Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Jonathan D. Safren" <yonsaf AT beitberl.beitberl.ac.il>]

Dear Lloyd,
Your reconstructed two songs are a skillful piece of source
reconstruction. very similar to what the critics of the Documentary
Hypothesis did over 100 years ago.
However it ignores some very important research done on Biblical epic
poetry done by Umberto Cassuto.
In his essay "The War of YHWH Against the Lord of the Sea", he
demonstrated that much biblical poetry alludes to a mythical war between
YHWH and a primeval sea monster - similar to the war of Baal against
Yam/Tnn/Ltn/Nhr in the Ugaritic texts. For example, "Am I Yam (the Sea)
or Leviathan (Lwytn=Ltn), that you place a guard over me?" Or: "You
crushed the heads of Leviathan"; Or, Leviathan, the slinky snake, the
the twisted snake" - in Isaiah somewhere, but also appearing in the
Ugaritic Baal Epic.
Going on from here, one can see that the Song of the Sea also preserves
an echo of the primeval war of YHWH against the sea. So it would be
natural for YHWH to be depicted as divine warrior.
Either Cross or Skehan wrote similarly about the Song of the Sea - I
can't remember which. Cassuto's essays have been collected in the Hebrew
language collection "Ugaritic Literature and Biblical Literature".
Sincerely,
Jonathan D. Safren
Dept. of Biblical Studies
Beit Berl College
Beit Berl Post Office 44905
Israel