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Textbook Constructions of Space Iv Further Developments in Examining Ancient Israel S Social Space 1St Edition Mark K George Ebook All Chapter PDF
Textbook Constructions of Space Iv Further Developments in Examining Ancient Israel S Social Space 1St Edition Mark K George Ebook All Chapter PDF
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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
edited by
Mark K. George
www.bloomsbury.com
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.
eISBN: 978-0-567-32590-7
Abbreviations vii
List of Contributors ix
INTRODUCTION
Mark K. George xi
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
1
1
INTRODUCTION
Mark K. George
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.
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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By C. M. Kornbluth
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.
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