1—
The Patriarchal Stories in the Light of Greek Foundation Stories
As is well known, most of the genres of biblical literature have their counterparts in the ancient Near East. Creation stories, genealogies, legal codes, cultic instructions, temple-building accounts, royal annals, prophecies, psalms, wisdom literature of various kinds—all are widely attested in the cognate literatures from Mesopotamia, the Hittites, and the Egyptians. The only genre lacking such counterparts is that of stories about the beginning of the nation and its settlement, which are so boldly represented in the Patriarchal narratives and the accounts of the Exodus and the conquest of the Land. The contrast is especially striking when we compare the first eleven chapters of Genesis with the rest of the book. In Gen. 1–11 we find stories of creation, the flood story, and lists of world ancestors before and after the flood—literary types all well established in Mesopotamian literature. From chapter 12 onward, however, no parallel with the ancient Near East can be shown—not in content, of course, which reflects the particular nature of Israel, but also not in form. This kind of storytelling might be expected in the great cultures of the ancient Near East, but we look for it in vain. The lack of this genre is quite understandable given that, unlike Israel, the large autochthonous cultures were not cognizant of a beginning of their national existence.
On the other hand, this genre would be expected in the Greek sphere, which like Israel was based on colonization and founding of new sites. That the genre of foundation stories was widely popular in the Greek world may be learned from Plato's Hippias Maior (285D), where, in response to Socrates' question about what the people liked to hear most, the Sophist replies, "stories about heroes and foundation of cities." I have long suspected that this genre of Israelite literature had much in common with the Greek milieu, especially since this type of storytelling, including the David Court story, crystalized in the Davidic period, when there were contacts with elements originating in the Greek sphere, such as Krethi and Plethi.
My thoughts on this problem took further shape when, more than ten years ago, I participated in a seminar on the Aeneid conducted by the late H. Wirszubsky. What concerned me especially in the seminar discussion was the central idea of the work: the mission of Aeneas to found a city that would rule the world, an idea strikingly similar to that found in the book of Genesis, in which Abraham and his seed are to become, like Aeneas, a great nation (gôy gadol[*] : Gen. 12:1 ff.) that will rule peoples (Gen. 27:29).
I have been pondering this question ever since. I had the feeling that the composition of the patriarchal stories is based on a model similar to that of Aeneas. Because the Aeneid is modeled on foundation stories prevalent in Greek colonies, the so-called Ktisissagen , I saw in the patriarchal stories, with their promises for the inheritance of the land of Canaan, a reflection of the same genre.[1]
[1] One must consider, of course, that many different stories had circulated before the epic of Virgil took its present form (see below). However, because we are concerned with the typology of the epic rather than its historical development, we have chosen as a point of departure for this study the richest and most elaborate foundation story, that of Virgil.
The antiquity of the connection between Aeneas and Rome is evident in Hesiod: the tale about the birth of Aeneas is followed by the fate about the birth of Latinus (Theogony 1008 ff.).
The typological model investigated here is also reflected in the Greektraditions about the return of the Heraklidai (the Dorian migration), in which we find the same motifs: promised land, exile for several generations, and divine guidance. But here, too, we have only fragmentary evidence, not a crystalized epic comparable to the Patriarchal narratives.
C. H. Gordon ("Vergil and the Near East," Ugaritica 7 [1969], pp. 266–88) adduces a range of parallels, from Abraham to Jesus, to show affinities between the Aeneids, the Bible, and the ancient Near East. He provides a list of common motifs, such as the tree of life (cf. Aen. 6:138 f.); the master who ties his yoked team with reins of vine-leaves (Aen. 6:804 f.; compare Gen. 49:11; CTA 19; II:53–55 = Aqht ); and the offering of seven sacrificial bullocks (Aen. 6:38 f.; compare Num. 23:4, 14, 29). However, in the absence of integration and critical analysis of the material he adduces, his thesis is unconvincing.
I was pleased to discover that one of my colleagues at the University of Tel Aviv, Jacob Licht, was elaborating a similar idea and applying it to the Exodus–Sinai cycle. He suggested that I publish his thesis in a journal I edited, Shnaton 4 (1980), which I was eager to do. Licht's point of departure was Deut. 27:9: "Today you have become the people of the Lord your God," which he took as a proclamation of establishment. He rightly connected it with the foundation stories so widespread in the Greek world and so boldly expressed in the Roman epic of Virgil. Both Licht and I drew the same analogy, though from different points of departure: I was asking about the patriarchal promises, while he was interested in the Exodus-Covenant traditions. The two approaches could be combined, as they are in the Pentateuch itself, but my main focus in this book is the Aeneas-Abraham analogy.
In chapter 2, I compare the pattern of Israelite settlement to the pattern of foundation of colonies in the Greek world.[2] Here, however, I concentrate on a typological comparison of the Patriarchal traditions with the rich traditions concerning the ancestors of ancient Rome, beginning with the roles of the ancestor in both cultures.
[2] First published in my article, "The Pattern of the Israelite Settlement in Canaan," in Congress Volume, Jerusalem 1986 , ed. by J. A. Emerton, pp. 270–83 (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum 40; Leiden, 1988).
1—
A Man Leaving a Great Civilization and Charged with a Universal Mission
Aeneas leaves famous Troy and stays for a while in Carthage, which later becomes Rome's great enemy; finally, his son Ascanius reaches Lavinium, and later his son gets to Alba-Longa.[3] His descendants reach Rome, which is destined to rule the world.[4] Similarly, Abraham leaves the great civilization of Mesopotamia, Ur of the Chaldaeans,[5]
[3] Virgil begins the poem with a reference to Lavinium (Aen . 1:2–3), but when Aeneas's destination is named, it is the Tiber (2:781–82; cf. 7:157 ff.). In Aen . 1:267 ff., Jupiter proclaims that Lavinium will be sedes regni for thirty years, but then the reign will shift to Alba-Longa. On the whole problem, cf. recently G. K. Galinsky, Aeneas, Sicily and Rome (Princeton, 1969), pp. 141 ff.
[4] "You shall see Lavinium's city and its promised walls, and you shall raise on high to the starry heavens . . . your son . . . shall crush proud nations . . ." (Aen . 1:57 ff.); "from this noble line shall be born the Trojan Caesar who shall limit his empire with ocean, his glory with the stars . . . welcome to heaven, laden with Eastern spoils" (1:286 ff.); "there the house of Aeneas shall rule over all lands" (3:97); "he was to rule over Italy, a land teeming with empire . . . to head on a race from Teucer's noble blood and bring all the world beneath his laws" (4:229 ff.); "remember, you, O Roman, to rule the nations with your sway . . . to impose peace with law . . . " (6:775 ff.).
[5] Gen. 11:28–31; 15:7; Neh. 9:7. This is an anachronism, because the Chaldaeans appear in the Mesopotamian documents for the first time in the ninth century B.C.E. , and they became rulers of Babylon only in the seventh and sixth centuries. The city of Ur, however, was already known in the third millennium as the center of a great Sumerian empire that reached its peak during the third dynasty of Ur (twenty-first–twentieth centuries B.C.E. ). It seems that in the original version of the Patriarchal narratives the Patriarchs came from Haran; Ur of the Chaldaeans, as the place of their origin, was incorporated in a later stage. In fact, according to the ancient (J) layer of the Patriarchal stories, Abraham received the call to leave his homeland (Gen. 12:1) in Haran (cf. Gen. 11:31b–32) and not in 'Ur Kasdim ; see my forthcoming commentary on Genesis. From the point of view of typology and pattern, which is the main point of our study, Ur and Haran serve the same purpose: to indicate that the father of the nation comes from a known civilization. Both Ur and Haran served as great centers of culture, and both were associated with the worship of the moongod Sin.
stays for a while in Aram, which later becomes Israel's enemy, and reaches Canaan, the Land of promise, out of which his descendants will rule other peoples.[6]
In both cases we have examples of an ethnic tradition later developed into an imperial ideology; in both, we are presented with a divine promise given to the father of a nation who later becomes a messenger for a world mission. The ancient traditions of Israel, originally bound to the settlement in Canaan, were applied during the Davidic period to the rule of an empire, stretching from the Euphrates to the River of Egypt (Gen. 15:18).[7] By the same token, the traditions about settlement in Latium were applied, during the time of Augustus, to the Roman Empire—Aeneas became not only the father of Rome itself but also a prefiguration of the ruler of the entire world. The prophecy of Poseidon in the Iliad 20:307 that Aeneas will rule over the Trojans,
Before us, then, lies a typological parallel: a man escapes the
[6] "I make you the father of a multitude of nations" (Gen. 17:5); "peoples shall serve you and nations bow down to you" (Gen. 27:29); "and the homage of peoples be his" (Gen. 49:10); cf. also Gen. 12:3 and parallels.
[7] For gôy gadôl implying the Davidic empire, see my article, "The Old Testament: The Discipline and Its Goals," in Congress Volume, Vienna 1980 , ed. by J. A. Emerton, pp. 423–34 (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum 32; Leiden, 1981). For the Davidic background of the Patriarchal stories, see B. Mazar, "The Historical Background of the Book of Genesis," in JNES 28 (1969), pp. 73–83.
land of a major civilization and departs with his wife and his father—Abraham with Sarah and Terah; Aeneas with his wife, Creusa, his father, Anchises, and his son, Ascanius[9] —in order to establish a new nation and a new culture. This concept is well expressed by the prophets: "Abraham was but one man, yet he possessed the land" (Ezek. 33:25), and "Look back to Abraham your father . . . for he was only one when I called him, but I blessed him and made him many" (Isa. 51:2). It is interesting that just as Isa. 51:2 and later Jewish tradition refer to Abraham as "father," Virgil calls Aeneas " pater " (e.g., 2:2).
2—
Gap between Migration of the Ancestor and the Actual Foundation
The Israelites were aware that many years intervened between the promise given the ancestor at the beginning of his migration and the realization of the promise. This lengthy gap is invoked when Abraham is told that 400 or 430 years will pass before his descendants will inherit the promised land (Gen. 15:13; cf. Exod. 12:41). Similarly, Aeneas is told, in the prophecy of Jupiter (1:270 ff.), that 333 years will pass before the birth of the twins—in other words, before the foundation of Rome.[10] The lengthy interval between the stories about the first heroes and the real foundation of the oikist (see below) existed in both cultures.[11] The older Romulus
[9] Creusa died on Aeneas's way from Troy (2:735 ff.), which can be compared with Rachel's death on Jacob's way from Aram (Gen. 35:16–20; 48:7). For the Jacob cycle as paralleling the Abraham cycle, see below.
Aeneas bearing his father from Troy, and accompanied by his wife and a son is represented in many base paintings and statuettes of Etruscan origin; cf. R. G. Austin, P. Vergili Maronis Aeneidos II (Oxford, 1964), pp. 286 ff. See the discussion of N. M. Horsfall, "Enea," in Encyclopedia Virgiliana 2 (Rome 1985), pp. 221–29.
[10] Cf. N. M. Horsfall, "Virgil's Roman Chronography," Classical Quarterly 24 (1974), pp. 111–16.
[11] Cf. S. A. Brinkman, "The Foundation Legends in Vergil," Classical Journal 54 (1958–59), pp. 25–33. See, recently, A. Momigliano, "How to Reconcile Greeks and Trojans?" in Mededelingen der Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen. Afd. Letterkunde N. S. 45/9 (Amsterdam, 1982), pp. 231–54.
story was basically a Latin account, while the Aeneas version had its source in the writings of the Greek poets; during the course of the third century, the Aeneas and Romulus legends began to be combined, and to fill the 400-year lacuna after the supposed landing of Aeneas, a long Trojan dynasty was invoked.
A similar situation is encountered in ancient Israel: the birth of the nation is anchored—according to tradition—in the Exodus and the conquest of Canaan, but the remote ancestor of Israel was sought in Ur and in Aram Naharaim,[12] ancient civilizations on the Euphrates. In late Rome, as well as in later Israel, there was a historical awareness of the chronological gap between the two stages of origin. Aeneas could not personally be considered the founder of Rome, because the destruction of Troy was known on the basis of genealogies to have taken place several hundred years before Rome was founded.[13] The Israelites, too, had been aware of the chronological and historical gap between the Exodus and the conquest of Canaan, on the one hand, and the period of their remote ancestors, on the other. Thus we find in 1 Chron. 7:25–27 ten generations between Ephraim and Joshua, and not four generations as in the Pentateuchal stories. Similar inconsistencies exist in the Roman traditions about Aeneas.[14]
[12] For Haran and Nahor as important centers in Upper Mesopotamia at the beginning of the second millennium B.C.E. , cf., recently, R. De Vaux, Histoire ancienne d'Israel 1 (Paris, 1971), pp. 188–90 and the references there.
[13] Cf. D. Asheri, "The Dating of the Fall of Troy in Greek Historiography from Herodotus to Timaeus," in A. Rofé and Y. Zakovitch, eds., Isaac Leo Seeligman Volume: Essays on the Bible and the Ancient World 2 (Jerusalem, 1983), pp. 509–23 (Hebrew).
[14] According to the Sicilian historian Alcimus (fourth century B.C.E. ), Romulus, who was the son of Aeneas, had a daughter named Alba, whose son Romus founded Rome (cf. T. S. Cornell, "Aeneas and the Twins: The Development of the Roman Foundation Legend," Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 21 (1975), p. 7), but according to Dionysius of Halicarnassus (1:9:4), there were sixteen generations between Aeneas and Romulus.
Abraham in Israel and Aeneas in Rome belonged, then, to the legendary stage of tradition, in contrast to the actual historical stage of settlement.
Furthermore, just as the Romans adopted the Trojan Aeneas legend from the Greeks, as has been demonstrated by the artifacts from Etruria and by the adoption of the Trojan Penates,[15] the Genesis traditions about the nomadic ancestors of Israel in the Syro-Palestinian area, as well as the traditions about their El-worship in Canaan, seem to have been adopted from peoples who lived in the region before the settlement of the Israelite tribes.[16] As is well known, the Pentateuchal traditions themselves attest that the Patriarchs did not know Yahweh, the name of the national God of Israel (Exod. 6:3 ff., cf. Exod. 3:13–15).
The very name Jacob may prove the local nature of the patriarchal traditions. R. Weill has hypothesized that the Israelites received the stories about Jacob—a name known to us as a prince of the Hyksos dynasty, Yaqob-hr —from the Canaanites.[17] This theory has recently been confirmed by A. Kempinski on the basis of an investigation of the scarab found in Shiqmonah, inscribed with the name Yaqob-hr.[18] Thus, it appears that the Israelites received from the Canaanites the legends about Jacob who went down to Egypt with the Hyksos.
[15] Cf. Galinsky, Aeneas (n. 3), list of illustrations, pp. xiii–xxii, 154 ff., and plates. Cf., most recently, Enea nel Lazio, Archeologia e mito: bimillenario virgiliano (Rome, 1981). I am indebted to Prof. D. Asheri for the reference to this book.
[16] Cf. F. M. Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic (Cambridge, Mass., 1973), pp. 1–75.
[17] R. Weill, La fin du Moyen Empire égyptien (Paris, 1918), pp. 188–91.
[18] A. Kempinski, "Some Observations on the Hyksos (15th) Dynasty and Its Canaanite Origins," in S. I. Groll, ed., Pharaonic Egypt, the Bible and Christianity (Jerusalem, 1985), pp. 129–37; J. Elgavish, "Shiqmonah," Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land 4 (Jerusalem, 1978), col. 1101.
From a purely historical view, the patriarchal age reflects the history of the Syro-Palestinian nomads, which was later adopted by the Israelites and incorporated into their national history. By the same token, the stories about Aeneas have nothing to do with the history of Rome proper but were adopted by the Romans after contact with the Greeks of Magna Graecia.
3—
Promise at Stake
When Jacob is endangered by the threat of Esau's advancing army, he prays: "Save me from my brother Esau; else I fear he may come and strike me down . . . yet, you have said . . . I will make your offspring as the sand of the sea" (Gen. 32:12–13). Similarly, we read in the Aeneid epic that when Aeneas was endangered by the sea storms Venus intervened on his behalf and prayed to Jupiter: "O you . . . who [rule] the world of men and gods, what crime . . . could my Aeneas have done. . . . Surely it was your promise . . . that from them the Romans were to rise . . . rulers to hold the sea and all lands beneath their sway, what thought . . . has turned you?" (1:229 ff).
The promise is seen, then, in Israel, as well as in the Roman epic, as something that could not be taken back: a divine commitment not to be violated (cf. Exod. 32:11–14).[19] Connected with the promise at stake are the omens that point to certain difficulties in the realization of the divine promise. An example in the Aeneid is the episode of the birds of prey at the sacrificial table: when Aeneas and his men sit at the table with Jupiter, the Harpies (raptors) fall upon the table and with their unclean touch contaminate the dish. Aeneas's comrades drive them away with their swords (3:22 ff.). The onslaught of the Harpies was considered a bad omen, and indeed, after this event the seer Celaens predicts that before Aeneas will finish
[19] For the importance of the divine promise of the land in Greek colonization, see Chapter 2.
building the promised city, famine will overtake him and his men.[20] A similar phenomenon is encountered in Gen. 15: when Abraham is cutting the pieces of the sacrificial animals of the Covenant, birds of prey come down upon the carcasses, and Abraham drives them away.[21] Immediately afterward, he is informed that his descendants will be enslaved and oppressed in Egypt before they will reach the promised land (Gen. 15:13).
4—
The Pious Ancestor
Abraham is described as God-fearing (yr' 'lhym[*] , Gen. 22:12), "walking before the Lord" (24:40), and "listening to his voice" (22:8; 26:5; cf. 17:1), much like David, who is depicted as "walking before God with righteousness and perfection" (1 Kings 3:6; 9:4; 14:8; 15:3; cf. Ps. 132:1; 2 Chron 6:42). It was these moral-religious qualities that made Abraham and David worthy of God's promise for land and kingdom, respectively. Both promises—and only these promises—are defined as hbrytwhhsd[*] "the covenant of grace." Furthermore, in connection with the promise of descendants we also find identical phraseology not attested elsewhere: "One of your own issue," 'sr ys' mm'yk[*] , in 2 Sam. 7:12 and Gen. 15:4.[22] The considerable overlap between the two figures has been noted, and, as I have suggested elsewhere,
[20] The religious nature of the banquet is reflected in Aen . 3:222: "Calling gods and Jove himself to share . . ." and in l. 231: "we spread the tables and renewed the fire of the altars."
The appearance of harpies and hawks as a bad omen during foundation and colonization is indicated in Callimachus, Aetia 2:43: "they were building the walls of the city without guarding themselves against the harpasos . . . for it has an evil influence . . . the wings of a hawk . . . if you ever lead a people to a colony [in a foreign land]. . . ."
[21] For the sacrificial nature of the cut animals in Gen. 15, cf. S. E. Loewenstamm, "Zur Traditionsgeschichte des Bundes zwischen den Stücken," VT 18 (1968), pp. 500 ff.
[22] On the Abrahamic and Davidic covenants and their affinities, see below, chapter 9.
Abraham the warrior in Gen. 14 behaves quite similarly to David the warrior in 1 Sam. 30.[23] The suggestion that Abraham is a retrojection of David seems quite plausible, therefore.
The same phenomenon is encountered in Virgil's Aeneid. As Galinsky has suggested, the image of pious Aeneas is a back projection from pious Augustus.[24] Like the Abraham-David imagery in Israel, the Aeneas-Augustus imagery in Rome reflects a later stage of the crystallization of the story. As is well known, the Abraham cycle in Genesis represents a later stage than the Jacob cycle, which appears to be closer to the original tradition and less fragmentary than the Abrahamic stories.[25] The Jacob stories contain motifs that are even closer to the foundation traditions of the Greek-Roman world.
5—
The Ancestral Gods
Let us first consider the motif of the ancestral gods transferred to the newly founded site, a motif of extremely ancient origin both in Israel and in the Greek-Roman world. In the journey of Aeneas to Latium, the di penates , the Numina guardians of the family, play an important role.[26] They already appear in the accounts of Hellanicus (fifth century B.C.E. ) and Timaeus (third century B.C.E. ), and in Virgil's poem, bringing the gods to Italy appears as the purpose of Aeneas's journey (1:6): "Till he should build a city and bring his gods to Latium" (1:5–6). Troy commits the sancta and the Penates to Aeneas's case in order to find for them the city that he shall at last establish (2:293 ff.); the Penates accompany Aeneas and comfort him, as is appropriate for tutelary gods (3:147 ff.).
[23] See my short commentary on Genesis, (Tel Aviv, 1975), pp. 68–69 (Hebrew), and cf. recently Y. Muffs, "Abraham the Noble Warrior" Journal of Jewish Studies 33 (1982), pp. 81–108.
[24] Galinsky, Aeneas (n. 3), pp. 3 ff.
[25] Cf. Z. Weisman, The Narrative Cycle of the Jacob Stories and their Integration in the History of the Nation (Jerusalem, 1986) (Hebrew).
[26] On the Penates and their becoming the ancestral gods of Rome, see Galinsky, Aeneas (n. 3), pp. 148 ff.
Next to Aeneas on the Etruscan amphora of the fifth century B.C.E. is the figure of a woman—his wife, Creusa—carrying an object shaped like a cushion with stripes, which apparently contained the Trojan sacra.[27] This image reminds us of how Rachel, Jacob's wife, takes with her the teraphim (protective family numina) in order to bring them to the new land (Gen. 31:19, 34).[28] Indeed, Josephus recounts a story of a woman taking with her the ancestral images of the gods belonging to her husband, and he adds that it was the custom to take along these objects of worship when going abroad (Ant. 18:344).[29]
Furthermore, according to Plutarch (Camillus 20:6 ff.), the sacra of Troy were stolen by Aeneas, much as the teraphim were stolen by Rachel (Gen. 31:19, 34), another parallel that brings the analogy even closer. The Danites, too, on their way to the new territory in the north, steal the teraphim from Micah's house (Judg. 18:4 ff.).[30] The theft of the sacra from Troy is prevalent in the various traditions about Aeneas (cf., e.g., Dionys. Hal. 1:69:3), which may explain the importance of the thefts of the teraphim by Rachel, on her way to the new land, and by the Danites, when they were leaving to settle their new territory. One should add to the Danite story another motif that belongs to the ktisis pattern: in the Aeneas tradition, we find that six hundred men took care of the Penates in Lavinium (Dionys. Hal. 1:67:2). Similarly, in Judg.
[27] Ibid., fig. 45b. Cf. N. M. Horsfall, "Steischorus at Bovillae," JHS 99 (1979), p. 40.
[28] On the teraphim, see, recently, H. Rouillard and J. Tropper, "trpym , rituels de guerison et culte des ancêtres d'après 1 Sam. 19:11–17 et les textes parallèles d'Assur et de Nuzi," VT 37 (1987), pp. 340–61.
[29] Cf. M. Greenberg, "Another Look at Rachel's Theft of the Teraphim," JBL 81 (1962), pp. 239–48.
[30] It is interesting to note that in both stories we find similar reactions toward the stealing of the "gods." The Israelite narrator, who is critical of the institution of teraphim , reacts in a sarcastic manner: "Why did you steal my gods?" (Gen. 31:30); "You have taken . . . the gods that I made" (Judg. 18:24).
18:16 we find that six hundred Danites guarded the men who took the teraphim.
The story about the settlement of the Danites reflects, then, the pattern of the foundation of a new city, a pattern shared by Israel and Greek world. In later Israel, when the motif of carrying the ancestral gods was blurred because of theological developments, we do not find it in the later Abrahamic cycle, which became dominant in the Patriarchal stories. In the older Jacobic cycle, however, the topic of ancestral gods survived not only as teraphim: in Gen. 31:53 we find Laban and Jacob relying on the judgment of the ancestral deities, 'lhy 'byhm[*] , which may have been embodied in the teraphim, Rachel's theft of which was mentioned a few verses earlier.[31]
I would argue that both the "foreign gods" (elohey nekar ) hidden by Jacob when he arrived at Shechem (Gen. 35:4) and the "foreign gods" removed by Joshua in Shechem (Josh. 24:23) should be identified with the teraphim brought from "beyond the river," where the Hebrews had worshipped "foreign gods," as stated by Joshua: "your forefathers [Terah and Nahor] lived beyond the river and worshipped other gods." Indeed, Joshua asks the people at the gathering in Shechem: "Choose this day which ones you are going to worship: the gods that your forefathers worshipped beyond the river or those of the Amorites . . . but I and my household will worship the Lord" (24:15). Like the Penates in Rome, which constituted the chief private cult of every Roman household and also served as the royal di penates (like the royal Vesta) and the Penates publici ,[32] the teraphim served as a house cult (cf. 1 Sam. 19:13–16) and in official worship as well (Hosea 3:4; cf. Judges 17:5; 18:14–17; 18:20).
In the ancient traditions, the teraphim appear as a legitimate
[31] In Akkadian the ancestral gods are also called ilani[*] ; cf. A. E. Draffkorn and Kilmer, "Ilani[*] /Elohim," JBL 76 (1957), pp. 216–224.
[32] Cf. S. Weinstock, "Penates," in col. 429; A. Alföldi, Early Rome and the Latins (Ann Arbor, 1966), p. 246 ff.
cultic object, as may be learned from 1 Sam. 19:13–16, in which we find the teraphim in David's house. Furthermore, it seems that they were kept in the same manner as were the Penates: on the Etruscan amphora of the fifth century B.C.E. we find Creusa carrying the Penates in an object shaped like a cushion, and in 1 Sam. 19:13–16 we read that Michal put the teraphim in David's bed with a goat's-hair cushion (kebir ) at the head—apparently, Michal took the teraphim out of the cover in which they were stored and, in order to create the impression that David was lying in bed, put the teraphim in the bed with its cover, in the shape of a cushion, at its head.[33] That the teraphim were kept in something similar to a cushion may be deduced from the fact that Rachel hid them in the cushion of a camel (Gen. 31:34): the cushion of the teraphim could be mistaken for the riding cushion of the camel.
6—
The Burial Place of the Founder
According to the Jacobic cycle, Shechem was the foundation city where the ancestral gods were hidden and was also the location of Jacob's and Joseph's tombs (Gen. 50:5; cf. 33:19; Josh. 24:32). As has been first suggested by C. Bruston, and later elaborated by S. E. Loewenstamm, according to the old genuine tradition Jacob and Joseph were buried in Shechem, the cradle of the northern Patriarchal tradition (Gen. 50:5), while Abraham was buried in Hebron (Gen. 23).[34] It was the later priestly editor who transferred the burial places of all three patriarchs to Hebron, the former capital of Judah. Indeed, according to the Abrahamic cycle, in which Hebron plays a central role that was superimposed upon the Jacobic cycle, all three patriarchs
[33] Compare 2 Kings 8:15: "he took the mkbr [quilt/cushion] and after dipping it in water, laid it over the king's face and so [Ben-Hadad] died," which means that he suffocated him with his pillow.
[34] C. Bruston, "La Mort et la sépulture de Jacob," ZAW 7 (1887), p. 205; S. E. Loewenstamm, "The Death of the Patriarchs in Genesis," From Babylon to Canaan: Studies in the Bible and Its Oriental Baçkground (Jerusalem, 1992), pp. 78–108.
were buried in Hebron; the old tradition about Jacob providing himself with a tomb in Shechem, however, is clearly attested in Gen. 50:5 (cf. 33:19).
The tomb of the hero played a very important role in the Greek world;[35] a heroon , in other words, a tomb of Aeneas, is mentioned by Dionysius of Halicarnassus (1:64:3) as existing in his own days in Lavinium.[36] Furthermore, as in Israel, where we find a rivalry between Shechem and Hebron concerning the tomb of Jacob, in Rome we are told by Dionysius of Halicarnassus that "though one place received the body of Aeneas, the tombs were many . . .; he was honored with shrines in many places" (1:54:1). This emphasis on the place of burial explains the importance attached to the tombs of the Patriarchs in Shechem (Gen. 33:19; cf. Josh. 24:32) and in Hebron (Gen. 23).
The transfer of the bones of the hero from a foreign country, which is attested in connection with Jacob and Joseph (Gen. 47:30; 50:25; cf. Exod. 14:19; Josh. 24:32), was also an important matter with the Greek founders. As the bones of Joseph, the ancestor of Joshua, were brought from Egypt to Shechem, we read in Plutarch that the bones of Theseus, the national hero of Athens, were brought from the island of Skyros to Athens (Plutarch: Theseus 36). Similarly, we learn in Herodotus that the bones of Orestes, the son of Agamemnon, were sought by the Spartans and brought to Sparta (1:67–68).[37]
7—
Canaan versus Aram, Rome versus Carthage
An important theme in the Aeneid is the tension between Rome and
[35] Cf. Herodotus 6:38; Thucydides 5:2:1, and see below, pp. 32–34.
[36] Cf. G. K. Galinsky, "The 'Tomb of Aeneas' at Lavinium" Vergilius 20 (1974), pp. 2–11; P. Sommela, "Das Heroon des Aeneas und die Topographie des antiken Lavinium," Gymnasium 81 (1974), pp. 273–97. On the various theories about the heroon , cf. Horsfall, "Enea" (n.9).
[37] Cf. also Pausanias 3:3–7; and see A. J. Podlecki, "Cimon, Skyros and 'Theseus' Bones,'" JHS 19 (1971), pp. 141–43.
Carthage. There is a danger that Aeneas will marry Dido, the queen of Carthage, and thus that the message of Latium could fail; the gods of Aeneas, therefore, work to bring the hero back on track toward Rome. Mercury, the messenger of the gods, is sent by Jupiter to warn Aeneas not to forget the promise that his mother, Venus, had held out for him, and to urge him to sail at once to his destined land (4:219–37). After Aeneas's delay, Mercury is sent to him again, this time in a dream, and warns him once more to leave Carthage (4:554–70).
A similar situation may be discerned in the Jacob stories. There is the danger that Jacob will stay in Aram Naharaim, where he journeyed to flee from his brother Esau and to marry Laban's daughters. Had he stayed, he would have abandoned his mission to the promised land. Therefore, Jacob is called to return to his native land, and the call is made, as in the Aeneid , twice: the first time through direct revelation (v. 4) and the second time through revelation by dream (v. 11). Although in the final stage of Genesis (ch. 31) Jacob is said to leave Aram because of his quarrel with Laban, an older stratum (Elohistic?) in the chapter (vv. 10, 12a, 13) creates the impression that the affluence of Jacob (vv. 10, 12a; cf. 30:43) might have caused him to stay in Aram, necessitating the divine call to return to Canaan.[38]
How do we explain these common features in two works of literature created hundreds of years apart and reflecting two entirely different cultures? It should be clear, first of all, that the Aeneas legend and the stories associated with it are quite ancient and may be traced back—as the various paintings on archaeological artifacts show—to the seventh century B.C.E. That these stories actually belong to the genre of "foundation stories" about foundations of cities by single heroes has been noted by F. B. Schmid, who surveyed the foundation legends
[38] For the complexity of the tradition in Gen. 31:1–16, cf. C. Westermann, Genesis II (Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1981), pp. 599 ff.
of the Greeks, and observed that the Aeneid epic was patterned after them.[39] The main problem we confront, however, when trying to compare the stories about the founder (Ktistes ) of a Greek colony with the Patriarchal stories is that the Greek stories revolve around founding new cities, while the Patriarchal stories focus on founding a new nation in a new land.
When dealing with the Pentateuchal traditions, we must be aware of the stages in their development, such as the two cycles we have isolated in the Patriarchal Genesis stories, each of which revolves around a different city, Shechem in the northern Jacob cycle, and Hebron in the southern Abraham cycle. Another city in the north about which there is an important foundation legend (Gen. 28) is Bethel; indeed, the Jacob cycle reveals some tension between the cities of Shechem and Bethel, as suggested by the march from Shechem to Bethel after the battle in Shechem in Gen. 35:1–5.[40] Similarly, in Greek tradition, we find a rivalry between Lavinium and Alba Longa; the Penates were removed from Alba Longa but twice returned to their place of origin (Dion. Hal. 1:67:1–3). Furthermore, we find in the Greek foundation traditions disagreements between the settlers about the identity of the founder,[41] a phenomenon also attested in the Patriarchal traditions concerning Beer-sheba and Shechem. According to one tradition it was Abraham who founded the city of Beer-Sheba and gave it its name (Gen. 21:31); according to another, it was Isaac (26:23–33). Shechem was a site of similar controversy: according to Gen. 33:18–20, Jacob built an altar there and called it El Elohey Israel (El, the God of Israel), thus establishing for the first time an Israelite cult in a Canaanite city, but according
[39] F. B. Schmid, Studien griechischen Ktisissagen (diss., Freiburg), 1947; F. Prinz, Gründungsmythen und Sagenschronologie , Zetemata 72 (Munich, 1981), is concerned with historical and not typological questions and therefore is less relevant for our purposes.
[40] On a separate Bethel tradition concerning the death and burial of Jacob, cf. Loewenstamm, "Death of the Patriarchs" (n. 34).
[41] Cf. Schmid, Ktisissagen (n. 39), pp. 58–59.
to 12:7, Abraham was the first to build an altar there.[42] These two traditions represent two different sources, which only strengthens the supposition that different circles within Israel claimed different ancestors for the foundation of various sites in the land of Canaan.
It should be noted that the Patriarchs built their altars outside the Canaanite cities,[43] a phenomenon also encountered in the Greek colonization tradition. According to Thuc. 6:3:7, the first Greek settlers in Sicily built an altar to Apollo that stood outside the city (see Chapter 2).
What was the motivation for the creation of these kinds of stories about the first ancestors? Apparently, at the end of the second millennium, the formation of petty states in the eastern Mediterranean area led to the development of the genre of foundation stories as we find them in the Greek sources. Amos 9:7 may serve as evidence: Amos compares the establishment of Israel with the establishment of Aram, originating in Kir, and the establishment of Philistines, coming from Kaphtor. As is well known, the Aramaeans—like the Israelites—formed a league of twelve tribes (Gen. 22:20–24), and as may be learned from Amos's prophecy, they also preserved memories of the native home they had left behind. The same pattern applies to the Philistines, though we do not have precise information about the formation of their league.
The psychology of "foundation" was so deeply rooted in the mind of the people of Israel that even Assyria and Babylonia were depicted as founded by one man, Nimrod (Gen. 10:8 ff.; cf. "the land of Nimrod" for Ashur in Mic. 5:5). Nimrod the hero-warrior (gibbor ) is described as establishing
[42] Compare Josh. 8:30: "At that time Joshua built an altar to Yahweh, the god of Israel, on Mount Ebal." For remnants of a cultic Israelite site on Mount Ebal of the twelfth century B.C.E. , cf. A. Zertal, "An Early Iron Age Cultic Site on Mount Ebal: Excavation Seasons 1982–1987," Tel-Aviv 13–14 (1986–87), pp. 105–65.
[43] Cf. Gen. 12:6: "he [Abraham] passed . . . as far as the site of Shechem," and Gen. 33:18: "he [Jacob] encamped before the city."
his kingdom in Babylon, Erek, and Akkad, and from there departing to build , as it were, the colonies in Ashur, and especially the large city of Ashur. The verb "to depart" (ys', hlk[*] ) from a certain place, coupled with "to build a city" (bnh 'yr[*] ) and the mention of its name, is characteristic of stories about founding a new settlement and is especially attested in connection with the Danites in Judg. 18:27–29 and with the cities founded in Transjordan (Num. 32:24–32).[44] Here, the formulation is very close to that of the Greek settlers, who speak about founding a city (not a land) and naming the city after the oikist . It is also reflected in Gen. 4:16 ff.: "Cain 'departed' (ys'[*] ) . . . settled . . . and built a city . . . called the name of the city."
This psychology was evident as late as Josephus, who in his account about the beginning of Jerusalem (Bellum 6:438 ff.) relates that Malki-zedeq was the first to officiate as priest in Jerusalem (cf. Gen. 14:18), to build the temple there, and to call the city Jerusalem. In other words, Malki-zedeq was the founder of Jerusalem.[45]
The genre of foundation stories consists of two parts: the first part describes the migration of the ancestor, and the second describes the settlement. In contrast to Joshua, the settler, Abraham is a wanderer. The story about Aeneas reflects—as interpreted by Schmid—the legend about the hero-ancestor and not about the oikist who was the settler. In Israel as well as in Rome, the epic composers were aware—as indicated above—of the chronological-historical gap between these two stages. Just as Aeneas is the first ancestor of the nation, "the pater," and not the first settler, so is Abraham "the father"—and not, like Joshua, the conqueror and settler.
In contrast to the period of a wandering family, as repre-
[44] Cf. Chapter 3.
[45] Cf. remarks of B. Mazar, "Josephus Flavius, the Historian of Jerusalem," in U. Rappaport, ed., Josephus Flavius—Collected Papers (Jerusalem, 1982), p. 2 (Hebrew).
sented in the Patriarchal stories as well as in the Aeneid , the period of settlement involves the establishment of a policy of law and civil order. Therefore, after Romulus, the settler, comes Numa, the founder of the religious-cultic institutions. In Israel, these two figures correspond to Joshua and Moses, only in reverse order: first Moses, the legislator, and then Joshua, the settler. In one respect Romulus parallels Moses and not Joshua, and that is in the legend of exposure: like Romulus and Remus, who are cast into the Tiber and then rescued, Moses is cast into the Nile and rescued.[46]
Two stages in the tradition of colonization can also be discerned in other cultures of the eastern Mediterranean area, as, for example, in the history of the foundation of Carthage. Carthage was founded in 814 B.C.E. , but tradition related its foundation to Azoros (= Zor) and Carchedon (= Carthage) of the late thirteenth century, as told by Philistos of Syracuse in the first half of the fourth century B.C.E.[47] The same pattern applies to Mopsos, the eponymous hero of "the house of Mps[*] " in Cilicia, whose heroic deeds belong to the second millennium B.C.E. ; the actual ethnic existence, however, of Mopsos's people (= the Danunians in the Karatepe inscriptions) is attested in the first millennium.[48]
The two stages of the colonization tradition recognizable in ancient Israel, ancient Rome, Carthage, and the house of Mopsos may reflect a certain historical process. C. R. Whittaker has demonstrated in his elaborate study of the Western
[46] For the various legends of exposure in the ancient world see Th. H. Gaster, Myth, Legend and Custom in the Old Testament 1 (New York, 1969), p. 78.
[47] F. Jacoby, Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker (Berlin-Leiden, 1923) 2 B, no. 556, F 47; cf. G. Bunnens, L'expansion phenicienne en Mediterranee (Brussels, Rome, 1979), pp. 127–28.
[48] Cf. H. Donner and W. Röllig, eds., Kanaanäische und aramäische Inschriften (=KAI ) (Wiesbaden, 1969), 26A, col. 1, 16; 2, 15; 3, 2. Cf. for discussion M. Astour, Hellensoemitica (Leiden, 1965), pp. 53 ff. See, recently, F. Bron, Recherches sur les inscriptions pheniciennes de Karatepe (Geneva, Paris, 1979), pp. 172 ff.
Phoenicians and their colonization that both the Greeks and the Phoenicians refer to two phases of Phoenician colonization.[49] The first phase comprises the beginning of a connection with the indigenous population (for purposes of trade), which is followed by a second phase involving a great influx of new settlers into the area and representing real colonization. These two stages are reflected in the traditions of both Roman and Israelite history; this chapter has examined the first stage, and in Chapter 2 we will look at the second stage, which also parallels the Greek colonization traditions.
Here I note that the pattern of three patriarchs embodied in the Patriarchal narratives of Genesis also has roots in the Greek world of colonization. The Greeks preserved the concept of tritopateres
[49] C. R. Whittaker, "The Western Phoenicians: Colonization and Assimilation," Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society (1974), pp. 58–79.
[50] Cf. I. Malkin, Religion and Colonization in Ancient Greece (Leiden, 1987), pp. 206–12.