“Israel’s Covenant in Ancient Near Eastern Context,” Biblische Notizen 139 (2008) 5-18. (original) (raw)

Ancient Near Eastern Treaties/Loyalty Oaths and Biblical Law

The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Law, 2019

The chapter surveys evidence from West Asian and Mesopotamian sources, focusing on texts written in Akkadian, Aramaic, Hebrew, and Hittite. Although modern scholarship distinguishes international treaties from domestic loyalty oaths, the difference is not recognized in ancient Near Eastern documents. Both types of agreements are discussed under five headings: relationships between treaties and other legal documents; the concept of the vassal treaty; forms; ratification; and covenants with gods. Each heading points to areas of ongoing research and discussion. These include the administration of oaths; difficulties in identifying vassal treaties; origin and development of treaty forms; and motivations for producing treaty documents. Among issues relevant to biblical studies are links between treaties and dynastic promises; categorization of biblical treaty texts; the role of sacrifice; and connections between covenants and vows.

Ancient Near Eastern Treaty Traditions and Biblical Covenants: Recent Surveys

The Journal of Hebrew Scriptures, 2022

Three recent books survey ancient Near Eastern treaty texts and discuss their relevance to biblical covenants. Kitchen and Lawrence present the most extensive anthology now available. Altman tends to concentrate on Hittite diplomacy, while Charpin highlights evidence from Old Babylonian city-states. Taken together, they demonstrate that biblical scholars should bear in mind the flexibility of these political instruments when making comparisons to ancient Israel’s covenantal traditions.

Covenant and International Relations in the Ancient Near East: A Preliminary Exploration

To a great extent, ancient Near Eastern international relations operated within covenantal frameworks. In light of renewed interest in world history and the Near East in the discipline of International Relations, this article provides a preliminary exploration of the important practice of covenanting as an alternative account of balance- of-power dynamics. The notion, structure and diffusion of the covenant as a common practice have been discussed to great detail in other disciplines, such as, for example, Old Testament Studies. Dialogue with these studies will be pursued, but covenanting is here addressed also in some of its primary sources in light of the English School approach. As it turns out, the practice accounts for a number of peculiarities in alliance formation of the period. The preliminary findings are contrasted with alternative IR accounts of ancient Near Eastern power-balancing.

The covenant-making in Ex 1-18 on the background of the Ancient Near Eastern customs

T. JELONEK, R. BOGACZ, Między Biblią a kulturą, I, p. 9-32, 2011

This paper is a translation into English of the article: W. KOSEK, Zawarcie przymierza w Wj 1-18 na tle zwyczajów Bliskiego Wschodu, [in:] T. JELONEK, R. BOGACZ, Między Biblią a kulturą, I [Between the Bible and Culture, I], Krakow 2011, pp. 9-32. Abstract. This paper describes a 6-element structure of an ancient Hittite covenant treaty in light of its connection with a 4-element ancient rite of covenant-making. We showed some examples of scholars' works to illustrate difficulties in discovering the pattern of the suzerainty covenant Hittite treaty in the Holy Bible. The main aim of the article is to prove that the entirety of Ex 1-18 has the six-element structure of the Hittite covenant treaty. Ex 1-18 is the certificate of the covenant made (cut) by God and Israel in their passage between halves of the cut-waters of the Sea of Reeds-the covenant earlier than that made on the Mount Sinai.

Sophistic Interpretations and Greek Treaties

Greek Roman and Byzantine Studies, 2011

ATHS played an important role in Greek private and public life, and particularly in international relations. 1 No promise, contract, agreement, truce, or treaty had binding force without its validation by a sworn oath. 2 Oaths, however, not only validated agreements but also guaranteed them, for oaths were taken in the name of the gods who were thought to punish the perpetrators of perjury, bad faith, and oath breaking as well as their families and descendants. 3 To break an oath meant waging war with the gods, and even gods could suffer from committing perjury.4 Condemnation of mala .fides in international agreements is seen already in Homer, and oaths continued to be an indispensable component of treaties until the eighteenth century.5 So much is general knowledge. The books of Hirzel and Plescia, however, pay little attention to epigraphical evidence. Oaths preserved in inscribed treaties can include such words and phrases as a8oAw~, ou8E T€XYTI ou8E 1-'11Xavfj, and a8oAw~ Kat af3Aaf3€w~, whose functions have been only cursorily examined. 6 Are such phrases merely routine formulas confirming bona .fides, or does their inclu-1 The following will be cited by author's name alone: