Freedman David Noel - Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible

Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2000

ISBN 978-0-8028-7743-7

eISBN 978-1-4674-6046-0

ISBN 0-8028-2400-5 (hardcover: alk. paper)

 

The Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible is intended as a tool for practical Bible use, reflecting recent discoveries and the breadth of current biblical scholarship, including insights from critical analysis of literary, historical, archaeological, sociological, and other methodological issues. Approximately 5000 entries identify all persons and places named in the Bible, as well as cultural, natural, geographical, and literary phenomena—matters that Bible students at all levels may encounter in reading or discussion. Articles explaining and interpreting important focuses of biblical theology, text and transmission, Near Eastern archaeology, extrabiblical writings, and pertinent ecclesiastical traditions have been incorporated in an effort to make this the most comprehensive one-volume Bible dictionary available.

 

The publishers have selected as editors and contributors a host of first-rank authorities in the field. Authors represent a range of critical and theological stances and reflect the growing place of interdisciplinary interests in biblical scholarship. Contributors have been charged to remain sensitive to the broad spectrum of interpretation, presenting objectively divergent perspectives and featuring inclusive bibliographies. The editors and consulting editors have sought to identify not only pertinent persons, places, and other phenomena but also the significant issues facing biblical scholarship and related fields. To this end, they have enlisted nearly 600 leading scholars and matched them with topics related to their areas of specialization. Unsigned articles have been written by the editors.

 

Although the initial intent was merely to revise and update the 1987 edition of the Eerdmans Bible Dictionary, the publishers were encouraged by pre-eminent biblical scholar David Noel Freedman to build upon the expertise gained in producing that volume and to develop in essence an entirely new reference work that would represent the vast strides made in biblical scholarship in recent decades. The volume at hand is testimony to Professor Freedman’s wisdom and vision, as well as his international reputation as a giant in the field of biblical studies and editor par excellence. We are indebted to his great devotion to biblical studies and desire to communicate the fruits of scholarship, and have benefitted immeasurably not only from his ability to marshall the current giants of the field but also from his enthusiasm for identifying and mentoring the next generation of scholars.

 

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HURRIANS

(Akk. Durri)

 

An ancient Near Eastern people widely attested in the 3rd-2nd millennium B.C.E., founders of the powerful kingdom of Mitanni.

 

History

 

The Hurrians first appear in the archaeological record in the Sargonic levels at Tell Mozan (ancient Urkesh) in north Syria. Inscriptions with Hurrian toponyms suggest a period of settlement and occupation that preceded the documentation. The absence of Hurrian personal names in the Ebla texts indicates that their expansion from the north-northeast had not yet reached western Syria (i.e., west of the Euphrates). Similarly, the absence of Hurrian names in texts from Tel Beydar in the Ḫabûr region shows that they had not yet infiltrated northwestern Syria. Thus, their appearance, or at least their rise to prominence, must coincide with the rise of the Akkadian dynasty or shortly thereafter. Naram-sin’s conquest of a coalition of Hurrians led by the kings of Simurrum and Nawar subjected the Hurrian city-states to Akkadian control at the end of the 23rd century. By the end of the Sargonic period (or the beginning of Ur III) the inscriptions of Atal-šen and Tiš-atal demonstrate a continued expanded Hurrian presence in northeastern Syria and north Mesopotamia and the adoption of writing. Šulgi, the long-reigning second king of the Ur III dynasty, fought a series of battles against Hurrian city-states along the northeastern borders of his empire. Hurrian personal names are encountered frequently in the archival texts of the Ur III bureaucracy. By the end of the 3rd millennium Hurrians are found in eastern Anatolia, northern and western Syria and Mesopotamia, with particular concentration in the hill country of northeastern Assyria and probably eastern Anatolia.

 

Hurrians survived the widespread disruptions that characterize the end of the 3rd millennium. In Middle Bronze Age Anatolia and Syro-Canaan they appear among the various population groups together with the Assyrians, Anatolians, Canaanites, Amorites, and Babylonians, with concentration in eastern Anatolia and most of Syria. In the 19th century they appear in the Old Assyrian merchant accounts from Kanesh (Kültepe) where they are associated with cities south of the Anti-Taurus Mountains but not yet in central Anatolia. During the Mari age Hurrian city-states are under the control of Šamši-adad, who governed from his capital at Šubat-enlil (Tell Leylan), but after his death Hurrian city-states appear as independent entities primarily in upper Mesopotamia and east of the Tigris but also as far west as Urshu and Halab (Aleppo). By the middle of the 17th century Hurrian power clashed with the emerging Hittite Old Kingdom, and Ḫattušili I campaigned to stop their expansion.

 

Coincident with the collapse at the end of the Middle Bronze/Old Babylonian period, the Hittites began to expand into north Syria. By the late 16th century they encountered a substantial Hurrian power east of the Euphrates called Mitanni that had previously invaded central Anatolia in the early years of Ḫattušili I and whose kings bore Indo-aryan names but whose population spoke Hurrian. Beginning with the reign of Thutmose III, Syro-Canaan was referred to as Ḫuru in Egyptian documents. Hurrian power reached its peak in the early 15th century when Kizzuwatna (Cilicia) was annexed during the reign of Zidanta II. Excavations at Nuzi in north Mesopotamia revealed the details of provincial Hurrian society over five generations with its complex social, economic, and legal customs in the 15–14th centuries. The nearly 5000 texts found at Nuzi were written in Akkadian by Hurrian-speaking scribes and were, until recently, the major source of Hurrian vocabulary. The Hurrians’ capital, Wašukkani, has not yet been identified (Tell Fakhāriya?). By the late 15th century Hurrians had become a major segment of the population of Syria (e.g., at Alalakh, Halab, Qatna, Ugarit), had intermarried with the Hittite royal family, and were in communication with the kings of Egypt. Hurrian religion was widely practiced, and Hurrian gods and goddesses worshipped over a wide area. By the late 13th century Hurrian power began to wane with the conquest of Syria by Sûuppiluliuma I. The Hurrian kingdom of Ḫanigalbat disappeared from contemporary records. With the devastating campaigns of the Assyrian king Tukulti-ninurta I in Syria, the deportation of large numbers of Hurrians, and the subsequent collapse of the Late Bronze Age civilizations associated with the invasions of the Sea Peoples, Hurrian power was eliminated and the Hurrians assyrianized. Subsequently they were overwhelmed by the incursions of Aramaic-speaking tribes. The Hurrian language ceased to appear in written sources in Syro-Mesopotamia, although its related language, Urartian, continued to be written and spoken in eastern Anatolia for the next few centuries.

 

In the Bible, the Hurrians have been associated with the Horites (Heb. ḥōrɩ̂), although there is no extrabiblical validation of this equation, linguistic or otherwise. Furthermore, the identification of certain royal names among the Hyksos with Hurrian personal names is no longer widely accepted. That there were Hurrians in southern Canaan and possibly in Egypt in the Middle and Late Bronze Ages is a likely but unproven possibility. Hurrians are known to have been as far north in Anatolia as Sapinuwa (Ortaköy), 50 km. (30 mi.) NE of Ḫattuša/Boghazköy, and as far west as Cyprus and possibly Crete.

 

Language and Literature

 

The Hurrians had come under Akkadian influence already in the 23rd century. Hurrian personal names and titles appear first in the seal inscriptions from Urkesh. They wrote their earliest inscriptions in Akkadian, but the underlying spoken language was Hurrian. The Hurrian language is itself an isolate possibly related to Northeast Caucasian. The earliest fully written Hurrian religious texts appear only in the 18th-century Mari archives, suggesting a tradition of written literature preceding its first occurrence at Mari. In the 3rd millennium it is known primarily from personal names. In the first half of the 2nd millennium religious texts and rituals dominate, although recently a small number of letters in Hurrian have been discovered. In the 14th–15th centuries the Hurro-Akkadian texts from Nuzi provide a substantial Hurrian vocabulary and occasional grammatical forms. Hurrian was one of the many languages spoken and written at Ugarit and is among the languages in the quadralingual dictionaries found there. The recent discovery at Boghazköy of the Hurro-Hittite bilingual “Epic of Manumission” (early 14th century, but probably originally a MB text), revealed a fully developed literary epic tradition in Hurrian previously known mostly via Hittite translations. Hitherto, the longest known Hurrian text (494 lines) had been the diplomatic letter of King Tušratta of Mitanni to Amenophis III concerning the negotiations of brideprice and dowry for Princess Tatu-hepa, who was to be sent to Egypt to marry the pharaoh. There are strong indications that a rich and varied written literary tradition existed among the Hurrians as early as the 18th century. Excavations at the northern Anatolian site of Ortaköy have uncovered a large Hurrian library of more than 600 texts and fragments whose content, mostly rituals, includes many Hurrian-Hittite bilinguals.

 

Bibliography. G. Gragg, “Hurrian,” OEANE 3:125–26; M. Kelly-Buccellati, “Nuzi Viewed from Irkesh, Urkesh Viewed from Nuzi: Stock Elements and Framing Devices in Northern Syro-Mesopotamia,” in Richard F. S. Starr Memorial Volume, ed. D. I. Owen and G. Wilhelm. Studies on the Civilization and Culture of Nuzi and the Hurrians 8 (Bethesda, 1996), 247–68; N. Naʾaman, “The Hurrians and the End of the Middle Bronze Age in Palestine,” Levant 26 (1994): 175–87; D. L. Stein, “Hurrians,” OEANE 3: 126–30; G. Wilhelm, The Hurrians (Warminster, 1989); “The Hurrians in the Western Parts of the Ancient Near East,” in Mutual Influences of Peoples and Cultures in the Ancient Near East, ed. M. Malul (Haifa, 1996), 17–30; “The Kingdom of Mitanni in Second-Millennium Upper Mesopotamia,” CANE 2:1243–54.

 

DAVID I. OWEN

 

MOABITE STONE

 

A victory stela commissioned by King Mesha of Moab, who ruled during the early 9th century B.C.E.; also known as the Mesha stela. The language of the inscription is Moabite, a Northwest Semitic dialect closely related to Hebrew. The script of the stela is Paleo-Hebrew.

 

In the inscription Mesha states that King Omri of Israel had made Moab a vassal state, but that during the reign of Omri’s “son,” Mesha regained Moab’s independence and even annexed certain regions traditionally associated with Israel (e.g., Nebo). Mesha attributed Israel’s hegemony over Moab to the anger of the god Chemosh, clearly implying that Moab’s successes were the result of the cessation of Chemosh’s anger and the resumption of his favor. Disaster and success are topoi frequently associated in the Bible with the anger or favor of Israel’s deity. Mesha also referred to his numerous public works in behalf of Moab, such as the (re)construction of walls, water systems, and cult structures. One of the most striking aspects of the inscription is the reference to Yahweh, the national God of Israel. Some consider the biblical and inscriptional materials to be two different episodes in the history of Israelite-Moabite relations, while others consider them supplementary versions (cf. 2 Kgs. 3:4–27).

 

The stone was discovered in the ruins of Dhiban, the capital of ancient Moab, by Bedouin, who brought it to the attention of F. A. Klein, an Anglican minister and medical missionary, in 1868. The stone is black basalt, ca. 1 m. × 60 cm. × 60 cm. (3.3 ft. × 23.6 in. × 23.6 in.), with an inscription of 34 lines. Klein’s arrangements to purchase the stone failed; Salīm el-Qārī made a hand copy of the first few lines, and shortly thereafter Yaʿqūb Karavaca made a paper squeeze. Because of complications in negotiating the purchase and delivery of the stone, the Prussian consul requested the help of the Turkish authorities. This displeased the Bedouin, who heated the stone in a fire and then poured cold water on it, causing it to break into scores of pieces. Some 57 pieces (about two-thirds of the inscription) were ultimately purchased, from which Charles Clermont-Ganneau, using the squeeze made by Karavaca, was able to reconstruct the entire inscription quite accurately.

 

Bibliography. J. A. Dearman, ed., Studies in the Mesha Inscription and Moab. SBLABS 2 (Atlanta, 1989); S. H. Horn, “The Discovery of the Moabite Stone,” in The Word of the Lord Shall Go Forth, ed. C. L. Meyers and M. O’Connor (Winona Lake, 1983), 497–505; G. L. Mattingly, “Moabites,” in Peoples of the Old Testament World, ed. A. J. Hoerth, Mattingly, and E. M. Yamauchi (Grand Rapids, 1994), 317–33.

 

CHRIS A. ROLLSTON