Chapter
review of Divinization and Omens[1]
In chapter
6 of John Walton’s book, “Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament,” he
expounds on the concept of divinization and omens within the ancient Near
Eastern culture. In contrast to today’s secular western culture, the people of
the ancient near east would have had no concept of a separation of church or
state within their world view (239). Rather, the sacred was an integral part of
their day to day life (239). This is
most likely a result of the fact that divinization and omens played an
epistemological role that was a handbook or “Guide for life” (239-240). Walton
breaks down both divinization and omens down by type, practitioners and
function.
Walton
breaks down divinization into two forms - inspired and deductive. Inspired divinization is where the divine
entity takes the initiative to establish communication with its people through
a messenger (like a prophet) or a dream (240). Moreover, Walton divides
divinizations between official prophecy and informal prophecy (240-241). Official prophecy is where a professionally
trained prophet or messenger relays a message and in many cases, served under
the “sponsorship” of a king. Meanwhile, informal prophecy was more “spontaneous
and occasional” (240). Unlike official prophecy whose recipient was a king,
informal prophecy was addressed to commoners. In many cases, informal prophecy
was experienced through the medium of dreams. Walton explains that dreams were
predominantly spontaneous. With exceptions, kings and others with power at
times would sleep in “sacred” places with the goal of receiving a dream from
their god (241); yet “the majority of dreams … simply came to people in the
normal course of their lives” (242). Walton also makes it clear that even
though many of these dreamers were not communicating with any gods, they still
believed that the “gods were communicating through the symbols” within the
dreams (242).
At the end
of the day, the inspired divinization’s cognitive environments’ main function
was not to know the gods or even the future (244). Rather, prophecies were used
to bolster a theological argument for the divine right of the king to rule as
he saw fit. Furthermore, dreams caused many people to seek out interpretations
of them, for fear of their deity’s punishment for neglecting the dream.
Next
Walton explains deductive divinization. Like inspired divinization, it is
“initiated from the divine realm” (249). The difference is that the divine
communication is perceived through observable “events and phenomena” (249). Deductive
divinization’s cognitive environment function through what Walton calls
connectiveness, control and speculative observations (249 -254). First,
connectiveness is the idea that the gods communicate through patterns or
symbols. These patterns would be understood as the writings of the gods and the
symbols/omens were just a form of divine “alphabet” and “vocabulary” (249). The
second cognitive environment, control, is the idea that these signs were meant
to be interpreted to help those who could interpret them so they could
“exercise some…control over the events swirling around them” (254). Now this created a culture of speculation
based on observations of the symbols/omens (254). According to Walton there are two types of
omen approaches, active and passive. Then, Walton lists the practitioners:
Baru, Tupsarru, Muhhu, and Apilu(264-263).
Next,
Walton show how magic links magic is directly linked to the concept of
divinization. As he explains divinization is about gaining knowledge, while
magic is about “exercising power” over spiritual forces to enable positive or
negative outcomes for individuals (264-265). Magic practitioners would use
incantations and rituals to destroy the “connective thread” that bound an
individual to evil spirits (265).
In
conclusion, Walton explains reiterates that divinization was about getting a “glimpse”
of the gods and their will through the patterns of signs (267). One must
realize though that the function was not about predicting the future. Instead
the function of divinization was used for legitimization, action and
warning. For example, it was used to
prop up kings as being the divinely chosen ruler. Furthermore, it conveyed
action because it caused kings to rule as if their choices were done on the
divine entities behalf or will. Then, the warnings were more about causing
people to change their ways to prevent the predicted judgment. Walton explains
that divinization was not about certainty but rather to a provisional of
guidelines or directions for how one should chose to live their life
(269-270). Then, Walton shows the sheer
contrast the Ancient near east ideas on prophecy compared to Deuteronomy
18:20-22. First, Israel was to know the words Yahweh did not say (270). Second,
unlike the diviners and their gods Yahweh did not want his people to be afraid
of Him (270).
Analysis:
Walton makes several good arguments.
First, I agree with him that the main function was about legitimization of the
king. His point is bolstered by the fact that the king’s prophets would have been
sponsored by the king and on the king’s payroll (240). This conflict of
interest also is exasperated by the fact that kings could use the prophecies to
their advantage by claiming “that the Gods had put the king on the throne and
supported his policies and activities” (268). Second, I thought it was very
insightful when Walton explained that the divinization prophets played upon the
“fears and aspirations of the people of Mesopotamia” (269). His best support
was the fact that people would be seeking out dream interpreters to find out
the will of the gods rather than miss out and have something bad happen to them
(244). Thus it is logical for people to seek out these practitioners to help
them find some form of control to enable these people who seemed to live in
fear with a form of “psychological relief”(254).
Finally, I
thought the comparison of Yahweh to the divinization prophets was correct. First,
the fact that God’s people were to know when he was spoken and not spoken. Second,
the fact is that the people of God did not have to live in fear of God other
than His “oracles of Judgment” (270).
[1]
Walton, John. Ancient Near Eastern Thought and
the Old Testament Introducing the Conceptual World of the Hebrew Bible.
Grand Rapids: Baker Pub. Group, 2006.
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