Leaders and Legacies in Assyriology and Bible: The Collected Essays of David B. Weisberg

434 Pages·2013·14.3 MB·English

by  David B. Weisberg

Leaders and Legacies
in Assyriology and Bible

Leaders and Legacies
in Assyriology and Bible
The Collected Essays of David B. Weisberg
David B. Weisberg
Winona Lake, Indiana
Eisenbrauns
2012
Ç 2012 by Eisenbrauns.
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
www.eisenbrauns.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Weisberg, David B.
Leaders and legacies in Assyriology and Bible : the collected essays of
David B. Weisberg / David B. Weisberg.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
ISBN 978-1-57506-230-3 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Assyriology. 2. Bible. O.T.—History. 3. Iraq—Civilization—To
634. I. Title.
DS69.6.W45 2012
935u.03072—dc23
2012002503
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.†
Contents
Preface (Andrew Pfeiffer) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
Introduction (William W. Hallo) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv
Part 1
Political and Military History and Ancient Royals
Loyalty and Death: Some Ancient Near Eastern Metaphors . . . . . . . . 3
Zabaya, an Early King of the Larsa Dynasty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Rib-Hadda’s Urgent Tone: A Note on EA 74:50 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
The Length of the Reign of Hallusu-Insusinak . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Esarhaddon and Egypt: A Preliminary Investigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
A Sale of Property from the Time of Esarhaddon, “King of Lands” . 44
The Neo-Babylonian Empire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
The “Antiquarian” Interests of the
Neo-Babylonian Kings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Royal Women of the Neo-Babylonian Period . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
A “Dinner at the Palace” during Nebuchadnezzar’s Reign . . . . . . . . . 79
Notes on Nebuchadnezzar’s 37th Year . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Polytheism and Politics: Some Comments on
Nabonidus’ Foreign Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Part 2
Texts and Legacies
The Impact of Assyriology on Biblical Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Assyriology
An Old Babylonian Forerunner to Summa Alu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
The R. Campbell Thompson Tablets Published by Ivan Lee Holt . . . 137
A Guided Tour through Babylonian History:
Cuneiform Inscriptions in the Cincinnati Art Museum . . . . . . . . . 149
Bible, Masorah, and Rabbinics
Jacob Wards Off Endangerment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
Wool and Linen Material in Texts from the Time
of Nebuchadnezzar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
Character Development in the Book of Ruth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
v
vi Contents
The Rare Accents of the Twenty-One Books . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
Break in the Middle of a Verse:
Some Observations on a Massoretic Feature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259
I. O. Lehman, HUC mss 951–981 from Kai Feng, and
a Purported Link between China and Yemen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270
Some Observations on Late Babylonian Texts and
Rabbinic Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
Visibility of the New Moon in Cuneiform and Rabbinic Sources . . . . 289
Ben Zion Wacholder and David B. Weisberg
“Feet of Iron” in the Babylonian Talmud? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
Israel O. Lehman and David B. Weisberg
Part 3
Social and Economic History
Everyday Life in the Neo-Babylonian Period:
The Integration of Material and Non-Material Culture . . . . . . . . . 307
A Neo-Babylonian Dialogue Document (3.123) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316
A Mar Banutu Text from the Town of Hubat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
A Neo-Babylonian Temple Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323
Pirquti or Sirkuti? Was Istar-ab-ußur’s Freedom Affirmed
or Was He Re-Enslaved? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 330
Part 4
Critical Self-Reflection
“Splendid Truths” or “Prodigious Commotion”?
Ancient Near Eastern Texts and the Study of the Bible . . . . . . . . . 345
A Centennial Review of Friedrich Delitzsch’s
“Babel und Bibel” Lectures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355
Bill T. Arnold and David B. Weisberg
Delitzsch in Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372
Bill T. Arnold and David B. Weisberg
Babel und Bibel und Bias: How Anti-Semitism Distorted
Friedrich Delitzsch’s Scholarship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381
Bill T. Arnold and David B. Weisberg
On Reading Archival Texts: M. Jursa’s Comments to
OIP 122 and the Limits of Criticism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 389
Index of Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397
Index of Scripture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405
Index of Subjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 408
Preface
In his Introduction to George Sanger’s “Seventy Years a Showman,” Ken-
neth Grahame notes that “retirement and reminiscence are apt to trot in
harness together.”1 And while I have not yet retired, I have reached an age in
which many scholars make arrangements for collecting their works so that
they more easily can be accessed by others.2
Dr. David B. Weisberg was committed to scholarship in community. This
commitment motivated his decision to produce Leaders and Legacies. He
was intimately involved in the production of this book for three years but
was unable to complete the introduction before his death in early 2012. In
his mind, the introduction was to be an important contribution of this
book. His aspiration was to do more in this project than to assemble his
work.
The articles in this book were published between 1966 and 2009. This
collection does not include or refer to all of his reviews, presented papers,
or books. During this time, he served as a research associate at the Orien-
tal Institute at the University of Chicago (1965–1967), as Professor of
Bible and Semitic Languages at the Hebrew Union College–Jewish Insti-
tute of Religion, Cincinnati, (1967–2012), as an IREX fellow in St. Peters-
burg (1974), and as visiting professor at HUC–JIR Nelson Glueck School
of Biblical Archaeology, Jerusalem. Regarding his career he writes, “I am
pleased to express my debt to HUC for enabling me to lead a life of teach-
ing and writing.” He was deeply proud to be a part of the college-institute.
This collection represents the breadth of David Weisberg’s scholarship.
He arranged its contents into four sections: Political and Military History
and Ancient Royals, Texts and Legacies (in Assyriology, Bible, Masorah,
and Rabbinics), Social and Economic History, and Critical Self-Reflection.
He arrived at this division in 2010, and his notes from the preceding year
further describe how he summarized his work:
This collection of essays spanning the years 1966 to 2009 represents work
in three distinct areas, sometimes overlapping: Biblical Studies, particularly
the impact of Assyriology on Biblical Studies and the Masoretic text of the
1. London: J. M. Dent, 1910, p. v.
2. David Weisberg (1938–2012) penned these lines shortly after this book project
commenced.
vii
viii Preface
Hebrew Bible; Assyriology, especially the Neo-Babylonian period; and a
combination of both.
Dr. Weisberg viewed his fields of research as moving ahead with great
momentum. He sometimes quoted a former teacher who taught him that,
by the time your article comes into print, the field has already moved for-
ward. David Weisberg viewed this republication as an opportunity to com-
municate his appreciation to those who contributed to the progress in its
subject areas. If Leaders and Legacies could draw current and future schol-
ars into further research in these subjects with the same success that he
could draw his students into conversations about them, then his aspira-
tions for the book will be realized.
David Weisberg aspired to be as professional, collegial, and courteous
in his writing as he was in his personal life. He viewed people from pre-
modern societies with equal respect. He was wary of the notion that “we
moderns know better.” In his article, “Antiquarian Interests of the Neo-
Babylonian Kings,” he noted that even these ancient kings viewed them-
selves as custodians of much more ancient traditions. He believed that we
should endeavor to view ourselves in the same light, realizing that histori-
ans may someday consider us to be a “premodern” society. His first incli-
nation was to permit the ancient authors their voice and to accurately de-
scribe what they put into writing. He could quickly recognize errors of
various types, but was reluctant to suggest emendations. His respect for
ancient cultures (as well as those in antiquity or the middle ages) perme-
ated his teaching. This is reflected in the articles in this collection, such as
in his opening sentence in “An Old Babylonian Forerunner to Summa Alu.”
Dr. Weisberg acknowledged the community of scholars who preceded
him. In his notes for the introduction, he wrote: “Reflecting upon the
ideas in my lectures and writing through the years, I can often hear the
voices of my teachers. To them I owe a debt that cannot be repaid.” In the
classroom, office, library, or halls, he would share memories of his teach-
ers and colleagues. He relayed wisdom garnered from those in the Amer-
icas, England, Eastern and Western Europe, Egypt, Israel, and China. In
autumn 2011, David Weisberg began a list of his former teachers that he
might name in the introduction. The larger it became, the more he
doubted that such a list, if possible to complete, could aptly convey his
gratitude to all who invested in him. His readiness to mention those who
assisted him regularly occupies the first footnote in his articles.
Dr. Weisberg was determined to credit those who helped make this
book possible. Dr. Sung Duk Yun surveyed recent scholarship in the field
and how it interacts with the articles in this volume. Dr. Sherry Walton
Kingston consulted with Dr. Weisberg on matters involving the structure
Preface ix
of the book and contributed her diligent attention to details as an editor.
I was invited to write this preface in light of the discussions Dr. Weisberg
and I had as the project evolved. I revised the presentation of source ma-
terial in “Rare Accents of the Twenty-One Books,” and I assisted with the
editing, subject index, and abbreviations list.
David Weisberg especially wanted to express his gratitude to the He-
brew Union College for its generous support of this publication. He
wanted to thank a friend, Jim Eisenbraun, for his discernment, guidance,
and personal involvement in this project. He also wished to recognize the
editorial staff at Eisenbrauns. They ensured that even the smallest diacrit-
ics, cuneiform drawings, and accent marks were perfectly placed. The re-
sult of the combined effort of all who contributed to this book is that
many articles in their republished form are superior to the originals.
David Weisberg grew more excited about this project as he saw it accel-
erate toward completion. He regularly spoke about it with his wife and
children as the project developed. His family is dedicated to the best pos-
sible form of this book and has invited Dr. David Weisberg’s mentor and
dear friend, Dr. William W. Hallo, to contribute the included introduc-
tion. It is with their deep sense of pride that the Weisberg family wishes to
present this book.
Andrew C. Pfeiffer
Cincinnati, Ohio