An Appreciation of Adele Berlin

An Appreciation of Adele Belin � Marc Zi Brettler BRANDEIS UNIVERSIY � I tirst heard Adele Berlin speak at the annual meeting of the Society of Bibical Literature in New York in 1982. Now, more han thity years later, I sll remember the talkespecilly her clear and precise deiv­ t•ry, and the manner in which she demonsrated that the word-pais i mnd in biblical parallelsm are actually the same as the pairins that t•merge rom word association tess iven by psychologists; she there­ lly demolished he reining view that word-pais had to be specially leaned by poes in oder to compose parlleliss. This pe ofsimple, dl·ar, and briliant insiht typiies the work of Adele, whse writins I have come to know well, nd whom I count s a fiend and a close , .• ,!league since we ban working together moe than a decade ago to 1 o-cit 7te Jewsh Study Bibe. Adele was born into a traditiol Jewish family, to Phil Feigen­ h.mm and Saie Schwazman, on May 23, 1943, in Philadelphia. In ht•r l'arly yeas, she was interested n astronomy and then antropol­ oy. Her love afair with the iterature of the ancient Near East bean wll'n a teacher in her conregational Hebrew school introduced her to the Gilgamesh Epic. A sixth gade socil studis project on Meso­ potamia, for which she was assigned to research the Sumerians, tt'llll'nted his interest. It was nouished during junior hih and high �··hool, where, in a congregatioal Hebrew ih school, she studied Bihlt· under Shlom Paul (who later became Pofessor of Bible at the I khr'w Univesity ofjerusalem). Adele bean her undergraduate studis at he Uivesiy ofPen­ wlvania in 1960, knowing that she wanted to major in ancient Near 1· ,�1..-n languages and literaures, an unusual decision for a college lrrsluuan. Among he profesors who most iluenced the recion of .. 2 Mac Zvi Brettler her career was, in the ist instance, Aaron Shafer, later to become Profssor of Asyioloy at the Hebrew Univesity ofjeusalem, who aught her Aabic when she was a resman and who encouaed her to lean Akkadian. Folowing Shafer's advice, even though she was not enirely sure what Akaian ws, she sined up to study Akkadian in her sophomore year, continuing ith Arabic and ultimately study­ ing Qur'an under S. D. Goitein. She spent her junior year at the Hebrew Univesity ofjeralem, taking couses with renowned pro­ fesos ofSemitics, Bible, and Asrioloy. Adele retuned to Penn for er senigr yer, he e eod in E A Spiser's couse on Gen­ ess-he ad jst completed his nchor Bible volum nd in her ist of several courses with Moshe Greenberg, who also served as her underaduate advisor and who ws to have a profound inluence on her approach to biblicl iterature. hile an undergaduate at Penn, Adele smltaneously enroled in a degree progam at Graz College, where she leaned Hebrew rammar from Wlliam Chomsky and the book ofjob rom S. D. Goitein; she earned a Bachelor ofHebrew Let­ tes rom Graz College in 164. Having come to know and admire the aculty in ancient Near Easten Studis at Penn, Adele chose to remain here for her aduate stuies, compleing her Ph. D. deee in 1976. She was one of he st to study under three ians: E. A. Speiser, who taught her Bible and Akkaian txts; S. N. Kramer, the famous Sumeroloist, who con­ vinced her to write her dissertation in Sumeroloy; and, as menioned earlier, S. D. Goiten. Adele has remarked on how fortunate she felt to have studied with her Penn professos, who were not oly wold-class schoas, but also outsanding pedagoues, careful in the way they con­ ducted their classes, demaning but always supportive of their stu­ dens. She completed her ssertaion, "Enmerkar and Ensukeshan­ na: A Sumerian Narrative Poem" in 1976, under he direction of Ake W. Sjoberg, mer's succssor. It was ily innovaive in is appi­ cation of iteray methos to he study of ancient Sumeian texs; she would later apply similar methods to the study of bibliclliterature. Adele remembers with tremendous wamth her student colleaues at Penn, including Bay Eichler (who ws aso her teacher),JefTiay, Yaakov Klein, Lou Levine, Morton (now Mordechai) Cogan, Sid Leiman, Michael lein, and Jonathan Paradise, ll of whom went on to distinguished careers in ancient Near Easten Studies. Her col­ leagues formed a suppoive group, sociazng outside the classroom An Appreciation of Adele Berlin 3 .md helpi ng one ano her to prepare for classes-activities that p ro ­ •uoted pesonal and profess iona l frienships asg a lifetme. Adele still vlues them eve n now, over foy ye as l ater. Adele 's profesionl id ent iy ws sh aped at Penn, and Penn holds a specil place in her heat. Unlike many other Ivy Leaue univesitis, Penn had a p r actice ,, fhiring Jeish professos and ai tti ng many Jeishly knowlede­ a ble students. Jeish l e r nin -inc l ui ng rabbiic iterature, medi­ l'Val Je w ish commentaries, and modern Hebrew-ws valued and shared by many studens and p ro fessos and ws in te gate d into the stuy of the anient Near Est bore pams in Jish Sh1dis had hcen esablished at univesities. The sudy ofBible at Penn, which ws t h oroughl y i nte rated into ancient Near Eastern Sudis, was, at the same ime, costued s pat of classical Jeish liteaure, specially n M osh e Greenberg's couses. This made Adele's later tansition om Assyrioloy to bibl ical studis quite aural, and her close ssociaion with the J ewis h Studies program at Mayland e n tirely a pp ro pi ate. l'cnn's proam of vising Isaeli scholas futher e n hanced the con­ m·ctions among Jewish, biblical, and ancient Ner Eastern Studies, and inroduc ed Adele to Isaeli scholaship. Adele began her teaching career at Byn Mawr Collee, where she I aught kkadian . She went on to teach a variety ofc ors es at diferent ll·vcls at the Baltimore Hebrew Colege (later the Bltimore H e br ew U n ivesiy) . In Fall 1979, she accepted a psiion at the Univesiy of M a yl and , where she moved up the academ ic ranks quic kly , atng thl· rank of profeso r in 1986; she beame the Robet H. Smith Pro­ kssor ofHebrew Bible in 193. At Mayland, Adele en i c hed the lives of h und r es of students th ro u gh her couses on Hebrew language, hihlicl s tud ies , and ancient Near Eastern literature. Although the Unive s iy of Ma yland does not gant he Ph.D. in biblical s tuie s , \dde direct ed Iloa .ashkow's disseation in Compaative Litera­ Ill rl' and was he p ri m ay advisor for three aduate sudents in the nTcnly established M.A. in Jewsh Studies at Myland. She seved on nu me ro us doctoal coittees at Myland and at other univer­ �llil·s, genero sl y iving of her tme and knowledge to the next gen­ nation of schols. Adele not oly contibuted to he intelectual ife of the Univesiy, but she alo held s evera l import ant admiistative l'ositiom;, i ncludi n g Director of the Joseph nd Rebecca M eyerhof < :'ntcr for Jewish Suies, Associate Provost of Faculy Afis, and ( :hair of the Univesiy Senate. Those who know Adele will not be 4 Marc Zvi Brettler surprised that she used her power wisely nd gendy, helping faculy and sudents to negoiate the bureaucraic system and advancing the aims of the univesiy. Adele loos back on Mayland as a pace that allowed her to grow professionlly in many directions, and a home where her contibutions were valued. She is especially ateul to have had so many wondeful coleagus who shared her intellectual values and who stimulated boh her rsearch and her teaching, thus enabling her to thrive at Mayland. In aditio! ter teaching career at the Univesity of Mayland, Adele also held visiting profesoships at sevei istmulshed uuver­ sities and received fellowships rom he National Endoment for the Huanities, the meican Council ofLearned Societies, the Guggen­ heim Foundation, the Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the Uni­ versiy ofPennsylvania, and the Insitute for Advnced Studies of he Hebrew Univesiy ofJerusalem. She was elected to the American Academy ofjewish Research and to the Biblicl Coloquium and was chosen as Prsident of the Sociey of Biblical Literatue in 2000. The Baltimore Hebrew Univesity awarded her the deree ofDoctor of Hebrew Letters, Honoris Causa, in 205. She has also seved on the editoril boas of the most highly ated journals in jewsh and Biblical Studis and has eited seveal books, including he recently published revised ediion of he Oxford Dictionay f thejesh Relion, for which she is Editor-in-Chief(working in concert with her colleague, Seior Editor Maine Gossman). s a direct rsult of her teacing couses in Bible, Adele's interest and publicaions shifted rom ssyrioloy to biblical sudies, and espe­ cilly to the poetics ofboh prose and poetic wors, n area that she helped to pioneer. Her books and aricles show exquisite sensiiviy to the literary dimensions of the texts combined with a deep engagement with texs in their oiginal lanuages, using the strong philologicl slsshe learned at Penn. They represent diferent liteay approaches to ancient wors-her early work was especially inluenced by sruc­ turalism and Russian formalism, though more recent work has been more eclecic in is use of vaious iteay approaches, including inner­ biblical intepretation. Her most influential early books (both have been repinted anum­ ber of times) relect her intense interest in the liteay study of the Bible. Poets and Inepretation f Biblical Na"ative (1983) is an investi­ �ation into the compositionl techniques of biblical naative and how An Appreciation of Adele Berlin 5 attending to those techniques may aid the interpretation of biblical stois. The Dyamis of Bibli�l Parallelism (1985), influenced by the writins of Roman Jakobsen, alyzes biblical parallelm through a linguistic prism, showing that diferent types of paralelism (syntactic, lexical, rammatical) are formed by means of nuistic paiings that have the same deep stucture but iferent suace stuctures. Many of her insighs are summaized in the dazzling aricle on "Paralelism" in the AndJor Bible Dictionay. Beginning in the 1990s, Adele took up he wring of biblical com­ iitentans, ageilTpm1s rto ene lth liexn depth, and that daws on h!r srong philological tning an. her lit­ l'rary interests. She has concenrated on poetic books-Zephaniah ( 1994), Lamenatios (202), and Psalms (in prores); but her interest in narrative remains evident in her work on Esther (2001 ) . All her hoos, and her many articles, are attemps to undersand the meaning ,,fbibical texs within their histoical contexs, and to discen how the meaning (or meanins) may be derived from literary and linguistic phenomena. Her more recent work has shown a srong interest in late biblical writins, and even he wins from Quman, especially their poetic technique, and their continuity and discontinuiy with the llcbrew Bible. Adele's p ublished woks are composed in beau.tlly t Tated prose, elegant in their simplicity and in their clariy of thought .111d expresion. Adele's professional bioraphy would not be complete without tTl·diting her husband, George, a scholar of jewish hstoy in his own ri�ht, who has been Adele's chief source of encouagement and sup­ port. He has oten been the ist eader of her dafs, and is always a gold mine of Judaica knowledge, which Adele has drawn upon I hroughout their marriage. George coninually urged Adele to pusue ht·r scholasip and took many pacticl steps to make that possible. Adele and George are the parens of two children, Joseph and Miriam, .111d the grandparents of thre-Ethan,Jacob, and Rebecca (and Adele • •hscrves with pleasue hat they all have bibical names). I feel honored that Adele believes that co-editing heJish Study ift·, published by Oxford University Press in 2004, was her most unpotant project, because it reached such a ide auience of scholas, �•udcnt;, and interested reades and provided the opportuniy to work with so many excellent conibutors. I leaned so much from Adele as Wt' l'll;t:d in this project together; she was a real "team player." Each 6 Mac Zvi Brettler ofus was pimaily resposib le for, and ist edited, hafof the volume's nnotations and esays, rep re s e nting our areas of expeise; we then psse d them on to each oher for futher editng. I h ave never leaned so much so qu icl y While I ha ve heard colegues lament th eir expe­ ience e di ting books, working with Adele on the JSB w as lways a ples ure ; I can remember oly one occasion when we had a sini iant isagreement, and in that cse Adele emboied Eccleistes 9:17, that he words of the wi se shold be spoken softly. I am deli ght ed to join my colleagues in wishing her many more productive yes, so that the . commuuitist vle e bicl exs s e es y more sch olrl y insihs rom her feicitous pen. ejoy y Built by Wisdom, Established by Undestanding ssn l d r n te in Honor of Adele Belin Edited by Maxine L. Groman Univesiy Pres of Mayland Behesda, Maylnd 201]