Probative Pontificating in Ugaritic and Biblical Literature: Collected Essays.

• Author: Greenstein, Edward L.
• Position: Review

By MARVIN H. POPE.(*) Edited by MARK S. SMITH. Ugaritisch-Biblische Literatur, vol. 10. Munster: UGARIT-VERLAG, 1994. Pp. xv + 406. DM 106.

Marvin Pope taught at Yale University from 1949 through 1986 and is one of the world's most respected scholars in the fields of Syro-Canaanite and Biblical language, literature, religion, and culture. He has published the now classic study, El in the Ugaritic Texts (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1955), the Anchor Bible commentaries, Job (3rd ed.; Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1973) and Song of Songs (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1977), and a substantial number of articles and reviews. He was honored with a Festschrift in 1987 and has enjoyed many other tributes.

The present volume reprints thirty-one of Pope's articles, published between 1951 and 1992, and one newly appearing essay. The studies are selected and arranged according to three of the main areas to which the author has made sustained contributions: "deities" (El, Baal, Anat, and Mot); "the marzeah, the cult of the dead, and divine and human sexuality"; and "grammatical studies" (particles and etymologies). This basic and convenient anthology also includes an introduction (and appreciation) by the editor, Mark Smith, a full bibliography of Pope's writings, and indexes.

There are also a large number of spelling and typographical errors, including: "thirty-five" (p. 8), "grammatical superlative" (p. 10), ltpn (p. 13), "accommodation" (p. 50), "surmised" (p. 58), sr udnh (p. 106), "buffaloes" and "covet" (not "cover"; p. 117), "indeterminate" (p. 305), ha'amitti (p. 309).

Virtually all of Pope's writing well repays rereading for its cultural breadth, its uncommon originality, its wealth of textual and philological detail, and - not least of all - its charming style. One is impressed once more by the scholar's readiness to test an idea and, when responding to criticism, to correct himself. I also admire Pope's ability to read, utilize, and even review research written in modern Hebrew, a lamentably rare phenomenon among scholars who are not Jewish.

The overall contributions Pope has made to the study of the ancient Northwest Semitic gods, the marzeah institution and the service of the dead, and the nuances of Ugaritic discourse, are scholarly landmarks. There are also points that will remain disputed. Among them is Pope's view that adverbial -am in Ugaritic is the adverbial accusative a plus enclitic m, which...