Yahweh Performs Administrative Writing: Exodus 32:32–33 in Context of Ancient Administrative Writing Practices
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5508/jhs29707Keywords:
materiality, Aramaic, comparative analysis, Mesopotamia, scribes, scribalAbstract
This article examines how Yahweh is depicted as writing in Exod 32:32–33. It dispels the notion that the scroll in Exod 32:32–33 is a book of life, and instead shows that Yahweh performs administrative writing duties by (1) analyzing how scholars often historicize Exod 32:32–33, (2) showing that כתבת in Exod 32:32–33 indicates that Yahweh wrote the scroll, and (3) situating Yahweh’s scroll and writing in the context of non-numinous ancient administrative writing.
References
Aḥituv, Shmuel. 2008. Echoes from the Past: Hebrew and Cognate Inscriptions from the Biblical Period. Jerusalem: CARTA.
Aistleitner, Joseph. 1967. Wörterbuch der ugaritischen Sprache. Philologisch-historische Klasse Band 106, Heft 3. Berlin: Akademie Verlag.
Alles, Gregory D. 2001. “Toward a Genealogy of the Holy: Rudolf Otto and the Apologetics of Religion.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 69:323–41.
Allon, Niv, and Hana Navratilova. 2007. Ancient Egyptian Scribes: A Cultural Exploration. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Anderson, Benedict. 2006. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Revised edition. London: Verso.
Arthur-Montagne, Jacqueline, Scott J. DiGiulio, and Inger N. I. Kuin. 2022. “Introduction.” In Documentality: New Approaches to Written Documents in Imperial Life and Literature, edited by Jacqueline Arthur-Montagne, Scott J. DiGiulio, and Inger N. I. Kuin, 1–32. Trends in Classics 132. Berlin: de Gruyter.
Barnes, Philip L. 1994. “Rudolf Otto and the Limits of Religious Description.” Religious Studies 30:219–30.
Barr, James. 1960. “Theophany and Anthropomorphism in the Old Testament.” In Congress Volume: Oxford 1959, edited by G.W. Anderson et al., 31–38. Vetus Testamentum Supplements 7. Leiden: Brill.
Barrabee, J. 2012. “Tafel des Lebens.” RIA 13:401.
Baynes, Leslie. 2012. The Heavenly Book Motif in Judeo-Christian Apocalypses 200 B.C.E.–200 C.E. JSJSup 152. Leiden: Brill.
Bekins, Peter. 2020. Inscriptions from the World of the Bible: A Reader and Introduction to Old Northwest Semitic. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Academic.
Bendix, R. 1960. Max Weber: An Intellectual Portrait. New York: Doubleday & Company.
Bietenhard, Hans. 1951. “Die Himmlischen Bücher und Tafeln.” In Die himmlische Welt im Urchristentum und Spätjudentum, by Hans Bietenhard, 231–252. WUNT. Tübingen: Verlag J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck).
Bonnet, Corinne, Thomas Galoppin, Elodie Guillon, Syl-vain Lebreton, Max Luaces, Fabio Porzia, and Jörg Rüpke. 2022. “Introduction: Exploring the Intersection between Divine Names and Places.” In Naming and Mapping the Gods in the Ancient Mediterranean: Spaces, Mobilities, Imaginaries, edited by Thomas Galoppin, Elodie Guillon, Max Luaces, Asuman Lätzer-Lasar, Sylvain Lebreton, Fabio Porzia, Jörg Rüpke, Emiliano Rubens Urciuoli, and Corinne Bonnet, 1–14. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2022.
Bordreuil, Pierre, and Dennis Pardee. 2009. A Manual of Ugaritic. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns.
Brettler, Marc Zvi. 1995. The Creation of History in Ancient Israel. London: Routledge.
Caminos, Ricardo A. 1986. “Some Comments on the Reuse of Papyrus.” In Papyrus: Structure and Usage, edited by M. Bierbrier, 43–61. British Museum Occasional Paper 60. London: British Museum Press.
Childs, Brevard S. 1974. The Book of Exodus: A Critical, Theological Commentary. OTL. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press.
Clements, Ronald. 1972. Exodus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cooke, G. A. 1903. A Text-book of North-Semitic Inscriptions: Moabite, Hebrew, Phoenician, Aramaic, Nabataean, Palmyrene, Jewish. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Cowley, A. 1923. Aramaic Papyri of the Fifth Century B.C. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1923.
Dahlgren, Sonja, Martti Leiwo, and Marja Vierros, eds. 2024. Scribes and Language Use in the Graeco-Roman World. Commentationes Humanarum Litterarum 147. Helsinki: Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters.
Demsky, Aaron, 2007a. “Scribes.” In Encyclopaedia Judaica: Volume 18, San–Sol, edited by Fred Skolnik and Michael Berenbaum, 212–13. Second edition. Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Gale.
Demsky, Aaron, 2007b. “Writing (Scripts, Materials, and Inscriptions).” In Encyclopaedia Judaica: Volume 21, Wel–Zy, edited by Fred Skolnik and Michael Berenbaum, 235–41. Second edition. Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Gale.
Dozeman, Thomas. 2009. Exodus. Chicago: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
Durham, John. 2015. Exodus: Volume 3. Grand Rapids: HarperCollins.
Ebeling, Erich. 1953. “Sammlungen von Beschwörungsformeln teils in sumerich-akkadischer, teils in sumerischer oder akkadischer Spraches.” ArOr 21:357–423.
Eichrodt, Walther. 1967. Theology of the Old Testament: Volume Two. Translated by J. A. Baker. Originally published in German in 1964. Philadelphia: Westminster Press.
Ferron, Jean. 1966. “L’épitaphe de Milkpillés à Carthage.” Studi Magrebini 1:67–79.
Frayne, Douglas R., and Johanna H. Stuckey. 2021. A Handbook of Gods and Goddesses of the Ancient Near East: Three Thousand Deities of Anatolia, Syria, Israel, Sumer, Babylonia, Assyria, and Elam. University Park, PA: Eisenbrauns.
Fröhlich, Idea. 2024. “Scribal Revelations in Ancient Judaism.” Religions 15.131:1–15.
Geller, Markham J. 2016. Healing Magic and Evil Demons: Canonical Udug-hul Incantations. Die babylonisch-assyrische Medizin in Texten und Untersuchungen 8. Berlin: de Gru¬yter. doi: 10.1515/9781614513094.
George, A. R. 2003. The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic: Introduction, Critical Edition and Cuneiform Texts, Volume II. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Gooch, Todd A. 2000. The Numinous and Modernity: An Interpretation of Rudolf Otto`'s Philosophy of Religion. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
Goody, Jack. 1977. The Domestication of the Savage Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gordon, Cyrus H. 1965. Ugaritic Textbook. Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute.
Gordon, Nehemia. 2020a. “Blotting Out the Name: Scribal Methods of Erasing the Tetragrammaton in Medieval Hebrew Bible Manuscripts, Part 1.” Textus 29:8–43.
Gordon, Nehemia. 2020b. “Blotting Out the Name: Scribal Methods of Erasing the Tetragrammaton in Medieval Hebrew Bible Manuscripts, Part 2.” Textus 29:111–55.
Grant, Deena E. 2015. “Fire and the Body of Yahweh.” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 40:139–61.
Gunnel, André. 1980. Determining the Destiny: PQD in the Old Testament. Coniectanea Biblica 16. Lund, Sweden: CWK Gleerup.
Gurtner, Daniel M. 2013. Exodus: A Commentary on the Greek Text of Codex Vaticanus. Septuagint Commentary Series. Leiden: Brill.
Gzella, Holger. 2015. A Cultural History of Aramaic: From the Beginnings to the Advent of Islam. Handbook of Oriental Studies: Section 1, the Near and Middle East, Volume 111. Leiden: Brill.
Haag, H. 1995. “כָּתַב.” TDOT 7:317–83.
Hamori, Esther. 2008. “When Gods Were Men”: The Embodied God in Biblical and Near Eastern Literature. BZAW 384. Berlin: de Gruyter.
Handy, Lowell K. 1994. Among the Host of Heaven: The Syro-Palestinian Pantheon as Bureaucracy. Winona Lake: Ei-senbrauns.
Hossfeld, F. L. and E. Reuter. 1999. “סֵפֶר.” TDOT 10:326–41.
Hossfeld, F. L., and E. Reuter. 1986. “סֵפֶר.” ThWAT 5:935ff.
Hughes, Aaron W., and Russell T. McCutcheon. 2022. Religion in 50 More Words: A Redescriptive Vocabulary. New York: Routledge.
Johns, Adrian. 1998. The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Kaiser, L. 1915. “Book of Life.” In The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia: Volume I, A—Clemency, edited by James Orr, 503. Chicago: The Howard-Severance Company.
Kaiser, Otto. 1983 [1981]. Isaiah 1–12: A Commentary. OTL. Translated by John Bowden. Second edition. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press.
Keel, Othmar, and Christoph Uehlinger. 1998. Gods, Goddesses, and Images of God in Ancient Israel. Translated by Thomas A. Trapp. Edinburgh: T&T Clark.
Koep, L. 1954. “Buch IV (himmlisch).” In Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum: Band II, Bauer - Christus, edited by Theodor Klauser, 725–731. Stuttgart: Hiersemann Verlag.
Koester, Craig. 2014. Revelation: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Krahmalkov, Charles R. 1987. “The Periphrastic Future Tense in Hebrew and Phoenician.” Rivista degli studi orientali 61:73–80.
Krahmalkov, Charles. 1993. “The Third Feminine Plural Possessive Pronoun in Phoenician-Punic.” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 52:37–41.
Kramer, Samuel Noah. 1967. “The Death of Ur-Nammu and His Descent to the Netherworld.” Journal of Cuneiform Studies 21:104–22.
Lambert, W. G. 1959–1960. “Three Literary Prayers of the Babylonians.” AfO 19:47–66.
Lämmerhirt, K, and A. Zgoll. 2009–2011. “Schicksal. A. In Mesopotamien.” RIA 12:145–155.
Langdon, Stephen. 1912. Die Neubabylonischen Königsinschriften. Vorderasiatische Bibliothek (VAB) 4. Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs.
Lenzi, Alan. 2008. Secrecy and the Gods: Secret Knowledge in Ancient Mesopotamia and Biblical Israel. State Archives of Assyria Studies 19. Helsinki: The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project.
Lincoln, Bruce. 1989. Discourse and the Construction of Society: Comparative Studies of Myth, Ritual, and Classification. New York: Oxford University Press.
Lipínski, Edward. 1988. “Royal and State Scribes in Ancient Jerusalem.” In Congress Volume Jerusalem 1986, edited by John A. Emerton, 157–164. VTSup 40. Leiden: Brill.
Lundbom, Jack R. 1999. Jeremiah 1–20, Volume 21A: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. Anchor Yale Bible Commentary. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Maimonides, Moses. 2024 [1190]. The Guide to the Perplexed: A New Translation. Translated and with commentary by Lenn E. Goodman and Phillip I. Lieberman. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Mandell, Alice. 2023. “Word Craft in the Ancient Levant: Craft-Literacy as the Intersection of Specialized Knowledge.” MAARAV 27:91–191.
Markschies, Christoph. 2019 [2016]. God’s Body: Jewish, Christian, and Pagan Images of God. Translated by Johannes Edmonds. Waco: Baylor University Press.
Martin, Craig. 2012. A Critical Introduction to the Study of Religion. Sheffield: Equinox.
Mastnjak, Nathan. 2023. Before the Scrolls: A Material Approach to Israel’s Prophetic Library. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Maul, Stefan M. 2018. The Art of Divination in the Ancient Near East: Reading the Signs of Heaven and Earth. Translated by Brian McNeil and Alexander Johannes Edmonds. Baylor: Baylor University Press.
McClellan, Daniel O. 2022. YHWH’s Divine Images: A Cognitive Approach. Atlanta: SBL Press.
McCutcheon, Russell T. 2003. Critics Not Caretakers: Redescribing the Public Study of Religion. New York: SUNY.
Michalowski, Piotr. 1991. “Charisma and Control: On Continuity and Change in Early Mesopotamian Bureaucratic Systems.” In The Organization of Power: Aspects of Bureaucracy in the Ancient Near East, edited by McGuire Gibson and Robert D. Biggs, 45–57. Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization 46. Second edition. Chicago: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.
Moore, James D. 2023. “Traces of Administrative Reform in the Hebrew and Aramaic Epigraphs of the Al-Yahudu and Related Tablets.” NABU 1.28:66–69.
Moore, James. 2017. “‘I am Unable to Do My Job’: Literary Depictions of the Scribal Profession in the Story of Ahiqar and Jeremiah 36.” PhD dissertation.
Moore, James. 2020. “The Persian Administrative Process in View of an Elephantine ‘Aršāma Decree (TAD A6.2).” Semitica et Classica 13:49–62.
Mroczek, Eva. 2016. The Literary Imagination in Jewish Antiquity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Murphy, James G. 1881. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Exodus. New York: I. K. Funk & Co. Publishers.
Niehr, H. 2018. “Arameans.” In Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Phoenician Culture: Historical Characters, edited by Andrea Ercolani and Paolo Xella, 20–25. Bristol, CT: Peeters.
Noegel, Scott. 2010. “‘Sign, Sign, Everywhere a Sign’: Script, Power, and Interpretation in the Ancient Near East.” In Divination and Interpretation of Signs in the Ancient World, ed¬ited by Amar Annus, 143–162. Oriental Institute Seminars 6. Chicago: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.
Otto, Rudolf. 1952 [1923]. The Idea of the Holy: An Inquiry into the Non-rational Factor in the Idea of the Divine and Its Relation to the Rational. Translated by John W. Harvey. Second edition. London: Oxford University Press.
Parkinson, Richard, and Stephen Quirke. 1995. Papyrus. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Paul, Shalom M. 1973. “Heavenly Tablets and the Book of Life.” Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society 5:345–353.
Paul, Shalom M. 2007. “Book of Life.” In Encyclopaedia Judaica: Volume 4, Blu–Cof, edited by Fred Skolnik and Michael Berenbaum, 69. Second edition. Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Gale.
Pearce, Laurie E. 1995. “The Scribes and Scholars of Ancient Mesopotamia.” In Civilizations of the Ancient Near East IV, edited by Jack M. Sasson, 2265–78. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.
Pongratz-Leisten, Beate, and Karen Sonik, eds. 2015. The Materiality of Divine Agency. Studies in Ancient Near Eastern Records 8. Berlin: de Gruyter.
Porten, Bezalel, and Ada Yardeni. 2018. Textbook of Aramaic Ostraca from Idumea, Volume 3. University Park: Eisenbrauns.
Porten, Bezalel, with Ada Yardeni. 2020. Textbook of Aramaic Ostraca from Idumea: Volume 4, Dossiers B–G: 375 Ostraca. University Park: Eisenbrauns.
Propp, William H. C. 2006. Exodus 19–40: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. Anchor Yale Bible 2A. New York: Doubleday.
Quick, L. 2022. “Behemoth’s Penis, Yahweh’s Might: Competing Bodies in the Book of Job.” JSOT 46:339–357.
Roberts, J. J. M. 2015. First Isaiah. Hermeneia. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.
Rollston, Christopher A. 2015. “Scribal Curriculum during the First Temple Period: Epigraphic Hebrew and Biblical Evidence.” In Contextualizing Israel’s Sacred Writings: Ancient Literacy, Orality, and Literary Production, edited by Brian B. Schmidt, 71–101. Atlanta: SBL Press.
Ryba, Thomas. 1991. “The Philosophical Loadings of Rudolf Otto’s Idea of the Sacred.” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 3.1:24–40.
Saggs, H. W. F. 2016. The Encounter with the Divine in Mesopotamia and Israel. New York: Bloomsbury.
Sanders, Seth L. 2017. From Adapa to Enoch. TSAJ 167. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck.
Sanders, Seth L. 2019. “Enoch’s Imaginary Ancestor: From Ancient Babylonian Scholarship to Modern Academic Folklore.” Journal of Ancient Judaism 9:155–177.
Schaper, Joachim. 1995. “The Jerusalem Temple as an Instrument of the Achaemenid Fiscal Administration.” VT 45:528–539.
Schaper, Joachim. 2004. “A Theology of Writing: The Oral and the Written, God as Scribe, and the Book of Deuteronomy.” In Anthropology and Biblical Studies: Avenues of Approach, edited by Louise J. Lawrence and Mario I. Aguilar, 97–119. Leiden: deo Publishing.
Schiffman, Lawrence. 2004 “Pseudepigrapha: Mythical Books in Second Temple Literature.” RevQ 21:429–438.
Schniedewind, William M. 2004. How the Bible Became a Book. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Schniedewind, William M. 2019. The Finger of the Scribe: How Scribes Learned to Write the Bible. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Schniedewind, William M. 2024. Who Really Wrote the Bible? The Story of the Scribes. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Schniedewind, William M., and Joel H. Hunt. 2007. A Primer on Ugaritic: Language, Culture and Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Seidel, U. 1998–2001. “Nabû. B. Archäologisch.” RIA 9:24–29.
Smith, Barbara Herrnstein. 1978. On the Margins of Discourse: The Relation of Literature to Language. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Smith, Mark. 2016. Where the Gods Are: Spatial Dimensions of Anthropomorphism in the Biblical World. Yale: Yale University Press.
Sommer, Benjamin D. 2009. The Bodies of God in the World of Ancient Israel. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Spinoza, Benedict de. 2020 [1677]. Spinoza’s Ethics. Edited by Clare Carlisle, Zachary Gartenberg, and Davide Monaco. Translated by George Eliot. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Stackert, Jeffrey. 2014. A Prophet Like Moses: Prophecy, Law, and Israelite Religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Stavrakopoulou, Francesca. 2021. God: An Anatomy. Dublin: Picador.
Streck, Maximilian. 1916. Assurbanipal und die letzten assyrischen Könige bis zum Untergange Niniveh’s: II Teil, Texte; Die Inschriften Assurbanipals und der letzten assyrischen Könige. Vorderasiatische Bibliothek (VAB) 7.2. Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs.
Stummer, Friedrich. 1927. “Ein akkadisches Segensgebet für den König.” AfO 4:19–21.
Suriano, Matthew. 2010. The Politics of Dead Kings. FAT 2. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck.
Tov, Emanuel. 2001. Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible. Second edition. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.
Van De Mieroop, Marc. 2023. Before and After Babel: Writing as Resistance in Ancient Near Eastern Empires. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Van der Toorn, Karel, Bob Becking, and Pieter W. Van Der Horst. 1999. Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible. Second edition. Leiden: Brill.
Van der Toorn, Karel. 2007. Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Van der Toorn, Karel. 2019. Becoming Diaspora Jews: Behind the Story of Elephantine. Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library. New Haven: Yale University Press.
von Rad, Gerhard. 1962. Old Testament Theology: Volume I; The Theology of Israel’s Historical Traditions. Translated by M. G. Stalker. Originally published in 1957. Oliver and Boyd: Edinburgh.
Wagner, Andreas. 2019. God’s Body: The Anthropomorphic God in the Old Testament. London: T&T Clark.
Walker, C. B. F., and S. N. Kramer. 1982. “Cuneiform Tablets in the Collection of Lord Binning.” Iraq 44:71–86.
Weber, M. 1947. The Theory of Social and Economic Organization. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Weinfeld, Moshe. 1992. Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns.
Wilson, Brittany E. 2024. “God’s Body and the Material Turn: Divine (Im)Materiality in Biblical Theophanies.” Harvard Theological Review 117:607–630.
Winter, Irene. 1991. “Legitimation of Authority through Image and Legend: Seals Belonging to Officials in the Administrative Bureaucracy of the Ur III State.” In The Organization of Power: Aspects of Bureaucracy in the Ancient Near East, edited by McGuire Gibson and Robert D. Biggs, 59–89. Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization 46. Second edition. Chicago: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.
Zimmern, H. 1901. Beiträge zur Kenntnis der babylonischen Religion. Assyriologische Bibliothek 12. Leipzig.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 William Hart Brown
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Statue of Ebih-Il, drawing by Simeon Goa, © Journal of Hebrew Scriptures
