Babylonian Witchcraft Literature: Case Studies (Brown Judaic Studies) Review

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Babylonian Witchcraft Literature: Case Studies (Brown Judaic Studies) ReviewBabylonian Witchcraft Literature: Case Studies by I. Tzvi Abusch (Brown Judaic Studies) These essays resulted in the study of Mesopotamian magical and medical texts centering on witchcraft and sorcery. They address difficulties typology in the sorting of texts into coherent categories and to understand individual prayers and incantations. These studies focus on individual texts and suggest solutions to complications and intricacies in the material to aid in understanding of magical texts generally. Part One follows a diachronic approach, Part Two a synchronic one. In this sense, the studies are broad: while unraveling knots in individual texts, they highlight textual problems while exemplifing some solutions for common problems in traditional Mesopotamian therapeutic literature.
In Part One, Abusch examines such well known Akkadian incantations and prayers as KARL 226 IV 3ff. and related texts (Chapter 1), Mag1û VII 119-146 and related texts (Chapter 2), and KAR 26 and BMS 12 (Chapter 3). This examination grew out of various attempts to determine the limits of the witchcraft corpus and to categorize the many texts that display divergent and sometimes contradictory textual features. These texts contain indicators that suggest that they were used not only to combat witchcraft but also for other purposes as well. Such changes resulted in the appearance of disjointed and/or contradictory statements and of features pointing to multiple and often unrelated uses of the text. Accordingly, Abusch argues that a determination of the stages of development of such compositions is necessary for an understanding of the text and is one way to decide whether a text should be included in, or excluded from, the corpus.
Part Two focuses on an individual incantation, Maglû I 1-36, an address to the gods of the night sky. Although this opening incantation in Magli is a famous and oft-cited example of magical literature, Abusch's initial study of the text raised new questions and revealed unexplained details. He constructs a coherent and comprehensive statement of the meaning and function of the incantation. Accordingly, Abusch subjects this incantation to a detailed and sustained analysis. The painstaking examination of the individual elements of an incantation and of their relationship to each other is laborious, but at least in this case it resulted in a fuller understanding of the text and of its place in Maglaî. Moreover, this type of analysis showed the incantation to be the product of a literary creativity that draws together magical and legal imagery for the purpose of creating an indictment in which social and moral dimensions of the witchcraft accusation come into play.Babylonian Witchcraft Literature: Case Studies (Brown Judaic Studies) Overview

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