[W]hen we declare a particular institution, form of behavior, artistic style, or belief system to be ‘ancient’ we are engaged in a measuring process of a quite different kind. It is our own distinctiveness, our difference from the past, that is asserted.
–David Wengrow, What Makes Civilization? (Oxford, 2010), 153-4.
[This review will appear in BBR]
Daniel C. Snell. Religions of the Ancient Near East. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010. 179 pp. ISBN 978-0-521-68336-4. $85 / $25.99.
Religion is a notoriously complicated topic that contemporary scholars have a difficult time even defining. For example, André Droogers observes, “In the social sciences of religion the task of defining religion can be characterized as a necessary, exploratory, and useful task, but also as a superfluous, impossible, and ethnocentric activity” (“Defining Religion: A Social Science Approach” in The Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of Religion [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009], 263). Some have gone so far as to suggest that the term, religion, should be abandoned because it is “inherently incoherent, burdened with historical associations, and theologically loaded” (David Chidester, “Darwin’s Dogs: Animals, Animism, and the Problem of Religion,” Soundings 92.1-2 [2009], 69).
In the face of these difficulties, Daniel Snell attempts to provide a concise and easily accessible introduction to the religions of the entire ancient Near East–from Iran to Egypt (including Greece, Etruria, and Rome!) from the Neolithic period almost until the Common Era. This is a formidable task indeed. Since the book, minus the preface, index, and bibliography, is only 167 pages long, Snell is only able to provide the briefest of sketches concerning selected aspects of ancient religions. Included are vignettes on the nature of ancient deities and demons, ziggurats, the Egyptian concept of ma’at (justice and balance), Akhenanten’s ‘dream,’ funerary practices, the Mesopotamian idea of šimtu (“fate”), Jewish monotheism, Zoroastrianism, and many more. Even though Snell breezes through a dizzying array of topics he leaves out or truncates significant aspects that, in my opinion, are essential for the study of ancient religion: religious culture of women, religion in “daily life,” food and sacrifice, rituals, purity, and sin, to name a few.
Yet, Snell writes in a clear and inviting manner and he has produced a book that will be accessible to introductory students with an elementary understanding of ancient Near Eastern history. Along these lines, each chapter begins with a short narrative reflection designed to draw the reader into the subsequent discussion. Many of the narratives are fictional creations inspired by Snell’s historical reconstructions of ancient religions. For example, the second chapter begins with an account of how an individual neolithic foreigner would have felt observing a shamanistic ritual. The narratives are engaging–if sometimes fanciful–and invite the reader to think about the concrete and individual dimensions of ancient religions rather than merely analyze the topics abstractly.
It is refreshing to see a scholar creatively and concisely synthesize complicated material. This takes courage because, in this age of hyper-specialization, this approach will inevitably invite criticism. Yet, as pleased as I was at this point, there were perplexing and even off-putting comments that made me wonder how they made it through a peer-review and editing process. For instance, Snell seems to take a swipe at modern religious colonialism in his discussion of Isaiah 40-55: “He did, however, lay the framework for all later monotheists. In Christian terms, the black babies in Africa deserved to be evangelized and convinced of their role in the one God’s plans” (111). On the next page Snell likens Ezra to racist grandmothers: “It is in the mind of all grandmothers when they ask, ‘Why are you dating that _____?’ where you can fill in your own out-group. The grandmothers, like Ezra, will say that if marriage ensues, the out-group member will not understand our traditions and what about the children?” I think that Snell was trying to use contemporary analogies to make his point but I think that there are more satisfying and charitable ways of viewing these passages and certain contemporary movements inspired by them.
There are other comments that, although not offensive, are simplistic and asserted rather than proven or properly documented. For instance, Snell opines, “The attraction of monotheism was its simplicity…Health and sickness came from only one source, the Lord. This view put the problem of evil in new light” (113). It smacks of armchair psychology to say that people from a couple millennia past were attracted to monotheism because of its simplicity. Furthermore, some aspects of monotheism may have been more “simple” than the various polytheisms, yet other facets–notably the problem of evil–are more complex and even theologically troubling under monotheistic conceptions.
If one can get past the occasional unsupported assertion and passing comments regarding “black babies in Africa” and racist grandmothers, there is much to like in this volume. It certainly has significant gaps but Snell does introduce readers to a breathtakingly large swath of material regarding religions of the ancient Near East.
Like Sean Connery I’ve had to learn to never say never again. In the past I said that I would likely never write a commentary. I had a couple reasons for this: I have about 5 original book prospectuses prepared and ready to go and I thought that there were enough good commentaries already and there was no need for me to write another one. Well, I had two conversations at the last SBL meeting that changed my mind.
First, Tremper Longman and I were chatting over coffee and the topic of writing commentaries came up. I shared my opinion and he gave me his reasons why he thought that it was still valuable for people to continue writing commentaries. I found his ideas persuasive and then Dan Block and I were talking over lunch and he asked me to write the Zechariah volume in a new series of which he serves as the general editor, Hearing the Message of Scripture, being published by Zondervan. Dan means a lot to me both personally and professionally so when he asks me something it is kind of like an offer I can’t refuse. In any case, I agreed to write it and I’ve just worked out the details with Zondervan. They want an approximately 400 page volume and even though the series is not intended to be exhaustive this does give me enough room to be thorough. Also, I will provide my own translation and Hebrew, Greek (and I will have to insert some Akkadian) will be extensively discussed. Lastly, here is how Dan described the goal of the series:
The goal of this series is to help readers of Scripture hear the messages of biblical writings by focusing on the rhetorical, literary, and discourse features of the text.
Sounds like a fun project and you’ll probably be seeing a few posts on Zechariah in the days to come.
The Wall Street Journal has an interesting piece which summarizes a recent article in Science by Quentin Atkinson concerning the language from which all other languages derived. Here are the opening paragraphs:
The world’s 6,000 or so modern languages may have all descended from a single ancestral tongue spoken by early African humans between 50,000 and 70,000 years ago, a new study suggests.
The finding, published Thursday in the journal Science, could help explain how the first spoken language emerged, spread and contributed to the evolutionary success of the human species.
Here is the abstract from the essay in Science:
Human genetic and phenotypic diversity declines with distance from Africa, as predicted by a serial founder effect in which successive population bottlenecks during range expansion progressively reduce diversity, underpinning support for an African origin of modern humans. Recent work suggests that a similar founder effect may operate on human culture and language. Here I show that the number of phonemes used in a global sample of 504 languages is also clinal and fits a serial founder–effect model of expansion from an inferred origin in Africa. This result, which is not explained by more recent demographic history, local language diversity, or statistical non-independence within language families, points to parallel mechanisms shaping genetic and linguistic diversity and supports an African origin of modern human languages.
This just came via Jack Sasson:
The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago announces the in
print and online publication of CAD U/W. The publication of this
volume completes the twenty-one volume set.<http://oi.uchicago.edu/research/pubs/catalog/cad/>
I’ve been waiting for years for this volume and it brings the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary to a close. This project is one of the great intellectual achievements of the previous two or three generations. Here is a blog post from a couple years back that contains a video about the project. I’d write more but I need to start reading the new volume…
Consumerism is a system dedicated to keeping our acquisitive instincts in play far beyond their natural use. It creates wants that we need to have only to keep the economy going, while the economy must be kept going in order to fund our ever-increasing wants. To see that this is a vicious circle, we need our eyes opened to recognize, with Jesus, that ‘life does not consist in the abundance of possessions’ (Luke 12.15)–or, as we might put it, in the constant consumption of more and more stuff. In the vicious circle of consumption, we lose sight both of the generosity of God and of the wonder of his creation, which we do not need to possess in order to enjoy.
(…)
Far more fulfilling of human nature, as the Bible depicts it, are wonder and love, in which we constantly transcend limits without consumption or possession. In wonder and praise (such as inform many of the arts) and in loving relationships–that is, relationships not mediated by money and profit–we find fulfilment in going beyond ourselves in relation to other people, to the rest of creation, and to God. In these three relationship is to be found the abundance of life that Jesus came to give (John 10.10). In them is to be found the divine culture of extravagant generosity that must wean us from our contemporary culture of excess.1
The latest issue of BBR arrived in the mail yesterday and it was the first issue to come out since I joined the editorial board. This issue had a couple articles that dealt with pseudepigraphy in the ancient world and it was nice to see an essay concerning rabbinic literature (written by who else than an HUC alum). We’re always on the lookout for essays–particularly concerning OT stuff–so send us your work. Furthermore, I’d like to strongly encourage everyone to send us assyriological articles and I’ll work my magic and get them in. 
I’ve updated the look and added a couple features to this website so if you normally read the posts through a reader and you have a few seconds to kill check out the site and let me know what you think.
For a long time I’ve thought that Terah continually gets short shrift when it comes to biblical interpretation. Abraham gets the spotlight while his father is consigned to relative obscurity. However, there are several elements within the Genesis narrative that suggest Terah is a pivotal character even though he is the subject of a handful of verses.
For one thing, according to Gen 11:31 Terah was the first to set out for Canaan, not Abraham. Yet, his journey was aborted–for whatever reason–once he made it to Haran. Only after Terah died did Abraham continue on to Canaan. In a sense, Abraham merely finished what Terah had started.
Second, and perhaps even more significant, Abraham is not the subject of a toledot clause, rather, Terah is the figure from which this genealogy originates–Gen 11:27. The toledot clauses are prominent structural markers that point to a macro-structure of Genesis and, if we are to follow one of the conclusions of a recent monograph on the toledot formula by Matthew Thomas, the Pentateuch itself (noting the toledot clause in Num 3:1). Based on these and other facts Thomas concludes:
[A]s we worked through the material around the genealogy of Terah, we found that Terah might well play more of a role in Genesis than typically assumed. Through the course of this study, we have found hints that Terah may be a rather foundational character. By the end of the book, all three of his sons’ lines are likely reintegrated in the people of Israel’s family. Given that this takes place through the women in the story and that we find a strong role for Sarah in forming the status of Isaac (and probably also Ishmael), more should be done to examine these women in the line of Terah to see what is going on here.
I couldn’t agree more.
But, it is not:
“Study hard, but party harder.”
Those and other words of wisdom delivered by “Jersey Shore” star Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi to Rutgers University students Thursday cost the state university $32,000 in speaking fees, The Star-Ledger reported.
The fee is $2,000 more than the payment Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison will receive when she delivers Rutgers’ commencement address. It was funded by the mandatory student activity fees paid by Rutgers undergraduates, according to the newspaper.
I think it is a sad situation in higher ed when Snooki is invited to lecture at a university not to mention getting paid more than a Nobel Prize winner. Crazy. This speaking fee would have paid for a post-doc position or scholarships or many other incredibly worthy things…
