The Meaning of Sacred Names and Babylonian Scholarship
The Gula Hymn and other works
by Elizabeth A. Bennett
This book explores the remarkable ways by which Babylonian scholars in the second and first millennia BCE understood the names of their gods and goddesses and the places sacred to them in a wide spectrum of texts, ranging from explanatory lists to great religious works. Developing and expounding their religious thinking, these extraordinary scholars elucidated the meaning of sacred names, both obvious and hidden, by etymological and other means, using great erudition, sophistication and invention. Using a substantial text corpus, this study enlarges on the understanding of the ancients’ explanatory approach, which has been previously observed by modern scholars in individual works. The compositions examined here display scholarship that is erudite and highly inventive, making flexible associations in the search for meaning. Tantalising indications of the influence of the spoken word can perhaps be detected in this scholarly written tradition. While previous studies have focussed on the etymological approach of this form of scholarship, this book demonstrates that other, less common, speculative methods are also at work. The detailed classification of the scholars’ speculative methods may inform and provoke further analysis of Babylonian scholarship, a field which is not confined to the explanation of sacred names but has wider application, most particularly in the lexical corpus and the omen tradition and in commentary texts. It is a key tool in the quest for meaning which characterises Babylonian thought.
Preface and acknowledgements Chapter 1 Introduction 1.1 Names 1.2 Babylonian speculative scholarship 1.3 The Gula hymn 1.4 Implications and conclusions Chapter 2 Babylonian speculative scholarship 2.1 Intellectual background 2.2 Commentary texts 2.3 Sacred names and speculative scholarship 2.4 Ancient evidence 2.5 Modern scholarship 2.6 Text Corpus Chapter 3 Speculative scholarship in the text corpus 3.1 The speculative techniques 3.2 The speculative methods Chapter 4 The Gula hymn 4.1 The texts 4.2 The overlap 4.3 Overview of the Gula hymn 4.4 The context of the Gula hymn 4.5 Date of composition Chapter 5 The Gula hymn: Critical edition 5.1 The Manuscripts 5.2 Table of Manuscripts and earlier editions 5.3 Introduction to the text of the Gula hymn 5.4 Transliteration and Translation of the Gula hymn 5.5 Commentary Chapter 6 Babylonian speculative scholarship in the Gula hymn 6.1 Analysis: Speculative interpretation in the Gula hymn 6.2 Encoded names 6.3 Overview: Speculative techniques and methods in the Gula hymn Chapter 7 Implications and conclusions 7.1 Babylonian speculative scholarship 7.2 The Gula hymn 7.3 Babylonian speculative scholarship and Jewish scholarship 7.4 The meaning of biblical names - Babylonian parallels? 7.5 Conclusion Appendix 1 Cuneiform copy of BM 34399 Appendix 2 Temples and shrines known only from the Gula hymn Bibliographical and other abbreviations Bibliography Index
- By (author) Elizabeth A. Bennett
Other Titles in this Series
Kultur – Kontakt – Kultur
Beiträge anlässlich der 66. Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale in Frankfurt/Main und Mainz, 25.–29. Juli 2022
Volume 35
‘I Passed over Difficult Mountains’
Studies on the Ancient Near East in Honor of Mario Liverani
Volume 28
Current Research in Early Mesopotamian Studies
Workshop Organized at the 65th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Paris 2019
Volume 21
Grenzuberschreitungen. Studien zur Kulturgeschichte des Alten Orients
Festschrift fur Hans Neumann zum 65. Geburtstag am 9. Mai 2018
Volume 5
Institutionelle Sklaverei in Tempel und Palast in Sudmesopotamien wahrend der altbabylonischen Zeit
Volume 23
Beitrage zur Kenntnis und Deutung altorientalischer Archivalien
Festschrift fur Helmut Freydank zum 80. Geburtstag
Volume 6
ṭupšar lā šanān
Der Prolog des Chicago-Prismas Sanheribs von Assyrien. Intertextuelle und motivgeschichtliche Studien
Volume 36
The Sumerian Zame Hymns from Tell Abū Ṣalābīḫ
With an Appendix on the Early Dynastic Colophons
Volume 12
Explaining Disaster
Tradition and Transformation of the 'Catastrophe of Ibbi-Sin' in Babylonian Literature
Volume 13
The Ilia A Archive
The Babylonian Socio-economic Landscape as Mirrored in the Archive of a Priestly Family in the First Millennium BCE
Volume 34
mu-zu an-za3-se3 kur-ur2-se3 he2-gal2
Altorientalistische Studien zu Ehren von Konrad Volk
Volume 17
Similar Books
Connecting the Dots: Counting, Writing, and the Beginnings of Civilization
The Secret Lives of Clay Tokens: A Memoir
Des mots aux actes
Traduction épistémique et littéraire. Nouvelles tendances en histoire et didactique
Volume 15
Exploring Gender Dynamics across the Ancient Near East
Collected Essays of Gender and Methodology in the Ancient Near East (GeMANE) 4 and 5
Volume 7
Ḫattušaš utnē išḫameški
Hittite and Other Ancient Near Eastern Studies Presented to Piotr Taracha on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday
New Research on Old Collections in Southwest Asian Archaeology
Proceedings of the Workshop Held at the British Museum, London, 31 July – 2 August, 2023
Old Aramaic Inscriptions and their Contexts
An Epigraphic, Archaeological, and Historical Synthesis
Volume 63
Pottery Traditions and Material Culture in Second Millennium BC Northern Mesopotamia
Contacts and New Horizons in the Land between the Tigris and the Zagros. Proceedings of a Workshop Held at the 12th ICAANE, University of Bologna, 7 April 2021
Volume 19
Punning in Odd or Elegant Constructions in Jeremiah
The Convergence of Linguistics, Rhetoric, and Textuality in the Hebrew Text of Jeremiah
Shame in the Worlds of the Hebrew Bible and Akkadian Texts
A Linguistic Study and Its Implications
Volume 33
Telling Contexts
Archaeological and Textual Studies in Honor of Elizabeth Bloch-Smith and Mark S. Smith
The Body
Lived, Cultured, Adorned: Essays on Dress and the Body in the Bible and Ancient Near East in Honor of Nili S. Fox
The Discourse of Rites
Shaping and Reshaping the (Counter-)Priestly Rituals Conducted Outside the Tabernacle
The Kingdom of Kizzuwatna: Recent Developments in Research
Proceedings of the Third NINO Postdoctoral Research Fellow Annual Conference, Leiden, 23rd-25th March 2023
Volume 137
