Life After Death_ A History of the Afterlife in Western Religion - Alan Segal [453]
54. For a very full treatment of the correspondences and differences among the principal gods of the Middle East, see Mettinger, The Riddle of Resurrection. See especially his very intelligent discussion of Ugaritic Ba’al, Melqart-Heracles, Adonis, Eshmun-Asclepius, Dumuzi-Tammuz and the West Semitic gods.
55. The Hebrew root occurs in many ways-as mawet or mavvet (death), as well as the word met (dead).
56. See also Judg 6:25ff; 1 Kgs 15:13; 16:33; 81:19; 2 Kgs 13:6; 17:16; 18:4; 21:3-7; 23:4ff; 2 Chr 15:16.
57. See Pope’s Song of Songs.
58. See Grey, Near Eastern Mythology, pp. 70-75.
59. The first captivity, including the exile of King Jehoiachin, begins in 597 BCE. The city of Jerusalem was destroyed in 587, starting the second and greater exile to Babylonia. The year 539 is the usual dating for Edict of Cyrus to return to the land of Israel.
60. Stager and Wolff, “Child Sacrifice at Carthage;” Stager, “Carthage.”
61. See Mettinger, “The Riddle of Resurrection.”
62. Ibid., p. 58. But see the connection with the destruction of the idols in Josiah’s reign.
63. Grey, Near Eastern Mythology, p. 94.
64. See the interesting book by D. Wright, Ritual in Narrative, esp. pp. 100-22.
65. See, for example, Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures, pp. 142-69; Bell, Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice, pp. 33-55; also see Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions, pp. 115-20. Perhaps Peacock, Rites of Modernization can be seen to be relevant with allowances for the difficulty in applying the term “modernization” to this context. The epic story however does have implications for social and symbolic appreciation of the predicament of mortality.
66. D. Wright, Ritual in Narrative, pp. 118ff.
67. See Douglas, Purity and Danger; “The Contempt of Ritual;” “Deciphering a Meal.”
68. The Passover seder, based as it is on a similar Greek drinking party called a “symposium,” which implicitly has similar family functions, is a pale reflection in terms of the behaviors that were typical at these banquets.
69. See, for example, the three volume study of Psalms for the Anchor Bible by Mitchell Dahood, which claims that the Israelite notion of a beatific afterlife is based on Ugaritic parallels. There seems to be little or no beatific afterlife in Ugarit and, as we shall see, little that can be said about Hebrew views of the afterlife.
70. J. Z. Smith, “Dying and Rising Gods;” Drudgery Divine. Also see M. S. Smith, “Dying and Rising Gods.”
71. See the different discussion of Mettinger, “The Riddle of Resurrection.”
72. However, see McLaughlin, marzeaḥ in the Prophetic Literature, who disputes Spronk’s and Pope’s interpretation of the texts, trying to disconnect the marzeaḥ practice from funerals and also disputing that the word za’atar refers to the herb in this context.
73. In this section, I am indebted, both for the translation and the organization of the material, to the fine work of Spronk, Beatific Afterlife in Ancient Israel, esp. pp. 145-202.
74. Hallote, Death, Burial, and Aferlife, pp. 12, 60.
75. For complete bibliography on the marzeaḥ or, more properly, the marziḥ in Ugaritic, see T. Lewis, Cults of the Dead.
76. An exhaustive study of the phenomenon can be found in Pope’s commentary to Song of Songs. See esp. pp. 210-29. He does not discuss the origins-that is merely a logical inference-but it is supported by J. Armstrong, Alcohol and Altered States.
77. See Pardee, Ritual and Cult at Ugarit, pp. 192-210; it is the expanded and translated version of the book in the previous note.
78. Nut-tree gardens are Jewish symbols for mystical practices as well. As difficult as it may be to believe at first, there is a historical relationship between these two phenomena through Song of Songs.
79. See Cross, “The Divine Warrior” in Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, pp. 91-111, esp. p. 102.
80. Finkelstein and Silberman, The Bible Unearthed.
81. Lapp, “If a Man Die,” p. 145.
Chapter 3. The First Temple Period in Israel
1. Damrosch, The Narrative Covenant.
2. Hallote, Death, Burial, and