In Pursuit of Meaning: Collected Studies of Baruch A. Levine

892 Pages·2011·6.9 MB·English

by  Baruch A. Levine

In Pursuit of Meaning
Vol. 1: Religion

In Pursuit of Meaning
Collected Studies of
Baruch A. Levine
Volume 1: Religion
Baruch A. Levine
Edited by
Andrew D. Gross
Winona Lake, Indiana
Eisenbrauns
2011
Copyright ç 2011 Eisenbrauns
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America

www.eisenbrauns.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Levine, Baruch A.
In pursuit of meaning : collected studies of Baruch A. Levine / edited by
Andrew Gross.
v. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-57506-206-8 (hardback; 2-vol. set : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-
1-57506-207-5 (hardback; vol. 1 : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-57506-208-2
(hardback; vol. 2 : alk. paper)
1. Bible. O.T.—Criticism, interpretation, etc. 2. Sacrifice—Biblical
teaching. 3. Ugarit (Extinct city)—Religious life and customs.
4. Inscriptions, Aramaic—Jordan—Dayr ʿAlla, Tall. 5. Canaanites—
Religion. 6. Balaam (Biblical figure). 7. Temple scroll.
8. Cosmography. 9. Hebrew language—Lexicography. 10. Hebrew
language—Grammar. I. Gross, Andrew. II. Title.
BS1171.3.L48 2011
221.9—dc22
2010045563
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American
National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library
Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.†™
To my wife,
Corinne
A “support-group” of one.

Table of Contents
Volume I: Religion

Preface ...................................................................................................................... ix
Introduction ............................................................................................................... x
Abbreviations ........................................................................................................... xv
A. History of Religions
Assyrian Ideology and Israelite Monotheism ............................................................. 3
The Next Phase in Jewish Religion: The Land of Israel as Sacred Space ................ 29
B. Sources on Religion
Ugaritic Descriptive Rituals ..................................................................................... 45
The Descriptive Tabernacle Texts of the Pentateuch ............................................... 55
The Descriptive Ritual Texts from Ugarit: Some Formal and Functional
Features of the Genre ............................................................................................... 73
Toward an Institutional Overview of Public Ritual at Ugarit .................................. 83
Review of The Israelian Heritage of Judaism ....................................................... 101
Leviticus: Its Literary History and Location in Biblical Literature ........................ 113
Review Article: The Deir >Alla Plaster Inscriptions............................................... 125
The Balaam Inscription from Deir >Alla: Historical Aspects ................................. 143
The Plaster Inscriptions from Deir >Alla: General Interpretation ........................... 159
The Temple Scroll: Aspects of its Historical Provenance
and Literary Character ........................................................................................... 171
A Further Look at the Mo>adim of the Temple Scroll ............................................ 201
C. Phenomenology of Religion
On the Presence of God in Biblical Religion ......................................................... 215
Prolegomenon to G. B. Gray’s Sacrifice in the Old Testament:
Its Theory and Practice .......................................................................................... 231
Lpny YHWH—Phenomenology of the Open-Air-Altar in Biblical Israel .............. 259
Ritual as Symbol: Modes of Sacrifice in Israelite Religion ................................... 271
IN PURSUIT OF MEANING
The Cultic Scene in Biblical Religion: Hebrew >AL PĀNÂI (ינפ לע)
and the Ban on Divine Images ............................................................................... 283
An Essay on Prophetic Attitudes toward Temple and Cult in Biblical Israel ......... 301
The Language of Holiness: Perceptions of the Sacred in the Hebrew Bible .......... 321
Silence, Sound, and the Phenomenology of Mourning in Biblical Israel ............... 335
Offerings Rejected by God: Numbers 16:15 in Comparative Perspective ............. 355
When the God of Israel “Acts-Out” His Anger: On the Language of Divine
Rejection in Biblical Literature .............................................................................. 365
D. Religious Themes
Comparative Perspectives on Jewish and Christian History .................................. 387
The Place of Jonah in the History of Biblical Ideas ............................................... 399
René Girard on Job: The Question of the Scapegoat ............................................. 413
The Four Private Persons Who Lost Their Share in the World to Come:
The Judgment of m. Sanh. 10:2 ............................................................................. 421
viii
Preface
The fifty-one articles collected in these volumes represent the diverse con-
tributions Prof. Levine has made to the study of the Hebrew Bible, the Ancient
Near East, and Early Judaism. While brief addenda have been added in a few
places, the articles otherwise appear here unchanged with regard to their con-
tents. Each article was re-typeset, and then carefully edited in order to clean up
any typographical errors that had occurred in the original publications. Whenev-
er an article cites another article included in this collection, we have added a
cross-reference enclosed within braces in the following format: {VOL 1, PP. 45–54}.
For each article, we have included the original publication information in the
first footnote (where we also acknowledge permission for republication).
When we began this project, it quickly became apparent that there is no sin-
gle blueprint for how one publishes a collection of kleine Schriften. Besides the
abovementioned addenda, we resisted the temptation to update any of the con-
tents and opted to let each piece stand as a reflection of the author’s thinking at
the time of publication. We also decided against reformatting the articles to con-
form to a single style sheet, though we did make some minor adjustments where
we deemed it appropriate (e.g., endnotes were converted to footnotes; British-
style usage of quotation marks was replaced with American usage; references to
forthcoming works were updated to include the full publication information,
etc.).
I am honored to have been asked to help Prof. Levine shepherd this project
though. Having learned a great deal from him as his student, it is both humbling
and reassuring to realize that he has a great deal more wisdom yet to share.

Andrew D. Gross
Assistant Professor of Semitic Languages
The Catholic University of America
Washington, D.C.