JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT SUPPLEMENT SERIES 375 Editors David J.A. Clines Philip R. Davies Executive Editor Andrew Mein Editorial Board Richard J. Coggins, Alan Cooper, J. Cheryl Exum, John Goldingay, Robert P. Gordon, Norman K. Gottwald, John Jarick, Andrew D.H. Mayes, Carol Meyers, Patrick D. Miller Kevin J. Cathcart Biblical and Near Eastern Essays Studies in Honour of Kevin J. Cathcart edited by Carmel McCarthy & John F. Healey T8.T CLARK INTERNATIONAL A Continuum imprint LONDON • NEW YORK Copyright © 2004 T&T Clark International A Continuum imprint Published by T&T Clark International The Tower Building, 11 York Road, London SE1 7NX 15 East 26th Street, Suite 1703, New York, NY 10010 www.tandtclark.com All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Typeset and edited for Continuum by Forthcoming Publications Ltd www.forthcomingpublications.com Printed on acid-free paper in Great Britain by The Cromwell Press, Trowbridge, Wiltshire ISBN 0-8264-6690-7 CONTENTS Preface ix Abbreviations xii List of Contributors xvii Parti TEXTS AND THEMES IN THE BIBLE JOHN DAY Does the Old Testament Refer to Sacred Prostitution and Did it Actually Exist in Ancient Israel? 2 ROBERT P. GORDON The Ideological Foe: The Philistines in the Old Testament 22 HENRY WANSBROUGH The Finale of the Davidic Succession Narrative? 37 H.G.M. WILLIAMSON The Formation of Isaiah 2.6-22 57 JOHN BARTON The Day of Yahweh in the Minor Prophets 68 CHARLES CONROY The 'Four Servant Poems' in Second Isaiah in the Light of Recent Redaction-Historical Studies 80 JOHN A. EMERTON Some Problems in Psalm 88.16 95 vi Biblical and Near Eastern Essays PART II TEXTS AND THEMES IN THE ANCIENT VERSIONS KNUD JEPPESEN 'The Lord God has spoken, and who will not prophesy?' From Osée to Jonas in the Septuagint 105 CARMEL MCCARTHY Samaritan Pentateuch Readings in Deuteronomy 118 SEBASTIAN P. BROCK A Neglected Revision of the Peshitta Psalter 131 CÉLINE MANGAN Wisdom, Torah and Creation in Targumic Literature 143 MARTIN MCNAMARA The Colophon of Codex Neofiti I: The Scribe Menahem and the Roman Medical Family of Manuele 154 Part III INTERPRETATION AND HISTORY OF THE BIBLE ANDREW D.H. MA YES Marx, Weber and the Religion of Ancient Israel 169 JOHN R. BARTLETT Between Scylla and Charybdis: The Problem of Israelite Historiography 180 JOHN J. COLLINS The Politics of Biblical Interpretation 195 GERARD J. NORTON, OP Dahood's Commentary on the Psalms: A Review of an Academic Grandparent's Work after Thirty Years 212 MICHAEL MAKER 'A Lily among Thorns': Canticles 2.2 in the Latin Exegetical Tradition 227 Contents vii Part IV NEAR EASTERN PHILOLOGY AND HISTORY WILFRED G.E. WATSON Akkadian Loanwords in Ugaritic: The Hippiatric Texts 240 MANFRED KROPP Ethiopian Names in Sabaic and the Question ofmatres lectionis in Epigraphic South Arabian 258 G. REX SMITH Classical Arabic Pattern fa 'all Revisited 264 REINHARD PUMMER Foot-Soldiers of the Byzantines or Spies for the Muslims? The Role of the Samaritans in the Muslim Conquest of Palestine 280 PartV NEAR EASTERN NOTABLES C. EDMUND BOSWORTH William Lithgow of Lanark's Travels in Hungary, Transylvania and Poland, 1616 298 JOHN F. HEALEY 'Sicherheit des Auges': The Contribution to Semitic Epigraphy of the Explorer Julius Euting (1839-1913) 313 GRAHAM I. DA VIES Fresh Evidence on E.H. Palmer's Travels from Cambridge Libraries 331 DAVID W. MURRAY A Late-Victorian Consul in the Near East: John Dickson (1846-1906) 341 Bibliography of the Works of Kevin James Cathcart 354 Index of References 3 60 Index of Authors 370 This page intentionally left blank PREFACE This collection of essays by a group of international scholars is intended to pay fitting honour to Professor Kevin James Cathcart, who celebrates his sixty-fifth birthday in October 2004. Although the greater part of Kevin's academic life has been spent as Professor of Near Eastern Languages at University College Dublin, a glance at the list of his publications at the end of this volume will give the reader some sense of the extent of his interests and areas of research. The variety of contributions in this Fest- schrift in his honour will also demonstrate the extraordinary range of his scholarly pursuits and those of the various friends and colleagues with whom he has collaborated over the years. Born on 9 October 1939 in Derrylin, Co. Fermanagh, Northern Ireland, Kevin's early years were spent in Manchester where his parents had then settled. It was here that his father, who had served in the Irish Guards during World War II, dedicated himself to many years' service in the Manchester City Police. Kevin's early education took place at the Salesian College in Cheshire, after which he spent some four years with the Cistercians at Mellifont Abbey, Co. Louth. He then pursued studies for a BA in Arabic, Aramaic/Syriac and Hebrew at Trinity College, Dublin, taking the University Prize examination in Arabic. In 1966 he enrolled in the Oriental Faculty of the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome where he did a Licentiate in Oriental Languages (Akkadian, Sumerian andUgaritic, as well as a dissertation). Pursuing further studies in Ugaritic and Phoe- nician in the Oriental Faculty, he prepared a doctoral thesis (a detailed examination of Nahum in the Light of Northwest Semitic, subsequently published under the same title) under the direction of Mitchell Dahood, for which he was duly awarded a doctorate by the Oriental Faculty in 1971. His initial teaching experience was as Lecturer in Hebrew at the Pon- tifical Biblical Institute, Rome, in 1968. He was then appointed Assistant Professor and later Associate Professor in Near Eastern Studies at the University of Ottawa, Canada, from 1968 to 1974. Together with his wife, Anne, and sons, Declan and Kieran, he returned to Ireland in 1974, where