Perchance to Dream: Dream Divination in the Bible and the Ancient Near East ed. by Esther J. Hamori and Jonathan Stökl

Abstract

Reviewed by: Perchance to Dream: Dream Divination in the Bible and the Ancient Near East ed. by Esther J. Hamori and Jonathan Stökl Robert Gnuse esther j. hamori and jonathan stökl (eds.), Perchance to Dream: Dream Divination in the Bible and the Ancient Near East (Ancient Near East Monographs 21; Atlanta: SBL Press, 2018). Pp. xi + 220. Paper $49.95. This little volume offers the critical scholar a very fine collection of essays on ancient Near Eastern and biblical dream reports. Most of the papers were presented during a two-year series on dream divination in the Prophetic Texts and Their Ancient Contexts section of the SBL Annual Meetings in Baltimore (2013) and San Diego (2014). In the introduction ("Perchance to Dream"), Esther Hamori speaks of how the authors in this volume seek to approach dream reports with new questions not addressed by previous scholars, for example: How did dreams function in their literary contexts? How did the ancients seek to verify the veracity of a dream? Why did dreams have authority? How was that authority established? How did dream incubation work? How did the dreams function politically in some of the narratives? Christopher Metcalf ("Horn and Ivory: Dreams as Portents in Ancient Mesopotamia and Beyond") observes how Mesopotamian and Hittite dreams required interpretation by other means to validate their veracity, lest they be considered irrelevant. Hence, the need for Gudea's second dream to verify the first message dream indicating that he should undertake temple renovation. And, even later in the Greek world, Penelope disregarded Odysseus's dream in the Odyssey for lack of any subsequent verification. Alice Mouton ("Portent Dreams in Hittite Anatolia") discusses how Hittite dreams, which were seen as serious messages from the divine realm, enabled people to believe that they had direct contact with the gods. Koowon Kim ("When Even the Gods Do Not Know: El's Dream Divination in KTU 1.6 iii") notes that El incubates his own dream, experiences it, and then interprets it in order to command that Baal be brought back from the realm of the dead. The literary strategy here is designed to enhance El's power by having no other deity responsible for the sending or the interpretation of the dream, so that El remains the chief deity in the realm of Ugaritic gods. He alone can then command Baal's return. Scott B. Noegel ("Maleness, Memory, and the Matter of Dream Divination in the [End Page 349] Hebrew Bible"), in an excellently detailed argument, observes that dreams are to be experienced by sexually virile young men. Dreams are a nighttime phenomenon associated with penile erection. The reception of dreams is connected to young adulthood at the same time when men originally were circumcised; thus there is an unusual symbolic connection between the message of the dream written on the human heart and the covenant written by circumcision on the male penis. Men and memory are associated, and memory is connected to intimate organs, the heart and the penis. Even the sheep liver investigated by Babylonian divinators must come from a male sheep. Franziska Ede ("Dreams in the Joseph Narrative") suggests that the older story about Joseph as a skillful dream interpreter in Genesis 40–41 is modified by the later addition of Genesis 37 to the Joseph narrative, which implies that God is the source of dream interpretation and divine guidance. Stephen C. Russell ("Samuel's Theophany and the Politics of Religious Dreams") provides an excellent essay to show how 1 Samuel 3 provides political legitimation for Samuel's priestly lineage to surpass that of Eli's. Samuel does not recognize the voice of the Lord, but Eli does and directs Samuel so that he might hear the word of judgment against Eli's house. Thus, Eli assents to the transfer of authority. The text recounts a typical auditory dream theophany except for Samuel's inability to recognize the voice of the Lord, but this inability provides the crucial theme in the overall message of the text by involving Eli. Jonathan Stökl ("Daniel and the 'Prophetization' of Dream Divination") declares that Daniel "prophetizes" dream interpretation to make it acceptable to Jews. Daniel interprets the...