Shamir Yona | Ben Gurion University of the Negev (original) (raw)
Papers by Shamir Yona
Ancient Near Eastern Studies, 2007
The evidence we present here leads to the inescapable conclusion that the Aramaic proverbs of Ahi... more The evidence we present here leads to the inescapable conclusion that the Aramaic proverbs of Ahiqar embody the rhetorical patterns and stylistic devices that constitute the literary legacy of the ancient Near East. Moreover, careful attention to the rhetorical patterns employed in a given aphorism is vital to uncovering the precise meaning of the aphorism. In addition, as we show, identification of the rhetorical pattern of a given aphorism frequently enables one to make the correct choice among the various suggestions that have been offered to fill in the lacunae in the damaged portions of the Aramaic Proverbs of Ahiqar recovered from Elephantine. In other words, the identification and analysis of the rhetorical patterns in the Proverbs of Ahiqar is not ancillary to the study of the corpus but central to the determination of the content and message of the wisdom of Ahiqar.
The "Better Proverb" is a rhetorical form found in ancient Near Eastern literatures, including th... more The "Better Proverb" is a rhetorical form found in ancient Near Eastern literatures, including the Bible, and in Rabbinic literature. In this paper we discuss the use of this form in Rabbinic literature, focusing on the developments and changes that occurred in the later literature. We will show that the rabbis were familiar with biblical rhetorical features, used them, and changed them if needed to meet their own rhetorical purposes and goals.
The study of parallel texts in Hebrew Scripture and the variations, small and great, between them... more The study of parallel texts in Hebrew Scripture and the variations, small and great, between them has a long history. Scholars have called attention to two kinds of variations. The first kind of variation includes slight changes in the order of the elements, which results in a chiastic structure. The second kind of variation involves the substitution of alternate synonymous words and/ or phrases. 1 Assuming that the respective variations are significant on the level 1.
Various types of repetition are commonly used in literary formulations, whether early or late, or... more Various types of repetition are commonly used in literary formulations, whether early or late, oral or written. The types of repetition in Biblical literature have been discussed extensively in the scholarly literature, and are also noted by the classical interpreters. This article will deal with one type of repetition, which has not yet been fully recognized. At most it has been briefly mentioned by a few scholars. This type, which I call ›Expanded Repetition Using the Construct‹ consists of repeating a word or a root one or more times. This repetition takes place both within a parallel phrase and outside of such phrases. In this type of repetition, a word which is used in one of the stitches in the verse is repeated 1 within a construct phrase, whether as the first or second word in that construct. For example, »Who is the king of glory? The Lord is a powerful and mighty one, The Lord is a mighty warrior« (Ps 24,8. Note that the phrase »mighty warrior« here is a construct phrase, viz., gibbôr milhamah, lit., »mighty one of war.«) In this verse, the word ›mighty‹ is used alone (i.e., outside of a construct phrase) immediately before the construct phrase, and is then used as the first word in the construct phrase. On other occasions, the relevant word is used as the second word in the construct phrase, for example, »The head upon you is like Carmel, the locks of your head are like purple« (Cant 7,6). In many cases, the order reverses itself such that the construct phrase comes before the single word. Examples of this are »Assist us O our Delivering God, for the sake of the honour of Your Name, and help us to atone for our sins for the sake of Your Name« (Ps 79,9) in which the second word of the construct is repeated as a single word, and »He turned to the prayer of the destitute (^ar^ar), and did not make light of their prayer« (Ps 102,18), in which it is the first word of the construct that is repeated.
This paper follows the development of concatenation from its early use in Ancient Near Eastern li... more This paper follows the development of concatenation from its early use in Ancient Near Eastern literature through its use in the Hebrew Bible, in Hebrew Ben-Sira, and ultimately in Rabbinic literature. We demonstrate that the Rabbis adopted this rhetorical pattern for stylistic purposes and also used it as an editing device. The latter use of the rhetorical device in question is only rarely attested in the Hebrew Bible.
Birkat Shalom (Shalom Paul Festschrift), 2008
Since it was found during the 24 th campaign (1961) at the Baal-Temple in the acropolis, this tab... more Since it was found during the 24 th campaign (1961) at the Baal-Temple in the acropolis, this tablet 1 has been much debated by scholars due to its epigraphic aspects and its relation to the Ugaritic mythology and rituals 2 . This article deals with the appearance of two miniscule words written between lines 7-8, and 8-9. Here is a facsimile of KTU 1.114, 7-10. 7 y®db . lḥm . lh . wdlyd®nn 3 "He makes food for him, but that he doesn't know; dmṣd 8 ylmn ḫṭm . tḥt . ṯlḥn He hits with sticks under the table. bq[?] 9 ®ṯtrt . w®nt . ymġy Aṯtartu and Anatu, He approaches them; 10 ®ṯtrt . t®db . nšb lh Aṯtartu makes cutlet(?) for him."
Old Testament Essays, 2018
The ambiguity in Isa 54:16a concerning the identity of the subject (YHWH or the smith) of the two... more The ambiguity in Isa 54:16a concerning the identity of the subject (YHWH or the smith) of the two verbs relating a metallurgical action (to blow and to cast) is identified here as a rhetorical device intending to conceal the essential relation of YHWH with metallurgy. Integrated in the whole Isa 54 chapter, this device becomes a plea for the definitive replacement of Edom with Israel as YHWH’S people, exactly as in Isa 34-35 and Isa 61-63.
Review of Rabbinic Judaism, 2016
This paper follows the use of numbers from the Bible and Ancient Near Eastern literature, through... more This paper follows the use of numbers from the Bible and Ancient Near Eastern literature, through the book of Ben-Sira, and ultimately to the Rabbinic literature. We show that the Rabbis were familiar with the Biblical use of numbers as rhetorical devices and used numbers in the same ways that the Bible did.
Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society, Sep 1, 2020
Journal of the American Oriental Society, 2016
One of the most famous stories in Ugaritic literature is the legend of Aqht that was found at Ras... more One of the most famous stories in Ugaritic literature is the legend of Aqht that was found at Ras Shamra, Syria, during the early 1930s. Written in Ugaritic script and spread over three worn and broken tablets, this text has been thoroughly studied for the past eighty years. More than a few studies have dealt with the following questions: Is the end of the known text in the third tablet really the end of the story? Or is there perhaps a missing tablet, or tablets, that continue the plot from the third tablet (KTU 1.19)? These questions have been answered on the basis of storyline and plot, and many believe that there must have been more contents that complete this story and that it cannot end where the text ends. In this paper we have tried to answer this question based on epigraphic evidence found in the third tablet of the Aqht legend. After carefully examining four unique features of this tablet, we conclude that KTU 1.19 is, in fact, the last one of this specific sequence. We su...
This paper deals with tablet 16.265 that was found in the royal palace of Ugarit in 1952. About s... more This paper deals with tablet 16.265 that was found in the royal palace of Ugarit in 1952. About sixteen lines of this tablet are written in a form of a letter. Yet, an examination of the epigraphic features of the tablet and the content of the letter suggest that this tablet was used as a scribal exercise. We examine the poetic aspects of the text and suggest that this letter was written as a playful poetic letter that describes the training of the beginner royal scribe in Ugarit.
Seeking Out the Wisdom of the Ancients, 2005
ABSTRACT The study of parallel texts in Hebrew Scripture and the variations, small and great, bet... more ABSTRACT The study of parallel texts in Hebrew Scripture and the variations, small and great, between them has a long history. Scholars have called attention to two kinds of variations. The first kind of variation includes slight changes in the order of the elements, which results in a chiastic structure. The second kind of variation involves the substitution of alternate synonymous words and/ or phrases. 1 Assuming that the respective variations are significant on the level 1. Gershon Brin and Yair Hoffman, "Chiasmus in the Bible," in Moshe Zeidel Jubilee Vol-ume (Jerusalem: Israel Society of Biblical Research, 1962) 280–88 [Hebrew]; Avi Hurvitz, "Diachronic Chiasmus in Biblical Hebrew," in Studies in Bible and Jewish History in Memory of Jacob Liver (ed. Binyamin Uffenheimer; Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University Faculty of Humani-ties, 1971) 248–55 [Hebrew]; Yitzhak Avishur, "The Forms of Repetition of Numbers In-dicating Wholeness (3, 7, 10) in the Bible and in Ancient Semitic Literature," Beer Sheva 1 (1973) 1–55 [Hebrew], especially pp. 2–17 and 33–36; idem, Repetition and Parallelism in Biblical and Ancient Semitic Literatures (Tel Aviv–Jaffa: Archaeological Center Publications, 2002) [Hebrew]. Avishur deals with the phenomenon of word-for-word repetition in par-allel clauses and in the variations introduced when a given clause is repeated in a different context. Avishur attempts to account for the variations in repeated versets chronologically. See also Meir Paran, Repeated Proverbs and the Study of the Development of the Proverb (M.A. Thesis; Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1975) [Hebrew]; Paran also deals with the phe-nomenon in question frequently in his Forms of the Priestly Style in the Pentateuch (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1989) [Hebrew]. Likewise, Yair Zakovitch frequently provides important insights into the matter under discussion in his Literary Pattern of Three and Four in the Bible (Jerusa-lem: Makor, 1979) [Hebrew]. Adele Berlin examines the forms of stylistic variation in eleven psalms that share the common idea of God's hearkening to the prayer of the psalmist (The Dynamics of Biblical Parallelism [Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985] 127–30). She shows that the variation is accomplished in a variety of ways. See also Isaac Kalimi, The Author's note : This article is dedicated with great admiration to Professor Michael Fox in recognition of his tremendous contributions to biblical research and especially to the study of biblical wisdom literature.
Ve-’Ed Ya‘aleh (Gen 2:6), 2021
Ancient Near Eastern Studies, 2007
The evidence we present here leads to the inescapable conclusion that the Aramaic proverbs of Ahi... more The evidence we present here leads to the inescapable conclusion that the Aramaic proverbs of Ahiqar embody the rhetorical patterns and stylistic devices that constitute the literary legacy of the ancient Near East. Moreover, careful attention to the rhetorical patterns employed in a given aphorism is vital to uncovering the precise meaning of the aphorism. In addition, as we show, identification of the rhetorical pattern of a given aphorism frequently enables one to make the correct choice among the various suggestions that have been offered to fill in the lacunae in the damaged portions of the Aramaic Proverbs of Ahiqar recovered from Elephantine. In other words, the identification and analysis of the rhetorical patterns in the Proverbs of Ahiqar is not ancillary to the study of the corpus but central to the determination of the content and message of the wisdom of Ahiqar.
The "Better Proverb" is a rhetorical form found in ancient Near Eastern literatures, including th... more The "Better Proverb" is a rhetorical form found in ancient Near Eastern literatures, including the Bible, and in Rabbinic literature. In this paper we discuss the use of this form in Rabbinic literature, focusing on the developments and changes that occurred in the later literature. We will show that the rabbis were familiar with biblical rhetorical features, used them, and changed them if needed to meet their own rhetorical purposes and goals.
The study of parallel texts in Hebrew Scripture and the variations, small and great, between them... more The study of parallel texts in Hebrew Scripture and the variations, small and great, between them has a long history. Scholars have called attention to two kinds of variations. The first kind of variation includes slight changes in the order of the elements, which results in a chiastic structure. The second kind of variation involves the substitution of alternate synonymous words and/ or phrases. 1 Assuming that the respective variations are significant on the level 1.
Various types of repetition are commonly used in literary formulations, whether early or late, or... more Various types of repetition are commonly used in literary formulations, whether early or late, oral or written. The types of repetition in Biblical literature have been discussed extensively in the scholarly literature, and are also noted by the classical interpreters. This article will deal with one type of repetition, which has not yet been fully recognized. At most it has been briefly mentioned by a few scholars. This type, which I call ›Expanded Repetition Using the Construct‹ consists of repeating a word or a root one or more times. This repetition takes place both within a parallel phrase and outside of such phrases. In this type of repetition, a word which is used in one of the stitches in the verse is repeated 1 within a construct phrase, whether as the first or second word in that construct. For example, »Who is the king of glory? The Lord is a powerful and mighty one, The Lord is a mighty warrior« (Ps 24,8. Note that the phrase »mighty warrior« here is a construct phrase, viz., gibbôr milhamah, lit., »mighty one of war.«) In this verse, the word ›mighty‹ is used alone (i.e., outside of a construct phrase) immediately before the construct phrase, and is then used as the first word in the construct phrase. On other occasions, the relevant word is used as the second word in the construct phrase, for example, »The head upon you is like Carmel, the locks of your head are like purple« (Cant 7,6). In many cases, the order reverses itself such that the construct phrase comes before the single word. Examples of this are »Assist us O our Delivering God, for the sake of the honour of Your Name, and help us to atone for our sins for the sake of Your Name« (Ps 79,9) in which the second word of the construct is repeated as a single word, and »He turned to the prayer of the destitute (^ar^ar), and did not make light of their prayer« (Ps 102,18), in which it is the first word of the construct that is repeated.
This paper follows the development of concatenation from its early use in Ancient Near Eastern li... more This paper follows the development of concatenation from its early use in Ancient Near Eastern literature through its use in the Hebrew Bible, in Hebrew Ben-Sira, and ultimately in Rabbinic literature. We demonstrate that the Rabbis adopted this rhetorical pattern for stylistic purposes and also used it as an editing device. The latter use of the rhetorical device in question is only rarely attested in the Hebrew Bible.
Birkat Shalom (Shalom Paul Festschrift), 2008
Since it was found during the 24 th campaign (1961) at the Baal-Temple in the acropolis, this tab... more Since it was found during the 24 th campaign (1961) at the Baal-Temple in the acropolis, this tablet 1 has been much debated by scholars due to its epigraphic aspects and its relation to the Ugaritic mythology and rituals 2 . This article deals with the appearance of two miniscule words written between lines 7-8, and 8-9. Here is a facsimile of KTU 1.114, 7-10. 7 y®db . lḥm . lh . wdlyd®nn 3 "He makes food for him, but that he doesn't know; dmṣd 8 ylmn ḫṭm . tḥt . ṯlḥn He hits with sticks under the table. bq[?] 9 ®ṯtrt . w®nt . ymġy Aṯtartu and Anatu, He approaches them; 10 ®ṯtrt . t®db . nšb lh Aṯtartu makes cutlet(?) for him."
Old Testament Essays, 2018
The ambiguity in Isa 54:16a concerning the identity of the subject (YHWH or the smith) of the two... more The ambiguity in Isa 54:16a concerning the identity of the subject (YHWH or the smith) of the two verbs relating a metallurgical action (to blow and to cast) is identified here as a rhetorical device intending to conceal the essential relation of YHWH with metallurgy. Integrated in the whole Isa 54 chapter, this device becomes a plea for the definitive replacement of Edom with Israel as YHWH’S people, exactly as in Isa 34-35 and Isa 61-63.
Review of Rabbinic Judaism, 2016
This paper follows the use of numbers from the Bible and Ancient Near Eastern literature, through... more This paper follows the use of numbers from the Bible and Ancient Near Eastern literature, through the book of Ben-Sira, and ultimately to the Rabbinic literature. We show that the Rabbis were familiar with the Biblical use of numbers as rhetorical devices and used numbers in the same ways that the Bible did.
Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society, Sep 1, 2020
Journal of the American Oriental Society, 2016
One of the most famous stories in Ugaritic literature is the legend of Aqht that was found at Ras... more One of the most famous stories in Ugaritic literature is the legend of Aqht that was found at Ras Shamra, Syria, during the early 1930s. Written in Ugaritic script and spread over three worn and broken tablets, this text has been thoroughly studied for the past eighty years. More than a few studies have dealt with the following questions: Is the end of the known text in the third tablet really the end of the story? Or is there perhaps a missing tablet, or tablets, that continue the plot from the third tablet (KTU 1.19)? These questions have been answered on the basis of storyline and plot, and many believe that there must have been more contents that complete this story and that it cannot end where the text ends. In this paper we have tried to answer this question based on epigraphic evidence found in the third tablet of the Aqht legend. After carefully examining four unique features of this tablet, we conclude that KTU 1.19 is, in fact, the last one of this specific sequence. We su...
This paper deals with tablet 16.265 that was found in the royal palace of Ugarit in 1952. About s... more This paper deals with tablet 16.265 that was found in the royal palace of Ugarit in 1952. About sixteen lines of this tablet are written in a form of a letter. Yet, an examination of the epigraphic features of the tablet and the content of the letter suggest that this tablet was used as a scribal exercise. We examine the poetic aspects of the text and suggest that this letter was written as a playful poetic letter that describes the training of the beginner royal scribe in Ugarit.
Seeking Out the Wisdom of the Ancients, 2005
ABSTRACT The study of parallel texts in Hebrew Scripture and the variations, small and great, bet... more ABSTRACT The study of parallel texts in Hebrew Scripture and the variations, small and great, between them has a long history. Scholars have called attention to two kinds of variations. The first kind of variation includes slight changes in the order of the elements, which results in a chiastic structure. The second kind of variation involves the substitution of alternate synonymous words and/ or phrases. 1 Assuming that the respective variations are significant on the level 1. Gershon Brin and Yair Hoffman, "Chiasmus in the Bible," in Moshe Zeidel Jubilee Vol-ume (Jerusalem: Israel Society of Biblical Research, 1962) 280–88 [Hebrew]; Avi Hurvitz, "Diachronic Chiasmus in Biblical Hebrew," in Studies in Bible and Jewish History in Memory of Jacob Liver (ed. Binyamin Uffenheimer; Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University Faculty of Humani-ties, 1971) 248–55 [Hebrew]; Yitzhak Avishur, "The Forms of Repetition of Numbers In-dicating Wholeness (3, 7, 10) in the Bible and in Ancient Semitic Literature," Beer Sheva 1 (1973) 1–55 [Hebrew], especially pp. 2–17 and 33–36; idem, Repetition and Parallelism in Biblical and Ancient Semitic Literatures (Tel Aviv–Jaffa: Archaeological Center Publications, 2002) [Hebrew]. Avishur deals with the phenomenon of word-for-word repetition in par-allel clauses and in the variations introduced when a given clause is repeated in a different context. Avishur attempts to account for the variations in repeated versets chronologically. See also Meir Paran, Repeated Proverbs and the Study of the Development of the Proverb (M.A. Thesis; Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1975) [Hebrew]; Paran also deals with the phe-nomenon in question frequently in his Forms of the Priestly Style in the Pentateuch (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1989) [Hebrew]. Likewise, Yair Zakovitch frequently provides important insights into the matter under discussion in his Literary Pattern of Three and Four in the Bible (Jerusa-lem: Makor, 1979) [Hebrew]. Adele Berlin examines the forms of stylistic variation in eleven psalms that share the common idea of God's hearkening to the prayer of the psalmist (The Dynamics of Biblical Parallelism [Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985] 127–30). She shows that the variation is accomplished in a variety of ways. See also Isaac Kalimi, The Author's note : This article is dedicated with great admiration to Professor Michael Fox in recognition of his tremendous contributions to biblical research and especially to the study of biblical wisdom literature.
Ve-’Ed Ya‘aleh (Gen 2:6), 2021
השמיר, והכתב, והמכתב, והלוחות (משנה אבות ה, ו): המקרא באֹמֶר ובתמונה – כנס לכבוד פרישתו של פרופ'... more השמיר, והכתב, והמכתב, והלוחות (משנה אבות ה, ו):
המקרא באֹמֶר ובתמונה – כנס לכבוד פרישתו של פרופ' שמיר יונה לגמלאות
יום שלישי, כ"א באדר א' התשפ"ב, 22 במרץ 2022
אולם אורן (כנסים א'), אוניברסיטת בן-גוריון בנגב
Paper: Scripture Twice and Translation Once- Representations of Elijah the Prophet in Religious ... more Paper: Scripture Twice and Translation Once- Representations of Elijah the Prophet in Religious Art of 15th Century Europe
שניים מקרא ואחד תרגום: ייצוגים של אליהו הנביא באומנות דתית באירופה במאה החמש עשרה
