Texts in Conversation
Deuteronomy shares Ugarit's link between Bashan and the Rephaim, connecting memories of ancient inhabitants with traditions about honored dead ancestors.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
KTU 1.108:23
Cuneiform Texts from Ugarit
Ancient Near East
And Anat the mighty drinks, lady of kingship, lady of dominion, lady of the high heavens, [la]dy of the crown; and Anat flies, soars [in] the high [heav]ens […] […] and El drinks […] […] king […] his god drinks […] […] Rashap […] arrives […] […] for Baal […] Rapiu, the eternal king, comes to you […] […] Rapiu, the eternal king, with strength, [Rapiu], the eternal king, with his might, with [his power], with his rule, with his splendor, for the Rephaim of the earth: your strength, your might, your power, your rule, your splendor, in the midst of Ugarit, […] the days of Shapshu and Yarih and the pleasant years of El.
Deuteronomy 3:13
Hebrew Bible
13 The rest of Gilead and all of Bashan, the kingdom of Og, I gave to half the tribe of Manasseh. (All the region of Argob, that is, all Bashan, is called the land of Rephaim. 14 Jair, son of Manasseh, took all the Argob region as far as the border with the Geshurites and Maacathites—namely Bashan—and called it by his name, Havvoth Jair, which it retains to this very day.) 15 I gave Gilead to Machir. 16 To the Reubenites and Gadites I allocated the territory extending from Gilead as far as Wadi Arnon (the exact middle of the wadi was a boundary) all the way to the Wadi Jabbok, the Ammonite border. 17 The rift valley and the Jordan River were also a border, from the Sea of Kinnereth to the sea of the rift valley (that is, the Salt Sea), beneath the slopes of Pisgah to the east.
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Notes and References
“... II. Biblical geographical tradition agrees
with the mythological and cultic data of the
Ugaritic texts. According to KTU 1.108:1-3.
the abode of the mlk
11m, the dead and
deified king (DEL OutO LETE 1987:49-53),
and his place of enthronement as rpll was in
cJtrt-lzdry, in amazing correspondence with
the Biblical tradition about the seat of king
Og of Bashan, "one of the survivors of the
Rephaim, who lived in Ashtarot and Edrei"
(Josh 12:4 [NEB». This place Ism is also
treated in KTU 1.100:41; 1.1 07: 17: and RS
86:2'235: 17 as the abode of the god mlk, the
eponym of the
mJkm,
the deified
kings,
synonym of the rpllm. For the 'Canaanites'
of Ugarit, the Bashan region, or a part of it,
clearly represented 'HeU', the celestial and
infernal abode of their deified dead kings,
-Olympus and -Hades at the same time. It
is
possible
that
this
localization
of
the
Canaanite Hell is linked to the ancient tradi-
tion of the place as the ancestral home of
their dynasty, the rpllm. The Biblical text
also recalls that "all Bashan used to be
called the land/earth of the Rephaim" (Deut
3:13 [NEB]), an ambiguous wording that
could equally be translated as "the 'hell' of
the Rephaim". In any case, the link between
Bnshan and the rpllInlRephaim in both tradi-
tions speaks in favour of a very old usc of
the two meanings of this last denomination:
ancient dwellers of Northern Transjordan I
inhabitants of 'Hell'. ...”
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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