The Deuteronomistic History and the Name Theology: [l.sup.e]sakken [s.sup.e] mo sam in the Bible and the Ancient Near East.

• Author: Van Seters, John
• Position: Book Review

The Deuteronomistic History and the Name Theology: [l.sup.e]sakken [s.sup.e] mo sam in the Bible and the Ancient near East. By SANDRA L. RICHTER. Beihefte zur Zeitschrift fur die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, vol. 318. Berlin: WALTER DE GRUYTER, 2002. Pp. xii + 246. [euro]63.55.

This revised Harvard dissertation calls into question the notion of a "name theology" in Deuteronomy and DtrH. Richter's critique is directed at the development of the name theology out of the application of what she calls "nominal realism" within the history of religions and biblical studies, on the one hand, and a persistent commitment to Wellhausen's conception of the evolution of Israelite religion, on the other. Out of this brief review of past research she identifies a fundamental semantic error, that of applying an "illegitimate totality transfer" (using James Barr's terminology) to the crucial Hebrew formula [l.sup.e]sakken [s.sup.e] mo sam, whereby the term sam ("name") is treated as a universal concept instead of treating the whole formula as a special idiom whose meaning derives from a particular context or usage. This calls forth a detailed examination of this formula and the related formulas lasum [s.sup.e] mo sam, lihyot [s.sup.e] mo sam, and libnot bayit [l.sup.e]sem Yahweh, which appear primarily in Deuteronomic and Deuteronomistic contexts. She argues that the formula [l.sup.e]sakken [s.sup.e] mo sam in Deuteronomy is the original one and the rest are derivative, and that the meaning of this idiom is to be understood from its foreign origin in cuneiform inscriptions.

The main substance of her study consists of a thorough examination of all the relevant occurrences of the cognate idiom suma sakanu and its closely related synonym suma satra sakanu, with the meaning "to place the name/written name on an inscription." The references have to do primarily with the royal name being placed on various kinds of texts for the purpose of identifying the owner of the text and his taking credit or responsibility for the deeds mentioned in the text, including votive inscriptions, victory stelae, building inscriptions, and foundation deposits. The use of the idiom covers a wide span of time from the third millennium to the mid-first millennium B.C. These parallels make it highly probable that the Hebrew idiom [l.sup.e]sakken [s.sup.e] mo sam is directly related to the cuneiform equivalent suma sakanu and has the same basic meaning "to put/place his name there"...