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More Babylonian “Prophecies”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

Robert D. Biggs
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Extract

One of the intriguing aspects of studies on the Babylonian ‘prophecy’ texts has been the theory that, even though couched in familiar omen terminology and ostensibly predicting the future, the prophecies are post eventum and in fact reflect a specific historical period and real historical events.

It should be stressed that these ‘prophecy’ texts are in no way related to Old Testament prophecy and that they cannot be considered the collected utterances of a seer. Neither have they any relationship to the practices attested in Mari, which are probably of Western origin and not from Mesopotamia proper. The ‘prophecies’ must, I believe, be considered simply a peculiar part of the vast Mesopotamian omen tradition, from which the ‘prophecies’ appeared to differ only because they lacked protases (i.e. a clause ‘if such-and-such occurs’). The new material to be published here, however, shows that there are protases, at least in some cases. Of particular interest is the fact that some of the ‘prophecies’ can now be shown to be connected specifically with astrology.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 29 , Issue 2 , Autumn 1967 , pp. 117 - 132
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1967

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References

1 See the most recent edition, ‘Akkadian Prophecies’, by Grayson, A. K. and Lambert, W. G., JCS 18 (1964), pp. 7–30Google Scholar, with previous literature.

2 See, for example, the comment of Weidner, E., AfO 13 (1939–1940). p. 235Google Scholar: ‘Das Material, das der Verfasser des Textes benutzt hat, geht gewiss auf historische Quellen zurück’, and the reservations of Grayson, , JCS 18, p. 9Google Scholar.

3 For a brief description of prophets and prophecy in ancient Israel, see Bright, John, Jeremiah (= The Anchor Bible vol. 21), 1965, pp. xv–xxviGoogle Scholar.

4 The ā;pilu (fem. ā;piltu), literally ‘answerer’, is attested only in Mari as a member of the cultic personnel. See Lods, A., ‘Une tablette inédite de Mari, intéressante pour l'histoire ancienne du prophétism sémitique’, Studies in Old Testament Prophecy Presented to T. H. Robinson, 1950, pp. 108–110Google Scholar, now also ARMT 13 23Google Scholar. In these cases the utterances reported are very specific and refer to an immediate situation. The same is true of the maḫḫû, a cultic ecstatic about whose function we are still poorly informed. See von Soden, W., ‘Verkündung des Gotteswillens durch prophetisches Wort in den altbabylonischen Briefcn aus Mâri’, W.O. 1 (1947–1950), pp. 397–403Google Scholar.

5 See Grayson, , JCS 18, pp. 9fGoogle Scholar.

6 It must be admitted that other ‘prophecy’ texts, not discussed here, relate such dramatic events as (in time of famine) a mother barring her door against her daughter, though this probably became only another literary cliché (cf. the traditional clichés of the lamentation texts), along with the common prediction that people will sell their children, though, of course, people did actually sell their children in desperate times. See Oppenheim, A. L., “‘Siege Documents’ from Nippur”, Iraq 17 (1955), pp. 69–89CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 The main source is CT 13 50Google Scholar, to which Grayson and Lambert added new duplicates, thus adding to the comprehension of the text. It is now known from eight fragments, six of which were used by Grayson and Lambert. Their sigla for the various sources have been retained here. The line numbering has been continued to include the new texts.

8 The first six lines remain very obscure, mainly because the text cannot be reconstructed with any confidence. The three copies preserving these lines are fragmentary and the overlaps are few, and, moreover, the distribution of lines is different, so that several more words may be missing than my transliteration suggests. I have assumed that these lines, in spite of their unusual character, are intended as an omen protasis and I have therefore translated the preterite verbal forms with the present tense.

9 Another ‘prophecy’ text, KAR 421 (see JCS 18, pp. 12ffGoogle Scholar) also had a mythological introduction (lines 1–8 of column i), concerned with Ištar and Anu, but so little of it remains that it is not possible to make connected sense of it.

10 See Kraus, F. R.' most recent description of a mīšaru-act, Studies Landsberger, p. 231Google Scholar, also his fundamental study, Ein Edikt des Königs Ammi-Ṣaduqa von Babylon (= Studia et documents ad iura orientis antiqui pertinentia, vol. 5), 1958Google Scholar.

11 Second person predictions are by no means rare, especially in Old Babylonian omen texts and Standard Babylonian extispicy. Whatever the original source of the omens may be, they seem to have been systematised at some point according to the omen protases, but without changing the person. It may be suggested that some peculiar writings, best known in texts from Elam (for the clearest examples, from Susa itself, see the texts cited by Labat, R., Studies Landsberger, pp. 257–260Google Scholar) in the Standard Babylonian astrological texts, mainly in Elamite month names and writings of šarru as 200 and ana as ŠÈ, entered the scholarly tradition in this way.

12 The tablet, in Neo-Babylonian script, is from Nippur (where I was epigrapher for the Ninth season, 1964–1965), and bears the field number 9 NT 21. It is now in the collection of the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago, museum number A 32332. The tablet was found on the surface of the mound and is somewhat pitted from exposure. No attempt is made to utilise the first column, of which only ends of lines are preserved. It is seen to consist also of a long section of common omen phrases. The reverse is destroyed. To judge from the flatness of the fragment, it is from a wide tablet, perhaps wider than the two columns which are preserved.

The new fragment shows that Grayson and Lambert correctly identified K.1849 (copy only, JCS 18, p. 25Google Scholar) as a prophecy text. It proves to be a duplicate of the new section provided by the Nippur text. W. G. Lambert has kindly informed me, in response to my query, that K.1849 is not the same tablet as K.7861 (= CT 13 50), the major source for this composition.

13 See the commentary to line 28 below.

14 The texts are the following, with indications of the lines represented in the various copies:

a = K.7861 (CT 13 50Google Scholar), lines 1–31

b = K.11357 (JCS 18 p. 24Google Scholar), lines 1–10

c = K.11026 (JCS 18 p. 24Google Scholar), lines 1–8

d = BM 33726 (JCS 18 p. 24Google Scholar), lines 8–17

e = K.7204 (JCS 18 p. 24Google Scholar), lines 15–26

f = K.7127 (JCS 18 p. 25Google Scholar), lines 19–28

g = 9 NT 21 (A 32332), copy Plate XLV, lines 13–39

h = K.1849 (JCS 18 p. 25Google Scholar), lines 32–39

15 W. G. Lambert has very kindly collated several passages for me.

16 The only previously known example of this type of ‘prophecy’ is a single tablet from Assur. See JCS 18 pp. 10 and 12 ffGoogle Scholar. The preserved parts of that text are in no way connected with astrology, each section beginning simply ‘a ruler will arise’. Moreover, the pattern of alternating ‘good’ and ‘bad’ reigns, pointed out by Grayson, , JCS 18 p. 10Google Scholar, is apparently not a feature of the new text.

17 See especially Weidner, , AfO 13 p. 235, cited above, note 2Google Scholar.

18 No such actual sequence is known.

19 See, on the question of the relevance of omen texts for history, the views of Finkelstein, J. J., ‘Mesopotamian Historiography’, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 107 (1963) pp. 461–472, especially p. 463Google Scholar, and the doubts expressed by Grayson, in La divination en Mésopotamie ancienne, 1966 p. 76 n. 2Google Scholar. While undoubtedly there is authentic historical information embedded in the omens, I am doubtful that, by and large, they should be relied upon for specific historical data except in the cases where names are actually given. They are ‘historical’ more, I believe, in the sense that they reflect what were considered possible events in terms of the Mesopotamians’ view of their own existence.