The Pre-Biblical Narrative Tradition: Essays on the Ugaritic Poems Keret and Aqhat by SimonB. ParkerReview by: Dennis PardeeJournal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 111, No. 1 (Jan. - Mar., 1991), pp. 190-191Published by: American Oriental SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/603801 .

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190 Journal of the American Oriental Society 111.1 (1991)

pottery figures are in only one case crowded and confusing (fig. 42:10). The tables and charts are ample, helpful, and well laid out; but a location map of all the sites mentioned would have been helpful.

The book is well thought out and the data is well presented. I wish to point out only two general shortcomings of the book: inadequate attention to regionalism, and the division of publication responsibilities for certain classes of material from each of the burial caves to different authors, which leads, on the one hand, to an interesting variety in presentations, yet, on the other, to a lack of standardized treatment. Never- theless, the book is superb and significant because of its scope, methodology, and the way in which it highlights the generally overlooked relatedness of the material cultures of the lands east of the River Jordan to those west of the River Jordan. It deserves to be in every archaeological and anthropological library of the ancient Middle East.

HAROLD A. LIEBOWITZ

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS

The Pre-Biblical Narrative Tradition: Essays on the Ugaritic Poems Keret and Aqhat. By SIMON B. PARKER. Resources for Biblical Study, no. 24. Atlanta: SCHOLARS PRESS, 1989. Pp. 248.

In his first full-fledged book, Simon B. Parker, a well- known scholar in Ugaritic and biblical studies, adopts a reso- lutely literary stance or, more precisely, a double literary stance: he proposes both a source analysis (the most common form of "literary criticism" in biblical studies up until a decade or so ago) and an analysis of literary structure and meaning. Very little traditional philology is to be found here, and rela- tively few translations of the texts discussed. Rather, there is a three-tiered literary analysis: the first chapter deals primarily with phrases and formulae; the second with three larger struc- tures (the birth announcement, the vow, and the marriage blessing); the third and fourth with the structure and meaning of the 'AQHT and KRT texts, respectively. The fifth and final chapter deals with "the value of Ugaritic narrative poetry" for the study of Ugaritic society and religion, for the study of ancient Near Eastern literature, and for the study of Biblical literature. There are no indices, a real lacuna since the book is made up of many remarks on discrete texts and topics.

The source analysis sees the KRT text as made up of three distinct stories, united by the common theme of "the unique benevolence, wisdom and power of El," upon whom the king is totally dependent (pp. 211-12). The 'AQHT text, on the other hand, is made up of "shorter narrative sections based

on traditional material that seem to be juxtaposed to one another" and are united by a "larger vision" visible in "a unity of plot" (p. 223); the vision is that of "familial piety" (p. 142). The function of the KRT text was "to promote the prestige and power of the Ugaritic priesthood" (p. 215), while that of the 'AQHT was "purely aesthetic" (p. 143).

One might quibble about the appropriateness of the title. The "the" is technically correct, since no pre-biblical narrative other than the Ugaritic is known; but it is certainly too broad in that many other traditions must have existed. Furthermore, not all prospective readers may be aware of the significant differences between the nature of the two bodies of traditions, the Ugaritic being poetic and having no known links with the historical record, the biblical being in prose and characterized by increasing "historicity" as it descends in time. Parker makes these differences clear and discusses them in the course of the book, but the reliance on comparisons with biblical literature, from the title on, is symptomatic of the status of Ugaritic studies in the English-speaking world.

The book itself is replete with intelligence and common sense. It must be observed, nevertheless, that it is somewhat ironic to see a source analysis of Ugaritic texts appear at the very moment when the usefulness of source criticism is in- creasingly being called into question in biblical studies. At the same time, the author must be congratulated for seeking the "overarching theme" (p. 209) imposed upon the discrete sources by the final "author." But on yet another hand, the use of the word "author" raises a point that could have been dealt with in the concluding sections: that of orality and the origin of the texts as recorded by VIlimilku, the scribe.

This reader found the first chapter to be the most convinc- ing, with increasing numbers of questions as the analysis proceeded from specific to general. This is probably owing (1) to the relative newness of the approach-there is not a large number of previous discussions of these broader ques- tions with which to interact, and (2) to my own area of research, which is primarily philological, rather than literary. I would, for example, have found the description of the pur- pose of the 'AQHT text as aesthetic to be more convincing if it had been accompanied by an assessment of the place of pure aesthetics in the Near East of the second millennium B.C. Or, again, I would have wished the uniqueness of the dependency of KRT on El to have been more extensively argued; I see little fundamental difference between the position of KRT with regard to El and that of David with regard to YHWH (to cite only one of the most extensive narrative traditions in the Bible). But the statement of these differences of viewpoint must not be taken as attempts to denigrate the method or its

practitioner. To the contrary: It is high time for such analyses of the Ugaritic texts to be proposed. It is only to be hoped that

other specialists in the literary method, of which there are

ever-increasing numbers, will join in dialogue with Parker, and that a consensus of scholarly opinion may form, upon

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Brief Reviews of Books 191

which specialists in other literatures can rely with a bit more surety than upon the single view of even so eminent a scholar as Parker.

DENNIS PARDEE

UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

Reallexikon der Assyriologie und vorderasiatischen Archa- ologie, volume 7, fascicle 5/6: Maltai-Masse und Ge- wichte. Edited by D. 0. EDZARD et al. Berlin: DE GRUYTER,

1989. Pp. 160 (321-480) (paper).

Major articles in this fascicle include: "Malz" (M. Stol); "MaqlW" (T. Abusch); "Marduk" (W. Sommerfeld, A. Kam- menhuber, D. Rittig); "Mari" (J.-R. Kupper, J.-M. Aynard, A. Spycket); "Markt" (C. Zaccagnini); "Martu" (D. 0. Ed- zard); "Masse und Gewichte" (M. Powell-partial article only).

STEPHEN A. KAUFMAN

HEBREW UNION COLLEGE

Introduction to Akkadian. By RICHARD CAPLICE, with the collaboration of DANIEL SNELL. Third, revised edition. Studia Pohl: series maior, 9. Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1988. Pp. viii + 106, foldout (paper).

Intended as a textbook for a twelve-lesson introductory course in essential Akkadian grammar, the textual material in this small volume remains that of Hammurapi; the ductus, Neo-Assyrian. This edition (previous edd. 1980, 1983) adds in- dices to the Akkadian vocabularies and sign-lists, an English- Akkadian glossary and a foldout paradigm of the strong verb. D. Snell's collaboration has resulted in "amplified cuneiform exercises, the Index of Signs, and copies of cuneiform signs throughout the book." The author is to be commended for incorporating improvements suggested by reviewers of earlier editions.

S. A. K.

The Scholarship of William Foxwell Albright: An Appraisal. Edited by Gus W. VAN BEEK. Harvard Semitic Studies 33. Atlanta: SCHOLARS PRESS, 1989. Pp. 73.

This volume consists of papers presented at a symposium entitled "Homage to William Foxwell Albright," sponsored

by the American Friends of the Israel Exploration Society, in Rockville, Maryland, on October 21, 1984. Included are "William Foxwell Albright: A Short Biography" and "W. F. Albright's Contribution to Archaeology," by Gus W. Van Beek; "The Contributions of W. F. Albright to Semitic Epig- raphy and Paleography," by Frank Moore Cross, Jr.; "W. F. Albright as an Historian," by David Noel Freedman; and "William F. Albright as a Philologian," by Delbert R. Hillers.

S. A. K.

The Samaritans. Edited by ALAN D. CROWN. Tubingen: J. C. B. MOHR (PAUL SIEBECK), 1989. Pp. 21 + 865. DM 398.

This mammoth, expensive volume is one of the few in its price range that can be said to be worth every penny. It constitutes a state-of-the-art, indispensable review of virtually all aspects of Samaritan studies, with contributions by most of the scholars currently active in the field. Its thirty articles are divided into fifteen major areas as follows: I. History (M. Mor, B. Hall, A. D. Crown, B. Z. Kedar, R. T. Anderson, N. Schur); II. Material Remains (R. Pummer, G. D. Six- denier); III. The Samaritan Diaspora (A. D. Crown); IV. Chronicles (P. Stenhouse); V. Eschatology (F. Dexinger); VI. Sects and Movements (J. Fossum); VII. Literature (R. T. Anderson, E. Tov, S. Noja, A. Tal, G. Wedel, H. Shehadeh); VIII. Language (Z. Ben-Hayyim, R. Macuch, P. Stenhouse); IX. Halachah (I. R. M. B6id); X. Rituals and Customs (R. Pummer); XI. Calendar (S. Powels); XII. Music (R. Katz); XIII. Manuscripts (J.-P. Rothschild); XIV. Bibliography (J. Margain); XV. The Last Decade in Samaritan Studies (S. Noja). In sum, what we have here is all too rare today: a well-conceived and well-executed project in an aesthetically pleasing format.

S. A. K.

Studies in Neo-Aramaic. Edited by WOLFHART HEINRICHS. Harvard Semitic Studies 36. Atlanta: SCHOLARS PRESS, 1990. Pp. xvii + 207. $20.95 ($13.95 member).

The genesis of this volume is not clear, but it has something to do with the semi-official international group of scholars in- terested in Neo-Aramaic studies who contribute to a "private" newsletter circulated by Otto Jastrow of Erlangen-Nurnberg. The most useful contribution for the non-specialist is the twenty-page "Annotated Bibliography of Neo-Aramaic" by G. Krotkoff.

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