Nicolas Wyatt

The Concept and Purpose of Hell: Its Nature and Development in West Semitic Thought

A number of currents of thought gradually coalesced into the Judaeo-Christian conception of “hell.” Th is article attempts to relate them. Th e earliest traceable ideas involve a disembodied, subterranean existence of the common dead, or in exceptional cases total annihilation. Deceased kings were deifi ed and continued to be involved in the aff airs of the living, as in the Ugaritic funeral and kispum text KTU 1.161. Th is was

Ugaritic Studies at the End of the 20th Century@@@Handbook of Ugaritic Studies

In the mold of the Handbook of Phoenician Studies which appeared in this same series in 1995 (Krings), this volume contains a status studiorum ugritorum at the end of the 20th century. After a four-page introduction by the editors, 27 authors present the field in 15 chapters, which are divided into a total of 46 sections ; some of the chapters are variously authored (e.g., chap. 4, The Ugaritic language, is presented in five sections by six authors) while others are all by one author (e.g., chap. 9, The Legal Texts from Ugarit, is presented in four sections by a single author). Following the introduction which is numbered as a separate chapter (1), the principal topics covered are 2. archaeology ; 3. the written sources ; 4. the Ugaritic language ; 5. Ugaritic stylistics ; 6. Ugaritic literary texts ; 7. Ugaritic cultic texts ; 8. Correspondence ; 9. Legal texts ; 10. Economy ; 11. Society ; 12. onomastics ; 13. religion ; 14. Iconography ; 15. Political history ; 16. The tablets and the computer.

The meaning of El Roi and the mythological dimension of Genesis 16

Abstract This article discusses the literary debt of the story of Hagar in Genesis 16 to the Ugaritic text KTU 1.23, suggesting that behind the present tale lie ancient royal ideological motifs. These have a bearing on the present form of the story, ans suggest a message of hope to an exilic readership. The divine epithet Roi is explained as “seen”, expressing Hagars surprise at surviving a vision of God.

A Royal Garden: The Ideology of Eden

ABSTRACT Before “Paradise” became concerned with explaining the pre-sent “fallen” condition of humanity, due to a primal sin, which later also be-came eschatologised into the locus of a human post-mortem felicitous destiny, it already symbolised royal power and the king’s role in the ritual manage-ment of the state. And before the Garden of Eden came to be understood as “in the east,” or in some other place remote from the present real world, it was understood to be located in Jerusalem, as the setting of the royal cult. Adam the gardener was originally a type of the king. This paper examines the evidence for these elements in the biblical Eden story (Genesis 2-3) and in Mesopotamian and Egyptian iconography and ideology, and attempts to set the final form of the tradition within its historical context, the destruction of the state in 597/586 BCE and its non-monarchical succeeding period under Persian rule.

The Mythic Mind Revisited. Myth and History, or Myth versus History, a Continuing Problem in Biblical Studies

In a 1998 paper (published in 2001 in SJOT 15:3-56) I suggested that myth is not a (literary) genre, being altogether too polymorphous to fit any such formal definition, but rather a mind-set. The opposition often discerned by biblical scholars between myth and history had led to extravagant claims concerning the non-mythic nature of Old Testament narratives, on the ground that their basis often lay in “historical fact.” On the other hand, the status of history in the Old Testament has become almost as contentious in some recent scholarship. This paper raises some fundamental problems, and examines some current tendencies in both areas, and will ask whether it is possible to reach some modus vivendi, in which scholars of diverse persuasions may find some common ground, instead of continuing to talk past each other.

Aśvamedha and purusamedha in ancient India

The Aśvamedha is examined, and its double nature noted—a combination of sacrificial and hierogamic rites of cosmogony. Its relationship with the Purusamedha is examined, and it is proposed that the latter was no mere ‘theoretical rite’ as widely supposed, but predated the former, and was transformed into it following the Āryan settlement in India, as a second function adaptation of a first function rite appropriate to military expansion.

Aśvamedha and puruṡamedha in ancient India

The Aśvamedha is examined, and its double nature noted—a combination of sacrificial and hierogamic rites of cosmogony. Its relationship with the Purusamedha is examined, and it is proposed that the latter was no mere ‘theoretical rite’ as widely supposed, but predated the former, and was transformed into it following the Āryan settlement in India, as a second function adaptation of a first function rite appropriate to military expansion.

Aśvamedha and puruṡamedha in ancient India

The Aśvamedha is examined, and its double nature noted—a combination of sacrificial and hierogamic rites of cosmogony. Its relationship with the Purusamedha is examined, and it is proposed that the latter was no mere ‘theoretical rite’ as widely supposed, but predated the former, and was transformed into it following the Āryan settlement in India, as a second function adaptation of a first function rite appropriate to military expansion.

A press-seal, possibly of Indus type, found in Iraq

The seal illustrated in the accompanying illustrations (Plate I, 1 and 2; Fig. 1, a to c) was recently brought to my attention by Mrs. Sarah Campbell of Dunstaffnage, whose father, Mr. R. 0. Ramsay, discovered it in 1931, while supervising canal-digging on the Latifiya estates, some 40 miles south of Baghdad. It appears at first sight to be another example of the type of square press seal found in considerable numbers at all levels in Harappan sites, of which a number have also been found in Mesopotamia, notably at Tello, Kish, and Ur, and also at Susa.1 It is of interest not simply as a possible further example of the type, but also because of a number of peculiar characteristics it exhibits, which make it quite anomalous. The seal is made of black steatite, a common medium for seals, which occurs naturally in the Zagros as well as in the Punjab. Its face measures 39 x 30 mm. at its maximum extent (being slightly irregular), while its depth is 40 mm., all dimensions being of the seal in its present broken condition. The original approximate size would have been a face of 39 x 39 mm., with a depth of 43 mm. (see Fig. 1, a and b). Nothing is known of its stratigraphy, which makes any dating conjectural, and dependent on an estimate of its stylistic characteristics. There are reasons for thinking that the seal is not an imported example, but a locally manufactured one. The animal depicted does not correspond to any of the three types of bovine illustrated on seals of Indian origin (bos primogenius ? aurochs, bos indicus ? brahman or zebu, bubalis bubalis ? buffalo)2 insofar as these can be accurately identified. It resembles the second of these most closely, but lacks the distinctive dewlap which is such a marked feature of bos indicus in the form depicted on the seals (cf. Plate I, 3). It may tentatively be identified as bos sondaicus (banteng), a type early found in Mesopotamia,3 but this cannot of course be insisted upon, because of the relative crudity of the workmanship. This is quite marked when the seal is compared with the almost uniformly high quality of the craftmanship of the Indus seals portraying bovines, though in this respect it is similar enough to the western Asiatic examples. The seals from the Indus culture generally allow room for an inscription in the Harappan script. Although the present seal is mutilated, its original form may be easily inferred (see Fig. 1, a and b), and it can be seen that the artist has placed the animal centrally within a square frame, leaving no obvious space for the addition of an inscription. On the Indus seals the common means of attachment to the owner was probably by a cord passed through a small boss on the back which was pierced for the purpose.4 The wedge shape of the present