The Cultic Versus the Forensic:Judahite and Mesopotamian Judicial Proceduresin the First Millennium B.C.E.

摘要

Throughout most periods of ancient Near Eastern history, religious rituals frequently playedan important role in the resolution of legal disputes that were brought to trial. It appearsthat judges would sometimes make use of them arbitrarily but often when they felt the avail-able evidence was insufficient or at least too ambiguous to render a decisive verdict. Therituals—or cultic procedures, as I will call them—fall essentially into three categories, mem-orable for their alliteration: the oath, the oracle, and the ordeal. Each term is sometimespreceded by the word "judicial" to distinguish it from similar rituals that occurred outsidethe context of a trial. By means of these procedures, courts appealed to the divine realm tohelp decide the matter at hand. Some recent scholarship has observed changes in how andhow often these procedures were used in later periods, predominantly in Mesopotamia. Thesestudies suggest that the degree to which Mesopotamian courts relied on such methods de-creased in the Neo-Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian, and Persian periods. I Trials began to takeon a less religious orientation. In light of the changes that occur, some have gone so far asto propose a process of "secularization'''auring this time in Mesopotamia.2