Life After Death_ A History of the Afterlife in Western Religion - Alan Segal [72]
The identity of the rp’um is heavily contested. The best guess links them with deified or transformed dead ancestors, similar to the ’il’ib:
Shapash, you rule the rp’um, Shapash you rule the ghosts;
Let the deities be your company, behold let the dead be your company (KTU 1.6:VI.45-49)
The dead (mtm), the deities (’ilm), the ghosts (’ilnym) and the rp’um are related to each other through parallel structure, as is conventional in Near Eastern poetry. Like Ra, Utu, Shamash and Ba’al, Shapash the sun goddess interceded between the living and the dead because at night she crossed the realm of the dead on her way back to the east for dawn. So it seems clear from the parallelism that the rp’um participated in all the underworld categories-dead, gods, ancestors, ghosts. The identification is borne out in many other ways too.
The full context of KTU 1.21 shows how Ba’al would heal the dead:
“Come into the house of my marzeaḥ, go into my house for the rp’um
I invite you [into] my [hou]se, I call [you into] my [pa]lace.
May the rp’um flutter to the holy place, may the ghosts flutter [to] the holy place, [May they come into the house of my] marzeaḥ.
Then he will he[al you], the shepherd will [give you life again],
Now I will go [one day and a second], [on the] third day I will arrive at the day I will arrive at the house, [I will come in]to my palace.”
And Dan’el said: “[Come into the house of] my [marzeaḥ], go into my house for the rp’um.
[I invite you [into my house], I call you [into] my [pala]ce,
May the rp’um [flutter] to the holy place, may the gh[osts] flutter [to the holy] place.”
The best reconstruction of the scene is probably that Ba’al spoke the first lines, to command the activity, and Dan’el made the full invitation to the rp’um. This was Dan’el, the father of Aqhat, the Canaanite hero and namesake of the prophet Daniel whose oracles attest to resurrection for the first time in Israelite thought. The rp’um were invited to come to the house of Dan’el’s marzeaḥ, also called “a house for the rp’um.” We have seen that marzeaḥ was a cultic meal and drinking party, defining an association of orgiasts, whose partying evidently included sexual entertainments, held in commemoration of the dead, as we see from several quite explicit graffiti.75 The source of the ritual may simply have been to provide lavish and royal entertainment for the arrival of dead, regarded as distant and much beloved guests. But the excessive drinking may also have stimulated altered states of consciousness.76
Whether or not a marzeaḥ was a funeral wake, it could have been celebrated in remembrance of the honored dead. A god, Rapiu, evidently the leader of the rp’im was described as “King of Eternity.”77 It may be that Rapiu was often identified with ’El, who was depicted in another fragment as getting drunk at a marzeaḥ. At other times, the god of the rp’m seems closest to Ba’al. In any event, his strength, power, might and rule were the qualities sought at the marzeaḥ.
This is explicitly the sort of immortality that Ba’al offered his heroes when he returned to take up rule in the fall. The participants in the meal included human celebrants, and the divine who comprised, in the lowest ranks, these transformed dead:
[ ] may the [rp]’um take part in the sacrifice, [ ] may the ghosts [be str]engthened; [may they e]at like the dead of the dead
[May they draw] near and enter the company; may they [ ] on the day of the summer fruit.
May [the gho]sts eat, [yea,] may the [rp’]um drink.
[May they descend,] the god of the nut-trees, [the goddess] who is sitting on a twig.
[I have sacrifi]ced the sacrifice of Amurru, [ ] day [ ].
(KTU 1.20: I)
The day of the summer fruit suggests that this was part of the fall harvest New Year festival. The crops would include quintessentially