This volume is a collection of eight articles by Wyatt over a fifteen year period (1992-2007). Engle has a quite difficult task in reviewing this disparate group of material. He does a great job at summarizing Wyatt’s arguments in these articles but doesn’t really engage in the material critically.

However, anyone who has engaged with Wyatt’s arguments knows that they provide scholars with a complicated rabbit trail that often involves three or more articles in disparate journals and books. As such, Engle can be forgiven for his summarization.

Ba'lu looking for his home on the net

Today I was reading a section of the Ugaritic tale of Kirtu (CAT 1.14-16) on the train and wondered how often and where a certain word occurred. I decided to look it up on Sapanu, since I did not have at hand my copy of del Olmo Lete and Sanmartín’s Dictionary of the Ugaritic Language in the Alphabetic Tradition. (I keep it in a lock box, along with my other precious commodities, such as gold bullion, family heirlooms and of course other Brill volumes.)  However, the ABZU link did not work, and even some reverse engineering did not lead me to any usable information.

I’ve had problems connecting to Sapanu before but didn’t really have the time to find out what happened to them. The Banco de Datos Filológicos Semíticos Noroccidentales used to contain a searchable datebase complete with likely reconstructions of texts. It was clunky, buggy and used a unique and problematic font, but it was the best we had. Does anyone know what happened to it?

I suspect that the publication of A Concordance of Ugaritic Words and The Texts of the Ugaritic Data Bank by Jesús Luis Cunchillos might have something to do with the site being left fallow, but I could be wrong.

A Series of Infelicitous Events: Cascading Ritual Infelicity in Kirtu

Scholars have long recognized infelicitous ritual activity in the legend of Kirtu. The tragedy at the center of the tale involves an unfulfilled vow to Athiratu, which results in a plague upon the king and the ironic disavowal of the very heir that the vow was meant to insure. This paper argues that the unfulfilled vow is merely the last of a series of ritual improprieties by Kirtu by examining the ritual activities of the king, with special attention to markers of temporary cultic status change. At the outset of the tale, Kirtu is alone and in need of an heir. The king is given explicit ritual instructions by the Ilu involving washing, reddening, a tower ritual and other preparations for war. Kirtu’s washing and reddening can be seen as preparation for both the roof ritual and subsequent war. In an immediate sense, the washing and reddening is construed as allowing him to perform the tower ritual; in an elongated sense this ritual enables him to proceed with the military campaign to insure a wife. The tower ritual is as a manifestation of Ba‘lu’s divine favor that helps assure Kirtu of success. However, the narrative clearly depicts Kirtu as unconvinced of such assurances, having him make the additional vow to Athiratu. Kirtu does not satisfy the requirements for any of these temporary rites of cultic transition since the text nowhere subsequently indicates a return to a quotidian state. By viewing the vow as the last in a series of status changes placed upon Kirtu, this paper argues that the text is heaping such status changes, one upon another, onto Kirtu without a return to the quotidian, without a ritual resolution. Such a ritual understanding helps explicate the need for Ilu—as opposed to Athiratu—to intervene late in the story.

Abstract

Both Ugaritic and biblical texts contain rites whereby the status of an individual is temporarily enhanced to distinguish that person from other ritual participants or society in general. These rites enable such a person to function in proximity to the deity in cultic activities or to be analogically associated with those who so function. These rites differ from rites of crises (such as purification rites) and from rites of transition (passage) in that they have calculated performances at the beginning and end that mark the initiation and termination of the status change. The status change does not begin inadvertently nor is it intended to last indefinitely.

Ugaritic materials display rites of temporary cultic status change in ritual and narrative texts. The ritual texts describe rites whereby the Ugaritic king is sacralized and desacralized in order to perform certain cultic functions. The sacral status is created by a rite in which the king washes himself pure and terminated by a rite possibly involving cultic functionaries. The narrative texts provide another example in the story of Aqhatu, where a rite in the narrative allows the ritual participant (Dani’ilu) cultic access otherwise unavailable.

Examples from the Bible are in texts that broadly belong to the priestly tradition: the Priestly Torah, Holiness School, and cultic material in Ezekiel. The temporary status change of the Nazirite to one analogous to the high priest in Numbers 6 and the temporary access to the holy of holies given the high priest in Leviticus 16 serve as a basis for examining temporary rites of cultic transition in the Bible.

The significance of this newly identified class of rituals lies in their particular social and religious function. Rites of temporary cultic transition allow access to the cult for those normally outside its confines, allowing those outside the cult to approximate the status of regularly installed functionaries. They can even temporarily enhance the status of permanently installed cultic functionaries to perform ad hoc or irregular ritual activities. As such they reinforce the importance of these categories while allowing the opportunity to transcend them for a limited time.

Yup. That’s what I wrote.

I finished revisions on the dissertation and handed in all the requisite paperwork back in August but have been in “lame doc” status since 8/20/2010. My doctoral liminality has finally come to an end.

Of all the mugs that Eisenbrauns has offered over the years, the ‘Ilu Drinking Mug might be the most anticipated. Given that this prestigious list includes an Enuma Elish Cuneiform mug and a hundred anniversary Gezer Calendar mug, I find this impressive.

In Ezek 14:14 Job is linked with Noah and Danel (Daniel) as legendary righteous men. Noah is a biblical figure but prior to Abraham, and not properly an Israelite. Danel is known from the legend of King Keret in Ugaritic (Canaanite) lore. (508)

Right idea, wrong Ugaritic story. Danel (or more properly, Daniʾil) from Ezek 14:14 is most definitely that of Ugaritic lore and not the late apocalyptic biblical book of Daniel. However, Danel shows up not in the legend of Kirtu (Keret) but in the tale of Aqhat. This error managed to make it into Collin’s Short Introduction to the Hebrew Bible as well (page 257).

Karyn Traphagen at Boulders 2 Bits has a nifty Ugaritic Transliteration Bookmark. She recommends keeping it handy when using the Inscriptifact database. I concure and suggest also using it with Pardee and Bordreuil’s  A Manuel of Ugaritic.

Hardy at Daily Hebrew has put forth a yeoman’s effort and posted a massive Ugaritic-Hebrew Bibliography. This is a wonderful resource and I highly recommend it.

Bibliographical Bonus: Along the lines of the last resource, here is a link to Chiara Peri’s bibliography for Poemi Ugaritici Della Regalità: I Poemi Di Keret E Di Aqhat.

Enjoy

Hope this saves someone else the hassle of reading through the bulk of the letters in CAT…