Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

NEW YEAR

Traditionally a time of celebration, renewal, and ritual. In the agrarian societies of the ancient Near East, the New Year festivities corresponded to the cyclical agricultural season; elaborate ceremonies marked the phenomenon of transition from one season into the next. The peoples of the ancient Near East celebrated New Year’s festivals during both sowing and harvest seasons, at the beginning or end of the agricultural year. In early Mesopotamian societies the akītu festival, often referred to as the New Year’s festival, first occurred in Tishri around the time of the fall equinox; in the later periods, especially at Babylon, it was observed at the vernal equinox during the first 12 days of Nisan. Similarly, ancient Israel observed agricultural festivals which may have been New Year celebrations.

The timing of the New Year in ancient Israel is uncertain and debated among scholars. Some suggest that there were two New Year’s days, the spring New Year commemorating the cultic new year and the fall festival celebrating the civic new year. The OT contains scarce evidence of a New Year’s celebration and its accompanying rituals. In the early period of Israelite history the autumnal festival (heḥāg; 1 Kgs. 8:2, 65) and the festival of the Lord (ḥag-YHWH; Judg. 21:19) celebrated in the seventh month (Tishri) marked the turn of the new year. Jeroboam (1 Kgs. 12:32) celebrated this same festival in the eighth month. Ezek. 40:1 reports rōʾš haššānâ (the “head of the year”) as 10 Tishri. These autumnal celebrations reflect the influence of the solar calendar; after the Exile, when the lunar calendar was adopted, the New Year was celebrated on the first day of the new moon in the month of Nisan. In Lev. 25:9 the blowing of the shofar on the tenth day of the seventh month may designate the beginning of the new year, as it does in later Jewish Rosh Hashanah celebrations. Drawing upon comparative evidence of cult ritual drama in the ancient Near East, Sigmund Mowinckel theorized that Pss. 47, 93, 96-100 were Enthronement Psalms, each containing liturgy that celebrated the enthronement of Yahweh. The Sitz im Leben of these Psalms was the annual reenactment of the ritual cult drama when Yahweh was celebrated as king, creator, and savior of the world.

New Year’s festivals in the ancient Near East included a number of similar elements — processions of the king and the deities, intricate sacrifices, prayers, rites of purification and cleansing of the temple, and celebrations to commemorate the overcoming of chaos and restoration of order. In the Ugaritic literature, the myth of the death and resurrection of Baal, as a fertility god, celebrating his triumph over Mot and the building of his palace, has been connected to the autumn New Year festivities in Canaan. In Egyptian New Year rituals at the temple of Edfu, the statue of the god Horus was removed from his temple and exposed to the rays of the sun to reunite his body with his soul. The Babylonian akītu festival, which became the most important religious and political celebration in Mesopotamian history, also involved complex and elaborate rituals. The temples of Marduk and Nabu were ritually purified, decorated with splendid adornments, and filled with lavish offerings and banquets. The creation epic, the Enuma Elish, commemorating Marduk’s victory over chaos, was recited before his statue. The akītu festival celebrated the supremacy of Marduk as the national deity, as well as the sovereignty of the king as the chosen representative of Marduk. The king underwent a ritual humiliation, stripped of his crown, scepter, and sword, forced to his knees and required to swear an oath stating that he had not neglected his duties as king and to promise to respect Marduk and the people of Babylon. The king “took the hand” of Marduk and led a procession of the statues of Marduk and neighboring deities through the city, in magnificent view of the Babylon citizens, to the akītu house, which lay on the outskirts of the city walls. The destinies of the land, presumably for the upcoming year, were fixed and the festival ended with the gods returning to their temples.

Julye Bidmead

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

NEW YEAR

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)