Penitential Prayer in Second Temple Judaism: The Development of a Religious Institution.

• Author: SOMMER, BENJAMIN D.
• Position: Review

Penitential Prayer in Second Temple Judaism: The Development of a Religious Institution. By RODNEY ALAN WERLINE. SBL, Early Judaism and Its Literature, vol. 13. Atlanta: SCHOLARS PRESS, 1998. Pp. xi + 238. $39.95.

This revised doctoral dissertation examines the development of penitential prayer as a religious institution in Judaism of the Second Temple period. Werline clearly defines penitential prayer (a direct address to God in which an individual or group admits to sin and requests forgiveness) and distinguishes it from lament (in which the individual or group views their suffering as undeserved). By a religious institution Werline means an action that is accepted and practiced by the religious community and that serves a defined function for the community. Werline is especially interested in the connection of penitential prayers to the deuteronomic pattern of sin-punishment-repentance, which he regards as more relevant to Second Temple period Judaism than the confessions that preceded the [LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] sacrifice according to priestly literature.

Werline suggests that during the exilic and post-exilic eras penitential prayer became a genuine religious institution. This thesis is not fully supported, however. Werline makes the odd claim that the first example of penitential prayer in the Hebrew Bible occurs in Ezra 9, where it represents a "new literary phenomenon" (p. 11). But Moses' prayer in Exodus 32 fits Werline's definition no less than does Ezra 9, and as do Psalms 51 and 130 and several texts in Trito-Isaiah (indeed, Werline discusses the Trito-Isaian texts at length). Nor is penitential prayer unknown in the ancient Near East; one thinks especially of moving Hittite examples (e.g., ANET, 394-96) and Akkadian texts (see, e.g., Benjamin Foster, Before the Muses [Bethesda, Md.: CDL Press, 1993], 591-93, 641, 644, 667, 685-87). The existence of pre-exilic texts such as Exodus 32 and Psalm 51, along with their ancient Near Eastern forebears, suggests that penitential prayer already had a role in Israel before the exile and thus constituted a relig ious institution. A more convincing treatment than Werline's would have identified new elements of penitential prayer in exilic and post-exilic texts, such as the use of mourning rituals (sackcloth, tearing of clothing). Such an assertion would have led to a discussion of the transformation and growth of this institution, rather than a somewhat stretched argument that...