Advances in Ancient, Biblical, and Near Eastern Research

A Few Thoughts on Hope

Jeffrey L Cooley — 2024-12-06

This essay is an introduction to the theme of this special issue, “Hope,” and includes an elaboration on the situation that inspired the theme and a few brief reflections on the topic.

Lament and Hope in Ludlul Bēl Nēmeqi

Anthony P. SooHoo — 2024-12-06

Ludlul bēl nēmeqi has been described as wisdom literature and has been compared to the theodicy in the book of Job. Šubši-mešrê-Šakkan, the protagonist, voices his despair for his misfortune and praises Marduk for his restoration. Šubši-mešrê-Šakkan, the protagonist, voices his despair for his misfortune and praises Marduk for his restoration. This article addresses how hope is communicated to the imagined audience in Ludlul in response to the capriciousness of the deity. Moreover, lament, which is addressed to an emotional community, is construed as an act of hope and an expression of resilience, engendering empathy and solidarity in both human and divine audiences. The composition reflects the concerns and interests of cultic specialists, whose expertise and learning made them important figures during the Kassite period, even as it also hints at the cooperation and competition between the āšipu and the kalû in the Assyrian royal court of the first millennium BCE. Although hope is a cross-cultural phenomenon, it activates sociocultural values, beliefs, and practices, fostering resilience while ancient Mesopotamians confronted the uncertainty and suffering that are part of reality.

Divine Ambition From Marduk to Yahweh

Ryan Conrad Davis — 2024-12-06

This article explores the incantation-prayer tradition of Mesopotamia in order to understand how gods were expected to acquire power and how the movement of gods within a pantheon could be explained from within the cuneiform culture of ancient Mesopotamia. The situation assumed in many incantation-prayers has strong parallels to the situation of Marduk in Enūma eliš. Incantation-prayers fold an individual’s problem into a mythological moment, or type-scene, similar to Enūma eliš, where a god is invited to rescue an individual and thereby gain further power by gaining the allegiance of both gods and mortals. Deities were allowed to rise and fall in the pantheon because it was assumed that a great god’s power made them hard to recognize; truly transcendent gods were assumed to be manifested by other gods. These beliefs about divine ambition also help contextualize Yahweh’s own Cinderella story, where two small nations dreamed that their previously unrecognized god could one day rule the world.

"Our Hope is Lost; We Are Cut Off" (Ezek 37:11)

Shawn Zelig Aster — 2024-12-06

This article explores the historical background to Ezekiel’s famous dry bones vision and examines how that vision (Ezek 37:1–14) interacts with the theory of hope that C. R. Snyder formulated in The Psychology of Hope (1994). It shows Ezekiel’s carefully developed program of encouraging the people to maintain their Judahite identity, oppose the Babylonian Empire’s program for integrating exiles, and develop their hope of return to Judah.

Agrarian Hope in Isaiah 40–55

William L. Kelly — 2024-12-06

It is widely recognized that hope is a central theme in Deutero-Isaiah (Isa 40–55). With the help of interdisciplinary work in ecological criticism and moral philosophy, this article analyzes the theme of hope in the text and argues that the renewal of the natural environment is central to its vision for the future. Using insights drawn from agrarian approaches to biblical texts, the article shows how this renewal is understood as mutually beneficial for both humans and the land, strongly linking the flourishing of Zion with the Judean hinterland. This is demonstrated through a survey of language in the text referring to the natural landscape and readings of specific texts relating to the theme of ecological restoration (41:17–20; 43:16–21; 44:23; 45:8; 51:1–8; 55:1–13). As Deutero-Isaiah’s message of hope responds to the experience of cultural disaster in the sixth century BCE, it resembles the “radical hope” identified by Jonathan Lear. This hope stands apart from the traditional institutional forms of monarchy and Temple, and instead looks toward a vision of human flourishing deeply connected to the landscape.

Hope in Restoration

Deirdre N. Fulton — 2024-12-06

The theme of hope is evident in many places in Chronicles’ retelling of the history of Israel and Judah. In 1 Chronicles 1–9, the theme of hope is envisioned through long genealogies, beginning with Adam and descending through the children of Jacob/Israel. The Chronicler spends most of the time focusing on the genealogies on Judah, Benjamin, and Levi, but the other tribes find a place within the genealogies as well. Using C. R. Snyder’s model of hope theory, we explore the theme of hope in restoration and consider how the Chronicler envisions hope in postexilic Judah. We consider positive and negative images of hope depicted in the genealogical lists in 1 Chronicles 1–9.

The Evil Within

Casey Elledge — 2024-12-06

Rome’s triumph in the Great Jewish Revolt (66–70/74 CE) and the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple inspired the renewed flourishing of literary apocalypses in ancient Judaism. Fourth Ezra (2 Esdras) and 2 Baruch interpret the crisis and offer hope to the Jewish community in ways familiar to earlier apocalyptic traditions. Yet they also advance the apocalyptic genre as a medium of intellectual debate through extended dialogues that explore questions of theodicy. The purposes of the complex literary dialogues remain an ongoing scholarly problem. Comparative analysis reveals within both dialogues an intense focus on the human will, the power of sin, and the possibilities of moral agency. While their approaches to these anthropological questions meaningfully differ, their respective dialogues, nevertheless, construct a near-term, interim ethic in which the righteous may find hope to persevere even amid their own deeply threatened moral agency. This is especially apparent in the dialogues’ anxieties over human nature, their intercessory prayers, and the models of practical leadership embodied by their respective protagonists.

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