From the Hill of Fennel

The Dead Sea scrolls from Qumran have been widely heralded as the most spectacular archaeological find of the century. Almost as important for Biblical research, many scholars believe, are the little-known discoveries that have been made at Ras Shamra (meaning "hill of fennel") in northern Syria. There, since 1929, archaeologists led by Dr. Claude F. A. Schaeffer of the College de France have been painstakingly digging up the remains of the ancient Canaanite city-state of Ugarit, which was destroyed in the 12th century B.C. A neighbor of ancient Israel, Ugarit had a language closely allied to Hebrew, and an elaborate, sophisticated pagan religion to which references are found in many passages of the Old Testament.

Ugaritic research is only just now showing up in Biblical studies. It strikingly affects a new translation of Psalms I (1-50) by Jesuit Father Mitchell Dahood, published by Doubleday this week as part of its Anchor Bible, a continuing project of Roman Catholic, Protestant and Jewish experts. Dahood, a professor of Ugaritic at Rome's Pontifical Biblical Institute, draws on the Ras Shamra discoveries to correct and sometimes drastically change a number of obscure and, so he believes, previously misinterpreted passages in Psalms.

Debate & Dismay. Dahood's translation, which tries to evoke the brisk, rugged quality of Hebrew poetry, is certain to cause both scholarly debate and popular dismay. Like all modern scholars, Dahood has access to more accurate manuscripts than those available to the translators of the King James version. Thus his syntax and synonyms are often radically different from what is found in the King James, and he abandons many of its most hallowed images. Gone from Psalms 23, for example, is the elegiac "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me." A comparison with Ugaritic cognates, Dahood argues, proves that the Hebrew correctly demands a more prosy reading: "Even though I should walk in the midst of total darkness, I shall fear no danger since you are with me."

In his introduction, Dahood says that Schaeffer has unearthed such an embarrassment of riches that "one finds scholars debating in learned journals whether Ras Shamra or Qumran has contributed more to an understanding of the Old Testament." The most obvious value of Ugaritic research to Biblical study is linguistic and textual. By comparing Ugaritic texts with Hebrew, scholars have been able to recover the original meaning of many Hebrew words. In Proverbs 31:3, for example, which the King James version translates as "Give not thy strength unto women, nor thy ways to that which destroyeth kings," the word "ways" should be the more meaningful "power." Yale's Marvin Pope, a Ugaritic expert who translated Job for the Anchor Bible, cites another clarification. In Job 41:25, King James reads: "When he raiseth up himself, the mighty are afraid: by reason of breakings they purify themselves." Pope argues that a correct translation would be: "At his terror the gods are affrighted; with consternation prostrate."

Job & Keret. Discovery of Ugaritic epics has cast new light on the poetic forms that were used by authors of the Biblical books--and made it clear that they were well aware of Canaanite mythology. The trials of Job, for example, are similar to those found in an epic about the legendary King Keret of Ugarit. While scholars are still arguing about the precise relationship of the two stories, they do agree that the still unfinished exploration of Ras Shamra is of immeasurable help in clarifying the message of the Old Testament.

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