Studying Ancient Israelite Ritual: Methodological Considerations

Abstract

Any adequate account of ancient Israel and its texts must include a study of its ritual practices. Most of what we would term ‘religion’ in that society was made up of regular events and the rituals that accompanied them. Harvest was celebrated with festivals, the slaughter of animals for food became sacrifice rituals, death was accompanied by mourning rituals, etc. Studying these rituals is necessary yet difficult. Using recent theory from anthropology and textual study, numerous new studies have taken up these challenges. Using the study of animal sacrifice as its primary example, this essay explores the problems and prospects of the study of Israel's rituals.

From Temple to Text: Text as Ritual Space and the Composition of Numbers 6:24–26

“…In the specific case of these chapters of Numbers, given that we do not actually have any rituals preserved from ancient Israel or Judah, as Wesley J. Bergen notes, we might do well to consider how ritual spaces and the presence of blessings, curses, and other formulae in them may have influenced the shape or "literary organization" of certain biblical texts. 42 JOURNAL OF HEBREW SCRIPTURES I have argued that the incorporation of the priestly blessing in Numbers and its association with the law of the Nazirite and the dedication of the tabernacle altar might be productively examined against the background of dedicatory inscriptions, and their emplacement in temples. As such, we might reimagine these chapters as a literary archive preserving the different types of offerings that would have been associated with the dedication of temples and placed in courtyards and other rooms of temples (votive offerings, dedicatory inscriptions, dedicatory offerings, lampstands, "memorial offerings," silver trumpets, etc.).…”

“…For exceptions to this, seeSmoak, The Priestly Blessing in Inscription and Scripture,[35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42] 33 E. Waaler, "A Revised Date for Pentateuchal Texts? Evidence from Ketef Hinnom," TynBul 53(2002), 29-55; H.N.…”

Between the Traditional and the Innovative: Ezra‐Nehemiah in Current Research

“…While there is a notable increase in studies looking at biblical ritual and making use of ritual theory over the past two decades (Gorman 1995, 1990; Gruenwald 2003; Bergen 2007, 2005; Klingbeil 2007c; Watts 2007), little research has been done looking at the book of Ezra‐Nehemiah from a ritual perspective. This may be due to predominant paradigms as to the literary and historical development of the texts and religious practice contained in the Hebrew Bible, as well as the tension between practitioners of biblical theology and those preferring to describe (and re‐construct or deconstruct) the history of religion of that period and region (Albertz 1995, 1998; Janowski 2002).…”