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Hittite Diplomatic Texts: SBL Writings from the Ancient World Series 7
Gary Beckman, ed. by Harry A. Hoffner, Jr.
(Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996) x + 206 pp., $44.95 (hardback), $29.95 (paperback)
Scholars who believe that history began with Herodotus in the fifth century B.C.E. may be unaware of the political documents from the Hittite Empire. The texts translated in this new volume display historiography dating to the second millennium B.C.E.
This work is an important edition to the Society of Biblical Literature’s series on ancient writings from the Biblical world. Those who conceived and planned this series are to be commended for making available to Bible scholars and laymen these new translations of so many important documents from the cultures of the ancient Near East. For two (or is it three?) generations, English-speaking students of Bible have relied on the magnificent compendium of translations assembled and edited by the late James B. Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, affectionately known by its acronym, ANET. However, many new texts have been discovered since Pritchard’s work was first published in the 1950s, and new insights have been made in the reading and interpretation of the older documents as well. So a new compendium was long overdue. A similar German series under the able leadership of Otto Kaiser has been available to scholars on the continent since the 1980s (Texts aus der Umwelt des Alten Testament), but to many English readers this may be inaccessible. Therefore, the new SBL series is doubly welcome.
Beckman’s volume includes some texts that were already translated in the later editions of ANET, but it also deals with a host of documents that are brought together in one English collection for the first time. We are privileged to have these translations made by one of the leading Hittitologists on the North American continent.
The subject matter, Hittite diplomatic texts, might seem a bit remote from the interests of the typical Bible scholar. But those truly concerned about the world in which the Bible was written will find much of value here. Of course, those who simply want ancient Near Eastern history for its own sake will now be able to use these documents, many of which provide important chapters in the diplomatic and geopolitical goings-on of the second millennium B.C.E. Three main languages are represented here: Hittite, the Indo-European language of the Hittite empire; Akkadian, the Semitic lingua franca that had spread from Mesopotamia to the entire Near Eastern world by the second millennium B.C.E.; and Ugaritic, a West Semitic language used at the city of Ugarit (only translations of official documents are included here).
The most striking feature about these documents is that the Hittite government saw fit to precede each of its political treaties with a historical preamble. We see before us a set of passages describing the course of human affairs and doing so with the attitude that cause and effect are valid reasons for political decisions. The Hittites had a real sense of history! They did not make their decisions without thinking them through. Furthermore, they wanted the parties to the treaty, and the gods who were invoked as witnesses thereto, to know the historical developments that led up to it.
Although the Hittite historical preambles and other important historical documents from the Hittite archives opened before us the vision of prehellenic peoples with a sense of history, many scholars still refuse to admit that such a sense of history could have existed in ancient Israel. It is their loss, not ours. The historiography of Biblical books such as Kings and Chronicles matches anything found in neighboring cultures, Near Eastern or Classical.
In a large section on treaties, Beckman has placed at our disposal those documents that have been the springboard for lengthy debates about the literary covenant forms found in the Pentateuch (particularly in Deuteronomy), especially the formulation of the covenant between God and Israel. From the beginning, when the Hittite texts became known to scholars, there have been those who have insisted that the covenant form (preamble, stipulations, concluding exhortations and threatened divine curses, etc.) must have originated in the milieu of the second millennium B.C.E.—they must stem, in other words, from a Bronze Age source. George Mendenhall was the pioneer in this approach. Subsequently, other scholars pointed to the Aramaic treaty on the Sefire stelae (discovered in northern 058Syria during the 1930s) as evidence that such treaty formats were known in the Iron Age (tenth to seventh centuries) as well. Then the discovery of the vassal treaties of King Assarhadon of Assyria, published by Donald Wiseman in 1958, led many Biblical scholars to see the Deuteronomistic formulae as stemming from the seventh century B.C.E. The debate still goes on. Scholars point to one detail or the other to prove their case. Those who insist on an early date for the Biblical covenant formulation depend largely on parallels from the Hittite documents, which they say are absent from the Assyrian and Aramaic texts. Obviously, neither side in the controversy has been convinced by the opposing case. I recognize the significance of the Hittite documents for Near Eastern culture in general, but I do not see them as compelling evidence for a second millennium date for the Biblical covenant. Throughout the centuries there was a broad reservoir of diplomatic legal terminology that politicians and scribes had at their disposal. The Biblical writers could easily have acquired knowledge of these forms later as well as earlier.
The section on diplomatic correspondence, reveals something of the Hittite ability to use current events and historical arguments to bolster political and military claims. The Hittites were evidently past-masters in the psychology of diplomacy. Of course, they were also carrying a big stick—the Hittite imperial army!
The miscellaneous documents include some interesting inventories of tribute lists. The payments by a vassal to the Hittite government were often designated for specific recipients. It was the Ugaritic translation of one of those lists (No. 28A) that first made me realize that the lamed preposition on the Samaria ostraca had to designate the recipient of the shipment and not the sender as Yigael Yadin had contended.
Incidentally, while the translations are generally careful and trustworthy, occasional slips occur. For example, tribute to high officials to be sent by the king of Ugarit lists silver cups, and not golden cups. Surely this is a minor oversight. The cuneiform signs for gold and for silver are similar in the Akkadian version. However, this same text has a Ugaritic translation that uses the word ksp, which all Biblical scholars will recognize as “silver.”
There is no doubt that Beckman’s volume will be invaluable to scholars of the ancient Near East and of the Bible. Reading the texts will not only enlighten scholars and laymen with new insights, it will also provide hours of pleasurable reading.
Hittite Diplomatic Texts: SBL Writings from the Ancient World Series 7
Gary Beckman, ed. by Harry A. Hoffner, Jr.
(Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996) x + 206 pp., $44.95 (hardback), $29.95 (paperback)
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