Cultic Contexts Research Articles

Acceptability and Purity in Acts 10:35

Abstract δεκτός in Acts 10:35 may be understood as a term from the Jewish purity and consecration system. With a high degree of consistency, Hebrew רצון and רצה are rendered in cultic contexts in the LXX with words of the δεκ- lexeme. While verbs of the δεκ- lexeme are not uncommon prior to the LXX, adjectives of the δεκ-lexeme are uncommon outside of the LXX prior to the NT, establishing the use of δεκ- adjectives in the LXX as the primary context for δεκτός in Acts. This interpretation is consistent with themes of purity and consecration in the Cornelius episode and throughout Luke-Acts.

The Bearded Man and the Pregnant Woman Terracotta Figurines: A Case of Divine “Open Relationship” in Persian-Period Levant?

ABSTRACT In this article, the authors analyze a widespread Persian-period terracotta figurine type in the Levant: the seated man with an atef crown or a cylindrical tiara and a hand touching his beard. As well as studying the specific attributes and the evolution of this iconography, the authors will address its association in cultic contexts with another figurine: the pregnant woman. By providing new arguments to identify the bearded man and the pregnant woman as (mainly) divine images, which are at the same time associated and distinct, the authors stress that the idea of a divine couple in an “open relationship” is of pivotal importance in understanding the organization of ancient polytheisms.

God and Gods in the Deuteronomistic History ed. by Corrine Carvalho and John L. Mclaughlin

Reviewed by: God and Gods in the Deuteronomistic History ed. by Corrine Carvalho and John L. Mclaughlin Mark Lackowski corrine carvalho and john l. mclaughlin (eds.), God and Gods in the Deuteronomistic History (CBQI 2; Washington, DC: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 2021). Pp xxiii + 277. Paper $39.99. This collection of essays came out of the Divinity in Ancient Israel Continuing Seminar at the annual meeting of the Catholic Biblical Association. Over a period of four years, the scholars who participated and published the essays in this volume examined the Deuteronomistic History (DH). Across the introduction and twelve different essays, attention is given to each book in the DH, providing a rich variety of texts to explore. Indeed, the literary diversity in the DH is reflected in its different portrayals of divinity, something even seen in the title of the book, which uses the words “God” and “Gods.” After an introduction [End Page 175] that provides a clear and concise overview of past and present scholarship on the DH and the central arguments of the different authors in the volume, the essays are organized canonically, followed by useful indexes of ancient sources, modern authors, and relevant subjects. The opening essay by Thomas B. Dozeman (“‘El, the Living’: Divinity and Holy War in the Book of Joshua,” pp. 1–29) uses diachronic exegesis to offer a synchronic reading of the final form(s) of Joshua, which he argues combined Deuteronomistic and Priestly themes to create a unique revelation of Israel’s God during the postexilic period. Dozeman shows how the controversial holy war stories in Joshua marked by “the ban” (ḥērem) are the combination of cultic features from Priestly texts and warlike features from Deuteronomistic texts into a unique revelation of “El, the Living” (Josh 3:10), who “demands ritualized genocide as the highest form of religious obedience in taking possession of the promised land” (p. 29). The essay by Corrine Carvalho (“Yhwh, Rahab, and Gibeonites: The Hybrid Other in the Book of Joshua,” pp. 30–48) challenges scholars who excuse the violent actions of Yhwh toward the Canaanites by appealing to the seemingly positive portrayals of Rahab and the Gibeonites. Rather than interpret Yhwh’s mercy toward Rahab and the Gibeonites as a divine characteristic that overcomes the merciless action of the ḥērem, Carvalho argues that it most likely reflects the postexilic author’s belief that faithful obedience by the colonized (e.g., Judahites) can result in positive treatment by the colonizer (e.g., Persians). Thus, she demonstrates how “the narrator cannot manage to tamper with the ideology of obedience to the colonizer” (p. 48). Mahri Leonard-Fleckman’s essay (“Binding Samson to Yhwh: From Disorder to Order in the Samson Cycle,” pp. 49–68) focuses on the compositional history of the Samson stories and argues how it is reflected in the complex social landscape of the Shephelah, where the stories are set. According to Leonard-Fleckman, the Samson stories are marked by blurred lines of identity, reminiscent of a preexilic reality where even the deities are not clearly delineated. However, with the addition of Samson’s death in the temple of Dagon, Deuteronomistic scribes made it clear that the “final act of terror against the Philistines and their god, with the questionable help of Yhwh, leaves the reader with the unmistakable impression that Samson belongs to Israel” (p. 65). Mark Smith (“Retrospective Deities in Judges: Memory and Amnesia about ‘Other Gods,’” pp. 69–103) uses the compositional history of Judges to highlight traces of a polytheistic past. According to the Deuteronomists, the Israelites who follow other Gods and disobey Yhwh are given into the hands of their enemies. Nevertheless, this happens repeatedly and with increasing severity from one tribe and judge to the next, reflecting a form of cultural amnesia by scribes describing cultic contexts and foreign Gods centuries after those represented in the text. The religious reforms of the Deuteronomists in Judah from the seventh century b.c.e. onward are superimposed then on an ancient Israelite past marked by cultic pluriformity and what Smith calls “retrospective deities.” Mark Enemali (“Divine Presence in the Ark of the Covenant in 1 Samuel 4:1b–7:1,” pp. 104...

Ancient Cults in Ḫattuša (I)


 
 
 The present essay explores the question of continuity and change between Kaneš and Ḫattuša in the cultic sphere, reviewing the cult of Parga, probably a fertility goddess of local Anatolian origin, in the Hittite sources. It reveals that Parga appears in several different cultic contexts but within a relatively invariable sequence of offerings, often appearing with the same, often “exotic” deities, such as Zūluma, Šišumma/i, and Šurra. The probable location for performance of many of these cultic sequences in the lower town of Ḫattuša, one of the most ancient parts of the city, shows a great deal of continuity between the Old Assyrian and the Old Hittite periods, and may further highlight the antiquity of these cults. Since some of the cultic action considered in this essay took place in close proximity to the ašuša-gate, the evidence concerning the location of that gate, probably at the western or northwestern section of the fortification wall and near some of the institutions located in its vicinity, will be examined.
 
 

Adorno and the Role of Sublimation in Artistic Creativity and Cultural Redemption

AbstractTheodor W. Adorno resisted Sigmund Freud’s explanation of artistic creation as the sublimation of the artist’s libidinal drives. It focuses too much on the artist rather than the work and is in the service of accommodation to the status quo. But Adorno also questioned the simple reversal of Freud’s formula, pointing out the dangers of unmediated desublimation. The artist, he suggested, should sublimate his or her rage instead. No less significant was the retrospective cultural sublimation of objects from exhausted devotional or cultic contexts, which preserved the unfulfilled yearnings originally expressed in them.

Jewish Cultural Encounters in the Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern World ed. by Mladen Popović, Myles Schoonover and Marijn Vandenberghe

Reviewed by: Jewish Cultural Encounters in the Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern World ed. by Mladen Popović, Myles Schoonover and Marijn Vandenberghe Scott Charlesworth mladen popović, myles schoonover, and marijn vandenberghe (eds.), Jewish Cultural Encounters in the Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern World (JSJSup 178; Leiden: Brill, 2017). Pp. vi + 317. Paper €125/$138. The sixteen essays in this edited volume, which developed out of the Third Qumran Institute Symposium of 2013, examine the ways in which cultural encounters in the ancient Mediterranean and Near East shaped the literary traditions, religious and political systems, and historical development of people from Israel, Judea, and Palestine. In the introduction to the book ("Ancient Jewish Cultural Encounters and a Case Study on Ezekiel"), Popović discusses "cultural encounter" in relation to methodology, a prominent theme throughout the book. As regards "real or perceived transfers from a given literary corpus to another," if the only evidence for a cultural encounter is literary, "any hypothesis should be confronted with what we do know about the presumed context on the basis of other [i.e. archaeological and documentary] evidence" (p. 11). Similarly, he asserts that the inferences that might be drawn from archaeological remains may be limited by the absence of accompanying documentary sources. Thus, he rejects the argument that in the sixth century b.c.e. an elite Judean like Ezekiel would have had access to the Babylonian cuneiform learned tradition and borrowed from it in his description of the heavenly throne room. The next essay, "Taming Egypt: The Impact of Persian Imperial Ideology and Politics on the Biblical Exodus Account," by Konrad Schmid, illustrates the nature of the problem quite well. Schmid argues on purely literary-critical grounds that the Persian pax influenced [End Page 348] the Priestly account of the exodus from Egypt. Further, P probably comes from the early Persian period because it "does not yet presuppose Egypt's inclusion in the Persian Empire" (p. 26). In his last footnote, Schmid then takes issue with those who reject this commonly used method of speculatively dating a text by matching its ideas with a particular historical period. As might be expected, the majority of studies in the book deal with literary texts. Jonathan Stökl ("Netting Marduk? The Concept of Hidden Transcripts and the Transfer of Cultural Knowledge from Mesopotamian to Judean Texts") urges caution in noting that less evidence is usually required for shared streams of traditions as against contact between specific texts. Thus, he argues that a wider combat myth tradition influenced Yhwh's use of a net against Egypt (Ezek 32:3) rather than the text of the Enūma eliš. Caroline Waerzeggers ("The Prayer of Nabonidus in the Light of Hellenistic Babylonian Literature") strikes a similar note in using a range of evidence to locate the Prayer of Nabonidus, often invoked as a sixth-century parallel to the prayer of Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 4, in the late Persian and Hellenistic periods (two hundred to four hundred years later). In contrast, in arguing that there is a philological and methodological connection between the two exegetical traditions, Uri Gabbay ("Levels of Meaning and Textual Polysemy in Akkadian and Hebrew Exegetical Texts") asserts that Akkadian commentaries influenced early tannaitic midrash. In the absence of any other evidence for contact, he offers three "entirely hypothetical" historical scenarios in which the two exegetical traditions might have come into contact with each other. Other discussions of the literary evidence include Benjamin G. Wright, "What Does India Have to Do with Jerusalem? Ben Sira, Language, and Colonialism"; Judith H. Newman, "Hybridity, Hydrology, and Hidden Transcript: Sirach 24 and the Judean Encounter with Ptolemaic Isis Worship"; Hindy Najman, "Philo's Greek Scriptures and Cultural Symbiosis"; and J. Cornelius de Vos, "'I Wish Those Who Unsettle You Would Mutilate Themselves!' (Gal 5:12): Circumcision and Emasculation in the Letter to the Galatians." Lastly, in a discussion of both literary and documentary (funerary inscriptions) evidence, Sacha Stern ("Subversion and Subculture: Jewish Time-Keeping in the Roman Empire") elaborates on the unofficial subculture and/or political subversion evident in Jewish use of a lunar calendar in cultic contexts and the Julian solar calendar in everyday life. On the documentary side, Bob...

David J. Downs, The Offering of the Gentiles: Paul’s Collection for Jerusalem in Its Chronological, Cultural, and Cultic Contexts

David J. Downs, <i>The Offering of the Gentiles: Paul’s Collection for Jerusalem in Its Chronological, Cultural, and Cultic Contexts</i>

Book Review: The Offering of the Gentiles: The Collection for Jerusalem in Its Chronological, Cultural, and Cultic Contexts

Book Review: The Offering of the Gentiles: The Collection for Jerusalem in Its Chronological, Cultural, and Cultic Contexts

Fashion Ware in Mes Aynak, Logar: Chronology and comparison (with an Appendix on a single specimen of tulip-bowl from Site MA-100)

This paper deals with the presence at Mes Aynak (Logar, Afghanistan) of a luxury ware, which is well known from various Bajaur sites, and stratigraphically well documented in Late Kushan/Kushano-Sasanian phases at the urban site of Barikot (Swat, Pakistan). In the latter site this luxury ware represents a distinct chronological marker for the 3rd century CE phases, and, moreover, it is often associated to cultic contexts. The paper concludes with a note on a single finding of a tulip-bowl vessel at Mes Aynak (Site 100) which might have important implications on the chronology of the area's early occupation.

The Lost Priestesses of Rhodes? Female Religious Offices and Social Standing in Hellenistic Rhodes

This article questions the commonly assumed prevalence of women in Greek Hellenistic priesthoods, often considered to put them on equal footing with men in this sphere, through the particular case study of Rhodes, a state whose religious organisation appears entirely dominated by male priests. It suggests that it is time to revise some of the general assumptions about women and Greek religion by placing greater emphasis on regional variations. Consequently, it argues that local organisation and the epigraphic habit likely played a role, and examines in detail the evidence that does survive for Rhodian priestesses. Do these appear in particularly “feminine” cultic contexts? Can we find any evidence for a “gender-rule” of priesthoods? Finally, this article considers the limited public representation of women in Hellenistic Rhodian society, and what light this casts on our understanding of priesthoods.

THE BREAD OF AŠŠUR

As today, bread in antiquity came in a multitude of varieties, some of which were specific to particular regions or populations. Examining the terminology and iconography of breads in Assyrian texts, it is clear that there was a continuity of certain types of bread peculiar to Assyria from the Middle Assyrian period to the final century of the Assyrian empire. This exemplifies the strength of Assyria's identity over half a millennium, and the persistence of its cultural independence in some respects from its Babylonian neighbour. The majority of the written sources refer to cultic activities, and the conservatism expected in cultic contexts no doubt contributes to the long-term persistence of certain types of bread. There may even be reason to see one variety (ḫuḫḫurtu) as the forerunner of a bread used in Jewish cultic contexts to this day (challah).

Buddho–Daoism in medieval and early pre-modern China: A report on recent findings concerning influences and shared religious practices

This comprises a report on a project conducted at the Ruhr University, Bochum, on the interrelationship and exchanges between China's two major religious traditions, Buddhism and Daoism, during the medieval and early pre-modern periods. While the departure for the research was primarily concerned with the mutual exchanges of ritual techniques and technology, i.e.~ritual practices in general, concepts of ritual, ritual implements, ritual language, rituals in specific cultic contexts etc., I gradually expanded my interest to include a wider range of topics relating to the exchanges between Buddhism and Daoism in China including the appropriation of divinities and saints, integrated beliefs and practices involving elements from both religions, apocryphal writings, conceptualizations concerning specific religious themes in which ideas and beliefs from both Buddhism and Daoism were brought together. Among other issues dealt with is the manner in which such concepts of “secrecy” and “the netherworld” were formulated and constructed in the Buddho–Daoist exchanges.

Bread for Gods and Kings: On Baked Products in Profane and Cultic Consumption of Ancient Assyria

This study sheds light on the Assyrian bread-making based on the evidence provided by cuneiform sources of the first millennium BC. Baked products, in form of bread and cakes, characterize the food consumption of both profane and cultic contexts of the Assyrian imperial society. But bread and cakes are much more than foods, since they also witness cultural processes of integration of local culinary identities within the palace cookery of the imperial ruling elite. The final part examines the association of bread and meat in cultic and profane consumption and the relationship between cereal-based dishes and diseases.

Tales of Epic Ancestry: Boiotian Collective Identity in the Late Archaic and Early Classical Periods. By Stephanie L. Larson

BOOK REVIEWS Tales of Epic Ancestry: Boiotian Collective Identity in the Late Archaic and Early Classical Periods. By STEPHANIE L. LARSON. Historia Einzelschriften Band 197. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Press, 2007. Pp. 238. Paper, $87.00. ISBN 978–3–515–09028–5. Stephanie Larson’s Tales of Epic Ancestry stands at the convergence of two productive strands in Classical scholarship. The first and more recent is a developing interest in ethnicity and identity more generally, behind which one may glimpse the influence of contemporary national and global politics, the so-called “linguistic turn” in modern historiography and, above all, J. Hall’s grounding of such study in a theoretically rigorous yet accessible framework. The second is continuing research on Boiotia, the best known member of H.-J. Gehrke’s “third Greece,” where there is a long tradition of historical , archaeological and epigraphic study. Larson (henceforth L.) argues a two-part thesis: First, that a distinct Boiotian ethnicity existed already in the Archaic era; second, that this ethnic group did not achieve political and military salience until the Boiotians defeated the Athenians at Koroneia in 447/6, following a decade-long period of submission to Athens after the battle of Oinophyta in 458/7. L. discusses methodology and defines key terms (the works of A.D. Smith and J. Hall loom large) in a brief introduction. Chapter 1 exposes a coherent Archaic account about Boiotos, eponymous ancestor of the Boiotians, who was regarded as the son of Poseidon and an Aiolid woman, and as the father or grandfather of a host of important figures in Boiotian cult and myth. Chapter 2 demonstrates that already in the Archaic period there was a uniform tradition about a Boiotian migration from southern Thessaly . By doing so, L. has already demonstrated that, by the criteria of Smith and Hall, the Boiotians were a bona fide ethnic group by this date. Subsequent chapters consider a plurality of indicia of Boiotian ethnicity, i.e., features that may accompany and support Boiotian ethnic identity but are not constitutive of such an identity. Chapter 3 engages with Boiotia’s rich numismatic heritage in the late Archaic and early Classical period. Drawing on T.H. Nielsen’s recent work on the so-called Arkadikon issues, L. argues that those exceptional early- to mid-5th -century coins (probably minted in Tanagra) bearing the legend ΒΟΙ or ΒΟΙΟ are more likely festival issues than true federal issues. Individual cities routinely minted coins in Boiotia in this period, and L. unpacks the implications of the use of common types: 66 BOOK REVIEWS The Boiotian cut-out shield simultaneously recalled the iconography of the better-established Aigina turtles, while creating an implicit association with Ajax, an Aiakid hero often depicted in contemporary scenes with such a shield. Chapter 4 less successfully explores the epic character of Boiotian dialect and suggests that Boiotian preservation of Archaizing and epicizing features connected Boiotians to their Homeric past. Dialect and coinage can both be seen as drawing on and mutually reinforcing Boiotian claims to shared descent and territory. In Chapter 5, L. demonstrates that the ethnics Boiotios and Boiotoi were used in the 6th and early 5th century in cultic contexts especially, and often associated with Athena (Ptoion, Delphi), and that in no case do the Boiotians seem to express themselves as a political or military koinon, but rather as a community of cult. Use of these ethnics by non-Boiotians does not contradict this image. Thus Pindar’s awareness that Boiotians were slandered by outsiders as “pigs” reveals that they were regarded as a cultural unit, not a political one. After the middle of the 5th century, however, a shift occurs and the ethnics begin to have a clear political referent (e.g. SEG 26.475, a riddling tablet from Olympia). Chapter 6 confronts the evidence that poses the steepest resistance to L.’s thesis, namely the passages of Herodotus and Thucydides that seem to indicate a more formal political organization of Boiotia at the time of the Persian Wars and earlier; L. dismisses such testimony as retrojection (often polemical) of late 5th -century conditions into an earlier context. Koroneia emerges as a turning point when Boiotia was united into...

The Grave as a Doorway to the Other World: Architectural Religious Symbolism in Iron Age Graves in Scandinavia

During the last twenty years, the category ‘grave’ has been the subject of increasing debate in Swedish archaeology. It has been recognized that monuments commonly regarded as graves are sometimes also found in cultic contexts other than those associated with death and burial. In many cases, for instance, monuments similar to graves have been erected at cult sites, and seem to have been used in sacrificial practices rather than for burials. According to archaeological, textual and onomastic sources, it was common practice in Old Norse religion to suspend sacrificial victims from trees of from upraised posts, or to deposit offerings at the base of sacred rocks and boulders. In all these cases, the trees, posts and boulders seem to be representation of the World Axis, depicted in cosmological myths as a Cosmic Tree, Pillar or Mountain. I argue that these various representations of the World Axis are also incorporated in the architectonic symbolism of several forms of grave monuments in pre-Christian Scandinavia. The architectonic shape of these monuments could thus be used in several different contexts, since they represented a ‘Cosmic Center’ and a ‘doorway’ to the Other World.

Pottery Makers and Premodern Exchange in the Fringes of Egypt: An Approximation to the Distribution of Iron Age Midianite Pottery

This paper aims to study the distribution of Midianite pottery, a ware that was manufactured in the Hejaz and spread over the Negev (most notably Ramesside Timna), southern Palestine, and southern-central Jordan during the Iron Age. The admittedly meagre evidence from local sites suggests that the context of discovery is of particular significance. Since Midianite wares appear consistently in cultic contexts, administrative buildings and burial offerings, they may have been seen as valuable imports, probably due to their rich polychrome decorations, cultic character and/or imported nature. The presence of Midianite wares in these contexts implies that these goods were valued for their social significance as well as their functional content. This, in turn, points to the existence of exchange mechanisms of some kind, most notably gift-exchange and trade.

Homosexuality in Biblical Perspective

Homosexuality in Biblical Perspective analyses, in their cultural context, biblical passages on homosexuality. Biblical anthropology did not distinguish between homosexual orientation and behavior. Biblical passages address homosexual behavior of heterosexual persons in cultic contexts, identifying the perpetrators with pagan worship practice, eclipsing their identity as the people of Yahweh. Such behavior is an abomination. The Bible says nothing about the morality of homosexual behavior within a committed and ethical troth relationship such as marriage.

Two Representations of Black-skinned Statues in Ancient Egyptian Painting

In a study of yellow-skinned representations of men in the Old Kingdom which appeared in the second number of this journal, H. G. Fischer included a discussion of representations of statues whose skin had been painted yellow overlaid with black.1 To the group of such statues represented in series upon the walls of the serdab of Nhbw's mastaba (G 2381)2 may now be added a single representation of a statue which occurs among the fragmentary wall paintings from the tomb of MM, acquired by the Louvre in 1964.3 The statue represented in the MM painting stands upon a black base4 whose front edge is flush with a yellow vertical bar bordering the hieroglyphic inscription to the right.5 The tomb owner stands, barefoot, in the typical striding attitude, with left leg advanced. He wears a short kilt (i.e. above the knee) with triangular front panel. In his left hand (lost) he held a walking staff whose lower tip rests upon the base; the right hand (also lost) grasped the %-scepter. From the position of the scepter, it is clear that the right hand and arm were drawn to the left of the kilt ; the statue was therefore represented not in profile, but rather in that combination of characteristic views usually employed for the depiction of the human figure.6 A precise description cannot be given of the context in which the statue was originally to be understood. The orientation and placement of the statue at the end of the register, facing the same end of the register, exclude both transportation and cultic contexts.7 Adjoining fragments from the lower registers of the wall show retainers of the tomb owner at work. The statue may once have formed part of a workshop scene.8 However, a more plausible suggestion is that the statue is all that remains of a representation of funerary equipment arrayed for MM's inspection.9 Fischer has suggested that the coloring of the skin (black overpainting yellow, strips of which are left exposed) is to be interpreted as reproducing the grained surface of dark wood.10 The specific identification ebony is avoided.11 In only one Old Kingdom instance of a statue depicted in relief and painted is the material ebony named in the accompanying inscription. A standing statue erected within an open shrine is dragged upon a sledge to the tomb. Above the shrine is written twt n hbny.12 The traces of color still visible upon the skin of the statue are red-brown, as is also the case with the skin of a second statue in the same transportation series designated twt n snd.lz According to Cooney, the five statues of MM, today divided among the collections of the Brooklyn Museum, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and Kansas City, represent in all likelihood the complete series of statuary prepared for the noble's serdab.14 A comparison of the statue represented in the painting with MM's statues shows that the appearance of none of the sculptures is exactly reproduced in the painting: the iconographic combination of short triangular panel kilt, walking staff and scepter does not exist among the statues. All the statues possess at least traces of their original colors, and, although the skin color varies considerably among them, the range of color expresses shades of red.15 All the statues are made of wood, but none has been scientifically examined to provide an accurate description of the type of timber employed.16

The Interpretation of Exodus Xxiv 9-11

Abstract(1) Exodus xxiv 9-11 is identifiable as a separate unit of tradition within the Sinai pericope. Of the present introduct on to these verses in Exodus xxiv 1-2, verses 1b-2 are not original. Whether verse 1a forms the original introduction will be discussed in a later article. (2) The tradition in Exodus xxiv 9-11 neither knows of nor implies the existence of a covenant between Israel and 'the God of Israel'. It is a theophany tradition and the expression at its conclusion, 'they ate and drank', is best understood, as in other cultic contexts in the Old Testament, as meaning that those who experienced this remarkable manifestation of God 'rejoiced' or 'worshipped' in the presence of God. (3) This theophany tradition is unique among and independent of other theophany traditions contained elsewhere in the Sinai narrative: it knows nothing of the mountain of the theophany being enwrapped in cloud, smoke, etc.; though it implies that the usual consequences of seeing God were fatal (verse 11a), it states in the most direct manner that a delegation of Israel's ancestors saw God, whereas in other theophany traditions in the Sinai narrative the hiddenness of God from human view is emphasised; finally, the figure of Moses in this tradition is strikingly 'reduced' when compared with the dominating role he plays in other theophany traditions. Here in Exodus xxiv 9-11 he cannot even be said to be primus inter pares.

The Interpretation of Exodus XXIV 9-11

Abstract(1) Exodus xxiv 9-11 is identifiable as a separate unit of tradition within the Sinai pericope. Of the present introduct on to these verses in Exodus xxiv 1-2, verses 1b-2 are not original. Whether verse 1a forms the original introduction will be discussed in a later article. (2) The tradition in Exodus xxiv 9-11 neither knows of nor implies the existence of a covenant between Israel and 'the God of Israel'. It is a theophany tradition and the expression at its conclusion, 'they ate and drank', is best understood, as in other cultic contexts in the Old Testament, as meaning that those who experienced this remarkable manifestation of God 'rejoiced' or 'worshipped' in the presence of God. (3) This theophany tradition is unique among and independent of other theophany traditions contained elsewhere in the Sinai narrative: it knows nothing of the mountain of the theophany being enwrapped in cloud, smoke, etc.; though it implies that the usual consequences of seeing God were fatal (verse 11a), it states in the most direct manner that a delegation of Israel's ancestors saw God, whereas in other theophany traditions in the Sinai narrative the hiddenness of God from human view is emphasised; finally, the figure of Moses in this tradition is strikingly 'reduced' when compared with the dominating role he plays in other theophany traditions. Here in Exodus xxiv 9-11 he cannot even be said to be primus inter pares.