The Great Shift

by James L. Kugel

  To say this is to approach the real point: the border is inviolable because the reality inside the temple is necessarily discontinuous from that which is outside. The normal rules do not hold. Gods can simultaneously be up there, in a planet or star, and down here in a temple, because their down here is not part of the surroundings. So can the mighty Marduk really be inside this little statue? No problem—and truly, no need to build a bigger statue; this little one will do just fine, because size inside the temple is utterly different from size outside. And his lips might move or his expression might change; the real god was inside looking out. What more striking demonstration of the disjunction between a temple’s “inside” world and its physical surroundings than those huge, divine strides leading up to the normal-sized door of the temple at ‘Ain Dara? Something happens as soon as the huge god crosses the threshold into the interior world of the temple: the ordinary norms of size collapse. As for the priests who officiate inside, they are a bit like the local workers hired by the foreign embassy personnel: no matter what their ordinary citizenship may be, once they are on embassy grounds, their loyalty does a complete about-face. Now they will shoot down their fellow citizens rather than allow even one of them to breach the embassy’s borders.

  As for the statue of the suppliant as described by William Hallo: facing the god, humbly pleading his case and that of his people, the suppliant inside the temple is likewise in a realm altogether disconnected from the outside; his inside body and his outside one exist in two different realities. One might wish to describe the inside realm as a kind of symbolic world, but “symbolic” does not capture the essence of it. (As the Catholic writer Flannery O’Connor once wrote about the Eucharist, “If it’s a symbol, to hell with it.”)33 Inside the temple is a time-stopped, sealed-off place of another reality, a sort of concentrated eternity. There the god—the actual causer of great events, who is normally hidden from view—is present in a kind of frozen timelessness of being, and the suppliant (or, rather, his statue) is in the god’s real presence in exactly the same form as the god, frozen in the same timeless world.

  The Tower of Babel

  Does this all sound like a bunch of mumbo jumbo? It certainly must have appeared that way to some ancient Israelites. The story of the Tower of Babel is recounted in a few sentences in the book of Genesis:

  Now everyone in the whole land spoke the same language and the same words. And as they traveled from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. Then they said to one another, “Let us make bricks, and burn them,” so that they could use the bricks for stones and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city with a tower reaching up to the sky, and [thereby] make a name for ourselves, so that we will not be scattered across the whole earth.” But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the humans had built. And the LORD said, “If, as one people with one language, they have undertaken to do this, then nothing will stop them from doing whatever they please to do. Come, let us go down, and mix up their language, so that they will not understand one another’s speaking.” So it was that the LORD scattered them from there across the whole land, and they left off building the city. That is why it was called Babel, because there the LORD mixed up the whole land’s language; from there the LORD scattered them from there across the whole land. (Gen 11:1–9)

  Like many stories in Genesis, this one presents a mixture of themes. To begin with, it relates a disparaging explanation of the name of Israel’s mighty neighbor (and frequent enemy), Babel/Babylon. Why was their great city known as Babel? Not—as the folk etymology had it—because it was the gateway of the god (Bab-ilu), but because God had once punished the people of that land by confusing (balal) their speech.

  A second theme is the story’s explanation for the existence of different but clearly related Semitic languages in the region. In the beginning, the story says, everyone could understand everyone else; it was only because of the builders’ misbehavior that peoples drifted apart, and suddenly speakers of Akkadian could not understand speakers of Aramaic, who could not understand speakers of Hebrew or Arabic (although the words often did sound quite similar). And why did this building project offend our God? Here is yet another theme in the story, Babylonian hubris: apparently, the builders’ fault was their intention to build a huge metropolis such as those that did in fact exist in Mesopotamia (“so that we will not be scattered across the whole earth”). God takes no pleasure in such human agglomerations, the story says, since they can only lead to arrogance and overreaching (“Come, let us build ourselves a city with a tower reaching up to the sky, and [thereby] make a name for ourselves”).

  Mixed in with all this, however, is a critique aimed specifically at Babylon’s religious institutions, and in particular the emblematic ziggurat (or, more correctly, ziqqurat), a kind of stepped pyramid that the Sumerians, Babylonians, and Assyrians built to honor their gods. (What its precise function was is unknown.) Ziqqurats had become an essential feature of temple complexes in Mesopotamia as early as the third millennium BCE. In all, archaeologists have uncovered the remains of some twenty-eight of them in present-day Iraq and another four in Iran. Since the area of the Tigris and Euphrates valleys did not feature large stone formations for people to quarry, the massive ziqqurats had to be built—just as the Bible reports—out of mud bricks (at first only sun-dried ones, but later they came to be fired in specially constructed kilns); the bricks were often stuck together with bitumen (a kind of asphalt-like substance). Because these materials are far less durable than actual stone, most of these ancient structures eventually fell into heaps of rubble—some of them probably collapsed in biblical times, so that the biblical story of the Tower of Babel may indeed be based on the ruins that travelers to Mesopotamia would have likely seen with their own eyes.

  All these different elements have been combined into one short narrative, the biblical account of the Tower of Babel. If this tale seems to highlight the Mesopotamian ziqqurat, lurking in the background is something else that distinguished Israelite worship from that of its Mesopotamian neighbors, something far more important. True, Israelites and Mesopotamians both had temples, and much of what went on inside both—the animal sacrifices, libations, enforcement of purity laws, singing of prayers and hymns, and so forth—was indeed comparable. What is more, the Israelites apparently had multiple sanctuaries and sacred “high places” where sacrifices were offered to a God who must have been deemed present, or potentially present, in two places at once—very much like the Be‘alim of whom Hosea spoke.34 But the Israelites, as best we know, did not have that little cultic figure of the deity that was all-important in the worship of Mesopotamians and others. Though the prohibition of making such images may have become codified only later on,35 the evidence uncovered by archaeologists so far suggests that ancient Israelites simply did not have cultic statues of the God YHWH.36

  What is one to make of this fact? It used to be alleged that aniconic (imageless) worship represents an older stratum of religion, one that was ultimately displaced (perhaps in stages) by the emergence of skillfully wrought statuary.37 The truth appears to be somewhat more complicated, skewed even in ancient times by various writers on the subject,38 as well as by modern scholars who have continued to evoke the iconic/aniconic dichotomy, as if it were always one or the other. (The Nabateans,* often cited as aniconic worshipers, actually demonstrate a variety of different forms in their religious art: geometric, semifigural, and fully figural shapes coexist. Thus, the god Dusares/Dushara was sometimes represented by a simple pillar or standing stone, but sometimes by a slightly iconic figure that depicted the deities’ eyes but nothing more.)39

  In fact, the very word “aniconic” itself seems to be too broad. In the case of the ancient Israelite temple, scholars speak of a specific phenomenon, “empty-space aniconism,”40 whereby a throne or platform was created for the deity, but it was left empty. The deity was, as it were, invited to come and occupy the space
specially designated for him (perhaps as he was held to occupy the nonfigural or semifigural objects mentioned above). This form of aniconism is apparently evidenced in the Israelite sanctuary as described in the book of Exodus: inside the Holy of Holies was the ark of the covenant, a box of acacia wood that had been overlaid with gold and topped with a golden cover. On each side stood the carved statue of a cherub—a large, winged figure (perhaps with an animal body, though this is not certain):

  The cherubim will have their wings outstretched above. They will thus overspread the ark-cover with their wings, while their faces will be turned toward one another; toward the ark-cover will the faces of the cherubim be set [from either side] . . . That is where I [God] will meet with you [Moses]. There, above the ark-cover, between the two cherubim that are on top of the ark of the covenant, I will speak with you of whatever I have to command you concerning the people of Israel. (Exod 25:20, 22)

  God is not represented here in the form of a statue or image. Rather, a special space was set off for Him, “above” or “on” the outstretched wings of the cherubim. (Indeed, this particular space was so connected to His nature that God is sometimes referred to as “the one who sits/is enthroned atop the cherubim”—1 Sam 4:4; 2 Sam 6:2; 2 Kings 19:15; Isa 37:16; Ps 80:1, 99:1; 1 Chron 13:6.)

  Although scholars disagree as to the implications of this posture, it certainly seems to imply that God was not permanently present, at least not physically, in his temple; rather, the space above the cherubim was the place “where I [God] will meet with you [Moses]” when such a meeting is necessary, the spot from which “I will speak with you of whatever I have to command you.” But God was not embodied there in any form. Indeed, the very flimsiness of this perch, poised above the outstretched wings of the cherubim, seems best suited to a God who appears there, speaks, and then disappears again, like some sort of sacred hologram.41 This bit of iconography is thus of a piece with the same basic conception of God seen in the angel narratives as well as in various prophetic books. He is a God who appears and disappears, stepping across the curtain that separates ordinary from extraordinary reality. This is so even in the Jerusalem temple, with its fixed location for divine encounters: God appears there, but He hardly seems to be there permanently.42

  An Elusive Presence

  Aniconic worship was thus more than just the absence of cultic images, of idols. It went along with a thoroughly un-Mesopotamian conception of how divinity worked. In a Babylonian or Assyrian temple, the god was simply there, present in the temple itself (though also simultaneously present in the heavens, as well as in sacred objects and symbols and at other cultic sites, as we have seen). In the ancient Israelite conception of things, the temple had a different role: inside it, a place was prepared for God’s appearance, but He would appear or disappear as He wished.43 My aim in stressing this point is not to argue that Israel was altogether different from its Mesopotamian neighbors; given all the common elements in Mesopotamian and Israelite worship, as well as the centuries of cultural (though not always friendly) contacts, it would be foolish to suggest that these two civilizations were worlds apart, even in religion. Nor, save for a misguided desire to “defend” biblical Israel’s absolute uniqueness in all things, is there any reason to understate the many things it shared with surrounding civilizations.

  Nevertheless, the particular sort of aniconism practiced in the Israelite sanctuary (at least as it is depicted in the Bible and, thus far, the archaeological record) suggests a rather different idea not just of what a temple is, but of what a deity is. Throughout the Hebrew Bible, Israel’s God comes and goes, appears or is heard and then vanishes—even when there is a sanctuary with a special place permanently available for His presence.44

  Earlier it was suggested that some of these appearances might be described as a “waking dream.” This description may be apt, but it somehow falls short of the reality it seeks to name. We all know what a dream is, and saying a dream can also occur when someone is awake is simply to tame the uncanny, transferring the thing that we do know into a setting in which it is unknown but nonetheless sounds plausible. The truth, I think, is more elusive and so probably should be expressed differently. Given a very different sense of self (with its semipermeable mind, as we have seen presumed in so many biblical texts), seeing God is indeed how to describe what took place, albeit in a different register—not once, but frequently enough for this description of what happened to remain conventional for quite a while, until, as we will also see, it eventually began to fade.45

  How did this other sort of self perceive its place in the world? Part of this outlook has already been summarized by the representative Mesopotamian cited at the end of the previous chapter: “Tell me how you can begin to make sense of the world without realizing that the gods control everything and we humans are almost nothing, their little servants subject to their will.” In other words, how he conceived of himself and his fitting into the world was crucial for what he perceived as reality; this is, indeed, the whole theme of this book.

  Such things were crucial for the ancient Israelite as well, and yet one would not be wrong in supposing that he might be a little less emphatic about actually catching sight of the deity than the Mesopotamian was. To be sure, he was glad to know that God’s “house”—the temple—was in the midst of his city, a physical connection with the divine that perhaps, though not necessarily, meant that Israel’s God would look after its interests. In fact, he could (and did) go to God’s temple to offer a sacrifice, atoning sin or paying off a vow, or simply seeking to participate in one of the annual festivals in what he conceived to be God’s earthly home. What is more, he might pray to God from any location: throughout the biblical period ordinary people are represented as praying in time of need by holding up their hands in the air (the conventional posture of prayer) and seeking to gain His attention. All this notwithstanding, Israel’s God was fundamentally a coming-and-going deity. The very fact of His appearing suggests His willful crossing of a boundary; we may have entered His temple or sacred spot, but it was ultimately God who crossed over into our world. In so doing, He came to address humans directly—not only in the biblical representations of Abraham and Sarah, Jacob, and all the rest, but also speaking directly to prophets, penetrating their semipermeable minds with a message to pass along to others.

  7

  Imagining Prophecy

  PROPHETS AND POETS; JEREMIAH’S PROPHECIES; MODERN VOICE HEARERS; COLORS IN THE BRAIN

  We have just seen that the God of Israel was depicted as inhabiting, or at least in some sense present in, an ancient Near Eastern–style temple. But this was hardly the only way in which God was encountered. The whole phenomenon of prophecy presumes that God (or the gods) can speak to human beings. This presumption is perhaps the most dramatic evidence that people in biblical times had a sense of self different from our own. But what else can be discovered about biblical prophets and the voices that they heard?

  Biblical prophecy presents the most striking, but also the most puzzling, model of human encounters with God. Time and again, prophets report their having been addressed personally by God, or their having seen some divinely sent vision (and sometimes both). What can this really mean? Did a voice just suddenly pop into their ears, and/or a picture suddenly come before their eyes?

  The beginning of an answer has already been suggested: in the encounters with angels narrated in Genesis and other books, various people in the Bible seem simply to assume that their own minds are subject to outside intervention. It is most significant that Abraham, Joshua, Gideon, Manoah and his wife, and the others are surprised, but not flabbergasted, to encounter God. (The same was seen to be true of Homer’s Achilles and Virgil’s Aeneas.) Once they understand that it is a deity who is speaking to them, they do not faint or stare in utter disbelief. Instead, they drop to the ground in reverent obedience. Apparently, in reality or at least in its literary reflections, such things were thought to just happen from time to time. And this is tr
ue as well of prophets called by God.

  The Pentateuch uses the phrase “And the LORD said to Moses” some 64 times. The similar phrase “And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying . . .” appears even more frequently, 89 times in all. The words following either of these assertions are thus presented as having been communicated by God directly to Moses. Various other prophets similarly introduce their prophecies with the words “Thus said the LORD”—in fact, prophets say this more than 300 times in the Hebrew Bible. The book of Jeremiah, one of the Bible’s longest prophetic books, has its own favorite equivalent, “So says [ne’um] the LORD”; this phrase was used some 162 times, in addition to reporting that “the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah” or similar formulations another 44 times.1

  What is one to make of such written testimony? Was the assertion that God spoke these words merely a conventional way of introducing the prophet’s own pronouncements or ideas?2 It certainly may have become conventional at some point, in the same way that the ancient Greek “invocation of the muse” came to be conventional (more or less).* But, as scholars have suggested with regard to Homer,3 the assertion of divinely given speech started off as a lived reality—and continued to be so for some time.4 Indeed, just as the ancient Greek poet experienced an external muse helping him to come up with ordered, poetic lines of dactylic hexameter, so the ancient Israelite prophet seems to have believed that what he was saying had come from the outside, from God, and like the Greek poet, the biblical prophet often expressed this divinely granted message in poetic form—that is, in the balanced, connecting clauses that were the mark of elevated speech in ancient Hebrew.