A Letter That Has Not Been Read: Dreams in the Hebrew Bible.

• Author: Noegel, Scott B.
• Position: Reviews of Books

A Letter that Has Not been Read: Dreams in the Hebrew Bible. By SHAUL BAR; translated by LENN J. SCHRAMM. Monographs of the Hebrew Union College, vol. 25. Cincinnati: HEBREW UNION COLLEGE PRESS, 2001. Pp. xii + 257. S39.95.

The subject of Near Eastern dreams has received scholarly attention for some time, (1) but recent years have seen a resurgent interest in the topic. In part, this is due to the appearance of previously unpublished texts, (2) a desire to update available resources on the subject, (3) and the current prevailing academic preference for comparative interdisciplinary work that is now helping to move the study of ancient dreams beyond its hitherto nearly entirely descriptive mode. (4) To be sure, some scholars (I include myself here) have attempted to investigate the ancient Near Eastern dream materials from a variety of different methodological perspectives, (5) but not all approaches have met with success. (6) Nevertheless, the study of ancient dream materials continues to provide insights into the ancient world. It is within this context that I place the book under review, and it is within this context that this book unfortunately falls considerably short.

Bar opens his book by asserting the utility of Oppenheim's now well-known dream typology that divides dreams essentially into two groups: "message dreams," in which a god or important figure appears in a dream and delivers an auditory missive to the dreamer (often to legitimate, support, or ease the political, national, or military concerns of the dreamer); and "symbolic dreams," in which dreamers witness enigmatic visual images that require an interpreter. Oppenheim also suggested that we classify separately as "mantic" or "prophetic" those dreams that involve prognostication, though Bar applies the designation "prophetic dreams" to Oppenheim's "message dream" category. Taking this slightly revised typology as a point of departure, Bar then devotes his first two chapters to the Bible's message and symbolic dreams. Here one can find discussions on the etymology of the Hebrew word for dream ([LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]), the formal literary features of theophanies and dreams, and the various reactions to theophoric dreams.

Bar's second and third chapters examine the symbolic dreams of Joseph (Genesis 37-50), pharaoh's butler and baker (Gen 40:5-16), pharaoh himself (Genesis 41), and Nebuchadnezzar (Daniel 2, 4). Also included is a brief discussion of literary reactions to the Bible's symbolic dreams, the etymology of the Hebrew verbs used for oneirocriticism ([LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]), and the various titles that designate Near...