Sefer Moshe: The Moshe Weinfeld Jubilee Volume: Studies in the Bible and the Ancient Near East, Qumran, and Post-Biblical Judaism.

• Author: Fried, Lisbeth S.
• Position: Book review

Sefer Moshe: The Moshe Weinfeld Jubilee Volume: Studies in the Bible and the Ancient Near East, Qumran, and Post-Biblical Judaism. Edited by HAYIM COHEN, AVI HURVITZ, and SHALOM M. PAUL. Winona Lake, Indiana: EISENBRAUNS, 2004. Pp. xlvi + 513, map. $49.50.

Moshe Weinfeld, Professor Emeritus of the Bible at the Hebrew University and Israel Prize laureate, has been one of Israel's most prolific scholars. His output is marked by an unrivalled knowledge not only of the Bible and ancient Israel but of the ancient Near East and classical worlds. The breadth and depth of the articles in this wonderful book comprise a fitting tribute to one who is himself a seminal contributor to each of the areas represented. The list of thirty-five authors in this book reads like an academic Who's Who in Near Eastern Studies. With topics ranging from the Bible to biblical Hebrew, to the ancient Near East, to Amarna Studies, to Qumran. to post-biblical Judaism, to the great medieval rabbinic commentaries, there is something for everyone in this delightful smorgasbord. The articles are of a uniformly high quality and interest. I select but a few for comment only because of my own interests and predilections.

The article by S. Parpola, reflecting his important work on the influence of Assyrian religion on that of the successors to the Assyrian empire, suggests not only that Yasna 44 of the Zoroastrian Avesta goes back to Zoroaster himself, but that the Yasna is based on Zoroaster's experience as a hostage in Esarhaddon or Assurbanipal's court. While there he apparently learned the rites of extispicy and the baru ritual, which are now reflected in Yasna 44. Parpola suggests that Zoroastrian dualism, the physical resurrection of the dead, and the last judgment all go back to the Assyrian extispicy and religious traditions.

F. Polak compares the Sinai covenant tradition with Mari treaty negotiations. He points out that treaty ratification in Mari includes a separate ratification ceremony at the site of each treaty partner. He shows that this is also the case with the covenant at Sinai. There is one ratification ceremony at the bottom of the mountain, when Moses comes down and the people agree (Exodus 19:8). The bottom of the mountain is the site of human activity--the human realm. Later, Moses. Aaron, Nadav, Abihu, and the seventy elders ascend the mountain; there they see God and eat and drink (Exodus 24). Polak suggests that this meal with the deity is the second...