Palaeo-philosophy: Archaic ideas about knowledge in Homeric Greek, Ancient Near Eastern, and Ancient Egyptian texts Paul S. MacDonald Murdoch University Plato is generally thought to be the first thinker to systematically consider the nature and scope of knowledge. Although there had been some speculation by the Presocratics about what it meant to know some thing, Plato analyzed the components “parts” of knowledge and attempted to give a theoretical account of the very concept of knowledge (epistemē). Plato argues that belief or opinion alone could hardly count as knowledge, unless the belief was true. But even a true belief could be held by chance, that is, where it is only by chance or accident that a belief one holds is true, say, a lucky guess. What “elevates” true belief to knowledge is that one holds the belief to be true on the basis of some ground, and hence that the true belief is justified. Hence, a claim to know some thing must meet three necessary conditions for it to genuine knowledge; in other words, one knows some thing only if: (a) one believes it, (b) it is true, and (c) one’s belief in it is justified. 1 The focus of Plato’s efforts and many others since his time has been on the concept of justification, since this condition does much of the work. Justification has different sources and different means, depending on the kinds of thing one is said to know. Knowledge claims have a wide temporal scope: one can claim to know about the present (through sense perception), the past (through memory 1 There is an enormous literature on Plato’s theory of knowledge; see amongst others Paul Woodruff, “Plato’s early theory of knowledge” and Gail Fine, “Knowledge and belief in Republic V-VII”, in Everson 1990 pp. 60-84, 85-115; and the lengthy bibliography on pp. 256-61. 1
Transcript
Palaeo-philosophy: Archaic ideas about knowledge in
Homeric Greek, Ancient Near Eastern, and Ancient Egyptian
texts
Paul S. MacDonald
Murdoch University
Plato is generally thought to be the first thinker to
systematically consider the nature and scope of knowledge. Although
there had been some speculation by the Presocratics about what it meant
to know some thing, Plato analyzed the components “parts” of knowledge
and attempted to give a theoretical account of the very concept of
knowledge (epistemē). Plato argues that belief or opinion alone could
hardly count as knowledge, unless the belief was true. But even a true
belief could be held by chance, that is, where it is only by chance or
accident that a belief one holds is true, say, a lucky guess. What
“elevates” true belief to knowledge is that one holds the belief to be
true on the basis of some ground, and hence that the true belief is
justified. Hence, a claim to know some thing must meet three necessary
conditions for it to genuine knowledge; in other words, one knows some
thing only if: (a) one believes it, (b) it is true, and (c) one’s belief
in it is justified.1 The focus of Plato’s efforts and many others since
his time has been on the concept of justification, since this condition
does much of the work. Justification has different sources and different
means, depending on the kinds of thing one is said to know.
Knowledge claims have a wide temporal scope: one can claim to know
about the present (through sense perception), the past (through memory
1 There is an enormous literature on Plato’s theory of knowledge; see amongst others Paul Woodruff, “Plato’s early theory of knowledge” and Gail Fine, “Knowledge and belief in Republic V-VII”, in Everson 1990 pp. 60-84, 85-115; and the lengthy bibliography on pp. 256-61.
1
and records), and the future (through prediction). So the source of
one’s justification for knowledge claims about sensible objects in one’s
proximate environs is those objects’ having those properties and the
means is a reliable sensory apparatus; the source of one’s knowledge
claims about one’s own past would (most likely) be one’s own memory; and
so forth. Moreover, knowledge claims can be about particular things or
events, as well as about things in general, e.g. one can claim to know
that all pieces of iron rust in water, such that what one claims to know
about this piece of iron is water is by way of knowing the general
natural law that iron rusts in water. Instead of considering what counts
as justification in rendering true beliefs knowledge, one can also
address the question of what sorts of things one can claim to have
knowledge about. Without going through the details, one can claim to
have knowledge of the following: (1) physical objects and events in
one’s proximate environs via sense perception, (2) past state-of-affairs
via direct or indirect memory, (3) future states-of-affairs via
prediction, (4) a skill or an art, e.g. carpentry, piano-playing,
language, (5) universal truths about mathematics and natural laws, (6)
one’s own cognitive, intentional and affective states, (7) intentional
states of others through their behavior, and (8) unobserved objects and
events via reliable testimony.
However, there is sufficient evidence from an “archaic” period
(loosely so called), predating the Greek Classical period by 300-1000
years (Homer, the Pentateuch, Gilgamesh, the Mari Letters, etc.), which
show upon close examination that their concepts in general, as well as
knowledge in particular, do not map directly onto our modern, post-
Kantian concept of knowledge. This is in large part due to significant
differences in their respective understanding of the conditions that
subjects and objects must meet in order to have knowledge of or be an
object of knowledge. The available textual evidence shows that their
writers were working, not with concepts, but with complexes which have
four salient features: (1) that it does not arise above its elements as
2
a concept does; it merges with the concrete objects that compose it; a
fusion of the general and the particular, of the complex and its
elements, a psychic amalgam; (2) that its abstracted traits are unstable
and easily surrender their temporary dominance to other traits; (3) that
the basic level of complex formation may be the most inclusive level at
which it is possible to form a mental image which is isomorphic to an
average member of the class, and thus, the most abstract level at which
it is possible to have a relatively concrete image; (4) that it has an
over-abundance of properties, an over-production of connections, and
weakness in abstraction.2
2 For more details see MacDonald 2005.
3
I. Knowledge in Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey
4
Our current view of what counts as knowledge via justified true
belief and what sorts of things one can claim to know about is not the
only view; it has its origins in distinctively philosophical,
theoretical reflection on the concept of knowledge. In a ground-breaking
article, Edward Hussey (1990) pushed back the historical frontiers of
research into the concept of knowledge through an analysis of the words
for knowing used in Homer and Hesiod, centuries before Plato’s
investigations into this theme. Hussey opens his study with the insight
that “Homer’s and Hesiod’s remarks about human knowledge are incidental,
unsystematic and, of course, pre-philosophical. Still, the ways of
thinking they reveal may be of philosophical interest in themselves and
have demonstrable relevance to the history of philosophy.”3 Hussey
begins by distinguishing between knowledge the gods are said to have, in
contrast with human knowledge: “Homer speaks of both gods and human
beings as knowing things, though there is a great difference in the
quantity and scope of the knowledge available to the two groups.
Moreover, the gods frequently and successfully deceive human beings
(though they keep this within strict limits).” On the other hand, “the
gods also supply reliable information to the human race through the
medium of dreams, omens, portents and oracles, and through favored
people, the prophets, seers and singers. Some men can interpret signs
from the gods; some have direct communication with them; and some seem
by divine favor to have a kind of direct access to knowledge of
otherwise hidden things.” Hussey argues that the possibility of humans’
deception by the gods is obviously discouraging; it stimulates some of
the Homeric characters not to take all appearances at face value, that
many things cannot be known for certain. Although it’s prudent to be
skeptical about some particular claims to knowledge there is no
skepticism about the general structure of the world. “Homer and his
characters take the structural and determining features of the world to
be absolutely beyond doubt; in particular, the existence of the gods,3 Hussey 1990 p. 11.
5
their separate individualities and powers, and their general
relationship to human beings.”4
Humans are disqualified from knowledge about the remote past (i.e.
the past beyond their own memory) not just because they lack personal
experience of past events. Aeneas says to Achilles (IL 20.203) that “we
know each other’s lineage and parents, hearing the words of mortal men
which have been handed on successively by word of mouth; but you have
never seen my parents with your eyes, nor I yours with mine.” And later
in the same speech: “But, should you wish to learn this also, so that
you have a good knowledge of our lineage, it is one that many men know.”
Hussey comments that “in both passages there is a (socially
intelligible) emphasis on the public availability of the facts. Their
truth can be ascertained by asking ‘almost anybody’, without recourse to
one special source. The illustrious families have impinged causally on
the world around them over a long period in many ways. Hence, any claims
about their history can be checked from many memories in many ways.
Collectively, the memory of mankind in the heroic age has a complete
grasp of the history of the house of Dardanus…. Homer is perhaps a
remote and unconscious predecessor of modern philosophers who require
that knowledge should ‘track the truth’.” In the note he says that “the
essential point about unverifiability is well brought out in Pindar’s
development of the topos (Paean 6.50-3): ‘these things it is possible
for wise men to take on trust from gods, but it is impossible for
mortals to find out [for themselves].’ Also Sophocles (Oedipus Tyr 499-
501): ‘there is no real way of deciding’ on the claims of seers.5
The implications of this passage are thus, “first, that there is a
realm of direct personal experience, within which general scepticism
would be out of place (though deception may occur occasionally). To
ordinary mortals, such experience comes by ordinary sense-perception,
while to seers and gods it may also be conveyed in ‘supernatural’ kinds
4 Hussey 1990 pp. 11-12.5 Hussey 1990 p. 15; next quote p. 16.
6
of direct perception. In a second stage, from a mass of mutually
overlapping and confirming experiences of human beings, there is
constructed a collective experience, which again admits no room for
scepticism, about part of the present and the immediate past, and about
the general structure of the world. Whatever falls within the range of
collective human experience is in principle knowable by a human being.
The necessary conditions for knowledge include not merely justified true
belief, but verifiability by means of the appeal to personal or
collective experience.”
“Where scepticism gets a serious foothold in Homer is where the
subject-matter lies beyond the boundaries of personal or collective
human verifiability. This means, above all, (1) the remote past,
including, for Homer and his contemporaries, the heroic age; (2) the
distant future; (3) the secrets of Fate and the plans of the gods…. Good
info is available [about the heroic age] but it comes from a non-human
source, the Muses. The bare possibility of deception by the Muses is
allowed to disqualify claims to knowledge. The cardinal role of the bare
possibility is characteristic of sceptical thinking.” However, there
appears to be an unresolved tension between two of Hussey’s claims: on
one hand he says, “the memory of mankind in the heroic age has a
complete grasp of the history of the house of Dardanus”; but somewhat
later he says, “where scepticism gets a serious foothold in Homer
[concerns]… the remote past, including… the heroic age”. In other words,
is it humans’ memory during the heroic age that has “a complete grasp” of
its own noble houses’ histories, or is it due to these houses’ “causally
impinging” on the social world in later ages that permits “Homer’s
contemporaries” to check on their stories about their heroic ancestors?
Further, would Homer then check on their descendants’ memories of these
events (which are open to skeptical doubt) or would he check on their
“complete grasp” of their own noble houses’ histories? The point is that
the later would bring with it a derivative kind of certainty, one that
relies on the surety that at one time in the past their ancestors had
7
certain knowledge by way of direct memories of those remote events;
whereas the former would bring with it little certainty at all.
In contrast with Hussey, J. H. Lesher has argued that the Iliad and
the Odyssey show different attitudes toward what their characters can be
said to know, and that this hinges on the gap between perceiving and
knowing. In the Iliad, Lesher says, things are really as they appear to
be; even when the gods assume mortal form they are correctly perceived
as the mortals they have become. But in the Odyssey this whole situation
changes; Aristotle himself described the theme of this work as disguise
and recognition (Poetics 1459b); related to this are the factors of
trickery, illusion, and deception. The dramatic power of Odysseus’ story
resides in the possibility of deceptive appearance and misunderstood
intentions. The story recounts a succession of encounters between gods
and humans who see things but consistently fail to properly identify,
name and recognize one another. This theme is also one of Odysseus’ own
characteristics: “the mastery of appearance and the use of deception is
a hallmark of Odysseus’ mētis or cunning. Recognition of the true nature
of the situation is a sign, perhaps the preeminent sign of his noos
[intellect].” The suitors’ failure to recognize his true identity when
he returns to Ithaca is the sign of their stupidity and leads to their
undoing. “It is therefore a mistake to attribute to Homer an uncritical
identification of sense perception with recognition and realization. The
Odyssey shows that Homer was aware of the contrast, and that it was a
distinction of importance for his story.”6
This distinction also applies to the use of speech in the Iliad and
the Odyssey; in the former, when one speaks and another hears,
understanding follows immediately, and the person reacts accordingly.
Speakers’ words are instances of the quality the word designates; when
one’s words convey wisdom, shame, harshness, folly, and so forth, the
words are themselves wise, shameful, harsh, foolish, and so forth. But,
in sharp contrast, many of the most important elements of the Odyssey are6 Lesher 1981 pp. 14-15.
8
built on the possibility of failing to understand the meaning of what has
been said, or even of deliberately misspeaking one’s mind, giving the
wrong intention. The wonderful story about Odysseus tricking the Cyclops
is one of the most famous ancient verbal tricks. Lesher says that this
“clever stratagem contains an element of linguistic subtlety and
possibility that leaves the more primitive mechanistic view of language
far behind.”7 In the later work, language is shown to be a powerful
weapon for deceit; it takes intelligence and ingenuity to use words this
way, as well as to “see through them”. Lesher concludes by stating that
cunning and intellect play a central role in the Odyssey and not in the
Iliad. When coupled with the other features of words for knowledge in the
text they reflect an interest in perception, knowledge, and intelligence
absent from the earlier work.8 In this paper we plan to extend the sort
of work done by Hussey and Lesher to other sets of “archaic” documents
from approximately the same period around the Mediterranean basin.
II. The scope of knowledge in general in the Ancient Near East.
The Epic of Gilgamesh is the longest and most famous ANE narrative; it
is the episodic story of a heroic quest for fame and immortality.
Gilgamesh is a hero with “an enormous capacity for friendship, for
endurance and adventure, for joy and sorrow, a man of strength and
weakness, who loses a unique opportunity through a moment’s
carelessness.”9 The historical Gilgamesh probably lived about 2800-2500
BCE, but the earliest Sumerian group of tales about him date from
c.2150. Old Babylonian tablets, written in Akkadian c.1800, diverge
widely in some places from the Sumerian versions, but in other places
are the same. During a state-sponsored surge of literary collection and
invention in the Kassite period (c.1500) many widely scattered tablets
were sorted and inventoried. The longest, most complete version of the
7 Lesher 1981 p. 17.8 Lesher 1981 p. 19.9 Dalley 1989 p. 39; Foster 1987 pp. 21-23.
9
epic dates from the reign of Assurbanipal in the seventh century and was
found at Nineveh.10 Various texts in Gilgamesh provide valuable clues for
an understanding of the meaning and scope of words for “knowledge” in
the ANE in the second millennium. According to Elena Cassin’s study 11
of Gilgamesh, in the episode about Enkidu’s encounter with the harlot,
Enkidu is a hybrid being, he comes from the union of two beasts who
express savage nature; it seems that he is a type of perfect savage. It
is in the desert that he becomes a hunter. His appearance is alarming: a
strange being, half-human half-beast creature, who befriends savage
beasts which he then captures and kills. A village prostitute seduces
Enkidu and they copulate for six days and seven nights. The first stage
of his passage from lullû state (living being) to awīlum (city-dweller) is
thus overcome. Afterwards, he “sets his face” toward the gazelles who
then run away; he loses his hairiness as well as his ability to run
fast. He has acquired knowledge and become wise; the prostitute says
that, in gaining knowledge, “he has become like a god.”12 The second
stage of his passage occurs when he accepts the prostitute’s invitation
to come to the village. Having entered their houses, he eats bread and
drinks beer. Tasting these two foods allows him to take part in
sedentary civilization, i.e. bread and beer are synonymous with
cerealist culture. After this he sings and his features brighten: the
song, in contrast with noise, is discourse according to norms. By
successive stages Enkidu definitely leaves the somber zone where he used
to live. He is no more a creature of nocturnal silence, and has become a
creature of song and light, like Gilgamesh.
More extensive insight into variety of uses of ANE words for
knowledge is provided in the comprehensive lexical entries in the Chicago
Assyrian Dictionary: the Akkadian idû/edû, “to know” is very common in
Akkadian from the Old Babylonian (OB) to the New Babylonian (NB) period.10 Dalley 1989 pp. 41-47.11 Cassin 1987 pp. 37-40; Tigay 1982 pp. 205-13; see also Bottero 1992 pp. 193-4.12
10
The forms of wadû are obviously back-formations based on the D stem; the
G stem “know” forms an adjective edû, “well-known, famous”, and an
irregular participle mudû, “wise, knowledgeable, well-informed”, found
also in the meaning “familiar”. We also find the nouns mūdûtu,
“knowledge” (OB), “wisdom” (NB), *idūtu, “knowledge” and mūdânūtu,
negated in the meaning “ignorance”. The D stem (w)uddû means “inform,
reveal”; the S stem šudû, “announce, make known”, is similar. From the
latter are formed the nouns mušēdû, “reporter”, and šudûtu,
“announcement” (both only LB). The št stem šutedû means “acquire
knowledge”. The few occurrences of the N stem have passive meaning. As
in Hebrew, the semantic field of “knowledge” and “wisdom” is highly
developed; the terminology usually builds on concrete perception.13 In
parallel with “know” we find amāru, “see, recognize”; ahāzu, “grasp,
intellectually and sexually)”; sabāru, “grasp, understand”; šamu, “hear,
perceive”. Equally concrete is the expression pīt uzni, “wise” (literally
“having open ears”).14
The verb idû/edû denotes: (1) secular “acquaintance” (with persons,
their age, where they are staying, circumstances, facts, the right time,
etc.)15; (2) “experience” (in craftsmanship, military strategy,
geography)16; (3) then “knowledge” of a specific sort (when to harvest,
what roads and canals are blocked, a disaster); and finally (4)
specialized “expertise” (in astronomy, liturgy, warfare, irrigation,
treatment of diseases).17 From the Sultantepe Tablet, “The Tale of the
Poor Man of Nippur”: a poor man disguised as a medical doctor plays13 This claim is supported by Bottero’s detailed investigations of knowledge claims made by means of ANE divination practices – see below.14 idu in CAD vol. VII (1960) pp. 20-34; von Soden vol. I (1958) pp. 187-95.15 The instances cited correspond more or less to some of the pseudo-categories – see below.16 These instances are similar to an Aristotelian competence, i.e. inthe sense of unactualized capacity.17 On the last type of medical knowledge see the discussion by Bottero1992 pp. 173-7.
11
three pranks on the mayor. In the first episode, he presents himself at
the mayor’s house with this announcement: “I am a doctor, a native of
the town of Isin, one who knows…” presumably how to treat diseases. The
hymn to the goddess Gula opens with the words, “I am a physician, I know
how to heal, I carry with me all the herbs.” And further, “I am provided
with a bag full of effective conjurations. I carry texts for healing, I
effect cures for all.”
People are characterized socially by what they know (idû).
Highlanders and murderers do not “know” good manners, and the wicked “do
not know” how to keep an oath. Sages (eršu), however, know moderation;
they can understand how the deities are disposed toward them, but even
they are ignorant of how the gods punish. For the most part, however,
the “old human self-estimate holds”: people are “dull” (sukkudu), for
they know nothing. Akkadian epistolary literature understands idû
primarily in the sense of “be informed” (about the plans of others, the
commands of the king, imminent dangers, military positions); cf. The
stereotyped informatory formula: šarru bēlī ú-da, “know my lord the king
that…”. This usage indicates a view about things and persons in the El-
Amarna Letters in the phrase idû ana, “to be concerned with, to care
for”.18
In the realm of magic, gods “known and unknown” (idû u la idû) are
invoked. Felt to be especially dangerous were the machinations of demons
one might encounter unsuspectingly or curses of which one is unaware.
One has no power over a person whose name and location are unknown. One
may pray to the gods for help against demons because they are unknown
and their effect is therefore unpredictable. There were also prayers
against unknown diseases and people sought to protect themselves against
unwitting sins. Unless the name of the deity is known, there can be no
communication between a human being and a god. Generally, people have
only slight knowledge of the gods: their dwelling places and plans are
unknown, so that people are prevented from gaining insight into their18 Westermann TLOT vol. 2 p. 515.
12
own future. But this ignorance extends to the divine plane: the gods do
not know the plans of Tiamat, and therefore cannot prevent the deluge.
On the other hand, Šamaš is said to know the plans of other deities, and
Ea is versed in all things. Ea, Šamaš, and the Anunnaki [elder gods] are
therefore given the epithet mūdê kalāma, “knowing everything” (cf. also
the mother of Gilgamesh). Knowledge and wisdom are attributes of the
gods, Marduk, “who knows all wisdom” (mudû gimri usnu) knows the hearts
of the Igigi [young gods], and is therefore given the epithet dŠA-ZU (=
mudê libbi ilî); cf. the instructive parallelism here: soothe the hearts of
the gods, preserve righteousness, accomplish justice, etc.19
The forms uddû and šudu also function as terms for revelation. The
gods reveal themselves in the cosmos by “showing” the heavens their
course and “assigning” the moon to ornament the night. Marduk “makes
known” to the gods their various domains (mu’addî qirbēti ana ilî). The
domains of Sin and Šamaš can be found (utaddû) throughout the entire
cosmos. The gods can “make known” their will through signs and oracles,
above all by designating priests, kings, and governors; cf. Enlil’s
title “designator of governors” and Nabû’s title “designator of the
kingship”. The basis of all religious observance is laid by the deity’s
revelation of its name, which can then be “named” (zakāru). Even though
there is no extant Akkadian discourse on “revelation”, we see everywhere
how important the fact of revelation was felt to be. By means of oracles
and omens, people attempted to discover the will of the gods and learn
what human fate holds in store; it was considered a sign of impending
disaster when a desired omen was “not revealed” (ul utaddû). We return to
the topic of prophecy and revelation in the ANE and Old Testament below.
III. The scope of knowledge in general in Ancient Egypt
In Ancient Egyptian thought the second important physical aspect
of human being, after the body, was the heart, symbolized by the glyph
for a squat lidded jar. The heart was regarded by the Egyptians as the19 Botterweck TDOT vol. 5 pp. 457-8.
13
anatomical, emotional and intellectual center of the living human. In
the embalming and mummifying process the heart was removed and then
replaced in its proper setting within the chest cavity. As the emotional
center, it was in charge of and ruled over the positive and negative
feelings, as well as being the seat of the moral sentiment. As the
cognitive center, it was the locus of imagination and memory; in many
vignettes showing an individual’s posthumous judgment, the heart is the
witness of the measure of the person’s deeds. In amuletic magic, one of
the most important (and common) charms was a special type of scarab
which protected the deceased’s heart. Since the heart contained a record
of its owner’s deeds in its earthly life, a record that would be
examined by the gods to see whether its owner deserved eternal life, it
was crucial that the heart was protected against loss and damage. One of
the spells in the Book of Dead would guard against the heart revealing
potentially damning information to the judges, another to ensure that
the deceased retained his heart in the underworld, yet another against
theft, and so forth.
Meeks and Meeks’ recent study of the Egyptian gods offers a lucid
and concise description of the ancient Egyptian ‘picture’ of the gods’
knowledge, and by extension the more limited domain of human knowledge.
The gods’ secret thoughts, they argues, was nothing more than the
intimate knowledge lodged in their viscera or ‘inner selves’, knowledge
which could not but be expressed in a creative manner. “The totality of
what could be conceived exactly coincided with the totality of what had
been set in motion by the gods; this totality was reflected, at least to
some extent, in the set of writings composed by [the god] Thoth.
Nevertheless, what could be known never coincided perfectly with what was
known. Between the one and the other, there remained a space open to the
kind of knowledge that could be progressively elaborated and subjected
to questioning. This type of knowledge was men’s portion and it set them
on an endless quest.” It was not the proper place or power of humans to
invent anything, but rather to limit their beliefs and actions to
14
appropriating a part of what was already known, provided that the gods
gave their consent and a suitable means. Unlike the creator god, who
knew everything, the other created gods could be ignorant of many
things, though they could learn much more than they began with. Each
created god knew certain things the other gods did not know; this inner
knowledge was concealed by each god from the other gods and ensured
their individual nature.20
The special faculty or power that enabled the gods to perceive an
event when it occurred was called sia, whose limit concept embraced all
the possible knowledge brought into being by the original act of world
creation. Meeks and Meeks claim that this cognitive capacity was “a
dormant kind of knowledge” that became active in the presence of the
event that brought it out; “it enabled the god to grasp, in the fullest
sense of the word, what was going on.” In other words, sia made it
possible for already extant knowledge to emerge at the conscious or
explicit level. Not to have sia of some thing was thus not an issue of
not knowing it, but rather of not being able, or no longer being able,
to recognize or identify it. This served to establish a conceptual
distinction between sia, which the authors call “synthetic knowledge”,
and rekh, which they call “technical or practical knowledge”. Along
these lines, “sia operated like an absolute intuition irreducible to
logical knowledge. Rekh implied a way of defining concepts that
necessarily entailed the use of speech, and later writing; they endowed
it with its specific character, that is, the capacity to be transmitted.
Only if filtered through the spoken and written word could sia become
accessible in the field of rekh.”21 The god Thoth was the intermediary
between the gods’ omniscience and humans’ limited acquisition of
knowledge. As the recorder and preserver of the gods’ knowledge, Thoth
had the power to diffuse information to whom he chose, and the vehicle
of his transmission was rekh. In this sense, Thoth (or Hermes) was both
20 Meeks & Meeks 1999 pp. 94-5.21 Meeks & Meeks 1999 pp. 95-6.
15
the teacher of humans, through his gift of speech and writing, and the
teacher of the practice of teaching itself, the means whereby humans
could acquire knowledge from others.22
IV. The scope of knowledge in general in the Old Testament
The Old Testament seems to draw important distinctions between
cognitive, intellectual knowledge and practical, embodied knowledge.23
Regarding the former group, external knowledge or recognition is often
paralleled by visual perception. (Nu 24:16; Dt. 11:2; 1 Sam 26:12; Neh.
4:5; Job 11:11; Ps. 138:6; Eccl. 6:5; Isa. 29:15; 41:20; 44:9; 58:3;
61:9; Jer. 2:23; 5:1; 12:3.) Visual perception often precedes knowledge
and makes it possible (Gen. 18:21; Ex. 2:25; Dt. 4:35; 1 Sam. 6:9;
18:28; Ps. 31:8; Isa. 5:19); there are also cases where it means
“behold”, “ gaze at”, “look at”, etc. An auditory process can also
precede knowledge (Ex. 3:7; Dt. 9:2; Neh. 6:16; Ps. 78:3; Isa. 33:13;
40:28; 48:7; Jer. 5:15) and where both factors are “constitutive of the
epistemic process”. About Yahweh, “then the lord said I have observed
the misery of my people who are in Egypt, I have heard their cry on
account of their taskmasters. Indeed I know their sufferings.” (Ex. 3:7)
“When any of you sin in that you have heard a public adjuration to
testify and, though able to testify as one who has seen or learned of
the matter, does not speak up, you are subject to punishment.” (Lev.
5:1) Moses said, “you have seen all that the lord did before your eyes
in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and all his servants and all his land,
the great trials that your eyes saw, the signs, and those great wonders.
But to this day the Lord has not given you a mind to understand, or eyes
to see, or ears to hear.” (Dt. 29:3) “From this time forward I make you
hear new things, hidden things that you have not known. They are created
now not long ago; before today you have never heard of them, so that you
22 See also Botterweck TDOT vol. 5 pp. 454-5.23 Botterweck TDOT vol. 5 pp. 461-2; Westermann TLOT vol. 2 pp. 511-12; Gaboriau 1968 pp. 18-20.
16
could not say I already knew them. You have never heard, you have never
known, from of old your ear has not been opened.” (Isa. 48:6).
Botterweck comments that, “the complexity of many epistemic
processes is expressed by an accumulation of various verbs belonging to
the semantic field of “knowing”, without distinguishable emphasis on the
various nuances of the individual meanings. “seeing, knowing,
considering, and understanding”… do not always point to a deliberate
distinction between sensory and intellectual apperception; more
generally the totality of human knowledge is addressed.”24 The knowing
subject must have the physical ability to apprehend: eyes are needed,
able to see, and thus not blind; eyes must be opened and uncovered. Ears
are needed and they must be opened and attentive; the heart is needed
and it must be discerning, not thick or rash. One must not be asleep or
drunk or blind; in his pain and suffering, Job does not see what happens
around him (Job 14:21).
The heart (lēb, lēbab) has many functions as the main organ or
perception and knowledge; it supports understanding and decision on the
basis of what is perceived. As the seat of memory the heart makes it
possible to incorporate particular perceptions into a larger realm of
experience, providing the basis for judgment and responsible action. In
the heart, the various objects of perception become concentrated to form
insight into the true nature of the world, on the basis of which persons
many consciously frame their lives. The vital physical nature of an
individual is concentrated in the heart; if one wants to continue
living, the heart must be refreshed and nourished, especially with bread
and wine. In terms of the earliest historical documents concerning the
concept of mind, the most important Hebrew usage of ‘heart’ is in
passages that clearly indicate intellectual, cognitive, and reflective
operations.25
24 Botterweck TDOT vol. 5 p. 462.25 Wolff 1974 pp. 40-58; Fabry, in TDOT vol. 7 pp. 419-25; Johnson 1964pp. 75-87.
17
While the sense organs engage in sense perception, it is within
the heart that thought, memory, understanding, attention, and reflection
take place. The heart’s cognitive activity is prior to seeing with the
eyes or hearing with the ears, since it initiates the sensory
operations. Following this internal activity, the heart internalizes and
preserves the content of sensory percepts for the purpose of making
judgments and decisions. The opposite of the heart’s cognitive action is
not sensory failure but lack of attention and confusion in making
judgments. Perceptive and cognitive operations are initially directed at
concrete, particular things, but then, as the main OT texts advance this
concept, the heart can be directed toward instructions, signs and
wonders. In prophetic contexts, the object may be an individual’s
vision, the word of God, or his grace and mercy. In the Wisdom
Literature, the heart knows wisdom, love, faith, and human fate. In
addition, the heart is the seat or storehouse of memory, used to recall
a previous situation in order to find a motive for a certain action.
Remembrance in the heart can be construed as internal advice, one’s own
rule of thumb, or the ethical ‘call’ of conscience, where the context
indicates moral precepts or rules. On the other hand, if the heart lacks
wisdom it is subject to a kind of folly which can show itself as
heedlessness, willfulness, and failure to see the larger picture. The
heart can be deluded by wine, sex, worldly goods, material gain,
temptations, idolatry, wicked words, and corruption. The boundary
between the cognitive functions of the heart and the activity of the
will is often blurred; perhaps this is due to a conceptual (and hence
semantic) oscillation between referents that are concrete and internal
and those that are abstract and internal. In any case, the heart
functions as the driving force behind an individual’s voluntary actions
and engages in conceiving and planning.26
It takes effort to gain specific knowledge hence it must be
26 Fabry in TDOT vol. 7 pp. 419-24; see also Wolff, 1974, p. 50-1; Johnson, 1964, pp. 77-8.
18
sought, searched out, or investigated until it is found. Knowledge is
the result of systematic searching or trying or effort or testing, all
verbs connected with the action taken to acquire knowledge. The object
of such knowledge must be fundamentally perceptible, i.e. it must be
within the grasp of the knowers: either ‘before’ them (Ps. 51:3; 69:20)
before their eyes (Isa. 59:12), immediately with them (Job 15:9; Ps.
50:11), or near them (Isa. 5:19). Westermann argues that the primary
meaning of yāda for humans is the “sensory awareness of objects and
circumstances in one’s environment attained through involvement with
them and through the information of others”; he cites forty-one passages
where knowing is directly attendant on or conveyed by the verb for
“seeing”. The next most pregnant sense of yāda describes “the
recognition that results from the deliberate application of the senses,
from investigation and testing, from consideration and reflection.” And
third, it indicates “the knowledge that results from realization,
experience, and perception, and that one can learn and transmit” this
knowledge to others through instruction.27 Only Yahweh can know things
from afar (Ps. 138:6; 139:2). For ordinary humans, in order for some
thing to be known it must not be hidden, but must come forth; perception
cannot deal with things that are great, hidden, dark, deep or new, nor
is there any knowledge in the underworld. It is certainly a curious
feature of these meticulous studies of Hebrew usage that there are
virtually no instances where humans beings are said to know about the
distant past, or for that matter, the near past beyond their own
memories or witnesses’ memories.
In contrast with cognitive or intellectual knowledge, yāda also
conveys the sense of practical and/or embodied knowledge, under three
headings.28 (1) It can mean a competence or a skill, e.g. “skilful
hunter” (Gen 25:27), “skilful sailor”, “one who knows the sea” (1 Kgs
9:27; 2 Chr. 8:18); “skilled in writing” (Isa. 29:12), “skilled in lyre-
27 Westermann TLOT vol. 2 pp. 511-12; Gaboriau 1968 pp. 24-26.28 Westermann TLOT vol. 2 pp. 514-5; Botterweck TDOT vol. 5 pp. 464-5.
19
playing” (1 Sam. 16:16). Westermann comments that the Hebrew usage
corresponds with the Akkadian usage of “to know” in passages such as one
in Gilgamesh where the god Ea is said to know every craft. (2) It can
also mean emotional and/or sexual knowledge: a man is said to “know” a
woman or a woman to “know” a man when they have had sexual intercourse.
(Gen. 4:1,17,25; 38:26; Jgs. 19:25; 1 Sam. 1:19; 1 Kgs. 1:4) The same
connotation of experience through direct sexual acquaintance is found in
Akkadian when the wild man Enkidu is seduced by the harlot. (3) It can
also mean knowledge of good and evil. The early story of knowledge
gained from eating the tree of knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 2:9,17)
has been interpreted many ways, nicely summarised by Westermann.29
First, acquiring the capacity for good and evil in the moral sense;
second, the capacity to shape life based upon the freedom of autonomous
decision; third, sexual experience or an understanding of the normal and
abnormal manners of sexual expression; and fourth, comprehensive
knowledge and practical wisdom through which human culture was
initiated.
V. Knowledge from Divination and Prophecy
Two further sources of knowledge commonly cited in the archaic
period are divination, the expert reading of signs about hidden things,
and prophecy, the utterance of divinely inspired predictions by a
privileged person. Jean Bottero discusses these within the fundamental
parameters of the Mesopotamian system of thought: “They were convinced
that the world around them did not have a rasion d’être within itself. It
depended entirely on supreme forces that had created it and that
governed it primarily for their own advantage. The images of these gods
were based on a human model; they were greatly superior, however, by
their endless life, by their intelligence, and by their power that was
infinitely above our own. Every thing on earth, all objects and events,
came forth from the gods’ actions and their will, and fitted into some29 Westermann TLOT vol. 2 p. 513; see also Gaboriau 1968 pp. 34-6.
20
kind of general plan that they had in mind. The plan was impenetrable,
as such, to humans, who discovered its unfolding from day to day.
Nothing that we are ignorant of in the past, the present, and of course,
the future, escaped the gods’ knowledge and their decisions. But they
could report on it to mankind at their pleasure: this was the entire
meaning of divination.”30
Bottero argues that there were two ways in which such divine
reports or notices could be conveyed to humans, the direct way and the
indirect way. There are only one or two examples in Mesopotamian texts
of the gods’ revealing directly to humans what their plans were. In such
cases, the gods preferred to take a single intermediary (the medium) to
inform him of their secret, by ordering him to spread the word. It seems
that anyone could be chosen for receipt of this message, usually but not
always conveyed by both sound and sight. The message could pertain to
the past, present or future. The secret content was sometimes clear and
unambiguous, but it could also be obscure and hence in need of expert
exegesis. Bottero says that this kind of inspired divination was not
common in Mesopotamia, except in certain periods and milieus. The
indirect way, on the other hand, was more common and is attested in
large numbers of tablets devoted to deductive divination. This method
was based on the model of written discourse, instead of direct speech or
vision, and hence was encoded in graphic signs that had to be
interpreted.31
Bottero argues that the “objective foundation” of deductive
divination was the repeated observation of similar event-sequences. “One
event that drew attention because of its unnatural character preceded
the other which was equally accidental and unexpected. The first event
was imagined as the harbinger of the second, regardless of whether their
mutual bond was real or imaginary.” Once the general frame for this sort
of prediction had become entrenched - via Hume-like custom and habit –
30 Bottero 1992 p. 105; see also Rochberg 2004 pp. 44-48.31 Bottero 1992 p. 106; and see Rochberg 2004 pp. 49-55.
21
the diviners developed the process to an extraordinary degree. “Thus
they established a type of ‘code’ which was entirely parallel, even here
and there identical, to that of the script, from which the experts,
informed about the values of the ‘divine pictograms’ could decipher
exactly and univocally their message concerning the future…. They could
extract it from the divine pictograms, deduce it from them, hence the name
deductive divination. And as the entire universe was at the mercy of the
gods, who regulated its functioning and progress, the Mesopotamians
logically considered the sublunary world in its totality as the
supporter of their ‘script’ understood in this fashion, and also as the
bearer of their messages to be deciphered.”32
From the Royal Archive at Mari, Babylonian outpost (c.1800-1760
BCE), there is ample evidence of a phenomenon attested there and in the
Bible – intuitive prophecy, i.e. revelation without resort to mantic or
oracular devices or techniques.33 Ordinary divination was the province
of formal cult priests and sorcerers and generally served the royal
courts throughout the ANE. Unlike the ‘official’ diviners, “these
prophets were spontaneously imbued with a certain consciousness of
mission and of a divine initiative.” Also unlike the Biblical prophets
who pronounced on important social, ethical and religious matters, the
Mari prophets pronounced on all sorts of mundane matters, esp. with
regard to the king’s personal well-being. Records indicate that there
were two types of diviners who coexisted side-by-side in the Mari
precinct, and these show two patterns of predicting the future and
revealing the divine word.
On one hand, the professional was a specially trained expert;
their activities were usually confined to crucial matters e.g.
pertaining to the city’s security. On the other hand, there were
intuitive prophets, those who without special training claimed to have
acquired the divine word. These are the earliest such manifestations in
32 Bottero 1992 p. 107; and see Rochberg 2004 pp. 55-65.33 Malamat 1989 pp. 79-80; relevant texts in Nissinen 2003 pp. 13-77.
22
the ANE and are similar to those found in the OT.34 The essential nature
of this kind of prophecy has certain dominant characteristics, according
to Malamat: (1) spontaneous manifestations resulting from inspiration or
divine initiative, in contrast with to mechanical, inductive divination,
usually initiated at the king’s request for signs from god. Isaiah said,
“I was ready to be sought by those who did not ask for me; I was ready
to be found by those who did not seek me.” (Isa 65:1) (2) consciousness
of mission, where the prophets take a stand before the authorities to
present divinely inspired messages. (3) an ecstatic component, “a
somewhat problematic and complex characteristic”, which may include
auto-suggestion, an infused dream, though rarely extreme frenzy.
Despite the external similarities between the diviner-prophets of
Mari and Israel there are discrepancies in the type of message content,
the function they played, and the status of the prophets within their
respective societies. In Israel the prophet seems to have enjoyed a more
or less central position (although some of them were peripheral),
whereas in Mari the prophets appear to have played only a marginal role.
The Mari prophecies are limited to material demands on the king, such as
building a city gate, the offering of funerary sacrifices, the dispatch
of valuable objects to temples, the request of property for a god, and
so forth. These sorts of messages are very distinct from Biblical
prophecy which often expresses “a full-fledged religious ideology, a
socio-ethical manifesto, and a national purpose.” Malamat points out
that this apparent discrepancy may simply reflect the limited scope of
the Mari tablets so far discovered, all of which have come from the
royal diplomatic archives. In addition, more than six hundred years
separate the Mari texts from the OT prophetic texts and the intervening
‘links’ in the development of prophetic knowledge have either not
survived or not yet been discovered.35
34 See esp. Jeremias TLOT vol. 2 pp. 697-9; and Müller TDOT vol. 9 pp. 129-31.35 Malamat 1989 pp. 80-82; and Malamat 1998 pp. 122-33.
23
Twenty-eight letters addressed to the king, containing reports on
prophecies and divine revelations have been published. The senders were
all high-ranking officials and bureaucrats from the Babylonian kingdom;
there are thirty-five prophecies in total. The diviner-prophets were of
two types: the professional or ‘accredited’ speakers, and the causal or
amateur type. There are five titles for expert, cult prophets: (1)
šangûm, a priest imbued with a warning dream, (2) assinnum, a
transvestite or eunuch or cult-prostitute, (3) one case of a female
qabbātum, from Akk. qabûm, “to speak or proclaim”, (4) mukhhûm, some
sort of ecstatic or frenetic, similar to the Hebrew mešugga, from a
root-word meaning “insane”, (5) āpilum, a title exclusive to the Mari
texts, meaning “answerer or respondent”. The two titles mukhhûm and
āpilum have counterparts in Biblical Hebrew, for the latter ‘ōneh,
“answerer”, and mešugga for the former.36
More than half the reports, however, deal with unaccredited,
amateur prophets, the majority of whom were women, mostly from the
court. Almost half of these reports contain accounts of the prophet’s
dreams. There are some features that distinguish the professionals from
the amateurs: first, only in the official cases is the actual message
preceded by the verb tebû, “to arise”, which seems to allude to
prophetic stimulation in the temple. Second, the medium of dream
prophecy is totally absent from the professionals, while it is prevalent
amongst the amateurs. The accredited prophets received their messages
while fully conscious. This is clearly paralleled in the Hebrew Bible
and shows that one can distinguish between message dreams, not intended
for the dreamer but for someone else, and revelatory dreams, intended
for anyone. (See Dt. 13:1; 1Sam 28:6; Jer 23:28; 27:9) The Mari letters
with dream reports have a regular structure: (1) the male or female
dreamer, (2) the opening formula, which uses “see”, (3) the dream
content, based on vision or hearing, (4) the communicator’s comments,
often including a piece of the dreamer’s hair or garment. 36 Malamat 1989 pp. 85-87; and Nissinen 2003 pp. 5-7, 13-17, 79-80.
24
This “unique and puzzling practice” is attested only at Mari and
seems to be related to establishing the reliability of the prophet and
his/her message. Malamat suggests that the lock of hair or fabric may
have functioned as an “identity card”, in other words, “it may have had
a legal significance, more than a magical-religious meaning”.37 They may
also have been sent to the king to “guarantee” the very existence of the
prophet, and not just the fabrication of the communicator. He quotes an
explicit codicil from one of the letters: “since this man was trusty, I
did not take any of his hair or the fringe of his garment.” Malamat
argues that “the credibility of prophetic revelation was obviously a
sensitive matter, not to be taken for granted. Thus it was often
verified and confirmed by the accepted mantic devices, considered more
reliable means than intuitive prophecy per se.” In such cases, the
communicator recommends carrying out precautions or reports that further
examinations were conducted. In contrast, in the Bible the words of the
prophets are never subjected to confirmation or corroboration by other
means, but are vindicated solely by their fulfillment in the future.
(Dt.18:21; Ez 33:33; Jer 28:8)
37 Malamat 1989 p. 95; and Huffmon 1968 pp. 101-24.
25
VI. Knowledge from dreams and their interpretation
According to Jean Bottero (again), in Mesopotamian thought ‘to
dream’ did not constitute a specific state or action; there is no verb
for ‘to dream’ in Sumerian or Akkadian. One is said ‘to see a dream’
(amâru and natâlu; also sometimes naplusu and šubrû), such that the dream
content is the object of sight, an internal spectacle. In Gilgamesh, the
God Ea wants to prevent the destruction of the entire human species and
thus reveals the impending disaster to the Babylonian Noah. “I have
revealed to Atrahasis a dream, and it is thus that he has learned the
secret of the gods.” The most archaic example (c.2450) comes from the
Vulture Stele, where the King of Lagash, engaged in battle with his
enemy Umma, reports how the god Ningirsu appeared to him in his sleep to
reassure him of the good outcome. The King Amiditana (1683-47) was
warned in a dream that he had to offer a statue of himself to the gods;
similar reports were made by Assurbanipal and Nabonidus. Since most of
the extant documents concern public affairs perhaps it is not too
surprising that such private dream revelations are exceptional.38
The ancient dreamers often felt the need for expert assistance in
dream exegesis; when Gilgamesh first dreams of Enkidu, who resembles “a
block from heaven”, he goes to his mother for interpretation. Bottero
says that such cases are instances of intuitive dream divination, and that
there is nothing technical or rigorous about this kind of dream
unpacking. But deductive divination from dreams is different. First, it
was valid for everybody. “There was no longer a question about
extraordinary dreams and explicitly supernatural messages, which were
perhaps more easily reserved for the great of this world (?), but of
ordinary, current, daily dreams… valuable for all. Whoever dreamed, and
whatever his dream was, that individual was the recipient of the message
that the dream bore. Only the message was ‘written’ and ‘coded’, and to
‘read’ it one needed a real technician, a specialist initiated in this38 Also discussed by Noegel in Bulkeley 2001, pp. 45-50.
26
‘writing’… an examiner, someone who looked closely at and studied the
‘pictograms’ incorporated in the dream, who deciphered them and
translated them for the interested party who came to consult.”39 Two
notes on this: first, Bottero seems to avoid the use of the word
‘divination’ in these passages and instead prefers ‘mancy’, ‘-mantia’;
perhaps since ‘divination’ implicitly refers to god-given, or god-
related, and that was not true for all dreams. Second, his reliance on
the notion of reading ‘pictograms’ reminds one of Freud’s ingenious
insight that some dream-content appears like a rebus and has to be
‘read’ in terms of ambiguous, polyvalent visual-graphic imagery.
The ancient Egyptian language had no verb for “to dream”, only a
noun “dream”. In their terms, one could see something “in a dream”, or
see “a dream”, as a mental ‘object’. In other words, a dream was the
object of a verb of perception – “it was something seen, not done”, as
Szpakowska says. “In a sense it was not an event arising from within the
dreamer or an activity performed by an individual; rather, it had an
objective existence outside the will of the passive dreamer. In
particular, the use of the phrase “seeing in a dream” also indicates
that the dream was considered as an alternate state or dimension in
which the waking barriers to perception were temporarily withdrawn.”40
The earliest known references to dreams in Ancient Egypt are found in
the so-called “Letters to the Dead” (c.2100 BCE) These letters were
written to a deceased relative or friend, usually requesting some sort
of favor on behalf of the living person, and then left in the tomb of
the addressee. “The dreams in these texts functioned as a sort of
liminal zone, a transparent area between the walls of two worlds that
allowed beings in separate spheres to see each other.” Szpakowska
speculates that this zone was like a two-way window, “allowing the
living to see the dead and the dead to watch the living. More
39 Bottero 1992 p. 113; and his analysis of the treatise “Oh, dream god”, pp. 114-16.40 Szpakowska in Bulkeley 2001 p. 31.
27
specifically, the dreams allowed people on earth to communicate with the
inhabitants of the Netherworld.” However, the author is not licensed to
make the claim that dreams allowed the living to see the dead, as
opposed to claiming that in their dreams they could see the dead; even
less so, is their any textual support for the assertion that dreams
allowed the dead to see the living.
Although Leo Oppenheim, in his highly influential work The
Interpretation of Dreams in the ANE (1956), said that Egyptian royal dreams were
typical of “message dreams” in the ANE, Szpakowska argues that these
dreams were not typical of the Egyptian literary tradition until the New
Kingdom, when they make their first rare appearance. With one exception,
the dreams usually cited to support this claim are Late Period and
Hellenistic descriptions attributed to earlier pharaohs, “which bear
little resemblance to the dream anecdotes recorded centuries earlier.”41
There is a single, very rare dream-book (Papyrus Chester Beatty III),
dated in the reign of Ramesses II; it is the only oneiromantic manual
that has been found in pre-Hellenistic Egypt. It records 227 dreams and
their interpretation, divided into three sections. The first is composed
of visual images and their interpretation; the second is a spell to
counter a bad dream; and the third offers a detailed description of the
characteristics of the “followers of Seth”, and then their dreams. This
dream-book has been the subject of a great deal of speculation but it is
still the only text for dream interpretation until the end of the Nubian
dynasty (650 years later). Szpakowska points out that “even this dream
book is suspect, for it is not clear that it was ever actually used. It
is possible that it was kept as a curiosity or as a literary exercise
and did not necessarily require a specialist to be used. For nearly the
first 2000 years of Egypt’s history, there is no extant evidence for the
mantic use of dreams nor for rituals designed to solicit dreams.”42
E. R. Dodds studied the ancient Greek notion of dreams and visions
41 Szpakowska in Bulkeley 2001 p. 32.42 Szpakowska in Bulkeley 2001 p. 34.
28
at great length in a number of important papers. Dodds argued that in
the Homeric texts all of the textual evidence points to the
understanding of dreams by the dreamer as objective facts, in which the
dreamer is a passive recipient of either a visit by a messenger or a
vision created by some other being.43 The crucial implication of Dodds’
findings for our present investigation is that, at least until six
centuries later (and then only in a few rare cases), a dream was not
thought to have its origin in the dreamer, that is, it was not thought
to be a product of the dreamer’s own mental states.44 Homer’s dream
stories follow a very strict pattern in four stages: the circumstance
before the dream; the dream image’s movement toward the sleeper and
location over his head; the dream image’s speech; and the dream’s
aftermath. An example: when the Iliad tells us that before the battle
Achilles dreamt that Athena came to him in a dream and gave him advice,
Achilles would not have thought that he was the source of the dream,
Athena was; the dream-setting was not within his own ‘mental space’, but
in some other place; and Athena’s words of advice were her own words,
not Achilles’ own ‘inner voice’. In Homer’s texts the principal function
of dream stories is to advance the narrative action, to provide the
audience with an ‘inner’ motive for the character’s decisions and
actions. In this sense, Homeric dream reports cannot be employed to
provide a complete picture of actual dream experience for the Archaic
Greeks.
In the background chapter to her book on Dreams in Late Antiquity,
Patricia Miller makes a number of important points pertinent to our
argument.45 In the Odyssey, “dreams were located spatially in an imaginal
43 W. V. Harris describes these as “epiphany dreams”; Greek and Roman dream accounts “often represent them as admonitory epiphanies, that is to say, the sleeper’s experience of a visitation by an individual, oftena divine being or messenger, but sometimes simply an authoritative person or a ghost, who brings instructions or important information”, Harris 2009 p. 24.44 Dodds 1951 pp. 104-06.45 Miller 1994 pp. 14-16.
29
landscape that was in close proximity to the dwelling place of the
dead”. Penelope’s slain suitors travel “from the concrete space of
empirical reality through a fantastic geography: ‘Hermes led them down
dank ways over grey Ocean tides, the snowy rock, past the village of
dreams [dēmos oneirōn] and narrows of the sunset.’” (OD 24.10-12) The
regions of Ocean “inscribe a boundary in cosmic space. Beyond that
boundary in a realm of images and ghosts, a space that [is] ‘the reverse
side of the cosmic order’ that mirrors its other in fantastic,
phantasmal ways.” In another incident, Penelope is described sleeping
sweetly between the gates of dream (OD 19.560-67): dreams which come
through the gate of ivory are dangerous to believe, for they bring
messages which will not issue in deeds; dreams which come through the
gate of horn have power in reality, whenever any mortal sees them.46
Miller agrees with Amory that the former gate signifies speech or
utterance and the latter signifies eyes and vision;, as such they made
fitting monuments for the village of dreams. Miller claims that as
figures, “dreams were autonomous; they were not conceptualized as
products of a personal sub- or unconscious but rather as visual images
that present themselves to the dreamer. Thus Homeric dreamers spoke of
seeing a dream, not of having one as modern dreamers do.” Other dream
incidents (e.g. OD 4.795-807) reveal another important point: dream-
figures are connected with divine beings, who either send an image or
appear as the figures themselves, though always in disguise. “Certainly
the connection with the gods serves to underscore the dream’s autonomy
and the authoritative quality of its message…. The dream appears to be a
kind of technique for overcoming epistemological uncertainty that nevertheless
participates in that very dynamic.”47
Studies in genetic psychology conducted by Jean Piaget and others
have confirmed that there are three distinct stages in the child’s
46 Amory 1966 pp. 3-57; Kessels 1978 pp. 100-103.47 Miller 1994 p. 19, emphasis added.
30
understanding of the nature of his own dreams.48 In the first stage, the
dream is regarded as coming from outside and remains an external event;
dreams occur where their dream-content is located, and the child dreamer
actually participates as himself in the dream-story. In the second
stage, the child admits to the subjective, internal origin of his dream,
but will not admit that the image is internal and distinct from what it
represents, i.e. the dream-content cannot be detached from physical
reality. In the third and final stage, both the dream-origin and the
dream-content are regarded as internal to the dreamer; just as thought
is regarded by the child as “a voice in the head”, so dreams are
regarded as “visions in the head”. This shows us that the skeptical
trope about waking and dreaming appeals to a level of cognition which
recognizes only the second stage of concept formation and disclaims any
intelligibility for a hypothetical third stage. For the Ancient Greek,
the claim that the source and the content of a dream are entirely
internal is itself an hypothesis, as strange as this may seem to us now.
Since they have ruled out any appeal to a higher cognitive level, there
is no evidence that can count to support such an hypothesis. It is open
to the same sorts of doubts as other hypotheses which cannot be
verified, such as, in the 4th C anyway, the claim that the earth is
actually a sphere moving around the sun.
VII. Conclusion
In conclusion, the textual evidence cited above from all languages
supports the general claim that the verb for “to know” is closely
related to the verb for “to see”: Akkadian îdu, Hebrew yādā, Sanskrit
veda, Greek ideo, and Latin video. The archaic concept of knowledge is
grounded or dependent on the archaic concept of direct perceptual
acquaintance; what one can be said to know is what one can see with
one’s own eyes or grasp with “the mind’s eye” (i.e. the intellect), and
48 Hallpike 1979 pp. 387-90.
31
this close connection is “rooted” in the basic link between the words.49
One salient difference with the “modern” concept of knowledge is the
wider field of suitable “objects” of seeing and grasping. Botterweck
comments on the various ANE words for knowledge that, “the semantic
field … is highly developed; the terminology usually builds on concrete
perception.” With regard to the Hebrew word yāda he states that
“external knowledge or recognition is often paralleled by visual sensory
perception”; that “the object of knowledge and perception must be
fundamentally perceptible, i.e. it must be within the grasp of the
knowers.”50
With regard to our modern post-Kantian concept of knowledge, the
following aspects of the archaic concept (or ‘complex’) of knowledge can
be adduced from the textual evidence cited above.
1. Direct perception of concrete sensible objects is preeminent in
knowledge formation with respect to the perceptual grasp of some
thing, identification as that thing, and recognition of it in other
contexts.
2. Testimony is accorded greater epistemic weight for, inter alia, (a)
3. Although there are some rare cases where the ‘signs’ of prophets or
omens are ‘checked’, this is always very arbitrary, never rigorous or
methodical; there is no real idea of confirmation by supporting
evidence, nor of any ‘objective’ standard to establish justification.
4. Epistemic claims about dream contents have a more fluid scope with
respect to internal vs. external constraints on the acquisition of
beliefs; this is clearly manifest in ancient dreamers’ attitudes
toward the origin, setting, and meaning of dreams.
49 Thus our claim here goes against Hussey’s rebuttal (1990 p. 13 note 6) of the so-called Snell-Frankel thesis, advanced in the 1950s, that there are linguistic connections between words for seeing and knowing.50 Botterweck TDOT vol. 5 pp. 462-3; Westermann makes the same assertions, TLOT vol. 2 pp. 511-12.
32
5. There is a surfeit of divine knowledge, which means that “everything
that can be known is already known by the gods”; human knowledge is
always in deficit and incomplete with regard to the overall cosmic
order.
6. Knowledge of the name of some thing leads to power over the thing
named due to the cognitive ‘complex’ that amalgamates graphic sign
with natural thing; the sensible (=phonetic) properties of the
graphic sign are the same as the sensible (=qualitative) properties of
the signified.
7. Human knowledge can be gained by intimate acquaintance with some
thing, penetrating to the interior or inside of some thing, signaled
in Egypt and the ANE by the word for “heart” which also comprises
meanings associated with the interior of a building, an area, or a
person.
8. The lack of systematic knowledge (epistemē) of the natural world
through humans’ epistemic deficit does not lead to doubt or
disbelief, nor to a skeptical attitude about appearances. The rare
exceptions to this foundational credulism are those occasions when a
“crafty god” (like Hermes or Enki or Thoth) sets out to deliberately
deceive a character in one of the epic stories.
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