Presenting on a Roman-era cemetery at Kenchreai, near Corinth; behind me is the Saronic Gulf

Author: Joshua Jacobs | Major: Classical Studies | Semester: Summer 2022

My research intends to analyze certain aspects of the ancient Israelite ancestor cult: in short, I am attempting to discover real manifestations in ancient Hebrew literature of the belief that the deceased ought to be treated with specific rituals, both during and after burial. These rituals sought to provide the deceased with a decent afterlife in the underworld, as well as garner favor on behalf of the living. The concept of an ancestor cult, as opposed to a death cult, specifically describes how individual families treat the deaths of their own members, rather than practices like necromancy, which seek the dead in general. My thesis will be broken down into four chapters: 1) an analysis of death and the afterlife in Genesis 38; 2) an exploration of chthonic ideologies as they intersect with gender in ancient Israel; 3) a study of the Hebrew root p-q-d, which may have specific connotations of care for the deceased; and 4) a chapter combining memory theory and funerary monuments in the Hebrew Bible.

I chose my topic after studying biblical Hebrew for a year. One aspect of ancient Israel, and the ancient Levant more generally, was the concept of the Rephaim, who appeared to be chthonic deities in a city called Ugarit. These beings are also mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. However, my advisor, Dr. Spencer Allen, who has taught me Hebrew, advised that I look more towards the interaction of the living and the deceased in ancient Israel. So, I began to explore different avenues of research not yet traveled in the field of Biblical Studies. This summer, I was specifically looking for comparative material for the introduction of my thesis. Ancient Israel being situated between Greece and Mesopotamia, it poses a perfect meeting place for different ideologies, from the West and the East, to mingle. Thus, I spent three weeks this summer in Greece studying funerary customs with the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. On this trip, coincidentally led by Dr. Daniel Levine at the University of Arkansas, I researched and gave a report about a Roman-era cemetery at Kenchreai and visited a number of other archaeological sites and museums around Greece. At each of these sites, a member of the group gave a report, and I was able to develop a large bibliography on sites from the Minoans on Crete to the Classical period on the Greek mainland. After returning to the United States, I began to learn Akkadian, which was the spoken and (one of the) scholarly language(s) of Assyria and Babylonia from the third millennium to the first millennium BCE. My goal in learning this language is to be able to further utilize Mesopotamian texts about treating ghost-induced illnesses, along with literary texts like the Epic of Gilgamesh, which deals heavily with death.

I have yet to compile and write this comparative section of my thesis, yet after this summer, I feel that I have a good foundation on which to start writing. I will also continue to develop the other chapters of my thesis. I hope to present these chapters at conferences, and potentially publish them, in the upcoming year. I have plans this fall to travel to the Society of Biblical Literature’s Annual Meeting, which hosts an international group of professional scholars and graduate students, to present a paper that will appear in my thesis. I have also submitted a paper to a leading journal in my field, called Vetus Testamentum, from which I have yet to hear.

After this summer, I will continue to develop and write my thesis. That will specifically look like researching the Hebrew root p-q-d which may have funerary connotations in the ancient Near East and the Hebrew Bible. I will also look into memorialization and funerary monuments, especially in the cases of the Sepulcher of Rachel in Genesis 35, and the pillar of Absalom in 2 Samuel 18:18. After graduation, I hope to pursue a master’s degree in Assyriology or Biblical Studies, in hopes of reaching doctoral work afterwards.