Licit Idols: The Roles of Divinized Furniture in the Hebrew Bible

Though scholars have argued for at least the past fifteen years that YHWH overlaps with material realia in the Bible, the exegetical implications of that overlap have tended to go unnoticed. Specialized studies of YHWH and materiality are not exegetical in scope, and works of exegesis normally do not allow “identification” as a conceptual category for explaining how texts present YHWH’s relation to an object. This dissertation aims to bridge these two worlds by proposing that YHWH overlaps with cultic appurtenances in 1 Samuel 4–6 and Numbers 31 and that this overlap serves to situate the deity in relation to specific events in Israel’s (biblical) past.

The dissertation adopts and adapts three criteria that the Assyriologist Barbara N. Porter created for identifying non-anthropomorphic gods in Mesopotamian texts. Biblical scholars have become aware of these criteria but have yet to use them for appreciating YHWH’s relation to materiality. Applying them to 1 Samuel 4–6 reveals multiple points at which characters call the ark YHWH or ascribe agency to it—without correction or censure from the narrator. In addition, Porter’s criteria assist in appreciating that ?????? ????????? transport YHWH to the battle with Midian in Numbers 31.
The dissertation concludes that 1 Samuel 7 draws from YHWH’s identification with the ark from 1 Samuel 4–6 to protest the rise of the monarchy in Israel, while YHWH reappears as the ark in 2 Samuel 6 and 15 to express divine approval for the Davidic dynasty. As for Numbers 31, YHWH’s overlap with ?????? ????????? contributes to the chapter’s reversal of the disaster of Israel’s first attempt to take Canaan in Numbers 14: whereas the ark expresses YHWH’s absence in battle in Numbers 14, ?????? ????????? in Numbers 31 shows the deity’s accompaniment to war. These findings suggest that YHWH appears in unexpected forms elsewhere in the Bible and invite a consideration of whether contemporary theologies need to make room for God’s physically manifest presence in the unfolding of events in our world.

尽管学者们至少在过去十五年中争论，认为耶和华与圣经中的物质实体有所重叠，但这种重叠的诠释学意义往往未引起注意。专门研究耶和华与物质性的著作并不属于诠释学范畴，而诠释学著作通常不将‘认同’作为解释文本如何呈现耶和华与物体关系的一种概念类别。本论文旨在弥合这两者之间的差距，提出耶和华在《撒母耳记上》第4至6章和《民数记》第31章中与宗教仪式的附属物相重叠，这种重叠有助于将神明置于与以色列（圣经中的）过往特定事件的关系之中。论文采纳并调整了亚述学家芭芭拉·N·波特为识别美索不达米亚文本中的非人形神祇所创立的三项标准。圣经学者们已经意识到这些标准，但尚未使用它们来欣赏耶和华与物质性的关系。将这些标准应用于《撒母耳记上》第4至6章揭示了多个人物称呼圣箱为耶和华或将行为归因于它的场景——而叙述者并未加以纠正或谴责。此外，波特的标准有助于我们理解在《民数记》第31章中，何烈山如何将耶和华带入与米甸人的战斗。论文得出结论，在《撒母耳记上》第7章中，耶和华与圣箱的认同关系被用来反对以色列王国兴起，而在《撒母耳记下》第6章和第15章中，耶和华以圣箱的形象重新出现，表达了神对大卫王朝的认可。至于《民数记》第31章，耶和华与何烈山的重叠促进了章节对以色列首次尝试征服迦南在《民数记》第14章中灾难的逆转：在《民数记》第14章中，圣箱表达了耶和华在战斗中的缺席，而在《民数记》第31章中，何烈山展现了神明随军出征的形象。这些发现表明，耶和华在其他圣经篇章中以意想不到的形式出现，并促使人们思考，当代神学是否需要在世界事件的发展过程中为上帝的物理显现留出空间。