Some neglected aspects of Israelite interment ideology

Journal of Biblical Literature

Volumn 124, Issue 4, 2005, Pages 601-616

  Olyan, Saul M ^a  

^a BROWN UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 61249595569     PISSN: 00219231     EISSN: 19343876     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/30041060     Document Type: Article

References (49)

1. See, e.g., among archaeologists, Elizabeth Bloch-Smith, Judahite Burial Practices and Beliefs about the Dead (JSOTSup 123; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1992)
2. Rivka Gonen, Burial Patterns and Cultural Diversity in Late Bronze Age Canaan (ASOR Dissertation Series 7; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1992)
3. and the essays in Graves and Burial Practices in Israel in the Ancient Period (in Hebrew; ed. Itamar Singer; Jersualem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi/Israel Exploration Society, 1994), particularly Gabriel Barkay, "Burial Caves and Burial Practices in Judah in the Iron Age" (pp. 96-164)
4. A noteworthy older survey is Ephraim Satran, Encyclopaedia Biblica (9 vols.; Jerusalem: Bialik, 1950-88), 7:5-24
5. Bloch-Smith, Judahite Burial Practices, 72-108
6. Theodore J. Lewis, "How Far Can Texts Take Us? Evaluating Textual Sources for Reconstructing Ancient Israelite Beliefs about the Dead," in Sacred Time, Sacred Place: Archaeology and the Religion of Israel (ed. Barry M. Gittlen; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2002), 174, 175-76
7. Wayne T. Pitard, "Tombs and Offerings: Archaeological Data and Comparative Methodology in the Study of Death in Israel," in Sacred Time, Sacred Place, 149-50
8. "Grave Goods," in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East (ed. Eric M. Meyers; 5 vols.; New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 2:433-34
9. E.g., Nicholas J. Tromp, Primitive Conceptions of Death and the Nether World in the Old Testament (BO 21; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1969), 139-40
10. Johannes Pedersen, Israel: Its Life and Culture (2 vols.; London: Humphrey Milford; Copenhagen: Povl Branner, 1926), 1:460-63
11. A number of scholars draw on both biblical representations of burial and material evidence to reconstruct interment ideas and practices. See, e.g., Bloch-Smith, Judahite Burial Practices
12. Barkay, "Burial Caves and Burial Practices," and recently, Lewis, who argues for an approach that draws upon both material and biblical sources ("How Far Can Texts Take Us?")
13. See also Pitard's characterization of eclectic scholarship, which utilizes a variety of data ("Tombs and Offerings," 146-47)
14. and Ron Tappy's thoughtful discussion of the challenges inherent in using both biblical and material evidence ("Did the Dead Ever Die in Biblical Judah?" BASOR 298 [1995]: 65)
15. On the limited utility of the biblical text as a source for reconstructing religious belief and practice, see Saul M. Olyan, Rites and Rank: Hierarchy in Biblical Representations of Cult (Princeton/London: Princeton University Press, 2000), 13-14. Unfortunately, extant biblical evidence of interment lends itself neither to the development of a diachronic perspective nor to uncovering local or regional differences in burial ideology. Thus, for a biblically dependent aspect of burial ideology such as hierarchy of interment, only a rough reconstruction lacking local/regional and diachronic nuance is possible
16. and Pitard, "Tombs and Offerings."
17. On suicide in biblical narrative, see Ludwig Wächter, Der Tod im Alten Testament (AzTh 8; Stuttgart: Calwer, 1967), 89-97
18. L και ταφησ ομαι εν suggests a Hebrew Vodage with "that I might be buried in," as noted by P. Kyle McCarter, Jr., II Samuel: A New Translation with Introduction, Notes, and Commentary (AB 9; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1984), 418n
19. On the probable location of the family tomb on or near the family's landholding, see Lawrence E. Stager, "The Archaeology of the Family in Ancient Israel," BASOR 260 (1985): 23
20. Bloch-Smith, Judahite Burial Practices, 115, 148
21. and recently J. David Schloen, The House of the Father as Fact and Symbol: Patrimonialism in Ugarit and the Ancient Near East (Studies in the Archaeology and History of the Levant 2; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2001), 346-47
22. Hanan Brichto brought into relief the link of tomb and inalienable patrimony ("Kin, Cult, Land and Afterlife - A Biblical Complex," HUCA 44 [1973]: 1-54)
23. On the apologetic casting of this narrative, see McCarter, II Samuel, 445-46
24. See similarly Esarhaddon's succession treaty in Simo Parpola and Kazuko Watanabe, Neo-Assyrian Treaties and Loyalty Oaths (SAA 2; Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 1988), 49 (6:481-84)
25. See also Tromp's discussion of two such idioms (Primitive Conceptions of Death, 168-71)
26. It seems unlikely to me that these expressions have a different sense, given their similarity in form and usage. Whatever their exact meaning, they speak of the recently deceased joining dead kin in some manner, whether physically or in spirit. For further discussion, see Karl-Johan Illman, Old Testament Formulas about Death (Åbo: Åbo Akademi, 1979), 43-45
27. with citations, and the older general survey of Eric Meyers, "Secondary Burials in Palestine," BA 33 (1970): 2-29, esp. 10-17
28. Byron R. McCane, "Burial Techniques," Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East, 1:386)
29. See also the various descriptions of the interactions of the underworld's denizens in texts such as "Ishtar's Descent to the Netherworld" (Riekele Borger, Babylonisch-assyrische Lesestücke [2nd ed.; AO 54; 2 vols.; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1979], 1:95-104)
30. "Nergal and Ereshkigal" (Hermann Hunger, Spätbabylonische Texte aus Uruk [3 vols.; Berlin: Gebr. Mann, 1976], 1:17-18)
31. and the Gilgamesh epic (Andrew R. George, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic: Introduction, Critical Edition and Cuneiform Texts [2 vols.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003], 1:634-46 [tablet VII]; 728-34 [tablet XII])
32. It is possible that some or all of these things were placed with the corpse at the time of interment, as items found with individual burials suggest; but it is also possible that food (and other?) items were deposited as offerings, possibly at intervals, later on. In any case, it seems likely that at least some of these items were intended for the dead to use or consume in the afterlife. On the interpretation of grave goods, see further the works cited in n. 2. Some cuneiform texts suggest that the place of buried remains is the locus for ancestral rites. See, e.g., Ashurbanipal's assumption that removal of the bones of the kings of Elam from their tombs and their transportation to Assyria would result in termination of their ancestral rites (kispī nāq mê uzammešunūti; for the text, see Maximilian Streck, ed., Assurbanipal und die letzten assyrischen Könige bis zum Untergange Niniveh's [3 vols.; Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1916], 2:56 [lines 74-76])
33. Note that other Mesopotamian materials do not presume that such rites necessarily occurred at the place of burial. Frequently, the home is assumed to be the primary locus, even without evidence of intramural burial (on this, see the discussion of Karel van der Toorn, Family Religion in Babylonia, Syria & Israel [Leiden/New York/Cologne: Brill, 1996], 58-62)
34. An older but still useful survey of the cuneiform evidence is Miranda Bayliss, "The Cult of Dead Kin in Assyria and Babylonia," Iraq 35 (1973), 115-25
35. she summarizes evidence for both the royal and nonroyal cults. In the West Semitic cultural sphere (including Israel), ancestral rites may have occurred in local shrines as well as at the tomb (van der Toorn, Family Religion, 217-18
36. On the Israelite and Ugaritic evidence pertaining to such cults, see especially Lewis, Cults of the Dead in Ancient Israel and Ugarit (HSM 39; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989) and more recently, "How Far Can Texts Take Us?" 186-205
37. I note, however, that Israelite (including biblical) evidence for the ability of the dead to act beneficently or malevolently is lacking, though such data are well attested in surrounding cultures (see, e.g., Lewis, "How Far Can Texts Take Us?" 191-94, who notes examples from Egypt and Mesopotamia)
38. Cuneiform sources bear witness to offerings by non-kin to unrelated, troublesome spirits; such offerings were apparently initiated because of the spirits' hostility (see Bayliss, "Cult of Dead Kin," 119)
39. On spirits in the underworld with the appearance of physical mutilation, cf. Vergil, Aeneid 6.494-99
40. Brichto seems sure that Israelites believed that the afterlife is negatively affected by lack of burial ("Kin, Cult, Land, and Afterlife," 36-37). Unhappily, extant evidence does not recommend such confidence
41. George, Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic, 734
42. See Streck, ed., Assurbanipal, 2:54, 56 (lines 70-75)
43. Parpola and Watanabe, Neo-Assyrian Treaties, 57 (6:638-40)
44. for this view, see, e.g., Samuel E. Loewenstamm, Encyclopaedia Biblica, 4:758
45. and Moshe Greenberg, Ezekiel 21-37: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary [AB 22A; New York: Doubleday, 1997] 670)
46. and Robert Polzin, "HWQY' and Covenantal Institutions in Israel," HTR 62 (1969): 227-40
47. I cannot agree with those scholars (e.g., Brichto, "Kin, Cult, Land, and Afterlife," 25) who view the king as never having been buried. The text seems to suggest rather that his burial was reversed; that ultimately he was unburied, becoming like those never buried (e.g.)
48. On this inscription, see Nahman Avigad, "The Epitaph of a Royal Steward from Siloam Village," IEJ 3 (1953): 137-52
49. For the most part, my restorations follow Avigad's sensible suggestions ("Epitaph," 143)