User:IMcayat/sandbox

Cool, I did it.

Introduction

Two types of covenants are found in the Old Testament: -Obligatory: Reflected in the Covenant of God with Israel-Protects master -Promissory: Reflected in the Abrahamic and Davidic covenants.-Protects servant.

Mesopotamian official judicial Documents: -Political Treaty: Known to us from the Hittite Empire. -Royal Grant: Cassical form found in Babylonian Kudurru documents. These both reserve elements such as historical, introduction, border delineations, stipulations, witnesses, blessings and curses.

Covenant of Abraham and David are “grant” type.

In Grants from Urgit the loyalty of the donee is expressed by terms like: “he exerts himself very, very much fo the king his lord.”

'''David’s devotion in the deuteronomic historiography is expressed in a more abstract way in the Neo-Assyrian grants. “Walking in truth” “acting with whole-heartedness and integrity.'''

The sources P and D help distinguish the difference between a grant and treaty.

2nd Samuel 7:14- when David’s decendents sin they will be disciplined like rebellious sons by their father but they will not be alienated.

David is given the right of the first born.

The gift of land to Abraham and the gift of kingship to David are then formulated in the way Hittite grants used to be formulated and especially those bestowed upon privileged vassals.

Deuteronomy concludes chapter 28 with the threat that the people will be sent back to Egypt and no illusion to the grace of the covenant that is made.

In the covenant made in Genesis 15, it is God as the suzerain who commits himself and swears, as it were, to keep the promise.

Animals slaughtered at the scene of the covenant are considered sacrificial offerings. -Tradition of covenantal sacrifices goes back to the third millennium B.C. Statues are sometimes erected alongside of animal sacrifice.

The Covenant with Abraham and the covenant with David are indeed based on a common pattern and their literary formulation may have the same historical and literary antecedents.

The Grant of Hebron to Caleb.

Granting a city or a territory to the one who excelled in the king’s expedition is indeed very common in the kudurru documents and the case of Caleb has therefore to be considered as a grant although we don’t know whether the grant reflects an authentic historical fact of the times of the conquest or is rather a back projection of later times.

Clements suggested that Hebron was the birth place of the traditions of the Abrahamic and Davidic covenants.

Priestly revenues in the Ancient Near East were also subject to grants and royal bestowals.

-Clements argues justifiably for the dependence of the Abrahamic covenant in P upon the Davidic covenant.