The Archaeology of Myth

Papers on Old Testament Tradition

N. Wyatt

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351546638
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: History

Myth as a category is often explicitly denied as being present in the Bible. Studies of Israelite religion take a largely historical approach. 'The Archaeology of Myth' highlights the importance of mythological categories in discussing any religion, and especially Israelite religion. The essays explore key biblical narratives and themes - Jacob's dream, the story of Dinah and Shechem, the seventy sons of Athirat, the old men of Deuteronomy - tracing their development from primitive forms to biblical text. The book offers a theoretical analysis of the biblical treatment of myth and its role in the shaping of memories and values.

Chapter 1

WHERE DID JACOB DREAM HIS DREAM?*

Despite the variety of views entertained by scholars about the story of Jacob’s dream in Genesis 28,¹ it is fair to say that there is a consensus regarding the location and purpose of the episode. It takes place at Bethel, and serves among other things to legitimize the sanctuary there, which derives its importance from the ancient patriarchal connection.

In this discussion I wish to challenge both these propositions. It seems to me that the exegetical tradition has failed to take into account factors which make the usual explanations implausible and indeed impossible. Matters of source criticism do not have much to tell us in the context, and if anything invite stereotyped reactions concerning the antiquity of the tale which I think are misleading. Thus the common assumption of an oral tradition underlying a tenth-century J source cannot be squared with the fact that the verses normally allocated to J are manifestly later than the rest of the story, and are redactional. Also the view that the main story conventionally belongs to the E source and therefore reflects northern tradition is at odds with Jacob’s literary role as eponym for Judah. Furthermore the whole point of the story seems to draw on a range of assumptions and symbolic conventions which fit the exilic rather than an earlier period. Having made so many sweeping statements, let me now try to justify them.

The matter of the aetiology is perhaps the best place to start. For C. Westermann, the story reaches its climax in v. 19.² Yet the verse is surely secondary, indeed transforming the story into an aetiology, but missing the original point. To begin with, Jacob does not in the body of the narrative name the place Bethel (bêt-’ēl), but calls it bêt-’elōhîm (v. 17). Had his exclamation been the moment of naming the place, he would surely have used the same name as occurs in v. 19. To assume that the similarity of form, or the assonance involved, is a sufficient element, begs the question. Besides, the story has the deity identify himself as Yahweh, which is consonant with Jacob’s choice of words in v. 17, but is hard to accommodate to Bethel in v. 19: we should surely expect Beth-Yahweh if not Beth-Elohim. Again, since v. 19 cites the older name of the place (Luz), we would expect this to be an aetiology for renaming it, yet the narrative of vv. 10–18 has no older name. Indeed, the anonymity of hammāqôm (“a certain place”) of v. 11 is quite striking. There is also a discrepancy between the naming of the place (māqôm) in v. 19, but the previous name of the city (^cîr). In view of the events which take place at the location, we should surely understand the term māqôm to have the special sense of a sacred site, anticipated rather than explicit in v. 11, to be sure, but with the full technical sense in v. 17. The usage in v. 19 is a reversion to the more neutral sense of “place,” and is inconsistent with the rest of the story.³ On these grounds, then, v. 19 is to be seen as secondary. Since the concluding verses 20–22 make a coherent addition to the story, as we shall see, but do not presuppose v. 19, and would indeed be meaningless were it already in position, I take v. 19 to be a rather banal addition from a later time, by a scribe who seems to have failed to grasp the literary or religious force of the story before him.

A further matter with regard to Bethel concerns the significance it had in the pre-exilic period. This must have been conditioned by the part it played in the religious reforms of Jeroboam in the tenth century. This has usually been explained in terms of a dissident, iconic form of Yahwism,⁴ though a number of other suggestions have been offered.⁵ In my view the key to the religious question is to be found in Hosea’s diatribe of Hosea 8:5–7, which attacks the calf cult of Israel. In v. 6, the obscure ky myśr’l was regrouped by H. Tur-Sinai to read ky my šr ’l: “For who is Bull El?”⁶ This is a perfect echo of the Ugaritic divine title tr il used of El, head of the Canaanite pantheon, and makes sense in the biblical context too, since El is credited with the saving event of the exodus in such passages as Numbers 23:22 (cf. Numbers 24:8) and Psalm 106:21.⁷ Jeroboam revived the ancient Israelite cult of El by the rejection of the accretions superimposed on it by the cult of Yahweh fostered by the kings of the united monarchy. He was, after all, trying to be rid of precisely those religious and ideological features which continued to provide a powerful attraction from south of the frontier.^7a But regardless of the construction we put on his reform, it is clear that it was held in opprobrium by Yahwists in north and south. Thus Hosea 10:15 (MT) and Amos 3:14, 4:4, 5:6 and 7:10–17 offer an eighth-century critique, while 1 Kings 12:26–13:10 and 2 Kings 23:15–20 give us the deuteronomistic reflection on this (perhaps mediated in part through the centralization tradition of Deuteronomy 12) in the late seventh century,⁸ a view which in part conditioned exilic thought.

Against this negative evidence we must in fairness set the positive evidence of Hosea 12:5 – though this is perhaps ambivalent⁹ – and Genesis 35:1–15. The history of this latter passage is complex and difficult to elucidate with certainty. However, we need not digress into that in order to make the observations which concern our present discussion. The important fact is its secondary nature with regard to Genesis 28:10–22. This is clear from the fact that while 28:18, 22 speak of a stone raised up (maṣṣēbâ), it has become an altar (mizbeaḥ) in 35:1, 3, 7. A redactional addition in vv. 14–15 appears to seek to accommodate this to the maṣṣēbâ of v. 28, but the result is simply a duplication of stones. Even without the incorporation of the story of the foreign gods in vv. 2 and 4, the natural setting which provides the departure point for Jacob’s journey to Bethel is Shechem, the locale of Genesis 33:18–20 and of Genesis 34. Thus the geographical movement of his journey in Genesis 35, from north to south, is the reverse of that in Genesis 28. Finally, Genesis 35 is in fact an amalgamation of two traditions: that of 28:10–22 and that of 32:23–33 (especially v. 29, to which cf. 35:10). It is therefore clear that Genesis 35 is secondary for our purposes, and therefore cannot control the exegesis of 28:10–22. It belongs on the contrary to the later literary history of the tradition. If we wish to see an intimate link between the stories, we may conjecture that the redactor of 35:1–15 was the author of 28:19.

Until Bethel is seemingly rehabilitated by Genesis 35:1–15, then, the motives for which need not detain us, it is surely the dominant attitude to Bethel which we would expect to control any writer’s understanding of it. In any case, with the recognition of the secondary nature of 28:19, there is in fact no allusion to Bethel in the original form of the story. This then brings us to the question: if Bethel is not the location of Jacob’s dream, can we surmise where it takes place?

As we have seen, the term māqôm used in the story has the technical sense of a sacred site. If we consider which sacred sites in Palestine were important in Genesis (omitting Bethel), we have Beersheba, discounted since it is the point of departure, Hebron, Shechem and Jerusalem. Of these three, the most important within later historical times, that is from the time of its capture and adoption as capital, were Jerusalem and Shechem. These seem to be likely candidates. The fact that Shechem is itself the point of departure in Genesis 35 is not relevant in this context. If we are to eliminate it we must find other reasons. Shechem is certainly important enough to be linked with Abra(ha)m in Genesis 12:6. It may also be the location of the events in 15:1–21, if one is to be sought, on the ground that covenant traditions probably have their historical origins in Shechem, sanctuary of El (Baal) Berit.¹⁰ It appears to be the place envisaged in the cult-centralization laws of Deuteronomy 12, or was at any rate so understood by the author of Deuteronomy 11:29 and 27:11–26. But in my view the original author(s) of Deuteronomy 12–26 had not Shechem but Jerusalem in mind. In their “exile” in the northern kingdom following the reforms of Jeroboam I, they looked to the cult of Yahweh in Jerusalem as the only true religion which necessitated such extraordinary measures for secularization in the body of the laws, since they were deliberately cutting themselves off from participation in the cultic life of Israel (sc. the northern kingdom). This is the earliest historical evidence of a dissident sect. If Shechem were indeed the “place” of Deuteronomy 12, then the effective reduction of sacrificial and festal worship to three times a year (Deuteronomy 16) would be quite unnecessary. But with a long journey south and the crossing of a frontier, a much reduced cultic life as envisaged is understandable. Also, were Shechem the reference of hammāqôm in Deuteronomy 12:5–7,¹¹ there would be no obvious reason to be so coy about its identity. If the place is Jerusalem, however, we can readily see that for a northern sectarian programme to name a foreign sanctuary as the only legitimate place of worship would be construed as treason by the authorities in Israel. And it boils down to political loyalties, as indicated by Jeroboam’s words in 1 Kings 12:27.

There are further reasons why Jerusalem should be considered the place. It seems to me that hammāqôm of Genesis 28:11 means not simply “a certain place,”¹² but is also a deliberate literary echo of the “place” of Deuteronomy 12. At any rate, any percipient reader could scarcely avoid associating the two texts. Again, we have noted Jacob’s role as eponym not of Israel, but of Judah. The appropriation of the northern eponym (Genesis 32:29; 35:10) is part of the transformation of Judahite religion into Judaism, and the older reference of Israel is seen in Amos 7:16. It follows that we should expect a Jacob tradition to be attached to a southern sanctuary. In addition, the entire Priestly Work is remarkable for one very striking omission: there is in it no clear reference to Jerusalem – that is, the place name does not occur in any part of the narrative. It does occur twice in the land-allocation, in Joshua 15:8 (perhaps as a gloss here) and 15:63. Even if this is accepted as part of the composition,¹³ the overall reticence the author-redactor evidently feels needs some comment. Genesis 14 is perhaps an exception, but it is generally agreed to be extraneous to the work,¹⁴ and in any case still avoids the form Jerusalem, using Salem instead. If the Priestly Work as a whole is to be construed as an exilic composition, then there is a ready explanation, similar to that concerning the anonymity of the place in Deuteronomy: the exiles were presumably subject to at least a nominal surveillance by the authorities in their settlements in Mesopotamia, and any overt allusion to Jerusalem in contemporary religious propaganda might seem too dangerous. Be that as it may, there is in fact no need to specify the place. Those with eyes and ears would undoubtedly discern its presence in a number of key passages in the work.

Thus the location of the Garden of Eden, already clear enough on purely symbolic grounds,¹⁵ is made transparently so by the addition of Genesis 2:10–14, which incorporates the world of the exiles in the reference to the Tigris and the Euphrates, but that of Jerusalem in the allusion to the Gihon.¹⁶ The subsiding of the flood leaves Noah’s ark apparently stranded far away on Mount Ararat (Genesis 8:4), but later tradition identified the mountain with Zion and the first dry land of the original creation of which this was a repetition.¹⁷ Even though such interpretations are only attested later, we should beware of simply dismissing them as late inventions. Moriah, place of Abraham’s readiness to sacrifice Isaac (Genesis 22:2), is identified with Jerusalem in 2 Chronicles 3:1, and again cannot simply be treated as a later amalgamation of traditions. In that passage it is the site of Solomon’s temple; in Genesis 22 the reference to māqôm in vv. 3, 4, 9 and 14 evokes the māqôm in Genesis 28. The place where Moses encounters Yahweh in the Land of Midian is remote from Palestine, yet the vision of the bush and the language of theophany are intended to echo the language of the cult in Jerusalem.¹⁸ Finally, the story of Babel, superficially located in Babylon, is a story of divine punishment and exile, and could not fail to seem a parable of their own destiny to the exiles, so that Babylon is a figure for Jerusalem.¹⁹ Indeed, the double reference of the story, to Jerusalem and Babylon, bears a more than passing resemblance to features of the Jacob story.

Let us turn to the question of the stone which features in the story. Jacob uses it as a pillow, then ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• List of Abbreviations
• 1 Where Did Jacob Dream his Dream?
• 2 The Story of Dinah and Shechem
• 3 A La Recherche des Rephaïm Perdus
• 4 The Seventy Sons of Athirat, the Nations of the World, Deuteronomy 32:6b, 8–9, and the Myth of Divine Election
• 5 Old Men or Progenitors? A Proposal to Emend the Text of Deuteronomy 32:7 and Proverbs 23:22
• 6 The Mythic Mind Revisited: Myth and History – or Myth versus History – A Continuing Problem in Biblical Studies