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

by John H. Walton

Though the gods often had their own individual purposes, as a group they were unanimous in their general expectations of people: “Their servants were expected to be quiet, to keep the land in good order and to attend to the needs of their creators.”

The basic premise of this belief was that the gods had existed for long ages prior to the creation of humans and with no plan to create such beings. Nevertheless, they needed food, clothing, and housing and, since they were gods, were accustomed to certain amenities. Various myths build different scenarios, but eventually the gods tired of providing for their own needs.

By taking care of the needs of the gods, people had a role in enabling the gods to continue to bring order to the cosmos.

The gods were easily offended, and neither avoiding their anger nor appeasing it was intuitive. The anger of the gods was perceived from either circumstances or omens. When such anger seemed evident, one would attempt to appease it.

The intermediate phase between the family religion of Abraham and the state religion of the monarchy is what might be called the clan or tribal religion that is most evident in the judges period.

in the ancient Near East the gods willingly own their neediness and admittedly rely on human support. In Israel every aspect, however traditional, has an alternative rationale. The state religion highlights the needs of the people more than the needs of Yahweh. Reciprocity and mutual dependence have no place in the rhetoric. Whatever obligations Yahweh has to Israel come not because they serve his needs, but because of the covenant agreement. The people serve Yahweh by faithfulness to the covenant expectations.

Though arguable, it is worth considering whether one could draw the following contrast: ancient Near Eastern gods have jobs, while Yahweh has a plan. Both concepts (“jobs” and “plan”) offer ways to discuss the outworking of the deity’s attributes in the world. The difference is that justice emanates from the nature of Yahweh, while justice is simply the responsibility of a deity such as Shamash.

Yahweh’s actions are sometimes considered troublesome, incomprehensible, or inconsistent. The complaint of the Israelites of the Babylonian period that “the fathers eat sour grapes and the children’s teeth are set on edge” is only one example. At other times drought or famine occurs without ready explanation. The prophets and biblical authors, however, are never content to let stand the conclusion that the events in question simply represent divine whim. The prophets identify causes for the treatment of the nation.

In the polytheistic religions of the ancient world it was not considered obligatory for individuals to worship the state gods. It might be to their advantage and coincide with their self-interests to do so, but the state god would hardly be offended by their worship of their local or ancestral deities. This observation brings considerable clarity to the centuries-long struggle of the Israelites to understand that Yahweh’s status as state God excluded the worship of local gods, nature gods, or ancestral gods. Their native mentality would have seen no conflict. They could willingly acknowledge Yahweh as the national God and as the supreme God, but such conclusions would not require sole worship of Yahweh. State religion was an entirely different issue than family religion. The uniqueness of Israel is that here we can see an attempt to merge those two horizons. Every indication is that they were consistently syncretistic throughout the monarchy period,d though the prophets had high hopes that the people would repent of their syncretism and adopt covenant faithfulness to Yahweh wholeheartedly.

One well-known sufferer, after pursuing many ritual courses of action, sadly confesses his confusion and frustration: I wish I knew that these things were pleasing to one’s god! What is proper to oneself is an offence to one’s god; What in one’s own heart seems despicable is proper to one’s god. Who knows the will of the gods in heaven? Who understands the plans of the underworld gods? Where have mortals learnt the way of a god?

I would constantly seek (for help) but no one would help me. I cried but they (i.e., no one) did not approach me. I would give a lament but no one would hear me. I am distressed; I am alone; I cannot see. Humanity is deaf and does not know anything; Humanity—by whatever name—what do they know? Whether (a person) does wrong or good, they are ignorant.32

The concept of shame is ubiquitous in the book of Psalms. But, of course, the knowledge of the Torah created a far different situation concerning their awareness of offense and ability to confess it. The ability to identify offense and the sense of having done wrong provide a fertile environment for guilt to emerge at a different level. As a result, in Israel guilt does not replace shame on the list of values, but it is promoted to somewhat more equal status.

In Egyptian thinking, anthropology had some aspects that differed from what we see in Mesopotamia. One could speak of the ba-soul and the ka-soul.43 Assmann labels this anthropology as “constellative”: “A person comes into being, lives, grows, and exists by building up such a sphere of social and bodily ‘constellations.’ A constellative anthropology stresses the ties, roles, and functions that bind the constituent parts together.

Perhaps among the most familiar expressions of piety in the Old Testament are the psalms that speak of the nephesh thirsting or longing for God (Pss. 42:1; 63:1; 119:20, 81; 143:6; cf. Isa. 26:8). H. Seebass concludes that these are expressions of “life” longing for Yahweh, who is the source of life.49 Just as we spoke previously of the need of connectedness to society, in Israel there is a need of vibrant connectedness to God.50 “A person does not have a vital self but is a vital self.”51 Human vitality finds its source in God.52 This vitality remains something that is exterior rather than interior, but at the same time offers a dimension not observable in the ancient Near East.

The adversary’s question in Job asked whether Job served God for nothing. Though Job’s friends encourage him to take the Mesopotamian path of appeasement (confess anything to restore favor with deity), Job maintains his integrity (see his conclusion in Job 27:2–6), demonstrating that he did possess an abstract interiorized standard of righteousness apart from a system of consequences. None of the Mesopotamian literature that deals with the pious sufferer shows this dimension of thinking.

Although it does not say explicitly that no other gods exist, it does remove them from the presence of Yahweh. (The Hebrew preposition “before” used in this verse generally refers to location when it has a person as its object. Therefore we should understand it to say “there will not be for you other gods in my presence.”) If Yahweh does not share power, authority, or jurisdiction with them, they are not gods in any meaningful sense of the word.b

the third commandment when read as ancient Near Eastern literature concerns how Yahweh’s power/authority was not to be perceived—people were to recognize it by refraining from attempts to control or misuse it. It was not to be thought of as an efficacious symbol that could be used to pursue one’s self-interests.

Commandment 3 concerned how Yahweh’s power/authority was not to be perceived: people were to recognize it by refraining from attempts to control it.

and thousands of years later, nothing has changed... superstition and exploitation are as part of human nature as ever

ontology in the ancient world was more connected to function than to substance. In other words, something exists when it has a function, a role, and a purpose in an ordered system, not when it takes up space or is a substance characterized by material properties. This applies to everything in the cosmos, where various elements come into being when they are given a role and function within the cosmos. The neglect of curiosity about the physical structure of the cosmos is therefore not simply a consequence of inability to investigate the physical world. The physical aspects of the cosmos did not define its existence or its importance; they were merely the tools the gods used for carrying out their purposes.

In Genesis 1:3–5, in the discussion of the first day’s light, it becomes clear that for the Israelites order, not objects, was the focus of creation. In Genesis 1:5a the NIV translates, “God called the light (ʾor) ‘day’ (yom) and the darkness he called ‘night.’” If God called the light yom, why do the authors continue throughout the Old Testament to call light ʾor? It is a question anyone could answer with a little thought: it was not the element of light itself (as physicists would discuss it) that God called yom, but the period of light. There is a term for the semantic phenomenon that is observed here—namely, metonymy. In metonymy the meaning of a word is extended to include things closely related to it.

On day one, God created day and night; their alternating periods constitute time.

Like everyone else in the ancient world, Egyptians were less interested in that which was physical than in that which was metaphysical—what lies beyond physical reality.4 Nut, as the sky goddess, is portrayed arching her body over the disk-shaped earth. She is often supported by the hands of the god of the air while the earth god, Geb, lies prone at her feet. This is not a physical representation. The Egyptians did not believe that one could go step on Nut’s toes or throw a rock and hit her knees. Instead the portrayal communicates important truths concerning what the Egyptians believed about authority and jurisdiction in the cosmos. These truths concern the ordering of the cosmos, not manufacturing of objects. Though the metaphysical concepts may not deal with the material world per se, they represent reality—a greater reality than the material world offered. The cosmos functioned by means of the gods playing out their roles. Whatever the physical structure of the heavens, it was not a priority to them.

A function-oriented ontology/cosmology bypasses the questions that modern scholars often ask of the ancient world: Did they have a concept of “creation out of nothing”? Did they believe in the eternal existence of matter? These questions have significance only in a material ontology. Those who posit creation out of nothing want to know whether material objects (matter) were created without using preexistent materials. If creation is not viewed as concerned with the physical making of things, these questions cannot be approached through the texts.

In all of these cases something is brought into existence functionally, not necessarily materially; rarely would the statement concern the issue of matter. Indeed, the text never uses baraʾ in a context in which materials are mentioned. Thus, instead of suggesting manufacture of matter out of nothing (as many have inferred in the past), that materials are not mentioned suggests that manufacture is not the issue. Rather, the lexical analysis suggests that the essence of the word that the text has chosen, baraʾ, concerns bringing heaven and earth into existence by ordering through organization and assignment of roles and functions.

Matter was not the concern of the author of Genesis. The author’s concerns were much like those in the ancient Near East. There the greatest exercise of the power of the gods was demonstrated not in the manufacture of matter but in the fixing of destinies.

It would perhaps be best to use terminology such as “precosmic” condition (with the earlier Greek understanding that “cosmos” implies order). The precosmic condition was not lacking in that which was material; it was lacking in order and differentiation. Thus the accounts regularly begin with a precosmic, unordered, nonfunctional world.17 Creation then takes place by giving things order, function, and purpose, which is synonymous with giving them existence.

The precosmic condition in the Genesis account is described in Genesis 1:2 with the Hebrew expression tohu wabohu (“formless and empty”).a No one suggests that this verse indicates that matter had not been shaped or that the cosmos described in verse 2 is empty of matter. By logic alone the words could be seen to concern functionality, and analysis of the Hebrew confirms the conclusion that these terms indicate that the cosmos was empty of purpose, meaning, and function—a place that had no order or intelligibility.

Instead of understanding creation as making objects, the Hebrew authors saw God establishing a reality continuum. The reality of how we experience the cosmos does not need to be informed by a description of either the shape or structure of the cosmos or its formational history. The text communicates a universal reality—how all peoples throughout time have experienced the cosmos.

That these three primary functions, time, weather, and fecundity, or vegetation, are in view can be confirmed from Genesis 8:22, when the primary functions are restored after the flood. The flood had represented the return of precosmic disorder (the waters of the cosmos) being brought as a response to the disorder/chaos created by the violence of the human race.

When we ask, “How does the cosmos work?” we seek an answer that discusses physical laws and structures. In our cognitive environment, function is a consequence of physical properties and natural laws, and a discussion of creation therefore must, of course, direct itself to the making of things. In contrast, when Israelites asked, “How does the cosmos work?” they sought a totally different answer, because in the ancient worldview function and order are consequences of purpose. Thus the Israelites can be seen to have the same approach to creation as is evident in the ancient Near East.

Generally in the ancient world, the assignment of role and function is connected to the giving of names. Egyptian literature identified the creator god as the one who pronounced the name of everything.27 In this way of thinking, things did not exist unless they were named. “It was believed that the name of a living being or an object was not just a simple or practical designation to facilitate the exchange of ideas between persons but that it was the very essence of what was defined, and that the actual pronouncing of a name was to create what was spoken.”

Without a sense of the past there is no memory, no conscience, no responsibility.1

In the Israelite account the elements are dust and the breath of Deity. These have a ring of familiarity about them, but with some important distinctions. Like a number of the ancient Near Eastern accounts, there is no physical element provided by Deity (tears, blood, or flesh). The breath, as in the Egyptian accounts, is not a part of Deity, though it indicates that Deity is the source of life. In both Egypt and Israel, the breath of the deity characterizes all sentient life, not just humans. Furthermore, one should notice that with regard to the nondivine ingredients from which living beings are made, there is a difference between clay and dust. In the ancient Near East, clay is a means to impose form for the body. Dust cannot be used the same way, since it cannot be molded. Clay has significance for the artistic process.

“An appraisal of the Babylonian conception of the person should begin with the reminder that the notion of personhood is not a universal and innate category. The modern concept of person is in fact a long way removed from the view of the ancients. . . . In ancient cultures, such as Mesopotamia, the human person is understood as a character or a role, rather than as a personality; the individual is not a personne (person) but a personage (character).”

Concerning the cognitive environment, we can see that the ancient views tended to focus more on theological and functional categories than on psychological (e.g., Freudian) or philosophical (e.g., Platonic) ones.

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 space44 rather than as slave labor to meet the needs of deity.

The shared cognitive environment is evident in that all across the ancient world there was interest in exploring the divine component of humankind and the ontological relationship between the human and the divine. In Mesopotamia the cosmos functions for the gods and in relation to them. People are an afterthought, seen as just another part of the cosmos that helps the gods function. In Israel the cosmos functions for people and in relationship to them. God does not need the cosmos, but has determined to dwell in it, making it sacred space; it functions for people.

What is important about the events of the past? Why is the account being compiled? How do events come to pass? What causes or forces drive history? Are there patterns in history? Is there design in history? The answers to these questions will play a significant role in determining how history will be written.

any given historical record will represent a particular perspective about the events of the past and will inevitably be a reflection from the narrator’s present. The shape of one’s historiography is determined by the questions the compiler is seeking to answer. In this light any historiography should, by rights, be referred to as “perspectives on events of the past.” Any historiography must, in some sense, be viewed as an editorial column.

the worldview of our contemporary society differs dramatically from the worldview of the ancient historians. While the ancients would not deny the existence of natural cause and effect in history, they were much more interested in the divine role in history.

The denial of supernatural causation by many of today’s historians means that any ancient document used in reconstructing a history that conforms to present-day standards needs to be “adjusted” by the modern historian to delete its nonempirical data and eliminate its supernaturalistic bias. Such may be considered necessary in order to present ancient history to a modern reader, who will want to read history expressed in the context of his or her own cognitive environment, but it represents cultural imperialism.

Historical records in the ancient Near East do not claim to be revelation from deity, but they do show great interest in discerning the activities of the gods. The polytheistic nature of ancient Near Eastern religion impedes the development of any concept of a singular divine plan encompassing all of history.

even though it is true that some types of accounts (e.g., building project reports) do not offer the explicit theological orientation, the cognitive environment is clear. Even when one genre or another deviates from the norm by its silence, throughout the ancient world history was considered the doings of the deity revealing the will of deity.

History should not be seen naively as an attempt to recount what really happened. The epistemological question concerns the extent to which we could ever know what really happened. When we ask that question about events that unfold day by day, we gain our answers through reports that offer glimpses from participants or eyewitnesses and perspectives and opinions from those who might have some insight into the events.

The records of events in the ancient world were not given so that the reader could reconstruct the event. They were given so that the reader could understand the significance of the past for the present. In that sense, outcomes were more important than the events themselves.

It is the covenant that stands at the center of Israel’s unique historiography. The covenant was the foundation of God’s activities in the past as well as for the future, and it therefore offered the defining paradigm for action in the present.c

Like their ancient Near Eastern counterparts, the Israelites were more interested in outcomes than in events. Continuity was found in their identity as God’s covenant people, and hindsight provided the perspective that became the foundation of the great historiographic works of the Hebrew Bible: the Deuteronomistic History and Chronicles. As in the ancient Near East, events are reported not as eyewitness accounts but as interpretation of events in light of the covenant.

We could thus suggest that, whereas the highest value in the ancient Near East was the legitimation of the king, in Israel the highest value was the legitimation of the covenant. Ancient Near Eastern historiography desired to reveal the king to the people and to the deity. Israelite historiography desired to reveal the Deity to the king and the people.

In Israel the historiography purports to be communication from the Deity, whereas in the ancient Near East the royal inscriptions serve as communication to the deity.i Consequently, the audience is neither future kings nor the gods—it is the people of the covenant: “Then you will know that I, Yahweh, am God—there is no other.”

We cannot read the Hebrew Bible as if it were journalistic or academic history such as might be written today. Such reading would compromise the intentions, presuppositions, values, and poetics of the literature and its authors. When we critique the literature, we should critique it in terms of its own guiding criteria rather than expecting it to reflect our own and dismissing it when it does not.