Suchergebnisse

Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal are well known to scholars of ancient Near Eastern prophecy, thanks to their affinity for prophecy and the prophetic goddess Ištar in particular, which resulted in the preservation of oracular material in a manner not attested for other Sargonid kings. It has been suggested that one of the reasons for this affinity was the reliance of both kings on prophetic legitimation to buttress their contested claims to kingship. This paper explores how Assurbanipal in particular also relies on Ištar to legitimate his military activities, also as a result of the difficult political circumstances in which he was obliged to operate. This legitimation takes the form of allusion to Enuma Elish and the accrual of the characteristics of its warrior hero to the goddess Ištar.

Over the last few decades a steady stream of scholarship has argued for a mythological background to the oracles against the nations (OANs) in the book of Ezekiel.1 Very few studies, however, have attempted to make overarching sense of Ezekiel's use of mythological motifs, either in the oracles or as part of the theological and literary project of the book. This essay will argue that Ezekiel's use of mythological motifs of a cosmological type, both in the cycle of OANs and as part of the book as a whole, is derived from the royal military ideology that was current in Jerusalem prior to the exile, and that the oracles constitute a direct attempt to incorporate the experience of exile into this ideology. Ultimately, however, Ezekiel's initial efforts to this end were perceived to have failed, and alternative ideological explanations of warfare were introduced, either by Ezekiel himself or by an editor. I will conclude by addressing the accrual of this additional material.

In addressing the theological crisis of the exile, Ezekiel relies on the mythology of the divine king who goes out to battle against the forces of chaos, commonly referred to as the Chaoskampf. This article explores how Ezekiel employs this imagery to reconfigure Yhwh's relationships with Babylonia, Egypt, and Judah. In lieu of the now-defunct Judah, Ezekiel identifies the king of Babylon as Yhwh's earthly agent for establishing order; Egypt is (re)confirmed as the exemplary human chaotic force, opposing Yhwh and his Babylonian agent; and Judah's status is rendered a variable predicated on its political allegiances. Ezekiel's scheme allows the native Judahite Chaoskampf theology to remain intact, at the expense of drastic changes to the relationship between the Judahite monarch and his patron deity, Yhwh.

Concerned with Israel's history and future, the Bible devotes considerable space to war—the most powerful catalyst of change in the lives of nations. The biblical authors often display a consciousness of illicit activities in wartime, anticipating what we would call today "war crimes" or "military crimes." And they also produced the first known examples of written laws of war. While the so-called Code of Hammurabi from Mesopotamia contains stipulations for soldiers, it is concerned with methods of conscription, military discipline, and concerns of soldiers' families—yet not conduct on the battlefield. Ancient cultures from the Aegean and Western Asia, however, do reflect a general sense of what one deemed to be "lawful" conduct for armies. In some places they even moved in the direction of formal law. Setting a precedent for later international law and war conventions, some ancient Greek city-states formed interstate leagues ("amphictyonies") and took oaths that they would not destroy each other's cities (and especially their municipal water sources). Similarly, in the fifth book of Plato's Republic, Socrates argues for the necessity of a law sanctioning Hellenic armies that lay waste to arable land. In the Hebrew Bible, we find an even more deliberate effort to define and depict what actions are permissible and forbidden in wartime.