Biblical and Near Eastern Essays: Studies in Honour of Kevin J. Cathcart (Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement 375)

401 Pages·2004·19.3 MB·English

by  Carmel McCarthy

JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
SUPPLEMENT SERIES
375
Editors
David J.A. Clines
Philip R. Davies
Executive Editor
Andrew Mein
Editorial Board
Richard J. Coggins, Alan Cooper, J. Cheryl Exum,
John Goldingay, Robert P. Gordon, Norman K. Gottwald,
John Jarick, Andrew D.H. Mayes, Carol Meyers,
Patrick D. Miller
Kevin J. Cathcart
Biblical and Near Eastern Essays
Studies in Honour of Kevin J. Cathcart
edited by
Carmel McCarthy &
John F. Healey
T8.T CLARK INTERNATIONAL
A Continuum imprint
LONDON • NEW YORK
Copyright © 2004 T&T Clark International
A Continuum imprint
Published by T&T Clark International
The Tower Building, 11 York Road, London SE1 7NX
15 East 26th Street, Suite 1703, New York, NY 10010
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Typeset and edited for Continuum by Forthcoming Publications Ltd
www.forthcomingpublications.com
Printed on acid-free paper in Great Britain by The Cromwell Press, Trowbridge,
Wiltshire
ISBN 0-8264-6690-7
CONTENTS
Preface ix
Abbreviations xii
List of Contributors xvii
Parti
TEXTS AND THEMES IN THE BIBLE
JOHN DAY
Does the Old Testament Refer to Sacred Prostitution
and Did it Actually Exist in Ancient Israel? 2
ROBERT P. GORDON
The Ideological Foe: The Philistines in the Old Testament 22
HENRY WANSBROUGH
The Finale of the Davidic Succession Narrative? 37
H.G.M. WILLIAMSON
The Formation of Isaiah 2.6-22 57
JOHN BARTON
The Day of Yahweh in the Minor Prophets 68
CHARLES CONROY
The 'Four Servant Poems' in Second Isaiah
in the Light of Recent Redaction-Historical Studies 80
JOHN A. EMERTON
Some Problems in Psalm 88.16 95
vi Biblical and Near Eastern Essays
PART II
TEXTS AND THEMES IN THE ANCIENT VERSIONS
KNUD JEPPESEN
'The Lord God has spoken, and who will not prophesy?'
From Osée to Jonas in the Septuagint 105
CARMEL MCCARTHY
Samaritan Pentateuch Readings in Deuteronomy 118
SEBASTIAN P. BROCK
A Neglected Revision of the Peshitta Psalter 131
CÉLINE MANGAN
Wisdom, Torah and Creation in Targumic Literature 143
MARTIN MCNAMARA
The Colophon of Codex Neofiti I: The Scribe Menahem
and the Roman Medical Family of Manuele 154
Part III
INTERPRETATION AND HISTORY OF THE BIBLE
ANDREW D.H. MA YES
Marx, Weber and the Religion of Ancient Israel 169
JOHN R. BARTLETT
Between Scylla and Charybdis: The Problem of Israelite
Historiography 180
JOHN J. COLLINS
The Politics of Biblical Interpretation 195
GERARD J. NORTON, OP
Dahood's Commentary on the Psalms: A Review
of an Academic Grandparent's Work after Thirty Years 212
MICHAEL MAKER
'A Lily among Thorns': Canticles 2.2
in the Latin Exegetical Tradition 227
Contents vii
Part IV
NEAR EASTERN PHILOLOGY AND HISTORY
WILFRED G.E. WATSON
Akkadian Loanwords in Ugaritic: The Hippiatric Texts 240
MANFRED KROPP
Ethiopian Names in Sabaic and the Question
ofmatres lectionis in Epigraphic South Arabian 258
G. REX SMITH
Classical Arabic Pattern fa 'all Revisited 264
REINHARD PUMMER
Foot-Soldiers of the Byzantines or Spies for the Muslims?
The Role of the Samaritans in the Muslim Conquest
of Palestine 280
PartV
NEAR EASTERN NOTABLES
C. EDMUND BOSWORTH
William Lithgow of Lanark's Travels in Hungary,
Transylvania and Poland, 1616 298
JOHN F. HEALEY
'Sicherheit des Auges': The Contribution to Semitic
Epigraphy of the Explorer Julius Euting (1839-1913) 313
GRAHAM I. DA VIES
Fresh Evidence on E.H. Palmer's Travels
from Cambridge Libraries 331
DAVID W. MURRAY
A Late-Victorian Consul in the Near East:
John Dickson (1846-1906) 341
Bibliography of the Works of Kevin James Cathcart 354
Index of References 3 60
Index of Authors 370
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PREFACE
This collection of essays by a group of international scholars is intended to
pay fitting honour to Professor Kevin James Cathcart, who celebrates his
sixty-fifth birthday in October 2004. Although the greater part of Kevin's
academic life has been spent as Professor of Near Eastern Languages at
University College Dublin, a glance at the list of his publications at the
end of this volume will give the reader some sense of the extent of his
interests and areas of research. The variety of contributions in this Fest-
schrift in his honour will also demonstrate the extraordinary range of his
scholarly pursuits and those of the various friends and colleagues with
whom he has collaborated over the years.
Born on 9 October 1939 in Derrylin, Co. Fermanagh, Northern Ireland,
Kevin's early years were spent in Manchester where his parents had then
settled. It was here that his father, who had served in the Irish Guards
during World War II, dedicated himself to many years' service in the
Manchester City Police. Kevin's early education took place at the Salesian
College in Cheshire, after which he spent some four years with the
Cistercians at Mellifont Abbey, Co. Louth. He then pursued studies for a
BA in Arabic, Aramaic/Syriac and Hebrew at Trinity College, Dublin,
taking the University Prize examination in Arabic. In 1966 he enrolled in
the Oriental Faculty of the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome where he
did a Licentiate in Oriental Languages (Akkadian, Sumerian andUgaritic,
as well as a dissertation). Pursuing further studies in Ugaritic and Phoe-
nician in the Oriental Faculty, he prepared a doctoral thesis (a detailed
examination of Nahum in the Light of Northwest Semitic, subsequently
published under the same title) under the direction of Mitchell Dahood, for
which he was duly awarded a doctorate by the Oriental Faculty in 1971.
His initial teaching experience was as Lecturer in Hebrew at the Pon-
tifical Biblical Institute, Rome, in 1968. He was then appointed Assistant
Professor and later Associate Professor in Near Eastern Studies at the
University of Ottawa, Canada, from 1968 to 1974. Together with his wife,
Anne, and sons, Declan and Kieran, he returned to Ireland in 1974, where