Titles and Abstracts of Volume 6/1 (1994)
1 The conception of righteousness and the Mesopotamian gods, pp1-14
AbstractThe conception of righteousness is one of the most basic constructs of the cosmological and religious orientation of Mesopotamian culture. It is essential for the understanding of all major institutions of society as well as for human behaviour. The investigation focuses on Mesopotamian literature, and more specifically on the contextual occurrences of the lexemes mišarum and ešeru in order to synthesize some of their connotations and denotations pertaining to the overriding thought structure.
The study is limited to the perception of righteousness that presupposes the realm and function of the gods. It is argued that the thought structure underlying the conception of righteousness is essentially linked to sun mythologems, in particular to the role of Šamaš. The gods do not only act as guardians of righteousness, but the mišarum is also perceived as a norm for their own behaviour.
Prof P J Nel
Department of Semitic Languages
University of the Orange Free State
PO Box 339
Bloemfontein
9300
South Africa
2 Die rol van die tempel binne die Mesopotamiese gemeenskap, pp. 15-33.
AbstractThis article outlines the broad spectrum of the temple's activities in Mesopotamia in order to ascertain to what extent the temple was involved in the secular society. The various activities in which the temple (as a whole and the separate temples in particular) was involved mirror the widespread role of the temple in Mesopotamian society. Besides its obvious cultic functions, the temple also performed economical and social functions of a permanent kind, while serving as a judicial centre probably on an ad hoc basis. Administrative material mainly from the Ur III and Old Babylonian periods is used to substantiate the arguments.
Dr P S Vermaak
Department of Semitics
University of South Africa
PO 392
Pretoria
0001
South Africa
e-mail: vermaps@risc1.unisa.ac.za
3 Aram and Israel during the reigns of Omri and Ahab reconsidered, pp34-45
AbstractThe decline of the world powers of the ancient Near East enabled smaller nations to develop to such an extent that towards the beginning of the tenth century they were fulfilling major roles in the Syro-Palestinian region. The ensuing gradual growth of Aram-Damascus under Ben-Hadad I posed a constant threat to the Omrides. After Elah was murdered Israel was torn by internal strife. The Assyrian presence in North Syria, however, inhibited any Syrian expansion towards Israel.
The favourable relations which the later allies of Omri, Tyre and Sidon, established with Assyria, possibly meant that Omri also followed a pro-Assyrian policy. Omri developed a strategic plan similar to the strategy followed by Ashurnasirpal. The alliance Israel established with neighbouring countries (Tyre and Sidon, as well as Judah) served their mutual political and economic welfare and neutralized the Philistines in the west and the Aramaeans in the east.
Ahab successfully created and maintained a balance of power with Aram. This was supported by following an anti-Assyrian policy as he aligned himself with Aram. In spite of the sometimes tense relationship, cultural interaction between Aram and Israel evidently did take place.
Prof D N Pienaar
Department of Biblical Studies
University of the Orange Free State
PO Box 339
Bloemfontein
9300
South Africa
4 So how did Jehoiakim die?, pp 46-56
AbstractThe article explores the information about the death of king Jehoiakim in three different sources, namely the books of Kings, Chronicles and Jeremiah. It seems that the writer of Kings has no real interest in describing the death of Jehoiakim, his attention being focused on Jehoiakim's successor, Jehoiachin. The writer of Chronicles in his description hurries over these historical events to emphasize the doom of Jerusalem and of the land; although the last kings of Judah vanished from the scene there still was a future for the people. It seems that the most historically reliable information about the death of Jehoiakim is to be found in the prophecies of Jeremiah, although it is embedded in the categories and style of Jeremiah's prophetic utterances. It seems that Jehoiakim died a violent death, and had no burial whatsoever. The article concludes with the remark that the information in each of these sources must be read within the wider aims of each separate book.
Prof E J Smit
Department of Biblical Studies
University of Potchefstroom
Potchefstroom
2520
South Africa
5 Marriage (and related) metaphors in Isaiah 54:1-17, pp 57-73
AbstractVery often, when Deutero-Isaiah uses different metaphors in the same context, the metaphors do not relate to each other. The prophet has a tendency to compile them as if threading beads on a string, in order to increase the emotional effect on the reader (e.g. Is 49:14ff). In Isaiah 54:1-17, however, the correspondence between the different metaphors is remarkable. Although different metaphors are used, they all correspond to each other in a logical manner, and actually build up towards a climax whereby Jerusalem is treated by Yahweh as his beloved bride.
Dr S L Stassen
Dutch Reformed Church Sasolburg-Sentraal
PO Box 537
Sasolburg
9570
South Africa
6 The verbless clause with pleonastic pronoun in Biblical Aramaic, pp 74-93.
AbstractThe aim of this article is to determine the status and interpretation of pleonastic pronouns in verbless clauses of Biblical Aramaic. The hypotheses that the pleonastic pronoun can be construed as part of the sentence predicate (the so-called copula) or as a resumptive pronoun in a left-dislocation construction are considered and rejected. According to the conditions of Chomsky's minimalist programme for linguistic theory, it is argued that the pleonastic pronoun has the status of a pronominal clitic which is the phonological realization of unattached agreement features. The pronominal clitic is obligatory in verbless clauses with determined (referring) noun phrases in predicate positions where the pronominal clitic fulfils the role of a theta- role assigner. Pronominal clitic insertion might best be construed as a type of last-resort strategy, when theta-role assignment fails to yield a grammatical output. Thus, the pronominal clitic is never freely generated. A pronominal clitic is necessary for the syntactic interpretation of certain verbless clauses and must be interpreted as such.
Mr J A Naudé:
Department of Semitic Languages
University of the Orange Free State
PO Box 339
Bloemfontein
9300
South Africa
7 Emotional language in poems of enmification, pp 94-112
AbstractFadwa Tuqan addressed two poems to children. One was published in 1969 and is addressed to two Palestinian children, the other was written a year later to a Jewish child. This paper aims at comparing the above modern Arabic poems against the background of the social function of poetry and the emotional language of enmification.
Prof M J Meinster
Department of Semitics
University of South Africa
PO Box 392
Pretoria
0001 South Africa
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