Texts in Conversation
The Legend of Keret and Genesis 28 both describe a hero who falls asleep and receives a divine visit with promises. In Keret, El descends in a dream; in Genesis, God stands above a stairway and promises Jacob descendants like the dust of the earth.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Legend of Keret
Epic of Kirta
Ancient Near East
Like five-weights on the couch. As he cries, he falls asleep; As he weeps, there's slumber. Sleep overwhelms him, he lies down; Slumber, and he crumples. Now in his dream, El comes down; The Father of Man, in his vision. Now El approaches, asking Kirta: What ails Kirta, that he cries? That he weeps, the Pleasant, Lad of El? Is it kingship like his Father he wants?
Date: 1500 B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
Genesis 28:12
Hebrew Bible
10 Meanwhile Jacob left Beer Sheba and set out for Haran. 11 He reached a certain place where he decided to camp because the sun had gone down. He took one of the stones and placed it near his head. Then he fell asleep in that place 12 and had a dream. He saw a stairway erected on the earth with its top reaching to the heavens. The angels of God were going up and coming down it 13 and the Lord stood at its top. He said, “I am the Lord, the God of your grandfather Abraham and the God of your father Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the ground you are lying on. 14 Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west, east, north, and south. And so all the families of the earth may receive blessings through you and through your descendants. 15 I am with you! I will protect you wherever you go and will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I promised you!” 16 Then Jacob woke up and thought, “Surely the Lord is in this place, but I did not realize it!”
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Notes and References
"... The close relationship between Canaanite El and Israel's God is particularly noticeable in the stories of Israel's ancestors preserved in Genesis 12xe2x80x9336. The name El surfaces numerous times as the name of the deity worshiped by the ancestors. Abram is connected to the worship of El Elyon (xe2x80x9cEl the Highest Onexe2x80x9d), xe2x80x9ccreator of heaven and earthxe2x80x9d, in Genesis 14.18-24, and of El Olam (xe2x80x9cEl, the Ancient Onexe2x80x9d) in Genesis 21.33. Jacob (Genesis 28.10-22) has a dream that he is at the foot of a staircase to heaven and names the shrine he sets up at that spot, Beth-El (xe2x80x9cHouse of Elxe2x80x9d). Later, Jacob buys some land near the town of Shechem and builds an altar on the land, which he names El-elohe-Yisrael, xe2x80x9cEl is the God of Israelxe2x80x9d (Genesis 33.18-20) ..."
Pitard, Wayne T.
"Voices from the Dust: The Tablets from Ugarit and the Bible" in Chavalas, Mark W. and K. Lawson Younger Jr. (eds.) Mesopotamia and the Bible
(pp. 258-259) Baker Academic, 2002
* 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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