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September 9, 2009
More Likely Irresponsible Speculation
Except for the last word which is mine, the JPS translates Leviticus 17:13,
And if any Israelite or any stranger who resides among them hunts down an animal or a bird that may be eaten, he shall pour out its blood and cover it with dust (בֶּאָפָר).
Might we understand this passage somewhat differently if something like this were part of our cultural heritage?
Dust of an abandoned town (epir âli nadî), dust of an abandoned house, dust of a abandoned temple (epir bît ili nadî), dusts of a abandoned grave, dust of dry (abandoned) river, (and?) dust of an abandoned road you shall gather together and mix with the blood of a bull (dām alpi). You shall make a figurine of an evil thing.
This little ditty is from the Akkadian ritual I've been worrying about. I'm not exactly sure of three things. First, it's far from obvious that anything like the construction of a figurine of dust and blood is part of the background of this or any other passage in the Hebrew Bible. While the commonality of the semantic ranges of Hebrew אָפָר and its Akkadian cognate, eperu, is very broad, is that great commonality enough that they would translate both semantically and cognitively one into the other in these two seemingly different contexts? I think they would but I'm not completely sure. Third, if making blood and dust figurines were culturally relevant, I'm still not sure how it would actually influence our understanding of the Leviticus passage (or a couple of others I'm thinking of). So for now this thought process must remain abnormal and irresponsible speculation. But it I can't be irresponsible on my own blog where can I be irresponsible or even abnormal.
Posted by Duane Smith at September 9, 2009 3:27 PM | Read more on Akkadian |
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