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The Casuistic Priestly Law in Ancient Mediterranean Context: The History of the Genre and its Sitz im Leben*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 January 2018
Abstract
While numerous scholars have compared the Priestly regulations in the Pentateuch to ancient Near Eastern “ritual texts,” the Priestly legal material more generally corresponds in form and style to ancient Near Eastern casuistic law collections than to descriptive or prescriptive “ritual texts.” At the same time, ancient Near Eastern law collections do not contain any ritual or religious ordinances, relating instead primarily to civil and financial affairs or social law and order. This paper examines the formal, substantive, and generic affinities between the Priestly laws and the casuistic Greek “Sacred Laws” inscribed on stone and other materials throughout the eastern Mediterranean basin from the sixth century BCE onwards. Analysis of related Northwest-Semitic and Punic texts, as well as potential precedents from the Hittite world, further contributes to our understanding of the Sitz im Leben of the casuistic Priestly law.
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- Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 2018
Footnotes
*
An early version of this paper was presented at a joint Harvard Law School and Center for Jewish Studies at Harvard University seminar dedicated to the topic of Jewish Law while I was a Harry Starr Fellow in 2015. My thanks go to the participants for their comments—in particular Profs. Noah Feldman, Shaye J. D. Cohen, Jay M. Harris, and Bernard Septimus, and to my colleagues in this group—Dr. Hila Ben-Eliyahu, Prof. Chaya Halberstam, Prof. Yair Lorberbaum, Prof. Amihai Radzyner, and Dr. Roni Shweka. I am grateful also to Prof. Baruch J. Schwartz who read an earlier version of this paper.
References
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4 Hallo and Levine, “Offerings to the Temple Gates,” 18; Levine, Baruch A., Leviticus (JPS Torah Commentary Philadelphia: JPS, 1989) xix, xxi–xxiii Google Scholar.
5 See for example, Blome, Friedrich, Die Opfermaterie in Babylonien und Israel (Sacra scriptura antiquitatibus orientalibus illustrata 4; Rome: Pontificium Institutum Biblicum, 1934)Google Scholar; Haran, Menahem, Temples and Temple Service in Ancient Israel (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1985) 221–24Google Scholar; Weinfeld, The Place of the Law, 34–63; Lambert, Wilfred G., “Donations of Food and Drink to the Gods in Ancient Mesopotamia,” in Ritual and Sacrifice in the Ancient Near East (ed. Quaegebeur, Jan; Leuven: Peeters, 1993) 191–201 Google Scholar; Sparks, Ancient Texts, 149–55.
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9 The legal material has long been the object of comparative study, beginning with Jirku, Anton, Das weltliche Recht im Alten Testament (Gütersloh: C. Bertelsmann, 1927)Google Scholar. See also Alt, Albrecht, Die Urspünge des israelitischen Rechts (Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1934)Google Scholar. For the conditional sentences in biblical and ancient Near Eastern law collections, see more recently Wright, David P., Inventing God's Law: How the Covenant Code of the Bible Used and Revised the Laws of Hammurabi (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009)Google Scholar; Bartor, Assnat, Reading Law as Narrative: A Study in the Casuistic Laws of the Pentateuch (Ancient Israel and its Literature 5; Atlanta: SBL, 2010)Google Scholar; Malul, Meir, Law Collections and Other Legal Compilations from the Ancient Near East (Haifa: Pardes, 2010) 22–25 (Hebrew)Google Scholar; Levinson and Zahn, “Revelation Regained,” 8–10.
10 See Exod 30:33, 38, 35:21, 23; Lev 15:5, 21:18, 19, 21, 22:3, 4, 5; Num 5:10, 30, 19:20 (all P). See also Deut 23:11.
11 Horowitz, Wayne, Oshima, Takayoshi, and Vukosavović, Filip, “Hazor 18: Fragments of a Cuneiform Law Collection from Hazor,” IEJ 62 (2012) 158–176 Google Scholar.
12 See Segert, Stanislav, “Form and Function of Ancient Israelite, Greek and Roman Legal Sentences,” in Orient and Occident: Essays Presented to Cyrus H. Gordon on the Occasion of His Sixty-Fifth Birthday (ed. Hoffner, H. A.; AOAT 22; Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1973) 161–65Google Scholar; Westbrook, Raymond, Ex Oriente Lex: Near Eastern Influences on Ancient Greek and Roman Law (ed. Lyons, D. and Raaflaub, K.; Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015) 70–114, 181–93Google Scholar. For another comparative approach relating to the Gortyn law code and Deuteronomy, see Hagedorn, Anselm C., Between Moses and Plato: Individual and Society in Deuteronomy and Ancient Greek Law (FAT 204; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hagedorn, Anselm C. and Kratz, Reinhard G., ed., Law and Religion in the Eastern Mediterranean: From Antiquity to Early Islam (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Knoppers, Gary N. and Harvey, Paul B., “The Pentateuch in Ancient Mediterranean Context: The Publication of Local Lawcodes,” in The Pentateuch as Torah: New Models for Understanding its Promulgation and Acceptance (ed. Knoppers, G.N. and Levinson, B.M.; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2007), 105–41Google Scholar.
13 See Willetts, R. F., The Law Code of Gortyn (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1967)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kristensen, Karen Rørby, “Codification, Tradition, and Innovation in the Law Code of Gortyn,” Dike 7 (2004) 135–68Google Scholar; Gagarin, Michael, Writing Greek Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008) 122–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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15 “(2) Si membrum rupsit, ni cum eo pacit, talio esto. (3) Manii fustive si os fregit <collisitve> libero CCC, si servo CL poenam subito [sestertiorum]. (4) Si iniuriam [alteri] faxsit, XXV [aeris] poenae sunto” (“[2] If [someone] has maimed another's limb, let there be retaliation in kind, unless he makes agreement for composition with him. [3] If he has broken or bruised freeman's bone with hand or club, he shall undergo a penalty of 300 pieces, if slave's, 150. [4] If he has done simple harm [to another], penalties shall be 25 pieces”). For the text and English translation, see Warmington, Brian Herbert, Remains of Old Latin. Vol. 3: Lucilius, the Twelve Tables (LCL; London: Heinemann, 1957) 476–78Google Scholar.
16 Cf. Yaron (The Laws of Eshnunna, 107–108), who maintains that the casuistic formulation originated in the court setting, only later being adapted by legislators.
17 For casuistic formulation in ancient Near Eastern omen literature, see, for example, Bottero, Jean, Mesopotamia: Writing, Reasoning, and the Gods (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992) 187–94Google Scholar; Guinan, Ann K., “A Severed Head Laughed: Stories of Divinatory Interpretation,” in Magic and Divination in the Ancient World (ed. Ciraolo, L. J. and Seidel, J. L.; Leiden: Brill, 2002) 7–40, at 9–12Google Scholar; Annus, Amar, “On the Beginnings and Continuities of Omen Sciences in the Ancient World,” in Divination and Interpretation of Signs in the Ancient World (ed. A. Annus; Oriental Institute Seminars 6; Chicago: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 2010) 1–18, at 6–7Google Scholar; Francesca Rochberg, “‘If P, then Q’: Form and Reasoning in Babylonian Divination,” in ibid, 19–29. For the omen compendia, see Leichty, Erle, The Omen Series Šumma izbu (TCS 4; Locust Valley: J. J. Augustin, 1970)Google Scholar; Freedman, Sally M., If a City is Set on a Height: The Akkadian Omen Series Šumma ālu ina mēlê šakin (Occasional Publications of the Samuel Noah Krammer Fund 17, 19; Philadelphia: Samuel Noah Kramer Fund, 1998–2006)Google Scholar.
18 Westbrook, Raymond, “The Character of Ancient Near Eastern Law,” in A History of Ancient Near Eastern Laws (ed. Westbrook, R.; Leiden: Brill, 2003) 1:17–18 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See, note 53 below, however.
19 For the hippiatric texts, see Cohen, Chaim, “The Ugaritic Hippiatric Texts: Revised Composite Text, Translation, and Commentary,” UF 28 (1996) 105–53Google Scholar; Cohen, Chaim and Sivan, Daniel, The Ugaritic Hippiatric Texts: A Critical Edition (AOS 9; New Haven: American Oriental Society, 1983)Google Scholar; Pardee, Dennis, Les Textes Hippiatriques: Ras Shamra-Ougarit II (Paris: Editions Recherche sur les Civilisations, 1985) 21–37 Google Scholar. Both Cohen and Sivan (11) and Pardee (42 n. 69) demonstrate the parallels between this material and the pentateuchal text.
20 For the text, see Olmo Lete, Gregorio Del, Canaanite Religion According to the Liturgical Texts of Ugarit (2d ed.; AOAT 408; Münster: Ugarit Verlag, 2014) 299 Google Scholar.
21 Contra Watts (“The Rhetoric of Ritual Instruction,” 93), while Akkadian law collections and omens use the conditional word šumma and Hittite laws takku, the ritual texts more commonly employ enūma in Akkadian or mān in Hittite to differentiate between several cases/situations: see CAD I–J, 160 s.v. inūma 1j; CAD Š3, 275–78; CHD L–M, 154–56, s.v. mān 7b, 4, 7g. Although the mān sentences in Hittite instructions for priests may constitute an early Mediterranean antecedent for the Priestly material, the factors adduced above suggest that the ancient Near Eastern law collections (including texts such as the Covenant Code) are closer in form and literary function to the biblical Priestly texts (for the texts see, e.g., Jared Miller, Royal Hittite Instructions and Related Administrative Texts [SBLWAW; Atlanta: SBL, 2013] 144–61). The Ugaritic prayer to Baal (KTU 1.119:26–36), which opens with the phrase “If/when” (k), should be examined in the same way. For the text, see Pardee, Ritual and Cult, 50–53.
22 For the text, see De Zorzi, Nicla, “The Omen Series Šumma izbu: Internal Structure and Hermeneutic Strategies,” KASKAL 8 (2011) 43–74, here 56Google Scholar. Therapeutic texts were also intended for the priests/physicians rather than the general public. For medical texts see recently: Salin, Silvia, “Transmission and Interpretation of Therapeutic Texts. Šumma amēlu muḫḫašu umma ukāl: A Case Study,” Distant Worlds Journal 1 (2016) 117–32Google Scholar.
23 For the role the addressee plays in biblical law, see Bartor, Reading Law as Narrative, 25–31. See also below.
24 See for instance the temple program for the New Year's Festival in Babylon (Racc 133:34): “Secret rite (niṣirtu) of the temple Esagil for Bēl. No one may show (it) to anyone except the urigallu-priest of the temple Ekua.” See Thureau-Dangin, F., Rituels accadiens (Paris: Leroux, 1921) 130 Google Scholar; ANET 331a; Cohen, Mark E., The Cultic Calendars of the Ancient Near East (Bethesda: CDL, 1993) 442 Google Scholar; Weinfeld, Moshe, “Israelite and Non-Israelite Concepts of Law,” Beit Mikra 17 (1964) 60–61 (Hebrew)Google Scholar; Paul, Studies in the Book of the Covenant, 9 n. 1.
25 Hoffner, Harry A. Jr., “Some Contributions of Hittitology to Old Testament Study,” TB 20 (1969) 27–55, at 41–42Google Scholar; idem, The Laws of the Hittites: A Critical Edition (Leiden: Brill, 1997) 224; Cohen, Yoram, Taboos and Prohibitions in Hittite Society: A Study of the Hittite Expression natta āra (‘not permitted’) (Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag C. Winter, 2002) 88–96 Google Scholar; Singer, Itamar, The Hittites and their Civilization (Biblical Encyclopedia Library 26; Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 2009) 163 Google Scholar.
26 This study does not address the (apodictic) festival and calendar regulations in the Covenant Code (Exodus 21–23) or small Covenant Code (Exodus 34). While these biblical law collections employ the casuistic formula for “civil” laws in line with ancient Near Eastern tradition, the distinctively “ritual” Israelite laws in Exodus 21–23 and 34 are apodictic in style. The ordinances in Deuteronomy also require a separate study.
27 Paul, Book of the Covenant, 8–9 and n. 1. Cf. Crüsemann, Frank, The Torah: Theology and Social History of Old Testament Law (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996) 10 Google Scholar. As LeFebvre notes: “That distinctive trait of Hebrew law writing . . . is the tendency to integrate cultic laws with judicial laws. Unlike other ancient Near Eastern peoples, the Hebrews incorporated cultic law writing into the typically judicial law-collection genre. In other ancient Near Eastern societies, cultic practices were recorded in priestly texts (and often kept secret)” ( LeFebvre, Michael, Collections, Codes, and Torah: The Re-characterization of Israel's Written Law [New York: T&T Clark, 2006] 78)Google Scholar.
28 While Weinfeld adduces some of these Greek materials, he does so in the context of foundation stories, thus failing to pay attention to the uniquely parallel legal genre: Weinfeld, Moshe, The Promise of the Land: The Inheritance of the Land of Canaan by the Israelites (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993) 28–29 Google Scholar.
29 For debate regarding the term Leges sacrae, see Lupu, Eran, Greek Sacred Law: A Collection of New Documents (NGSL) (Leiden: Brill, 2009) 5–6 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Petrović, Ivana and Petrović, Andrej, “‘Look Who's Talking Now’: Speaker and Communication in Metrical Sacred Regulations,” in Ritual and Communication (ed. Stavrianopoulou, E.; Kernos Suppl. 16; Liège: Centre International d'Étude de la Religion Grecque Antique, 2006) 151–79, at 151–54Google Scholar; Gawlinski, Laura, The Sacred Law of Andania: A New Text with Commentary (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2012) 3 Google Scholar; Carbon, Jan-Mathieu and Pirenne-Delforge, Vinciane, “Beyond Greek ‘Sacred Laws,’” Kernos 25 (2012) 163–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
30 For Greek sacred law in general, see, for example, Parker, Robert, “What are Sacred Laws?” in The Law and the Courts in Ancient Greece (ed. Harris, E. M. and Rubinstein, L.; London: Duckworth, 2004) 57–70 Google Scholar; Lupu, Greek Sacred Law, 3–112; Carbon and Pirenne-Delforge, “Beyond Greek ‘Sacred Laws,’” 163–82; Jan-Mathieu Carbon, “Monographing ‘Sacred Laws,’” Kernos 25 (2012) 318–27.
31 See Gagarin, Michael, Writing Greek Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008) 63, 251–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
32 Jameson, Michael H., Jordan, David R., and Kotansky, Roy D., A Lex Sacra from Selinus (GRBS Monographs 11; Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1993)Google Scholar; Lupu, Greek Sacred Law, 359–87; Robertson, Noel, Religion and Reconciliation in Greek Cities: The Sacred Laws of Selinus and Cyrene (American Classical Studies 54; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010) 3–255 Google Scholar.
33
“(2–3) [If a] person, [a homicide, wishes] to purify himself from elasteroi (
]), having made a proclamation from wherever he wishes, and in whatever year he wishes, and in whatever [month] he wishes, and on whatever day he wishes, having made a proclamation in whatever direction he wishes, he shall purify himself. (4) The one hosting him shall give the [homicide] to wash himself and something to eat and salt; and, having sacrificed a piglet to Zeus, he (the homicide) shall go away from him, and turn around, and he shall be spoken to, and take food, and sleep wherever he wishes. (7) If someone wishes to purify himself with respect to a guest/host (? or foreign) or ancestral (αἴ τίς κα λε̑ι ξενικὸν ἒ πατρο̑ιον, ἒ ‘πακουστὸν ἒ ‘φορατὸν ἒ καὶ χὄντινα καθαίρεσθαι), either heard or seen or any whatsoever, he shall purify himself in the same way as the homicide when he purify himself from an ancestral (elasteros) etc. [. . .])” For the text see Lupu, Greek Sacred Law, 363–64.
34 See Herzog, Rudolf, Heilige Gesetze von Kos (Berlin: Verlag der Akademie der wissenschaften and de Gruyter, 1928) no. 8Google Scholar; Sokolowski, Francizek, Lois sacrées des cités grecques (Paris: de Boccard, 1969) 263–69 (no. 154)Google Scholar. For the first part of this text, see also Guen-Pollet, Brigitte Le, La vie religieuse dans le monde grec du Ve au IIIe siècle avant notre ère (Toulouse: Presses Universitaires du Mirail, 1991) 123–29 (no. 39)Google Scholar; McLean, Bradley H., Hellenistic and Biblical Greek (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) 355–58Google Scholar; Parker, Robert, Miasma: Pollution and Purification in Early Greek Religion (Oxford: Clarendon, 1983) 52–53 Google Scholar.
35 For the possible existence of an early substratum, see Parker, Miasma, 334.
36
[Αἴ]
ἐπὶ τὰγ γᾶν ἢ ἐπὶ τὰμ πόλιν ἐπείηι νόσο[ς ἢ λι‖μὸ]
ἢ θάνατος, θύεν ἔμπροσθε τᾶμ πυλᾶν, [κάθα|ρμ]
τῶ ἀποτροπαίω, τῶι Ἀπόλλωνι τῶι ἀποτρό[π|ωι]
ίμαρον ἐρυθρόν.
37 See Latte, K., “Ein Sakrales Gesetz aus Kyrene,” Archiv für Religionswissenschaft 26 (1928) 41–51, at 41–42Google Scholar; Weinfeld, The Promise of the Land, 28; Parker, Miasma, 334–35.
38
.
39 See Milgrom, Jacob, Leviticus 1–16 (AB3; New York: Doubleday, 1991) 931–34Google Scholar.
40
[ὲν ὑπώροφον μιανεῖ, τὸν | δ’ ἐ]ξόροφον οὐ μιανεῖ, αἴ κα μὴ ὑπένθηι. Ὁ δ’ ἄ̣[νθρ|ω]πος, ὅ κα ἔνδοι ἦι, α<ὐ>τὸς μὲν μιαρὸς τέντα[ι ἁμ|έρα]ς τρῖς, ἄλλον δὲ οὐ μιανεῖ, οὐδὲ ὁπυῖ κα ἔν
[ηι ο]‖ὗτος ὁ ἄνθρωπος.
41
Αἴ κα ἐπὶ βωμῶι θύσηι ἱαρήιον, ὅ τι μὴ νόμος θύεν, τ[ὸ] | ποτιπίαμμα ἀφ̣ελὲ
ἀπὸ τῶ βωμῶ καὶ ἀποπλῦν|αι καὶ τὸ ἄλλο λ̣ῦμ̣α ἀνελὲν ἐκ τῶ ἱαρῶ, καὶ τὰν ἴκ|νυν ἀπὸ τῶ β̣ωμῶ καὶ τὸ πῦρ ἀφελὲν ἐς καθαρόν· ‖ καὶ τόκα δὴ ἀπονι Ψάμενος, καθάρας τὸ ἱαρὸν καὶ ‖ ζαμίαν θύσας βοτὸν τέλευν, τόκα δὴ θυέτω ὡς νόμ<ος>.
42 See Leviticus 30–33; Num 18:21–28; cf. Deut 12:6, 17, 14:22–29, 26:12–15. The precise reference to the tithes in this inscription is not unclear: see Parker, Miasma, 339–344; Rhodes and Osborne, Greek Historical Inscriptions, 503–504; Robertson, Religion and Reconciliation, 299–317; Jim, Theodora Suk Fong, Sharing with the Gods: Aparchai and Dekatai in Ancient Greece (Oxford Classical Monographs; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014) 50–51 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For tithes (ešru/ešrētu) in the Mesopotamian world, see Dandamajew, Muhammad A., “Der Tempelzehnte in Babylonien während des 6.–4. Jh.v.u.Z.,” in Beiträge zur Alten Geschichte und deren Nachleben: Festschrift für Franz Altheim 1 (ed. Stiehl, R. and Stier, H. E.; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1969) 82–90 Google Scholar. For biblical tithes, see Weinfeld, Moshe, “The Royal and Sacred Aspects of the Tithe in the Old Testament,” Beersheba 1 (1973) 122–31 (Hebrew)Google Scholar; Jagersma, Hendrik, “The Tithes in the Old Testament,” in Remembering All the Way (OTS 21; Leiden: Brill, 1981) 116–28Google Scholar; Milgrom, Jacob, Leviticus 23–27 (AB3B; New York: Doubleday, 2001) 2421–34Google Scholar; Nihan, Christophe, “The Priestly Laws of Numbers, the Holiness Legislation, and the Pentateuch,” in Torah and the Book of Numbers (ed. Frevel, C. et al.; FAT 62; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013) 109–37Google Scholar. For Greek tithes, see Burkert, Walter, Greek Religion (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985) 63–70Google Scholar.
43 See Parker, Miasma, 347–51.
44 Lupu, Greek Sacred Law, 406.
45 See Rhodes, P. J. and Osborne, Robin, eds., Greek Historical Inscriptions 404–323 BC (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003) 494–505 Google Scholar.
46 Fontenrose, Joseph Eddy, The Delphic Oracle: Its Responses and Operations with a Catalogue of Responses (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981) 252–53Google Scholar; Parker, Miasma, 334; Lupu, Greek Sacred Law, 78.
47 For the unique nature of the Cyrene Law, see Rhodes and Osborne, Greek Historical Inscriptions, 501–502.
48 See Weinfeld, Promise of the Land, 29 n. 21.
49 For these texts, in particular the Marseilles Tariff (KAI 69) see COS 1.98; Lipiński, Edward, “Rites et sacrifices dans la tradition phénico-punique,” in Ritual and Sacrifice in the Ancient Near East: Proceedings of the International Conference Organized by the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, April 1991 (ed. Quaegebeur, J.; Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 55; Leuven: Peeters, 1993) 257–81Google Scholar; McLaughlin, John L., The Marzēaḥ in the Prophetic Literature: References and Allusions in Light of the Extra-Biblical Evidence (Leiden: Brill, 2001) 38–42 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For comparison with the biblical text, see David W. Baker, “Leviticus 1–7 and the Punic Tariffs: A Form Comparison,” ZAW 99 (1987) 188–97. For comparison with Greek “sacred laws,” see Lupu, Greek Sacred Law, 391–95.
50 See Dennis Pardee in COS 1.98; cf. F. Rosenthal, ANET, 656–67. For the text and commentary, see KAI 69. See also Maria Giulia Guzzo Amadasi, Le iscrizioni fenicie e puniche delle colonie in occidente (Rome: Istituto di Studi del Vicino Oriente, 1967) 169–83 (no. 3).
51 Baker, “Leviticus 1–7 and the Punic Tariffs,” 188–97.
52 For the tenth tablet of Duodecim Tabulae see Warmington, Remains of Old Latin, 497–503. See also Watson, Alan, The State, Law and Religion: Pagan Rome (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1992) 21 Google Scholar; Beek, Leon ter, “Divine Law and the Penalty of sacer esto in Early Rome,” in Law and Religion in the Roman Republic (ed. Tellegen-Couperus, O.; Mnemosyne Sup. 336; Leiden: Brill, 2012) 11–29, at 13–28Google Scholar.
53 For a similar understanding of the Mesopotamia omens, see Fincke, Jeanette C., “Omina, die göttlichen ‘Gesetze’ der Divination,” Ex Oriente Lux 40 (2006–2007) 131–147 Google Scholar; Pongratz-Leisten, Beate, “The King at the Crossroads between Divination and Cosmology,” in Divination, Politics, and Ancient Near Eastern Empires (ed. Lenzi, A. and Stokël, J.; SBL Ancient Near East Monographs 7; Atlanta: SBL, 2014) 33–48, at 34CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Démare-Lafont, Sophie, “Judical Decision-Making: Judges and Arbitrators,” in The Oxford Handbook of Cuneiform Culture (ed. Radner, K. and Robson, E.; Oxford: Oxford University Press) 335–57Google Scholar. Following Nissinen, Stackert highlights the importance of the textual nature of omens and law: Stackert, Jeffrey, A Prophet Like Moses: Prophecy, Law, and Israelite Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014) 51–54 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nissinen, Marti, “Prophecy and Omen Divination: Two Sides of the Same Coin,” in Divination and Interpretation of Signs in the Ancient World (ed. Annus, A.; Oriental Institute Seminars 6; Chicago: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 2010) 344–45Google Scholar.
54 The Cyrene inscription possesses a unique status in this regard among Greek sacred laws. For other Greek ordinances, see Aslak Rostad, “Human Transgression–Divine Retribution: A Study of Religious Transgressions and Punishments in Greek Cultic Regulations and Lydian-Phrygian Reconciliation Inscriptions” (Ph.D. diss., University of Bergen, 2006) 85, 94, 128–34.
55 This does not mean, however, that these cultic laws in the biblical and Greek world were always observed or had binding validity in court: see Rostad, “Human Transgression–Divine Retribution,” 47–49, 87; Fitzpatrick-McKinley, Anne, The Transformation of Torah Scribal Advice to Law (JSOTSup 287; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999) 113–45Google Scholar; Jackson, Bernard S., Studies in the Semiotics of Biblical Law (JSOTSup 314; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000) 114–43Google Scholar.
56 See Rainey, “The Order of Sacrifices,” 487; Baker, “Leviticus 1–7 and the Punic Tariffs,” 196; Parks, Ancient Texts, 206. These scholars regard the original material as a “priestly handbook” rather than a declarative inscription, however.
57 For the concept of P as a secret ritual text, see Haran, Temples and Temple-Service, 8, 11, 143, 224; Weinfeld, Place of the Law, 81–82 and n. 7.