Among the Host of Heaven: The Syro-Palestinian Pantheon as Bureaucracy.

AuthorSmith, Mark S.

This work is a revised version of the author's doctoral dissertation, accepted in 1987 at the University of Chicago. The study interprets the pantheon in the Ugaritic texts and in Philo of Byblos' Phoenician History as a bureaucracy, more specifically a four-levelled system of authority and functions. This divine bureaucracy mirrors the bureaucracy of Syro-Palestinian city-states. After two introductory chapters, chapters three through seven survey the four levels: authoritative deities, specifically El and Asherah in the Ugaritic texts; active deities or managers, such as Baal, Anat, Mot, and Shemesh/Shapshu; artisan deities, such as Kothar wa-Hasis; and messenger deities. The book closes with a summary chapter, a bibliography, and several indices.

The thesis that the pantheon manifests a hierarchy is hardly new, and, as the author notes, neither is the suggestion that the Ugaritic pantheon has four levels. Yet Handy's argument that the offices of the city-state are reflected in the presentation, while hardly novel, is a point that bears repeating. The newer aspect to this work is the presentation of the pantheon as a bureaucracy. The term may appear anachronistic and, perhaps in more general usage, inaccurate (is the king a bureaucrat?). Bureaucracy is used here in a comprehensive manner, however, involving all aspects of rule and administration. J. D. Schloen's model(1) of the pantheon as a patriarchal family-household differs markedly from Handy's approach in this regard. According to Schloen, the pantheon of the Ugaritic literary texts reflects a patrimonial regime rather than a "professionalized bureaucratic state." Whatever the relative merits of the sociological theories advanced and assumed, Schloen's perspective has the distinct advantage of being rooted in the texts' presentation of the pantheon as a family.

Handy's work is marred unfortunately by a number of other problems. First, he omits evidence pertinent to his thesis. Certainly El's question as to whether he is a "servant" (bd) or Athirat a brick-maker in KTU 1.4 IV 59-61 is germane to a study of divine status. So too are the entourage of Baal (KTU 1.5 V 7-9) and the assemblies of El and Baal. Similarly, Handy's view that talk applies to members of the first two tiers of the divine society is complicated by the personal name Ktrmlk since Handy places Kothar in the third tier. V. Hurowitz' treatment of temple building, not only in his recent book,(2) but also in an earlier...

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