Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-sjtt6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-06T13:00:12.708Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Assyrian Ideology and Israelite Monotheism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

Baruch A. Levine
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Few subjects in the field of biblical and ancient Near Eastern studies have elicited as much attention in recent decades as the origin and development of Israelite-biblical monotheism. One needs more than the fingers of both hands to list the many collections of articles and individual monographs that treat this threshold in the history of religions. Attention shifts in the search for precursors from ancient Egypt to Mesopotamia, and in the West Semitic sphere, to Ugarit and the Middle Euphrates. It will be the burden of the present discussion, while providing requisite background, to focus on the Neo-Assyrian factor in the ongoing development of Israelite monotheism, rather than on the search for its ultimate origin, which may be beyond reach in the present state of knowledge.

More precisely, I will propose that the policies and campaigns of the Sargonids, especially of Sennacherib, who made Nineveh his political capital, elicited an Israelite response that directly impacted the God-idea. That response is most immediately expressed in the prophecies of First Isaiah of Jerusalem, Sennacherib's contemporary. It was the threat to the survival of Judah and Jerusalem, emanating from Assyria, which called forth an enhanced God-idea. That idea evolved into universal monotheism, and in effect, enabled the people of Israel to survive exile and domination by successive world empires. In such terms, universal monotheism is to be seen as a religious response to empire, an enduring world-view founded on the proposition that all power exercised by humans, no matter how grandiose, is transient, and ultimately subservient to a divine plan for the whole earth, for all nations.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 67 , Issue 1: Nineveh. Papers of the XLIXe Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Part Two , Spring 2005 , pp. 411 - 427
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 2005

References

Brinkman, J. A. 1964. “Merodach-Baladan II”, in Studies Presented to A. Leo Oppenheim, ed. Biggs, R. D. et al., Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 6–53.Google Scholar
Brinkman, J. A. 1973. “Sennacherib's Babylonian Problem”, Journal of Cuneiform Studies 25: 89–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brinkman, J. A. 1983. “Through a Glass Darkly: Esarhaddon's Retrospects on the Downfall of Babylon”, Journal of the American Oriental Society 103: 35–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brinkman, J. A. 1984. Prelude to Empire: Babylonian Society and Politics, 747–626 B.C. (Occasional Publications of the Babylonian Fund 7), Philadelphia: University Museum.Google Scholar
Cogan, M. 1974. Imperialism and Religion (Society of Biblical Literature Series 19), Missoula, MT: Scholars Press.Google Scholar
Cazelles, H. 1992. “Syro-Ephraimite War”, in Anchor Bible Dictionary 6: 282–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, Ch. 1979. “Neo-Assyrian Elements in the First Speech of the Biblical Rab-Šaqe”, Israel Oriental Studies 9: 32–47.Google Scholar
Cohen, M. (ed.) 1996. MIKRA'OT GEDOLOT ‘HAKETER’: Isaiah, Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan University, 1996 (in Hebrew).Google Scholar
Dassow, Eva von 2003. By written communication.Google Scholar
Dearman, J. A., Mattingly, G. L. 1992. “Mesha Stele”, in Anchor Bible Dictionary 4: 708–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edel, E. 1997. Der Vertrag zwischen Ramses II. von Ägypten und Hattušili III. von Haiti, Berlin: Gebr. Mann. Google Scholar
Finkelstein, I. 1994. “The Archaeology of the Days of Manasseh”, in Scripture and Other Artifacts, Essays on the Bible and Archaeology in Honor of Philip J. King, ed. Coogan, M. D. et al., Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press.Google Scholar
Frahm, Eckart 1997. Einleitung in die Sanherib-Inschriften (Archiv für Orientforschung Beiheft 26), Vienna: Institut für Orientalistik der Universität Wien.Google Scholar
Fried, Lisbeth S. 2004. The Priest and the Great King, Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns.Google Scholar
George, A. R. 1986. “Sennacherib and the Tablet of Destinies”, Iraq 48: 133–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gitin, S. et al. 1997. “A Royal Dedicatory Inscription from Ekron”, Israel Exploration Journal 47: 1–16.Google Scholar
Goelet, O., Levine, B. A. 1998. “Making Peace in Heaven and on Earth: Religious and Legal Aspects of the Treaty between Rameses II and Hattusili III”, in Boundaries of the Ancient Near Eastern World, ed. Lubetsky, M. et al. (Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement 273), Sheffield, 252–99.Google Scholar
Gray, G. B. 1912. The Book of Isaiahbt, I–XXXIX, International Critical Commentary, Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark.Google Scholar
Grayson, A. K. 1992. “Sennacherib”, in Anchor Bible Dictionary 5: 1088–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoftijzer, J., Jongeling, K. (eds.) 1995. Dictionary of the North-West Semitic Inscriptions, Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Hornung, E. 1982. Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt: The One and the Many, trans. Baines, J., Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Horowitz, W. 1998. Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography, Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns.Google Scholar
Jacobsen, Th. 1946. “Mesopotamia: The Cosmos as a State, the Function of the State, the Good Life”, in The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man, ed. Frankfort, H. et al., Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 125–219.Google Scholar
Jacobsen, Th. 1963. “Ancient Mesopotamian Religion: The Central Concerns”, in Cuneiform Studies and the History of Civilization (Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 107), Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 473–84.Google Scholar
Lang, B. 2003. “Die Jahwe-allein-Bewegung: Neue Erwägungen über die Anfänge des biblischen Monotheismus”, in Der eine Gott und die Götter: Polytheismus und Monotheismus in antiken Israel, ed. Oeming, M., Schmid, K., Zurich: Theologischer Verlag, 97–110.Google Scholar
Levine, Baruch A. 1974. In the Presence of the Lord, Leiden: Brill.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levine, Baruch A. 1996. “‘What's in a name?’ The Onomasticon of the Biblical Record and the Religious Beliefs of Israelites”, Eretz-Israel 25 (Joseph Aviram Volume), Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 202–9 (in Hebrew).Google Scholar
Levine, Baruch A. 2003. “‘Ah, Assyria, Rod of My Rage’ (Isa 10: 5): Biblical Monotheism as Seen in an International Political Perspective: A Prolegomenon”, Eretz-Israel 27, Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 136–42 (in Hebrew).Google Scholar
Levine, Baruch A. 2003a. “‘Weihe, Aššur, Rute meines Zorns!’ Der biblische Monotheismus als Antwort auf die neue politische Realität des assyrischen Weltreiches”, in Der eine Gott und die Götter, ed. Oeming, M., Schmid, K., Zurich: Theologischer Verlag Zurich, 77–96.Google Scholar
Liverani, M. 1979. “The Ideology of the Assyrian Empire”, in Power and Propaganda: A Symposium on Ancient Empires, ed. Larsen, M. T. (Mesopotamia 7), Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag, 297–317.Google Scholar
Liverani, M. 1981. “Critique of Variants and the Titulary of Sennacherib”, in Assyrian Royal Inscriptions: New Horizons in Literary, Ideological and Historical Analysis, ed. Fales, F. M. (Orientis Antiqui Collectio 17), Rome: Istituto per l'Oriente, 225–57.Google Scholar
Liverani, M. 2001. “The Sargon Geography and the Late Assyrian Mensuration of the Earth, State Archives of Assyria Bulletin 13: 57–85.Google Scholar
Luckenbill, D. D. 1924. The Annals of Sennacherib, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Machinist, P. 1976. “Literature as Politics: The Tukulti-Ninurta Epic and the Bible”, Catholic Biblical Quarterly 38, 455–82.Google Scholar
Machinist, P. 1983. “Assyria and its Image in the First Isaiah”, Journal of the American Oriental Society 103: 719–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mettinger, T. 1979. “The Veto on Images and the Aniconic God in Ancient Israel”, in Religious Symbols and their Functions, ed. Biezais, H., Stockholm: Almquist & Wicksell International, 15–29 Google Scholar
Müller, Karl Fr. 1937. Das assyrische Ritual, Texte zum assyrischen Königsritual (Mitteilungen der vorderasiatisch-ägyptischen Gesellschaft 41/3), Leipzig Google Scholar
Olyan, S. 1988. Asherah and the Cult of Yahweh in Israel (Society of Biblical Literature Monograph Series 34), Atlanta: Scholars Press.Google Scholar
Parpola, S. 1997. Assyrian Prophecies (State Archives of Assyria 9), Helsinki: Helsinki University Press.Google Scholar
Porter, B. N. 2000. “The Anxiety of Multiplicity: Concepts of Divinity as One and Many in Ancient Assyria”, in One God or Many? Concepts of Divinity in the Ancient World, ed. Porter, B. N., Bethesda, MD: CDL Press, 211–71.Google Scholar
Saggs, H. W. F. 1978. The Encounter with the Divine in Mesopotamia and Israel, London: Athlone Press.Google Scholar
Schoors, A. 1997. “Historical Information in Isaiah 1–39”, in Studies in the Book of Isaiah (Beuken, Fs Willem A. M.), ed. Ruiten, J. van, Vervenne, M., Leuven: Leuven University Press, 75–93.Google Scholar
Smith, Mark S. 1991. The Early History of God, San Francisco: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Smith, Mark S. 2001. The Origins of Biblical Monotheism, Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Morton 1971. Palestinian Parties and Politics that Shaped the Old Testament, New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Tadmor, H. 1981. “History and Ideology in the Assyrian Royal Inscriptions”, in Assyrian Royal Inscriptions: New Horizons in Literary, Ideological and Historical Analysis, ed. Fales, F. M. (Orientis Antiqui Collectio 17), Rome: Istituto per l'Oriente, 13–33.Google Scholar
Tadmor, H. 1982. “Treaty and Oath in the Ancient Near East: A Historian's Approach”, in Humanizing America's Iconic Book: Society of Biblical Literature Centennial Addresses 1980, ed. Tucker, G. M, Knight, D. A., Chico, CA: Scholar's Press, 127–52.Google Scholar
Tadmor, H. 1986. “Sennacherib's Campaign in Judah”, Zion 50: 66–80 (in Hebrew).Google Scholar
Tadmor, H. 1989. “The Sin of Sargon and Sennacherib's Last Will, Part II: The Historical Background” [1958], State Archives of Assyria Bulletin 3: 25–32.Google Scholar
Tadmor, H. 1994. The Inscriptions of Tiglath-Pileser III, King of Assyria, Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities.Google Scholar
Tadmor, H. 1999. “World Dominion: The Expanding Horizon of the Assyrian Empire”, in Landscapes: Territories, Frontiers and Horizons in the Ancient Near East, ed. Milano, L. et al. (RAI 44, 1997), Padua: Sargon srl, 55–62.Google Scholar
Tadmor, H. 1999a. “The Appointed Time Has Not Yet Arrived’: The Historical Background of Haggai 1: 2”, In Ki Baruch Hu: Ancient Near Eastern, Biblical, and Judaic Studies in Honor of Baruch A. Levine, ed. Chazan, R. et al., Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 401–8.Google Scholar
TANAKH 1985. TANAKH: A New Translation of the Holy Scriptures, Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1985.Google Scholar
Weippert, M. 1972. “‘Heiliger Krieg’ in Israel und Assyrien”, Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 84: 460–93.Google Scholar
Weippert, M. 2002. “‘König, fürchte dich nicht!’ Assyrische Prophetie in 7. Jahrhundert v. Chr.”, Orientalia 71: 1–54.Google Scholar