33. bearings of philological data on res

7/30/2019 33. Bearings of Philological Data on Res.

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THE BEARING OF NEW PHILOLOGICAL DATA

ON THE SUBJECTS OF RESURRECTION

AND IMMORTALITY IN THE OLD

TESTAMENT

ELMER SMICK

THE consensus of critical opinion still insists thatemergent belief in the resurrection of the dead was athing unattested in the literature of preexilic Israel. John

Bright, a conservative among critics, says, "The idea of a

resurrection begins to appear sporadically and tentatively in

later Biblical literature, and by the second century was a

well-established belief."1

H. H. Rowley admits resurrection may be in view in Job

19:26, 27 but only as "a momentary resurrection to witness

his (Job's) vindication."2 Daniel 12:2 is taken by many to be

the only verse anywhere in the Old Testament which deals

with the resurrection of the body and it is attributed to the

second century. As for immortality Rowley sees "no uniform

or sure faith in the afterlife that is meaningful, but there are . . .

Teachings out after such a faith"3

in certain Psalms.

But now with the publication of The Anchor Bible, Vol. 16,

the Jesuit Micheli Dahood with skillful use of the newer

source materials, especially Ugaritic, proposes that the Psalms

are full of expressions of hope for immortality and resurrection.

Dahood studiously avoids references to the New Testament

use of the Psalms. Some will lament this as a weakness but

apparently one purpose of the author in so doing was to

convince the reader that his conclusions are based solely on

evidence from the world of the Old Testament.

Some of Dahood's conclusions are interesting. For example,

1

John Bright, A History of Israel (Philadelphia: Westminster Press,1959), p. 438.a H. H. Rowley, The Faith of Israel (London: S. C. M. Press, 1956),


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RESURRECTION AND IMMORTALITY 13

with reference to the dating of the Psalms he maintains that

the old methods (still being used) of alleged literary dependenceand historical allusions can no longer be considered validbecause the psalmists and prophets were indebted to anancient literary tradition that went deep into the secondmillennium. An examination of the vocabulary of Psalms 2and 110, Dahood says, "reveals that virtually every word,image and parallelism are now reported in Bronze AgeCanaanite texts."

4He therefore tentatively dates them to

the tenth century.

Here Dahood treats literary criticism in only a cursoryfashion directing his attention to the interpretation of thePsalms with full use of the newer canons of Hebrew philologyimposed by the Ras Shamra texts. We are reminded ofW. F. Albright's statement that " . . . all future investigationsof the Psalms must deal intensively with the Ugaritic texts.. . .Thorough knowledge of Ugaritic grammar, vocabulary andstyle is an absolute prerequisite for comparative research onthe part of biblical scholars. Moreover, the significance ofUgaritic for historical Hebrew grammar, on which will increasingly rest our reconstruction of the literary history ofIsrael, cannot be overestimated. Ugaritic was only dialecticallydifferent from ancestral Hebrew in the generations immediately preceding the Israelite occupation of Canaan. Ugaritand Canaanite Palestine share a common literary tradition,which profoundly influenced Israel. For these reasons Gordon'sUgaritic Grammaris of greater lasting importance for Old

Testament research than any dozen assorted recent commentaries taken together."5

That was written a quarter of a century ago and C. H.Gordon's Ugaritic Textbook(1965) is now four times the sizeof the Ugaritic Grammar (1940), and yet as Dahood observes,"most translations and commentators have continued to treatthe Ras Shamra texts as, at best, only peripherallysignificant."

6

* Eds. William F. Albright and David N. Freedman, The Anchor Bible,XVI (Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday and Co., 1966), xxix.


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14 WESTMINSTER THEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

This attitude is clearly set forth in the December 1966 issue

of The Journal of Biblical Literature where in a review of TheAnchor Bible, Vol. 16, D. A. Robertson of the Perkins Schoolof Theology criticizes Dahood for giving possible rather thanprobable renderings.

7Whether one can agree with this criti

cism may depend on the criterion used as a basis for such ajudgment. Dahood uses the nearest source materials todetermine the idiom of Northwest Semitic poetry in OldTestament times. Some brainstorming in a prolegomenonsuch as this must be expected and Dahood admits that some

of his proposals may not stand the test of scholarly scrutiny.8Without implying blanket approval I feel Dahood's approachrepresents a giant step toward a better understanding of thePsalms. He has a high regard for the consonantal purity ofthe Massoretic Text making not more than a half dozenemendations in the first fifty psalms.

9

According to the flyleaf in each volume The Anchor Bible isdedicated to "an effort to make available all the significanthistorical and linguistic knowledge which bears on the inter

pretation of the biblical record." The Anchor Bible, Vol. 16,is a masterful attempt to accomplish this objective and istherefore a veritable compendium of source materials for thestudent of the Hebrew Bible whether or not one agrees withevery interpretation.

That concepts of immortality and resurrection are presentto any extended degree in the Psalter is called by Robertsonone of Dahood's wild interpretations which should not bepresented to the general public.

10The following statement in

the Introduction was bound to draw fire: "Perhaps the mostsignificant contribution to biblical theology that flows fromthe translations based on the new philological principles concerns the subject of resurrection and immortality. If thetranslations and exegesis propounded . . . bear up under criticism, then the treatment of these topics in standard biblical

? Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 85 (1966), p. 484.8 The Anchor Bible, XVI, xlii.

9 Dahood sometimes divides consonants into words differently from theMassoretic Text but deplores the frequent deletion of entire words and

bl b i (ibid 23)


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theologies will need drastic revision. The mythological motif

of the Elysian Fields that stands forth from the translationsoffered . . . is the clearest example of a theological verity finding

expression in the idiom of mythological poetry; the opinion

of Sigmund Mowinckel that 'neither Israel nor early Judaism

knew of a faith in any resurrection nor is such a faith repre

sented in the psalms' will not survive serious scrutiny."11

Along this line let us briefly review Dahood's handling of

some relevant passages. He renders the crux interpretum,

Psalm 16:9-11, as follows:

9. And so my heart rejoices,my liver leaps with joy,and my body dwells at ease,

10. Since you will not put me in Sheol,nor allow your devoted one to see the Pit.

11. You will make me know the path oflife eternal,filling me with happiness before you,with pleasures at your right hand forever.

Because of the peculiar Phoenician style and language thepsalmist here is represented as a Canaanite convert to Yahwism

who gives his profession of faith in verse two. "O Yahweh,

you are my Lord, there is none above you." This is followed

by an abjuration of the false Canaanite gods, the "holy ones"

(q'dHm) and the "mighty ones" 'drm), typical epithets

for Phoenician gods. Finally the psalmist enumerates the

joys and blessings of the newly found faith with a final

statement of the poet's belief in an afterlife of eternal

happiness.12

Ignoring Acts 2 and 13 Dahood maintains that the psalmist

expects to be assumed like Enoch or Elijah. This position of

bodily assumption rather than bodily resurrection hinges on

his translation of verse 10 as deliverance from death, not

being "put in Sheol" nor "seeing the pit." The New Testa

ment following the Septuagint uses diaphthora, "corruption,"

instead of "pit" and lays stress on the last line ofverse nine,

"My flesh will lie down in hope." The New Testament also

uses the common meaning oflzab, "to forsake," rather than


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the rarer meaning "to put." "I will not be forsaken in Sheol"

nor "see corruption"; that is, though I die my body will notdecompose. This, as the apostles knew, could be said only of

Jesus Christ (Acts 13:34-38).

Psalms 16, 49, and 73 are said to express the conviction that

the psalmist will be assumed like Enoch and Elijah. Thus

Dahood translates Psalm 73:24:

Into your council you will lead meAnd with glory you will receive me.

And Psalm 49:16:

But God will ransom mefrom the hand of Sheol

Will he surely snatch me.

Being taken into the presence of God bodily is the thought in

these verses; it is assumption rather than resurrection that

Dahood gets from lqah, "to take," as it is used with reference

to Enoch and Elijah.

It is curious that Dahood sees no resurrection (thoughindeed eternal afterlife) in Psalm 16 despite the New Testa

ment commentary; while in Psalm 17:15, which is not quoted

in the New Testament, he finds both resurrection and final

judgment. He renders Psalm 17:15:

At my vindicationI will gaze upon your face

At the resurrectionI will be saturated with your being.

"At the resurrection," comments Dahood, " . . . seems to be theplain sense of b'hqs [in Psalm 17:15] when one compares it

with the eschatological passages Isa xxvi 19, 'But your dead

will live, their bodies will rise. Arise (haqsu) and sing, O you

who dwell in the slime !' and Dan xii 2, 'And many of those who

sleep in the land of slime will arise' (yqsu) . . . ." Dahood

maintains that "the archaic language throughout the psalm

[17]. . . suggests that the Israelite belief in the beatific vision

was very ancient indeed."13

The references to "dwelling in the house of the Lord all the


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days" in Psalms 23:6 and 27:4 also speak to Dahood of this

"beatific vision." Psalm 27:13 is even clearer to him:In the Victor14 do I trust,

to behold the beauty of Yahwehin the land of life eternal.

Though Daniel 12:2 is often given in the lexicons as theonly place where fyayyim means eternal life, Dahood sees it inmany other places and more than once refers to the Ugariticantecedent in 2 Aqht VI 27-29:x*

Ask for eternal life [fyym]And I will give it to you,

Immortality [bl-mt]And I will bestow it on you.

I will make you number years with Baal,With gods you will number months.

Proverbs 12:28 uses 'al-mwet(no death) as the parallel offyayylm (life). The Ugaritic bl-mt translated "immortality"above is an equivalent expression. The Revised StandardVersion says the Hebrew is uncertain and proceeds to give atranslation based on an emended text. However, Ewald,Bertheau, Franz Delitzsch, and even the Judeo-Arabist Saadiain the Middle Ages said 'al-mwetmeans "immortality."The Authorized Version translated it "no death." They haveall been proved correct by the Ugaritic bl-mtas used in theabove citation. Dahood translates the verse:

In the path of virtue is eternal life,And the treading of her way is immortality.

Marvin Pope in his recent article, "Marginalia to M.Dahood's Ugaritic Hebrew Philology,"16 objects to this translation on the basis that the synonymous parallelism goesagainst the larger context which consists of a series of coupletsin antithetical parallelism and "therefore death not immortality is the proper antithesis."17 But is there here a larger

** Massoretic Text ll1 is taken to be leU\ The word IV, translated"Victor," is derived from the common Ugaritic-Phoenician root Vy, "toprevail."

*s The Anchor Bible, XVI, 91, 170, etc.16


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context? Are not these proverbs a list of independent thoughts?

Indeed it is typical of the proverbs to list antithetical sayings

with one or two synonymous parallelisms sandwiched in.18

Pope states that fyayyim as eternal life is not justified by the

parallelism of fpym and bl-mt in Ugaritic, because Aqhat's

reply shows he did not believe immortality could be had by a

mortal and he therefore accuses the goddess Anat of lying

to him. The implication is that since the Ugaritic hero didn't

believe humans could have immortality the writers of the Old

Testament must share the same skepticism. The point is not

what the Ugaritians believed but that they used the wordfyym for eternal life whereas the Hebrew lexicons generally list

only Daniel 12:2 as using tyayyim distinctively to denote

eternal life because of its alleged Maccabean origin.19

Dahood looks on Psalm 1:5, 6 as future:

And so the wicked shall not standIn the place of judgment,

Nor sinners in the congregation of the just,But Yahweh shall safekeep

the assembly of the just,While the assembly of the wicked shall perish.

He argues from Ugaritic that derek20 can mean "assembly"

and from Hebrew usage that miSpt can mean "place of

18 Proverbs 15:23 is unquestionably synonymous in the midst of a longlist of antithetical statements. See Brown, Driver, and Briggs, HebrewandEnglish Lexicon ofthe Old Testament (Oxford: Oxford University Press,1959), p. 313.

J Proverbs 15:24 puts jiayym and S'lin antithesis as follows:The path of life above belongs to the wise,

Because he turns away from Sheol below.If Sheol here, as in some contexts, means only "grave," then frayyttnmeans only "this life." If Sheol can mean "netherworld," then fyayyvmcan mean "life after death." Proverbs repeats the concept that mwetand $e'linvolve more than the grave. So Proverbs 2:18, 19 parallelsdeath with "the place of the shades" just as Proverbs 9:18 parallels se'lwith "the place of the shades." Therefore "the path of life above" canmean eternal life above in heaven as contrasted with Sheol below wheredwell the shades.

30

Dahood aligns derek with Ugaritic drkt, "dominion." derek commonlymeans "manner or custom" just as tniSpt means "justice" but also means"custom or way " His argument for derek as meaning "assembly" pro


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common meaning ' "light" has obscured the rarer root meaning

"field." Thus Psalm 36:10 says:Truly with you is the fountain of life,In your field we shall see the light.

Isaiah 26:19 is much smoother with this meaning:

Your dead shall live, their bodies will rise;Those who dwell in the dust will awake and sing for joy:For your dew is the dew of the fields ['rt]But the land of the Shades will be parched.

The familiar terms "the light of life" and "the land of theliving" are shown to be two ways of saying the same thing.

So Psalm 56:14 reads, " . . . to walk before God in the field of

life [b''r hbayylm]"22 and Psalm 116:9, "I shall walk before

the Lord in the fields of life [be'rst hfyayylm]." Also Psalm

97:11 is translated:

A sown field awaits the just ['r zarai lassaddq]And happiness the upright in heart.

23

These illustrations are sufficient to show Dahood's approach.Without attempting a complete critique, the following obser

vations are offered to help those who hold a high view of

Scripture to evaluate this material. Theological verity must

find expression in terms that are available in the language

used. The Old Testament employs the same Northwest

Semitic idiom common to the mythology of Canaanite poetry.

Though the Hebrews in the Old Testament were expressing an

emphatic reaction to polytheism it must be borne in mind

that they were not literary iconoclasts as were the Jews of alater date. Many graphic phrases, especially those which

expressed the highly personal nature of the deity, were used

to enhance Hebrew monotheism.

That the Lord is called "the rider on the clouds" (Psalm

22Cf. Job 33:30. The Revised Standard Version, "that he might see the

light of life," puts the meaning "see" into 'tor, which it cannot bear.The translation with Dahood is:

To turn back his soul from the pit,That he might be resplendent in the field of life.The Authorized Version has the anomalous "light is*sown " The


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68:5), a frequently used epithet for Baal, may suggest an

early date but not necessarily a primitive stage of Hebrewreligion. It marks a time of religious vitality and verbal

fluency. It would have been impossible in the Maccabean

period when Hebrew was wooden and Hebrew scholars were

given to the use of anti-anthropomorphisms. The poet of

Psalm 68 expressed God's control over nature in artful poetic

idiom without necessarily a thought of the polytheistic usage.

The Canaanite substratum was a readily available vehicle

through which the prophets and poets could communicate the

truth whether of the character of their only God or theologicalverities such as immortality and resurrection. Though the

idiom was freely used it was not carelessly used so that only

theologically acceptable concepts were communicated. For

example the common Semitic word Ut, meaning * 'goddess,"

was rejected by all Old Testament writers of all periods.

Female deities like Asherah were referred to by the proper

names given to their images but were never called goddesses.

That certain valid theological concepts are not late in

human history still does not answer the question of when andwhere they originated. According to the Bible man originally

had a true concept of deity which after the fall he distorted.

But some of God's truth was and is always mingled in all

religions. The polytheistic antecedents to the Old Testament

had one truth emphatically in common with biblical revelation,

namely, the personality of deity. Likewise a distorted concept

of immortality antedates the Bible in written records of the

Egyptians and Babylonians and some notion of resurrection

from the dead was a part of Sumerian mythology. Ancient

law codes often provide for reprobate practices like bestiality,

and here and there may be found some higher principles such

as care for the widow and orphan; however, the Decalogue

of Moses is a crowning glory and a completely unique expres

sion in the ancient world. Although the Old Testament was

in one sense a product of its time, its own claim to be the

product of the Holy Spirit of God shines forth in its just

reaction to the vile practices and beliefs of surroundingreligions, withal not rejecting those elements which were part

of that vestige of truth still remaining in a corrupt world


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33. bearings of philological data on res

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