Women's Divination in Biblical Literature: Prophecy, Necromancy, and Other Arts of Knowledge
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Women's Divination in Biblical Literature: Prophecy, Necromancy, and Other Arts of Knowledge
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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780300213362 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Yale University Press |
| Publication date: | 04/28/2015 |
| Series: | Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 288 |
| File size: | 15 MB |
| Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
About the Author
Esther J. Hamori is associate professor of Hebrew Bible at Union Theological Seminary. Her publications include a book on divine anthropomorphism, “When Gods Were Men”: The Embodied God in Biblical and Near Eastern Literature. She lives in New York, NY.
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Women's Divination in Biblical Literature
Prophecy, Necromancy, and Other Arts of Knowledge
By Esther J. Hamori
Yale UNIVERSITY PRESS
Copyright © 2015 Yale UniversityAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-300-21336-2
CHAPTER 1
Access to Divine Knowledge
Who has access to divine knowledge?
Biblical traditions are permeated with an interest in the question of who has special access to divine knowledge and who does not. This distinction is not only present in the prophetic literature, where it is perhaps most starkly drawn and best recognized. We also see an awareness of the issue sprinkled through the stories of the early monarchy, for instance, where it is one of the defining distinctions between David, who is repeatedly able to "inquire" of Yahweh and obtain a clear verbal response (1 Sam 23:2–4, 9–12; 1 Sam 30:7–8; 2 Sam 2:1), and Saul, who is abandoned by the spirit of Yahweh and thus unable to receive knowledge (1 Sam 16:14; 1 Sam 28:6, 15–16). After unsuccessfully attempting to hear from Yahweh through multiple means of divination, Saul laments to the ghost of Samuel, whom the necromancer of En-dor has raised: "God has turned away from me and doesn't answer me anymore, not through prophets or through dreams!" (1 Sam 28:15). And according to many a narrated comment in the broader tradition, he is quite correct on this front: "Yahweh was with [David], but had left Saul," [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (1 Sam 18:12). This contrast is also depicted as a vital distinction among nations and peoples. When Aaron and the Egyptian "magicians" perform suspiciously similar acts, we see time and again that unlike the handiwork of the Egyptians, Aaron's "signs" originate in Yahweh's direct and ongoing verbal instruction to Moses (Exod 6:28–14:31).
The question of access to divine knowledge is part of a larger constellation of concerns in biblical literature over who has access: to the temple, to the people of Israel, to God. Issues of physical proximity and divine-human contact are particularly evident in legal material (who can enter the holy of holies? Who can offer a sacrifice?), though they appear in prose narrative as well (who can approach the Ark? Certainly not the Philistines, we find out in 1 Sam 5–6, nor Uzzah, who meets an unfortunate end in 2 Sam 6:6–7). Reflections on divine-human communication, while also found in a range of genres, are more concentrated in prose texts. Prophetic oracles and collections are the result of belief in privileged divine-human communication, but it is more frequently in the narration of divinatory activity that views on access are revealed.
Divination and the "Arts of Knowledge"
Until recently, scholars consistently referred to "divination" as the counter point to "prophecy." This was one reflection of a scholarly tendency to accept certain biblical polemics at face value, as if objective and factual: in this case, polemics referring to "divination" as false and foreign, even in spite of other biblical traditions presenting numerous forms of divination as authentic, Israelite, and legitimate. The acceptance of this polemical position stemmed in part from the lingering application of outdated theories of religion, according to which "magic" was defined negatively in contrast to "religion." This is now understood to be an artificial distinction, based on a view of "magic" as Other, such that for virtually any group, one's own beliefs and practices are considered religious, and those of the Other are considered magical and illicit. "Prophecy" was thus accepted as a proper religious phenomenon, while "divination" was seen as magical. Now that the polemical nature of this framework has been recognized, however, divination is coming to be used as an umbrella term. I will define it here as any type of action culturally understood to allow acquisition of knowledge otherwise restricted to the divine realm. Such actions—including prophecy, necromancy, technical "inquiry," and more—differ in their details, but not in their fundamental assumptions and goals. It is increasingly recognized that prophecy is simply one type of divination.
To some readers, the idea of prophecy may still feel different from technical divination—and to be sure, each form of divination does have its own unique characteristics—but prophecy can no more be extricated from the broader category than any other form of divinatory activity. Attempts to establish a principled distinction between prophecy on the one hand and divination on the other have not succeeded, as I discuss in detail in the next chapter.
Divination, then, refers to a range of means of acquiring privileged divine knowledge, but gaining such knowledge does not by itself constitute divination. Divination should include one or more of three elements: intent, interpretation (whether through technical skill or divine inspiration), or an indication of the special identity of the diviner (whether through training or divine call). Various aspects of dream divination will illustrate this. Dream incubation, the inducement of a so-called significant dream (that is, one with a divinely sent message), especially through sleeping at a sanctuary or other sacred place, is a clear example of intent. Gleaning knowledge from a "symbolic-message" dream (that is, one that must be deciphered)—whether incubated or spontaneous, and whether one's own dream or another's—requires interpretation. Receiving divine knowledge through a spontaneous "message" dream (that is, one with a clear verbal statement) constitutes divination if, but only if, the recipient is depicted as having a special identity as a diviner, like Joseph. Whether or not a modern reader would consider a spontaneously received message dream from God to constitute remarkable, even prophetic, communication, the biblical texts do not do so. No divination is present when an individual receives a dream passively and without implication of the character having special access to divine knowledge (Abimelech, Gen 20:3; Laban, Gen 31:24). Dreams of this last type are comparable to the patriarchs' waking conversations with God, which, in the biblical authors' theologically romanticized view of the past, are portrayed as everyday occurrences.
Any single one of these three factors—intent, interpretation, or special identity—may indicate divinatory particularity: receipt of a prophetic call constitutes identification as an individual whose divine-human communication is privileged. There is more frequently a combination of these elements present: necromancy requires intent as well as possibly the special identity of the necromancer, but probably not interpretation; extispicy (the professional reading of the innards of an animal sacrificed for this purpose) requires intent, interpretation of the findings, and the special identity of the diviner.
The suggestion that "divination" consists in having special access to divine knowledge, and that it should reflect some combination of intent, interpretation, and/or special identity, is not intended to be a hard-and-fast list of requirements. Ancient authors did not define divination, were not restricted to categorizing each act as either divinatory or not divinatory, and differed in their portrayals of such activity. It does, however, attempt to explain why some things seem to be portrayed as special access to divine knowledge and some do not.
By this definition, the type of casual divine-human conversation portrayed as common for the patriarchs is excluded: their ongoing conversations include none of the previously mentioned requirements. On the other hand, while Jonah intends not to prophesy, and God's statements to him do not require interpretation, his conversations with God constitute divinatory activity because he is identified through title and depiction as an individual with privileged divine-human communication. Most angelic appearances are not acts of divination, as they require no human intent or interpretation and assume no special identity of a diviner. Angelic communications should be considered to have a range of types, like dreams, including direct messages (as in the straightforward communications scattered throughout Genesis) and symbolic messages (as in late prophecy and apocalyptic literature); only the latter would involve divination on the part of the human character. In each case—workaday divine-human conversations, resisted prophetic messages, spontaneous angelic appearances—a key factor is whether or not the interaction was understood within its own sociocultural context to constitute a type of communication from the deity that was out of the ordinary in form, method, or content.
It is tempting to consider the ability to interpret to be the defining feature of divination, and indeed, it is often central: the diviner might have special skills, but certainly has special understanding. It is not the holder of a message who divines, but the interpreter. For example, it is not necessarily the dreamer who divines, any more than the sheep examines its own liver (though the former is perhaps more common). Thus, when the imprisoned Egyptian butler and baker each have a dream, they are despondent and sa to Joseph, "'We each had a dream, but there is no one to interpret them.' So Joseph said to them, 'Doesn't God have the interpretations? So tell me'" (Gen 40:8). They proceed to tell him their dreams, and he—the one with special access to knowledge from the divine realm—interprets. Here the dreamer is not the diviner.? While dreaming itself plays little part in the present study, because there are no dreams reported for female characters in the Bible, this example should illustrate the interpretive role of the diviner.
I refer here to the range of methods of divination as the "arts of knowledge," as inspired by the Greek concept of divinatory activity as [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (art, craft, skill). The term is sometimes used even to refer to ecstatic prophecy, as in Aristotle's reference to Onomacritus practicing "the art of prophecy," [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (Aristot. Pol. 1274a.28), and Jocasta's denial of any human being having "prophetic art" [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (Soph. Oed. tyr. 709), both using [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] in conjunction with [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]. Aeschylus portrays prophecy similarly: at one point in Agamemnon, as the chorus continues to express bafflement at Cassandra's ecstatic prophecies, they question what good can come of "the wordy arts" of prophecy, [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (Aes. Ag. 1134). Shortly thereafter, they ask Cassandra if she had been "seized by the prophetic arts," [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (Aes. Ag. 1209 [Lloyd-Jones]).
The term [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] lends itself to a range of interpretations, especially when used in combination with other divination language. The last phrase in the previous paragraph (Aes. Ag. 1209), for instance, is rendered alternately as "possessed by the skill the god inspires" (Collard), "possessed by the arts of divine prophecy" (Young), and perhaps best, "seized by the inspired arts" (Flower). By "the arts of knowledge" I mean to indicate the full range of senses of the term: the array of types of divination, from prophecy to use of technical instruments, is characterized by the privileged access gained through [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], through craft, art, technique, skill.
I am primarily interested in ancient Israelite ideas about divination: how did various authors conceive of who had access to divine knowledge? Who could gain direct access to such knowledge, when, and how? These questions of who has access to direct divine-human contact and communication are the Israelites' own, as seen in the examples earlier in this chapter. In what follows, I ask these questions specifically in regard to women.?
Why Women?
As we know, most biblical texts are focused on male activity and written from a male perspective. This is old news. In addition, most scholarly attention to divinatory activity has been focused on prophecy. There are only a few female prophets in the Bible; there are, however, many more women who engage in other types of divination. This combination of factors has resulted in a flawed picture of the world of Israelite divination. In current scholarship, the prevailing image is still one dominated by prophets, almost all male. An examination of the full spectrum of women's divinatory activity should break this open. What comes into view instead is a world full of people attempting to access divine knowledge in a multitude of ways. The focus here on women's divination should provide valuable information in itself, but it also fleshes out the picture of the manifold divinatory roles in biblical literature overall. My hope in writing this work is not (only) that it should bring to light the many biblical reflections of women's divinatory activity, but that in doing so, it might color our view of the vastly complex, rich, and diverse world of ancient Israelite divination.
I noted earlier that the question of who has privileged divine access is the Israelites' own. Questions regarding the status of groups not in the biblical spotlight (for example, Moabites) are also found in the traditions themselves. A good deal of biblical writing appears to have been motivated by issues of communal identity formation in relation to the "Other." This often takes the form of defining Israel and Israelite identity in opposition to other nations. Upon further reflection, though, it is evident that many texts are concerned more specifically with defining Israelite male identity. This is not only a matter of male authorial perspective in a general sense, but is frequently a more overt (if unstated) concern. It is patently the case, for instance, in legal material addressing issues of how to deal with wives and other women, which female relatives one should not have sex with, and other matters specific to men. The concern with male identity is also evident in a structure common to many narrative texts, featuring men who are defined by their heredity, geographical origin, and deity, and including women who are defined secondarily as relatives (wife, mother, daughter, sister) of a male character. In addition to this identity pyramid, the literature often reflects an interest in how the men as primary characters address issues in society relating to women as secondary characters. The poetic texts describing female activity are concerned primarily with the dangers posed by women (the archetypal foreign woman, the evil city personified as a woman, and so on).
Two aspects of Israel's self-understanding as reflected in biblical texts are then evident. First, the authors' concerns with who has access to divine knowledge and who does not are fused with broader issues of identity construction in relation to the "Other," including individuals (David versus Saul) and groups (Israel versus Egypt). Second, within many texts, the concern is specifically Israelite male identity, and women comprise a significant category of "Other." It should be of interest, then, to consider how various traditions conceive of women's access to the divine.
Recent years have shown a growing interest in women's prophecy throughout the ancient Near East, and including Israel. There has been no significant work, however, on the range of women's divination in biblical literature. The three existing monographs on the subject of the female biblical prophets have been concerned specifically with prophecy, and not the broader phenomenon of divination. Meanwhile, recent influential works on divination have not included particular attention to women. There is not yet any study of women's divination in the Bible.
The methodological segregation does not stem from the "prophetic" side alone, or from scholars focused on biblical texts. Work on ancient Near Eastern divination tends to focus on technical or academic methods, such as extispicy and omen compendia—logically enough, since these are by definition the types for which we have the most textual evidence. Because academic divination was overwhelmingly a male profession, such research is naturally focused on men. The next step is more problematic: divination is then circularly defined to be male. (An added factor is that even while we note that there are many varieties of divination, we tend to have the barû in mind when we say "diviner.") The slippage from discussing technical or academic divination to "divination," thus framing all divination in terms of the types practiced almost exclusively by men, is often subtle. It occurs even in the work of scholars clearly familiar with the full range of divinatory methods, and even where the possible presence of women's divination is addressed overtly. Frederick Cryer, for instance, concludes that female diviners were extremely rare:
Since divination is always held to produce real knowledge, and, as I have also mentioned, since access to knowledge is invariably restricted in any society (whether by economic pressures, fiat, tabu, or whatever is unimportant), one should note that access to the sort of knowledge produced by divination in the ancient Near East was also in many ways severely restricted. Thus, for example, to take only the most obvious point of departure, there were virtually no female diviners, so that, in spite of the fact that women apparently could consult the diviner, there was no doubt a good deal they could not talk meaningfully with him about.
(Continues...)
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Table of Contents
Contents
Preface, ix,List of Abbreviations, xi,
PART ONE: WOMEN'S DIVINATION AND THE ARTS OF KNOWLEDGE,
1. Access to Divine Knowledge, 3,
2. Setting the Stage, 19,
PART TWO: BIBLICAL PERSPECTIVES ON WOMEN'S DIVINATION,
3. Rebekah the Aramean, 43,
4. Miriam, 61,
5. Deborah, 82,
6. Hannah, 94,
7. The Necromancer of En-dor, 105,
8. The "Wise Women" of 2 Samuel, 131,
9. Huldah, 148,
10. The Prophet Who Conceived and Gave Birth to a Son, 160,
11. "The Daughters of Your People Who Prophesy,", 167,
12. The Women of Joel's Radical Vision, 184,
13. Noadiah, 186,
14. Rachel, the Mother of Micah, and the Teraphim, 189,
15. What a Witch: Divination Imagery and Metaphor, 203,
Concluding Reflections, 217,
Bibliography, 225,
Index of Subjects, 247,
Index of Ancient Texts, 260,
Index of Key Ancient Terms, 270,