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Danel
The text (Corpus Tablettes Alphabetiques [CTA] 17–19) is often referred to as the Epic of Aqhat. Danel was depicted as "judging the cause of the widow, adjudicating the case of the fatherless" in the city gate (Ancient Near Eastern Texts, 149–51.) He passed through trials: his son Aqhat was destroyed but apparently in the missing conclusion was revived or replaced by Danel's patron god, Rp'u, who sits and judges with Hadad and Astarte and is clearly identical to El. "This is significant," John Day remarked[2] "since the Old Testament identifies El with Yahweh and did not have the scruples about so doing which it had with Baal."[3]
The three tablets bearing the story of Danel break off before the story is completed. Danel, a leader, has no son and engages in an incubation rite; on the seventh day Baal induces the other deities to intercede with El, who takes pity, blesses Danel and grants him a son, Aqhat. Aqhat is presented with a bow by the craftsman deity Kothar-wa-Khasis. The goddess Anat desires the bow and makes several tries unsuccessfully to obtain it, offering even immortality; Aqhat calls her offer spurious, since old age and death are man's common lot. Anat with the consent of El, launches her attendant in the form of a hawk to steal back the bow; however, in the event, the bow is broken and lost in the sea, and Aqhat dies. The bloodshed brings drought to the land and mourning. Aqhat's sister Pagat seeks vengeance, but discovers that the killer she has contracted is the very murderer of her brother. Here the narrative is interrupted. It is generally surmised that in the missing ending, with the help of Danel's patron god Aqhat's remains are recovered from the eagle that has devoured them.
The text was published and translated in 1936 by Charles Virolleaud[4] and has been extensively analysed since then.[5]
Danel and the Daniel of Ezekiel
Parallels and contrasts with the righteous and wise Daniel of the Book of Ezekiel (xiv, 14, 20; xxviii. 3), first pointed out by R. Dussaud in 1931,[6] have led readers commonly to accept[7] or occasionally to reject[8] a degree of identification with Ugaritic Danel of the "Aqhat text", amounting virtually to the same figure.[9] The three figures referred to in Ezekiel xiv, 14 — "Even if Noah, Daniel and Job were in it..." — links the name with two non-Israelites of great antiquity. In Ezekiel xxxviii.3, Daniel is one noted for his wisdom in the prophecy addressed to the king of Tyre: "you are indeed wiser than Daniel, no secret is hidden from you". The name, "Danel", had a long tradition in Hebrew culture: he is supplied as the father-in-law of Enoch in Jubilees.[10]
Recent uses
The name Danel has been given to one of the craters on Ganymede, a moon of Jupiter.
Notes
- ^ Made during the reign of Niqmadu III, ca. 1360 BCE (Walton 1994:49).
- ^ Day 1980:177.
- ^ "El took his servant, he blessed [Daniel] the man of Rp'u" (CTA 17.135f, in: Day 1980:177).
- ^ Virolleaud, "La légende phénicienne de Danel" vol. I of Mission de Ras Shamra.
- ^ See references section.
- ^ Dussaud, "Breves remarques sur les tablettes de Ras Shamra", Syria 12 (1931:77).
- ^ (Day 1980).
- ^ H.H.P. Dressler, "The identification of the Ugaritic Dnil with the Daniel of Ezekiel", Vetus Testamentum 29 (1979:152–61): "To sum up the Ugaritic material: Dnil is neither king, nor wise, nor righteous, nor able to save his son." (p. 155). Danel not meeting Dressler's definition of kingship, is termed "a village-elder or chief" (p. 153).
- ^ The author of the Book of Daniel, a contemporary of Ezekiel exiled in Babylon, is not concerned here; the common assumption is that "features of the Daniel alluded to by Ezekiel have contributed to the depiction of the hero of the book of Daniel" (Day 1980:174). Christianist readers still assert the identity of the two figures.
- ^ Jubilees iv.20, noted by Day 1980:181: Jubilees supplies many "missing" names from the Hebrew Bible.
References
- Coogan, M.D. Stories from Ancient Canaan (Philadelphia) 1978:27–47
- Day, John. "The Daniel of Ugarit and Ezekiel and the Hero of the Book of Daniel", Vetus Testamentum 30.2 (April 1980:174–184)
- Gibson, J.C.L. Canaanite Myths and Legends (Edinburgh) 1978.
- Herdner, Andrée. Corpus des tablettes cunéiformes alphabétiques découvertes à Ras Shamra-Ugarit, en 1929 à 1939 (Paris 1963) (CTA 17–19).
- Maralit, Baruch. The Ugaritic poem of AQHT: Text, Translation, Commentary (Berlin: de Gruyter) 1989. A highly idiosyncratic commentary and interpretation.
- Walton, John H. Ancient Israelite Literature in Its Cultural Context: A Survey of Parallels, "Personal Archives and Epics": Canaanite .2 (Zondervan) 1994:49.
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