Hevel.org: A Chasing after Wind

Kevin has called for people to comment on the most important primary sources for understanding the Bible, and I’ve been tagged by Jim.  Today is my first day back in the office after 2 (count ‘em, two) weeks at the beach with my family, so I’m a little behind on everything.

It is impossible to say which are the truly most important because people approach the Bible with such different questions.  Rather than list broad things such as the Dead Sea Scrolls, I thought I would weigh in on the 5 most important extra-biblical texts for understanding ancient Israelite conceptions of the deity.  Given that this is a central issue in the Hebrew Bible, these have at least a claim to being among the most important primary texts in general.

Even given a narrow parameter, this is a difficult list to pare down.  I would have a different group if I were focused on the worship of the Israelite God, as there are many hymns, rituals, and divination texts that help us understand biblical worship.  And how can we separate theology from worship? There is also a group of texts that help us understand prophecy in the ancient world, itself intricately connected with conceptions of deity, including the Mari texts, and the story of Balaam from Deir ‘Alla.

Finally, I had a hard time choosing between the Enuma Elish and Atrahasis from the Mesopotamian context.  The Enuma Elish is more famous, but Atrahasis narrates more direct interaction between the divine and human realms, and covers many of the same creation topics addressed in the Enuma Elish (though not the theogonic aspects and cosmic aspects from the first half of the Enuma Elish).

Anyway, here goes.

1. Atrahasis (Mesopotamia).  This myth is a parallel of the biblical flood story, and is also contained to some degree within the larger tale of Gilgamesh.  In the story, the gods decide to wipe out the human population because they are being to rowdy.  They attempt a series of calamities such as famine and pestilence, but humanity is saved by the hints that the god Enki gives to his favorite human, Atrahasis.  The human is able to use the right rituals to head off the destruction.  Finally, the gods decide to try a flood, and Enki tells Atrahasis to build a boat so that he and his family may survive the deluge.  The story from here is rather similar to the biblical narrative in Genesis 6-9.  From a theological point of view, the myth raises the issue of divine reliability and the inherent difficulties that humans experience when suffering from divine caprice, and in dealing with their personal deities.
2. The Great Hymn to the Aten (Egypt).  Monotheism is the most striking theological idea in the Hebrew Bible, and it is largely unattested in the ancient world outside the Bible.  (Of course, monotheism itself is a developing concept even within the biblical tradition, as I’ll mention below.)  One of the few places where we see monotheistic theology is in the Egyptian cult of Aten during the time of Pharaoh Akhenaten.  The hymn expresses the Pharaoh’s adoration of the sun God Aten, the one deity who created all the world.  It is also reminiscent of the adoration of God with solar imagery in Psalm 104.
3. The Ba’lu Myth (Ugarit).  Early Israelite conceptions of God drew upon the two poles of the Canaanite pantheon: El and Baal.  El is the kindly king who dispenses blessing from the heights of his throne, while Baal is the storm God, the divine warrior who trods upon the earth in battle against chaos and death.  The Israelite God was arguable descended from El, but his earliest descriptions resonate with the vitality of Baal.  Consider the divine warrior imagery in Psalm 29, just for starters.
4. Texts and Drawings from Kuntillet Ajrud (Sinai Wilderness).  Along with some striking imagery, this 8th century site revealed curious texts that bestow blessing “by Yahweh and by his Asherah.”  There is a lot of debate about the meaning (indeed, even the translation) of these prayers and similar ones at Khirbet El-Qom, but one interpretation is that the (male) deity of Israel had a female consort, the Canaanite deity Asherah.  These texts, along with other material finds such as the Judean Pillar Figurines suggest that monotheism in ancient Israel was not fully developed as early as the Bible suggests.
5. Khirbet Beit Lei cave inscriptions (Judean Highlands).  There are not many strictly religious texts among Israelite inscriptions.   Two notable incriptions that resonate with biblical theology are the prayers from the Beit Lei cave and the “priestly blessing” on 6th century silver amulets from Ketef Hinnom, which contain a version of the blessing in Numbers 6:24-26.  One Beit Lei inscription reads: “Yahweh is the God of all the earth.  The mountains of Judah belong to the God of Jerusalem.”  This text shows the tension between emerging Israelite monotheism (God of all the earth) and the primary understanding of God as a tribal/national God dwelling in Jerusalem.