Reading akkadian PRayeRs & Hymns An Introduction

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READING AKKADIAN PRAYERS AND HYMNS: AN INTRODUCTION
“by order of [some deity],” and DN šipta iddi/iqbi, “[some deity] cast/spoke the
incantation.” 49 These legitimation formulae were intended to raise the authority
of the ritual speech to the level of divine decree and thereby coerce the addressee
to obey. As this volume shows, most incantation-prayers conclude with
either a petition or thanksgiving for the benevolent power’s favorable response.
Only very rarely does one see the legitimation formulae in incantation-prayers.
For example, there are only four instances of šiptu ul yuttun attached to an incantation-prayer,
which makes these four quite exceptional among this very populous
category of texts. 50 See, likewise, Maqlû I 36 (see page 164), in which the
supplicant uses the ina qibīt formula to assert the accomplished defeat of the
malevolent witch. 51 These exceptions are reminders that cultural data rarely fit
neatly into compartmentalized categories. However, the fact that they are exceptional
examples bolsters the usefulness of the analytical generalization presented
here.
From the above observations, it may be concluded that some ritual texts
modern scholars call incantations were generally construed as divine speech
while those identified as incantation-prayers generally reflect that of human
speech. 52 Even though this generalization is still simplistic, 53 it suggests there is
heuristic value to maintaining our modern category of prayer as a subset of
Mesopotamian ritual speech (see fig. 2).
One final question concludes this discussion of refining a definition of
prayer and praise to fit the Akkadian material, namely, how do the communal and
institutional aspects of religious activity come to bear upon our understanding of Akkadian
prayer and praise?
As for the communal side of the issue, we do not know as much as we
would like about the actual Sitz im Leben of many prayers (see the descriptions
below). Based on the content of the ritual instructions that often follow the
wording of many prayers, however, the supplicant and the ritual expert seem to
have been the only people involved, at least usually, in the actual performance of
49 Sometimes this formula is expanded with –ma anāku ušanni/ašši, “and I repeated/bore (it).”
50 See Alan Lenzi, “Šiptu ul Yuttun: Some Reflections on a Closing Formula in Akkadian Incantations,”
in Gazing on the Deep: Ancient Near Eastern, Biblical, and Jewish Studies in Honor of Tzvi
Abusch (ed. Jeffrey Stackert, Barbara Nevling Porter, and David P. Wright; Bethesda: CDL Press,
2010), 131–66 for the issue of legitimation formulae in incantations and an explanation of exceptional
cases of these formulae in what the definition developed in this introduction would
identify as prayers.
51 See, however, the variant MS containing a precative form of the verb, as noted by Abusch, in
line 35, which, if accepted, would substantially change the meaning of the ina qibīt formula in
line 36.
52 See Foster’s similar conceptual distinction between prayers/hymns, treated under the heading
“Devotion: Speaking to the Gods,” and incantations, treated under “Divine Speech: the Magic
Arts” (Akkadian Literature of the Late Period, 73 and 91).
53 See the institutional comments just below.