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Jerusalem and the One God: A Religious History
Jerusalem and the One God: A Religious History
Jerusalem and the One God: A Religious History
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Jerusalem and the One God: A Religious History

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Jerusalem, with its turbulent history, is without doubt one of the best-known cities of the world. A long line of foreign powers have ruled over it, from as far back as biblical times. But the city owes its importance not to them but to the fact that it is the birthplace of the monotheistic currents that shape Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Othmar Keel sketches in broad brush strokes the historical development of Israelite-Jewish monotheism in and around Jerusalem, arguing that monotheism is “a product of the city, not of the desert,” and describes its integration of polytheistic symbols and perceptions into its worldview. Keel relies on biblical and extrabiblical texts as well as the rich iconographic evidence of archaeological discoveries. Abundant maps and sketches of archaeological artifacts enhance his argument.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateJul 15, 2017
ISBN9781506425610
Jerusalem and the One God: A Religious History

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    Jerusalem and the One God - Othmar Keel

    Writings

    Editor’s Foreword

    I suspect I first came across the name of Othmar Keel as an undergraduate religion Bible major (who can read anything on the Psalms and not encounter some reference to his Symbolism of the Biblical World?),[1] but I was not exposed to Keel’s work formally until my graduate school days at Princeton Theological Seminary under the tutelage of J. J. M. Roberts and Patrick D. Miller.  There, especially while writing a dissertation under Miller, my engagement with Keel’s pioneering work in Symbolism led to further study of his larger oeuvre: his Song of Songs commentary, for example,[2] and especially the breakthrough work coauthored with Christoph Uehlinger, Gods, Goddesses, and Images of God in Ancient Israel,[3] but also a number of Keel’s earlier but equally path-breaking monographs such as Die Weisheit spielt vor Gott (Wisdom Plays before God), Wirkmächtige Siegeszeichen im Alten Testament (Powerful Symbols of Victory in the Old Testament), Jahwe-Visionen und Siegelkunst (Visions of Yahweh and Seal Art), Jahwes Entgegnung an Ijob (Yahweh’s Answer to Job), and Deine Blicke sind Tauben (Your Eyes are Doves)[4]—to mention only a few.[5]  Given my own interests in art that ran back to my early childhood, it was perhaps inevitable that I would find in Keel’s work (and the work of the Fribourg School that he inspired and inaugurated) something that resonated deeply and profoundly with me.  And so it was that, as a doctoral student, I pursued a Fulbright application to study with Keel in Switzerland.  While that opportunity did not, in the end, come to pass, I was pleased that the correspondence and collegiality that Keel and I began at that time continued thereafter and blossomed still further.  My wife, Holly, and I were delighted to welcome Othmar to our little student apartment in the late 1990s and I was thrilled that he served as a member of my dissertation committee.  It is still a very fond memory that he was present at my defense in 2001.

    My history, then, with Keel goes back some twenty years now and working with him—and for him—in trying to get more of his work known among and disseminated across a larger English-speaking public has long been a part of our joint strategic plan.  To be sure, a number of his important writings have been translated into English[6] (among many others!),[7] but there is much that has not been translated. Furthermore, what is arguably Keel’s magnum opus or, better, his Lebenswerk—his monumental Corpus der Stempelsiegel-Amulette aus Palästina/Israel (five vols. to date)[8]—has not yet been mined by scholars for the amazing treasures it contains.  And this is not yet to mention Keel’s longstanding interest in monotheism and, more particularly, Jerusalem, culminating in his Die Geschichte Jerusalems und der Entstehung der Monotheismus (The History of Jerusalem and the Rise of Monotheism)[9]—a massive two-volume work, coming in at over 1,300 pages with more than 700 illustrations.

    As some have noted, Keel’s history of Jerusalem is virtually three books in one:[10]  First, there are elements in the book that reflect the original design of the series in which it appears, which was to serve as a set of handbooks for educated pilgrims to the Holy Land.  But, second, Keel writes an extensive history of Jerusalem itself, spanning from 1700 BCE to 63 CE.  Third and finally, Keel mounts an extended argument about how that history can be used to trace the rise of monotheism.  Given the density of Keel’s Geschichte, it was an excellent idea when Keel decided to epitomize that large work—and particularly the latter two of its three facets—into a smaller and more manageable booklet (as he likes to call it), which was published in 2011.[11]  It is this latter volume that is presented here in English translation.  The translation is a result of the excellent work of Morven McLean, whom I thank heartily for her work, though its final presentation is the result of extensive editorial work by myself so as to make the prose as fluid and native as possible.  The end product is, I hope, an improvement over the original German version, especially given certain updates, corrections, and additions—including an annotated bibliography of Keel’s iconographic endeavors based on a list initially compiled by Izaak J. de Hulster.

    Beyond my gratitude to McLean, I thank above all others Othmar himself, who trusted a young American graduate student many years ago with the mission to spread the gospel of iconographic studies in the fields of North America.  I cannot claim to have been altogether successful in that calling, but Othmar’s support of me and my work and his friendship and collegiality have remained steadfast, and so I remain profoundly indebted to him in more ways than I can recount here.  I remember an editor once marveling at how I had the good fortune of working with both Patrick D. Miller and Othmar Keel, two of the greatest and nicest, as he put it, scholars in the field.  I could not agree more, and so thank Othmar (and his wife Hildi as well) for their countless kindnesses, including his great patience with me through the course of several unfortunate delays in finishing this project.

    I also wish to thank Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht for allowing this work to be translated and for their gracious help with the images and permissions.  Thanks also go to Fortress Press, and especially Neil Elliott, for taking this project on and for waiting patiently for its delivery.  As always, I am indebted to my family for their love and support.  I also acknowledge my deep gratitude to two gifted doctoral students, Aubrey Buster and T. Collin Cornell, who offered me important editorial assistance, and to my Dean, Dr. Jan Love, who has supported this, as so many of my other projects, in crucial and financial ways.

    Brent A. Strawn

    Atlanta, August 2016


    Othmar Keel, The Symbolism of the Biblical World: Ancient Near Eastern Iconography and the Book of Psalms (trans. Timothy J. Hallett; repr. ed.; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1997 [ET orig: 1978; German orig: 1972; 5th ed. = 1996]).

    Othmar Keel, The Song of Songs: A Continental Commentary (trans. Frederick J. Gaiser; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994).

    Othmar Keel and Christoph Uehlinger, Gods, Goddesses, and Images of God in Ancient Israel (trans. Thomas H. Trapp; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998 [German orig: 1992; 7th ed. = 2012]).

    Othmar Keel, Die Weisheit spielt vor Gott: Ein ikonographischer Beitrag zur Deutung des meṣaḥäqät in Spr. 8,30f. (Freiburg: Universitätsverlag and Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1974); idem, WirkmächtigeSiegeszeichen im Alten Testament: Ikonographische Studien zu Jos 8, 18–26, Ex 17, 8–13, 2 Kön 13, 14–19 und 1 Kön 22, 11 (OBO 5; Freiburg: Universitätsverlag and Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1974); idem, Jahwe-Visionen und Siegelkunst: Eine neue Deutung der Majestätsschilderungen in Jes 6, Ez 1 und 10 und Sach 4 (SBS 84/85; Stuttgart: Verlag Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1977); idem, Jahwes Entgegnung an Ijob: Eine Deutung von Ijob 38-41 vor dem Hintergrund der zeitgenössischen Bildkunst (FRLANT 121; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1978); and idem, Deine Blicke sind Tauben: Zur Metaphorik des Hohen Liedes (SBS 114/115; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1984).

    Among more recent monographs, the most important is probably Das Recht der Bilder gesehen zu werden: Drei Fallstudien zur Methode der Interpretation altorientalischer Bilder (OBO 122; Freiburg: Universitätsverlag and Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1992).  For further works, see the annotated bibliography of Keel’s publications in this volume.  Note also the extensive treatment of Keel and the Fribourg School in Izaak J. de Hulster, Illuminating Images: An Iconographic Method of Old Testament Exegesis with Three Case Studies from Third Isaiah (Utrecht: n.p., 2007), 21131.

    Most recently, e.g., Othmar Keel and Silvia Schroer, Creation: Biblical Theologies in the Context of the Ancient Near East (trans. Peter T. Daniels; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2015 [German orig: 2002]).

    See, e.g., Othmar Keel, Dieu répond à Job: Une interprétation de Job 38–41 à la lumière de l’iconographie du Proche-Orient ancien (trans. Françoise Smyth; Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1993).

    Othmar Keel, Corpus der Stempelsiegel-Amulette aus Palästina/Israel: Von den Anfängen bis zur Perserzeit (5 vols. to date; OBO.SA; Fribourg: Academic Press and Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1995-): Einleitung (OBO.SA 10; 1995), Katalog Band I: Von Tell Abu Farağ bis ʿAtlit (OBO.SA 13; 1997); Katalog Band II: Von Bahan bis Tel Eton (OBO.SA 29; 2010); Katalog Band III: Von Tell el-Farʿa Nord bis Tell el-Fir (OBO.SA 31; 2010); and Katalog Band IV: Von Tel Gamma bis Chirbet Husche (OBO.SA 33; 2013).  Note also Jürg Eggler and Othmar Keel, Corpus der Siegel-Amulette aus Jordanien: Von Neolithikum bis zur Perserzeit (OBO.SA 25; Fribourg: Academic Press and Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2006).

    Othmar Keel, Die Geschichte Jerusalems und der Entstehung der Monotheismus (2 vols.; OLB IV/1; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2007).

    Cf. Ernst Axel Knauf’s review in RBL 05/2008 (online at: https://www.bookreviews.org/pdf/6377_6859.pdf; accessed 8/1/2016). ↵

    Othmar Keel, Jerusalem und der eine Gott: Eine Religionsgeschichte (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011; 2nd ed. = 2014).

    Preface

    This short book is a translation of my small volume, Jerusalem und der eine Gott: Eine Religionsgeschichte, which was published by Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht in 2011.[1]  That volume, in turn, is a severely abridged version of my two-volume, 1,384-page work, Die Geschichte Jerusalems und die Entstehung des Monotheismus, which was published by the same press in 2007.[2]  Anyone wanting to know further details about excavation reports, epigraphic and iconographic sources, extrabiblical texts (which run from the Egyptian execration texts of the eighteenth century BCE to the works of Flavius Josephus in the first century CE), biblical texts, and other important pieces of the argument should consult the larger work, which is only epitomized here.  The longer version also cites much of the secondary literature and discusses contrasting opinions.

    Biblical passages are only quoted occasionally in the present volume as it is assumed readers will have a Bible at hand that they can consult as they wish. The same cannot be assumed in the case of various extrabiblical texts, and so references are provided whenever necessary.  Unfortunately, only a small selection of the 725 illustrations from the original two-volume work are represented here but happily a few new, previously unpublished finds are found in this volume that are not present in the earlier one.

    Most accounts of the history of Israel and Jerusalem tend to ignore iconographic sources. There are at least three reasons why this is a poor and unfortunate practice: First, it would be foolish in a contemporary trial to exclude any witnesses out of hand (in the present scenario, the images and artifacts), since they may provide important information pertinent to the case (see further the afterword). Second, it is particularly inexcusable to make such an exclusion in those cases for which—and this is precisely the situation with the early history of Jerusalem—there are so few witnesses in the first place. Third, iconographic sources are particularly valuable forms of testimony that often bring new aspects to light.  As John Berger has noted, No other kind of relic or text from the past can offer such a direct testimony about the world which surrounded other people at other times. In this respect images are more precise and richer than literature.[3]

    My thanks go to the translator, Morven McLean.  Although she is not a biblical scholar, she did a magnificent job translating my not-always-easy text into English.  I am also thankful to Brent Strawn, who ensured that the language was as natural and native as possible for a scholarly English-American audience; who edited the entire volume accordingly; and who wrote the introduction.  Finally, I am again grateful to Fortress Press for adding this publication to my two earlier ones: my commentary on the Song of Songs, and the volume I co-authored with Christoph Uehlinger: Gods, Goddesses, and Images of God in Ancient Israel.[4]

    Othmar Keel

    Fribourg, August 2016


    Othmar Keel, Jerusalem und der eine Gott: Eine Religionsgeschichte (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011; 2nd ed. = 2014).

    Othmar Keel, Die Geschichte Jerusalems und der Entstehung der Monotheismus (2 vols.; OLB IV/1; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2007).

    John Berger, Ways of Seeing (repr. ed.; London: Penguin, 1990), 10.

    Othmar Keel, The Song of Songs: A Continental Commentary (trans. Frederick J. Gaiser; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994); Othmar Keel and Christoph Uehlinger, Gods, Goddesses, and Images of God in Ancient Israel (trans. Thomas H. Trapp; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998).

    Abbreviations

    List of Illustrations

    Note: GJM + number (e.g., GJM 7) refers to the corresponding figure in Othmar Keel, Die Geschichte Jerusalems und der Entstehung der Monotheismus (2 vols.; OLB IV/1; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2007). See there for additional information.

    Fig. 0 = SBW, 60 Fig. 63

    Fig. 1 = Othmar Keel, Max Küchler, and Christoph Uehlinger, Geographisch-geschichtliche Landeskunde (OLB 1; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1984), Fig. 100

    Fig. 2 = GJM 1

    Fig. 3 = GJM 2

    Fig. 4 = GJM 6

    Fig. 5 = GJM 7 (with modifications by Stefan Münger)

    Fig. 6.18 = GJM 9

    Fig. 7 = GJM 10

    Fig. 8.13 = GJM 11, 13

    Fig. 9 = GJM 13

    Fig. 1011 = GJM 1718

    Fig. 12 = GJM 22

    Fig. 13.16 = GJM 2429

    Fig. 14.12, 5 = GJM 3839 and 41a

    Fig. 14.34 = I. Milevki, Z. Greenhut, and N. Aga, A Cemetery in the Holyland Compound, in New Studies in the Archaeology of Jerusalem and Its Region: Collected Papers 2 (ed. Davis Amit; Jerusalem: Israel Antiquities Authority, 2008), 85 Figs. 1 and 3 (drawings by Ulrike Zurkinden-Kolberg)

    Fig. 15.12 = GJM 42 and 44

    Fig. 16 = GJM 46

    Fig. 17.12 = GJM 6263

    Fig. 17.3 = E. Mazar, City of David Excavations, Registration Number 23184

    Fig. 17.46 = GJM 6567

    Fig. 18 = Eilat Mazar, Wayne Horowitz, Takayoshi Oshima, Yuval Goren, A Cuneiform Tablet from the Ophel in Jerusalem, IEJ 60 (2010), 14 Fig. 2

    Fig. 19 = GJM 7273 (modified by Stefan Münger)

    Fig. 20 = GJM 75

    Fig. 21 = GJM 83

    Fig. 22 = GJM 111

    Fig. 23 = GJM 98

    Fig. 24 = GJM 102

    Fig. 25 = GJM 122

    Fig. 26 = GJM 126

    Fig. 27 = E. Mazar, City of David Excavations, Registration Number 27316

    Fig. 28 = GJM 132

    Fig. 29.12 = Othmar Keel, Seth-Baal und Seth-Baal-Jahwe—interkulturelle Ligaturen, in Jerusalem und die Länder: Ikonographie-Topographie-Theologie: Festschrift für Max Küchler zum 65. Geburtstag (eds. Gerd Theissen et al.; NTOA 70; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2009), 98 Figs. 22-23

    Fig. 30.16 = Othmar Keel, Seth-Baal und Seth-Baal-Jahwe—interkulturelle Ligaturen, in Jerusalem und die Länder: Ikonographie-Topographie-Theologie: Festschrift für Max Küchler zum 65. Geburtstag (eds. Gerd Theissen et al.; NTOA 70; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2009), 90 Figs. 2-3; 91 Figs. 4, 8, 12, and 14

    Fig. 31 = GJM 140

    Fig. 32 = GJM 189

    Fig. 33 = GJM 184

    Fig. 34.13 = GJM 154 and 158159

    Fig. 35 = GJM 233

    Fig. 36.15 = Ronny Reich and Eli Shukron, Jerusalem, Gihon Excavations, Registration Numbers 27663 and 15748, Provisional Number 9, Registration Numbers 21535 and 22045

    Fig. 37.13 = Ronny Reich and Eli Shukron, Jerusalem, Gihon Excavations, Registration Numbers 26095, 15744, and 20868

    Fig. 38.14 = Ronny Reich and Eli Shukron, Jerusalem, Gihon Excavations, Registration Number 27494, Provisional Numbers 10, 5 and 8

    Fig. 39.16 = Ronny Reich and Eli Shukron, Jerusalem, Gihon Excavations, Registration Numbers 19313, 18693, 20872, 16771, 20549, and 25367

    Fig. 40.13 = GJM 256-257 and R. S. Lamon and G. M. Shipton, Megiddo 1: Seasons of 1925–1934 (Oriental Institute Publications 42; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1939), Pl. 67, 45 (drawings by Ulrike Zurkinden-Kolberg)

    Fig. 41.12 = GMJ 191a and Ronny Reich and Eli Shukron, Jerusalem, Gihon Excavations, Registration Number 22047

    Fig. 42 = GMJ 191

    Fig. 43 = Othmar Keel, Studien zu den Stempelsiegeln aus Palästina/Israel IV (OBO 135; Freiburg: Universitätsverlag and Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1994), 126 Fig. 16

    Fig. 44.17 = GJM 240-240a, 242, 238-239, 241 and Ronny Reich, Mamilla Excavation, Tomb 5

    Fig. 45 = GJM 248

    Fig. 46 = GJM 272 and 274

    Fig. 47.12 = Nahman Avigad and Benjamin Sass, Corpus of West Semitic Stamp Seals (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Israel Exploration Society, and the Institute of Archaeology, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1997), no. 188 (drawing by Ulrike Zurkinden-Kolberg) and GJM 296

    Fig. 48.18 = GJM 287289, 292, 285-286, 294295

    Fig. 49 = GJM 283

    Fig. 50.12 = GJM 302-303

    Fig. 51.12 = GJM 388389

    Fig. 52.1–6 = GJM 330331 and 332334

    Fig. 53.1–2 = GJM 394–395

    Fig. 54.1–4 = GJM 401–403

    Fig. 55.1–2 = GJM 450 and 451

    Fig. 56.1–2 = GJM 445–446

    Fig. 57.1–6 = GJM 432–437

    Fig. 58.1–2 = GJM 469–470

    Fig. 59.1–2 = GJM 458 and 460

    Fig. 60.1–4 = GJM 474–477

    Fig. 61 = GJM 575

    Fig. 62 = GJM 565

    Fig. 63 = GJM 577

    Fig. 64.1–6 = GJM 632–637

    Fig. 65 = GJM 630–631

    Fig. 66.1–2 = GJM 588–589

    Fig. 67 = GJM 603

    Fig. 68 = GJM 607

    Fig. 69 = GJM 620

    Fig. 70.1–3 = GJM 663–665

    Fig. 71 = GJM 668

    Fig. 72.1–5 = GJM 669–673

    Fig. 73 = GJM 661

    Fig. 74 = GJM 674

    Fig. 75 = GJM 687

    Fig. 76 = GJM 691

    Fig. 77 = GJM 681

    Introduction: Othmar Keel, Iconography, and the Old Testament

    Brent A. Strawn

    In order to fully appreciate the contributions of Othmar Keel, one must set him and his work in context.[1]  Prior to Keel, there were, of course, archaeologists at work throughout the ancient Near East, as well as art historians who specialized in the most ancient periods, and also biblical scholars, a goodly number of whom paid attention to archaeology, at least on general matters if not also on specific artifactual and artistic remains.  Indeed, no fewer than two collections were published in the twentieth century that attempted to integrate ancient Near Eastern images (iconography) and the Bible: Hugo Gressmann’s Altorientalische Bilder zum Alten Testament (ABAT2) and James B. Pritchard’s The Ancient Near East in Pictures Relating to the Old Testament (ANEP).[2]  And yet, despite their titles and their organization, both of these volumes did not go nearly as far as they might have in relating the visual data of the ancient world to the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament.

    That all changed, and a new field was inaugurated single-handedly by Othmar Keel in 1972.

    The Symbolism of the Biblical World

    That was the date of the publication of Keel’s groundbreaking work, Die Welt der altorientalischen Bildsymbolik und das Alte Testament: Am Beispiel der Psalmen, translated into English six years later as The Symbolism of the Biblical World: Ancient Near Eastern Iconography and the Psalms.[3]  Keel’s dissertation, written under the great textual critic, Dominique Barthélemy, dealt with the psalms and the image of the enemies therein, but the image in question in that work was strictly a literary one.[4]  In SBW, however, Keel studied ancient Near Eastern visual imagery (iconography) and applied it to the Book of Psalms.  This was a truly innovative approach that went beyond the more general, cultural connections drawn by Gressmann and Pritchard and that of necessity had Keel paying close attention to symbols found in the art and in the literature.  In my judgment, the breakthrough nature of SBW was not due solely to the fact that it was the first of its kind,[5] but also due to its breathtaking scope: Keel exhibited masterful control of both the biblical psalms and a vast range of iconographic sources.  Images from far and wide, from the earliest periods to the latest, are included, categorized, and then discussed with reference to six large subjects within the Psalter:

    conceptions of the cosmos,

    destructive forces,

    the temple,

    conceptions of God,

    the king, and

    the human before God

    each with numerous subcategories.  This twofold contribution, the collection of over five hundred and fifty illustrations (not to mention twenty-eight plates in the English edition) and their application to the Book of Psalms, has ensured an enduring place for SBW in subsequent scholarship on both the Psalter and on iconography.

    It bears repeating that nothing on ancient Near Eastern art and the Bible published prior to SBW had come close to Keel’s work in truly relating the visual record to the Old Testament.[6]  Furthermore, insofar as the six subjects Keel focused on were not limited to the Psalter, SBW proved itself to be widely applicable beyond the study of the psalms themselves.  Indeed, many researchers to this day continue to use SBW as a collection like unto ANEP, even if they are not working on the Book of Psalms directly.[7]  It is not surprising, then, but a noteworthy achievement nevertheless, that SBW remains in print, with the English translation reprinted most recently in 1997 and the German version reaching a 5th edition in 1996.[8]  Further testimony to SBW’s enduring value is found in the fact that it has been translated into Dutch (1984), Spanish (2007), and, most recently, Japanese (2010), almost

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