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The Ugaritic and Biblical Rephaim

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

Conrad l'Heureux
Conrad l'Heureux
Affiliation:
University of Dayton, Dayton, Ohio 45409
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Extract

In 1941 Charles Virolleaud published a small corpus of tablets commonly referred to as the Rephaim Texts because they apparently involve the Ugaritic forerunners of the Biblical rĕpāʽîm. The meaning of these texts is often obscure, but at least the following seems clear: the rp’m are invited to someone's house or palace; after three days' travel by chariot they arrive at the grnt/meṭʽt, usually translated “threshing floors/plantations,” though the exact significance of the expression is not really clear; finally, the rp’m spend seven days in eating and drinking. This much is a least common denominator shared by all interpretations. When we get to more specific details, however, we find disagreement among students of these texts. Most of the disagreements arise from the differing ways in which the identity of the rp'm is understood.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 67 , Issue 3 , July 1974 , pp. 265 - 274
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1974

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References

1 Virolleaud, Ch., Rephaim, Les. Fragments de poèmes de Ras Shamra, Syria 22 (1941), 1–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar These are texts 20, 21, and 22 in Herdner, A., Corpus des tablettes en cunéiformes alphabétiques, 2 vols. (Mission de Ras Shamra, Vol. X; Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1963)Google Scholar, hereafter cited as CTA. They are numbers 121, 122, 123, and 124 in Gordon, Cyrus, Ugaritic Textbook (Rome, Pontificium Institutum Biblicum, 1965)Google Scholar, hereafter cited as UT.

2 Besides the original publication cited above, see Virolleaud, Ch., Rephaim, Les, RES 7 (1940), 77–83Google Scholar; Dussaud, R., Les Découvertes de Ras Shamra et l'Ancien Testament (2d ed.; Paris: Geuthner, 1941), 185–88.Google Scholar

3 Caquot, A., Les Rephaim ougaritiques, Syria 37 (1960), 75–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Pope, M., A Divine Banquet at Ugarit, The Use of the Old Testament in the New and Other Essays: Studies in Honor of William Franklin Stinespring, ed. J. M. Efird (Durham, N.C.: Duke Univ. Press, 1972), 170–203. See esp. p. 192.Google Scholar

5 Gray, J., The Rephaim, PEQ 81 (1949), 127–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, Dtn and Rp'um in Ugarit, Ancient, PEQ 84 (1952), 39–41.Google Scholar

6 CTA 21 A (UT 122) 1, 5, 9.

7 For a convenient summary of the evidence on the marze-aḥ see Porten, B., Archives from Elephantine (Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press, 1968), 179–86.Google Scholar It is not necessary, however, to follow Porten in seeing the marze-aḥ, wherever it appears, as a primarily funerary institution. Of the data available, widely scattered both chronologically and geographically, the only links with funerary practices are in the Palmyrene evidence (far from conclusive) and in Rabbinic sources. The latter may in turn be based upon their interpretation of Jer. 16:5. There, however, the phrase 'al tābô' bêt marze-aḥ is not necessarily synonymous with 'al tēlēk lispôd but may form an inclusio as is suggested by verses 8–9. The latter is a suggestion of Dr. Michael Coogan.

8 Eissfeldt, O., Kultvereine in Ugarit, Ugaritica VI, ed. Cl. F. A. Schaeffer, et al. (Mission de Ras Shamra, Vol. XVII; Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1971), 187–95.Google Scholar It should be noted, however, that there are difficulties with his proposed reconstruction of the lacunae of this text.

9 Virolleaud, Ch., Les nouveaux textes mythologiques et liturgiques de Ras Shamra (XXIVecampagne, 1961)Google Scholar, Ugaritica V, ed. Nougayrol, J.et al. (Mission de Ras Shamra, Vol. XVI; Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1968), 546–95.Google Scholar

10 For studies on this text see the following: Fensham, F. C., Some Remarks on the First Three Mythological Texts of Ugaritica V, Ugarit-Forschungen 3 (1971), 21–24Google Scholar; idem, The First Ugaritic Text in Ugaritica V, VT 22 (1972), 296–303Google Scholar; Loewenstamm, S. E., Eine lehrhafte ugaritische Trinkburleske, Ugarit-Forschungen 1 (1969), 71–77Google Scholar; Margulis, B., A New Ugaritic Farce (RS 24.258), Ugarit-Forschungen 2 (1970), 131–38Google Scholar; Moor, J. de, Studies in the New Alphabetic Texts from Ras Shamra, I, Ugarit-Forschungen 1 (1969), 167–88Google Scholar; Rüger, H. P., ZU RS 24.258, Ugarit-Forschungen 1 (1969), 203–06.Google Scholar The studies by J. de Moor are the most helpful.

11 On page 192 of the article cited above, note 4.

12 Besides the articles cited above in n. 10, see Border, R., Weitere ugaritilogische Kleinigkeiten, Ugarit-Forschungen 1 (1969, 1–4Google Scholar; Loewenstamm, S. E., The Lord is my Strength and my Glory, VT 19 (1969), 464–70Google Scholar; Margulis, B., A Ugaritic Psalm (RS 24.252), JBL 89 (1970), 292–304Google Scholar; Parker, S. B., The Feast of Rāpi 'u, Ugarit-Forschungen 2 (1970), 243–50.Google Scholar

13 The thesis has recently been defended in an extreme form in Oldenburg, U., The Conflict Between 'El and Baal in Canaanite Religion (Leiden, E. J. Brill, 1969).Google Scholar Against Oldenburg, see L'Heureux, C. E., El and the Rephaim: New Light from Ugaritica V (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1971), 65–111.Google Scholar This thesis is now being revised for publication in the Harvard Semitic Monographs.

14 It is tempting to translate 'lnym as precisely “the ones of El.” As suggested by Professor F. M. Cross, Jr. (oral communication), this may be related to the observation of Phllo Byblius preserved by Eusebius that the word for “gods” was related to El just as Greek Kronioi was related to Kronos (Praeparatio Evangelica i, 10, 20). Philo makes this observation in connection with Elōeim ('lhm) rather than 'lnym. In view of the usual functions of the -ānu and -iy endings which are combined in 'lnym, however, it is this term not 'lhm which constitutes the precise analogy to Greek Kronioi.

15 See especially Hab. 3:4 Isa. 40:25; Job 6:10 and the phrase qĕdôš yiśrā'ēl, which is frequent in Isaiah.

16 For a recent and convenient summary of scholarship on the concept of the divine assembly, see Whybray, R. N., The Heavenly Counsellor in Isaiah 1:13–14 (Cambridge, The University Press, 1971), 34–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17 For a different approach, see Mendenhall, G., The Tenth Generation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1973), 160.Google Scholar He connects rp'/rp'm with Akkadian rubā'um “prince, lord.” From a semantic point of view, this solution would fit in nicely with the ideas presented in this paper. However, in spite of the fact that an exchange of b and p is possible, it seems best to avoid solutions based on this possibility except as a last resort. This is especially true since the proposed Akkadian parallel is apparentlyderived from the very common Semitic root *rby.

18 It is possible that the original meaning of rp' was somewhat broader than “to heal.” As pointed out to me by Prof. W. L. Moran, the early association of El with childbirth is particularly suggestive in this regard. See Roberts, Jimmy, The Earliest Semitic Pantheon (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1972), 32–34.Google Scholar

19 A suggestion of Cross, Prof. F. M. Jr See now his Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973), 20.Google Scholar

20 Both recent studies of early West Semitic names presume that the second element in Hammurapi is the active participle. Huffmon, H. B. (Amorite Personal Names in the Mari Texts [Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1965], 98)Google Scholar says that the qatil element in names of this type is “in most cases presumably an active participle, *qātil.” Gröndahl, F. (Die Personennamen der Texte ans Ugarit [Rome; Pontificium Institutum Biblicum, 1967]Google Scholar recognizes both participles and a second group consisting of statives and/or stative adjectives. However, when the verbal root is not of the stative-class in the qal, she seems automatically to place the qatil element in the participle category. Perhaps some of these should be reclassified as statives.

21 Eissfeldt, 192.

22 See now Miller, P. D. Jr, The MRZḤ Text, in The Claremont Ras Shamra Tablets, ed. L. R. Fisher (Analecta Orientalia 48; Rome: Pontificium Institutum Biblicum, 1971), 37–40.Google Scholar

23 The full trí-colon reads: mid rm krt / btk rpi ars/ bpḥr qbṣ dtn. Sauren, H. and Kestemont, G. (Keret, roi de Ḫubur, Ugaril-Forschungen 3 [1971], 206)Google Scholar point to the equation of da-at-nu = qar-ra-[du] in CT 18, 7. If this is the correct clue to the meaning of dtn, we have additional support for our view that the rp' 'rṣ constitute an aristocratic warrior guild.

24 Especially CTA 22 A (UT 123) 6–12 and CTA 22 B (UT 124) 2–10. For the author's interpretation of these lines see El and the Rephaim, 154–57 and 164–70.

25 Two texts not mentioned above might seem to pose difficulties for our proposal and need brief discussion. The first is CTA 22 A (UT 123) 6–7 = CTA 22 B (UT 124) 8–9, where we read ṯm ṯmq rpu b'l / mhr b'l mhr ʿnt. The word rpu is read as a plural construct in parallel with mhr, “soldiers.” The association of the rp’m with Baal and Anat rather than with El is not impossible in view of the fact that authority of El is ordinarily exercised through the younger generation of gods whom we would call the executive deities. The rp’m here are presumably divine, though it is possible that the interpenetration of mythic characters and participants in ritual is so thoroughgoing in this case that an exclusive identification is not possible. The other problematical text is CTA 6 (UT 62) 45, where the identification of rp’m with the shades has been made most plausible by Caquot, A. (La divinité solaire ougaritique, Syria 36 [1959], 90–101).CrossRefGoogle Scholar Nevertheless, it is possible here too to understand the rp’m as the assembly of the gods.

26 The phrase yělîdê hārěpā'îm in 1 Chr. 20:4 is one of several variants on yělîdê hārāpā' in 1 Ch. 20:4–8 and 2 Sam. 21:16–22. This set of data constitutes a problem in its own right which must be discussed separately. See, provisionally, the author's discussion in El and the Rephaim, 179–81.

27 See the summary of scholarship in Caquot, Les Rcphaim ougaritiques, 76–77.

28 The development suggested here is paralleled by the history of the Greek word hērōs. Etymologically it appears to mean “excellent, noble.” As such it was applied by Homer to the champions of his poetry. In Hesiod, the term is not applied to living contemporaries but to the heroic figures of the past, though there is no worship involved. Later Greek usage made the hērōes the object of worship. See Farnell, L., Greek Hero Cults (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1921), 15–16.Google Scholar

29 See Donner, H. and Röllig, W., Kanaanäische und Aramäische Inschriften, 3 vols. (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1964), nos. 13 and 14.Google Scholar