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The Fate and Power of Heroic Bones and the Politics of Bone Transfer in Ancient Israel and Greece*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 June 2013
Extract
Tucked away in the Hebrew Bible at the end of 1 Samuel and then resumed near the end of 2 Samuel is a provocative tale recounting the final fate of Saul, Israel's first king. At the beginning of this two-part narrative (1 Sam 31:1), we find Saul atop Mount Gilboa, badly wounded by Philistine archers and nearly dead. Fearing the Philistine armies will rush upon him and continue the humiliation—perhaps by stabbing him repeatedly while still alive, as Saul suggests in 31:4, or something worse—Saul commits suicide. As the rest of the chapter recounts, upon finding his corpse, the enemy army abuses him in a different but perhaps not less dreadful manner, i.e., by beheading the king and hanging the remainder of his body on the wall of Beth Shan (along with the bodies of his sons, who died with their father in the battle). The residents of Jabesh Gilead, however, hear of these events and abscond with the bodies, burying the bones in their own territory and thus ending this particular episode of conflict between Israel and Philistia.
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Footnotes
*
This paper was first presented in abbreviated form as part of a Society for Ancient Mediterranean Religions panel on “Civil Strife and Ancient Mediterranean Religions,” at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, Atlanta, Ga., November 22, 2010, and I am very grateful for the comments I received in this forum. I would also like to thank Song-Mi Suzie Park (Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary) and Suzanne Smith (Harvard University) for reading an earlier draft of this paper and giving useful suggestions for its improvement, as well as Barbara McCauley (Concordia College) for providing me with a hard copy of her article on bone transferal. Finally, I owe many thanks to an uncommonly helpful anonymous reviewer (a classicist), who provided many specific suggestions that I have followed.
References
1 Note that 1 Chr 10:1–14 partly parallels 1 Sam 31:1–13; the Chronicler's account is basically similar, except for a few details, but ends with the acts of Jabesh Gilead in re-taking Saul's body and burying the bones beneath a tree. Saul Zalewski argues that the Chronicler has presented the story in such a way as to make clear that Saul was executed by God directly, as opposed to dying by the fault of David (“The Purpose of the Story of the Death of Saul in 1 Chronicles X,” VT 39 [1989] 449–67). For recent essays on Saul's place within the Deuteronomistic history, see Saul in Story and Tradition (ed. Carl S. Ehrlich and Marsha C. White; FAT 47; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006) and the bibliography cited therein, as well as the relevant sections in P. Kyle McCarter's commentary on 1–2 Samuel: I Samuel (AB 8; Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1980) 439–44; II Samuel (AB 9; Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1984) 436–46. According to McCarter, the Chronicles passage “seems to hark back to a shorter, more primitive version” of the story, which I agree is possible (1 Samuel, 440).
2 The verb used here, 
, appears several other times in the Bible, e.g., in reference to the way yhwh made a mockery of Egypt during the Exodus (Exod 10:2; 1 Sam 6:6); to describe the abuse that accompanies a violent gang rape (Judg 19:25); and in the mouths of kings worried about what invading armies will do with their bodies (here, with a parallel in 1 Chr 10:4, and Jer 38:19). Cf. Num 22:29; Ps 141:4, where the action seems less severe or specific.
3 See Gunn, David M., The Fate of King Saul: An Interpretation of a Biblical Story (JSOTSup 14; Sheffield, U.K.: JSOT, 1989)Google Scholar; Edelman, Diana V., “Saul ben Kish in History and Tradition,” in The Origins of the Ancient Israelite States (ed. Fritz, Volkmar and Davies, Philip R.; JSOTSup 228; Sheffield, U.K.: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996) 142–59Google Scholar; and Long, V. Philips, The Reign and Rejection of King Saul: A Case for Literary and Theological Coherence (SBLDS 118; Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars Press, 1989)Google Scholar. My thinking on Saul in 1–2 Samuel has also recently been influenced by Song-Mi Suzie Park, “Saul's Spiritual Torment in 1 Samuel 16:14: Conflicts in the Royal, National, and Divine Psyche,” a paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, New Orleans, La., November 2009.
4 This line of comparison is taken up, e.g., by Nicholson, Sarah, Three Faces of Saul: An Intertextual Approach to Biblical Tragedy (JSOTSup 339; London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002)Google Scholar; Exum, J. Cheryl, Tragedy and Biblical Narrative: Arrows of the Almighty (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1992) 70–119CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Preston, Thomas R., “The Heroism of Saul: Patterns of Meaning in the Narrative of the Early Kingship,” JSOT 24 (1982) 27–46Google Scholar; and Amit, Yairah, “The Delicate Balance in the Image of Saul and Its Place in the Deuteronomistic History,” in Saul in Story and Tradition, 71–79Google Scholar, esp. 71–72 and references there.
5 Preston argues that Saul emerges as the true “hero” vis-à-vis David, due, in part, to his “heroic death” on the battlefield (“Heroism of Saul,” 27–28, 33, 36–37, 42–43). W. Lee Humphreys sees an older version of the Saul story that bears Aegean influence and presents a truly “heroic” Saul (“From Tragic Hero to Villain: A Study of the Figure of Saul and the Development of 1 Samuel,” JSOT 22 [1982] 92–117, at 106). See also Humphreys's earlier comments in “The Tragedy of King Saul: A Study in the Structure of 1 Samuel 9–31,” JSOT 6 (1978) 18–27 and in “The Rise and Fall of King Saul: A Study of an Ancient Narrative Stratum in 1 Samuel,” JSOT 8 (1980) 74–90. In this latter article especially, Humphreys compares Saul with specific Greek heroic motifs, but not bone transfer (“Rise and Fall,” 83–87). Gregory Mobley finds in Saul “a full range of heroic attributes: demonstrated valor (1 Sam 11:5–11; 14:20–23, 47–48), martial rage (1 Sam 11:5), the ‘breath of YHWH/Elohim’ (1 Sam 10:6, 9; 11:6; 19:23), a signature weapon (his spear; 1 Sam 13:22; 18:10; 19:9; 20:33; 22:6; 26:7, 11, 12, 16, 22; 2 Sam 1:6), and even (perhaps) a special birth (1 Samuel 1)” (“Glimpses of Heroic Saul,” in Saul in Story and Tradition, 80–87, at 80). This last attribute, a special birth, would assume that Samuel's birth narrative was originally that of Saul but was intentionally stolen from the king and applied to the prophet as a way of further marginalizing Saul (an idea first proposed in the 1932 Uppsala dissertation of Ivar Hylander, Der literarische Samuel-Saul-Komplex (1 Sam. 1–15). Traditionsgeschichtlich untersucht [Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1932]).
6 One can see something of both of these tendencies in Jordan, William G., “Homiletics and Criticism: II Samuel 21:1–14,” The Biblical World 33 (1909) 32–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Regarding the famine and human sacrifice, we may note that this story belongs to a rather limited corpus of texts in the Hebrew Bible wherein there seems to be a “magical” or otherwise extraneous (to Israel's deity) force in operation; one other example is 2 Kings 3, where human sacrifice unleashes a mysterious “wrath” (
) against Israel.
7 Essays discussing the specific religious or legal factors at play in the text are numerous, including three studies published in 1955 by different authors: Cazelles, Henri, “David's Monarchy and the Gibeonite Claim,” PEQ 87 (1955) 165–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kapelrud, Arvid S., “King and Fertility: A Discussion of II Sam 21:1–14,” NTT 56 (1955) 113–22Google Scholar; Malamat, Abraham, “Doctrines of Causality in Biblical and Hittite Historiography: A Parallel,” VT 5 (1955) 1–12Google Scholar. This is not to mention analyses in various commentaries, some of which I cite elsewhere in this study. See also Weisman, Ze'ev, “Legal Aspects of David's Involvement in the Blood-Vengeance of the Gibeonites,” Zion 54 (1989) 149–60Google Scholar [in Hebrew], and, on the issue of a covenant with Gibeon alluded to in 2 Sam 21:1–7, see the major study of Blenkinsopp, Joseph, Gibeon and Israel: The Role of Gibeon and the Gibeonites in the Political and Religious History of Early Israel (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1972)Google Scholar and the literature cited therein. On the role of Rizpah in the narrative, see Poulssen, Niek, “An Hour with Rispah: Some Reflections on II Sam. 21,10,” in Von Kanaan bis Kerala. Festschrift für Prof. Mag. Dr. Dr. J. P. M. van der Ploeg O.P. zur Vollendung des siebzigsten Lebensjahres am 4. Juli 1979; überreicht von Kollegen, Freunden und Schülern (ed. van der Ploeg, Johannes P. M. and Delsman, Wilhelm C.; AOAT 211; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1982) 185–211Google Scholar. For an extended bibliography on this front, from which I learned of some of the studies listed here, see Chavel, Simeon, “Compositry and Creativity in 2 Samuel 21:1–14,” JBL 122 (2003) 23–52Google Scholar, at 24 n. 4.
8 Olyan, Saul M., “Honor, Shame, and Covenant Relations in Ancient Israel and Its Environment,” JBL 115 (1996) 201–18Google Scholar, at 214–15.
9 Olyan, Saul M., “Some Neglected Aspects of Israelite Interment Ideology,” JBL 124 (2005) 601–16, at 605, 612Google Scholar.
10 Hamilton, Mark W., “The Creation of Saul's Royal Body: Reflections on 1 Samuel 8–10,” in Saul in Story and Tradition, 139–55, at 141Google Scholar. Though Hamilton's study focuses on the “shaping” of Saul's body in 1 Samuel 8–10 toward its use for leading Israel and reflecting YHWH's divine rule, we should expand some of these categories and their application to the continued meaning of Saul's body in his post-mortem appearances. See also the brief discussion of Saul's second burial in 2 Sam 21:13–14 in Hamilton's, The Body Royal: The Social Poetics of Kingship in Ancient Israel (Biblical Interpretation Series 78; Leiden: Brill, 2005) 168–69Google Scholar. On Saul and royal ancestral cult, note also Stavrakopoulou, Francesca, Land of Our Fathers: The Roles of Ancestor Veneration in Biblical Land Claims (LHB 473; London: T&T Clark, 2010) 114–15Google Scholar.
11 Chavel, “Compositry and Creativity.” Julius Wellhausen first suggested this putative unity via the palistrophe in 2 Samuel 21–24; see Die Composition des Hexateuchs und der historischen Bücher des alten Testaments (3d ed.; Berlin: Reimer, 1899) 260–61 (cited in Chavel, “Compositry and Creativity,” 23 n. 2).
12 Chavel, “Compositry and Creativity,” 36.
13 Ibid., 44.
14 Ibid., 47–48.
15 Ibid., 49.
16 I derive this specific number from McCauley, Barbara, “Heroes and Power: The Politics of Bone Transferal,” in Ancient Greek Hero Cult: Proceedings of the Fifth International Seminar on Ancient Greek Cult, Organized by the Department of Classical Archaeology and Ancient History, Göteborg University, 21–23 April 1995 (ed. Hägg, Robin; Skrifter utgivna av Svenska institutet i Athen 8º 16; Stockholm: Svenska Institutet i Athen, 1999) 85–98Google Scholar, at 96 (see n. 40 on the same page for a list of these thirteen examples). For my analysis of Greek and Latin accounts of bone transferal, I rely on McCauley's thorough treatment of the issue, as well as on: Higbie, Carolyn, “The Bones of a Hero, the Ashes of a Politician: Athens, Salamis, and the Usable Past,” Classical Antiquity 16 (1997) 278–307, esp. 296–301CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Podlecki, Anthony J., “Cimon, Skyros, and ‘Theseus’ Bones’,” JHS 19 (1971) 141–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and the bibliography and examples provided in these studies. Note also the older but still useful study of Pfister, Friedrich, Der Reliquienkult im Altertum (Religionsgeschichtliche Versuche und Vorarbeiten 5; Giessen: Töpelman, 1909–1912; repr., Berlin: de Gruyter, 1974)Google Scholar.
17 McCauley, “Heroes and Power,” 96.
18 On hero cult, see recently Mensch—Heros—Gott. Weltentwürfe und Lebensmodelle im Mythos der Vormoderne (ed. Christine Schmitz and Anja Bettenworth; Stuttgart: Steiner, 2009). For archaeological data, see Antonaccio, Carla M., An Archaeology of Ancestors: Tomb Cult and Hero Cult in Early Greece (Greek Studies; Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1995)Google Scholar; eadem, “Contesting the Past: Hero Cult, Tomb Cult, and Epic in Early Greece,” AJA 98 (1994) 389–410; and for textual reflexes, Nagy, Gregory, The Best of the Achaeans: Concepts of the Hero in Archaic Greek Poetry (rev. ed.; Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999) 67–210Google Scholar. The “mystical,” personal aspects of hero cult are clearly evident, for example, in Philostrotus's On Heroes, on which see Nagy, Gregory, “The Sign of the Hero: A Prologue to the Heroikos of Philostratus,” in Flavius Philostratus, Heroikos (trans. Aitken, Ellen Bradshaw and Maclean, Jennifer K. Berenson; Writings from the Greco-Roman World 1; Atlanta, Ga.: Society of Biblical Literature, 2001) xv–xxxvGoogle Scholar. This is not to mention the varieties of healer ideologies attached to cults of heroes, for which see Speyer, Wolfgang, “Heros,” RAC 14 (1988) 861–77Google Scholar, esp. 870; and Farnell, Lewis R., Greek Hero Cults and Ideas of Immortality: The Gifford Lectures Delivered in the University of St. Andrews in the Year 1920 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1921) 150–51, 234–79Google Scholar.
19 McCauley argues against the view that bones were considered as talismans or “magic” objects in their own right (“Heroes and Power,” 94).
20 See, e.g., Birge, Darice, “The Grove of the Eumenides: Refuge and Hero Shrine in Oedipus at Colonus,” Classical Journal 80 (1984) 11–17Google Scholar; and Markantonatos, Andreas, Oedipus at Colonus: Sophocles, Athens, and the World (Untersuchungen zur antiken Literatur und Geschichte 87; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2007) 140–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
21 Pausanias records bone transfers with distinct interest and frequency.
22 Translation from Pausanias, Description of Greece (trans. James G. Frazer; 6 vols.; London: Macmillan, 1913) 1:491.
23 See the discussion in McCauley, “Heroes and Power,” 90–91.
24 Ibid.
25 Information here taken from “TB or not TB: Venezuela's President Buries Bad News by Disinterring a National Icon,” The Economist (July 22, 2010) 40. The phenomena of relic transfer and bone reclamation persisted through many societies and seemingly all eras; for an insightful study, see Geary, Patrick J., Furta Sacra: Thefts of Relics in the Central Middle Ages (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990)Google Scholar. As Geary points out, a relic must somehow be identified as such, whether by a marked tomb, a temple, or some other context—which could include written or oral tradition (ibid., 5–7). The biblical account of the theft of Saul's bones, as I discuss it in this essay, thus stands as a lasting “identification” of the tradition; it is, in a sense, the final grave marker. Moreover, Geary helpfully points to the manner in which relic theft is an act of cultural violence and meaning-making, since this kind of theft breaks the bounded, initial context of identification and replaces that context with a new one.
26 I.e., the parallel, for Chávez, is that his own political opponents were attempting to “assassinate” him (either figuratively or literally).
27 A friend and specialist in Venezuelan politics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Donald V. Kingsbury, informed me recently that this exhuming did in fact occur in 2011.
28 Upon his death, Jacob's bones are taken from Egypt to Canaan (see Gen 50:4–14). See comments in Weinfeld, Moshe, The Promise of the Land: The Inheritance of the Land of Canaan by the Israelites (Taubman Lectures in Jewish Studies 3; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993) 15, 34Google Scholar. See also the bone transfer to a patrimonial grave in 1 Macc 13:25.
29 For bone scattering, burning, or other mistreatment as desecration, see Ps 53:6; 141:7; Jer 8:1; Ezek 6:5; Amos 2:1; see also Bar 2:24.
30 Many commentators assume the stories in 1 Samuel 31 and 2 Samuel 21 were originally part of a unified, congruous story, uninterrupted by so much intervening material; e.g., McCarter (II Samuel, 443) suggests that the story in 2 Sam 21:1–14 was at first omitted from what now appears in 1 Sam 31:1–13 but was later reinserted by another editor in its current place.
31 See Edelman, Diana V., “Saul's Rescue of Jabesh-Gilead (1 Sam. 11.1–11): Sorting Story from History,” ZAW 96 (1984) 195–209Google Scholar.
32 Susan Niditch suggests an implicitly “anti-Saulide” polemic in this story, as Jabesh Gilead is possibly portrayed here as failing to affirm proper military unity with the rest of the nation (Judges [OTL; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2008] 209). Cf. Robert G. Boling, who finds the presentation of Jabesh Gilead as sympathetic, as it is “the only segment of Israel not guilty of overreacting” (Judges [AB 6A; Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1975] 292). Whatever the case, it is certainly true, as Niditch points out, that in this “foundational tale” we see “an important sacred trail,” which “emphasizes national identity and maps an important means of religious self-definition. The author thereby emphasizes that the roots of Israelite identity are ancient and deep” (Judges, 210).
33 See comments in Olyan, “Honor, Shame, and Covenant,” 214.
34 This 
may have been caused by drought (hence the possible significance of the falling rain in 2 Sam 21:10) or could signify some other problem of crop failure, infestation, or disease.
35 Kapelrud makes this suggestion in two essays: “King and Fertility: A Discussion of II Sam 21:1–14,” NTT 56 (1955) 113–22; and “King David and the Sons of Saul,” in La regalità sacra. Contributi al tema dell'VIII congresso internazionale di storia delle religioni (Roma, aprile 1955) (SHR 4; Leiden: Brill, 1959) 294–301.
36 Kapelrud, “King David,” 300.
37 Ibid., 301.
38 McCarter refutes Kapelrud's thesis on the same grounds (II Samuel, 444). Moses Buttenwieser compares the story in 2 Samuel 21 with Greek concepts, viz. the idea that unburied bodies would haunt the living (“Blood Revenge and Burial Rites in Ancient Israel,” JAOS 39 [1919] 303–21, at 308–9). He thus assumes the cause of the famine referenced in 2 Sam 21:1 is the burial status of Saul's and Jonathan's bodies away from the family tomb (ibid., 313 n. 32). On the contrary, the narrator explicitly tells us that it is bloodguilt incurred from killing the Gibeonites that causes the problem, though one can appeal, as Buttenwieser does, to two competing sources in this account (e.g., one detailing the Gibeonite problem and another regarding the famine itself). See also Quiroga, Raúl, “La venganza gabaonita a la luz de los conceptos actuales de justicia. Un estudio interpretativo de 2 Samuel 21:1–14,” DavarLogos 4 (2005) 117–29Google Scholar.
39 Malamat finds in a fourteenth-century b.c.e. Hittite text a pattern of a covenant being broken in a past era, which results in a current situation of plague (“Doctrines of Causality”). The Hittite story does not, however, involve a bone transfer of any kind; rather, the attempt to remedy the situation comes through a formal apology for the past injustice. For the text, see “Plague Prayers of Muršili II,” translated by Gary Beckman (COS 1.60:156–60).
40 Hans W. Hertzberg embarks on an extended discussion of the issue and provides some oblique evidence that the site of the inquiry was the Gibeonite high place/sanctuary (see 1 Kgs 3:4; I & II Samuel [trans. John Bowden; OTL; London: SCM Press, 1964] 382–83). See also the discussion in McCarter (II Samuel, 440), with reference to de la Fuente, O. García, “David buscó el rostro de Yahweh (2 Sam 21,1),” Aug 8 (1968) 477–540Google Scholar.
41 See, e.g., Grintz, Jehoshua M., “The Treaty of Joshua with the Gibeonites,” JAOS 86 (1966) 113–26Google Scholar.
42 See Blenkinsopp, Gibeon and Israel, 34, 136 n. 31; McCarter, II Samuel, 441–42. See also Halpern, Baruch, David's Secret Demons: Messiah, Murderer, Traitor, King (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001) 302–7Google Scholar on David and the Gibeonite question.
43 If the famine was in fact caused by a drought, then the presence of the rain here may signal the end of the natural disaster, and thus Rizpah's ritual ends when the problem is solved, prompting David to begin his response with the dead bodies.
44 Cf. Chavel, “Compositry and Creativity,” 39.
45 McCarter assumes that David can only retrieve ashes and not bones in 2 Sam 21:12–14, since in 1 Sam 31:12–13 we are told that the residents of Jabesh burned the remains (II Samuel, 443). Cremation seems not to have been a typical Israelite burial practice, and it may be that only the rotted flesh was burned away or even that some memorial fire was lit for the dead. On the location of Jabesh Gilead, see Glueck, Nelson, “Jabesh-Gilead,” BASOR 89 (1943) 2–6Google Scholar.
46 To be sure, as I will note below, the transfer can simultaneously be viewed as a normal placement of the body in Saul's patrimonial burial plot; see, e.g, Brichto, Herbert C., “Kin, Cult, Land and Afterlife—A Biblical Complex,” HUCA 44 (1973) 1–54Google Scholar. The import of burying a charged figure such as Saul should not, of course, go unnoticed. I am inclined to agree with Rachel Hallote, who has recently declared that the Israelite “cult of the dead” was “one of the most active domestic cults in the biblical period” (Death, Burial, and Afterlife in the Biblical World: How the Israelites and Their Neighbors Treated the Dead [Chicago: Dee, 2001] 54). See also Bloch-Smith, Elizabeth, Judahite Burial Practices and Beliefs about the Dead (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1992) 23Google Scholar. Reviews of this topic can be found in: Schmidt, Brian B., Israel's Beneficent Dead: Ancestor Cult and Necromancy in Ancient Israelite Religion and Tradition (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1996) 132–73Google Scholar; Lewis, Theodore J., Cults of the Dead in Ancient Israel and Ugarit (HSM 39; Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars Press, 1989) 99–170Google Scholar; idem, “Dead, Abode of the,” ABD 2:101–5; Spronk, Klaas, Beatific Afterlife in Ancient Israel and in the Ancient Near East (AOAT 219; Kevelaer: Buzon & Berker, 1986) 3–12, 25–53, 65–81, 237–43Google Scholar; Smith, Mark S. and Bloch-Smith, Elizabeth, “Death and Afterlife in Ugarit and Israel,” JAOS 108 (1988) 277–84Google Scholar; Toorn, Karel van der, Family Religion in Babylonia, Syria, and Israel: Continuity and Change in the Forms of Religious Life (Studies in the History and Culture of the Ancient Near East 7; Leiden: Brill, 1996) 206–35Google Scholar. These views represent the dominant, current approach to the question, though there have been notable dissenters from this position: e.g., Johnston, Philip S., Shades of Sheol: Death and Afterlife in the Old Testament (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 2002) 70Google Scholar; and Schmidt, Israel's Beneficent Dead, 274, 282. Jon D. Levenson argues for a deeply rooted ancient Israelite belief in life after death but does not think death cults were as prevalent or influential as do many other recent interpreters (Resurrection and the Restoration of Israel: The Ultimate Victory of the God of Life [New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2006] 60–63).
47 As discussed by McCauley (“Heroes and Power,” 88–89), the Tegean surrender of the bones could also be read as a conciliatory gesture of peace toward Sparta, and it is certainly possible that the interaction between Jabesh Gilead and David operated with a similar tension between national reconciliation and lasting hostilities.
48 First identified as such by Rost, Leonhard, Die Überlieferung von der Thronnachfolge Davids (BWANT 42; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1926)Google Scholar.
49 In both documents, we find a historical narrative bent on showing divine guidance leading the future king along the path toward eventual rebellion and success against the current ruling powers (McCarter, I Samuel, 29–30). See “Apology of Ḫattušili III,” translated by Theo P. J. van den Hout (COS 1.77:199–204).
50 A similar observation is made by Bryson, Michael, “Dismemberment and Community: Sacrifice and the Communal Body in the Hebrew Scriptures,” Religion & Literature 35 (2003) 1–21, at 14Google Scholar. Note also the symbol of tearing Saul's royal garment in 1 Sam 15:26–28, which operates on the same principle.
51 See Machinist, Peter, “Biblical Traditions: The Philistines and Israelite History,” in The Sea Peoples and Their World: A Reassessment (ed. Oren, Eliezer D.; University Museum Monograph 108; University Museum Symposium Series 11; Philadelphia: University Museum, University of Pennsylvania, 2000) 53–83, esp. 64–69Google Scholar.
52 However, based on the parallel texts involving heroic body transfer, one may speculate that just such a command, through the oracle, had indeed been offered but is no longer a part of the text as we have it. The Israelite focus on issues of defilement and honor regarding bodies—enhanced in the case of heroic or important bodies—suggests that the role of the body transfer was nevertheless an important one.
53 This language of a “Mediterranean koine” has also been recently invoked by Riva, Corinna, “The Culture of Urbanization in the Mediterranean c.800–600 BC,” in Mediterranean Urbanization 800–600 BC (ed. Osborne, Robin and Cunliffe, Barry; Proceedings of the British Academy 126; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005) 203–32, at 203–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Riva states that “one may . . . define this koine as international. At the same time, the modes of its reception were geographically specific, giving rise to local interpretations and meanings which individual groups assigned to it” (ibid., 203 [italics in original]).
54 Mobley, “Glimpses of Heroic Saul,” 80. Preston contrasts Saul's tragic, heroic death on the battlefield with David's slow decline in bed in 1 Kings (“Heroism of Saul,” 37–38, 41–44). Preston even goes so far as to say that Saul's death is “in defense of Israel,” while David dies “in his bed with the moral fabric of Israel crumbling around him” (“Heroism of Saul,” 44).
55 Nagy, , Best of the Achaeans, 67–210Google Scholar.