JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

only at Emar and Tuttul. Even at the time of the Late Bronze
archives, elders retained important legal and ritual responsibilities.
Israel’s monarchy also had to build its power in a political
environment with long-established traditions for collective
governance, in this case rooted in populations spread
across a much larger region. Aside from any direct political
comparison, the strength of collective political life at Emar
gives its public religious celebrations a flavor more like what
the Bible portrays for Israel than much Near Eastern public
ritual, which tends to revolve around the king.
The most striking specific comparisons between Emar
texts and the Bible have to do with religion, and public ritual
life in particular. One preoccupation of the biblical Torah is
the definition of a collective Jewish religious practice by reference
to Israel in its life before kings, before Jerusalem and its
temple, even before settlement in the land. This religious practice
includes a major public component, with the ark and its
tent shrine, priests for all Israel, and festivals to be celebrated
in the name of Israel.
Although Emar religion belongs to a Late Bronze Age
town, far to Israel’s north, the cultural framework has points
in common with Israel, beyond the collective political traditions.
Most telling is the foundation of a shared temple architecture.
In broad Near Eastern terms, the temples of Syria-Palestine,
drawn north-south to include what become the lands
of Israel and Judah, stand out from many other types. Even in
the central cities of significant states, Syrian temples are most
often constructed along one axis, with a doorway that opens
directly onto the main sanctuary room. Four Emar temples,
including the sacred room of the diviner’s building M1, share
this form. The only descriptions of temple form in the Bible
apply to Solomon’s structure at Jerusalem and the mobile tent
of *Exodus. Both of these share the simple axial layout of the
regional type. Together with these simple sanctuary forms we
find a lack of large temple-based communities, in contrast to
the major sacred centers of the southern Mesopotamian cities,
for one. Only a small number of priests enter the temple, and it
is rare that the temple serves as the home for sacred personnel.
At Emar, it is possible that only the storm god’s (NIN.DINGIR)
priestess and perhaps the neighboring mash’artu priestess of
Ashtartu lived in the temples they served.
The most provocative comparisons between Emar and
biblical religion relate to ritual procedure. Two clusters merit
special attention, one related to the calendrical structure of
festivals and the other to the technique of anointing. Both
clusters are embedded in the public ritual life of the people on
both sides of the comparison. On the biblical side, the closest
comparisons appear in the priestly lore of the Torah. Although
the finished versions of this lore may date to the exile of Judah
or later, the similarities to Emar practice suggest that these
traits do not derive from external contacts unique to such late
times. They appear to be deeply indigenous, never borrowed,
arising and developing in the local setting.
Three of Emar’s all-town festivals are constructed around
seven-day blocks, like the Bible’s seven-day festivals of Pesah/
emar
Massot (Passover/Unleavened Bread) and Sukkot (Booths).
Two of the Emar events are the installation rites for the priestesses
of the storm god and Ashtartu, which were evidently
performed after the death of the previous officeholder. Only
one was celebrated according to the annual calendar, and the
similarities are striking. Emar’s zukru festival was focused on
the full moon of the first month, with a seven-day period of
feasting to follow. Emar counted the new year from the fall.
At least once, a special version took place in the seventh year,
and this event was by far the most expensive rite recorded in
the archive. The zukru was an all-town festival during which
the whole population brought all the gods outside the walls
to pay special honor to Dagan as head of Emar’s pantheon.
The word zukru is West Semitic, not Akkadian, and probably
represents an act defined by speech, a prayer or oath that renewed
devotion to Dagan in this leading role.
Emar’s zukru has more in common with the major calendar
festivals than does any one rite found at Ugarit. Pesah/
Massot and Sukkot are celebrated at the two axes of the ancient
year, in spring and fall, and in the Holiness Code and Priestly
versions of Leviticus 23 and Numbers 28–29, both incorporate
a seven-day block and are focused on the full moon. The autumn
new year at Emar matches the timing of Sukkot, in particular.
Although this feast came to give came to give pride of
place to the spring event in later tradition, the importance of
the autumn equinox is visible in several aspects of the biblical
calendar. In spite of the count of numbered months from the
spring in priestly writing and the eventual borrowing of the
Babylonian calendar with its spring new year, Exodus 23:16
and 34:22 indicate a turn of the year in the fall. This tradition
is preserved in Rosh Hashanah, celebrated at the new moon
of the first autumn month. A late note at the end of Deuteronomy
preserves the most striking comparison with Emar’s
zukru (31:10–11). Every seventh year, at the feast of Sukkot,
the written instruction of Moses was to be read aloud to the
assembled population. The calendar is exactly like that of
Emar's’special event, and the centrality of speech also offers
an impressive continuity. How can we explain these similarities?
The contents of each religious tradition are surely distinct.
Deuteronomy’s choice of this timing for such a major
rite must, however, reflect ancient practices in Israel or Judah,
even if they are transformed here to fit the notion of a Mosaic
text. Somehow, the zukru at Emar belongs to a stream of ritual
custom in which the biblical festivals participate at a later
date. Where the calendar of biblical ritual corresponds with
that of Emar’s zukru, it is unlikely that the biblical timing was
first created or borrowed at the date of textual composition,
even if that may finally be exilic or later. The priestly calendar
for the spring and fall festivals, along with the fall rite of
Deuteronomy 31, appear to be much older than the texts in
which they are embedded.
Aside from the calendar, Emar’s festival accounts resemble
the Torah instructions for Israel in at least one more
important respect. They share an emphasis on the assembly
of the people, without differentiation, and without leadership
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 6 389