UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
Los Angeles
Terra Terror: An Interdisciplinary Study of Earthquakes in
Ancient Near Eastern Texts and the Hebrew Bible
A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the
requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy
in Near Eastern Languages and Cultures
by
Ryan Nathaniel Roberts
2012
© Copyright by
Ryan Nathaniel Roberts
2012
iii ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION
Terra Terror: An Interdisciplinary Study of Earthquakes in
Ancient Near Eastern Texts and the Hebrew Bible
by
Ryan Nathaniel Roberts
Doctor of Philosophy in Near Eastern Languages and Cultures
University of California, Los Angeles, 2012
Professor William M. Schniedewind, Chair
The relationship between tectonic environment and human activity has a long history that intimately involves the Ancient Near East and Levant. Texts from the third millennium onward attest to earthquake imagery while records of actual earthquakes cluster in two periods in the
Middle and Neo-Assyrian periods. The research first examines the relationship between the tectonic environment and earthquake imagery that is found amidst Storm-god imagery. Next, close attention is paid to the textual and archaeoseismic evaluation of earthquakes recorded in
Middle and Neo-Assyrian texts and the extent to which historical information from these texts can inform a reconstruction of the earthquake’s effects. Within the Levant, a detailed archaeoseismic evaluation of Iron IIB sites with purported mid-eighth century seismic damage suggests better methodological controls are needed to identify seismic damage in the archaeological record. A number of interdisciplinary approaches, including post-disaster
ii housing, earthquake eyewitness accounts, and gender and vulnerability studies are applied to
Amos in order to provide a fresh perspective on identifying earthquake imagery within the book.
These approaches help reconstruct the socioeconomic, political, and religious effects of the earthquake mentioned in Amos and illustrate how his oracles and prophetic validity would have been authenticated through the earthquake. These approaches also shed new light on “social justice” texts within Amos and how the aftermath of an earthquake would have underscored, anew, the gap between the rich and poor.
iii The dissertation of Ryan Nathaniel Roberts is approved.
Aaron A. Burke
Daniel Smith-Christopher
William M. Schniedewind, Committee Chair
University of California, Los Angeles
2012
iv
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v TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of Tables, Figures, and Maps ...... ix Abbreviations ...... x-xv Acknowledgements ...... xvi Vita ...... xviii-xix
Introduction: Shaking Out the Past ...... 1 1. Reconstructing that Fateful Day ...... 1 2. The Interdisciplinary Task of Studying Ancient Earthquakes ...... 9 3. The Probable Dating of Amos’s Earthquake ...... 10 4. Synthesis-Research Objectives and Moving Forward ...... 18
Chapter One: The Interdisciplinary Study of Ancient Earthquakes ...... 21 1. Historical Earthquakes Recorded in Ancient Near Eastern/Levantine Literature ...... 21 2. Assyrian Earthquakes: A Half-Century of Quiescence ...... 23 3. Amos’s (Invisible) Earthquake in 20th Century Scholarship ...... 24 4. Levantine Archaeology and Identifying Amos’s Earthquake ...... 33 5. The Emerging Field of Archaeoseismology ...... 36 6. Historical Earthquake Catalogues and their Proclivity for Circular Reasoning ...... 39 7. Paleoseismology and Working with an Inexact Science ...... 45 8. Social Scientific Approaches ...... 48
Chapter Two: The Tectonic Environment and Ancient Near Eastern Storm-god Imagery ...... 53 1. Introduction: What is behind the trembling of nature? ...... 53 2. Historical Earthquakes Recorded in Ancient Near E