The scholarly interest in comparative studies formerly focused on either individual features (e.g., flood accounts from both the Bible and the ancient Near East feature birds sent out from an ark) or the literary preservation of traditions (e.g., creation accounts, vassal treaties), and many studies have been conducted with either apologetics (from confessional circles) or polemics (against confessional traditions) in mind.
The historical narratives of the Old Testament came under fire as comparative and background studies identified problems in chronology and factual details. Literary studies found similarities between the biblical narratives and literary-historical compositions from the ancient Near East. These studies led critical scholars to question whether the biblical narratives could be used at all in the historical-critical process of reconstructing events of the Bronze and Iron ages. A group labeled “minimalists” contended that the biblical narratives were almost entirely unusable, while “maximalists”
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In all of these categories, the common denominator was the claim that the Old Testament is not unique. Some considered this a threat to their doctrine of inspiration. The sequence of logic easily moved from “not unique” to “derivative or borrowed” to “human, not divine,” to “fictitious or unreliable.”
Nonetheless, for various reasons many confessional scholars are uncomfortable with the use of comparative studies. Some still harbor the belief that similarities detract from the uniqueness of the Bible. They maintain that admittance of
comparative evidence to the interpretive process is a slippery slope that will end with de-canonizing the text.
A second group claims that the text is all that we need. God has inscripturated his revelation through the use of human authors and language, but the theological meaning of the text is located in the canon, not bound up in the authors’ limitations, humanity, and culture. For this group, a careful study of the text is all that is necessary to glean the truth of God’s Word. In a related way, it is not uncommon for traditional interpreters to believe that the divine authorship of Scripture is mitigated if the h...
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Even as the use of comparative studies is suspect in some confessional quarters, others view the availability of information from the ancient Near East as an opportunity to prove that the Bible is true or to confirm a traditional date of a particular book.
But revision is not the only possible outcome. Sometimes critical analysis can simply improve our understanding of a series of historical events as we are able to reconstruct them. The parameters of literary genres can be delineated, or social institutions can be investigated and carefully nuanced. Consequently critical analysis has much to offer in its ability to illuminate the cognitive environment of the biblical world.
Comparative study has been able to clarify that these are titles of important officers, thus resulting in the NIV translation: “The king of Assyria sent his supreme commander, his chief officer and his field commander” (2 Kings 18:17). Without
the comparative data, the passage was misunderstood, though admittedly at the technical level.
ancient Near East. Likewise, there is no dichotomy between sacred and secular, or even between natural and supernatural.2 The only suitable dichotomy is between spiritual and physical, though even that would be a less meaningful distinction to the people of the ancient Near East than it is to us. In the end, there is a distinction between the heavenly realm and the earthly one, but events in the two were often intertwined or parallel.
For the most part, deity is on the inside, not the outside. The world was suffused with the divine. All experience was religious experience; all law was spiritual in nature; all duties were duties to the gods; all events had deity as their cause. Life was religion and religion could not be compartmentalized within life.3
The mythology of both Mesopotamia and Egypt makes clear that the gods had origins. They exist in familial relationships and there are generations of gods.4 When the texts speak of theogony (origins of the gods) they include a number of elements in the presentation. In
In the ancient world something came into existence when it was separated out as a distinct entity, given a function, and given a name.8 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.”9 The first god arises on his own from the primeval waters (separates himself from them) and then separates into millions.10 Out of this fairly restrictive sense of ontology emerges the oxymoron of nonexistent entities.11 Prior to creation there was a unity expressed by the statement
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We must understand, however, that the birth of the gods does not relate to their physical or material existence. It relates to their functions and roles because their birth is connected to the origins of natural phenomena.20
All of these references offer a procreative theogony, but no ontology. An Akkadian prayer from the Seleucid period names a list of gods that Ea creates, and with each one a function is given. This does not go as far as suggesting that the designation of a function is necessary for a god to exist, but it indicates the importance of the assigned function in the understanding of the nature of the god. The most helpful statements for discerning the Mesopotamian ideas of divine origins and ontology are found in the Atrahasis Epic and Enuma Elish. The opening line of Atrahasis establishes the
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When we compare the ancient Near Eastern ideas of ontology and theogony to the biblical portrayal of Yahweh, we see some significant similarities and differences. The most obvious difference is seen in the absence of any theogony in Israel. The biblical text offers no indication that Israel considered Yahweh as having an origin, and there are no other gods to bring into existence either by procreation or separation. Since the cosmos is not viewed as a manifestation of divine attributes, Israel’s cosmogony develops without any need of theogony. The issue of theogony is likewise foreign to
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against his corrupt ways. “Existence” is thus defined in relation to the Deity’s activity.
ontology were defined in relation to one’s function and actions, and if “self” were defined as largely exterior, then personal attributes (whether divine or human) could only be discerned at the level of one’s actions—that is, they would not necessarily be seen as abstractions.
If the formula holds, the description of a god as good or wise would signify only that the deity was acting in what were perceived to be good or wise ways rather than implying that the inherent essence or nature of the deity was to be good or wise.
If this assessment is accurate, we should ask whether there is any concept in the ancient world of an inherent essence of the deity—or can we only say that deity is as deity does? A thorough search of the literature suggests that the latter is the case. There is little interest expressed in penetrating the inner psyche or essential nature of any deity. Bottéro notes perceptively that it is plausible that “our insistence on
isolated propositions somewhat deadens, in fact deforms, the thought of those people who had neither our need for logic nor our demands for clarity.”53 The operative question in their minds, for instance, is not, “Is deity just?” but, “Does the deity administer justice?” It is not important whether the deity is inherently good—is the deity doing good for me and my community?
Injustice in the world is blamed not on the gods but on demons and humans. Evil was built into the MEs that controlled the cosmos, but even those had not been established by the gods.
Goodness. It is very rare for the gods of the ancient Near East to be described as good,67 though the hope is commonly expressed that the god will do good to the worshiper—that
is, act favorably or for their benefit.
What does an Israelite mean when he insists that Yahweh is “good” (2 Chron. 30:18; Ps. 136:1)?68 Theologians tend to think of God’s goodness as the aggregate of his moral qualities.69 Theologians would typically understand God’s goodness as affirming that God could do no evil. In the ancient Near East there would be no outside standard to measure by, so good and evil would not be categories that could easily be applied to the gods. For Yahweh the standard is Yahweh’s own character, therefore making it impossible for him to do evil—good is defined by what he does. In both cases discussion and
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Faithfulness. Faithfulness is one of the most frequently affirmed attributes of Yahweh because of his covenant relationship with Israel. In contrast, it is difficult to find any such affirmation for the gods of the ancient Near East. Words that convey loyalty are never used of the gods in that way.70 The gods have no agreements or promises to be faithful to and no obligations or commitments to fulfill.
What attributes did Yahweh have that other deities were not believed to have? Prominent on the list would be those attributes relating to monotheism and formal relationships. He was jealous of any act that acknowledged other gods, and he was faithful to his covenant. Thus, though Yahweh was viewed as intensely personal, this did not lead to a polytheism that provided him with a divine community. Instead, people are created to serve as community for him, and the covenant eventually comes to give structure to that community. Inversely, what attributes did Yahweh not have that other deities
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perceived in human terms. Israelites had to be constantly reminded by the prophets that Yahweh is not like a human and not like the other gods.
7. For a brief discussion on ancient Near Eastern ontology that investigates from a different angle than here, see T. Jacobsen, “The Graven Image,” in Ancient Israelite Religion: Essays in Honor of Frank Moore Cross, ed. P. D. Miller, P. D. Hanson, and S. D. McBride (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987), 18–20. 8. This is in distinct contrast to modern and even classical ontologies, which often see existence as defined by substance and properties—i.e., largely material in nature. In the ancient Near East, something did not necessarily exist just because it happened to be occupying space.
From the standpoint of deity, the temple is his or her estate and residence. The earthly temple was a symbol, an echo, a shadow of the heavenly residence.4 As such it served as a link, a bond, or even a portal to the heavenly residence. The heavenly archetypal temple can sometimes be identified as the cosmos itself.5 In Mesopotamia the ziggurat stood beside the temple as the place where the deity descended from the heavens to reside among the people and to receive their worship. These temples were constructed to be a place of “rest” for the deity.6 Though the concept of relaxation (or even
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From the above we can conclude that the material image was animated by the divine essence. Therefore, it did not simply represent the deity but manifested its presence.14
conclusion, then, the garden is comparable to the antechamber of the holy of holies (Eden) in the cosmic temple complex. It is presented as a real place, but its significance is found in what it represents theologically and literarily. With this understanding, one can appreciate that in the aftermath of the fall, the greatest loss was not paradise but God’s presence. The temple provided for a partial return of that presence, and the antechamber of the temple was reminiscent of the proximity to God’s presence that had once been enjoyed.
