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LIBRARY OF HEBREW BIBLE/
OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES

569
Formerly Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series

Editors
Claudia V. Camp, Texas Christian University
Andrew Mein, Westcott House, Cambridge

Founding Editors
David J. A. Clines, Philip R. Davies and David M. Gunn

Editorial Board
Alan Cooper, John Goldingay, Robert P. Gordon,
Norman K. Gottwald, James Harding, John Jarick, Carol Meyers,
Patrick D. Miller, Francesca Stavrakopoulou,
Daniel L. Smith-Christopher
CONSTRUCTIONS OF SPACE IV

Further Developments in Examining Ancient


Israel’s Social Space

edited by

Mark K. George

N E W YOR K • LON DON • N E W DE L H I • SY DN EY


Bloomsbury T&T Clark
An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

50 Bedford Square 175 Fifth Avenue


London New York
WC1B 3DP NY 10010
UK USA

www.bloomsbury.com

First published 2013

© Mark K. George and contributors, 2013

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any
form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any
information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the
publishers.

No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining


from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury
Academic or the authors.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data


A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress

eISBN: 978-0-567-32590-7

Typeset by Forthcoming Publications Ltd (www.forthpub.com)


CONTENTS

Abbreviations vii
List of Contributors ix

INTRODUCTION
Mark K. George xi

NOAH’S ARCHITECTURE: THE ROLE OF SACRED SPACE


IN ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN FLOOD MYTHS
Cory D. Crawford 1

SOCIO-SPATIAL LOGIC AND THE STRUCTURE


OF THE BOOK OF NUMBERS
Mark K. George 23

CREATING SPACE THROUGH IMAGINATION AND ACTION:


SPACE AND THE BODY IN DEUTERONOMY 6:4–9
Michaela Geiger 44

REMEMBERED SPACE IN BIBLICAL NARRATIVE


Victor H. Matthews 61

WICKED WITCHES OF THE WEST:


CONSTRUCTION OF SPACE AND GENDER IN JEZREEL
Ann Jeffers 76

THE PLACE OF THE PAST:


SPATIAL CONSTRUCTION IN JEREMIAH 1–24
Barrie Bowman 92

“EVERY GREEN TREE AND THE STREETS OF JERUSALEM”:


COUNTER CONSTRUCTIONS OF GENDERED SACRED SPACE
IN THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
Steed Vernyl Davidson 111
vi Contents

FROM WATCHTOWER TO HOLY TEMPLE:


READING THE BOOK OF HABAKKUK AS A SPATIAL JOURNEY
Gert T. M. Prinsloo 132

THE EM-BODIED DESERT AND OTHER SECTARIAN SPACES


IN THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS
Alison Scho¿eld 155

Bibliography 175
Index of References 190
Index of Authors 199
ABBREVIATIONS

AB Anchor Bible
ABD Anchor Bible Dictionary. Edited by D. N. Freedman. 6 vols. New
York, 1992
AOTC Abingdon Old Testament Commentaries
ATD Das Alte Testament Deutsch
BA Biblical Archaeologist
BAR Biblical Archaeology Review
BDB Brown, F., S. R. Driver, and C. A. Briggs. A Hebrew and English
Lexicon of the Old Testament. Oxford, 1907
BEATAJ Beiträge zur Erforschung des Alten Testaments und des antiken
Judentum
Bib Biblica
BibInt Biblical Interpretation
BTB Biblical Theology Bulletin
BWANT Beiträge zur Wissenschaft vom Alten und Neuen Testament
CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly
CC Continental Commentaries
CHANE Culture and History of the Ancient Near East
CSHJ Chicago Studies in the History of Judaism
CT Cuneiform Texts from Babylonian Tablets in the British Museum
CTA Corpus des tablettes en cunéiformes alphabétiques découvertes à
Ras Shamra-Ugarit de 1929 à 1939. Edited by A. Herdner. Mission
de Ras Shamra 10. Paris, 1963
CurBS Currents in Research: Biblical Studies
DJD Discoveries in the Judaean Desert
ErIsr Eretz-Israel
FAT Forschungen zum Alten Testament
FCB Feminist Companion to the Bible
FOTL Forms of the Old Testament Literature
FRLANT Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen
Testaments
HS Hebrew Studies
HSM Harvard Semitic Monographs
HThKAT Herders Theologischer Kommentar zum Alten Testament
HTR Harvard Theological Review
HTS Harvard Theological Studies
IBC Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching
ICC International Critical Commentary
IDBSup Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible: Supplementary Volume.
1
Edited by K. Crim. Nashville, 1976
viii Abbreviations

Int Interpretation
ITC International Theological Commentary
J J (Jahwistic or Yahwistic) source
JANES Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society
JBL Journal of Biblical Literature
JJS Journal of Jewish Studies
JSem Journal of Semitics
JSJSup Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism
JSOT Journal for the Study of the Old Testament
LHBOTS Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies
MT Masoretic text
NABU Nouvelles assyriologiques breves et utilitaires
NCB New Century Bible
NEchtB Neue Echter Bibel
NICOT New International Commentary on the Old Testament
NRSV New Revised Standard Version
OBO Orbis biblicus et orientalis
OBT Overtures to Biblical Theology
OG Old Greek
OLA Orientalia lovaniensia analecta
OTE Old Testament Essays
P Priestly source
PEQ Palestine Exploration Quarterly
RevExp Review and Expositor
SAHL Studies in the Archaeology and History of the Levant
SBAB Stuttgarter biblische Aufsatzbände
SBL Society of Biblical Literature
SBLAIL Society of Biblical Literature Ancient Israel and Its Literature
SBS Stuttgarter Bibelstudien
ScrHier Scripta hierosolymitana
SJOT Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament
ST Studia theologica
STDJ Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah
STRev Sewanee Theological Review
TCT Textual Criticism and the Translator
TDOT Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament. Edited by G. J.
Botterweck and H. Ringgren. Translated by J. T. Willis, G. W.
Bromiley, and D. E. Green. 8 vols. Grand Rapids, 1974–
ThWAT Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Alten Testament. Edited by G. J.
Botterweck and H. Ringgren.Stuttgart, 1970–
UF Ugarit-Forschungen
VT Vetus Testamentum
WBC Word Biblical Commentary
WMANT Wissenschaftliche Monographien zum Alten und Neuen Testament
ZAW Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft

1
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

Barrie Bowman is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Biblical


Studies at the University of Shef¿eld, UK

Cory D. Crawford is Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies in the


Department of Classics and World Religions, Ohio University in
Athens, Ohio, USA

Steed Vernyl Davidson is Assistant Professor of Old Testament at Paci¿c


Lutheran Theological Seminary and the Graduate Theological Union
in Berkeley, California, USA

Michaela Geiger is Lecturer (Akademische Rätin) of Hebrew Bible at


Philipps-University Marburg, Germany

Mark K. George is Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible at the Iliff


School of Theology in Denver, Colorado, USA

Ann Jeffers is Senior Lecturer in Hebrew Bible and Second Temple


Judaism at Heythrop College, University of London, UK

Victor H. Matthews is Professor of Religious Studies and Dean of the


College of Humanities and Public Affairs at Missouri State Uni-
versity in Spring¿eld, Missouri, USA

Gert T. M. Prinsloo is Professor of Semitic Languages in the Department


of Ancient Languages at the University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South
Africa

Alison Scho¿eld is Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible and Judaic


Studies at the University of Denver in Denver, Colorado, USA

1
1
INTRODUCTION
Mark K. George

Interest in the critical study of space continues to grow in both biblical


and religious studies. In the six years since Constructions of Space I was
published (2007), studies in critical space by biblical scholars have
become more common, to the point where there now are sections
dedicated to the topic in both the national and international Meetings of
the Society of Biblical Literature, and books and articles in which space
is a central focus are appearing with increasing frequency.1 This schol-
arship is beginning to bring some balance within biblical studies to the
emphasis on time and history, by turning attention to the importance and
presence of space and place within the biblical texts, ancient Israel, and
the ancient Near East. It is doing so in part through its recognition that
space is not simply the backdrop or neutral context within which the
events of the past took place and the people of the past lived, moved,
died, wrote, and over which they fought and celebrated. Rather, space is
something societies create and produce in the physical world, and
therefore space needs investigation and analysis.
Space is a rich topic for investigation in the Hebrew Bible, and critical
spatial theory is important for this work because it makes possible
analysis of space in its various aspects. There is the physical, material
aspect of space and the world in which ancient people and societies lived
and which they manipulated, changed, adapted, and otherwise engaged
as they related to it and were affected by it. The ways in which ancient
peoples created their spaces depended on their ideas about space. Just
like modern people, ancient peoples understood the world in certain
ways, conceiving and thinking about it using abstractions, idealizations,
systems, measures, and other logical means. They knew, for example,
that throwing a mill stone off a city wall would result in that object

1. Jon L. Berquist and Claudia V. Camp, eds., Constructions of Space I: Theory,


Geography, and Narrative (LHBOTS 481; New York: T&T Clark International,
2007).
1
xii GEORGE Introduction

falling toward the ground, rather than Àoating up to the sky, just as they
knew human beings, whether or not they were prophets, did not normally
ascend toward the heavens. Space also had meaning and signi¿cance.
People, individually and corporately, give meanings to spaces as part of
their interaction and relationship with it. These meanings are not merely
logical expressions of space. They articulate something in addition to, or
beyond, the logical and conceptual. A temple could be built according to
a logical plan, for example, but the cosmological associations, represen-
tations, and signi¿cations it had for those who used it expressed social
meanings beyond its physical materials and layout.
From the beginning, biblical scholarship on space has been especially
attentive to the physical, mental, and symbolic aspects of space. As
scholars continue this work, they increasingly are attentive to other
aspects, such as time and the temporal features of space. Part of what
creates and produces space, marking it off from other spaces or other
uses of the same space, is time, such as festivals, seasonal activity, and
daily changes (morning, noon, sunset, night). So, too, do both the
passage of time and anticipations of times to come create and produce
the spaces people inhabit. Memory, whether individual or corporate,
plays an important role in the production of space.
The human body in space is another aspect receiving increased atten-
tion from biblical scholars. The spaces and territories societies create,
produce, inhabit, destroy, and rebuild depend on the existence and pres-
ence of human beings in them. It is the human body that experiences the
physical realities of space, such as light and darkness, heat and cold, rock
or water, height and depth, up, down, left, and right. People use their
senses and their minds to conceive of space and give it logical classi¿-
cations and organization. The meanings and signi¿cations of space
emerge from the minds and emotions of human beings in space. People
live by those meanings, and they react, promote, perpetuate, challenge,
change, and reinterpret them.
The critical study of space in the Hebrew Bible and ancient Near East
does face certain challenges. Perhaps most signi¿cant is the limited
nature of the materials being examined. Any examination of ancient
Israel’s space that depends exclusively on textual evidence has no direct
access to the ways in which ancient Israelites materially inhabited,
adapted, practiced, and realized their spaces. At most such practices can
be inferred; they cannot be observed. This absence of observable physi-
cal space is balanced by instances where archaeological evidence gives
scholars a glimpse at how ancient peoples might have created, produced,
and practiced physical space. In most cases, however, the meanings of
those spaces for their inhabitants is not recoverable. Archaeologists may
1
GEORGE Introduction xiii

infer such meanings, but they are not, of course, the same as self-
articulations of them. Only Qumran, where texts and material remains of
a community have been found together, presents a different situation.
Beyond the evidentiary challenges lies the issue of what constitutes
“space.” Scholars de¿ne space and place in different ways, as do differ-
ent disciplines. Even when de¿nitions are stated, how space is classi¿ed
poses certain challenges, since space is not a series of discrete, independ-
ent elements, but rather an interdependent whole. These de¿nitional
challenges point up others, such as which theoretical work and theory
bases inform the critical study of space. In biblical studies, the work of
the French philosopher and sociologist Henri Lefebvre, and that of the
American geographer and urban planner Edward W. Soja, gained early
prominence among biblical scholars.2 Additionally, the work of Yi-Fu
Tuan, Gaston Bachelard, Michel Foucault, and Michel de Certeau has
been part of the discussion.3 Recently, the number of scholars providing
theoretical grounding to the work of biblical scholars is expanding to
include Gillian Rose, Martina Löw, Jeff Malpas, and Jonathan Z. Smith,
among others.4 The work of all these scholars is represented in the essays
in this volume. As a result, the ways in which the scholars in this volume
view and approach their critical work is varied, with some analyzing the
biblical texts for conceptual spaces, others for symbolic space and the
meanings ascribed to them within the texts, and still others bridging
material space, the body, textual conceptions of space, and the symbolic
meanings of those spaces.
The critical study of space in the Hebrew Bible offers new insights
and understandings of the various ways in which biblical writers

2. Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space (trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith;


Oxford: Blackwell, 1991); Edward W. Soja, Postmodern Geographies: The Reasser-
tion of Space in Critical Social Theory (New York: Verso, 1989); Edward W. Soja,
Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real-and-Imagined Places (Malden,
Mass.: Blackwell, 1996).
3. Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space (trans. Maria Jolas; Boston: Beacon,
1994); Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life (trans. Steven Rendall;
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984); Michel Foucault, “Of Other
Spaces,” Diacritics 16 (1986): 22–27; Yi-Fu Tuan, Space and Place: The Perspec-
tive of Experience (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1977).
4. Martina Löw, Raumsoziologie (Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Wissenschaft 1506;
Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2001); Jeff Malpas, Place and Experience: A
Philosophical Topography (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999); Gillian
Rose, Feminism and Geography: The Limits of Geographical Knowledge (Oxford:
Polity Press, 1993); Jonathan Z. Smith, To Take Place: Toward Theory in Ritual
(CSHJ; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987).
1
xiv GEORGE Introduction

understood and experienced space, how their ideas and conceptions


informed the texts they wrote, and the range of social meanings and
signi¿cations spaces held for them. These insights and understandings
extend beyond recognition, for example, that biblical authors shared with
their ancient Near Eastern counterparts a tripartite cosmology, in which
the created order consisted of the heavens, the earth, and under the earth,
all of which was surrounded by the primordial waters. It includes how
such cosmological notions were represented in the constructions of the
vessels built by Noah and Njta-napišti during the Àood (Cory D. Craw-
ford). Other insights also are possible, such as how daily routines of the
body produce Israel’s identity and spaces (Michaela Geiger). Memory
plays a signi¿cant role in the creation and habitation of space (Victor H.
Matthews), and changes to a people’s memories of places can be vital to
their continued existence (Barrie Bowman). Spatial ideas are shaped by
social constructions of gender (Ann Jeffers), constructions that some-
times must be challenged if women in the Bible, in particular, are to have
space of their own (Steed Vernyl Davidson). Analysis of space can shed
new light on how a prophet embodies and demonstrates the prophetic
message (Gert T. M. Prinsloo). And examination of space can reveal its
social nature as part of a society’s (Mark K. George) or social group’s
(Alison Scho¿eld) identity and existence in the world.
The nine essays in this volume are by scholars who have been engaged
in the critical study of space in Hebrew Bible and Qumran studies over
the past several years. Their essays share perspectives, questions, themes,
and approaches of various sorts. All of them, for example, presume the
social nature of space and thus the idea that social issues, conÀicts,
categories, and biases ¿nd expression in spatial practices, explanations,
and signi¿cations. There also are other ways in which the essays link to
one another, based on shared themes and foci.
Four essays attend to issues of social formation, identity, and the
social production of space. Crawford explains the differences between
the vessels constructed by Noah and Njta-napišti in their respective Àood
stories through a comparison of each vessel with temples in their respec-
tive cultures. He then engages critical spatial theory and modern archi-
tectural theory to explain the differences in the two vessels and why they
would be so different. Geiger reads the Shema in Deut 6:4–9 as a
programmatic statement by Moses for how individual Israelites may
realize Israel’s social identity as the liberated people of YHWH in the
Promised Land. Through their bodies, the buildings they inhabit, and
their daily routines, the people create their own space, a process involv-
ing both imagination and action. George uses insights from the critical
study of space to provide an answer as to how the book of Numbers is
1
GEORGE Introduction xv

structured. He argues Num 1–4 set forth a socio-spatial organization for


Israel that depends on both Israel’s covenant with YHWH and tabernacle
conceptual space. Israel’s existence as the people of YHWH requires their
acceptance of this socio-spatial organization, and the book of Numbers
explores whether or not the people can do so. Social organization also is
a concern of Scho¿eld, who examines how the Qumran community, the
YaÜad, managed to maintain their identity as priests without a sanctuary.
She argues that the spatial practices and right praxis of the YaÜad
produced for them an alternative priestly space that served as a counter-
space to the Jerusalem Temple. In each of these essays, questions of
social identity and the space of society are at issue.
Two essays focus attention on the relationship of gender and space.
Jeffers examines how women tend not only to be written out of the
Deuteronomistic History, but also out of Israel’s space, and thus are
hidden from geographical view within the centralization program of the
Deuteronomistic composition. The stories of the woman of Endor and
Queen Jezebel, however, operate outside the spatial boundaries of
nationhood portrayed in that composition, and thus break Deuterono-
mistic conceptual space. Their fates suggest serious consequences for
women, both socially and religiously. Davidson takes up the question of
gendered space in his reading of Jeremiah, especially Jer 44. Noting the
generally negative portrayal of women, women’s experiences, and thus
the spaces women are portrayed as inhabiting, Davidson argues Jer 44
presents an alternative space for women, one that simultaneously offers a
different representation of women in the book. Located in Egypt, and
thus beyond the space of Jerusalem, women participate in worshipping
the Queen of Heaven and thereby challenge the prophet’s voice. In this
way they also challenge and transcend the gendered space assigned to
them by the book’s dominant voice. Jeffers and Davidson bring into the
critical study of space in the Hebrew Bible awareness of feminist
critiques of geography, of the gendered ideologies at work in biblical
portrayals of space, and the social preferences that go unexamined within
them.
The three remaining essays address space and memory. Matthews and
Bowman are explicitly concerned with space and memory. Matthews
considers how memory affects the conceptual and symbolic aspects of a
space or place. He is particularly interested in how memories associated
with a space can be manipulated to serve various social, political, and
economic purposes at later times. Spatial symbolisms in a society’s
collective memory are malleable. The importance of memory and space
also is central to Bowman’s work, as he argues Jeremiah uses the power
of Israel’s memory of one place, Egypt, to replace it with a new place of
1
xvi GEORGE Introduction

power, Babylon. Bowman argues that, in Jer 1–24, the prophet gradually
works to replace Israel’s memory of Egypt with Babylon, where the
deity is doing a “new” thing. These essays bring to the fore the role and
importance of memory in constructing symbolic meanings for space and
the effects memories can have in shaping social identity.
Memory plays a more subtle role in Prinsloo’s essay, in which he uses
a spatial reading of Hab 1–3 to bring new perspectives on the prophet’s
change from despair to a confession of trust. By examining the spaces
inhabited by Habakkuk in these chapters, Prinsloo traces the prophet’s
transformation and emotional journey. The spaces Habakkuk inhabits
mirror his relationship to the deity. Initially in a space that is distant from
Jerusalem and YHWH, his memories of the past help return him to
renewed con¿dence and trust in YHWH in the space of Jerusalem and the
Temple. As in Bowman’s paper, memories are important for the future,
although in a way distinct from how they function in Jeremiah.
The ancient Israelites did not just live in history. They also lived in
space. Some of the spaces in which they lived were created and produced
by the ancient Israelites. Others, such as Egypt or Babylon, were created
and produced by other people, and thus were foreign to the Israelites.
Within all these spaces, however, Israel learned to live, move, and
survive. The critical study of space helps modern scholars better under-
stand how they did so, as the essays in this volume demonstrate.

1
NOAH’S ARCHITECTURE:
THE ROLE OF SACRED SPACE
IN ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN FLOOD MYTHS*

Cory D. Crawford

In his 1991 article “What Ship Goes There: The Flood Narratives in the
Gilgamesh Epic and Genesis Considered in Light of Ancient Near
Eastern Temple Ideology,” Steven Holloway related the vessels built by
Noah and by Njta-napišti to each other and explained their incongruent
dimensions via an appeal to “ancient Near Eastern temple ideology.”1
He argued that the differences in the construction narratives of Gen 6–9
and Gilgamesh XI are the result of differing temple forms—but similar
temple ideologies—in ancient Israel and Mesopotamia. His groundbreak-
ing work brings to light aspects of sacred space that have remained
unrecognized, due in large measure to the misunderstanding of funda-
mental qualities of sacred space in the respective cultures. In the present
study, I will ¿rst look at sources and outcomes of this misunderstanding
in the academic approach to the Àood vessels, followed by a detailed
comparison of each with their respective architectural analogues. I will
use these as background for discussion of the suitability of “ideology” as
a generative paradigm for describing the nature of the relationship
between the texts and the cultures that produced them. It will become
apparent that, while I agree with Holloway that the sacred architecture
and structures described in Genesis and Gilgamesh are related, I do not
see the connection as motivated by the mental process that the label

* I am indebted to many individuals for productive conversations and helpful


feedback on various aspects and earlier versions of the present study: Jon Levenson,
Joel Baden, Baruch Schwartz, Irene Winter, Mark George, Bradley Parker, and
Andrew George deserve mention. Thanks are also due the Center for Middle Eastern
Studies at the University of Utah for providing a venue for the presentation of an
earlier draft of this study.
1. Steven Holloway, “What Ship Goes There? The Flood Narratives in the
Gilgamesh Epic and Genesis Considered in Light of Ancient Near Eastern Temple
Ideology,” ZAW 103 (1991): 328–55.
1
2 Constructions of Space IV

“ideology” implies. Rather, I look to the hermeneutical approach to


architectural meaning expounded by Lindsay Jones, with its emphasis on
superabundance of meaning and ritual-architectural events, to provide a
model that better accounts for the evidence in both cases. In the end, the
conversation that Holloway began opens the view toward a broader
understanding of the inÀuence of sacred space in the ancient Near East
than has yet been observed.

Scholarly Treatments of the Flood Vessels


The divine plans given to the ancient Near Eastern Àood heroes were
curious indeed. In the Mesopotamian tale preserved in Tablet XI of the
Epic of Gilgamesh, Njta-napišti recounts to Gilgamesh, who was himself
on a journey seeking immortality, how he escaped the Àood and gained
eternal life by listening to the god Ea’s surreptitious counsel to build a
boat. This highly unusual boat was to measure 120 cubits (10 nindanu)
long, wide, and high, to be divided into seven horizontal levels, with nine
compartments for each level.2 As opposed to Njta-napišti’s boat, the
Priestly image of Noah’s ark is rectangular with dimensions of thirty
cubits high by ¿fty cubits wide by three hundred cubits long, to be made
of three levels with a door in its side (Gen 6:14–16).
Neither of the two Àood accounts that preserve the dimensions of the
salvi¿c vessel3 displays a structure that accords with what we know of
ancient nautical construction. No visual or other evidence survives that
would authenticate either of the two dimensions or description. These
dimensions are especially intriguing because of their existence in narra-
tives acknowledged by scholars to be related at some level—the Àood
narratives—but this connection also makes the divergent measurements
all the more puzzling. It is this fact that led Holloway to describe the
appearance of the vessels as a “scholarly embarrassment.”4
Scholars have occasionally attempted to explain the unusual nature of
these constructions and their relationship to each other because, of the
comparanda extant between the Mesopotamian literature and that of the
Bible, perhaps none is so visible nor sensational as the Àood traditions.
Since the recovery of Mesopotamian Àood narratives, the relationship

2. Gilgamesh XI 57–63; translations follow Andrew R. George, The Babylon-


ian Gilgamesh Epic: Introduction, Critical Edition and Cuneiform Texts (2 vols.;
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).
3. Dimensions may well have been included in Atra¨asis, but the text concerning
the construction of the vessel is badly damaged.
1
4. Holloway, “What Ship Goes There,” 328.
CRAWFORD Noah’s Architecture 3

between the biblical Àood account and its predecessors has been recog-
nized, even if the details of transmission remain obscure.5 While in some
features the congruence between the Bible and the Mesopotamian tradi-
tions is nearly exact, others are not explicable by the hypothesis of a
direct borrowing of the currently extant materials.6 It is also apparent
that each author adapted details to the exigencies of the narrative and
tradition in which the stories are embedded.7 The analogous features of
these two narratives have provided scholars not only with evidence of
the broader cultural context of the stories, but also with a counterpoint
against which to raise questions about the distinctive concerns of the
respective authors. The parade example is the release of birds toward the
end of the inundation: Njta-napišti releases a dove, a swallow, and a
raven, while Noah releases a raven and two doves.8
Crucial to the understanding of both Àood narratives is the detailed
description of the structure and construction of the boats. The compari-
son of the two has been made since George A. Smith realized he had
found a tradition akin to that of the Bible in a cuneiform tablet from
Nineveh. Since then, a variety of explanations for the apparent congru-
ence have been proffered. Some scholars argued, for example, that the
Bible exhibits a more realistic description of nautical construction in
contrast with the outlandish Babylonian version. André Parrot’s popular
treatment held that the biblical account “se rapprochent beaucoup plus
de la nautique moderne” whereas the Babylonian vessel was “beaucoup
moins apte à une vraie navigation.”9 Others, such as James F. Armstrong,
considered the rendering of the Babylonian account in biblical texts to
result in dimensions that “have distinctly more aesthetic and rational

5. Jacob J. Finkelstein remarks that the interrelation between the biblical and
Mesopotamian Àood stories “is acknowledged on all sides,” and that “there appears
to be some organic connection among all of them” (“Bible and Babel: A Compara-
tive Study of the Hebrew and Babylonian Religious Spirit,” in Essential Papers on
Israel and the Ancient Near East [ed. Frederick E. Greenspahn; New York: New
York University Press, 1991], 355–80 [here 360]).
6. The similarities have been widely discussed since the nineteenth century. For a
detailed exposition of parallels, see Alexander Heidel, The Gilgamesh Epic and Old
Testament Parallels (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1946), 224–60. For the
unique contributions of the Atra¨asis epic to the understanding of the biblical
account, see Tikva Frymer-Kensky, “The Atrahasis Epic and Its Signi¿cance for Our
Understanding of Genesis 1–9,” BA 40 (1977): 147–55.
7. See E. Kraeling, “The Earliest Hebrew Flood Story,” JBL 66 (1947): 281 and
passim; Frymer-Kensky, “The Atrahasis Epic.”
8. Or one dove, twice.
9. André Parrot, Bible et archéologie (Neuchâtel: Delachaux & Niestlé, 1970;
repr. of Déluge et Arche de Noé [Neuchâtel: Delachaux & Niestlé, 1952]), 50.
1
4 Constructions of Space IV

appeal.”10 Raphael Patai, following rabbinic tradition, found idealized


nautical dimensions in the biblical account. Like Parrot and Armstrong,
he thought it evident that, as opposed to the “huge cube” in Gilgamesh,
Noah’s tƝvâ was much more “shipshape”: “relations between the length,
width, and height of Noah’s ark (30:5:3) are such as might be observed
in ancient times at any seaport in which war galleys might be seen.”11
That is, the Israelite version accords more with maritime realities than
does the Babylonian.
Other attempts to explain the structure of Noah’s ark have emphasized
its place within the Priestly (P) narrative of the Pentateuch, in which the
natural point of comparison is of course the wilderness tabernacle.
Gordon Wenham, for example, attempts to explain the dimensions of
Noah’s ark as a proportional multiple of the tabernacle courtyard area.12
As Joseph Blenkinsopp points out, however, these types of arguments
have not gained wide assent, to the extent that one must “renounce the
attempt to draw any signi¿cant conclusions from a comparison of the
dimensions of Noah’s ark with those of the wilderness sanctuary.”13 The
lack of dimensional congruence, however, is less important for Blenkin-
sopp and others than are other af¿nities between ark and tabernacle:
[S]ince the physical constructs—the ark of Noah and the sanctuary—are
built according to divine speci¿cations, there is a certain correspondence
between the spatial and temporal axes of the work. Thus the whole of
reality, in its spatial and temporal aspects, is shown to rest on the word
¿rst spoken at creation.14

Wenham, too, notes that “in Exod 25–31, there are…parallels in phrase-
ology with the directions for building the tabernacle and its furniture that
suggest that both ark and tabernacle were seen as a sanctuary for the
righteous.”15 Claus Westermann similarly argued that, since “the place

10. James F. Armstrong, “A Critical Note on Genesis VI 16 aĮ,” VT 10 (1960):


331.
11. Raphael Patai, The Children of Noah: Jewish Seafaring in Ancient Times
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), 4–5.
12. “The surface area of the ark was thus three times as much as that of the
tabernacle courtyard” (Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 1–15 [WBC 1; Waco: Word,
1987], 173).
13. Joseph Blenkinsopp, “The Structure of P,” CBQ 38 (1976): 286. On the
dif¿culties of determining the measurements of the tabernacle, see Michael Homan,
To Your Tents, O Israel! The Terminology, Function, Form, and Symbolism of Tents
in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East (CHANE 12; Leiden: Brill, 2002),
142–67.
14. Blenkinsopp, “Structure of P,” 277.
1
15. Wenham, Genesis 1–15, 172.
CRAWFORD Noah’s Architecture 5

where God allows his glory to appear [i.e. the tabernacle] is the place
whence the life of the people is preserved,” the construction of the ark is
consonant with it “because by means of it God preserved humanity from
destruction.”16
It thus appears that there are two main trends when it comes to the
explanation of the dimensions of Noah’s ark vis-à-vis the Gilgamesh
comparanda: either to explain the divergences as the result of biblical
demythologizing—favoring more realistic, “historical” proportions—
or to suppress the comparison to Gilgamesh altogether in favor of a com-
parison to other P structures.17 Both are ultimately unsatisfying stances,
for different reasons. In the ¿rst case, the comparative conclusions seem
emblematic of the larger problem of comparison between the Bible and
surrounding ancient Near Eastern cultures: claims to uniqueness are
sometimes not made only on the basis of a unique con¿guration of
cultural symbols (which claims could obviously be made of any of
Israel’s neighbors), but also on the requirement that Israel’s sui generis
cultural constellation is superior to those of its neighbors.18 In the case of
the proportions of the ark, biblical tradition is thus understood to mani-
fest itself more technologically, rationally, and aesthetically appealing.
We have so little evidence, however, of what would have constituted
nautical aesthetic appeal for an ancient Israelite, much less of their mari-
time knowledge, that these conclusions are untenable.19 In the second

16. Claus Westermann, Genesis 1–11 (trans. John J. Scullion; CC; Minneapolis:
Augsburg, 1984), 421.
17. More recent work on the use of ancient Near Eastern myth in the Hebrew
Bible has tended to be more circumspect about the assignment of relative values to
Israelite and broader ancient Near Eastern cultural processes. See, for example, Jon
Levenson, Creation and the Persistence of Evil (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1988), 54–65, esp. 59. For an argument against demythologization and histori-
cization altogether, see Bernard Batto, Slaying the Dragon: Mythmaking in the
Biblical Tradition (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1992), in which he seeks to
show that “myth permeates virtually every layer of biblical tradition from the earliest
to the latest” (1).
18. On this, see the insightful comments of Jon Levenson (Sinai and Zion: An
Entry into the Jewish Bible [New York: HarperCollins, 1985], 10ff.) and Peter
Machinist (“The Question of Distinctiveness in Ancient Israel,” in Ah, Assyria…
Assyrian History and Ancient Near Eastern Historiography Presented to Hayim
Tadmor [ed. Mordechai Cogan and Israel Eph’al; ScrHier 33; Jerusalem: Magnes,
1991], 196–212).
19. Ralph K. Pedersen attempted to bridge the gap between the ancient tales and
our knowledge of ancient seafaring by an appeal to a “sewn-boat” type of nautical
construction (“Was Noah’s Ark a Sewn Boat?,” BAR 31, no. 3 [2005]: 18–23, 55–
56). He went so far as to argue that Sîn-lƝqi-unninni, whom Pedersen thinks was
1
6 Constructions of Space IV

case, as Blenkinsopp himself concluded, the dimensions of the ark are


ultimately inexplicable on the basis of intra-P comparanda, the important
observations on other similar features of tabernacle and ark notwith-
standing.20

Ark of Noah and Temple of Solomon


A third way exists, outlined in large measure by Holloway and already
anticipated, if dismissed in the end, by Blenkinsopp: “in their basic
design both Noah’s ark and Solomon’s temple reÀect the three-decker
world of ancient Near Eastern cosmogonies, a feature which, for fairly
obvious reasons, could not be reproduced in the wilderness sanctuary.”21
As noted above, Holloway would take this observation further, arguing
that the ark “in Genesis was patterned on an idealized Solomonic
temple.”22
A review of the details of the ark construction in P and of the Jeru-
salem temple in 1 Kings is important at this juncture. We recall that,
according to Gen 6:14–16, the ark was to be made three hundred cubits
long, ¿fty cubits wide, and thirty cubits high. In 1 Kgs 6:2–10, the
interior dimensions of the main hall of the temple are presented in the
same order: sixty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and thirty cubits high.
On the surface these dimensions overlap only in their height, but once
one takes into account the thicknesses of the walls of the main hall as
well as the width of the yƗÑîa! (“storied structure,” 1 Kgs 6:5) surround-
ing the hall on three sides, the full exterior length and width would be

probably responsible for the addition of the construction details, “made an accurate
record of the techniques of his time” (23). Though the attempt is novel and intrigu-
ing, especially as far as it opens the view toward different processes of construction,
it ultimately fails to explain the more glaring dif¿culties of the narrative, such as the
demonstrably non-nautical dimensions and divisions of the space of the Gilgamesh
boat. Of course, Pedersen’s work is situated within a spectrum of scientists, special-
ists, and fundamentalists reading the Àood narratives with an eye toward discover-
ing some external, veri¿able reality behind them, beginning perhaps as early as the
fourth century C.E. and continuing into the twentieth century. See discussion in
J. David Pleins, When the Great Abyss Opened: Classic and Contemporary Read-
ings of Noah’s Flood (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 8–11.
20. One should not fail to mention here that, for their part, Assyriologists in
recent decades rarely even comment on the relationship between the structures of the
two vessels.
21. Blenkinsopp, “Structure of P,” 286. In a footnote to this citation he goes on
to observe brieÀy that the tripartite structures of Solomon’s temple and Noah’s ark
also use overlapping terminology.
1
22. Holloway, “What Ship Goes There,” 329.
CRAWFORD Noah’s Architecture 7

close to, if not exactly, one hundred by ¿fty cubits, thus making the
temple and ark correlates in two of three dimensions.23 Further, the yƗÑîa!
surrounding the temple is divided into three stories (1 Kgs 6:6): ta­tǀnâ
(bottom), tîkǀnâ (middle), and šƟlîšît (third). These are cognate with the
three decks of the ark (Gen 6:16): ta­tiyyîm (bottom), šƟniyyim (second),
and šƟlišîm (third). Finally, often unrecognized is the relevance of the
position of the door that leads to the temple stories. In 1 Kgs 6:8, the
entrance to the three-decker structure is speci¿cally noted as being on the
right side of the house, just as Gen 6:16 famously places the door of the
three-decker ark in its side.24 The note in Genesis has perhaps most
blatantly raised exegetical questions about the seaworthiness of Noah’s
vessel. Westermann puts it most bluntly: “This sentence tells us very
clearly that the ark that Noah is to construct is not a ship. The door is
mentioned here because the entrance into and exit from the ark form
important stages in the narrative.”25 The existence of the door, however,
may be the result of more than literary constraint. First Kings also reports
that the entrance to the storied structure of the Jerusalem temple, separate
from the main hall, was on the (right) side. In these texts, both of which
are spare in detail relative to other building accounts, it is striking that
the side door should be clearly indicated in close conjunction with the
cognate terminology. One also notes that this spatial congruence is mani-
fest in the fact that both the ark and the storied structure surrounding
the temple were made mostly of wood.26 Each of these structures is,
furthermore, described using similar verbal patterns and processes,

23. See the reconstructions of Th. A. Busink and others in Busink, Der Tempel
von Jerusalem von Salomo bis Herodes (2 vols.; Leiden: Brill, 1970), 705–10. This
is also the measure for which Michael Chyutin argues (Architecture and Utopia in
the Temple Era [trans. Richard Flantz; Library of Second Temple Studies 58; New
York: T&T Clark International, 2006], 106, 109; see also 90–95), but Chyutin retro-
jects the information from Ezekiel onto the Solomonic temple, with some changes.
Holloway also accepts this measure (“What Ship Goes There,” 348–49).
24. Holloway, who marshals the most detailed comparative evidence between
the two texts, discusses the fact that both have doorways, but not that they are
speci¿cally positioned in the side of the structures (“What Ship Goes There,” 349).
25. Westermann, Genesis 1–11, 421.
26. That this has often been understood as serving a non-sacral purpose—owing
to the note in 1 Kgs 6:6 that the structure did not penetrate the walls of the main hall
and the LXX understanding of it as completely separate—has also likely contributed
to its relevance for the ark construction narrative going almost entirely unrecog-
nized. The closest ancient Near Eastern analogue to the temple of Solomon, the
temple of Ain Dara in northern Syria, possesses such a surrounding structure that
was adorned with wall reliefs, suggesting that the space did not serve mere admin-
istrative or storage functions.
1
8 Constructions of Space IV

culminating in the so-called completion formulae, using the root klh in


the Piel with object suf¿x immediately after the construction of the
roof.27 Taken together, as Holloway notes, these structural homologies
make it “unlikely that chance could account for the correspondence in
dimensional proportions and structure between Noah’s ark and the
Solomonic temple.”28

Njta-napišti’s “Ship” and the Ziqqurrat of Marduk at Babylon


The connection above, between Noah’s ark and the temple of Solomon,
is rendered more plausible by observations made, though not widely
discussed, by Assyriologists regarding the congruence of Njta-napišti’s
vessel and the ziqqurrat.29 Paul Haupt, Max Mallowan, and Jean-Jacques
Glassner all (apparently independently) identi¿ed the homologies in
Gilgamesh XI and texts describing Babylonian ziqqurrats.30 Glassner
indicates the similarities, not only in the conjunction of cosmic geogra-
phy and Njta-napišti’s ark, but also the metric relationship between ark
and ziqqurrat.31 He calls attention to the Esagil tablet, a text concerned
with the dimensions of Marduk’s temple precinct in Babylon, mostly
with Marduk’s ziqqurrat.32 This text was composed at a time of compet-
ing standards of measure, viz. the Kassite/Early Neo-Babylonian and
standard Neo-Babylonian, which Andrew George dates as early as the
late eighth century B.C.E., even though the surviving copies are Late
Babylonian.33 This text clari¿es the problem of the equivalent length,
width, and height of the Àood boat in that it shows that total height could
equal length and width without rendering an exact cube, as many have

27. See D. W. Gooding, “Temple Speci¿cations: A Dispute in Logical Arrange-


ment Between the MT and the LXX,” VT 17 (1967): 143–72, esp. 148–50, and cf.
1 Kgs 6:9, 14 and Gen 6:16. The use of klh Piel with an object suf¿x, in the sense of
completing a project, is rare in the Hebrew Bible.
28. Holloway, “What Ship Goes There,” 349.
29. Much of the following Assyriological ground has been covered by Holloway,
though I update some of the bibliography and emphasize some different aspects for
reasons that will become apparent below.
30. See discussion in Holloway, “What Ship Goes There,” 338–39.
31. Jean-Jacques Glassner, “La division quinaire de la terre,” Akkadica 40
(1984): 17–34 (here 19).
32. For edition, bibliography, commentary, and translation, see Andrew R.
George, Babylonian Topographical Texts (OLA; Leuven: Peeters, 1992), 109–19,
414–34.
1
33. Ibid., 110.
CRAWFORD Noah’s Architecture 9

erroneously assumed the Mesopotamian Àood boat to be. The dimen-


sions of the ziqqurrat are given in each standard of measure, ¿rst 10 ×
10 × 10 nindanu (approx. 90 × 90 × 90 m) in the older (arû) standard.34
The next section gives the dimensions of six cellae that comprise the
ziqqurrat-temple. Finally, in the last section before the colophon, the
measurements of the entire ziqqurrat are given in the later standard
(aslu). Each of the seven levels are listed, with increasingly smaller hori-
zontal dimensions as one goes up. The bottom level is 15 × 15 and the
sum of the heights of the seven levels is 15.35 Thus Etemenanki is not to
be understood as an exact cube, but instead a familiar stepped pyramid
with the horizontal measurements of the base corresponding to the total
vertical rise.36
The connections between these texts made by Glassner are perhaps
obvious at this point: in Gilgamesh, the dimensions of the Àood vessel
are given by Njta-napišti as exactly those of the ziqqurrat of Babylon: 10
nindanu for length, width, and height.37 What is more, in each text the
length, breadth, and height are said to correspond to each other, using the
verb ma¨Ɨru in the Gt stem. The dimensional correspondence, moreover,
is with the older (Kassite/Early Neo-Babylonian) standard, a fact high-
lighted by the lack of ma¨Ɨru (Gt stem) in the section of the Esagil text
dealing with the dimensions of the later standard.38 The seven-tiered
structure is obviously congruent with Gilgamesh XI.39 Glassner points

34. Ibid., 117.


35. The line for the sixth level is missing and has been restored by scholars.
George discusses the reasons for favoring a restoration of the line between 41 and 42
in ibid., 431–32.
36. Of course, this presumes that the restoration is correct, which I take it to be
for all the reasons detailed in George, Babylonian Topographical Texts. Without the
restoration, the height still approximates the base lengths: 14 nindanu.
37. “L’arche et la tour ont donc mêmes dimensions, la seconde s’inscrivant dans
le volume de la première” (Jean-Jacques Glassner, “L’Etemenanki, armature du
cosmos,” NABU 32 [2002]: 32–34, here 34).
38. Where instead the correspondence is signaled by kƯ pî.
39. Although the explicit reference to seven levels of the ziqqurrat in the Esagil
text is in the section with the measurements of the later standard, seven-level
construction is known much earlier, as noted by Parrot, Bible et archéologie, 70–71.
See also the treatment of a Neo-Sumerian “Ziqqurrat-Plan” tablet from Nippur,
which preserves a top-down view of a seven-tiered structure, in Walther Sallaberger,
“Der ‘Ziqqurrat-Plan’ von Nippur und exorzistische Riten in neusumerischer Zeit:
Eine Anmerkungen,” in Ex Mesopotamia et Syria Lux: Festschrift für Manfred
Dietrich (ed. O. Loretz, K. A. Metzler, and H. Schaudig; Münster: Ugarit-Verlag,
2002), 610.
1
10 Constructions of Space IV

also to the nine-part division of each horizontal level as related to the


3 × 3 ÑuppƗn measure of the base of Etemenanki,40 and to the nine-part
division of the world in Enki and Nin¨ursag.41 The similarity, then, in
Gilgamesh and the Esagil tablet calls into question the designation of the
Àood vessel as an exact cube—both make it clear, using closely similar
terminology, that the length, breadth, and height correspond, but the
ziqqurrat is not to be understood as a cube, as the Esagil text makes clear
and as Holloway has demonstrated.42
Not only does Glassner draw the parallel between this text and the
vessel of the Mesopotamian Àood tradition,43 but he also brings in
evidence that it accurately reÀects a material Babylonian reality. The
nindanu, approximately 9 meters according to the older standard, corre-
lates closely with the base of the ziqqurrat excavated at Babylon: the
north, east, west, and south faces measure 91.66 m, 92.52 m, 91.43 m,
and 91.10 m respectively.44 The features common to Njta-napišti’s boat
and to the ziqqurrat(-temple) of Babylon are, as argued for the biblical
temple and ark, not coincidental, and the stronger Mesopotamian case
strengthens the likelihood of the identi¿cation of at least some shared
features of Noah’s ark and Solomon’s temple.
Holloway seeks to strengthen these ties by an appeal to an ancient
Near Eastern “temple ideology” expounded most systematically by John
Lundquist.45 He begins with a selection of Lundquist’s propositions about
the typological ancient Near Eastern temple and shows how the Àood
“boats” are situated securely within these propositions and thus how
they are “best seen as products of ancient Near Eastern temple ideology,
expressing both general and acculturated ideals of design, function and
mythology.”46 In each proposition, the close af¿liation of Àood myth and
cosmogony brings Àood vessel and sacred architecture closer by de¿ni-
tion. In light of the ease of relation of this typology to Àood vessels, the
shared structure and vocabulary seem all the more relevant and coherent.
I shall have more to say about the problems of “temple ideology” below,

40. Glassner, “L’Etemenanki,” 34.


41. Glassner, “La division quinaire,” 19.
42. Holloway, “What Ship Goes There,” 339–42.
43. Glassner, “L’Etemenanki,” 34.
44. Ibid., 33.
45. Holloway, “What Ship Goes There,” passim; John M. Lundquist, “What Is
a Temple? A Preliminary Typology,” in The Quest for the Kingdom of God: Essays
in Honor of G. E. Mendenhall (ed. H. B. Huffmon, F. A. Spina, and A. R. Green;
Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1993), 205–20.
1
46. Holloway, “What Ship Goes There,” 329.
CRAWFORD Noah’s Architecture 11

but for now it is important to point out that the relationship between ark
and temple thus runs much deeper than their linguistic and structural
parallels.
Explaining the literary appearance of the Àood vessels as products of
cultural notions of sacred space best accounts for the striking differences
between the Àood vessels in each tradition. It allows the use of a similar
conceptual framework—the congruence of Àood vessel and monumental
sacred architecture—to be applied to different cultural forms, viz., Israel-
ite temple and Babylonian ziqqurrat. This observation allows us to reject
unequivocally the pejorative analyses of Mesopotamian ark construction
discussed above, which saw little value in the “unrealistic” use of “fanci-
ful” proportions and championed the biblical dimensions as more realistic
than those in Gilgamesh. If the af¿liation of ark and temple is correct, the
Mesopotamian and biblical texts exemplify equivalent phenomena: the
different dimensions given in each are the result of different architectural
realities, rather than some other aesthetic or nautical rationale. Were
there any greater “realism” exhibited in Gen 6, it would be merely an
accident of this phenomenon.

The Function of Sacred Space in Gilgamesh XI and Genesis 6–9


If we admit the intentional relationship of ark and temple in the Àood
traditions discussed above, the reasons behind such a relationship remain
to be discussed. Treatment of this particular incorporation of sacred
space in mythic narrative will not only Àesh out some of the narrative
weight carried by the connection of Àood and temple, but it will also
provide occasion to consider the relevance of and implications for
current approaches to meaning in architecture.

Gilgamesh
In Gilgamesh, the Àood myth is central, at least thematically, to the
Standard Babylonian version of the epic, wherein Gilgamesh’s quest for
immortality is a prominent, if not the main thrust of the text. After the
death of Enkidu, Gilgamesh becomes preoccupied with death, and ven-
tures out in search of the way to immortality. The climax of this search is
his visit to the only mortal to have obtained eternal life: Njta-napišti, the
Àood hero. Of the well-known details of the Àood, some are particularly
relevant in this discussion. Ea tips off Njta-napišti to the intention of the
gods to bring the deluge, and, as we have seen, tells him to build a boat,
whose sides are equal and whose roof is like the apsû. Thus already an
ontological connection has been made between Àood vessel and divine
1
12 Constructions of Space IV

abode.47 Njta-napišti then asks what he shall say to those who ask what he
is doing. Ea responds that he should tell them “‘For sure Enlil has
conceived a hatred of me! / I cannot dwell in your city! / I cannot tread
[on] Enlil’s ground! / [I shall] go down to the Apsû, to live with Ea, my
master; / he will rain down on you plenty!’ ” (XI 39–43).48 Since this
answer is supposed to satisfy the curiosity of the onlookers, one wonders
whether it was understood that he needed a boat to reach the dwelling
place of Ea, or whether, in light of the connection with the ziqqurrat-
temple, the boat, roofed like the apsû itself, indicated the solution to the
fact that he could no longer tread Enlil’s ground by dint of its evoking a
temple. More than one intended meaning was possible, Ea’s response
being “loaded with double meanings”49 that have the effect of misleading
the crowd as well as portending the coming doom. The formal connec-
tion between ziqqurrat (= divine dwelling) and ark may have fostered
this deception among Njta-napišti’s interlocutors, but may have been well
understood by an ancient audience.
When construction began, the community assembled to assist in the
building, and Njta-napišti rewarded them as construction proceeds with
ample provisions: “They were celebrating as on the feast-days of the
New Year itself!” (XI 75). The Babylonian New Year festival is con-
nected with the victory of Marduk and the building of his temple, and
though this may be more simile than allusion, Andrew George makes a
comparison to a Neo-Babylonian text that describes similar events
related, not to nautical construction, but to temple building.50 George
concludes from this comparison that “Njta-napišti, like any king commit-
ted to a pious deed, wanted his new construction to be free from taint that
would compromise its proper function.”51 The comparison also consti-
tutes another point of connection between ark and temple. In this light,
the celebration as at the New Year’s festival appears to be more than
literary Àourish; rather, it further casts the boat in terms of temple build-
ing traditions.
At the end of the Àood, after the calamity has passed, the gods must
decide what to do with these survivors. Enlil himself enters Njta-napišti’s
boat and brings out Njta-napišti and his wife. Njta-napišti tells Gilgamesh
that Enlil “touched our foreheads, standing between us to bless us: / ‘In
the past Njta-napišti was (one of) mankind, / but now Njta-napišti and

47. See also discussion of this “elaborate multiple entendre” in ibid., 341–43.
48. All translations follow George, Gilgamesh Epic.
49. Ibid., 511.
50. For text and translation, see ibid., 513.
1
51. Ibid.
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Everybody
knows Joe
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Title: Everybody knows Joe

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Original publication: New York, NY: King-Size Publications, Inc, 1953

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EVERYBODY


KNOWS JOE ***
everybody knows joe

By C. M. Kornbluth

At least two persons live in each


of us. At least one of them is Joe.

For a young man Cyril


Kornbluth has been around a
long time—at least in the upper
reaches of science fiction and
fantasy writing. His "Little Black
Gag" is already accepted as a
classic, his collaborations with
Judith Merril "Mars Child" and
Frederik Pohl "The Space
Merchants," novels of high
entertainment and worth. We
are delighted to present him in
a little story that should scare
the pants off everybody.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Fantastic Universe October-November 1953.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Joe had quite a day for himself Thursday and as usual I had to tag
along. If I had a right arm to give I'd give it for a day off now and
then. Like on Thursday. On Thursday he really outdid himself.
He woke up in the hotel room and had a shower. He wasn't going to
shave until I told him he looked like a bum. So he shaved and then
he stood for a whole minute admiring his beauty in the mirror,
forgetting whose idea it was in the first place.
So down to the coffee shop for breakfast. A hard-working man needs
a good breakfast. So getting ready for a backbreaking day of copying
references at the library, he had tomato juice, two fried eggs, three
sausages, a sugared doughnut and coffee—with cream and sugar.
He couldn't work that off his pot in a week of ditch-digging under a
July sun, but a hard-working man needs a good breakfast. I was too
disgusted to argue with him. He's hopeless when he smells that
short-order smell of smoking grease, frying bacon and coffee.
He wanted to take a taxi to the library—eight blocks!
"Walk, you jerk!" I told him. He started to mumble about pulling down
six hundred bucks for this week's work and then he must have
thought I was going to mention the high-calorie breakfast. To him
that's hitting below the belt. He thinks he's an unfortunate man with
an affliction—about twenty pounds of it. He walked and arrived at the
library glowing with virtue.

Making out his slip at the newspaper room he blandly put down next
to firm—The Griffin Press, Inc.—when he knew as well as I did that
he was a free lance and hadn't even got a definite assignment from
Griffin.
There's a line on the slip where you put down reason for consulting
files (please be specific). It's a shame to cramp Joe's style to just
one line after you pitch him an essay-type question like that. He
squeezed in, Preparation of article on year in biochemistry for Griffin
Pr. Encyc. 1952 Yrbk., and handed it with a flourish to the librarian.
The librarian, a nice old man, was polite to him, which is usually a
mistake with Joe. After he finished telling the librarian how his
microfilm files ought to be organized and how they ought to switch
from microfilm to microcard and how in spite of everything the New
York Public Library wasn't such a bad place to research, he got down
to work.
He's pretty harmless when he's working—it's one of the things that
keeps me from cutting his throat. With a noon break for apple pie
and coffee he transcribed about a hundred entries onto his cards,
mopping up the year in biochemistry nicely. He swaggered down the
library steps, feeling like Herman Melville after finishing Moby Dick.
"Don't be so smug," I told him. "You still have to write the piece. And
they still have to buy it."
"A detail," he said grandly. "Just journalism. I can do it with my eyes
shut."
Just journalism. Somehow his three months of running copy for the
A.P. before the war has made him an Ed Leahy.
"When are you going to do it with your eyes...?" I began but it wasn't
any use. He began telling me about how Gautama Buddha didn't
break with the world until he was 29 and Mohammed didn't
announce that he was a prophet until he was 30, so why couldn't he
one of these days suddenly bust loose with a new revelation or
something and set the world on its ear? What it boiled down to was
he didn't think he'd write the article tonight.
He postponed his break with the world long enough to have a ham
and cheese on rye and more coffee at an automat and then phoned
Maggie. She was available as usual. She said as usual, "Well then,
why don't you just drop by and we'll spend a quiet evening with some
records?"
As usual he thought that would be fine since he was so beat after a
hard day. As usual I told him, "You're a louse, Joe. You know all she
wants is a husband and you know it isn't going to be you, so why
don't you let go of the girl so she can find somebody who means
business?"
The usual answers rolled out automatically and we got that out of the
way.
Maybe Maggie isn't very bright but she seemed glad to see him.
She's shooting for her Doctorate in sociology at N.Y.U., she does
part-time case work for the city, she has one of those three-room
Greenwich Village apartments with dyed burlap drapes and studio
couches and home-made mobiles. She thinks writing is something
holy and Joe's careful not to tell her different.
They drank some rhine wine and seltzer while Joe talked about the
day's work as though he'd won the Nobel prize for biochemistry. He
got downright brutal about Maggie being mixed up in such an
approximate unquantitative excuse for a science as sociology and
she apologized humbly and eventually he forgave her. Big-hearted
Joe.
But he wasn't so fried that he had to start talking about a man
wanting to settle down—"not this year but maybe next. Thirty's a
dividing point that makes you stop and wonder what you really want
and what you've really got out of life, Maggie darlin'." It was as good
as telling her that she should be a good girl and continue to keep
open house for him and maybe some day ... maybe.
As I said, maybe Maggie isn't very bright. But as I also said,
Thursday was the day Joe picked to outdo himself.
"Joe," she said with this look on her face, "I got a new LP of the
Brahms Serenade Number One. It's on top of the stack. Would you
tell me what you think of it?"
So he put it on and they sat sipping rhine wine and seltzer and he
turned it over and they sat sipping rhine wine and seltzer until both
sides were played. And she kept watching him. Not adoringly.
"Well," she asked with this new look, "what did you think of it?"
He told her, of course. There was some comment on Brahms'
architectonics and his resurrection of the contrapuntal style. Because
he'd sneaked a look at the record's envelope he was able to spend a
couple of minutes on Brahms' debt to Haydn and the young
Beethoven in the fifth movement (allegro, D Major) and the gay
rondo of the—
"Joe," she said, not looking at him. "Joe," she said, "I got that record
at one hell of a discount down the street. It's a wrong pressing.
Somehow the first side is the first half of the Serenade but the
second half is Schumann's Symphonic Studies Opus Thirteen.
Somebody noticed it when they played it in a booth. But I guess you
didn't notice it."
"Get out of this one, braino," I told him.
He got up and said in a strangled voice, "And I thought you were my
friend. I suppose I'll never learn." He walked out.
I suppose he never will.
God help me, I ought to know.
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EVERYBODY
KNOWS JOE ***

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