Israel's Beneficent Dead: Ancestor Cult and Necromancy in Ancient Israelite Religion and Tradition.

• Author: LEWIS, THEODORE J.
• Position: Review

Israel's Beneficent Dead: Ancestor Cult and Necromancy in Ancient Israelite Religion and Tradition. By BRIAN B. SCHMIDT. Forschungen zum Alten Testament, vol. 11. Tubingen: J. C. B. MOHR, 1994. Pp. xv + 400. DM 158.

The present work is a revision of a 1992 Oxford dissertation written under John Day. Its thesis, which challenges a nearconsensus among scholars, is that "the ancestor cult was non-existent in early Israelite or, for that matter, West Asiatic societies" (p. 275). For Schmidt, the deuteronomist's rhetoric and ideology has produced "its own inventive creation" (p. 293), an exilic or post-exilic production which, regarding "a wide range of mortuary rites... can tell us little or nothing about pre-Assyrian beliefs in Israel or Judah" (p. 282). In particular, "necromancy was introduced late" (p. 281) and it was not of Canaanite stock. According to Schmidt, "the dtr writers reconfigured Mesopotamian necromancy as an ancient 'Canaanite' ritual" (p. 293).

Schmidt's aim is "to illustrate how the interface of text, artifact, and [anthropological] theory can significantly inform the modern interpretation of ancient cultures" (p. 293). Yet there is little archaeology in the work and the anthropological models on which it depends are less than helpful. While insights from anthropology are welcome in a field dominated by philology, there is yet the danger of unreflectively importing definitions and comparisons from distant or alien cultures. For example, relying on A. Hultkrantz's work on the cult of the dead among North American Indians, Schmidt suggests that "care for or feeding of the dead typically carries with it the implicit notion hat the dead are weak; they have ho power to affect the living in a beneficial way" (p. 10). Schmidt also depends on a theory of M. Fortes (known for his work on African ancestor worship) that regards the dead as dependent infants in need of food. With such models in mind, Schmidt concludes that wherever texts associate offerings w ith the dead (KTU 1.20-22; KTU 1.161; "The Genealogy of the Hammurapi Dynasty"; KAI 214; Emar VI 452, 463), they should not be understood as related to ancestor cult rituals, despite their clear death-cult vocabulary. Schmidt believes that scholars are wrong in linking certain terms to the dead (for example, rpum, ilm) if such terms imply that the dead are active; for if they are so, they must be "living warriors" or "living elites."

But, does Schmidt's hypothesis square with ancient Near Eastern practice? Does the practice of feeding the dead in the ancient Near East imply weakness and lack of beneficent power as it may among North American Indians? The Egyptian letters to deceased relatives (many of which were written on offering bowls) mention offerings to the dead, as well as requests that they intervene...