Showing papers in "Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions in 2005"

Curses and Blessings in Ancient Greek Oaths

Abstract: Like most ancient peoples, the Greeks used oaths to verify statements of fact and to give added weight and security to a wide variety of social, political and fiscal agreements. And they often enforced the compliance and truthfulness of these oaths by sanctioning them with a balanced pair of conditional self-blessings and self-curses, such as we find at the end of the well-known Hippocratic oath:1

Were hittite kings divinely anointed? a palaic invocation to the sun-god and its significance for hittite religion

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to improve our understanding of a difficult Palaic invocation to the Sun-god, and to elucidate its implications for the study of Hittite religion. The first part of my account contains linguistic and philological discussion that concludes with a new translation of the scrutinized fragment. According to my interpretation, the Sun-god is requested to anoint the Hittite king and to exalt him. This is the only clear evidence that the gods were thought to be personally responsible for the anointment of Hittite kings. A counterpart to this nontrivial concept is well known from the Hebrew Bible and is inherited by the Christian tradition.The second part of this paper, which is meant to be accessible to all the historians of religion, discusses the anointment as a rite of passage among the Hittites, as well as the relevant parallels in other Ancient Near Eastern cultures. I am arguing that anointment with oil was extended to both Hittite priestly kings and certain other categories of Hittite priests, and that the underlying purpose of this act was ritual cleansing. The spread of this rite to those cultures where kings were not at the head of the religious hierarchy boosted the secondary association of divine anointment with empowerment rather that purification.

Manichaeism and Ancient Mesopotamian "Gnosticism"

Abstract: This essay compares Manichaean cosmogony with select ancient Mesopotamian myths with special emphasis on parallels between the Manichaean "First Creation" and the myth of the Descent of Inanna/Ishtar to the netherworld. It further compares the Manichaean "Second Creation" and "Third Creation" with aspects of the Babylonian Poem of Creation, Enuma Elish , and The Epic of Gilgamesh respectively. Unlike Gnostic myths, no overall semantic network seems to tie individual Mesopotamian myths together. However, close correspondence between both traditions not only helps one see certain Mesopotamian myths in a different light, but also reveals the indebtedness of Gnostic myths to Near Eastern antiquity.

The Daily Offering Meal in the Ritual of Amenhotep I: An Instance of the Local Adaptation of Cult Liturgy

Abstract: This article reexamines a limestone ostrakon of the Ramesside period, incompletely published by its previous editors, that was originally part of the Michaelides collection and is now owned by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The ostrakon contains a small portion of a long text known as the "Ritual of Amenhotep I." The ostrakon lists a "menu" of items to be presented to Amen-Re and the deified Amenhotep I as part of the offering meal (dbh htp.w) during the daily offering ritual. This ritual meal awakens the god from a wounded state, empowering his body and thus his divine agency. Through repeated and patterned actions of offering accompanied by chanted speech imbued with symbolic meaning, the participants are given experience of hidden cosmological processes that lie beyond the boundaries of normal knowledge. The ritual meal can be described as a liminal rite of awakening and healing for the god and, by extension, for the entire community of which this god is a patron. We present this ritual performance as a case study examining how mythological narrative and state rituals can be adapted for local cult use.