MEMORIES OF BALAAM: TRANSLATABILITY OF A RELIGIOUS SPECIALIST IN ANCIENT ISRAEL ...

192 Pages·2015·1.66 MB·English

MEMORIES OF BALAAM:
TRANSLATABILITY OF A RELIGIOUS SPECIALIST IN ANCIENT ISRAEL
by
RYAN D. SCHROEDER
A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF
THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS
in
THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES
Master of Arts in Biblical Studies
We accept this thesis as conforming to the required standard
..........................................................................................
Dr. Craig C. Broyles, Ph.D.; Thesis Supervisor
..........................................................................................
Dr. Dirk L. Büchner, D.Litt.; Second Reader
TRINITY WESTERN UNIVERSITY
August 2015
© Ryan D. Schroeder
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BSTRACT
Scholars have employed the biblical Balaam traditions both in the defense of and in
opposition to Jan Assmann’s assertion that early Israel rejected cross-cultural religious
translatability. The Hebrew Bible’s diverse portrayals of Balaam have long stimulated scholarly,
literary-critical analysis. Also, the Deir ʿAlla inscription provides an intriguing extra-biblical
glimpse of this enigmatic character. In this study, I discern how these early depictions of Balaam
reflect socially shaped and shared memories of Balaam as a foreign religious specialist who
participated in Israel’s past. I argue that early memories of Balaam suggest his warm reception
among Yhwh worshipping Israelites in spite of his foreign status. However, later guardians of
Israel’s written traditions came to remember and write about Balaam as a diviner whose role in
Israel’s past primarily served to demonstrate the dangers of non-Israelites and their abominable
religious practices.
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CKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I offer my appreciation to the faculty of the Religious Studies Department at Trinity
Western University. Martin Abegg introduced me to the MA in Biblical Studies program, both
informally and formally. An impromptu meeting with Prof. Abegg in the Fall of 2013 turned out
to be a crucial factor in my decision to pursue biblical studies rather than linguistics and Bible
translation, for which I had originally come to the TWU campus. Also, Prof. Abegg introduced
me to the Scrolls, the importance of which–for understanding ancient scribal culture and the
Second Temple period–I am only beginning to comprehend.
My thesis supervisor, Craig Broyles, has opened up for me new approaches to the
Hebrew Bible; he taught me to view it as the product of real people who were trying to make
sense of their diverse experiences in history–specifically, in the history of the ancient Near East.
I thank Prof. Broyles for that, and for his interest in and input into my work; he also gave up
much of his summers to guide me both into the Ugaritic language (2014) and through the
production of this thesis (2015).
In addition to his comments on my work, my second reader, Dirk Büchner, has shared his
time reading Hebrew with me and others. As it turns out, he is a terrific travel companion as
well!–I am grateful for his conversation and friendship. I presented components of my thesis this
year at the Pacific Northwest Region SBL meeting and the annual CSBS meeting; I thank those
present who gave feedback regarding my work in its early stages.
To my wife, Kerry, I owe the deepest gratitude. Her companionship and tolerance (and
cooking!) made it possible for me to put in the hours necessarily for the completion not only of
this project, but of the MA program itself. I dedicate this thesis–such as it is–to her.
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C
ONTENTS
ABSTRACT...............................................................................................................................ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.............................................................................................................iii
CONTENTS..............................................................................................................................iv
ABBREVIATIONS......................................................................................................................vi
INTRODUCTION: FRAMING THE QUESTION................................................................................1
Religious Conflict and Counter-Religion...........................................................................3
Translatability and Ancient Israel......................................................................................5
CHAPTER 1: THE BALAAM TRADITIONS IN THE HEBREW BIBLE AND AT TELL DEIR ʿALLA.....11
The Inscription from Tell Deir ʿAlla...............................................................................11
I. Literary Content........................................................................................................13
II. Authorship................................................................................................................17
The Balaam Pericope: Numbers 22-24..........................................................................21
I. Text-Critical Issues....................................................................................................22
II. Literary-Critical Issues............................................................................................23
II.I Source-Critical Approaches................................................................................25
II.II Alternative Approaches.....................................................................................31
The Rest of the Hebrew Bible: Tradition and Literary History.....................................48
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................59
CHAPTER 2: BALAAM AS A RELIGIOUS SPECIALIST IN THE HEBREW BIBLE.............................61
Balaam as a Religious Specialist....................................................................................61
I. Lester Grabbe and The Classification of Religious Specialists in Ancient Israel....64
II. Max Weber’s Religious Specialists and Balaam the “Roeh”..................................67
III. Emic Approaches....................................................................................................72
IV. Michael S. Moore’s The Balaam Traditions............................................................74
V. Scribal Constructs of Religious Specialists..............................................................78
What Kind of Religious Speicalist is Balaam?...............................................................80
I. A Diviner?.................................................................................................................80
I.I Curse Practitioner?..............................................................................................83
I.II A Baru?...............................................................................................................87
II. An Ecstatic?.............................................................................................................91
II.I A Seer/Dreamer?.................................................................................................94
II.II An Āpilum?........................................................................................................96
III. A Prophet?..............................................................................................................98
IV. Summary................................................................................................................101
The Need to Recognize the Amalgam...........................................................................102
I. Mutual Exclusivity and Prophecy as Divination.....................................................102
II. Balaam’s “Conversion” and Balaam the Yahweh Devotee...................................105
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................108
CHAPTER 3: SCRIBAL MEMORY AND WRITTEN TRADITION ..................................................110
I. Social Memory, Scribal Memory.............................................................................110
II. Communicative Memory, Cultural Memory, and Written Commemoration..........112
III. Scribal Memory and Text Revision.......................................................................115
IV. Tradition Invention and Transmission and Mnemonic Drift.................................119
CHAPTER 4: BALAAM REMEMBERED IN ANCIENT ISRAEL.....................................................128
I. Balaam’s Abode.......................................................................................................129
II. Yhwh or El et al? Religious Conversion................................................................137
II.I El.......................................................................................................................138
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II.II Elyon................................................................................................................142
II.III Shadday..........................................................................................................144
III. Temporal Relocation and Narrative Transposition..............................................149
Summary........................................................................................................................152
Balaam and the Deuteronomistic (and Priestly[?]) Ideology......................................152
I. Anti-eulogy in Numbers 31 and Joshua 13 ............................................................153
II. Deuteronomy 18.....................................................................................................155
III. Selective Recall in Joshua 24:9-10 and Deuteronomy 23:4-5//Neh 13:1-3.........158
IV. The Other and Nehemiah 13.................................................................................161
V. A Mouthpiece of Yhwh............................................................................................163
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................165
CONCLUSION........................................................................................................................166
BIBLIOGRAPHY.....................................................................................................................174
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BBREVIATIONS
ÄAT Ägypten und Altes Testament
ABD Anchor Bible Dictionary. Edited by D. N. Freedman. 6 vols. New York, 1992
AF African Music
AIL Ancient Israel and Its Literature
ANEP The Ancient Near Eastern in Pictures Relating to the Old Testament. Edited by
J. B, Pritchard. 2d ed. Princeton, 1969
ANEM Ancient Near East Monographs
ANET Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament. Edited by J. B.
Pritchard. 2d ed. Princeton, 1969
AOAT Alter Orient und Altes Testament
ARM Archives Royales de Mari. Paris, 1950ff.
ASR American Sociological Review
ATM Altes Testament und Moderne
AUSS Andrews University Seminary Studies
BA The Biblical Archaeologist
BASOR Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research
BDB Enhanced Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon. Edited by
Brown, Francis, Samuel Rolles Driver, and Charles Augustus Briggs. Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1977
BETL Bibliotheca ephemeridum theologicarum lovaniensium
BHS Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia. Edited by K. Elliger and W.
Rudolph. Stuttgart, 1983
BI Biblical Intersections
BibInt Biblical Interpretation
BJS Brown Judaic Series
BR Biblical Research
BTDAR The Balaam Text from Deir ʿAlla Re-evaluated: Proceedings of the
International Symposium Held at Leiden, 21–24 August 1989. Edited by J.
Hoftijzer and G. van der Kooij. Leiden: Brill, 1991
BZAW Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft
CAL Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon Project (Online)
CAT Die keilalphabetischen Texte aus Ugarit. Edited by M. Dietrich, O. Loretz,
and J. Sanmartín. AOAT 24/1. Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1976. 2d enlarged ed. of
KTU: The Cuneiform Alphabetic Texts from Ugarit, Ras Ibn Hani, and Other
Places. Edited by M. Dietrich, O. Loretz, and J. Sanmartín. Münster, 1995
(=KTU)
CBC The Cambridge Bible Commentary
CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly
COS The Context of Scripture. Edited by W. W. Hallo. 3 vols. Leiden, 1997–2003
CT Cuneiform Texts from Babylonian Tablets in the British Museum
DCH Dictionary of Classical Hebrew
DDD Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible. Edited by K. van
der Toorn, B. Becking, and P. W. van der Horst. Leiden, 1995
DJD Discoveries in the Judaean Desert
DMOA Documenta et Monumenta Orientis Antiqui
ESHM European Seminar in Historical Methodology
ESV English Standard Version
ETL Ephemerides theologicae lovanienses
FAT Forschungen zum Alten Testament
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HALOT The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament. Edited by Koehler, L., W.
Baumgartner, and J. J. Stamm. Translated and edited under the supervision of M. E. J.
Richardson. 4 vols. Leiden, 1994–1999
HR History of Religions
HS Hebrew Studies
HSM Harvard Semitic Monographs
HUCA Hebrew Union College Annual
JAOS Journal of the American Oriental Society
JBL Journal Of Biblical Literature
JBS Jerusalem Biblical Studies
JSOT Journal For The Study Of The Old Testament
JSOTSup Journal for the Study of the Old Testament: Supplement Series
KJV King James Version
LHBOTS Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies
NET New English Translation
NETS A New English Translation of the Septuagint and the Other Greek Translations
Traditionally inculded under that Title. Edited by Albert Pietersma and
Benjamin G. Wright. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007
NIV New International Version
NLT New Living Translation
NRSV New Revised Standard Version
Numen Numen: International Review for the History of Religions
PEQ Palestine Exploration Quarterly
QMHSS Quantitative Methods in the Humanities and Social Sciences
RGRW Religions in the Graeco-Roman World
RSV Revised Standard Version
SANT Studien zum Alten und Neuen Testaments
SBLDS Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series
SBLEJL Society of Biblical Literature Early Judaism and Its Literature
SBLWAW Society of Biblical Literature Writings from the Ancient World
SemeiaSt Semeia Studies
SOTS Society for Old Testament Study
TBN Themes in Biblical Narrative
VT Vetus Testamentum
VTSup Supplements to Vetus Testamentum
WO Die Welt des Orients
WBC Word Biblical Commentary
ZAW Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft
c. circa (about)
D Deuteronomic source
DAPT Deir ‘Alla Plaster Text(s)
Dtr Deuteronomist(ic)
E The Elohist/“Elohistic” source
HB Hebrew Bible
J The Yahwist/“Yahwistic” source
LXX The “Septuagint”/Old Greek Translation (Göttingen, unless otherwise noted)
MT Masoretic Text/Tradition
P A/the preistly writer/“Priestly” source
SP The Samaritan Pentateuch
T The “Transjordanian” source
Schroeder MA Thesis 2015 TWU 1
I : F Q
NTRODUCTION RAMING THE UESTION
In Moses the Egyptian, Egyptologist Jan Assmann articulates a concept of intercultural
religious translatability, especially as a predominant religious phenomenon in the ancient Near
East and Mediterranean. Assmann explains that unlike “tribal” religions, which primarily
venerate local and minimally defined entities such as ancestral spirits, the polytheistic religions
of the ancient Near East conceptualized deities on a cosmic and universal scale.1
[I]n the context of “high-cultural” polytheisms the deities are clearly differentiated and personalized
by name, shape, and function. The great achievement of polytheism is the articulation of a common
semantic universe.2
This “common semantic universe” results from the association of deities with universal human
experiences, such as birth, death, and the rising sun. Because divine beings were intrinsically tied
to the workings of nature, different polytheistic societies could readily identify each other’s
deities on the basis of the deities’ common functions. Already John Wilson had observed that
“[i]n early history the Egyptians had identified foreign gods with their own deities, so that the
goddess of Byblos was Hat-Hor to them and variousAsiatic gods were Seth to them.”3Although
deities of various cultures hold different names and forms, their
functions are strikingly similar, especially in the case of cosmic deities; and most deities had a
cosmicfunction.Thesungodofonereligioniseasilyequatedtothesungodofanotherreligion,and
so forth. Because of their functional equivalence, deities of different religions can be equated.4
For example, ritual texts discovered at the Late BronzeAge city-state of Ugarit equate the West-
Semitic deity Shapshu with the Sumerian deity Utu, because both are solar deities.5 Deities were
1. Jan Assmann, Moses the Egyptian: The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1997), 45-46: “The polytheistic religions of the ancient Near East and Ancient Egypt represent
highly developed cultural achievements that are inseparably linked to the political organization of the early state and
are not to be found in tribal societies. . . .this insight [cross-cultural translatability of deities] must be reckoned
among the major cultural achievements of the Ancient World.”
2. Ibid., 45.
3. John Wilson, “The Egyptians and the Gods of Asia,” pages 249-250 in Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to
the Old Testament (3rd edition, with supplement; ed. James B. Pritchard; Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1969), 249.
4. Assmann, Moses the Egyptian, 3.
5. Mark S. Smith, God in Translation, 45-46; this example comes from a comparison of deity lists discovered at
Ugarit, in which Ugaritic špš is equated with syllabic dUTU, representative of the Sumero-Akkadian sun-deity Utu.
Schroeder MA Thesis 2015 TWU 2
conceptualized in terms of or with reference to their roles in the proper ordering of the cosmos,6
which opened the possibility of translation of pantheon members from one language into another.
As Assmann puts it, “[t]he name does not matter when it is evident what or who is meant.”7
Because of their intrinsic connections to universal human experiences of nature, ancient
polytheisms possessed an international character. “Cosmotheism” (Assmann’s term) allowed for
adherents to recognize in foreign lands the deities worshipped at home. The deity of one nation
was equatable with a deity in another because of their common cosmic function. Cosmotheism
held profound implications for ancient Near Eastern politics; whatever conflict arose between
cosmotheistic neighbours, Assmann maintains, religion was not the source of that conflict. On
the contrary, cosmotheism facilitated a degree of ecumenism between competing empires. Mark
Smith notes various aspects of translatability in Late BronzeAge political treaties and discusses
as an example the Hittite-Egyptian peace treaty, established between Hattusili III and Ramesses
II c. 1269 BCE.8 The treaty is extant in both the Akkadian and Egyptian languages; and thus
offers a picture of linguistic and cultural translation between major BronzeAge political powers.
In the Egyptian version, several Hittite deities are invoked but with Egyptian names; so “Re of
the town of Arinna” appears in a list of divine witnesses to the treaty. Re, of course, is the
Egyptian solar deity, but the town of Arinna is the cultic centre of the Hittite solar deity. Thus,
religious translatability supported intercultural political agreement. Shared religious sentiments
were not the decisive elements in the formation of such treaties, but a sense of religious
translatability aided in the process. InAssmann’s words, “[t]he cultures, languages, and customs
Dennis Pardee presents the lists in parallel columns and discusses their ritual nature in Ritual and Cult at Ugarit
(Theodore J. Lewis, ed.; SBLWAW 10; Atlanta: Scholars, 2002), 11-16. Assmann offers a similar example from the
third millennium BCE: “the explanatory list Anu ša Ameli which contains three columns, the first giving the
Sumerian names, the second the Akkadian names, and the third the functional definition of the deity,” Moses the
Egyptian, 46.
6. Ibid., 3.
7. Ibid., 53.
8. Smith, God in Translation, 51. For a translation of the Egyptian text of the treaty, see ANET 199-203; and for a
translation of the Akkadian copies, see Gary Beckman, Hittite Diplomatic Texts (ed. Harry A. Hoffner, Jr.; SBLWAW
7; Atlanta: Scholars, 1996), 90-95.
Schroeder MA Thesis 2015 TWU 3
may have been as different as ever: the religions always had a common ground.”9 Although
religious translatability did not guarantee amiable intercultural relations, this phenomenon
nevertheless served as a catalyst for dialogue between diverse societies in the ancient world.
Religious Conflict and Counter-Religion
Not every society in the ancient Near East shared a cosmotheistic worldview, and
Assmann’s objective in Moses the Egyptian is to explore the distinction that was made (and
continues to be made) between true and false religion.While such a distinction contributes to the
construction of cultural and religious identities, Assmann alleges that it also tends to generate
religious intolerance, hostility, and conflict.The outlook that differentiates between true and false
religion sharply contrasts the ancient polytheisms that allowed for–even generated–religious
tolerance because of translatability of deities. Assmann calls this true religion/false religion
dichotomy the “Mosaic distinction,” since it is characteristic of the law and religion of Moses
described in the Hebrew Bible (HB).
Assmann suggests that the first religious conflict in recorded human history arose from
the “Mosaic distinction,” though not in fact among the ancient Israelites, but rather in Egypt with
the monotheistic revolution of Pharaoh Amenophis IV, or Akhenaten, in the fourteenth century
BCE. Akhenaten “abolished the cults and idols of Egyptian polytheism and established a purely
monotheistic worship of a new god of light, whom he called “Aton.””10 Assmann calls the
implementation of the distinction a “counter-religion,” since “it rejects and repudiates everything
that went before and what is outside itself as “paganism.””11 In the case ofAkhenaten’sAmarna
religion, explains Assmann, true religion necessitated the dissolution of previously established
religious rites and festivals. Akhenaten’s iconoclasm ultimately failed to take hold in ancient
9. Assmann, Moses the Egyptian, 3.
10. Ibid., 23.
11. Ibid., 3.