On Rereading the “Kid in Milk” Inscription

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Jacob Milgrom has presented an excellent overall evaluation of the problems posed by the passage in the Ugaritic text (see “You Shall Not Boil a Kid in Its Mother’s Milk”), commonly called “The Birth of the Gracious and Beautiful Gods.” This text has so often been connected to the biblical prohibition against boiling a kid in its mother’s milk. We would like to add a different viewpoint—not the perspective of the philologist, who must try to determine what a text says, that is, how the words and phrases are to be understood; nor of the higher critic who must try to figure out what a text means, that is, how the text as a whole fits into the larger religious, cultural and literary milieu; but rather an interpretation from the standpoint of the lowly epigrapher.

What is the epigrapher’s perspective? The term “epigraphy” comes from Greek epi and graphein, which literally mean “to write upon,” and the very concreteness of this etymology captures the sense of what epigraphic analysis entails. For the epigraphist’s concern is with the physical evidence—not what the text says or means, but more simply what the text is. The epigraphist focuses his or her attention on the individual letters on a stone or a cuneiform tablet or papyrus, and tries to detetermine exactly what they are—and what they are not.

We have been preparing an epigraphic reevaluation of the famous reading from the Ugaritic text, based on a series of new and highly detailed photographs we made of the 14th-century tablet on behalf of the West Semitic Research Project of the University of Southern California.¹ The photographs were taken during the summer of 1983 in the Louvre, where this and many other Ugaritic texts now reside.² At the time, we made not only the large-scale photograph (above), reproduced for the first time here in Bible Review, but also a whole series of shots done at much higher magnification. When necessary we made what might best be described as “portraits” of the individual signs so that the physical evidence could be evaluated in fine detail. Indeed, sometimes our photographs revealed nuances of a reading that were too small for the eye to see—although, of course, all readings were checked carefully by eye as well.

For the text in question here, which is on line 14 of the obverse side (the front) of the tablet, we need all the help we can get. One reason this passage has been so hotly disputed since its first publication is that the readings are fiendishly difficult to establish at the most crucial point. The disputed reading, outlined in red, is located at the right end of line 14 on the tablet. The line in which the disputed reading occurs wraps right around the edge of the tablet, then makes a sharp 90-degree turn and heads straight up its edge. As is apparent from the photograph, the lion’s share of the damage on the obverse (front) of the tablet is on its nght side. Indeed, our passage skims perilously close to the top of a large area of damage in which nothing at all can now be read. Had the passage occurred one line further down, it would have been completely lost—and thus a great deal of scholarly debate would have been avoided entirely!

Precisely what is the nature of the damage at the end of line 14? It is generally assumed that the surface is now cracked, scratched and abraded (scraped) as a result of violent damage that occurred when ancient Ugarit was destroyed. It is also generally assumed that the signs were subsequently worn down during the tablet’s long interment in the ground before archaeologists recovered it. In addition, some scholars have claimed that certain signs were intentionally erased by the scribe.

After examining the end of line 14, as well as other damaged areas of the text, we think that there may be another explanation for at least part of the damage.

Cuneiform texts are made by taking a reed stylus and impressing indentations into a wet clay tablet to form wedge-shaped signs. After the tablet dries or is fired, the wedges become hard and durable; thus a cuneiform tablet is an excellent medium for the preservation of permanent records. Of course, as we noted above, the signs may be partially or entirely worn 058away. But just the opposite can also happen; that is, over time they can build up deposits, hard encrustations that fill the wedges in, making them hard to read. On our cuneiform tablet a number of wedges—including those at the end of line 14—appear to be filled in, although the outside edges of the signs seem completely or partially unaffected.³ The best way to understand this damage may be to attribute it to just this sort of encrustation. It is these filled-in signs that are generally the most difficult to read in this text. Fortunately, such signs, which look to the naked eye like the slightest of blemishes on the writing surface, can be made to show up far more clearly in photographs done both with ultrahigh contrast and strong magnification. Several of the important readings at the end of line 14, after enhancement in this manner, could be established with confidence where previously even the existence of the signs themselves had been questioned.

Another approach that helped was taking high-magnification photographs of the signs at an oblique angle. Thereby, we could see far more clearly even the slightest indentations in the clay that indicated the trace of a sign. Such signs were far less clear when looked at with the eye or with the writing surface perpendicular to the camera lens. This technique proved particularly useful in picking out readings on the edge of the tablet.

Those interested in a detailed epigraphic analysis of the tablet are encouraged to hear our full-scale presentation, which will be read before the Ugaritic Seminar of the Society of Biblical Literature in Anaheim, California, in November; or they may read our technical paper, which will be published as quickly thereafter as possible. Here, however, are our conclusions, which fully agree with those of Professor Milgrom.

The reading of Charles Virolleaud and the brilliant interpretation, first cautiously proposed by H. L. Ginsberg, linking this text to the biblical prohibition against boiling a kid in its mother’s milk cannot be supported by the epigraphic evidence. There is simply no room available to squeeze in an extra letter hÉ—as the reading would require—nor is there any indication of the presence of such a letter in the line itself. To illustrate our conclusions, we have drawn an enlargement of the disputed reading (see drawing, top line) and below it the line as reconstructed by us with an arrow indicating the extra letter required to make the “kid in milk” reading work.

We can confirm with confidence the following readings: g b—dbhlb. The two dashes mark areas where there is space available. In these areas there is room for a word-divider (conventionally transcribed as a dot) and one letter. The word-divider, usually written as a short vertical wedge, cannot be seen because a large crack in the clay surface snakes down vertically just at the place where we expect the word divider sign to be. We can restore it with some confidence, however, because the space available is just enough to allow for it—but not large enough to allow for anything else. In the next space, right before the d, there is enough room for a letter, as long as that letter is essentially vertical in orientation. Moreover, close examination of the writing surface definitely shows some trace of the letter (see photo of tablet from Ugarit, top line). Although the reading of g cannot be epigraphically labeled as certain, we consider the reading likely (see drawing, bottom line). Thus in its entirety the passage at the end of line 14 should be g b[.][g]d.bhlb.

This reading cannot have anything to do with cooking kids in milk. The philological interpretation upon which this critical analysis was built collapses because there is no epigraphic foundation to support it. The overall text, of which our passage is the crucial part, probably should be translated: “By the fire seven times the sweet-voiced youths (answer): ‘Coriander in milk, mint in curds.’”⁴

Many readers may be disappointed that a cultural connection between the Bible and Canaanite pagan religions is thereby broken. Still, the reading in the Ugaritic text is interesting in and of itself—perhaps especially interesting because it is so obscure. In any case, one must follow where the signs lead, rather than insist that the signs conform to what we want to find. Of course, in order to follow where the signs lead, one must be sure to read them correctly in the first place. This is the epigrapher’s job: Though it is certainly the lowliest and least dramatic of all the tasks that scholars in biblical and Near Eastern studies must undertake, still it is the essential one upon which all other scholarly endeavors in ancient literature must necessarily depend.

Jacob Milgrom has presented an excellent overall evaluation of the problems posed by the passage in the Ugaritic text (see “You Shall Not Boil a Kid in Its Mother’s Milk”), commonly called “The Birth of the Gracious and Beautiful Gods.” This text has so often been connected to the biblical prohibition against boiling a kid in its mother’s milk. We would like to add a different viewpoint—not the perspective of the philologist, who must try to determine what a text says, that is, how the words and phrases are to be understood; nor of the higher critic who must […]