Notes to Chapter 21. Proclamation

21.1 Narrative and Proclamation
21.2 The Kerygmatic Nature of Narratives
21.3 Proclamation as Presence
21.4 Mesopotamian Proclamation as a Static Presence
21.5 Biblical Proclamation as a Dynamic Presence

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• "Boson1918Assiriologia.d": duplicate bibliography "Boson1918Assiriologia" for site "Akk-lg".
• "Bottero1992Reasoning.d": duplicate bibliography "Bottero1992Reasoning" for site "Mes-rel".
• "Buccellati1972Teodicea.d": duplicate bibliography "Buccellati1972Teodicea" for site "Mes-lit".
• "Cauvin2000Birth.d": duplicate bibliography "Cauvin2000Birth" for site "Mes-rel".
• "DMB.d": duplicate bibliography "DMB" for site "Mes-rel".
• "Edzard2003Sumerian.d": duplicate bibliography "Edzard2003Sumerian" for site "Mes-rel".
• "Oshima2014Sufferers.d": duplicate bibliography "Oshima2014Sufferers" for site "Mes-rel".
• "Trinkaus1983Shanidar.d": duplicate bibliography "Trinkaus1983Shanidar" for site "Mes-rel".

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21.1 Narrative and Proclamation

1. About orality and literacy in ancient Mesopotamia, see e.g. Michalowski 1992 Orality.

   On the same topic in ancient Israel, see e.g. Miller 2012 Orality.

   – [ Marco De Pietri, October 2020]

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21.2 The Kerygmatic Nature of Narratives

1. For the š^ema` Yisrā’ēl (שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל), cf. supra 2.15.

   – [ Marco De Pietri, October 2020]

2. For the akītu, the Mesopotamian ‘New Year’s Festival’, cf. supra 17.7.

   – [ Marco De Pietri, October 2020]

3. For the Enūma elīš, cf. supra 5.2.

   – [ Marco De Pietri, October 2020]

4. For Marduk, polyad god of Babylon (mentioned in Section 5.2, point (5)), see here.

   – [ Marco De Pietri, October 2020]

5. For the text of Lv. 16, regarding the ‘day of atonement’, (cf. supra 13.13), see here.

   – [ Marco De Pietri, October 2020]

6. Contra Buccellati’s statement that «In Mesopotamia we do not find such a tradition of explanatory proclamation, nor indeed many examples of even simple proclamation» see, however, the last verses of Atrahasis: «This song (is) for your praise. / May the Igigi- gods hear, let them extol your greatness to each other. / I have sung of the flood to all peoples/ Listen!» (ll. III viii, 14-19).

   Cf. also Foster 1991 On Authorship, p. 31: «Traditing and dissemination of the text are referred to in Erra, the Creation Epic, Agushaya, Atrahasis, and the Assurbanipal hymns both synchronically and diachronically: “all people” are supposed to hear it, as well as succeeding generations in time».

   – [ Stefania Ermidoro, November 2020]

7. On the connection between myth and ritual in ancient Mesopotamia, with a specific focus on the New Year Festival, see Sommer 2000 Akitu; Weeks 2015 Myth Ritual; Lambert 1968 Myth Ritual.

   – [ Stefania Ermidoro, November 2020]

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21.3 Proclamation as Presence

1. «God’s presence in the message requires and awaits the presence of the interlocutors who have heard it» (G. Buccellati, Chapter 21, Section 3). We can here envisage a connection between the presence (שכינה, shekinah) of God in the temple (see supra 20.6) and in the biblical message which is to be proclaimed to the people; God is not relegated in the temple (as the Mesopotamian gods), but can ‘get off’ the temple through his proclaimed message, i.e. the biblical scripture.

   – [ Marco De Pietri, October 2020]

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21.4 Mesopotamian Proclamation as a Static Presence

1. For the static presence of the ‘absolute’ in ancient Mesopotamia, see Buccellati 2014 Time.

   – [ Marco De Pietri, June 2020]

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21.5 Biblical Proclamation as a Dynamic Presence

1. For the dynamic presence of the ‘absolute’ in the Bible, see Buccellati 2014 Time.

   – [ Marco De Pietri, June 2020]

2. For the concept of lectio divina, born at the time of the Fathers of the Church and later further developed as a Jesuitic way of reading the Scripture, see e.g. a brief introduction to this topic (in Italian) by Swetnam, James (S.J.) 1999, “La ‘Lectio Divina’”, online on the website of the Pontifical Biblical Institute.

   – [ Marco De Pietri, October 2020]

3. For the Hebrew expression אֲרוֹן הַקֹּדֶשׁ, ´ărôn haqqodeš, ‘(the) ark, the holy’, see the Jewish Encyclopedia; more in detail, see DCH 1, pp. 372-373, under lemma אֲרוֹן, ´ărôn, ‘ark’ and DCH 7, pp. 196-204, under lemma קֹדֶשׁ, qodeš, ‘holyness/holy’.

   – [ Marco De Pietri, October 2020]

4. For the concept of גניזה,genîza(h), lit. ‘hiding/hiding (place)’, from the Hebrew noun גֶּנֶז, genez, ‘treasury’ (see DCH 2, p. 368) was a kind of sacred place for the deposition of old scrolls of the Torah or other sacred Hebrew texts, see the Jewish Encyclopedia.

   – [ Marco De Pietri, October 2020]