This colloquium brought together biblical scholars, specialists of
ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, and of the Islamic word. The
motif of divine wrath is indeed a topic that can be found in almost all
ancient civilizations, but is also often used in contemporary religious
discourse. It presupposes that personal or collective faults provoke
divine anger, which can manifest itself in political and military
catastrophes but also in personal disasters.
Several articles deal with
war and destruction as manifestations of divine wrath. In the Hebrew
Bible the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BCE is often understood as the
result of Yhwh’s anger. In the ancient Near East, military catastrophes
are seen to reflect divine punishment, such that certain texts explore
the possibility of appeasing the gods. Illness is also explained as the
consequence of the wrath of one or many gods. In ancient Egypt, and also
in the Hebrew Bible as well as texts from the Mameluke period,
particular skin diseases are understood as a material manifestation of
divine anger that stigmatizes the supposed sinner’s body.
In ancient
Mesopotamia as well as in the Bible, other texts criticize the idea of
divine retribution, arguing that a collective or personal disaster
cannot or should not be explained ‘logically’ in terms of divine
punishment.
There seems to be little doubt that almost all deities can
get angry quite easily, but what about divine repentance? Since the term
repentance may have a strong Christian undertone, it might be preferable
to speak of a change of mind, in which gods can also regret their acts,
show mercy, or be appeased. This idea is found in two penitential psalms
from Mari that are published for the first time in this volume. Examples
from ancient Greece also demonstrate the appeasement of divine anger,
whereas in ancient Rome the situation seems to have been somewhat
different. In the Hebrew Bible, the book of Jonah can be understood as a
parable about how Yhwh can or cannot change his mind.