Martti Nissinen - Prophetic Divination: Essays in Ancient Near Eastern Prophecy

Prophetic Divination

Beihefte zur Zeitschrift fr die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft

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Volume

Essays in Ancient Near Eastern Prophecy

ISBN 9783110466546

e-ISBN (PDF) 9783110467765

e-ISBN (EPUB) 9783110467666

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek

The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de.

2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

For Simo Parpola

The thirty-two essays collected in this volume document my research on the phenomenon of prophetic divination over the time span of a quarter of a century. The volume includes most of my articles on prophecy published in English or German, except for those I reworked for the book Ancient Prophecy: Ancient Near Eastern, Biblical, and Greek Perspectives (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017). The essays have not been updated, save the cases where my original text contains obvious mistakes, or where exceptionally important new information has caught my attention. The bibliographies, however, have been standardized, and the references to cuneiform sources have, where necessary, been changed to refer to the newest available text editions.

I would like to thank Reinhard G. Kratz, editor of the BZAW series, for the initiative for publishing this volume, as well as the de Gruyter staff, especially Albrecht Dhnert, Sophie Wagenhofer, Aaron Sanborn-Overby and Anett Rehner, for their highly professional work on the manuscript. Cordial thanks are due to Marika Pulkkinen, who has prepared the indexes while finishing the manuscript of her own doctoral dissertation. For the past six years, I have had the privilege of being the director of the Academy of Finland Center of Excellence Changes in Sacred Texts and Traditions (CSTT), a wonderful, diverse, and open-minded community of biblical, assyriological, and archaeological scholarship at the University of Helsinki. I thank each and every CSTT member for making my daily work a pleasure. And Maarit, my fiance: thank you for your love and care!

Colleagues and friends from whom I have learned over the decades are too many to be mentioned here. There is one person, however, to whom I owe more than to any other scholar: Simo Parpola, who introduced me to the world of the cuneiform, who taught me the Assyrian prophetic texts years before their publication, and who is the co-author of one of the essays included in this book. This book is dedicated to him with much gratitude.

I would like to thank the following publication houses for granting the permission of reprinting the previously published articles as indicated in the following list of original publications: Bloomsbury, Brill, EOS Verlag, Finnish Exegetical Society, Finnish Oriental Society, Kohlhammer, Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, Palgrave Macmillan, Peeters, Penn State University Press, Society of Biblical Literature, Ugarit-Verlag, and Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

Die Relevanz der neuassyrischen Prophetie fr die alttestamentliche Forschung, in MesopotamicaUgariticaBiblica, FS K. Bergerhof (ed. M. Dietrich and O. Loretz; AOAT 232, Kevelaer, Germany: Butzon & Bercker; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1993) 21758.

Falsche Prophetie in neuassyrischer und deuteronomistischer Darstellung, in Das Deuteronomium und seine Querbeziehungen (ed. T. Veijola; PFES 62; Helsinki: Finnische Exegetische Gesellschaft and Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996) 17295.

The Socioreligious Role of the Neo-Assyrian Prophets, in Prophecy in Its Ancient Near Eastern Context: Mesopotamian, Biblical, and Arabian Perspectives (ed. id.; SBLSymS 13; Atlanta, Ga.: Society of Biblical Literature, 2000) 89114.

City as Lofty as Heaven: Arbela and Other Cities in Neo-Assyrian Prophecy, in Every City Shall Be Forsaken: Urbanism and Prophecy in Ancient Israel and the Near East (ed. L. L. Grabbe and R. D. Haak; JSOTSup 330; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001) 172209.

A Prophetic Riot in Seleucid Babylonia, in Wer darf hinaufsteigen zum Berg YHWHs? Beitrge zu Prophetie und Poesie des Alten Testaments, Festschrift fr Sigurur rn Steingrimsson zum 70. Geburtstag (ed. H. Irsigler; Arbeiten zu Text und Sprache im Alten Testament 72; St Ottilien: EOS Verlag, 2002a) 6274.

Prophets and the Divine Council, in Kein Land fr sich allein: Studien zum Kulturkontakt in Kanaan, Israel/Palstina und Ebirnri fr Manfred Weippert zum 65. Geburtstag (ed. U. Hbner and E. A. Knauf; OBO 186; Fribourg and Gttingen: Academic Press Fribourg and Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2002) 419.

Das kritische Potential in der altorientalischen Prophetie, in Propheten in Mari, Assyrien und Israel (ed. M. Kckert and M. Nissinen; FRLANT 201; Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2003) 132.

Fear Not: A Study on an Ancient Near Eastern Phrase, in The Changing Face of Form Criticism for the Twenty-First Century (ed. M. A. Sweeney and E. Ben Zvi; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2003) 12261

Neither Prophecies nor Apocalypses: The Akkadian Literary Predictive Texts, in Knowing the End from the Beginning: The Prophetic, the Apocalyptic and their Relationships (ed. L. L. Grabbe and R. D. Haak; JSPSup 46; London: T & T Clark, 2003) 13448.

(with S. Parpola) Marduks Return and Reconciliation in a Prophetic Letter from Arbela, in Verbum et calamus: Semitic and Related Studies in Honour of the Sixtieth Birthday of Professor Tapani Harviainen (ed. H. Juusola, J. Laulainen, and H. Palva; StOr 99; Helsinki: Finnish Oriental Society, 2004) 199219.

What Is Prophecy? An Ancient Near Eastern Perspective, in Inspired Speech: Prophecy in the Ancient Near East, FS H. B. Huffmon (ed. J. Kaltner and L. Stulman; JSOTSup 372; London: T & T Clark, 2004) 1737.

The Dubious Image of Prophecy, in Prophets, Prophecy, and Prophetic Texts in Second Temple Judaism (eds. M. H. Floyd and R. D. Haak; LHBOTS 427; New York / London: T & T Clark, 2006) 2641.

From Holy War to Holy Peace: Biblical Alternatives to Belligerent Rhetoric, in Isaiahs Vision of Peace in Biblical and Modern International Relations: Swords into Plowshares (ed. R. Cohen and R. Westbrook; Culture and Religion in International Relations. New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2008) 18197.

Das Problem der Prophetenschler, in Houses Full of All Good Things, GS T. Veijola (ed. J. Pakkala and id.; PFES 95; Helsinki: Finnish Exegetical Society, 2008) 33753.

Transmitting Divine Mysteries: The Prophetic Role of Wisdom Teachers in the Dead Sea Scrolls, in Scripture in Transition: Essays on Septuagint, Hebrew Bible, and Dead Sea Scrolls in Honour of Raija Sollamo (ed. A. Voitila and J. Jokiranta; JSJSup 126; Leiden: Brill, 2008) 51333.

Reflections on the Historical-Critical Method: Historical Criticism and Critical Historicism, in Method Matters, FS D. L. Petersen (ed. J. M. LeMon and K. H. Richards; SBLRBS 56; Atlanta, Ga.: Society of Biblical Literature, 2009) 479504.

The Historical Dilemma of Biblical Prophetic Studies, in Prophecy in the Book of Jeremiah