Gideon R. Kotzé. Images and Ideas of Debated Readings in the Book of Lamentations. Mohr Siebeck: Tübingen, 2020.
In Images and Ideas of Debated Readings in the Book of Lamentations, Gideon R. Kotzé hones in on several cases of disputed readings in the book of Lamentations where scholarship has not reached a consensus. In a number of places, the textual representatives appear strange to modern interpreters, so these “debated readings” are often emended with recourse to comparative philology, or according to the reader’s poetic sensibilities. Kotzé, however, asks readers to reconsider when and for what reason emendation is necessary. If the text comes from a cultural world far different than our own, then we ought to anchor those cases in the same world that produced them. In his words:
The guiding presuppositions of this study are that debated readings in the textual representatives of Lamentations might very well have been intelligible to early Jewish scribes and audiences…and in order to explore this possibility, text-critics rely on information inferred from interpretations of other ancient Near Eastern cultural products. (p. 13)
The project Kotzé sets out on, then, is more than a guide for text critical issues in Lamentations. It seeks, rather, to blend text criticism with an interpretive process keen on finding contemporary parallels in neighboring cultures.
In order to accomplish this task, the author begins his Introduction by defining his terms, considering a number of presuppositions he holds, and setting out his argument. For example, he defines debated readings as “words, phrases, or sentences in the textual representatives of Lamentations whose forms or meanings modern readers, for various reasons, find difficult or objectionable” (p. 1). Shortly after the definition, he provides a few examples (e.g. Lam 3:5, 2:13, 4:9, 1:11c) in order to demonstrate that scholars have reached an impasse and suggests creative approaches to move the debate forward. In Chapter 2, he catalogues several other cases that show how some of the debated readings in Lamentations can be understood as instantiations of shared ancient Near Eastern images and ideas. For example, he cites the common postulate that there is a close relationship in form and style to Sumerian lament literature first evoked in Lamentations 1:1, where the city of Jerusalem personified as a woman can be compared to the weeping goddess in Sumerian laments. Kotzé also notes, however, that cities and goddesses are oftentimes given similar titles in Phoenician and Punic inscriptions, as well as in Ugaritic literature such as the Baal Cycle and Kirta Epic. In Kirta, for example, the cities of Udum and Khubur are titled rbt and trrt which Kotzé follows Greenfield in arguing are the equivalent to Hebrew רבתי and שרתי (Lam 1:1), respectively (p. 18). In other words, this type of personification is not unique to ancient Sumer. Ultimately, he argues that these images, ideas, and metaphors represented in Lamentations draw on material from varied times and places in the wider ancient Near East.
In Chapter 3, Kotzé chooses to explore five more examples, one from each of the poems in Lamentations. This is the most significant contribution to the field, and comprises just over half of the book. In addition to placing these images and ideas in the wider context of the ancient Near East, he also looks at how the images in Lamentations share and differ from how they are used elsewhere. Thus, in Chapter 3 the author goes beyond navigating other scholarship and now offers his own examples with his proposed methodology. For example, after summarizing text-critical scholarship on Lamentations 1:20, he includes a section on interpretive comments of the verse, interpretive comments for the parallel text Lamentation over Sumer and Ur (LSUr) 397-402 (which is the people’s speech after recognizing the justification for the fall of Ur), and finally, how to make sense of the verse in light of the parallel text. Chapter 4 concludes with a brief reflection on the author’s findings, for example, contemplating the importance of ancient translations that have not been appreciated for their potential in capturing images or ideas that coexisted alongside the Hebrew versions (p. 101). Ultimately, the author exhorts text-critics to make use of less conventional resources to move the enterprise of text-criticism forward and to return to the use of ancient translations for how they might aid text critics in debated readings. Creative, innovative arguments will help overcome stalemates in the field.
The book builds on traditional text-critical tools such as the consultation of ancient versions, comparative grammar, and scribal habits, and it does an admirable job of providing contemporary text-critical scholarship on verses that have provoked a great deal of debate. Yet in addition, the author proposes a creative method that asks text-critics to consider what constitutes an appropriate case for emendation. He questions modern sensibilities and orients us instead to comparative examples that may have resonated with the worldview of the ancient authors. As the author states, “In cases of readings that modern readers find difficult or questionable, but where no substantial variants are preserved by the textual representatives, I assume that we should at least entertain the possibility that the readings could have been meaningful to ancient scribes and audiences…” (p. 10). Still, the author’s argument that text critics ought to move beyond biblical witnesses in some ways has already been made. Mitchell Dahood’s work has sought to incorporate Ugaritic evidence into text critical endeavors (Dahood, Psalms I 1-50, 1995; Dahood, “The Value of Ugaritic for Textual Criticism,” 1959). In addition, introductory textbooks such as Emanuel Tov’s Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible contain sections, albeit brief, on incorporating parallels in cognate languages as a resource (Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, 1992). What the author is advocating, if I’ve read his argument correctly, is a much broader reach outside of the Levant that also considers more than orthography and the lexeme in question, but the potential image, idea, or metaphor instantiated in the text. Such an approach requires text-critics to instead consider how scribes may have been referencing some other idea outside of the typical purview of modern scholars who tend to focus on Levantine cultures. For example, Kotzé’s final example in ch. 3 on 5:5 provides a brief history of the debated line where haplography, dittography, and homoioarcton are put forward to help explain the verse[MOU1] : “We were driven forward by our necks; we grew tired with no rest given to us.” However, when compared with Ancient Near Eastern texts like the Akkadian Victory Stela (Louvre Sb 3) or the Standard of Ur and their depictions of transporting prisoners, the author argues that these images are what the scribe of Lamentations is describing and no emendation of the MT is necessary (pp. 89-96). The author is not averse to emendation, but questions on what grounds scholars seek it.
In each case, the author never suggests a direct or intertextual relationship between the poems of Lamentations and other ancient Near Eastern texts. Instead, each textual instantiation calls on a generic pool of metaphor and imagery available to each author from Ugarit to Sumer. However, these examples might be strengthened by a diachronic approach that hones in on how these images came to a particular textual corpus. For example, Jeffrey Tigay has noted that texts like Gilgamesh have continued to be edited beyond their original composition to emphasize certain aspects, like death, over others, like an earlier emphasis on kingship (Tigay, The Evolution of the Gilgamesh Epic, 73-109). To read the Old Babylonian version, therefore, presents a very different image than later versions with additional tablets. In other words, if one were to simply look at a list of texts that deal with general themes of death, for example, the compositional history of Gilgamesh would be overlooked. In addition, even if two texts share common images, Matthew Suriano notes that they may interact with the same image quite differently. While Gilgamesh and Qoheleth share a number of rhetorical similarities, such as the advice of the tavern keeper Siduri and Ecclesiastes 9:7-9 who exhorts the reader in Qohelet and Gilgamesh to make merry in the present life while one is able, and the royal voice of Ecclesiastes 1:12, the later versions of Gilgamesh diverge significantly from Ecclesiastes on kingship (Suriano, “Kingship and Carpe Diem, Between Gilgamesh and Qoheleth”, 2017).
This book is suitable for text critics, researchers of Lamentations, and as a supplement in graduate seminars since it not only attends to the particularities of text-critical issues in Lamentations, but also envisions a new approach to text criticism sensitive to the cultural ideas in the ancient Near East. Text critics would not only be required to consider scribal habits and mishaps (dittography, haplography, homoioarcton/homoioteleuton, and the like), but the possibility of broader ideas such as gendered cities and prisoner transport that could inform a plausible text-critical reading. Such an enterprise would require text critics to possess familiarity in as many cultures that might be relevant for a particular biblical text: not only Levantine cultures and texts, but also those in the Eastern Mediterranean, Egypt, and perhaps even beyond the Mediterranean. This approach to text criticism is relevant for already-established text critics and scholars of Lamentations as the author treats examples in the book of Lamentations, but also invites scholars to reconsider the limits of their field. It would do well as a supplement or reference to a graduate seminar on Lamentations when students come across difficult passages, but additionally serve as an example where scholars are rethinking the limits textual criticism as a practice, not to mention how we conceive of our fields themselves.
Overall, Kotzé provides a fascinating contribution to the field of text criticism that should be of interest beyond text critics. He argues for a more expansive field that, in addition to traditional text-critical approaches, also considers images, motifs, ideas, and metaphors from diverse materials like inscriptions, iconography, and archaeology from the broader ancient Near East. Rather than attempt to master each distinct field, the author suggests instead that text-critics find opportunities to interact with colleagues who do have experience in them. In this way, text criticism becomes a highly collaborative endeavor that would benefit and benefit from other fields of study in the ancient Near East.
Aron Tillema is a PhD candidate in Religious Studies at the University of California, Davis. His research interests and dissertation project focus on how ancient writers composed their texts and how Jews and Christians have transformed their meanings over time, with special attention to political power, divine communication, and humor in the book of Jonah. He can be reached at amtillema@ucdavis.edu
References
Dahood, Mitchell. “The Value of Ugaritic for Textual Criticism,” Bib 40 (1959) 160-170.
Dahood, Mitchell. 1966. Psalms I: 1-50. [1st edition]. Garden City, N.Y: Doubleday.
Suriano, Matthew J. “Kingship and Carpe Diem, Between Gilgamesh and Qoheleth.” Vetus Testamentum 67, no. 2 (2017): 285–306.
Tigay, Jeffrey H. 2002. The Evolution of the Gilgamesh Epic. Wauconda, Ill: Bolchazy-Carducci.
Tov, Emanuel. 1992. Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.