Search

Scholars tend to view the healing of Naaman and the subsequent affliction of Gehazi in 2 Kgs 5 as polemic against magic and non-Israelite ideas about disease and healing. However, in analyzing the motif of צרעת as literary device it can be demonstrated that 2 Kgs 5 is not opposed to magic. My paper will show instead how the consultation between the Aramean and the Israelite kings, the depiction of Naaman’s healing, as well as the circumstances of Gehazi’s affliction draw from generic ideas about magic to bring into sharper focus the power of the prophet and the presence of Yahweh in the land of Israel.

The Priestly Source makes no explicit reference to the demonic when describing pollution which supposedly sets it apart from non-biblical conceptualizations of impurity. Most scholars explain the Priestly disregard for demons by referring to the advance of monotheism and the subsequent eradication of supernatural forces other than God. Depending on whether monotheism is viewed as gradual process or as the foundation of Israelite religion, commentators either detect a weakened demonic quality in Priestly pollution or claim that the Priestly Source has always been of a non-demonic nature. However, in recent years the idea that monotheism pervades most books of the Hebrew Bible has been increasingly called into question. At the same time, the extensive publication of Assyro-Babylonian ritual texts allows for better understanding of Assyro-Babylonian conceptualizations of impurity. These developments necessitate the reevaluation of the current views on Priestly pollution by examining Assyro-Babylonian texts pertaining to impurity and the demonic. Special attention is given to context and dating of the cuneiform sources used to exemplify the non-demonic nature of Priestly impurity. This renewed comparison of Priestly and Assyro-Babylonian impurity highlights how the Priestly writer frames the concepts of pollution within the context of the sanctuary and its maintenance. The Assyro-Babylonian texts dealing with impurity and demons, by contrast, focus on the individual and his/her relationship to the personal god rather than temple maintenance. Likewise, cuneiform texts that deal with pollution and temple maintenance do not concern themselves with demonic affliction. Consequently, it can be argued that the non-demonic nature of impurity in the Priestly Source is the result of the Priestly focus on the sanctuary and does not give witness to an underlying theological ideal.

For almost a century biblical scholars have commented on the magical nature of Zechariah’s curse vision (Zechariah 5,1–4). In this vision, the prophet witnesses a flying scroll which represents a curse pronounced by God (Zech 5,1–4). Recent insights concerning the rationale of magic and the function of curses allow us to take a new look at this vision and evaluate how the prophetic author matched the elements of writing and speech to create a sense of magic. For this purpose, Zechariah 5,1–4 will be read against the backdrop of ancient Near Eastern, Levantine and biblical curse traditions. This paper shows how the prophetic author drew on curse traditions of the past to shape his ideas about God’s role in an ideal future in which the wicked would become subject to divine punishment.

I'l begin with a couple of disclaimers. First, though it is a good many years since I had to present a birth certificate in order to get my senior citizen's discount, I was not present at the beginnings of the New England Renaissance Conference (N. E. R. C.) but was still at Harvard in the Society of Fellows with a very new Ph.D. More important, I was a card-carrying medievalist at a time when medievalists were far more detached from the Renaissance than they are now. If we regarded the Renaissance at all, it was as a kind of mopping-up operation of the Middle Ages; perhaps we remembered Gilson's remark: "The difference between the Renaissance and the Middle Ages was not a difference by addition but by subtraction. "' But I slowly learned wisdom and first spoke to the N.E.R.C. in 1951I . I had discovered that, contrary to Gilson, joining the Renaissance was not a subtraction but very much an addition. Nevertheless anything I say about the earliest period of the Conference is based only on information received. I am very sorry that Paul Oskar Kristeller cannot be present at this meeting, since from him you could have received the direct recollections that I cannot give you. He had planned to come but a recent illness and an impending lecture series in Italy made it impossible. He asks me to bring you his regrets as well as his best wishes both to the Renaissance Society of America and particularly to the N.E.R.C. My second disclaimer is based on the very nature of the N. E. R. C. You might have assumed from the title that this talk would be a kind of history. But there is an old saw: "Happy are the nations which have no history." And I would suggest that the N.E.R.C. too has

tional facilities with the means for carrying forward a desirable social and recreational program. Such a residence has recently been given to the City Hospital of Akron, Ohio, by Mr. and Mrs. Harvey S. Firestone. On the bronze tablet which acknowledges the gift, appears the Roman lamp symbolic of nursing and associated with Florence Nightingale. The design on the tablet was taken from the one appearing on the cover of the American Journal of Nursing.