John Pairman Brown: Israel and Hellas. [I]

444 Pages·1995·13.381 MB·English

by  John Pairman Brown

John Pairman Brown
Israel and Hellas II
Beihefte zut Zeitschrift für die
alttestamentliche Wissenschaft
Herausgegeben von
Otto Kaiser
Band 276
W
DE
G
Walter de Gruyter · Berlin · New York
2000
John Pairman Brown
Israel and Hellas
Volume II
Sacred Institutions with Roman Counterparts
w
DE
_G
Walter de Gruyter · Berlin · New York
2000
® Printed on acid-free paper which falls within the guidelines of the ANSI
to ensure permanence and durability.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Brown, John Pairman.
Israel and Hellas / John Pairman Brown
p. cm. - (Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche
Wissenschaft ; Bd. 231)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 3-11-014233-3
1. Bible. O.T. - Extra-canonical parallels. 2. Bible. O.T. -
Comparative studies. 3. Greek literature - Relation to the Old
Testament. 4. Jews - Civilization - To 70 A.D. 5. Greece -
Civilization. I. Tide. II. Series.
BS410.Z5
[BS1171.2]
221.6 s-dc20
[880.9'4221] 95-34023
CIP
Die Deutsche Bibliothek - CIP-Einheitsaufnahme
[Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft / Beihefte]
Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft. —
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Reihe Beihefte zu: Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft
Brown, John Pairman:
Israel and Hellas / John Pairman Brown. - Berlin ; New York :
de Gruyter
(Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft ; ...)
Vol. 2. Sacred institutions with roman counterparts. - 2000
(Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft ; Bd.
276)
ISBN 3-11-016434-5
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AUTHOR'S PREFACE
It appears now that Israel and Hellas will extend to three volumes, and
this is the place to outline their contents. If (as I trust) BZAW 231 some
day requires reprinting, it will appear as "Israel and Hellas I: The
Vocabulary of Social Enterprises." The present volume is already
labelled "Israel and Hellas II: Sacred Institutions with Roman Coun-
terparts." The work is to be completed by "Israel and Hellas III: The
Legacy of Iranian Imperialism and the Individual"; my expectation is
for it also to appear in the series BZAW.
Those subtitles represent less an advance program than descriptions
after the fact: my work is not deductive, but inductive. All of the 24
projected chapters except four programmatic ones take up a theme
where I saw some connection between the societies of Israel and
Hellas, and work it out as thoroughly as I could. Texts which emerge
in one chapter are often utilized from a different viewpoint in another;
generalizations made in one context may be modified in another.
Repetitions are partly inadvertent, more often intentional. My stub-
born insistence on quoting and explaining parallel texts regularly leads
to further documentation; and that process, in principle endless, weaves
a net of connections among the chapters.
Volume I represents the work of a first decade, from the late 1960's
through the 1970's, when my ear was best attuned to the common
vocabulary of Hebrew and Greek, with other languages too. After the
programmatic Chapter 1, analyzing the novelty of the Israelite and
Hellenic city-state, eight more chapters on clusters of shared words all
turn out to cover international enterprises, with some parade examples
in Chapter 2: trade in spices and jewels, the combat-myth, the archi-
tecture of Babylon, the griffin as art-object. Then follow studies of the
tuna-fishery (Chap. 3), viticulture (Chap. 4), military matériel (Chap. 5),
the sacrificial cult (Chap. 6), the foreign woman (Chap. 7), the treaty
(Chap. 8, with minimal common vocabulary), and a gold-economy as
carrier of proverbs (Chap. 9).
In the 1980's, as my hearing dimmed, my eye turned towards sacred
institutions beyond the sacrificial cult with fewer new agreements in
VI AUTHOR'S PREFACE
vocabulary, where (as it turned out) the best parallels to Israel appear
less in Hellas than further West in the Etruscan-Roman world. Seven
chapters here, all revising published articles, appear as the first seven
on the list of 1.9, and stand roughly in the order of conception. Thus
(Chap. 10) the heart of the new emergent in Israel and Hellas is the
recognition of a God of justice; but a people's spokesman with sacral
immunity is clearest in the Roman tribunate. That High God (Chap.
11) was originally seen as responsible for the "elements," things falling
from the sky, where archaic beliefs are best preserved in Roman
augural practice. As "great king of the gods" (Chap. 12), the divinity
has a reflection in divine kingship; its functions are progressively
reduced in Athens, Rome and Carthage, until a new western imperial-
ism restores a divine monarchy in the Roman emperor. Excursus F on
Carthaginian proper names is my modest contribution to Punic stud-
ies. Chap. 13 on archery continues Chap. 5 of Vol. I on military
vocabulary; but now the arrow becomes the preferred symbol for the
lightning and snow of the High God. Chap. 14 studies an equivalent
to Siberian shamanism in the Mediterranean seer; and especially in
Circe, the "witch" of En-Dor, and the Sibyl with her final home at
Italian Cumae. In other sacred institutions, Near Eastern influence
nearly bypasses Hellas in favor of Italy: sacred space and time (Chap.
15) in the templum and saeculum; and (Chap. 16) the house or box
from which the military numen of the state goes out to engage the
enemy, and returns in "triumph."
As in Vol. I, the published articles have undergone heavy revision,
and can no longer be relied on for my conclusions. A final linguistic
analysis (Chap. 17) cross-classifies the vocabulary studied up to that
point by source-language rather than as originally by social enterprise;
here the Roman theme gives way to a summary of the linguistic results
in both Volumes I and II. An Appendix contains late supplements to
the materials of Vol. I as in its Appendix, easily accessible through the
full Indexes.
In the last decade of the outgoing century, the 1990's, I moved
ahead in time to chronicle the emergence of a new individualism when
autonomous cities were overrun by a succession of imperial states
deploying Iranian symbolism. As I project the studies of Vol. Ill, Chap.
18, "The Double Laws of Human Nature," traces the development
from Hesiod to Jesus (with Israelite parallels throughout) under Simone
Weil's rubrics of Gravity and Grace. Chap. 19, "Blessedness in Better
Lands," records the dawning need under individualism for an antidote
to death. The force which destroyed civic solidarity and fostered indi-
vidualism appears in Chapter 20, "Iranian Imperialism and the Rebel
AUTHOR'S PREFACE VII
Victim," with a new infusion of common Persian vocabulary; Iranian
legacy to the following empires is discussed, leading on to the arche-
typal figures Prometheus, the Suffering Servant, Jesus. The most endur-
ing Iranian motif is studied up to our own days in Chap. 21, "Paradise
and the Forest of Lebanon," with environmental considerations.
After all those pages of comparison, a study of contrasts was needed,
in the programmatic Chap. 22, "Complementarity of Israel and Hellas";
their difference appears in that Israel stands just inside the Ancient
Near Eastern empires, Hellas just outside. Something had then to be
said about their confluence in the New Testament. The long Chap. 23,
"The Vocabulary of Jesus' Aramaic," boldly reconstructs his original
words in view of the vast Rabbinic and Syriac loan-vocabulary; and
finds deposits among them of four successive imperial languages—
Akkadian, Iranian, Greek and Latin. A final summary Chap. 24,
perhaps to be called "From Particularity to Universalism," summarizes
the whole historical development as I would have put it at the begin-
ning, if I had known it then.
All along I have wanted to accompany these linguistic parallels with
corresponding art-works. That need is partly filled by the paper "Im-
ages and their Names" (see the Bibliography), for whose commission-
ing and publication (along with a wonderful week in Delphi) I thank
the kindness of Tel Aviv University and the generosity of Howard
Gilman. The twenty comparative illustrations there (with reference by
title to many more) already mark a step beyond the present volumes
which is not duplicated in them.
Once again I owe my best thanks to Prof. Otto Kaiser at Marburg,
approaching the three-quarter century mark that I have just passed, for
nominating Vol. II to appear in the series "BZAW," and offering hopes
for a Vol. Ill; as equally to the staff of Walter de Gruyter, in particular
Hasko von Bassi and Klaus Otterburig. Annelies Aurich and Peter
Franzkowiak have coordinated work at the Press. I am sure readers
will enjoy the improved Greek font and the fore-and-aft quotation
marks "...".
The precious holdings of the University of California at Berkeley
have been kept accessible through a large seismic retrofit. My depend-
ence on the Flora Lamson Hewlett Library at the Graduate Theological
Union since its founding has been crowned by my being named Chair
of its Friends. Dean Margaret Miles at the Union provided support just
when it was most needed. Emily has constantly urged me to let the
story-line run smooth. Saul Levin at Binghamton has seen most of
these materials at one stage or another; when he recently had a health
setback, I undertook not to forward him further proofs. I send out this
Vili AUTHOR'S PREFACE
Preface with a wish for his speedy restoration to full health, so as to
bring his enormous linguistic labor to a fit conclusion.
Readers should note the Errata to Vol. I listed below; I regret
especially the errors, detected and (I am sure) undetected, in the In-
dexes. Up until the last moment I continued to make changes in the
proofs of Vol. II and find errata; I am confident that these complex
pages continue to hold lurking residual errors, for which I proudly
make the duffer's claim to originality.
I here express my warm appreciation to reviewers of Vol. I, in
Biblical, Classical and Oriental journals on four continents; in particu-
lar, those to whom (as I understand) no review copy was sent. I am
especially indebted to the careful critique by E. Lipinski in OLP 27
(1996) 240-243, which I have here partly accepted, partly answered.
M. L. West kindly revised his East Face of Helicon in view of my work,
and in the same year reviewed it in CR 47 (1997) 111-112. He
reproved my rashness in claiming to have produced "the very first
work to compare at length classical Hebrew and Greek texts" by
unearthing the book of the Oxford scholar Zachary Bogan (1658)—no
copy of which however (I can say in extenuation) seems to have
crossed the Atlantic.
Reviewers made requests which I can fulfil only in part. One asks
"which Israel is being compared with which Greece?" I enter dates for
historical events, and for art-objects when they permit it. So far as
Greek and Latin authors after Homer are under no suspicion of inter-
polation, their times stand in the manuals. But I find myself unable to
break down the Hebrew Bible into documents other than those trans-
mitted to us, or to date most of its segments (actual or surmised) within
centuries either way. My comparisons are equally valid in whichever
direction the influences flow, and rest on no one theory of Biblical
composition.
Other reviewers asked for a fuller bibliography. But I felt that the
reader had no need for a long list of works cited once or twice for
particular points across the whole realm of ancient scholarship. More
useful should prove Index 4 (of both volumes), which lets the user find
where a given author is quoted. I further confess that I have not read
a number of works which propose general connections across the
Mediterranean. More are cited in West's big book. What I know is
what you see. I hope that my limitations will encourage others to mine
the history of scholarship more thoroughly.
Finally, several reviewers asked for fuller treatment of the proposed
common vocabulary. My response is Chap. 17, where general princi-
ples are less set down in advance than put together step by step from
AUTHOR'S PREFACE IX
parallels which intrinsically commend themselves. My modest aim
throughout is simply to display parallels between the Semitic and
Greco-Roman worlds, whether in language or content. Where I find a
plausible route of transmission I note it, with the proviso that the
parallel remains, regardless of interpretation. Other parallels I merely
record, in the expectation that somebody more learned, clever or
venturesome than myself will discover the connecting link.
In Chapter 17 1 also discuss new works of three authors that have
appeared since Volume I: Moshe Weinfeld, Martin L. West ("EFH"),
and Saul Levin ("SIE"). I refer to other new works as relevant:
Margalith's Sea Peoples; Drews' Bronze Age; Lipinski's Dieux et
Déesses; Bryce's Kingdom of the Hittites. Several new works of refer-
ence have rendered blocks of material more easily available: Palmyrene
texts for the first time have been gathered by Hillers & Cussini (PAT);
the second edition of the Ugaritic texts (KTU) is more legible and
convenient than the first, while kept under the same siglum; the revised
Supplement to the Greek lexicon (LSJSup) by Glare is most welcome;
the third edition of the Oxford Classical Dictionary (OCD3) is a great
step forward; the old lexicon of alphabetic Semitic (DISO) has been
replaced by DNWSI, even though its unparagraphed entries are hard
to read. I add two reference works on novel principles: the Dictionary
of Deities and Demons in the Bible (DDD); and the beautiful and near-
exhaustive Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC),
now complete.
In revising the present volume I am acutely aware of all the studies
of Roman antiquities that I have not read. My discussions would be
even more off the mark apart from two works: Ogilvie's commentary
on Livy 1-5, and Cornell's Beginnings of Rome. Anyway, my compari-
sons are not between what I or others conclude to have been the
historic institutions of Israel or Rome, but between what is said about
them in our texts. On p. 100 I now realize that I am perpetuating the
stereotype "Athenian democracy vs. Roman oligarchy" undermined by
several recent works; but there was no easy way to correct my expres-
sion on the proofs.
Like many others, I am fully convinced that no discipline is more
necessary in facing the multiform perplexing problems of the contem-
porary world than a sympathetic reading of books written long ago in
Hebrew and Greek (with Latin the foster child of Greek) as records of
a newly emergent free humanity. And then the obvious first task is to
find out how those literatures relate to each other. I am surprised that
hardly anybody has seen that task before, and bemused at the provi-
dential course of events by which it was laid on me. I urge English-
χ AUTHOR'S PREFACE
speaking classical scholars to regard the excellence of the King James
Version as pointing to an even greater original; and Biblical scholars
who did not start their Greek with Homer to go back to him. I am
conscious of swimming against the tide in my reservations about the
permanent value of Akkadian and Egyptian texts, including Gilgamesh;
here is one more unfinished task. As faiths come closer together, it has
been a great pleasure to indicate also a few areas where Western books
run parallel to the Vedas, the Avesta, the Dhammapada, and the
Quran; I have taken only the smallest steps in directions where long
marches are imperative.
I regret, and do not regret, the fact that the Hebrew and Greek (with
Arabic!) fonts in these volumes limit their readership. I believe that
some of the connections which I have been lucky enough to discover
are of basic importance for our understanding of our world and of
ourselves. But they rest in large part on the actual pronunciation of
those old languages; and a novel phonetic scheme would have alien-
ated classical and Biblical readers without adding new ones. I dream
about an haute vulgarisation (illustrated?!) by which these results
could be made available to any reader of English; but I remain per-
suaded that they could have been first reached only by some such
method as the present one. I hereby turn them over free and clear to
anybody that can make better use of them.
Postscript.The preparation of the General Index revealed to me that
the primary theme of this volume is the attributes of the High God. A
look at that entry will outline the topics treated. I repeat, once again
I have found no way fully to verify the accuracy of all the Indexes...
October 4, 1999