Prophets and Prophecy in the Ancient Near East

Prophets and Prophecy in the Ancient Near East, by Martti Nissinen, with contributions by C. L. Seow and Robert K. Ritner. Edited by Peter Machinist. WAW 12. Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2003. Pp. xxi + 273. euro 92.00; $124.00. ISBN 9004126910. In keeping with the aims of the Writings from the Ancient World series, this volume is designed to provide general readers with an up-to-date translation of texts concerned with prophecy from the ancient Near East. This must be qualified, however, insofar as the volume does not present Egyptian texts that are sometimes considered prophetic (e.g., Admonitions of Ipu-wer). Rather, it focuses primarily on Mesopotamian texts, especially the Mari letters, and texts from Syria, Canaan, and Israel. Nissinen defines prophecy for the purposes of this volume as "human transmission of allegedly divine messages" (p. 1). It is a branch of the larger phenomenon of divination. Prophecy is therefore noninductive insofar as it does not rely on systematic observations of phenomena in the world and their scholarly interpretation (e.g., consultation of smoke or oil patterns, of liver features in sacrificial animals). One might question this decision insofar as it is not always certain how prophets who deliver oracles obtain their insights into the mind or will of the divine. Note, for example, that Amos delivers oracles that are based in part on his observations of locust plagues and fire (see Amos 7:1-3, 4-6); Jeremiah observes his own Levitical rod and the pots that he would have used as a Levite in the preparation of sacrificial meals (see Jer 1:11-19); and Zechariah observes the various scenes associated with the building of the second Temple (Zechariah 1-6). Likewise, the biblical portrayal of Balaam ben Beor (identified by scholars as a bam priest) indicates that he delivered oracles based in part upon his use of altars, which would have played a role in the deductive divination characteristic of baru priests. This last example is especially noteworthy because the volume includes the Deir 'Alla inscription, which presents an oracle attributed to Balaam. Although the account of Balaam's oracles in Numbers 22-24 is highly fictionalized, the remembrance of a foreign prophet as a diviner might well suggest to us some insight into the means by which such oracles were obtained. The Mari texts included in this volume present oracular statements by various types of prophets, but it is never clear what motivates them to speak. Can we simply assume that they work with some sort of divine inspiration-as is frequently supposed for the biblical prophets-or did they too depend upon some sort of deductive observation that our texts do not portray? Nissinen is aware of the problem and notes that our texts leave us in the dark concerning the social conditions in which the transmission of divine messages occurs. Indeed, the supposition that biblical prophets work without such observation is just as questionable as the above-noted examples would suggest. Texts included in the volume comprise three types: (1) oracle reports and collections that are clearly represented as divine communications; (2) quotations of prophetic messages in letters and other types of literature; and (3) texts with references to persons who have a prophetic title. Excluded texts include (1) those not entirely consistent with the definition of prophecy as transmission, such as the predictive Egyptian texts; (2) texts in which the reference to prophecy is yet to be established; and (3) several texts from Nuzi and Assur in which the term apilu, "answerer," commonly recognized as a prophetic title in the Mari texts and elsewhere, appears to have a different meaning. The various designations for prophets in these texts include the apilum, "answerer," who might possibly be a type of oracle diviner; the muhhum, an ecstatic figure who sometimes seems to be indistinguishable from the apilum; qammatum, an uncertain term that might refer to a distinctive hairstyle; the nabu, which may be related to biblical Hebrew nabi'; the assinu, a "man-woman," who appears to change gender roles when speaking on behalf of a deity; and the Neo-Assyrian raggiinu, "proclaimer," who is especially-but not exclusively-associated with Ishtar of Arbela. …