Prophets and Prophecy in the Ancient Near East (Translations)
Overview
Prophecy was a widespread phenomenon, not only in ancient Israel but in the ancient Near East as a whole. This is the first book to gather the available ancient Near Eastern, extrabiblical sources containing prophetic words or references to prophetic activities. Among the 140 texts included in this volume are oracles of prophets, personal letters, formal inscriptions, and administrative documents from ancient Mesopotamia and Levant from the second and first millennia BCE. Most of the texts come from Mari (eighteenth century BCE) and Assyria (seventh century BCE). In addition, new translations of the relevant section of the Egyptian Report of Wenamon are provided by Robert K. Ritner, and C. L. Seow offers various texts from Syria-Palestine containing allusions to prophets and prophetic activities. By collecting and presenting evidence of the activities of prophets and the phenomenon of prophecy from all over the ancient Near East, the volume illumines the cultural background of biblical prophecy and its parallels. Scholars of the history, religions, and cultural traditions of the ancient Near East are given important information about different types and forms of transmission of divine words. These valuable primary source materials are made accessible in contemporary English, along with transcriptions of the original languages, indexes, and an extensive bibliography.
Top Highlights
“Prophecy, as understood in this volume, is human transmission of allegedly divine messages. As a method of revealing the divine will to humans, prophecy is to be seen as another, yet distinctive branch of the consultation of the divine that is generally called ‘divination.’ Among the forms of divination, prophecy clearly belongs to the noninductive kind. That is to say, prophets—like dreamers and unlike astrologers or haruspices—do not employ methods based on systematic observations and their scholarly interpretations, but act as direct mouthpieces of gods whose messages they communicate.” (Page 1)
“2. Quotations of prophetic messages in letters and other kinds of literature. This is the main type at Mari” (Page 8)
“The widest range of attestations belongs to muḫḫû(m) (Babylonian)/maḫḫû (Assyrian) and the respective feminines muḫḫūtu(m)/ maḫḫūtu, known from Old Akkadian through Old and Middle Babylonian and Middle Assyrian to Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian. At Mari, muḫḫûm is the commonest prophetic title, whereas in Neo-Assyrian documents, maḫḫû appears only in literary contexts and in lexical lists. The word is derived from the root maḫû ‘to become crazy, to go into a frenzy,’ which refers to receiving and transmitting divine words in an altered state of mind.” (Page 6)
“The messages transmitted by the prophets are exposed to all the stylistic, ideological and material requirements active in the process of transmission, which may carry beyond the oral stage into the written. Hence, the so-called ipsissima verba of the prophets are beyond reach, which only stresses the need to pay attention to the socioreligious preconditions of the whole process instead of the personality of the prophet (Nissinen 2000a).” (Page 5)
- Title: Prophets and Prophecy in the Ancient Near East (Translations)
- Authors: Martti Nissinen, Choon-Leong Seow, Robert Ritner, Peter Machinist
- Series: Writings from the Ancient World
- Volume: 12
- Publisher: Society of Biblical Literature (SBL)
- Print Publication Date: 2003
- Logos Release Date: 2008
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subjects: Prophets › Middle East--History; Prophecy › History; Middle East › Literatures
- Resource ID: LLS:PROANCNEEN
- Resource Type: text.monograph.ancient-manuscript.translation
- Metadata Last Updated: 2022-02-12T07:28:56Z