JBL Honor, Shame, and Covenant Relations in Ancient Israel and Its Environment Author(s): Saul M. Olyan Source: Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 115, No. 2 (Summer, 1996), pp. 201-218 Published by: The Society of Biblical Literature Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3266852 Accessed: 01/07/2013 15:35 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. . The Society of Biblical Literature is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of Biblical Literature. STOR ® http://www.jstor.org
JBL 115/2 (1996) 201-218 HONOR, SHAME, AND COVENANT RELATIONS IN ANCIENT ISRAEL AND ITS ENVIRONMENT SAUL M. OLYAN Brown University, Providence, RI 02912 Copious studies of the concept of covenant, treaty rituals, and associated terminology have been published in recent decades, including many investiga- tions seeking to place Israelite covenant making in its wider ancient West Asian context.1 Covenant cutting, knowing, loyalty (Ton), love and hatred, brother- hood and friendship, curse and blessing are now commonplace concepts in the discourse of biblical and West Asian specialists and have been for several decades.2 Few would dispute that covenant was a primary basis for social orga- 1 On this scholarly activity and the neo-Wellhausenian writings published partially in reaction to it, see the useful and relatively recent survey of R. A. Oden, Jr., "The Place of Covenant in the Religion of Israel," in Ancient Israelite Religion: Essays in Honor of Frank Moore Cross (ed. P. D. Miller, Jr., et al .; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987) 429-47. Revisionist arguments against the antiquity of the covenant concept in Israel, its early central position in Israelite life and community, and the role of mutuality in covenant are to me-as to many others- often tendentious and generally unconvincing. Apt criticism of the arguments of revisionists such as L. Perlitt and E. Kutsch may be found in J. Barr, "Some Semantic Notes on the Covenant," in Beiträge zur Alttestamentlichen The- ologie: Festschrift für Walther Zimmerli zum 70. Geburtstag (ed. H. Donner, R. Hanhart, and R. Smend; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1977) 37-38; and J. D. Levenson, Sinai and Zion: An Entry into the Jewish Bible (Minneapolis: Winston, 1985) 25-26 n. 10, who cites Barr's critique with approbation. At the same time, speculations about the role of covenant in Israel before the emergence of the monarchy are equally lacking in cogency; we know very little of Israel's pre- monarchic history, and Pentateuchal narratives of the ancestors cannot be used to reconstruct second-millennium life and praxis. 2 Some of the crucial early publications that helped to shape the current approach of many to this area of study include G. E. Mendenhall, Law and Covenant in Israel and the Ancient Near East (Pittsburgh: Biblical Colloquium, 1955);