Pardee on Ugaritic Rituals
May 22, 2007
Searching around for articles on Ugaritic ritual texts today I ran across an article by Dennis Pardee, fittingly entitled “Ugaritic Ritual Texts.” It appeared originally in The Oriental Institute News and Notes, No. 172, Winter 2002 and was only put online this past February.
As someone who has actually slept with Pardee’s Les Textes Rituels under his pillow, it doesn’t provide much new information. However, it does help in negotiating Pardee’s evolving perspective on Ugaritic rituals, and for that alone it deserves a nod.
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Ketuvim: the Writings of James R. Getz Jr. 
Pardee’s article has been online at the Oriental Institute for a number of years – the date of February 2007 merely reflects the deployment of the redesigned website of the OI at that time. For other online publication by him, search his name in Abzu, and note in particular his masterful 404 page review of J. Tropper, Ugaritische Grammatik (AOAT 273), Ugarit-Verlag, Münster 2000, written for Archiv für Orientforschung (AfO): Internationale Zeitschrift für die Wissenschaft vom Vorderen Orient [2003/2004], and available only online. Likewise you may be interested in Smith, Mark S. A Bibliography of Ugaritic Grammar and Biblical Hebrew Grammar in the Twentieth Century, also available only online.
Thanks for the info, Chuck. I have to say that I haven’t frequented ABZU that much in recent years. It’s alway been a little too Mesopotamian focussed to be of much use to me as a Northwest Semiticist. Then again, Enki resides in the ABZU, no?
I would also recommend highly Prof. Pardee’s book “Ritual and Cult at Ugarit” in the series.
in the “Writings from the ancient World” series, that is.
Chip, Pardee’s Ritual and Cult at Ugarit is a useful tool for an introduction, but it has very little material that is new. That being said, the SBL volume more succinctly introduced what he calls “contemplation rites.” I really hope Pardee writes a full-length article on this soon because I find myself heavily invested in these texts.
Yes definitely go for the Tropper review. It is very thorough and typical Pardee. Masterful, gracious, and prickly.
See his review of M. Smith’s book on KTU 1.23. I read Smith KTU 1.23 before it was published, and while it wasn’t the best thing ever written in Biblical Studies I felt like it was a valuable contribution to scholarship–or to naive scholars low on the totem-pole (such as myself).
Jake, I’ve got the review of Tropper; I just don’t have the time to read it 😉
The triumvirate that leads me through the wiles of Ugaritic consists of Tropper, Pardee, and del Olmo Lete. I’m used to prickly discussion between the three.
I haven’t read Pardee’s review of Smith on CAT 1.23. I thought the book had a strong last chapter. It was nice to see a Ugaritic scholar begin to interact with ritual theory. Smith’s method is still aimed too much toward narrative texts, but it was at least a start. I’ll be sure to check out Pardee’s review.
It was reviewed in RBL BTW.
Jake, thanks for the info! I was looking for this review yesterday using ATLA and a few other academic resources and kept coming up with nothing. Apparently RBL isn’t keyed to some of these resources yet…