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July 22, 2008

Ad Hoc Rituals for Canonical Gods?

Jim Getz has an abnormally interesting post on the Ugaritic ritual texts. At the end of his post, he asks a couple of significant programmatic questions that deserve a lot of study and thought. These questions rest on two equally important observations. First,

As best as can be discerned, the ritual texts at Ugarit are not canonical. There was no extensive editorial process of native self-selection that brought these texts together into an authoritative corpus of ancient Ugaritic life. Rather, these are simply the texts that have survived.

And, second, there was a canonical list of gods to whom sacrifices were offered at Ugarit. Go read Jim's whole post at Ketuvim. The questions he raises are abnormally interesting.

I also find it interesting, based on the lack of multiple copies, that the preserved Ugaritic myths and epics do not seem to be canonical in much the same way that the rituals are not canonical. In the case of this literature, some of this may relate to specific scribal traditions and training procedures. I wrote a little about how this might work and about van Soldt's ideas in one of my now ancient posts on identifying scribal schools. If you take the link, the discussion is under the heading "The Role of Literature in Scribal Training," about half way down the post. van Soldt suggested that oral tradition within the scribal community resulted in the written mythic and epic material at Ugarit. This process may have been part of scribal training. A similar process may be at work with the ritual material. But, if so, different goals and priestly rather than scribal considerations must have driven the process.

Reference:

van Soldt, W. H., "Babylonian Lexical, Religious and Literary Texts, and Scribal Education at Ugarit and its Implications for the Alphabetic Literary Texts," Ugarit: ein ostmediterranes Kulturzentrum in Alten Orient: Ergebnisse und Perspektiven der Forshung, Dietrich and Loretz eds., Abhandlungen zur Literatur Alt-Syrien-Palästinas; Bd. 7, Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 1995, 171-212

Posted by Duane Smith at July 22, 2008 7:37 PM | Read more on Ugarit |

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Comments

There are certain elements that are standard among polytheistic religious sites. One is the need for a supplicant to choose which god. As I commented to Jim Getz, the lists of gods undoubtedly had that function. Choose your god. In fact, that's what is so amusing about the Zoilos Inscription from Tel-Dan. In my mind's eye I can see an officious priestly scribe starting right off to write "theos" and only after writing "the" asking the name of the god. Oops! Incredulous response: "No name"???? The other point is rites will vary according to the choice of god. Not really much mystery here. I rather doubt that it has much to do with canonicity and more to do with the supplicant's choice of god or gods.

1.For Zoilos, see: http://orion.mscc.huji.ac.il/symposiums/programs/Altman/Altman00.shtml

Posted by: Rochelle Altman at July 22, 2008 11:49 PM

Rochelle,

Several of the rituals do seem to be motivated by individuals. Even those that are clearly event driven could well be understood as motivated by individuals. But others are quite clearly calendar driven. Those seem motivated the concerns of the priests or perhaps the state. Of course, the king is an individual.

A text like KTU 1.148 makes it virtually certain that the canonical gods list not only lists the gods that one should sacrificed to but also the order in which they should be venerated.

Your reference to the Zoilos Votive Inscription is indeed interesting as you say amusing. Thanks.

Posted by: Duane at July 23, 2008 8:45 AM

Duane,

Polytheistic religions had different rituals, wording, and types of sacrifices depending upon which god. Certainly the Romans, for instance, had these lists indicating what sacrifices and the wording. Did the rituals at Ugarit follow a canonical order as you state appears in KTU 1.148? Undoubtedly. Was there was an overarching calender order? They all had that in some form or another. The primary point, calendar or not, is that the types of sacrifices and the wording in the approach to a god varied with each god.

That's what I mean by no mystery tied to the variants JG brings up. It's SOP in polytheism.

I'm glad you found the Zoilos amusing -- I sure do.

Posted by: rochelle altman at July 23, 2008 11:22 AM

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