The latest issue of Themelios has an interesting interchange that we don’t often get to see in print: two lengthy reviews of the same book followed by the author’s rejoinder.  It is a bit curious to me why Themelios thought that Jeffrey Niehaus’ book, Ancient Near Eastern Themes in Biblical Theology, deserved this kind of treatment but it provides for interesting reflections in any case.  Stephen Dempster’s review is first and he is far more critical of Niehaus than is the second reviewer, William Edgar. In Niehaus’s rejoinder titled: “How to Write–and How Not to Write A Review…,” he contrasts these two reviews with two other reviewers who, in his opinion, did not correctly review his book.

I was asked by JETS to review this book and my thoughts were published in issue 52.1 (2009) pages 132-33.  I never posted the review to this website because I did not think highly of Niehaus’ book and decided not to call extra attention to this fact.  However, in the course of responding to Dempster’s review in the Themelios interchange Niehaus refers to my review a couple times so I thought I’d go ahead and post my full review here so people could compare my statements with what Niehaus represented (the review is at the bottom of the post and I corrected one typo that appeared in the printed edition).

I focused on only one issue that I found troubling–I was given a pretty low word count limit so I couldn’t address every concern–however, Stephen Dempster sent me a draft of his review a number of months ago and I agreed will all of his critiques (I haven’t read his final version so I don’t know if anything changed between the version that I read and the final review).  I was most troubled by the fact that Niehaus made a lot of mistakes in his presentation of ANE material and since I felt that he did not accurately understand the ANE I determined that he was not competent to make comparisons with biblical material.  As far as I can tell Niehaus has yet to address this concern which I documented with numerous examples from small details, like not knowing the gender of Hebrew and Akkadian nouns, to bigger picture aspects such as the role and genre of certain “laws” within Mesopotamian culture.

In Niehaus’s subsection titled, “How Not to Write a Review,” he makes this statement concerning two other reviewers: “Perhaps their most important critique is that—in Baranowski’s words and which Speliopoulis quotes—many of the texts studied show ‘a reliance on antiquated scholarly literature,’ which, to use Speliopoulis’s words, ‘would show up in a markdown of a grade in any graduate student’s work.’ ”  The primary thrust of these remarks was apparently directed at his use of Egyptian materials and certainly Speliopoulis was a bit snarky (however, Speliopoulis was correct as I recall some of my papers written for PhD coursework marked down for this reason).  Niehaus mostly cites up-to-date stuff but I remember having some similar thoughts as Speliopoulis as I looked over Niehaus’ bibliography.  It might not seem like a big deal that Niehaus didn’t always cite up-to-date texts but Assyriology is actually a very young discipline as compared to something like Classics and therefore interpretations and translations can radically change as newer work is done.

In any case, here is my review–the last sentence gives a summary of my assessment of the book:

Ancient Near Eastern Themes in Biblical Theology. By Jeffrey J. Niehaus. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel, 2008, 203 pp., $18.99 paper.

In this volume Niehaus seeks to link themes common to ancient Near Eastern cultures and the Bible in a Christological manner.  The themes include: the royal shepherd, covenant and conquest, city, temple, image, abandonment and restoration, covenantal household, and restoration of all things.  Niehaus focuses upon similarities between the Bible and ANE cultures since God’s purpose in instituting these parallels “was to make such ideas somewhat familiar to God’s people so that, when he actually broke into the historical plane and acted, his acts would be recognizable against their cultural background” (29-30).

Niehaus’s approach contains three parts: 1) the Old Testament contains the true versions of events while other documents preserve corrupted accounts, 2) the OT uses literary and legal forms common to the ancient Near East, and 3) the correct views of pagan cultures are due to common grace while distortions occur as a result of demonic activity (29; 54).  At this point we can appreciate Niehaus’ approach that values theological fidelity and seeks to self-consciously employ a methodology that reflects biblical truth.  However, his execution is often in need of strengthening.

His discussion of t?hôm contains many errors: “[T]he analogy between tehôm and Babylonian tamtu, the general term for ‘the deep’ in Babylonian.  The gender of the words supports this obvious parallel: tehôm and tamtu are masculine common nouns, whereas Tiamat is a feminine proper noun, not the better match for tehôm from a linguistic point of view” (24).  However, tamtu should be written tâmtu (as it is in Akkadian dictionaries, for example, CAD T 150-58) because the macron indicates that two vowels coalesced (GAG §55j)—the older form was ti?mtu(m) which is clearly the word from which the proper noun Ti?mat (in the status absolutus) is derived (AHw 1353).  Furthermore, t?hôm appears in both genders in the Bible (see HALOT 1690); in Gen 7:11 the feminine form rabbâ modifies t?hôm.  Also, tâmtu is not masculine as Niehaus asserts, but rather, feminine (the -t- between the root and the case ending indicates this word is feminine).  Even though the etymological connection is certain, it is obvious that there is no semantic link to the goddess Ti?mat in Gen 1 (cf. DDD 869), but we do not need to misrepresent linguistic facts to prove it.

Niehaus also misapprehends Mesopotamian law “codes/treatises.”  In his critique of John Walton’s view of law treatises (Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament, 287-89) Niehaus defends his view that Hammurapi’s Law was a functioning law code by pointing to the “a high degree of specificity” contained in the cases (56 note 1).  However, specificity should not be equated with the use of Hammurapi’s Law within ancient legal circles.  Hammurapi’s Law was never referenced nor were its stipulations reflected in the thousands of legal documents that have been discovered from Mesopotamia.  This makes it unlikely that it functioned as a law code.  Furthermore, there is a strong propagandistic aspect regarding the medium on which the laws were written and the flamboyantly self-flattering prologue.

Also, Niehaus infers that since deities were seen to impart law through a mediator which was often the king, deities and kings were in a covenantal relationship (56-7).  Not only is his view of the origin of law contested (see Walton, Ancient Near Eastern Thought, 287-97), but there is no evidence that a covenantal relationship of this sort was ever thought to exist in cultures outside of ancient Israel.  No doubt, kings were in covenantal relationships with other kings but I know of no text that outlines or discusses a covenant between a deity and a king or anyone else for that matter.  Because of this I believe that the notion of being in covenant with a god was particular to ancient Israel.

Lastly, Niehaus represents his conception of the relationship of gods and nations with two charts:  1) Egypt–Amon Ra > Pharaoh > warfare > covenant with conquered > temple service, and 2) Bible–God > Jesus > warfare > new covenant > temple service (173).  This chart and the associated discussion is simplistic.  It is akin to saying that one could substitute Jesus for Nirvana and change Buddhism into Christianity.

There is much of great value in this book.  For instance, I joyously agree with Niehaus that Jesus is the focal point of all of history and his faithful approach is inspiring and refreshing.  However, I think that in his desire to identify parallels Niehaus at times has reshaped or overly simplified aspects of history and culture within the ANE to fit predetermined categories so that they better correspond with biblical parallels.

Charles Halton

The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

David Reimer sent me a link to a fantastic discussion of the origin of the alphabet on a very cool typography blog. It is one of the best concise and illustrated treatments that I’ve seen. It begins at Sumer (doesn’t everything, really?) and goes up through Roman typography. Enjoy!

For all the budding Assyriologists out there (yes, all three of you), you don’t want to miss out on Eisenbrauns’ annual back-to-school sale.  Let me highlight a few things on the list that I consider to be essentials–you don’t have to get them all at once but if you are interested in Sumerian and/or Akkadian you will want to eventually acquire them or at least get your local library to purchase them:

When I forget an Akkadian word this is the first place I go. It gives a great rough and ready gloss as well as a few parsings and theme vowel information.

I really like the AHw, yes, I know we have the CAD which is a monumental work and yes, it is in English but if you are doing serious work in Akkadian you should also reference AHw as well. It is not quite like this analogy but it’ll work–AHw is like the Akkadian equivalent of the Hebrew lexicon, BDB while CAD is HALOT; both are still valuable.

This lexicon has two parts: Akkadian-English and English-Akkadian. Super helpful. Before this we were dependent upon Jack Sasson’s unpublished, partial, English gloss list for the CAD.

If you read signs (and why would you not) this is indispensable.

I use this a bunch. It gives very detailed values and bibliography for cuneiform signs.

THE Akkadian reference grammar.

Great way to learn Sumerian.

I prefer Thomsen’s grammar (which I was able to snag on the cheap a while back) but it is out of print and John Halloran is holding them for ransom for the completely criminal price of $495.

A new study on the Gilgamesh Epic is set for release next month.  Aside from the clumsy title it looks interesting.  Here is the description from the publisher:

The Akkadian Gilgamesh Epic, perhaps the most famous of Mesopotamian literature, has been considered the artistry of one author inspired by Sumerian tales. Specialists have assumed that all the earliest evidence (ca. 1800-1700 BCE) reflects this creative unity. Deep contrasts in characterization and narrative logic, however, distinguish the central adventure to defeat the monster Huwawa from what precedes and follows it. The Huwawa narrative stands on its own, so that the epic must have been composed from this prior Akkadian composition. Recognition of the tale embedded in the epic allows each block of material to be understood on its own terms. Such literary-historical investigation from contemporary texts is new to Assyriology and may produce important results when applied to other Mesopotamian writing.

The biggest drawback that I see in this book is that it is published by Brill which will mean that I will be reading the library’s copy when it comes out.

The Buried Foundation of the Gilgamesh Epic
The Akkadian Huwawa Narrative
Cuneiform Monographs – CM 39
by Daniel E. Fleming and Sara J. Milstein
Brill Academic Publishers, Forthcoming February 2010
English
Cloth
ISBN: 9789004178489
List Price: $132.00
Your Price: $125.40
www.eisenbrauns.com/item/FLEBURIED

Benjamin Foster’s translation of Enuma Elish for the Context of Scripture volumes (COS 1.111) does not include the sections of tablets 6 and 7 which list the fifty names of Marduk.  I find this very problematic since the entire story is leading up to this point.  I think the editors made this decision because they titled the text “Epic of Creation” and I guess they figured that the fifty names don’t fit into the rubric of “creation” so they weren’t worth including.  However, Enuma Elish really is not about creation at all–it is primarily about the ascendancy of Marduk within the pantheon, hence, him taking on the names of the other gods.  So, in my opinion the COS editors left out the most important part of Enuma Elish.  What do you think?

By the way, here is E. A. Speiser’s translation of the 50 names section so you can supplement COS.

As 2009 draws to a close I’d like to offer my picks for best books of the year that integrate Bible and ancient Near Eastern studies. I have several categories and I haven’t included highly technical or very narrow monographs.  You can click on the image to get more info from Eisenbrauns.

Best General Audience Books that Integrate ANE and Biblical Studies

Westbrook and Wells introduce difference facets of biblical law as elucidated from cognate sources.  The legal portions of the Bible are among the most difficult to understand and least studied aspects of the Bible for many readers.  Westbrook was one of the most preeminent scholars in this area and he includes many of his path breaking observations.

In Lost World John Walton presents his view of Genesis 1 in light of his understanding of the verb bara’ (to create) as functional rather than physical.  This book has been widely discussed and challenge readers to view the first chapter of the Bible in new ways.

Also on Genesis 1, Mark Smith describes the “Priestly vision” of this text in light of cognate creation accounts.

Best Reference Books

If you read the Bible in Hebrew or you are thinking of studying biblical Hebrew then the Concise Dictionary of Classical Hebrew is a must-buy.  Unlike other dictionaries, the CDCH does not include etymologies because it forms definitions of words based on context and occurrence.  Furthermore, the scope of the dictionary includes Hebrew beyond that found in the Bible so the reader gets a much deeper understanding of semantic ranges.  Lastly, many new proposals for root identifications are included.

An Akkadian Lexical Companion for Biblical Hebrew is a very handy resource for investigating possible connections between Hebrew and Akkadian words and idioms.  John Hobbins has provided a very helpful review of this book–his recommendation–go ahead and buy it.

Best Synthesis

In The Invention of Hebrew Seth Sanders brings together epigraphy, cognate texts, anthropology, and political studies to construct a theory on the origin of the Hebrew language.  The book is as fun to read as its proposal is bold.  In an ever increasingly specialized academe we need books like this that engagingly assimilate data into a compelling picture.

Best ANE Contribution to Biblical Theology

In Bodies of God Sommer describes how ancient peoples perceived deities as located in a particular time and place.  He then applies this contextual understanding to the Hebrew Bible in particular accounts as well as the contribution of this idea to biblical theology/religion of the Jewish and Christian scriptures (I have a more extensive review that I will post shortly).

John Walton has a book coming out from Eisenbrauns on the creation narratives in Genesis.  The book has seen some delays and it is not on the Eisenbrauns website yet.  However, if you want a sneak peak of the book while you await its publication John has an article, “Creation in Genesis 1:1-2:3 and the Ancient Near East: Order out of Disorder after Chaoskampf,” in Calvin Theological Journal 43 (2008): 48-63 in which he provides a summary of his views on Genesis 1 as an ancient Near Eastern temple cosmology as well as an extended excerpt of a section from the forthcoming book on theomachy (or, divine conflict).

For more reading on this subject you can see various interactions with Walton’s more popular treatment of Genesis 1 in his book by IVP, The Lost World of Genesis One:

Scot McKnight’s 18 post review.

James McGrath’s 18+ post review.

John Walton provides an extensive response to John Hobbins’ critique on the Ancient Hebrew Poetry blog

See also Chris Heard on the verb bara’

Tyler Williams had a very helpful four-part series on Mesopotamian creation accounts and you can see one of my reflections on this as well

Lastly, for another recent treatment of Genesis 1 see Mark Smith’s new book in which he discusses the Priestly vision of the account. (Here is a review by Joseph Kelly–thanks John Hobbins).

The Priestly Vision of Genesis 1

by Mark S. Smith
Fortress Press, Forthcoming November 2009
176 pages, English
Paper, 6 x 9
ISBN: 9780800663735
List Price: $25.00
Your Price: $22.50
www.eisenbrauns.com/item/SMIPRIEST

John Hobbins has a very thoughtful reflection upon the newly released Akkadian Lexical Companion for Biblical Hebrew by Hayim ben Yosef Tawil.  This is at the top of my wishlist; here’s the lowdown:

A Biblical Hebrew and Akkadian Comparative Lexicon
Etymological-Semantic and Idiomatic Equivalents with Supplements on Biblical Aramaic

by Hayim Tawil
KTAV Publishing House, 2009
456 pages, English
Cloth, 8.5 x 11
ISBN: 1883053943
Your Price: $125.00
www.eisenbrauns.com/item/TAWBIBLIC

A good friend of mine reminded me that articles in the journal Studi Epigrafici e Linguistici sul Vicino Oriente Antico (SEL) are available for free download–and there are many articles there worth your while.

Also, on the Digital Orient blog Dominique Charpin has made available one of his papers entitled, “L’historien face aux archives paléo-babyloniennes” in which he discusses the historian’s dilemma when faced with a huge amount of data published in many and various (and many times obscure) places.  This is exactly the problem that faces anyone studying Mesopotamia and Charpin gives a guide on how to navigate through Old Babylonian archives.  Enjoy!

Here is the table of contents for the new volume of JCS.  I can’t wait to get my hands on it–all the articles look very interesting:

Daniel Potts, Bevel-Rim Bowls and Bakeries: Evidence and Explanations
from Iran and the Indo-Iranian Borderlands

Wolfgang Heimpel, The Location of Madga

Eva von Dassow, Nara-m-Sîn of Uruk: A New King in an Old Shoebox

Anne Kilmer and Jeremie Peterson, More Old Babylonian
Music-Instruction Fragments from Nippur

Jerome Colburn, A New Interpretation of the Nippur Music-Instruction Fragments

Jeanette C. Fincke, Zu den akkadischen Hemerologien aus Hattusha (CTH
546), Teil I. Eine Hemerologie für das „Rufen von Klagen“ (shigû shasû)
und das „Reinigen seines Gewandes“ (subat-su ubbubu): KUB 4, 46 (+)
KUB 43, 1

Philip C. Schmitz, Archaic Greek Names in a Neo-Assyrian Cuneiform
Tablet from Tarsus

via Agade