Prophecy in Its Ancient Near Eastern Context: Mesopotamian, Biblical, and ArabianPerspectives by Martii NissinenReview by: G. B.Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 122, No. 1 (Jan. - Mar., 2002), pp. 177-178Published by: American Oriental SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3087719 .

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Brief Reviews of Books 177

the publisher Walter de Gruyter for the production of such a useful tool. Thanks are also due to the Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, which has supported this work in recent years.

G. B.

Images as Media: Sources for the Cultural History of the Near East and the Eastern Mediterranean (Ist Millennium BCE). Edited by CHRISTOPH UEHLINGER. Orbis Biblicus et Orienta- lis, vol. 175. Fribourg, Switzerland: UNIVERSITY PRESS,

2000. Pp. xxxii + 408, plates, illus. FS 145.

The profusely illustrated volume contains sixteen papers delivered at a conference convened in Fribourg in November 1997 to celebrate both the sixtieth birthday of Professor Oth- mar Keel and the twentieth anniversary of the founding of the Swiss Society of Ancient Near Eastern Studies. It also in- cludes an introduction by the editor, as well as an afterword presenting the text of his opening address to the gathering.

The first of Uehlinger's contributions elucidates the theme of this particular meeting and collection: To what extent did seals, amulets, and other small objects function as the "mass media" of the first millennium B.C.E.? That is, how efficiently did their iconography disseminate religious and political mes- sages to large numbers of people? His remarks to the partici- pants look back on the scholarly career of Professor Keel and consider the development of the "Fribourg School" of icono- graphic studies.

The volume's contributors discuss art produced during the relevant period throughout most of western Asia, northeast Africa, and the Aegean: Egypt (Erik Hornung, Ldszl6 KA- kosy, Andrzej Niwitiski), Assyria and Babylonia (Ursula Seidl, Irene Winter), Iran (Mark Garrison), Palestine (Pirhiya Beck, Leo Mildenberg), Phoenicia (Eric Gubel), Cyprus (Hans- Gunter Buchholz), Greece (John Boardman, Robert Wenning), and the wider Hellenic world (Eva Andrea Braun-Holzinger and Hartmut Matthdus). Only Anatolia (Urartu, Phrygia, Lydia, Lycia, Caria, and Ionia) is conspicuous by its absence. Fur- thermore, John Boardman (in a second essay), Georgina Herrmann, and Astrid Nunn take up broader questions of inter-

regional diffusion and of the adaptation of borrowed icono-

graphic elements. Although the authors differ greatly in the degree to which

they address themselves to the theme of the symposium- some preferring to focus more on the content of the iconogra- phy than on its reception-as a group their essays well support

the editor's observation "that iconography provides a historical source at least as valuable as texts and literature for studying local or regional symbol systems, their diffusion and inter- action" (p. xxv).

G. B.

Prophecy in its Ancient Near Eastern Context: Mesopotamian, Biblical, and Arabian Perspectives. Edited by Martii Nis- sinen. SBL Symposium Series, vol. 13. Atlanta: SOCIETY OF

BIBLICAL LITERATURE, 2000. Pp. xii + 160. $29.95 (paper).

This small volume grew out of sessions of the "Prophecy in the Ancient Near East Group" held during the Society of Bib- lical Literature International Meeting in Lahti, Finland, on July 21, 1999, and presents a fair account of the current state of our knowledge of this intriguing topic. After a general introduc- tion by Hans M. Barstad ("Comparare necesse est? Ancient Is- raelite and Ancient Near Eastern Prophecy in a Comparative Perspective"), Lester L. Grabbe ("Ancient Near Eastern Proph- ecy from an Anthropological Perspective") applies insights from the social sciences to the phenomenon of divine messengers. Distinguishing between "spirit mediums," who simply serve as mouthpieces for para-human beings, and "shamans," who ac- tively manipulate spirits, he judges that ancient Near Eastern prophets are best assigned to the former category (p. 18). He also points out difficulties in studying the activities of prophets known through literary texts subject to the rigors of lengthy tradition: How far does the speech attributed to these figures correspond to their original words (p. 25)?

David L. Petersen ("Defining Prophecy and Prophetic Lit-

erature") compares the prophets attested for Old Babylonian Mari, first-millennium Assyria, and biblical Israel and finds that their chief common characteristic was their function as

intermediaries between humans and the divine (p. 39). Differ-

ences in social position, professional designation, and mode of work negate all other proposed similarities.

Herbert B. Huffmon's essay ("A Company of Prophets: Mari, Assyria, Israel") is an insightful discussion of the prophetic vocation in the three ancient Near Eastern societies for which

we possess extensive information. He concludes that "[tihe Israelite prophets, individually and cumulatively, played a

more important role in Israel than their counterparts in Mari or

Assyria" (p. 67). Perhaps, but to what extent is this verdict

based upon the chance of documentation and discovery? In "Mesopotamian Prophecy between Immanence and Tran-

scendence: A Comparison of Old Babylonian and Neo-Assyrian

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178 Journal of the American Oriental Society 122.1 (2002)

Prophecy," Karel van der Toorn make the salient observation that the Mari prophecies, transmitted secondarily by officials in letters to the king, were "punctual" in nature, applicable only to a particular historical situation (p. 73). In contrast, the utterances of the Neo-Assyrian prophets were gathered into compilations, which indicates their continued relevance in cir- cumstances arising (p. 74). Thus the "durative" Assyrian prophe- cies bear a closer resemblance to those divine communiques reported for Israel and Judah.

The contribution of the volume's editor Martii Nissinen ("The Socioreligious Role of the Neo-Assyrian Prophets") stresses the close affiliation of Assyrian prophets with the god- dess Igtar (pp. 95-102), and contrasts the strong representation of women in their ranks with the absence of females among the "scholars" practicing alternative forms of divination at the royal court (pp. 108-10). He also comments that the lengthy, if spotty, history of prophecy in Mesopotamia militates against the view that the institution had been imported into Assyria from the West (p. 101). In addition, this essay will prove very useful through its full citation of original sources and second- ary studies.

Finally, Jaakko Hdmeen-Anttila ("Arabian Prophecy") con- siders the career of Muhammad in light of what we know of the pre-Islamic soothsayer (kahin). The author concludes that the early activities of the Prophet bore more than a slight re- semblance to those of this practitioner. Only later, under Jew- ish and Christian influence, did Muhammad become "a link in the monotheist Heilsgeschichte . . . closely associated with the biblical prophets" (p. 132). This transition began already in Muhammad's own lifetime and continued through the forma- tion and editing of Islamic traditions concerning his life and message.

This collection of essays will certainly stimulate much fur- ther discussion of the emissaries of the divine world and their endeavors as reported in the religious texts of the ancient Near East.

G. B.

Hammurabi's Laws: Text, Translation and Glossary. By M. E. J. RICHARDSON. The Biblical Seminar, vol. 73; Se- mitic Texts and Studies, vol. 2. Sheffield: SHEFFIELD ACA-

DEMIC PRESS, 2000. Pp. 423. $90 (cloth); $35 (paper).

Because of the language's importance as the earliest attested member of the Semitic family and its role in the venerable civi- lization of Mesopotamia, a familiarity with Akkadian is of value to Semitists and students of later cultures of the Middle

East. The present work was conceived as a "handbook" (p. 11) of Akkadian for those primarily interested in Arabic or He- brew but without the time or inclination to learn the cunei- form writing system.

Based on his experience teaching at the University of Man- chester, the author has produced a broad transcription and lightly annotated translation of the entirety of the "Code" of Tjammu- rapi, including its prologue and epilogue. A glossary provides rather full discussions of all vocabulary found in the text, while the following section briefly identifies proper names and explains units of measure. The target audience will appreciate the listing of all verbal roots appearing in the "Code," as well as the collection of attested finite and nominal verbal forms grouped under the respective infinitives. English-Akkadian and Akkadian-English word lists complete the volume.

Richardson's remarks on the content of the legal paragraphs are rudimentary and can safely be ignored by scholars of an- cient Near Eastern law. The philological knowledge displayed here also leaves something to be desired. For example, he is unaware that the Sumerogram gE, "barley," has now been shown to represent am, not s?e'um (see A. Livingstone, Journal of Semitic Studies 42 [1997]: 1-5). More serious are lapses such as the misconstrual of munaggirs'u as "the one who was hired by him" (from agdrum), rather than as "the one who de- nounces him" (from nagdrum) in ?26, or the misreading of er- re-s?i-im as the infinitive erejsim ("to be cultivated") rather than as the parrds-form errjsim ("cultivator") in ?45. Elsewhere the translation often misses subtleties. Thus the hendiadys in ?5 is not recognized, and ul itdr-ma itti dayydni ina denim ul us's'ab is given as "he shall not go back and sit with the judges in any other trial," rather than as "he shall not sit again with the judges in a trial."

In short, while this book may prove to be a useful classroom tool in the hands of an instructor prepared to correct its inad- equacies, it cannot be recommended to someone embarking on self-study of Akkadian.

G. B.

A Jaina Perspective on the Philosophy of Religion. By ARVIND

SHARMA. Lala Sundarlal Jain Research Series, vol. 16. Delhi: MOTILAL BANARSIDASS, 2001. Rs 195.

This book is a follow-on to three earlier books by Sharma on philosophy of religion from Hindu and Buddhist perspec- tives. He grounds his understanding of the subject in John Hick's 1963 Philosophy of Religion (4th ed., 1990), and large parts of this book consist of little more than extended summa-

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