Scripture in Context, vol. 4, The Biblical Canon in Comparative Perspective.

• Author: Halpern, Baruch

This volume originated in a set of papers presented to a National Endowment for the Humanities summer seminar at Yale University in 1990. Its principal concern is, according to the introduction, with questions of canon. At a general level, this theme is taken up by W. W. Hallo, in "The Concept of Canonicity in Cuneiform and Biblical Literature: A Comparative Appraisal" (pp. 1-19). Recognizing distinctions between the canonicity of divinely inspired texts and of literary corpora, Hallo nevertheless argues on behalf of homologies between the canonicity of late neo-Assyrian classics and that of Jewish tradition. Paul Hoskisson then examines "Emar as an Empirical Model of the Transmission of Canon" (pp. 21-32), in order to ascertain whether the literary legacy of the Old Babylonian period can have been mediated through the Late Bronze Age to Iron Age Israel - concluding that cultural interaction antedates the Babylonian exile. At the end of the volume, Sharon Keller's "Written Communication between the Human and Divine Spheres in Mesopotamia and Israel" (pp. 299-313) returns to the issue of canonical documentation. Is the written more authoritative than the oral?

In a discussion that focuses more on literary interpretation, Beverly Beem ("The Minor Judges: A Literary Reading of Some Very Short Stories" [pp. 147-72]) argues persuasively that the accounts of minor judges in the book of Judges pave the way for a literary transition from episodic to regulated strong central leadership. At the level of shared motifs, Mark Biddle treats "The Figure of Lady Jerusalem: Identification, Deification and Personification of Cities in the Ancient Near East" (pp. 173-94). In "Paradise Reexamined" (pp. 33-66), Bernard Batto reconsiders notions of a primordial paradise in Sumer and Israel. He persuasively defends Bendt Alster's position that Mesopotamian tradition never entertained the notion of such a period, regarding, rather, primordial human oneness with...