Oracular law in Bīt-Baḫiāni?: Rethinking divine representation in three Neo-Assyrian trial records

Johnson, Dylan R. 2025. Oracular law in Bīt-Baḫiāni?: Rethinking divine representation in three Neo-Assyrian trial records. Journal of the American Society for Premodern Asia 145 (4) , pp. 689-712. 10.7817/jaos.145.4.2025.ar030 Item availability restricted.

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Abstract

Legal documents from the Neo-Assyrian period attest to a wide range of social and administrative authorities who function as judges—from local officials to the king himself. A set of three texts from outside the Assyrian heartland (Gūzāna and Kannuʾ) are unique in that they describe judgments rendered by the god Hadad/Adad. To explain how a deity could de-cide a case, some have suggested that they were resolved through oracular means—a practice otherwise unattested in the Syro-Mesopotamian legal corpus. I contend that these are not cases resolved by mantic specialists, but rather local authorities who oversaw the local eco-nomic, administrative, and legal institutions of the city. By contextualizing these trial records in the legal-administrative archives of Bīt-Baḫiāni/land of Gūzāna, I believe that the judicial agency attributed to Hadad/Adad was modeled on the representation of deities overseeing economic exchange based in temples all around the empire. Hadad/Adad was a representative figurehead for the local regime of dispute resolution that stood alongside the administrative hierarchy of the Assyrian state, whose officials also heard cases at Gūzāna.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Schools > History, Archaeology and Religion
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BL Religion D History General and Old World > D History (General) > D051 Ancient History D History General and Old World > DE The Mediterranean Region. The Greco-Roman World K Law > K Law (General)
Publisher:	American Oriental Society
ISSN:	0003-0279
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	4 July 2025
Date of Acceptance:	12 April 2025
Last Modified:	07 Apr 2026 13:30
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/179537

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