368 F Journal of Near Eastern Studies

to tablets CTA 36, he concludes that we are on very

solid ground in claiming that these four tablets were
intended by their author/scribe to represent a narrative
sequence, (part of) a continuous story about Balu, a
cycle in the traditional terminology (p. 66). On the
other hand, the status of CTA 1 and 2 is unclear because
of the poor state of preservation of the two texts. Based
on detailed comments on epigraphy and material, the
author concludes that the traditional obverse-reverse
orientation of both tablets (CTA 1 and 2) is to be inverted, a shifting around of the data that cannot but
have repercussions on interpretation.
The chapter closes with a question concerning The
Meaning and Function of the Baal Cycle, based on the
fact that there can be no doubt that these texts are
religious but it is equally certain that religion is politics. The importance of kingship and royal prerogatives
in the myth can only, one might think, indicate that the
myth had special meaning for human kings2 (p. 72).
Quite correctly, he also includes in the discussion the
stele known as Baal au foudre (Balu with a Thunderbolt). Even so, the question of the possible function
of these mythological texts in the daily life of ancient
Ugarit must remain open: the texts from Ugarit have
provided no direct evidence on the cultic use of the
poems recorded by Ilmilku ... Any firm decision on
the precise use of these stories ... must, therefore,
await further evidence from Ras Shamra or from a yet
undiscovered similar site (p. 75). The section closes
with comments concerning the importance of correctly
tracing the family ties present in these stories.
The aim of chapter 3, Literary Composition in the
Hebrew Bible: The View from Ugarit, is to illustrate the similarities that exist between the data from
Ugarit and the next principal literary corpus, that to
be found in the Hebrew Bible; the emphasis is on
their literary qualities (p. 79). The chapter is divided

into two main parts, Ugaritic and Hebrew Poetry

and Hebrew Poetry Contrasted with Ugaritic Poetry, each in turn with several subsections. For the
interested reader it may be useful to give here the list
of texts in Ugaritic and from the Hebrew Bible that
the author compares and comments on:
Ugaritic and Hebrew PoetryPoetic Structure:
CTA 2:iv:89, CTA 4:vi:1635, CTA 14:i:725, CTA
23:1, CTA 24:1, RS 24.252, RIH 98/02 // Ps. 82,
Ps. 92:10, Ps. 101:1, Ps. 104:33, Exod. 15:1, Judg.
5:3, Prov. 30:1819. Poetic Imagery: CTA 2:iv:23
27, CTA 4:vii:3144, 2532, CTA 16:vi:3234, CTA
17:v:48, RS 24.252:15; // Prov. 8:12, Amos 1:2,
2 Sam. 22:1415, Ps. 29, Ps. 82.
Hebrew Poetry Contrasted with Ugaritic PoetryPrayer: RS 24.266 // Ps. 142. Wisdom Poetry: CTA 17:i:2533 // Proverbs 31:1031. Love
Poetry: CTA 14:iii:142153 // Song 4:17, 5:1. Lament Poetry: CTA 5:vi:925, CTA 5:vi:306:i:10,
RS 25.460 // 2 Sam. 1:2527, Lamentations 1:1, 1:4,
4:11, Ezek. 32:23, 16, Jeremiah 12:1, Ps. 28:3, Job
3:2023. Poetry in the Prophetic Books: Isa. 5:17.
This work has been written by a renowned specialist
in the various areas comprising Ugaritic studies. Furthermore, he is the editor (together with Pierre Bordreuil) of most of the Ugaritic texts found in recent
decades. As a result, this book not only provides an
up-to-date account of the topics discussed, but is also a
valuable summary of Pardees own research in the field
of Ugaritic literature. Undoubtedly, the result will be
of great interest and usefulness to Ugaritologists and
biblical scholars, but equally so to specialists in neighboring areas. The book also works perfectly at another
level: as a general introduction to Ugarit, so that its
potential readership is even wider.3 It only remains for
us to congratulate the author for producing a work that
is both erudite andaccessible.

On this important question see also, more recently, G. del

Olmo Lete, Littrature et pouvoir royal Ougarit. Sens politique
de la littrature dOugarit, in tudes ougaritiques II, ed. Valrie
Matoan, Michel Al-Maqdissi and Yves Calvet. Ras Shamra-Ougarit
vol. XX (Paris, 2012), 24150.

3
In this respect, in our opinion, this work by Pardee is a worthy
complement to books such as those by Marguerite Yon, The City of
Ugarit at Tell Ras Shamra (Winona Lake, IN, 2006), and by Izak
Cornelius and Herbert Niehr, Gtter und Kulte in Ugarit. Kultur
und Religion einer nordsyrischen Knigsstadt in der Sptbronzezeit
(Mainz am Rhein, 2004).

Foreigners and Egyptians in the Late Egyptian Stories: Linguistic, Literary and Historical Perspectives. By Camilla Di Biase-Dyson. Probleme der gyptologie 32. Band. Leiden: Brill, 2013. Pp. xx + 488. $233 (cloth).
Reviewed by Nikolaos Lazaridis, California State University, Sacramento
Camilla Di Biase-Dyson, Junior Professor of Egyptology at the Georg-August Universitt in Gttingen, has produced a thorough linguistic and literary

examination of the portrayal of Egyptian and foreign

characters in a corpus of Late Egyptian narratives, consisting of the works The Doomed Prince, The Quarrel

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Book Reviews F369

of Apophis and Seqenenre, The Taking of Joppa, and

The Misfortunes of Wenamun. Essentially, her monograph, which is a modified version of her doctoral
dissertation, submitted to Macquarie University, is a
successful attempt at testing a new methodology on
an already well-known corpus of literary texts that
so far has been approached mainly in a formalist or a
historical manner. This new method follows the basic
principles of Michael Hallidays Systemic Functional
Linguistics (henceforth SFL), which the author combines with Stylistics and New Historicism (or Cultural Poetics). In other words, the author has chosen
mainly a linguistic approach that allows privileged
access to meaning (p. 2; see also the justification
of the choice of this specific method on pp. 7576)
on the basis of Hallidays elements of lexicogrammar (namely, field, tenor, and mode) and through
its connection to Stylistics, a type of literary analysis
that explores meaning-making in different genres of
writing. The results of this approach are then tested
against the relationship of literature with real-life
experience. However, instead of contributing to the
history-minded goals of Egyptology (in this case, that
is, to reconstruct and better understand the sociohistorical context of Egyptian culture), the author makes
it clear that the analysis is more interested in a texts
intentions behind choosing to refer or allude to a historical reality (p. 118). The authors approach is thus
a considerable improvement if compared to earlier
scholarly attempts, which utilized linguistic methods
and concepts, such as Michle Brozes book Mythe et
roman en gypte ancienne: Les aventures dHorus et
Seth dans le Papyrus Chester Beatty I (Louvain, 1996),
and Deborah Sweeneys work on the value of pragmatics in Egyptian literature (e.g., her article Gender
and Requests in New Kingdom Literature, in Sex
and Gender in Ancient Egypt: Don Your Wig for a
Joyful Hour, ed. C. Graves-Brown [Swansea, 2008],
191213), or which focused on reconstructing the
literary works contexts, such as Richard Parkinsons
book Poetry and Culture in Middle Kingdom Egypt:
A Dark Side to Perfection (London, 2002).
The application of this complex method to characterization in Egyptian narrative has multiple advantages. To name a few, firstly, it allows the author to
revisit and reconstruct the narrative grammar of Late
Egyptian stories. This results in a careful examination
of the uses of grammar, syntax, and vocabulary in these
works, which generates a number of intriguing observations on the authors ways of masterminding the
portrayal of and interactions between the characters.

So for instance, in the chapter on The Doomed Prince,

the analysis includes significant points on the use of
narrative forms, such as sm pw jr.n=f and the distinction between .n and wn.jn clauses (pp. 15254). In
another example from the same chapter, the author
introduces the notion of a characters grammatical
visibility, which to some extent can be employed as
a useful quantifiable method of determining a characters significance in a narrative (p. 121).
Secondly, the authors methodology encourages
close reading of the characters verbal interactions,
interpreting them as important specimens of social behavior. The best example illustrating the type of results
this close reading generates is the authors extensive
analysis of the verbal interactions between Wenamun
and Tjekerbaal, the two protagonists of The Misfortunes of Wenamun, in chapter 5. In this chapter the
author identifies, for instance, several occasions during
which Wenamuns sayings and actions produce irony
on multiple levels (p. 342) and examines the display
of antagonism between the two characters, which is
marked by subtle strategies, such as Tjekerbaals decision not to return Wenamuns salutation or participate
in Wenamuns condescending small talk (pp. 299 and
301, respectively).
Finally, the choice to use this method for analyzing the comparable portrayal of Egyptian and foreign
characters grants the author the opportunity to reconsider the question of how Egyptian literary authors
treated foreigners and foreign lands in their works
(which has been discussed on multiple occasions by
Antonio Loprieno, among other scholars). As a result,
the author makes a number of important new observations on this theme, such as the fact that in general,
foreign characters were not portrayed as very different from Egyptian ones and that the only differences
between the two groups of characters that were emphasized in these narratives concerned the characters
religious choices (p. 360). Or, the fact that although
in most cases the power games involved in the stories
plots favored Egyptian characters (as in the case of the
Rebel of Joppa in The Taking of Joppa, in whose case
the author argues that his anonymity was probably
a political strategy diminishing his status [p. 249]),
Apophis in The Dispute of Apophis and Seqenenre and
the foreign princess in The Doomed Prince were characters that displayed heroic traits.
In addition to the noted strengths of this study, one
must also mention the arduous annotated grammatical
analysis of the examined Late Egyptian stories, which
is presented line-by-line in the books four appendices.

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370 F Journal of Near Eastern Studies

This, certainly, demonstrates the thoroughness of the

authors study and reinforces the first positive effect of
the chosen approach mentioned above.
With regard to this books weaknesses, I have identified two that are worth mentioning and that (ironically) are associated with its style of presentation. The
first concerns the extensive usage of linguistic jargon
related to the application of the SFL methodology.
The very fact that the author spends one whole chapter
(chapter 2) on explaining the mechanics and main notions of SFL shows that this method is rather complex
and dense, and that the author rightly predicted that
the targeted readership with a background in Egyptology or Near Eastern Studies will need the authors
help in understanding a new (to these disciplines)
method and its jargon (this much resembles the case
of Gerald Moerss Fingierte Welte in der gyptischen
Literatur des 2. Jahrtausends v. Chr: Grenzberschreitung, Reisemotiv und Fiktionalitt [Leiden, 2001], a
monograph published in the same series). Thus, with
a few exceptions, the author does a good job defining
and explaining the jargon early on. The scholar-reader,
however, is required to pay close attention to this early
chapter and quickly familiarize herself with SFLs rules
and terminology before attempting to understand the
specifics of the succeeding analysis. In such cases, although the inclusion of unfamiliar theory and jargon
seems to be a necessary evil, I would also recommend
a glossary of extra-disciplinary terms at the end of the
book, in order to help the reader cope with the new
material and avoid undermining clarity.

The second noticeable weakness relates to the verbal explication of the SFL-based textual analysis of
the narratives. Specifically, occasionally in the course
of chapters 35 the author attempts to describe some
results of the works textual analysis in great detail.
This often seems unnecessary, as a table presenting
the results would suffice, and also since the author
does not make any new points on the basis of these
results and does not bring them up again in the conclusive sections; such is the case, for example, with
the ideational analysis of Djehuty (pp. 23436) or of
Herihor (p. 284). Such tedious verbal descriptions of
quantitative analysis are often features of published
doctoral dissertations. In such cases I recommend
a more thorough revision of a dissertations style of
presentation so that when it is turned into a book, its
analysis runs more smoothly and effectively guides the
readers attention towards the important results and
their interpretation.
Overall, Di Biase-Dysons monograph is an original
interdisciplinary examination of an exciting corpus of
ancient literary texts. One must highlight the significance of studies, such as Di Biase-Dysons, that successfully introduce new methodologies to disciplines
like Egyptology, whose identities have been traditionally distinguished by the geographically-defined materials they examine rather than their specific ways of
examining them. Such studies are thus most welcome,
as they expand Egyptologys spectrum of methodological options by fruitfully connecting it to other
disciplines tested methods and theories.

Sufism, Black and White: A Critical Edition of Kitb al-Bay wa-l-Sawd by Ab l-asan al-Srjn (d. ca.
470/1077). Edited by Bilal Orfali and Nada Saab. Islamic History and Civilization: Studies and Texts, Volume
94. Leiden: Brill, 2012. Pp. xii + 570. $196 (cloth).
Reviewed by Th. Emil Homerin, University of Rochester
The Kitb al-Bay wa-l-Sawd (The Book of Black
and White) is a substantial collection of Sufi sayings in Arabic compiled by Ab al-asan al-Srjn.
Though the exact dates of his life are, as yet, unknown, al-Srjn was reportedly a disciple of Amad
ibn Muammad ibn amzah al-f (d. 441/1049),
and al-Srjn is mentioned by several of his contemporaries, including al-Hujwr (d. ca. 470/1077), and
al-Anr al-Haraw (d. 481/1089), who stated that
al-Srjn oversaw religious endowments (awqf), including those for a Sufi monastery (rib), in the city
of Srjn in the province of Kirmn, in south-eastern

Iran. As Orfali and Saab further note in their detailed

introduction, al-Srjn appears to have compiled his
collection to assist those interested in the Sufi path,
as well as to refute critics of Sufism (Introduction,
pp. 111). Hence, the title, The Book of Black and
White, may refer to the black words written on white
paper that bear wisdom leading the mystical adept,
as well as the skeptical critic, from the darkness of
ignorance toward spiritual illumination (Introduction,
pp. 1116).
In terms of content, The Book of Black and White
clearly reflects the teachings of al-Junayd (d. 297/910)

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