Memories of the Ark: Texts, Objects, and the Construction of the Biblical Past By Daniel Shalom Fisher A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Near Eastern Studies in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Ronald Hendel, Chair Professor Robert Alter Professor Benjamin Porter Professor Daniel Boyarin Professor Ann Swidler Summer 2018 Copyright © 2018 by Daniel Shalom Fisher, All Rights Reserved. 1 Abstract Memories of the Ark: Texts, Objects, and the Construction of the Biblical Past by Daniel Shalom Fisher Doctor of Philosophy in Near Eastern Studies University of California, Berkeley Professor Ronald Hendel, Chair This dissertation constructs a cultural biography of the Ark of the Covenant, exploring through it the close, but often complicated, relationships that have existed between objects and collective memory in Biblical and ancient Jewish societies. The project considers the different ways in which Biblical writers and interpreters have remembered the Ark as a “real thing,” forming it, mobilizing it, and making meaning with it—largely in its absence after its likely loss in the 6th century BCE. From Exodus to Chronicles and in works of biblical interpretation through the Mishnah, this project explores how these writers reimagine the Ark to craft visions for their people’s future through their people’s past. The project is structured around five interrelated case studies from the Ark’s mnemohistory, considering different dimensions of cultural memory’s entanglement in material culture. Each case study draws upon and enriches text-, source-, and redaction-critical approaches, investigating the growth and reshaping of biblical writings as creative memory work. Chapter 1 discusses the dynamics of texts, cultural memory and material culture in biblical literature with particular focus on Jer 3, where a textualf expansion to an early prophetic oracle calls on Israel to forget the Ark. Chapters 2 and 3 consider the contrasting narratives of the Ark’s construction in Deuteronomy (10:1–5, 8–9; 31:25–27) and Priestly writings (Exod 16:34–36; 25; 37; Lev 16; Num 7:89; 17:21–28). The two different contexts that these documents provide for the Ark empower it as a real thing to metonymically represent two different versions of the past, enabling its use as a symbol by Priestly writings and Deuteronomy in the realization of their contrasting visions of Israel’s present and future. Chapter 4 focuses on the literary growth and revision of biblical writings as memory work, analyzing three editions of the Ark’s installation in the Temple: 1 Kgs 8, 3 Kgdms 8, and 2 Chr 5. Chapters 5 and 6 explore considerations of the Ark’s loss in the Ark Narrative (AN; 1 Sam 4:1b–7:1) and ancient Jewish and Rabbinic writings. Chapter 5 focuses on AN, which tells the story of the Ark’s (temporary) loss in battle to the Philistines. While the Ark’s triumphant return to Israel in AN implies that the Ark was not truly lost, the text makes the Ark’s loss thinkable. Chapter 6 explores reactions to the Ark’s loss in ancient Jewish and early Rabbinic writings. The Hebrew Bible is curiously silent on the Ark’s 2 fate. Midrashic ancient Jewish and Rabbinic interpretation fill this lacuna by positing the Ark’s survival and imminent return in the End Times. This apocalyptic deferral of the Temple’s ultimate restoration capitalizes upon the Ark’s presumed reality and absence. As memories of the Ark shift towards the apocalyptic future, “old things” like the Ark continue to occupy central roles in the self-fashioning of biblical societies. This dissertation explores the ways and forms that the lost Ark lives on in biblical societies: its lives, its afterlives, and the broad relationships between cultural memories and material culture that underlie all aspects of religious life. i For Dana ii CONTENTS TABLES ......................................................................................................................................... v ABBREVIATIONS ....................................................................................................................... vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................................... ix 1. REMEMBERING WITH THE ARK ......................................................................................... 1 I. History of Scholarship .............................................................................................................. 4 I.1 Select Historical and Literary Approaches to the Ark ........................................................ 5 I.2. Remembering the Ark in the Hebrew Bible and Ancient Biblical Interpretation .............. 9 II. Objects, Absence, and the Construction of Lieux de Mémoire ............................................. 10 II.1. Material and Non-material Lieux de Mémoire ............................................................... 14 III. Conclusions ......................................................................................................................... 20 2. CONSTRUCTING THE ARK, CONTESTING ISRAEL I: THE ARK IN DEUTERONOMY ....................................................................................................................................................... 22 I. Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 23 II. The Ark in Deuteronomy ...................................................................................................... 24 III. Cultic Innovation and Memory in Deuteronomy ................................................................ 25 IV. Mnemohistory: Deuteronomy and the Elohistic (E) Stratum of Exod 34:1–28 .................. 28 IV.1. The Itinerary Fragment in Deut 10:6–7 ........................................................................ 31 IV.2. The J Theophany and Prayer (Exod 34: 2–3, 4, 5aβ–9, 27) .......................................... 32 IV.3. The Legal Collection in Exod 34:10–26 ....................................................................... 33 IV.4. The E Stratum of Exod 34:1–28 and Deuteronomy’s Ark ............................................ 34 IV.5. Preliminary Conclusions on the Mnemohistory of the Ark in Deut 10:1–5, 8–9 ......... 40 V. Poetics of the Representation of the Ark in Deuteronomy ................................................... 40 V.1. The Ark, the Tablets, and Deuteronomy’s Legal Collection ......................................... 41 V.1.a. Why the Law? Deut 31 and Moses’s Law ............................................................... 42 V.2. The Ark and Moses ........................................................................................................ 44 V.3. The Ark and Horeb ......................................................................................................... 46 V.4. The Ark and the Calf ...................................................................................................... 48 V.4.a. The Calf as a Lieu de Mémoire in Deuteronomy ..................................................... 49 V.4.b. The Ark and the Calf, Inverted Lieux de Mémoire .................................................. 51 VI. Conclusions ...................................................................................................................... 52 3. CONSTRUCTING THE ARK, CONTESTING ISRAEL II: THE ARK IN PRIESTLY WRITINGS ................................................................................................................................... 54 I. The Ark in P: An Overview and Interpretive Key ................................................................. 55 iii I.1. Notes on the Date of P ..................................................................................................... 59 I.2. Notes on P and Priestly Ritual as Memory Work ............................................................ 60 II. The Commission, Construction, and Contribution of the Ark in P ...................................... 61 II.1. The Commission and Construction of the Ark in P ........................................................ 61 II.1.a. The Ark and its kappōreṯ in Exod 25 and 37 ............................................................ 63 II.1.a.i. Differences between the MT and LXX of Exod 35–40 ...................................... 64 II.1.a.ii. Physical Properties of the Priestly Ark .............................................................. 65 II.1.a.iii. Inside the Ark: The ʿēḏuṯ .................................................................................. 66 II.1.b. The Priestly Ark and the Power of Description ....................................................... 68 II.2. The Ark and the Revelation of the Priestly Ritual System ............................................. 69 III. The Jar and the Staff: Before the ʿēḏuṯ, Before YHWH ..................................................... 72 III.1. The Ark and the Jar of Manna ....................................................................................... 72 III.2. The Ark and Aaron’s Flowering Staff ........................................................................... 73 IV. The Ark between Sinai and Zion ......................................................................................... 74 V. Conclusions .........................................................................................................................