Jerusalem University College
The Calendarial New Year, Atonement Rituals, and Enthronement in
Canaanite and Israelite Religious Practices.
Research Paper
History of Ancient Israel
Brian Schultz
By
Sarah Wagner
Jerusalem, Israel
12 November 2003
In the Hebrew Bible there is a set of autumn feasts which begins with Rosh Hashanah, "the head of the year." Contrary to that name, the biblical text always states that this feast is in the seventh month, causing uncertainty as to what this name really means. This confusion can be cleared up by recognizing that these feasts have a parallel in the Ugaritic autumn feasts. These parallels can also elucidate what the meaning and purpose behind these feasts was supposed to be.
In Ugarit, as throughout the Near East, there seems to have existed two new years. One, the civil new year, which was counted in the Spring, and two, the religious new year, which was counted in the Fall. [Johannes C. De Moor, "The Seasonal Pattern in the Ugaritic Myth of Ba’lu" AOAT 16 (Neukirchen – Vluyn: Verlag Butzon and Berker Kevelear, Neukirchener Verlag des Erziehungsvereins, 1971): 62.] The civil year began in yrh ib’lt and falls in March/April. [Mark E. Cohen, The Cultic Calendars of the Ancient Near East (Bethesda, Md: CDL Press, 1993), 378.]
The beginning of the religious year was yrh riš -yn "Month of the Head-of-Wine" which is the seventh month of the civil calendar. It refers to the month when wine was first produced [Cyrus H. Gordon, Ugaritic Textbook (Rome: Pontifical Bible Institute, 1965), 414b.] and should be around September. [Cohen, The Cultic Calendars, 378.]
This theory of two new years has been hotly debated. It has been suggested that the need for two new years arose from the conglomeration of new religious rituals. In Babylon, it was customary during the time of Hammurabi to celebrate Marduk’s new year in Nisan, yet we see that the Tishri new year continued in various places [Yehezkel Kaufmann, The Religion of Israel (trans. Moshe Greenberg; Chicago; University of Chicago Press, 1960), 306.] and both months qualified at sag mu-an-na, "the beginning of the year." [Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 23-27 (AB 3C; New York: Doubleday, 1991), 2010.] This practice is also seen in rabbinic literature (m. Roš . Haš . 1:1) and in modern Jewish practice. The Baylonian cognate of Tishri is taš ritu, which means "beginning." [Baruch A. Levine, Numbers 21-36 (AB 4A; New York: Doubleday, 1991), 409.] In the Gezer Calendar we find that the year begins with yrhw ’sp "its two months of ingathering," corresponding to autumn. [Ibid.]
Some have seen the Spring new year as a later importation from Babylon. However, in the biblical text there is never a hint that the new year is ever anything but Nisan. [Milgrom, Leviticus 23-27, 2013.] If the spring new year is Babylonian it must have been imported into the Levant very early. [Kaufmann, The Religion of Israel, 306.] Possible, but impossible to prove, is that the autumnal equinox was a primitive festival to begin the new year and the beginning of the agricultural season. Later, the new year switched to the vernal equinox. Popular religion, however, does not allow for traditional religious festivals to change. Therefore, vestiges of the original new year carried on in religious celebrations.
The similarities between the Canaanite rituals of yrh riš -yn and the Israelite rituals of Tishri are important to note. They are celebrated in the seventh month to offer the first fruits of the summer harvest and to make atonement and pray for rain for the coming agricultural season. [Moor, "The Seasonal Pattern in the Ugaritic Myth of Ba’lu" AOAT, 99.] The earliest biblical text calls the feast of booths the feast of harvest (Ex. 23:16; 34:22) and only later is the time of ingathering given the command to live in booths, under the auspices that the Israelites must remember that they dwelt in booths in the desert.
The sheer fact that the Israelites were familiar with, and celebrated, this holiday in connection with the grape harvest is clear from the biblical text. In Judges 23:20-23 we read that the maidens of Shiloh would dance in vineyards at the time of the autumn festival. ["yearly festival of the Lord" (Judges 21:19) reads hag JHWH, which is the name given to the autumn festival in Lev. 23:39. See Johannes C. De Moor, New Year with Canaanites and Israelites (Vol. 1; 1972) 12.] In 1 Samuel 1 we read that Hannah went up to Shiloh at one of the yearly feasts to make a request of God and Eli the priest assumed that she was drunk with wine (1 Sam. 1:14). In later rabbinic tradition it is said that God remembered the barren women Sarah, Rachel, and Hannah at time of the autumnal new year (bR.Sh., 10b-11b).
The main text tying together the festival of yrh riš -yn with Tishri is KTU 1.41:50-55, which reads:
50 Then the king shall sacrifice to the "vine shoot" (and) to the "horn"
51 on the roof on which there will be four huts of branches at each side: one ram in holocaust,
52 one head of cattle and one ram as a peace offering, seven times;
53 ad libitum the king shall reply. At sunset the king (shall remain) desacralized and,
54 Being splendidly robed, with a clean face,
[G. del Olmo Lete, Canaanite Religion: according to the liturgical texts of Ugarit (trans. Wilfred G. E. Watson; Bethesda, Md.: CDL Press, 1999), 122-123. ]
This passage states that this festival involves both peace and holocaust sacrifices, huts made of branches, and the enthronement of the king. These three things have made their way into modern Jewish practice by Rosh Hashanah the beginning of the year and the enthroning of YHWH, Yom Kippur the day of atonement, and Sukkoth the festival of booths. In the biblical text however, the original meaning attached to these three festivals is unclear. The discrepancies between Leviticus 16, Leviticus 23, and Numbers 29 on what these feasts were for and how they were to be practiced calls into question their origin and time of inception. Some believe that all of these feasts, as we see them in the text, are completely post-exilic. [Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: its life and institutions, (trans. John McHugh; New York: McGraw-Hill, 1961) 510.] This theory stands only as long as one considers that these feasts are not given consistent official status within the text. However, as seen from the festival practices of ancient Canaanites, these feasts and their purpose had their beginnings in early history of the Levant.
In Ugarit we see that on the first day of the seventh month the king made sacrifices on a hut and then at sunset he would be enthroned (KTU 1.41:50-55). For the next two weeks leading up to the full moon various sacrifices were made to various deities. On the thirteenth day of the month the king would wash and become purified. Then on the fourteenth day:
4 On the fourteenth (day), offering of first fruits.
5 And also: two rams to the "Lady(/ies) of the Mansions," two birds to the "divine people,"
6 and one ram (and) one cruet (of oil) (to) Ilš u, (another) ram (to) Ilahuma.
[Lete, Canaanite Religion, 107-108.]
The atonement ritual of this passage may belong to a sort of Canaanite yom kippur. [Ibid. 107 n. 81.] In Leviticus 16 we read that Aaron, the high priest, would make a holocaust offering of a young bull and immerse himself in water to purify himself before making sacrifices of atonement for the people. That in Israel this atonement took place on the tenth day of the seventh month and in Ugarit on the fourteenth day of the seventh month is of little importance. The Israelite festival is connected with the new moon of the new year and gives ten days leading up to the festival to make preparations. The Ugaritic festival is centered upon the first full moon of the new year with the end of the preceding week given to making sacrifices to the gods.
The role of the king in the festival is somewhat ambiguous. In KTU 1.41 it is not clear if the king himself is offering the sacrifices. It has been noted that:
The evidence, admittedly exiguous in itself, increases in weight on consideration that the texts now possessed assign such a role to no other person. One might therefore legitimately conclude certainly to a prominent role of the king, perhaps his supreme authority in sacrificial matters at Ugarit. [Antonine de Guglielmo, "Sacrifice in the Ugaritic Texts," CBQ 17.2 (1955) 88].
This conglomeration of the king with the high priest in this atonement ritual has implications for the enthroning the king on the first day of the seventh month. It can be said then, that at the beginning of the year, the king must be enthroned again, to solidify his authority. It is only with this authority that the king can undertake the purification and sacrificial rituals to make atonement before the gods on behalf of the people. If this is the case, then we can see that the enthronement of YHWH would have quite naturally become a part of the Israelite Rosh Hashanah celebration. With the stark division between the kingship and the priesthood, as well as the understanding in 1 Samuel 8:4 that YHWH is to be king over the Israelites, there is a vacuum of temporal authority to make atonement. In the Rosh Hashanah enthronement of YHWH the Israelites are, in effect, establishing YHWH as king who has the ability to make atonement for them. [In this argument I am ignoring the work of Mowinckel, preferring to accept the general consensus that it is impossible to assign certain psalms proclaiming YHWH as king to the liturgy of Rosh Hashanah. Instead, I see the practice of the enthronement of YHWH as a natural outgrowth of the Canaanite festival theology. Only if this can be established can we then find in the Psalms possible liturgical references to this event. ]
This brings into focus the actions of Jeroboam. Jeroboam moved the autumnal festival back one month to the fifteenth day of the eighth month. Easing the split by making it still possible for people to make the traditional pilgrimage to Jerusalem, [Moor, New Year with Canaanites and Israelites, 20.] and making the festival fall on the day of the full moon as in the Canaanite festival. Jeroboam also followed the Canaanite practice by sacrificing and offering incense himself at the altar at Bethel on the day of the autumnal festival (1 Kings 12:32-33). Also, it has been pointed out that in the Northern Kingdom the royal year began in the autumn.
Seemingly contrary to all this is the fact that in KTU 1.119 we see that the first month of the year, yrh ib’lt, was the month of the festival of kingship. Special offerings were made to the royal dynasty and libations to the primordial kingship. [Cohen, The Cultic Calendars, 379.] This does not mean, however, that separate enthronement ceremonies could not have taken place at another time of the year. We see in many calendars a strong link between the first and seventh months. In the Ugaritic festival calendar there were seven day festivals in both the first and seventh months, creating a symmetry between the two. [Ibid.] In the biblical text as well there is a symmetry between the seven days of the Festival of Unleavened Bread in the first month and the seven days of Succoth in the seventh month, right down to the adding of an eighth day to Succoth to make is match with the day of Passover which falls the day before the Festival of Unleavened Bread. Given this, it is easy to see how it would not be difficult to link the activities of kingship between the first and seventh month.
A major part of enthronement of the king and the new year in yrh riš -yn was the sacred marriage. In Ugarit the enthronement of a new king began on the first day of the month and lasted 21 days. In this ritual the king becomes related by marriage to the gods by means of a sacred marriage to Ba’lu’s daughter Pidrayu (KTU 1.132:2). [Lete, Canaanite Religion, 107-108.]
Another text, CTA 23, also records the ritual of the yearly sacred marriage, which was to be concluded at the end of first day of yrh riš -yn. [The idea of the new year and the sacred marriage was also present in ancient Mesopotamia. New year offerings were called the marriage portion of the goddess Bau and the whole festival was to commemorate the rise of, and the mating of, the Tigris and the Euphrates. See George Aaron Barton, "A comparison of some features of Hebrew and Babylonian ritual," JBL 46 (1927): 86.] The king acted as Ilu and the ceremony took place on the roof of the temple where huts made of branches were erected as temporary dwellings for the gods who were present. [Moor, New Year with Canaanites and Israelites, 6-7.] The similarities of these structures to those of a Succoth is obvious. This sacred marriage was most likely what Hophni and Pinehas, the sons of Eli, were trying to instate in 1 Samuel 2:22. [ Ibid 15.] In the story of Absalom’s attempted coup we see that he proclaimed his kingship at the sound of the shofar, the day of the new year (2 Sam. 15:10). This gives Ahithophel’s advice to Absalom that he should solidify his claim to the throne by visiting his father’s concubines within a tent that was pitched on the roof of the palace (2 Sam. 16:22) an underlying Canaanite philosophy.
In the marriage ceremony at Ugarit the offspring of the sacred marriage is sent away into the desert (CTA 23:66). Parallel to this is the purification during the new year celebration of the temple of Nabu in Babylonia. On the fifth of Nisan a sheep was beheaded and rubbed against the temple to remove impurities, then the corpse was taken to be Euphrates to be thrown into the river and those who had done this deed had to remain outside the city until the twelfth of Nisan. [de Vaux, Ancient Israel, 508.] Such a ritual expulsion, as also seen in the scapegoat of Israelite Yom Kippur, appears to have been widespread among new year festivities of many ancient Near Eastern cultures. [Moor, New Year with Canaanites and Israelites, 8.]
Of course, the idea of a sacred marriage was seen as incompatible with Yahwism. The Song of Moses in Deuteronomy 32 is seen as one of the older parts of the Hebrew Bible. In this psalm the author makes it clear that YHWH has the power to make the earth fertile, to feed the people from the fields (v. 13), to make the rocks drip with honey and oil (v. 13), to bring milk from the flocks (v. 14), and to bring forth grapes and wine (v. 14). The focus on YHWH giving good wine in verse 14, and that the wine and vineyards of the nations are poisonous and bitter in verses 28-33, may be a polemic against the new year festival of the Canaanites which involved drunkenness and fertility rituals.
The similarities between the Canaanite and Israelite sources on the new year festival has led some to state that the Israelite celebration was completely borrowed from the Canaanites, with a few changes to make it acceptable within Yahwism. [Ibid 28-29.] Indeed, for Moor the presence of four huts made up of branches in KTU 1.41:51 "clinches the matter: important elements of the Hebrew Feast of Tabernacles originated with the Canaanites." [Moor, "Seasonal Pattern in the Ugaritic Myth of Ba’lu" AOAT, 59.] Simple borrowing, however, need not be the case. As we see from the Song of Moses there was very early in Israelite liturgy the need to express that YHWH could be more fertile and more powerful than Baal. The autumn festival could express the fact that the Israelites were blessed by YHWH with good fruits as well as solidify the authority of YHWH to forgive their sins of the previous year. The immediate Festival of Booths could have had the effect of turning the holiday from the celebration of a sacred marriage into a celebration of progeny and family. The strange explanation that it is to commemorate living in booths in the wilderness must have been used to explain why in Israelite practice families of living people occupied the huts and not statues of the deities. Certainly, the placement of the religious new year in the month of Tishri was borrowed from the idea of yrh riš -yn and we see that this affected the ideology of Israelite religious ritual and kingship.
Bibliography
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