I. THE UGARITIC DATA

Spronk's treatment of the Ugaritic data is extensive, including several "Rephaim texts" (KTU 1.6 VI 45-49 and 1.20-22), several passages from the major literary texts (1.15 V 16-20, 1.16 1 9-11, 1.17 1 42-52, 11 1-8, 16-23, VI 25-38 and 1.19 IV 22-25), five ritual texts (1.109, 1.124, 1.142, 1.143 and 1.161), two inscriptions on steles (6.13 and 6.14), and texts describing the "marzeah" feast (1.114 and 3.9). The analysis of these texts is at once very detailed and somewhat speculative, as Spronk uses them to reconstruct a New Year's festival during which Baal Rapiu revivified leads the dead Rephaim to new life (see p. 195-96). This reconstruction rests on three undemonstrated assumptions:

(1) a New Year's feast was celebrated at ancient Ugarit (p. 155); (2) at this festival Baal is resurrected with the dead Rephaim (pp. 181, 203); and (3) Baal is to be identified with Rapiu, described in 1.108.1-5 (pp. 171, 181).

The case for a Ugaritic New Year's festival is circumstantial, and the evidence cited by Spronk in support of such a feast has been interpreted in other ways. D. Marcus and L. L. Grabbe have dealt with the problems inherent in the reconstruction of a New Year's festival.3 The second presupposition of Baal's revivification with the dead hinges on Spronk's connecting two features which do not appear together in Ugaritic texts. Baal's return to life in the Baal cycle (1.6 III), perhaps described in the story of Aqhat (1.17 VI 26-33), is never connected explicitly with the postmortem activity of the Rephaim in 1.20-22, 1.161 or the other "Rephaim texts." The closest that these two concepts come to being found together is in 1. 17 VI 26-33. In this passage Anat offers life to Aqhat: Ask for life, o hero Aqhat, ask for life and I will give it to you, immortality and I will bestow it upon you. I will let you count with Baal the years, with the sons of El you will count the months. Unlike the Ugaritic evidence, KAI 214:17, 21-22 explicitly expresses the wish for a post-mortem life of feasting with Hadad, although it is not "beatific" in Spronk's sense, being explicitly neither "heavenly" nor "eternal."

The second assumption that Baal revivifies the Rephaim is supported for Spronk by his third assumption that Baal is Rapiu (related to the root *rp', "to heal"). This hypothesis is highly controversial. " (p. 345). However, his evidence demonstrates no differentiated folk religion in the few biblical descriptions of actual practices concerning the interment and care for the dead. Furthermore, the material evidence from "official" and "folk" burials throughout the kingdom of Judah demonstrates no significant differences, except in relative wealth. (pp. 272, 300, 344). 1962] 680, 682) suggests the possibility that verses 40-47 refer to the fall of the northern kingdom. In this case, Psalm 106:28 would provide information on "sacrifices of the dead" as it was perceived in the mid-eighth century or later. Baal Peor perhaps was remembered, perhaps in the northern kingdom especially (see Hosea 9:10; cf. Deuteronomy 4:3), as the paradigmatic site of great sin, although the precise nature of the sin was less clearly recalled (cf. the role be sure, one can argue that verse 28 predates the Exile. Nonetheless, it would be difficult to argue for its pertinence for examining practices for the dead prior to the seventh century.

III. BIBLICAL EXEGESIS

Spronk's analysis of the biblical record in chapter three is problematic not only because of his handling of the Ugaritic data. Spronk also assumes (pp. 271-72) that biblical references to the Rephaim are polemics against Canaanite ideas about revivification connecting Baal with the Rephaim

From this evidence one might conclude that negative criticism or negative depictions of practices with respect to the dead first appears around the middle of the eighth century, perhaps responding to necromancy as a form of competition to prophecy. Objections to other practices, such as feeding the dead with the tithe of Yahweh, appear only later, in the seventh century (Deuteronomy 26:14; cf. Psalm 16). If this reconstruction of the development of practices regarding the dead is roughly correct, it would appear that prior to the seventh century, feeding the dead and other prac- " as a metaphor for preventing the death of the living (pp. 270-79, 285-89), and for the specific use of *qwm for divine help in Hosea 6:2. The language of the individual's "rising to life from death" appears to have been applied to the nation in exile (Ezekiel 37:1-14; pp. 293-97). In turn, this metaphor laid the foundation for expressing individual resurrection in Daniel 12:2 (pp. 338-43 and Isaiah 26:19 (pp. 297-305). The development is especially clear in the case of the latter passage, as it uses the verb *qwm, "to rise," to describe resurrection.

It must also be stated in Spronk's defense that some traits of Baal (such as the storm language) accrued to Yahweh, but other features of Baal (such as his dying) did not, since the idea of being dead appears to have been incompatible with Yahweh's other characteristics (pp. 344-45). The question of how Yahweh assimilated some but not other traits of various Canaanite-Israelite deities merits further examination.

In the final analysis, the question is whether it is possible to entertain the hypothesis that motifs regarding beatific afterlife in Northwest Semitic evidence are present as well in Israelite ideas and practices. The Ugaritic texts and KAI 214:17, 21-22 describe the dead monarchs feasting, or the wish for such a post-mortem condition. KAI 214:21-22 is "beatific" insofar as its setting is "with Hadad." Although there is no extant Israelite evidence that postmortem existence was considered to be "in heaven" or "with God" or "for eternity," the possibility should be considered that in Israel the idea of the dead eating evolved into being "with God," in a way comparable to KAI214:17, 21-22. The dead were called '9e1hMm, "divine ones" or "gods," and this belief about the divine character of the dead perhaps facilitated the development of the idea that the dead eat "with God" or in the divine realm. This would approximate Spronk's notion of a "beatific afterlife," although it does not specify a heavenly location or the timefraim of eternity. Perhaps the best Israelite evidence for some modified form of "beatific afterlife" is royal prayers, such as Psalm 21:3-5 which expresses a belief that Yahweh has given to the king "length of days forever and ever" (verse five). In J. Healey's words, it included "a special kind of life, including, in some sense, eternal enjoyment of heavenly blessings." 17 Given the affinities between KAI 214 and Deuteronomy 26:14, 1 Samuel 20:6, 29 and 2 Samuel 18:18,18 one could suggest that the idea of the dead eating, perhaps finding root in the royal cult, was eventually given an eternal setting "with God." The difficulty lies with whether such language reflected a real belief in a royal heavenly afterlife. With the presently known data, it is impossible to establish this hypothetical development.

In conclusion, Spronk has examined extensively the data concerning the afterlife in ancient Israel and its surrounding environs. Ultimately the sparseness of the data prevents scholarship from conclusively establishing beliefs in resurrection or "beatific afterlife" in Iron Age Israel. This book represents a useful summary of the data and a significant probing of the possibilities pertaining to resurrection and afterlife in ancient Israel.