In 1875 the British Assyriologist George Smith published in copy an unusual cuneiform tablet from Nineveh which he labeled "addresses of encouragement to [the Assyrian king] Esarhaddon" (680-669 BC). Although a tentative English translation of the text (no. 1 in the present edition) was provided by T. G. Pinches already in 1878, it did not attract much attention initially. The first to recognize its significance was Alphonse Delattre, who in an article entitled "The Oracles Given in Favour of Esarhaddon," published in 1888, defined it as "a series of oracles [from] the prophets of Aššur [which] recall to mind the images of the Biblical prophets." He regarded it as "one of the most interesting fragments which Assyrian literature presents," adding: "It is astonishing that it should have attracted so little attention up to the present day."
Little did he know that this statement would still be by and large valid more than a hundred years later! True, Delattre's article momentarily generated considerable interest in the oracles. The tablet containing the "addresses" was recopied and retranslated by Pinches in 1891 (this time labeled "The Oracle of Ištar of Arbela"), and in the course of the following fifteen years six new tablets of the same kind (nos. 2, 3, 5 and 7-9 in the present edition) were identified in the collections of the British Museum. By 1915, most of the corpus as known today had been made available in English, French and/or German translations and preliminarily analyzed from the religious, historical and literary points of view (see the bibliography on p. CIX).
However, after World War I interest in the oracles abated drastically. For decades, no further additions were made to the corpus, and except for a few retranslations of no. 1 made for anthologies of ANE texts, no new translations, editions or studies of the published texts appeared between 1916 and 1972. As a result, the corpus as a whole slowly sank into oblivion and became virtually inaccessible to non-Assyriologists. By the seventies, the text editions and studies published before WWI had become so hopelessly dated that they could be used only by a handful of specialists in Neo-Assyrian.
Thus, more than a hundred years after its discovery, the Assyrian prophecy corpus still remains virtually unknown to the great majority of biblical scholars and historians of religion - even though it provides a much closer parallel, at least in time, to OT prophecy than the early second-millennium prophetic texts of Mari, now well known to every serious biblical and ANE scholar.
The marginal attention the corpus has received is not only due to the lack of good editions but also to inaccurate and misleading terminology. While the prophecies of the corpus have been traditionally designated as "oracles"- a term accurate in itself but not specific enough to suggest an affinity to OT prophecy - Assyriologists have applied the labels "oracle" and "prophecy" also to texts totally unrelated to inspired prophecy, such as extispicy queries[[1]] and predictive texts drawing on standard collections of omens.[[2]] No wonder that biblical scholars, seeing how little such "prophecies" have to do with OT prophecy, have not found the little-known "oracles to Esarhaddon" worth much attention.
In the course of the past fifteen years, the situation has slowly started to change. Thanks to a series of articles in the seventies by Manfred Weippert, Herbert Huffman and Tomoo Ishida, who for the first time since Delattre approached the texts as prophetic oracles, interest in the corpus has grown and a number of important studies on it have appeared during the eighties and nineties. Studies by Weippert and Maria deJong Ellis have removed the terminological confusion just referred to and firmly established the nature of the texts as prophetic oracles fully comparable to biblical prophecies. The similarities between the Assyrian and biblical prophecy corpora have been systematically charted and discussed by Weippert and Martti Nissinen, and the relevance of the Assyrian prophecies to OT studies in general has been ably demonstrated by Nissinen.
However, the primary significance of the Assyrian prophecy corpus does not lie in the parallel it provides to OT prophecy but in the light it throws on Assyrian religion. It has hitherto been commonly believed that inspired prophecy was basically alien to Mesopotamia, [[3]] and that Assyrian prophecy in particular, which seems to appear "out of the blue" in the reign of Esarhaddon, was only a marginal and ephemeral phenomenon possibly related to the large-scale deportations from Israel and Phrenicia under Tiglath-Pileser III and Sargon II, and thus a sort of "import from the West."[[4]] As we shall see, this view is untenable and has to be emphatically rejected. The prophecies have tight links to the cult of Ištar and Assyrian royal ideology, mythology and iconography, and thus represent a genuinely Mesopotamian phenomenon. The scarcity of prophetic oracles from Assyria and Mesopotamia in general is simply due to the basically oral nature of the phenomenon and cannot be used as an argument for its alleged foreign origin.
How then to explain the affinities of the texts with OT prophecy? And what about the occasional passages in them which have parallels in later Jewish mystical tradition (no. 1.6), Hellenistic mystery cults (no. 7 r.8) and Neoplatonic and Christian doctrines (nos. 1.4, 2.5, and 3.4)? Whence did these prophets draw the self-confidence which enabled them to speak not for but as gods, or their fanatic emperor-centric zeal? Why did they constantly proclaim the word of Ištar, the goddess of love, and not the word of Aššur, the national god?
My work on these and other questions raised by the corpus has resulted in a interpretative model which adds a new dimension to and sharply deviates from the traditional understanding of Assyrian religion. The main points of this model can be briefly recapitulated as follows:
1. The prophecies have to be studied as integral parts and products of a larger religious structure, the ecstatic cult of Ištar, which in its essence can be defined as an esoteric mystery cult promising its devotees transcendental salvation and eternal life.
2. Like Shakta Tantrism, the ecstatic cult of the Hindu mother goddess, the cult had a sophisticated cosmogony, theosophy, soteriology and theory of the soul, which were hidden from the uninitiated through a veil of symbols, metaphors and riddles and explained only to the initiates, who were bound to secrecy by oath.
3. The cornerstone of the cult's doctrine of salvation was the myth of lštar's descent to the netherworld, in which the Goddess plays the role of the Neoplatonic Cosmic Soul. The first half of the myth outlines the soul's divine origin and fall, the latter half its way of salvation through repentance, baptism and gradual ascent toward its original perfection.
4. A central component of this doctrine was the concept of the heavenly perfect man sent for the redemption of mankind, materialized in the institution of kingship. In the Descent of Ištar, the king's redemptory role is expressed by the image of the shepherd king, Tammuz, given as lštar's substitute to the "netherworld," that is, the material world. This image corresponds to the king's role as the earthly representative of God, and finds another expression in the portrayal of the king as the "sun of the people" (radiating heavenly brightness to the darkness of the world) and as an incarnation of the saviour god, Ninurta/Nabû, the vanquisher of sin, darkness and death.
5. The idea of perfection embodied in the king implied total purity from sin, implicit in the soul's divine origin and personified in the figure of the goddess Mullissu, the queen of heaven, the Assyrian equivalent of the Holy Spirit. Doctrinally, the king's perfection was not self-acquired but heaven- sent. Figuratively speaking, he was the son of Mullissu; and like the Byzantine emperor, he ruled through the Holy Spirit's inspiration. The mother-child relationship between the Goddess and the king, expressed through the image of a calf-suckling cow, is a constantly recurrent theme in the prophecies.
6. The king's perfection,homoousia with God, made him god in human form and guaranteed his resurrection after bodily death. For the devotees of Ištar, who strove for eternal life emulating the Goddess, he was a Christ- like figure loaded with messianic expectations both as a saviour in this world and in the next.
7. The central symbol of the cult was the cosmic tree connecting heaven and earth, which contained the secret key to the psychic structure of the perfect man and thus to eternal life. Other important symbols were the seven-staged ziggurat; the rainbow; the full, waning and waxing moon; the eight-pointed star; the calf-suckling cow and the child-suckling mother; the horned wild cow; the stag; the lion; the prostitute; the pomegranate; and so on. All these different symbols served to give visual form to basic doctrines of the cult while at the same time hiding them from outsiders, and thus amounted to a secret code, a "language within language" encouraging meditation and dominating the imagery and thinking of the devotees.
8. Beside transcendental meditation, the worship of the Goddess involved extreme asceticism and mortification of flesh, which when combined with weeping and other ecstatic techniques could result in altered states, visions and inspired prophecy.
9. The cult of Ištar, whose roots are in the Sumerian cult of Inanna, has close parallels in the Canaanite cult of Asherah, the Phrygian cult of Cybele and the Egyptian cult of Isis, all of which were likewise prominently ecstatic in character and largely shared the same imagery and symbolism, including the sacred tree. The similarities between Assyrian and biblical prophecy - which cannot be dissociated from its Canaanite context - can thus be explained as due to the conceptual and doctrinal similarities of the underlying religions, without having to resort to the implausible hypothesis of direct loans or influences one way or another.
10. The affinities with later Hellenistic and Greco- Roman religions and philosophies must be explained correspondingly. These systems of thought were not the creations of an "Axial Age intellectual revolution" but directly derived from earlier ANE traditions, as is evident from the overall agreement of their metaphysical propositions and models with those of the Assyrian religion. While each of these religious and philosophical systems must be considered in its own right and against its own prehistory, it is likely that all of them had been significantly influenced by Assyrian imperial doctrines and ideology, which (taken over by the Achaemenid, Seleucid and Roman empires) continued to dominate the eastern Mediterranean world down to the end of classical antiquity.
The conceptual and doctrinal background of the prophecies will be analyzed and discussed in more detail in the first three chapters of this introduction. The aim throughout has been to concentrate on issues essential to the understanding of Assyrian prophecy as a religious phenomenon and to correlate the Assyrian data with related phenomena, especially OT prophecy, Gnosticism and Jewish mysticism. I am fully aware that the issues tackled are extremely complex and would require several volumes, not a brief introduction, to be satisfactorily treated. Nevertheless, I have considered it essentially important not to limit the discussion to the Assyrian evidence alone but to take into consideration also the comparative evidence as fully as possible. The different sets of data are mutually complementary and it is not possible to understand one without the others. The intricate connection between mystery religion, esotericism and emperor cult, crucial to the understanding of ANE prophecy and the origins of ancient philosophy, emerges with full clarity only from the Assyrian evidence. On the other hand, the Assyrian sources, especially their symbolic imagery, cannot be fully understood without the supporting evidence of related traditions.
Reconstructing the religious and doctrinal background of the corpus has been a slow and complicated process extending over more than 25 years, and the relevant methodology cannot be adequately discussed here since it would require a monograph of its own. Briefly, the process as a whole can be compared to the piecing together of a giant jigsaw puzzle. The "pieces" of the puzzle were the data found in the corpus, supplemented by those found in other Mesopotamian sources, both written and iconographic, earlier, con- temporary and later. The "cover picture" used as an aid in analyzing, interpreting and piecing together these disconnected and fragmentary bits of evidence was the comparative evidence provided by related religious and philosophical systems, some of which survive to the present day through uninterrupted oral and written tradition and can thus be better understood as coherent systems.
Initially, the corpus was analyzed in light of contemporary Assyrian evidence only, in order to establish a reliable point of departure and to identify areas of interpretation requiring further study in light of other kinds of evidence. Next, the texts and the preliminary interpretive model were systematically correlated and compared with OT and Mari prophetic oracles and ANE prophecy in general. This study firmly established not only the independence and antiquity of Assyrian prophecy as a phenomenon, but above all the close ties of ANE prophecy in general to the cult of the "mother goddess" and its esoteric doctrines of salvation. The realization that this cult provides the key to the understanding of Mesopotamian/ ANE prophecy as a cross-cultural phenomenon finally necessitated a systematic study of the cult of Ištar in light of the comparative evidence provided by the "mystery cults" of classical antiquity and related religious and philosophical systems (including Gnosticism, Jewish mysticism and Neoplatonism).
I would like to emphasize that while the comparative evidence has certainly played an important role in the reconstruction process and is frequently cited both in the introduction and notes in order to illustrate the nature of Assyrian prophecy as part of a wider cross- cultural phenomenon, it plays only a marginal role in the reconstruction itself, which in its essence is firmly based on Assyrian evidence.
1 See, e.g., W. von Soden, Herrscher im alten Orient (Berlin etc. 1954), p. 123 ("Orakelfragen"); M. Weippert, ARINH (1981), p. 99 ("Orakelanfragen"); M. deJong Ellis, JCS 41 (1989) 171 ("oracular queries"); and A. K. Grayson, CAH, 2nd ed., IIl/2 (1991), p. 129 ("oracle requests"), all referring to the extispicy queries edited in SAA 4. Elsewhere, Grayson uses the term "oracle" to refer the Assyrian prophecy corpus (e.g., BHLT (1975], p. 13f).
2 See E. Weidner, "Babylonische Prophezeiungen," AfO 13 (1939/41) 234-7; A. K. Grayson and W. G. Lambert, "Akkadian Prophecies," JCS 18 (1964) 7-30; W. W. Hallo, "Akkadian Apocalypses," IEJ 16 (1966) 231-42; R. D. Biggs, "More Babylonian 'Prophecies,"' Iraq 29 (I 967) 117-32; R. Borger, "Gott Marduk und Gott-König Šulgi als Propheten: Zwei prophetische Texte," BiOr 28 (1971) 3-24; H. Hunger, "Die Tontafeln der XXVII. Kampagne," UVB 26/27 (1972), pp. 82 (W 22307/7 "Prophezeiungen"), 87 and Taf. 25g, and idem, SpTU I (1976) pp. 21-3 and 124; H. Hunger and S. Kaufman, "A New Akkadian Prophecy Text," JAOS 95 (1973) 371-5; A. K. Grayson, Babylonian Historical Literary Texts (Toronto 1975), pp. 11-37 ("Akkadian Prophecies"); R. D. Biggs, "The Babylonian Prophecies and the Astrological Traditions of Mesopotamia," JCS 37 (1985) 86-90; idem, "Babylonian Prophecies, Astrology, and a New Source from 'Prophecy Text B,"' Festschrift Reiner(987), pp. 1-14; see further W. G. Lambert, "History and the Gods: A Review Article," Or. 39 (1970) 170-7, esp. 175ff, and idem, "The Background of Jewish Apocalyptic" (The Ethel M. Wood Lecture ... 22 February 1977, London: The Athlone Press 1978), pp. 1-20. For a detailed exposition of the reasons why the term "prophecy" should not be applied to this type of text see Ellis, JCS 41 (1989) 146ff; cf. also S. Kaufman, "Prediction, Prophecy, and Apocalypse in the Light of New Akkadian Texts," Proceedings of the 6th World Congress of Jewish Studies I (Jerusalem 1977), pp. 225f.
3 See, e.g., A. L. Oppenheim, Ancient Mesopotamia (Chicago 1964 ), p. 221: "Ecstasis as a means of communication between god and man did not occupy the important position in Mesopotamia that it did in Syria and Palestine ... The Western concept (Mari-and, of course, the Old Testament) [is] deeply alien to the eastern, Mesopotamian, attitude toward the god-man relationship"; note also A. K. Grayson, BHLT (1975) 14: "Akkadian prophecies are also quite different from biblical prophecy," R. D. Biggs, Iraq 29 (1967) 117: "The [prophetic] practices attested in Mari ... are probably of Western origin and not from Mesopotamia"; and cf. J. Bottero in J.-P. Vernant et al. (eds.), Divination et rationalité (Paris 1974), p. 94f.
4 See H. Tadmor, "The Aramaization of Assyria: Aspects of Western Impact," CRRAI 25 (1982), p. 458, and "Monarchy and the Elite in Assyria and Babylonia: The Question of Royal Accountability," in S. N. Eisenstadt (ed.), The Origins and Diversity of Axial Age Civilizations (New York 1986), p. 223f; M. Weippert, "Assyrische Prophetien der Zeit Asarhaddons und Assurbanipals," ARINH ( 1981 ), p. 104, and "Die Bildsprache der neuassyrischen Prophetie," OBO 64 (1985), p. 86. A. R. Millard, RHR 202 ( 1985) 133f, rejects the alleged Western origin of Mari and NA prophecy and regards them as purely Mesopotamian phenomena.
Simo Parpola
Simo Parpola, 'Introduction', Assyrian Prophecies, SAA 9. Original publication: Helsinki, Helsinki University Press, 1997; online contents: SAAo/SAA09 Project, a sub-project of MOCCI, 2021 [http://oracc.org/saao/saa09/introduction/]