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August 17, 2006
Always Read the Notes: Foot or End
I always look at the notes. I'm kind of old fashioned and I wish every note was a footnote. Joseph Naveh, buried this gem in an endnote,
I wonder whether all the abecedaries written in antiquity on various objects should be explained as works of students practicing their lessons. Can it be that at least some of them - perhaps those which were written on jars (i.e. from ‛Ajrud, Kadesh Barnea, Shiqmona and Sarepta) - had a magic connotation? [Naveh, 30, n. 13]
Now, I suspect that Naveh was not the first one to have this worry and I know he was not the last. His curiosity stemmed from his discussion of the second ‛Ajrud pithos inscription, which contains one of those famous references to Yahweh and his Asherah but it also has two abecedaries as well as some iconography. Naveh (29) notes the parallel with the Sarepta ostracon, which has a partial abecedary and what may be a formulaic beginning of a letter. I mentioned this ostracon in an earlier post. But now I'm wondering if this formula is not an introductory formula to a blessing (see Naveh, 28). More on this later.
While I don't think the majority of the abecedaries from Ugarit fall into the "magic" category, some may. A magical or votive interpretation may also be justified in the cases of the Beth Shemesh Tablet (KTU 5.24) (as hinted at by Sass, 318, among others) and the Tel Zayit inscription, neither of which were written on jars.
The real message is that one should not read, for example, Lemaire's fairly consistent understanding of abecedaries as signs of teaching activity uncritically. The likelihood that any given abecedary is a school text must be decided on a case-by-case basis.
Note: While a lively discussion of the relationship between the iconography and writing on the ‛Ajrud pithoi will no doubt continue for some time, Mastin has recently shown that any thought that the inscriptions and drawings where composed after the pithoi were broken is not sustainable on the current evidence.
References:
Lamaire, André, Les Écoles et la Formation de la Bible dans l'Ancien Israël, Suisse: Editions Universitaires, 1981
Lamaire, André, "Sagesse et ecoles," Vetus Testamentum, 34:3 (July) , 1984, 270-281
Mastin, B. A., "A Note on Some Inscriptions and Drawings from Kuntillet ‛Ajrud, " Palestine Explorations Quarterly, 137, 2005, 31-32
Naveh, Joseph, "Graffiti and Dedications," Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 235, (summer), 1979, 27-30
Sass, Benjamin, "The Beth Shemesh Tablet and the Early History of the Proto-Canaanite, Cuneiform and South Semitic Alphabets," Ugarit Forschungen 23, Münster: Verlag Butzon and Bercher Keverlaer, 1991, 315–326
Posted by Duane Smith at August 17, 2006 7:01 PM | Read more on Scribal Schools |
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Comments
What would the "magical" function of an alphabet likely be?
Posted by: Christopher Heard at August 17, 2006 9:04 PM
Chris,
Perhaps Sass' word "votive" is better than "magical." But of course, that evades your question. I have some purely random thoughts on your question but for now they are more in the form of a set of questions than a set of answers. What is it about a "votive jar" that makes it votive except that certain forms are only found in tombs or in the context of worship? What make certain words magical? For example, I am thinking of "Amen, Amen, Amen" that sometimes occurs on late Aramaic "magical bowls." Examples could be multiplied. Of the Beth Shemesh abecedary, one wonders why it is written around the edge of a very flat tablet with nothing in the middle. Many scholars who have studied it directly think it was stamped. And Sass and others have noted its "ax" shape. When you start asking why, teaching the alphabet does not seem to be the only answer. Likewise, what is the purpose of the graphics and writing on the ‛Ajrud pithio. To be sure, some have seen every part of it, including the graphics, as the work of students. But it's hard for me not to believe that some or all of it didn't have the exact purpose that at least some of the text quite clearly indicates, to give a blessing in YHWH's name and therefore seek YHWH's support for that blessing. If I understand Naveh's point, he is asking if the abecedaries might be part of the same process. To be sure, they are not in line with the blessing stuff but as far as I can tell they are nearby.
If only we could determine the Sitz im Leben. And the more one looks at things like the Beth Shemesh abecedary or the ‛Ajrud pithio the less certain on is that the Sitz im Leben is education.
I do worry that saying something is "magical" or "votive" can sometimes be a default explanation for ignorance.
I hope I can have something more coherent to say about this later.
Posted by: Duane at August 17, 2006 9:45 PM
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