 | Predicting the Past in the Ancient Near East: Mantic Historiography in Ancient Mesopotamia, Judah, and the Mediterranean World Subjects: Prophecy in literature; Assyro-Babylonian literature -- Relation to the Old Testament; Assyro-Babylonian literature -- History and criticism; Bible. O. T. -- History of contemporary events; Middle East -- Civilization -- To 622; This work provides an in-depth investigation of after-the-fact predictions in ancient Near Eastern texts from roughly 1200 B.C.E.-70 C.E. It argues that the Akkadian, Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek works discussed are all part of a developing scribal discourse of "mantic historiography" by which scribes blend their local traditions of history writing and predictive texts to produce a new mode of historiographic expression. This in turn calls into question the use and usefulness of traditional literary categories such as "apocalypse" to analyze such works. Matthew Neujahr is a Resident Scholar at Marquette University. |
