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Rule of Law: George Washington, Nimrod, the Tower of Babel and Today

Common Sense by Thomas Paine (http://www.booktryst.com)

On April 10, 2019, Politico posted an article entitled “Trump’s ‘truly bizarre’ visit to Mt. Vernon.” The article recounted a visit on April 23, 2018, by the French and American Presidents to Mount Vernon, home of George Washington, the first President of the United States.

According to Mount Vernon president and CEO Doug Bradburn, the tour guide for the Presidents, the Macrons were far more knowledgeable about the history of the property than the American President. France, of course, contributed to America’s victory in the American Revolution with the assistance of Marquis de Lafayette and Count Rochambeau, the first but not the last time foreign intervention helped elect an American President.

By contrast, the American President is renowned for not reading a book and being historically ignorant (Canada burned the White House, the Baltic States were responsible for the dissolution of Yugoslavia, and 306 electoral votes is a landslide). It was easy for the trained guide to rapidly discern that the American President was completely bored. Drawing on his experience with school visitors who similarly had no interest in the Father of the Country, Bradburn attempted to engage the person before him. As reported by Politico, the former history professor with a Ph.D, “was desperately trying to get [Trump] interested in” Washington’s house. So he drew on his bag of tricks and informed the uninformed President that Washington had been a real-estate developer.

That approach did the trick. Now the guide had the President’s attention. Not only was Washington a real-estate developer, but for his times, he was one of the richest people in the United States. In today’s terms, he could be compared to Gates, Buffet, and Bezos and not to a comparative pauper like the President. (No, Bradburn did not say that!)  Again according to Politico, “That is what Trump was really the most excited about” said a source.

At that point, our narcissistic President responded to the news in the way that defines him as a person

[H]e couldn’t understand why America’s first president didn’t name his historic Virginia compound or any of the other property he acquired after himself. “If he was smart, he would’ve put his name on it,” Trump said, according to three sources briefed on the exchange. “You’ve got to put your name on stuff or no one remembers you.”

In other words, unless you make your name great, you are not great and will be forgotten.

The concept of making your name great is familiar to biblical students referring to another book he has not read.

Genesis 12:1 Now Yahweh said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.

In the biblical tradition, a person does not make his name great, the Lord does.

It should be noted that in ancient times the people who made their name great were kings. Lost in translation is the recognition that the way one made one’s name great in ancient times was by the king building something. To the deep regret of biblical archaeologists, ancient Israel did not partake of this royal tradition of kings building things with their name on it.

By contrast, Ramses II, the traditional Pharaoh of the Exodus of Passover fame, did make his name great. He built extensively. And when he had not built it, he still carved his name into it. It would be a little like our having the Trumpire State Building or Mount Vertrump. And Ramses did achieve lasting fame. By having approximately 100 children, a condom was named after him so his name is remembered all the time.

Mesopotamian kings followed a generally similarly path. Kings built stairways to heaven (ziggurats) at the cosmic center (the capital) where they ruled the universe from sea to shining sea (the Upper Sea or Mediterranean to the Lower Sea or Persian/Arab Gulf; there maps are oriented at a 90 degree rotation from ours). The baked bricks used in these constructions bore the name of the king.

Nimrod is the first king mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. He is the first king mentioned before Abraham encounters various kings. To understand what he is doing there one must put aside what the name means colloquially today and in rabbinic tradition and focus on the biblical text itself. In the original version of the story:

Genesis 10:8 Cush became the father of Nimrod; he was the first on earth to be a mighty man. 9 He was a mighty hunter before Yahweh; therefore it is said, “Like Nimrod a mighty hunter before Yahweh.” 10 The beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Erech, and Accad, and Calneh [Calah] in the land of Shinar.

These verses are descriptive, not accusatory. Nimrod is to be praised for his achievements not condemned. Indeed, he is a figure to be emulated given his success as mighty man or warrior before the Lord. He was the ruler of the Mesopotamian universe.

As biblical archaeologists and Assyriologists eventually learned, Nimrod was not an individual but an exemplar. He was not Sumerian Gilgamesh of Uruk (Erech) as had been originally thought. He was not Akkadian Sargon the Great of Accad, he was not Amorite Hammurabi of Babylon, and he was not Assyrian Tukulti-Ninurta of Calah to name other candidates. Instead he was all of them; he represented that Mesopotamian way of life.

To understand the Nimrod story, it is necessary, I think, to connect this story of the four cities with the inserts of the four rivers in the garden (Gen, 2) and the four kings of the east (Gen.14). A single author supplemented an existing narrative with these episodes. This author thought globally as he also did in transforming local flood songs (Songs of Miriam and Deborah) into a global one. That action undermined the Egyptian-based perspective of the Exodus story and the Canaanites who became Israelites. Having Nimrod be a Yahweh-worshipper long before Moses at the burning bush also undermined the position of Moses and therefore of his priesthood.

I suggest that the author the Nimrod story and these supplements was a Benjaminite/Yaminite Aaronid priest. He wrote not as a scribe or priest but as a player in the political arena. He ended the first cycle of stories (aka the primeval cycle) with Nimrod and a table of nations leading to Abram leaving Ur to start the second cycle. The torch had been passed to a new location. The temple in Jerusalem was now the cosmic center. The Israelite king in Jerusalem was advised to rule like a Mesopotamian king at the new cosmic center. He was to make his name great as Solomon did in building the temple.

So at least claimed one political party in ancient Israel. However, there was another political party, the Levites or Mushites who claimed the law came first. They objected to the claim that Yahweh had sanctioned the royal way of life in Mesopotamia as the Nimrod author had written. Yahweh had first appeared at Sinai to Moses and the law was revealed there. They mocked the Mesopotamian way of life by writing the Tower of Babel story. Look at those mighty stairways to heaven! They all were built for naught. All those mighty and grandiose empires crumbled into dust, lost to history until recovered by archaeologists. It was the law which endured and ruled even when kings and temples were no more.

Exodus 1817 Moses’ father-in-law said to him…19”Listen now to my voice; I will give you counsel, and God be with you! You shall represent the people before God, and bring their cases to God; 20 and you shall teach them the statutes and the decisions, and make them know the way in which they must walk and what they must do. 21 Moreover choose able men from all the people, such as fear God, men who are trustworthy and who hate a bribe; and place such men over the people as rulers of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens. 22 And let them judge the people at all times; every great matter they shall bring to you, but any small matter they shall decide themselves; so it will be easier for you, and they will bear the burden with you. 23 If you do this, and God so commands you, then you will be able to endure, and all this people also will go to their place in peace.”

The Babel author highlighted the folly of the Nimrod story ambitions. This author was anti-Aaronid (golden calf story) and anti-monarchy (the Jethro constitution).

Jethro and Nimrod offer two different models of political organization: the rule of law and the king who makes his name great. Two political parties offered two different versions of how society should be organized: one based on the rule by a king and one based on the rule of law. The result was an original narrative now separated into two narratives with different endings to the first cycle of stories. Nimrod and Babel are inconsistent because they originally part of two different narratives based on a common core. Only when they were combined centuries later were the inconsistencies juxtaposed. Imagine having to combine Confederate and Union descriptions of Lincoln and Lee in a single narrative! Again, that was a political process and not a scribal one.

For the first centuries of Israel’s existence, it had had no king. Therefore no one was in a position to abuse power. Only when Israel had a king could someone be a law unto himself. We will never know if ancient Egypt or Mesopotamia debated the powers of a king when he first ascended to the throne in Egypt and descended to the throne in Mesopotamia. But we do know the debates ancient Israel had on the powers of the king. It decided there should be checks and balances on the power of the king. No one was above the law. Even David could be called to task: “Thou art the man.” And when he was confronted he repented.

The best time for the initial battle over whether Jerusalem had replaced Mesopotamia as the cosmic center occurred when Israel could if it were so inclined think of itself it such grandiose terms. This happened when Egypt and Mesopotamia were weak (and Pharaoh’s daughter was an Israelite queen). It happened before the time of Sheshonq and Assurnasirpal II.

This approach is based on the stories originating in a political context as Levites, Aaronids, and Jebusites battled for power. Even stories set elsewhere were always about internal politics. Obviously this scenario is speculative and cannot be proven but it does illustrate how a political approach can produce a different historical reconstruction.

This ancient Israelite dialog on the rule of law and the rule by the king continues on in the United States. In 1776, Thomas Paine wrote in Common Sense:

…that in America the law is king. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other.

Once again as in ancient Israel and during the American Revolution, the issue of the rule of law versus the rule by king is being played out. Will the United States be governed by the Constitution or a Nimrod?

 

For more on the stories of Nimrod and the Tower of Babel see my book Jerusalem Throne Games: The Battle of Bible Stories after the Death of David.

Rule of Law: George Washington, Nimrod, and Today

On April 10, 2019, Politico posted an article entitled “Trump’s ‘truly bizarre’ visit to Mt. Vernon.” The article recounted a visit on April 23, 2018, by the French and American Presidents to Mount Vernon, home of George Washington, the first President of the United States.

According to Mount Vernon president and CEO Doug Bradburn, the tour guide for the Presidents, the Macrons were far more knowledgeable about the history of the property than the American President. France, of course, contributed to America’s victory with Marquis de Lafayette and Count Rochambeau, the first but not the last time foreign intervention helped elect an American President.

By contrast, our President is renowned for being incapable of reading of book and being historically ignorant (unless he saw a movie). It was easy for the trained guide to rapidly discern that the American President was completely bored. Drawing on his experience with 7th graders who similarly had no interest in the Father of the Country, Bradburn attempted to engage the person before him. As reported by Politico, a former history professor with a PhD, Bradburn “was desperately trying to get [Trump] interested in” Washington’s house. So he draw on his bag of tricks and informed the uninformed President that Washington had been a real-estate developer.

That approach did the trick. Now the guide had the President’s attention. Not only was Washington a real-estate developer, but for his times, he was one of the richest people in the United States. In today’s terms, he could be compared to Gates, Buffet, and Bezos and not to a comparative pauper like the fake billionaire President. (No, Bradburn did not say that! At least not the last part.)  Again according to Politico, “That is what Trump was really the most excited about” said a source.

At that point, our narcissistic President responded to the news in the way that defines him as a person

[H]e couldn’t understand why America’s first president didn’t name his historic Virginia compound or any of the other property he acquired after himself. “If he was smart, he would’ve put his name on it,” Trump said, according to three sources briefed on the exchange. “You’ve got to put your name on stuff or no one remembers you.”

In other words, unless you make your name great, you are not great and will be forgotten.

The concept of making your name great is familiar to biblical students referring to another book he has not read.

Genesis 12:1 Now Yahweh said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.

In the biblical tradition, a person does not make his name great, the Lord does.

It should be noted that in ancient times the people who made their name great were kings. Lost in translation is the recognition that the way one made one’s name great in ancient times was by the king building something. To the deep regret of biblical archaeologists, ancient Israel did not partake of this royal tradition of kings building things with their name on it.

By contrast, Ramses II, the traditional Pharaoh of the Exodus of Passover fame, did make his name great. He built extensively. And when he had not built it, he still carved his name into it. It would be a little like our having the Trumpire State Building or Mount Vertrump. And he did achieve lasting fame. By having approximately 100 children, a condom was named after him so his name is remembered all the time.

Mesopotamian kings followed a generally similarly path. Kings build stairways to heaven (ziggurats) at the cosmic center (the capital) where they ruled the universe from sea to shining sea (the Upper Sea or Mediterranean to the Lower Sea or Persian/Arab Gulf; there maps are oriented at a 90 degree rotation from ours). The baked bricks used in these constructions bore the name of the king.

Nimrod is the first king mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. He is the first king mentioned before Abraham encounters various kings. To understand what he is doing there one must put aside what the name means colloquially today and in rabbinic tradition and focus on the biblical text itself. In the original version of the story:

Genesis 10:8 Cush became the father of Nimrod; he was the first on earth to be a mighty man. 9 He was a mighty hunter before Yahweh; therefore it is said, “Like Nimrod a mighty hunter before Yahweh.” 10 The beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Erech, and Accad, and Calneh [Calah] in the land of Shinar.

These verses are descriptive, not accusatory. Nimrod is to be praised for his achievements not condemned. Indeed, he is a figure to be emulated given his success as mighty man or warrior before the Lord. He was the ruler of the Mesopotamian universe.

As biblical archaeologists and Assyriologists eventually learned, Nimrod was not an individual but an exemplar. He was not Sumerian Gilgamesh of Uruk (Erech) as had been originally thought. He was not Akkadian Sargon the Great of Accad, he was not Amorite Hammurabi of Babylon, and he was not Assyrian Tukulti-Ninurta of Calah. Instead he was all of them; he represented that Mesopotamian life. Now with Abraham leaving Ur and settling near Hebron (David’s first royal capital), the torch had been passed to a new location. The Israelite king in Jerusalem was advised to rule like a Mesopotamian king at the new cosmic center. He was to make his name great as Solomon did in building the temple.

So at least claimed one political party in ancient Israel. However, there was another political party, the Levites or Mushites who claimed the law came first. They objected to the claim that Yahweh had sanctioned the royal way of life in Mesopotamia as the Nimrod author had written. Yahweh had first appeared at Sinai to Moses and the law was revealed there. They mocked the Mesopotamian way of life by writing the Tower of Babel story. Look at those mighty stairways to heaven! They all were built for naught. All those mighty and grandiose empires crumbled into dust, lost to history until recovered by archaeologists. It was the law which endured and ruled even when kings and temples were no more.

Exodus 18:17 Moses’ father-in-law said to him…19”Listen now to my voice; I will give you counsel, and God be with you! You shall represent the people before God, and bring their cases to God; 20 and you shall teach them the statutes and the decisions, and make them know the way in which they must walk and what they must do. 21 Moreover choose able men from all the people, such as fear God, men who are trustworthy and who hate a bribe; and place such men over the people as rulers of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens. 22 And let them judge the people at all times; every great matter they shall bring to you, but any small matter they shall decide themselves; so it will be easier for you, and they will bear the burden with you. 23 If you do this, and God so commands you, then you will be able to endure, and all this people also will go to their place in peace.”

Jethro and Nimrod offer two different models of political organization: the rule of law and the king who makes his name great. Two political parties in ancient Israel offered two different versions of how society should be organized: one based on the rule by a king and one based on the rule of law.

For the first centuries of Israel’s existence, it had had no king. Therefore no one was in a position to abuse power. Only when Israel had a king could someone be a law unto himself. We will never know if ancient Egypt or Mesopotamia debated the powers of a king when he first ascended to the throne in Egypt and descended to the throne in Mesopotamia. But we do know the debates ancient Israel had on the powers of the king. It decided there should be checks and balances on the power of the king. No one was above the law. Even David could be called to task: “Thou art the man.” And when he was confronted he repented.

Bonespur Boy is no David. He is no George Washington either who also is remembered for having left the presidency voluntarily. And even though he is no mighty man and is not before the Lord, he still is a Nimrod.

 

For more on the stories of Nimrod and the Tower of Babel see my book Jerusalem Throne Games: The Battle of Bible Stories after the Death of David.

 

Is Morgan Freeman God? What Do Biblical Scholars Think?

Morgan Freeman as God in Bruce Almighty ( Universal Pictures 2003)

Is Morgan Freeman God? The human Morgan Freeman performed in the role of the Almighty in Bruce Almighty. The audience accepted him in that role based on his stature, mien, and voice. To the best of my knowledge, at no time did the audience ever think that Morgan Freeman actually was God. As far as I know, the audience knew he was a human being performing in that role.

What will American historians three thousand years from now think? To some extent any analysis will depend on the data available. Ironically, three thousand years from now a Mesopotamian tablet may be more accessible than an Apple tablet. Exactly what information will be retained about Freeman from both on and off the screen cannot be known. There is more to a person’s life than the official record. Of course, we will never know what people three thousand years from now will think about Morgan Freeman being God and what they interpret that to mean for the values and beliefs of the American people.

With biblical scholars we do have the opportunity. We can examine what biblical scholars today and in the recent past think about the values the ancient Israelites had. We can examine what biblical scholars have said and written about the beliefs of those people. What do biblical scholars today claim about ancient Israel’s “Bruce Almighty” being god or what they think the Israelites believed about the deity?

The answers come from the consensus scholarship about certain events in the biblical narrative where the Lord appears to have a human form. These passages include:

1. The Garden of Eden where the deity walks in the garden in the cool of the day and speaks to the human man and woman as if he is right there with them (Gen. 3:8)

2. The Flood story which ends with the Lord smelling the savor of the sacrifice offered by Noah (Gen. 8:21)

3. The Tower of Babel story where the Lord descends from heaven after conversing with his heavenly colleagues (Gen. 11:5-7)

4. The Abraham stories where God joins him in his tent for a meal and later walks and converses with him before rendering a decision on what to do about Sodom (Gen. 18)

5. Jacob wrestling with the Lord (Gen. 32:24-30).

These episodes among some others have caused biblical scholars to postulate that early Israel had an anthropomorphic religion. In other words, much as we imagine the way ancient Greeks thought of Zeus, the biblical scholars propose that early Israel thought of Yahweh. The god had a physical form in the shape of a male human being. Only in time according to this view did Israel, like the Greeks, evolve to a more cosmic and less physical belief in God. Therefore these incidents like the ones cited above are vestiges from an early primitive time of Israelite belief.

Playing God

The missing ingredient in this interpretation is performance, the recognition that human beings performed in the role of the Lord or as the voice of the Lord in ancient times. It is not as if biblical scholars are unaware that performances did occur then. The annual Mesopotamian new year festival called the akitu frequently appears in biblical scholarship especially in connection with the beginning of the Book of Genesis. This eleven-day festival of thanksgiving involved the king, a female either a high priestess or a queen who also might be a high priestess, a statue of the deity (not an ark), a temple, and a procession. During the course of the celebration the statue was moved about to represent its triumph over the forces of chaos and the restoration of order for the coming year when it was returned to its sacred setting.1

As one might expect, Egypt was a society of public performances, too.  They included the king, a statue, and processions as well. The word for “read” in Egyptian, šdj, refers to oral performance. Even when statues of deities were involved it is presumed that divine speech was pronounced by a human priest of the deity. The lector priest was regarded as the mouth or voice of the deity but was not a god himself. He remained human. As part of the performance, priests wore masks, human kings and queens dressed in divine regalia, and people danced. In addition, there were storytellers who educated and entertained local populations. Of course, if someone were too good a speaker, the individual might be considered a threatening rabble-rouser who needed to be punished!2

One should recognize that although these performances may be the distant ancestor to Bruce Almighty, they served a different purpose. Once upon a time, theater was sacred.

The oldest theatres are all situated in the vicinity of a sanctuary, and in the temenos of it…In each theatre an altar was set up in the middle of the orchestra, on which a sacrifice was made before and after the ceremony. The performance took place…only once a year, on the festival day of the god worshipped in the temple….The theatre was a sacred place, the actor were sacred persons, their action was sacred action, and it was performed at a sacred time.3

Typically, these performances involved the king, a priest, and possibly a sacred marriage of some kind ensuring the fertility of the land for the coming year.

It’s not as if biblical scholars are unaware of the concept in the Israelite religion of a human being speaking in the name of deity without actually being divine. For example, David inquiries of the Lord and hears the answer through the mouth of Abiathar.

1 Samuel 23:9 David knew that Saul was plotting evil against him; and he said to Abiathar the priest, “Bring the ephod here.” 10 Then said David, “O Yahweh, the God of Israel, thy servant has surely heard that Saul seeks to come to Keilah, to destroy the city on my account. 11 Will the men of Keilah surrender me into his hand? Will Saul come down, as thy servant has heard? O Yahweh the God of Israel, I beseech thee, tell thy servant.” And Yahweh said, “He will come down.” 12 Then said David, “Will the men of Keilah surrender me and my men into the hand of Saul?” And Yahweh said, “They will surrender you.”

1 Samuel 30:7 And David said to Abiathar the priest, the son of Ahimelech, “Bring me the ephod.” So Abiathar brought the ephod to David. 8 And David inquired of Yahweh, “Shall I pursue after this band? Shall I overtake them?” He answered him, “Pursue; for you shall surely overtake and shall surely rescue.”

How would the audience have understood how Yahweh spoke to David? It wasn’t through a dream. There should be no doubt that the audience understood Abiathar as the one speaking the words of the Lord to David in his capacity as the high priest of the Levites, as the keeper of the ephod who brought it into the presence of David when he wished to inquire of the Lord.

Indeed, the prophet tradition in the Israelite religion is of prophets speaking in the name of the deity without being divine themselves. Generally these prophetic utterances are to the king. In the biblical narrative, it begins with Moses speaking to a foreign king. It resumes once Israel has its own king with Saul and includes such luminaries as Samuel, Abiathar, Ahijah, Elijah, Elisha, and Micaiah before prophets begin to get books of their own in the 8th century BCE.

With this background in mind, let’s consider another way how the prophets may have communicated the words of the Lord to audiences larger than the king alone. Two primary methods are oral storytelling and a staged performance. Oral storytelling involves one person, the prophet alone, speaking to an audience of the people through the telling of story. A staged performance as defined here involves multiple people at a set occasion, set time, and set location like a New Year festival with the king at the capital. The examples of an alleged anthropomorphic deity in the above passages include both methods. For the remainder of this post, let us see what a prophet in an oral storytelling mode did. I will save the staged performances for a subsequent post.

The Tower of Babel

The Tower of Babel is a finely constructed literary masterpiece. Of all the supplemental or “son stories,” in the first cycle (sons of Cain, of Seth, of God, of Noah, of Cush, and of men), the Tower of Babel is the one which is a full story in its own right. It was written from scratch and connects to previous stories. As a story, it can be analyzed as a single unit as the product of one mind in a specific point in space and time. The Tower of Babel as story affords the reader today an opportunity to go inside the mind of politically-active prophet storyteller.4

Thomas Cole, The Course of the Empire – Destruction (1836) https://commons.wikimedia.org

The artist has chosen to end the performance of the first cycle of stories with this story of his creation. It alludes to the sons of Cain who build cities (Gen. 4:17), the men in the time of son of Seth who call the name Yahweh (Gen. 4:26), and the post-Nimrod world of proper-noun peoples (Gen. 10).  This new ending depicts a world of a collapsed Mesopotamian empire and the not the exalted one of Nimrod. It reminds me of Hudson River Art school founder Thomas Cole’s The Course of the Empire paintings (1833-1836). He painted them just after New York State proclaimed itself the Empire State and just before the Panic of 1837, the first great economic collapse of the still new United States. This painter of biblical scenes like the garden and the flood, turns out to have been a pretty good prophet in the Jacksonian Age. Now think of the 12th century BCE empire of Nebuchadnezzar I with his ziggurat, creation of Enuma Elish story of origins, and the akitu festival.5 Was his kingship a model to emulate or a warning of what was to happen? Different political priesthoods had different views and used the story form to express what we would say in a blog, op-ed piece, or essay using abstract language.

Here, the prophet-artist-storyteller paints a picture at the conclusion of the first cycle of men being scattered over the face of the earth.

Genesis 11:9 and from there [Babel] Yahweh scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.

The word choice is important. The author of the Tower of Babel story uses the term eretz “earth,” while a different author in the garden story uses adamah “ground.” Both phrases appear in the Flood story. Different authors have their preferred terms for the same thing. Even words like “soda” and “pop” carry different meanings today not in their literal sense but culturally. One imagines ancient audiences also were attuned to the differences between “ground” and “earth” or “ish” and “adam” for man in ways we don’t really understand today. A skilled storyteller would know which word is the right one for his audience.

A good storyteller engages the audience. When the biblical storyteller said these words to whom was he speaking?

Genesis 11:5 And Yahweh came down to see the city and the tower, which the sons of men had built. 6 And Yahweh said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; and nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down, and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.”

The scholarly consensus is that the character of Yahweh in the story was speaking to fellow divine beings, perhaps a council of gods. Such a council was considered appropriate for the pre-monotheistic early religion of Israel where divinities had human form. Indeed, if this passage had been written by a Canaanite Jebusite now part of Israel, the attribution of a council to this passage would make sense. Such texts do exist in the biblical narrative and psalms.

Now suppose instead of the writer being of Canaanite Jebusite background, it was an Israelite prophet telling the story. In this instance, we have a scenario where the prophet storyteller is doing exactly what prophet storytellers do – speaking to his audience. He and the audience are the “us” in the story. In the previous verses, the prophet storyteller had been regaling his audience with the activities of these anonymous men. Remember those men from the time of Enosh:

Genesis 4:26 To Seth also a son was born, and he called his name Enosh. At that time men began to call upon the name of Yahweh.

Where was this name-calling happening? Traditionally at a structure called a temple or so the story implies without stating. The audience of that story was expected to be able to figure it out without that storyteller directly stating it. Now in this story, the prophet storyteller is inviting the audience to come and join him and see what these men had been doing: building a temple in the Mesopotamian and not simply Canaanite tradition: think of a Benjaminite/Yaminite priest foe and not Canaanite-Jebusite one. To put the scene in perspective, imagine a parent or teacher who has turned his back on wayward youths now saying to his audience, “let’s go see what those little boys were up when they thought no one was looking.” Surprise! Surprise! There goes your empire! This prophet storyteller no more admired the Nimrod storyteller than he did the Enosh storyteller. “Games up” is the message this prophet storyteller is delivering in the name of Yahweh; the empire has run its course.

The focus on the presumed council of gods and primitive anthropomorphism detracts from understanding the political purpose of the story. The prophet story-teller is calling his audience to action. He does so in the name of Yahweh. One can easily imagine such a prophet storyteller roaming the stage (threshing floor theater?) with robust physical gestures (even more so in the story of Jacob wrestling!). This vigorous performance was not simply for entertainment purposes. It was a time do something.

The battle was engaged. And another empire would bite the dust, scattered to the four winds. In ancient Israel, people voicing the word of the Lord weren’t just entertainers, they were political activists who wanted to change something in their world and expressed themselves in the story form. There is nothing primitive about their stories and the only thing anthropomorphic is the storyteller himself. Next post, let us look at staged performances involving multiple performers and see what they were up to.

Notes

1. For the akitu, see Julye Bidmead, The Akitu Festival: Religious Continuity and Royal Legitimation in Mesopotamia (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2014); Thorkild Jacobsen, “Religious Drama in Ancient Mesopotamia,” in Hans Goedicke and J. J. M. Roberts, eds, Unity and Diversity: Essays in the History, Literature, and Religion of the Ancient Near East (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975), 65–97; Jacob Klein, ‘Akitu’, in ABD I: 138–140; W. G. Lambert, “The Conflict in the Akītu house,” Iraq 25 1963: 189–190; Svend Aage Pallis, The Babylonian Akîtu Festival (København, ovedkommissionaer: A.F. Høst, 1926); Benjamin D. Sommer, “The Babylonian Akitu Festival: Rectifying the King of Renewing the Cosmos,” JANES 27 2000: 81–95; Karel van der Toorn, “The Babylonian New Year Festival: New Insights from the Cuneiform Texts and their Bearing on Old Testament Study,” in J. A. Emerton, ed., Congress Volume Leuven 1989 (Leiden: Brill, 1991), 331–344.

2. For the theatrical experience in Egypt, see John Baines, “Public Ceremonial Performance in Ancient Egypt: Exclusion and Integration’, in Takeshi Inornata and Lawrence S. Cohen, eds, Archaeology of Performance: Theater of Power, Community, and Politics (London: Rowman and Littlefield, 2006), 261–302; Ed Bleiberg, “Historical Text as Political Propaganda in the New Kingdom,” BES 7 1985–1986: 5–13; Henri Frankfort, Kingship and the Gods: A Study of Ancient Near Eastern Religion as the Integration of Society and Nature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978), 123–139; Robyn Gillam, Robyn, Performance and Drama in Ancient Egypt (London: Duckworth, 2005); Antonio Loprieno, “The King’s Novel,” in Antonio Loprieno, ed., Ancient Egyptian Literature: History and Forms (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 277–295; Donald B. Redford, “Scribe and Speaker,” in Ehud Ben Zvi and Michael H. Floyd, eds, Writing and Speech in Israelite and Ancient Near East Prophecy (SBLSymS 10; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2000), 145–218; Anthony Spalinger, “Königsnovelle and Performance’, in Vivienne G. Callender, L. Bareš, M. Bárta, and J. Janák, eds, Times, Signs and Pyramids: Studies in Honour of Miroslav Verner on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday (Prague: Czech Institute of Egyptology, Faculty of Arts Charles University, 2011), 350–374; Arlene Wolinkski, Arlene, “Egyptian Masks: The Priest and his Role,” Archaeology 40 1987: 22–29. The extensive references to performances at Edfu in Ptolemaic times are excluded here.

3. B. H. Stricker, “The Origin of the Greek Theatre,” JEA 41 1955: 34–47, here 36.

4. For the Tower of Babel, see Peter Feinman, Jerusalem Throne Games: The Battle of Biblical Stories after the Death of David (Oxford: Oxbow Publishing, 2017), 103-121, 341-361.

5. Nebuchadnezzar I is an unsung figure in biblical scholarship. At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, archaeologists had yet to reveal who he was in contrast to such figures as Gilgamesh, Sargon the Great, and Hammurabi. These other personages were incorporated into various hypotheses related to the history of Israel and the writing of the Hebrew Bible. Nebuchadnezzar I missed out on this formative period of exegetical formulation. For Nebuchadnezzar I, see J. A. Brinkman, A Political History of Post-Kassite Babylonia 1158–722 BC (Rome: Pontificium Institutum, 1968); W. G. Lambert, “The Reign of Nebuchadnezzar I: A Turning Point in the History of Ancient Mesopotamian Religion,” in W. S. McCullough, ed., The Seed of Wisdom: Essays in Honor of Th. J. Meek (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1964), 3–13; Tremper Longman, III, Fictional Akkadian Autobiography: A Generic and Comparative Study (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1991); Patrick D. Miller, Jr. and J. J. M. Roberts, The Hand of the Lord: A Reassessment of the ‘Ark Narrative’ (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977), 10–16, 77–85; J. J. M. Roberts, “Nebuchadnezzar I’s Elamite Crisis in Theological Perspectives,” in Maria deJong Ellis, ed., Essays on the Ancient Near East in Memory of Jacob Joel Finkelstein (Hamden: Archon Books, 1977), 183–187, reprinted in J. J. M. Roberts, The Bible and the Ancient Near East: Collected Essays (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2002), 83–92; D. J. Wiseman, “Assyrian and Babylonia c. 1200–1000 BC,” in I. E. S. Edwards, ed., History of the Middle East and the Aegean Region c. 1380–1000 BC (Cambridge Ancient History 2/2; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), 443–481. For the legacy of Nebuchadnezzar I into Assyrian and Persian times, see John P. Nielsen, “Marduk’s Return: Assyrian Imperial Propaganda, Babylonian Cultural Memory, and the akitu Festival of 667 BC,” in Martin Bommas, Juliette Harrison and Phoebe Roy, eds, Memory and Urban Religion in the Ancient World (London: Bloomsbury, 2012), 3–32; John P. Nielsen, “’I overwhelmed the king of Elam’: remembering Nebuchadnezzar I in Persian Babylonia,” in Jason M. Silverman and Caroline Waerzeggers, eds, Political Memory in and After the Persian Empire (ANEM 13; Atlanta: SBL Press, 2015), 53–73. I have not yet had time to read the new book by Nielsen entitled The Reign of Nebuchadnezzar I in History and Historical Memory.