Thursday, March 10, 2022

Jürg Eggler, on the tradition history of the epithet "Ancient of Days"

  

The tradition history of this epithet can be outlined according to KEARNS as follows: The epithet “the Ancient” (‘lm) has its oldest witness in the proto-Canaanite inscription from Sinai ‘ld ‘lm (“El, this (is) the Ancient”) dated to the end of the 16th or beginning of the 15th century. In Israelite tradition אל was not understood anymore as name of an independent god but reinterpreted as appellative and עולם changed into a noun with adjectival function, resulting in “the eternal God” (Deu 33:27; Gen 21:33; Isa 40:28). As additional evidence for this epithet KEARNS adduced: (a) the Palestinian place name bt ‘lm “(city of the) temple of the Ancient” found in the Shishak List form the 10th century; (b) the supposedly the pre-Israelite god at Beersheba, אל עילם, which is only mentioned in Hebrew tradition (Gen 21:33); (c) a disputed (ibid. 171, n. 395) Canaanite invocation formula from the Phoenician site Arslan Tash, dated to the 7th century which possibly designates El as ‘lm, (d) and late appearances in Punic colonies in North Africa. In order to explain the change from the epithet ‘lm to the Danielic אתיק יומן (“Ancient of days”) KEARNS employed the same methodology he used in his explanation of the origin of the phrase. Instead of arguing for a simple continuation of the lexem ‘lm in Aramaic, KEARNS pointed out that Aramaic provided a specific expression for a very old man (German: Greis”), namely, the Syriac ‘tyq ywmt’ (“ancient of days”; another Ayriac phrase for an elderly person is qšyš [SMITH 1903: 190]). To support this view, KEARNS adduced three references, i.e., the homilies of Aphraates, the Syriac translation for πρεσβυτης in Wisdom of Solomon (2:10) and for πρεσβυτερος in Jesus ben Sirach (25:4; Syriac: 25:6; references to Wisdom of Solomon and Jesus ben Sirach were already made by DRIVER [1900: 85]; CHARLES [1929]: 181] referred only to Wisdom of Solomon). No equivalent could be given from Palestine. KEARNS concluded: because the epithet “Ancient of days” is not attested in the cultic-mythic Hadad tradition (idib. 173) the first occurrence in the framework of the Hadad tradition is in its apocalyptic version, i.e., in Dan 7:9. It has to be asked whether the epithet ‘lm should indeed be associated with the meaning of a physically old gold since it would not harmonize very well with the meaning of an eternal god. In connection with an eternal god KEARNS’ references to πρεσβυτης and πρεσβυτερος would include a shift in meaning, because the referred-to Aramaic passages speak about aged men. It was exactly a shift in meaning which KEARNS avoided in his explanation of the origin of the phrase “son of man” . . . Secondly, the relevant apocryphal references to not associate a god with אתיק יומן which is also a shift of the semantic field . . . (Jürg Eggler, Influences and Traditions Underlying the Vision of Daniel 7:2-14: The Research from the End of the 19th Century to the Present [Orbis Biblicus et Orentalis 177; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2000], 82 n. 291)