Bible Dictionary
NUZU (o NUZI)
NUZU (o NUZI)
Tell (see TELL) at Yorghan Tepe, 200 m. in length and 5 in height, located 16 km southwest of Kirkuk, 220 km north of Baghdad, in Upper Mesopotamia. Discovered thanks to following a clue: some tablets that were sold in bazaars in Kirkuk to tourists.
Following the trail led to this tell, which was methodically excavated, between 1925 and 1931, by several agencies, among which the American Schools of Oriental Research and the Iraq Museum played an important role.
The tell is made up of twelve strata of occupation, from prehistoric times, through various historical stages, to the two upper strata, which correspond to the city of Nuzu (“Nuzi” is the genitive form of Nuzu). The two upper levels, I and II, are the most important in relation to the world of the Bible.
Four thousand tablets written in cuneiform characters have been discovered in them, which have been assigned to the 15th century BC. based on conventional chronology. The texts of these tablets constitute a valuable collection of private and public archives of four generations, and provide good information on the political and economic life and social customs of the ancient world, appearing contracts, reports, judicial rulings and various other types of writings.
An extremely interesting aspect of these tablets is that, belonging to a chronological framework approximately the time of the patriarchs, they provide a social historical framework that harmonizes closely with details of the Genesis narratives about Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Esau, Sarah and Hagar. Several mentions can be made of this:
(a) Abraham’s allusion to Eliezer, his steward, as a possible heir (Gen. 15:2, 3) is illuminated by the Nuzi tablets. In them appears the law that if you did not have children, you could adopt one, who during the life of the adoptive father was his servant, and upon his death he inherited the property. However, if a child of his own was born, he received the inheritance.
(b) The case of Hagar, who was given to Abraham as a concubine by Sarah herself (Gen. 16:2), is also illustrated in the Nuzi tablets. It was the custom there that if one’s wife bore children to her husband, she could not have another wife; Otherwise, she could take another wife from among her slaves, until she had offspring.
In any case, if the first wife later had a child, it was the free wife’s child who had to inherit from her. However, the slave and her offspring were not to be sent away. This law may explain Abraham’s resistance to granting Sarah’s request, as well as his natural affection for Ishmael (Gen. 21:10, 11).
(c) Esau’s sale of his birthright to Jacob is also illustrated on the tablets. There is a record of Tupkitilla’s sale to his brother Kurpazah of her inheritance rights to a grove for three sheep. So this practice developed in a context where it was not unknown (cf. Gen. 25:27-34).
(d) The blessing of Isaac and Jacob was firm (cf. Gen. 27:35-37), and Isaac himself maintained it once given. In the Nuzu tablets there appears a record of a lawsuit, in which Tarmiya won against two of his brothers, who wanted to prevent him from taking a woman called Zululishtar as his wife.
The judges ruled in her favor by establishing that her father had formally granted it to her in a solemn oral declaration. So oral wills were considered valid and binding.
(e) The efforts of Abraham’s steward to obtain a wife for Isaac (cf. Gen. 24) are also illustrated in Nuzu. One had to deal with the legal guardian of the maiden, who was frequently the brother, to whom the dowry was paid. Another way to get a wife was to be adopted by one’s father-in-law and work for him (cf. Gen. 29:14-l9 ff.).
(f) The case of Rachel’s theft of Laban’s teraphim and Laban’s thorough search for them, after having pursued them for seven days, searching all the luggage of Jacob and his family (cf. Gen. 31: 19-35), receives its explanation by the law of Nuzu according to which the possession of domestic idols by the son-in-law meant that he must be the heir of the father-in-law’s possessions.
Thus, through these tablets and many others, one can see to what extent the narratives of the patriarchs in Genesis fit in these cultural and social details with the general framework of the time in which they lived, and how these records had to be written by someone truly knowledgeable of the facts, instead of constituting, according to theological liberalism, a kind of saga written long after the facts.
It should be noted that the revised chronology places these records, from a time contemporary and immediately after that of Hammurabi, at a date around the 15th-14th century BC. (See HAMMURABI.)
Nuzu was located approx. 550 km east-southeast of Haran. The population of the strata corresponding to Nuzu has been identified as Hurrians.
BETHEL
is the name of a Canaanite city in the ancient region of Samaria, located in the center of the land of Canaan, northwest of Ai on the road to Shechem, 30 kilometers south of Shiloh and about 16 kilometers north of Jerusalem.
Bethel is the second most mentioned city in the Bible. Some identify it with the Palestinian village of Beitin and others with the Israeli settlement of Beit El.
Bethel was the place where Abraham built his altar when he first arrived in Canaan (Genesis 12:8; Genesis 13:3). And at Bethel Jacob saw a vision of a ladder whose top touched heaven and the angels ascended and descended (Genesis 28:10-19).
For this reason Jacob was afraid, and said, “How terrible is this place! It is nothing other than the house of God, and the gate of heaven »and he called Bethel the place that was known as «Light» (Genesis 35-15).
Bethel was also a sanctuary in the days of the prophet Samuel, who judged the people there (1 Samuel 7:16; 1 Samuel 10:3). And it was the place where Deborah, the nurse of Rebekah, Isaac’s wife, was buried.
Bethel was the birthplace of Hiel, who sought to rebuild the city of Jericho (1 Kings 16:34).
When Bethel did not yet belong to the people of Israel, Joshua had to battle against the king of Bethel and other kings and defeated them (Joshua 12-16).
When the people of Israel had taken possession of the promised land, in the division by tribes it was assigned to the Tribe of Benjamin (Joshua 18-22), but in later times it belonged to the Tribe of Judah (2 Chronicles 13:19).
It was one of the places where the Ark of the Covenant remained, a symbol of the presence of God.
In Bethel the prophet Samuel judged the people.
Then the prophet Elisha went up from there to Bethel; and as he was going up the road, some boys came out of the city and mocked him, and said to him: “Go up, bald man; Come up, bald! When he looked back and saw them, he cursed them in the name of the Lord. Then two bears came out of the forest and tore to pieces forty-two boys” (2 Kings 2:23).
After the division of the kingdom of Israel, Jeroboam I, king of Israel, had a golden calf raised at Bethel (1 Kings 21:29) which was destroyed by Josiah, king of Judah, many years later (2 Kings 23:15). .
Bethel was also a place where some of the Babylonian exiles who returned to Israel in 537 BC gathered. (Ezra 2:28).
The prophet Hosea, a century before Jeremiah, refers to Bethel by another name: “Bet-Aven” (Hosea 4:15; Hosea 5:8; Hosea 10:5-8), which means ‘House of Iniquity’, ‘House of Nothingness’, ‘House of Vanity’, ‘House of Nullity’, that is, of idols.
In Amos 7: 12-13 the priest Amaziah tells the prophet Amos that he flee to Judah and no longer prophesy in Bethel because it is the king’s sanctuary, and the head of the kingdom.
The prophet Jeremiah states that “the house of Israel was ashamed of Bethel” (Jeremiah 48:13), because of their idolatry and, specifically, the worship of the golden calf.
PUTEOLI
(lat.: “small fountains”).
Two days after arriving in Rhegium, the ship carrying Paul arrived at Puteoli, which was then an important maritime city.
The apostle found Christians there, and enjoyed their hospitality (Acts 28:13).
It was located on the northern coast of the Gulf of Naples, near the site of present-day Pouzzoles.
The entire surrounding region is volcanic, and the Solfatare crater rises behind the city.
PUT
Name of a nation related to the Egyptians and neighbors of their country (Gen. 10:6).
Put is mentioned with Egypt and other African countries, especially Libya (Nah. 3:9) and Lud (Ez. 27:10; Is. 66:19 in the LXX. Put appears between Cush and Lud in Jer. 46:9; Ez. 30:5).
In the LXX he is translated as Libyans in Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Josephus also identifies it with Libya (Ant. 1:6, 2), but in Nah. 3.9 is distinguished from the Libyans.
Current opinion is divided between Somalia, Eastern Arabia and Southern Arabia (Perfume Coast).
PURPLE
A coloring substance that is extracted from various species of mollusks. The ancient Tyrians used two types of them: the “Murex trunculus”, from which the bluish purple was extracted, and the “Murex brandaris”, which gave the red.
The ink of its coloring matter varies in color depending on the region in which it is fished.
Piles of murex shells, artificially opened, have been discovered in Minet el-Beida, port of ancient Ugarit (Ras Shamra), which gives evidence of the great antiquity of the use of this purple dye (see UGARIT).
Due to its high price, only the rich and magistrates wore purple (Est. 8:15, cf. the exaltation of Mordecai, v. 2, Pr. 31:22; Dan. 5:7; 1 Mac. 10 :20, 62, 64; 2 Mac. 4:38; cf. v 31; Luke 16:19; Rev. 17:4).
The rulers adorned themselves in purple, even those of Midian (Judg. 8:26). Jesus was mocked with a purple robe (Mark 15:17).
Great use had been made of purple-dyed fabrics for the Tabernacle (Ex. 25:4; 26:1, 31, 36) and for the high priest’s vestments (Ex. 28:5, 6, 15, 33; 39: 29). The Jews gave symbolic value to purple (Wars 5:5, 4).
PURIM
(Heb., plural of “luck”).
Haman cast lots to determine a day of good omen for the destruction of the Jews.
As Haman’s designs were undone, the liberation of the Jews was marked by an annual festival (Est. 3:7; 9:24-32) on the fourteenth and fifteenth days of the month of Adar.
This festival is not mentioned by name in the NT, although there are exegetes who assume that it is the one referred to in Jn. 5:1.
This festival continues to be celebrated within Judaism: the book of Esther is read, and curses are pronounced on Haman and his wife, blessings are pronounced on Mordecai and the eunuch Harbonah (Est. 1:10; 7: 9).
PURIFICATION, PURITY
In the Mosaic Law four ways to purify oneself from contamination were indicated:
(a) Purification of contamination contracted by touching a dead person (Num. 19; cf. Num. 5:2, 3),
(b) Purification from impurity due to bodily emissions (Lev. 15; cf. Num. 5:2, 3).
(c) Purification of the woman in labor (Lev. 12:1-8; Luke 2:21-24).
(d) Purification of the leper (Lev. 14).
To this, the scribes and Pharisees added many other purifications, such as washing hands before eating, washing vessels and dishes, showing great zeal in these things, while inside they were full of extortion and iniquity (Mark 7: 2-8).
In Christianity the necessary purification extends:
to the heart (Acts 15:9; James 4:8),
to the soul (1 Pet. 1:22), and
to the conscience through the blood of Christ (Heb. 9:14).
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BETHEL