NOTES TO: Overholt's "Prophecy and Divination" 1. B. Long, "Divination," IDBSup, 241.
2. A. L. Oppenheim, Ancient Mesopotamia (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964), 207.
 3. J. Mack, "Animal Representations in Kuba Art: An Anthropological Interpretation of Sculpture," Oxford Art Journal  (November 1981):53.
4. Cf. I. Mendelsohn, "Divination," IDB, vol. A-D, 856-58.
5. Cf. A. Guillaume, Prophecy and Divination among the Hebrews and Other Semites (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1938), 118-27, gives examples of omens among tenth-century C.E. Arabs.
6. Cf. ibid., 164-76. At the end of his discussion, Guillaume asks how, if there arc recognizable techniques for producing the results of divination, the words that accompany its announcement "Thus says Yahweh," can be justified. He continues, "The answer, I think, is that to the Hebrews God was the immediate cause of every act in the universe, and therefore sights and sounds which fell upon the senses of the prophet at the moment of prophesying were `signs' communicated by God at that particular moment to indicate his will. A similar explanation may be given to the oracles of the Beduin. Originally they rested on a belief in the power of a heathen god; in Islam they were believed to rest on a knowledge of Allah's purposes. In Islam, as in Judaism, there is no immediate agent between God and Creation" (183).
7. LXX substitutes ephod for MT's ark. R. W. Klein accepts this reading on the grounds that "during Saul's reign" the ark was "stationed at Kiriath-jearim" and that the language corresponds to references to consulting the ephod in 1 Sam. 23:9 and 30:7; 1 Samuel (Waco: Word Books, 1983), 132; cf. H. P. Smith, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Books of Samuel (New York: Scribncr's, 1902); P. K. McCarter, l Samuel (Garden City N.Y: Doubleday, 1980).
8. Although it is clear enough in this passage that the Urim and Thummim were one mechanism for arriving at conclusions by "lots," the few references to them give no information about what they were, apart from the fact that they were small enough to be kept in a pocket of the "breastplate of judgment," one of the priestly garments (Exod. 28:30; Lev. 8:8). E. Robertson has argued plausibly that the Urim and Thummim were small objects upon which were written letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Because letters also stood for numbers, these could be drawn from the breastplate to render decisions by
means of odd-even discriminations; "The Urim and Thummim; What Were They?," VT 14 (1964):67-74.
9. Modern translations (e.g., RSV, NEB, JB) and commentators (e.g., Smith, Samuel; McCarter, 1 Samuel; Klein, l Samuel; cf. A. Toeg, "A Textual Note on 1 Samuel XIV 41," VT 19 [1969]:493-98; E. Noort, "Eine Weitere Kurzbemerkung zu 1 Samuel XIV 41," VT 21 [1971]:112-16) tend to follow the longer LXX text in v. 41. The shorter version found in MT is presumably the result of an error of the eye, the copyist accidentally skipping material between the first and the last occurrence of the word Israel.
10. McCarter, 1 Samuel.
11. At least not in its original form; cf. McCarter, 1 Samuel; Klein, 1 Samuel.
12. Cf. McCarter, 1 Samuel, 177.
13. Cf. further B. Birch, "The Development of the Tradition on the Anointing of Saul in I Sam. 9:1-10:16," JBL 90 (1971):56.
14. Ibid. 67; cf P. K. McCarter, l Samuel, 186-87.
15. H. Hertzberg, I &11 Samuel: A Commentary (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1964), 79.
16. Cf. Klein, 1 Samuel, 84.
17. Cf. McCarter, 1 Samuel, 176, 185.
18. Hertzberg, 1 & II Samuel, 83.
19. Cf. Klein, 1 Samuel.   
20. In H. Hoffner's opinion, the term 'ob refers to a pit dug to give spirits of the dead temporary access to the upper world; "Second Millennium Antecedents to the Hebrew 'ob,"JBL 86 (1967):385-401. Subsequently J. Lust argued persuasively that the 'obot are neither pits nor wizards, but "the spirits of the deceased fathers living in the netherworld" and also "the instruments representing them" (in 2 Kings 21:6 and 23:24,they are apparently material objects); "On Wizards and Prophets," VTSup 26 (1974):139, 142. Leviticus 20:27 appears to suggest that mediums may be possessed by one or more of these spirits ("a man or woman in whom there is an ancestral spirit ['ob] or a ghost [yidde'oni]"), although the translations (RSV, NEB, JB) obscure this. In 1 Sam. 28:3, 9, as in Lev. 20:27 and elsewhere, these two terms occur as a pair; Klein (1 Samuel, 270) understands the latter to refer to "ghosts or their images."
21. Lust "On Wizards and Prophets," 141 n. 7.
22. W. Beuken, "I Samuel 28: The Prophet As 'Hammer of Witches,"' JSOT 6 (1978):8.
23. McCarter (1 Samuel, 423) understands vv 17-18 to be part of a pre-Deuteronomistic stratum of the text; Klein (1 Samuel, 270) considers vv. 17-19aa to be Deuteronomistic.
24. Lust, "On Wizards and Prophets," 142; cf. I Kings 14:1-16; 22:5-6; 2 Kings 8:7-15.
25. Such acceptance is probably also implied in passages like 2 Sam. 16:23 and Isa. 3:2-3, where diviners are simply mentioned in a list of official roles.
26. Cf. R. R. Wilson, Prophecy and Society in Ancient Israel (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1980), 160-66.
27. His "prophetic history"; McCarter, 1 Samuel, 18, 20.
28. Wilson, Prophecy and Society, 162.
29. E.g., Deut. 18:9, 12; 2 Kings 9:22; 17:17 (cf vv. 7-8, 15); 21:6; Isa. 2:6; 8:19; cf Isa. 19:3.
30. Because there is no evidence that the prophets mentioned in the Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Micah passages were employing any technical means of divination, possibly divination is used here in a general sense to refer to communication between God and humans. That divination itself is not under attack is, nonetheless, revealing.
31. Other examples may be found in 1 Sam. 9:9; 2 Kings 3:9-20; 8:7-15; 22:11-20; Ezek. 14:7 (where coming to a prophet to inquire of Yahweh is spoken of as a routine occurrence); 20:1-2; Mic. 3:6-7 (which implies that under normal conditions prophets could be expected to have visions and divinations). Note that 2 Kings 1:2, 3, 6, 16 assumes that inquiring of both Baal and Yahweh is normal practice, although in Israel the latter is to be preferred (the consultation is not said to be through a prophet but Elijah is the one who eventually supplies the requested information, v. 16). Isaiah 31:1 and Jer. 10:21 both condemn Judah for not inquiring of Yahweh in the process of planning foreign policy; prophets are not explicitly mentioned in either passage.
32. Cf. also Lev. 20:6; Isa. 8:19; 19:3.
33. In the last case Yahweh is said not to have responded to the divination (I Sam. 14:37). We could still argue that Yahweh initiated the contact, however, because when in response to the silence Saul redefined the problem, there was an answer (vv. 38-42).
34. Cf. Gen. 44:15, which seems to refer to Joseph's ability to know that his possession had been "stolen."
35. Cf. also Prov. 16:10 ("divination is upon the king's lips/his mouth is not unfaithful in judgment"), which rationalizes the kung's authority by trading on the assumption that the results of divination aree determined by God.
36. Cf 14:36-37; 23:9-12; 30:7-8; Lev. 16:8-10; and, by implication, Num. 27:21; Neh. 7:65.
37. R. Serjeant, "Islam," in Oracles and Divination, ed. M. Loewe arid C. Blacker (Boulder, Colo.: Shambhala, 1981), 215-32; cf A. Guillaume, Prophecy and Divination, 130-31.
38. T. W. Overholt, Prophecy in Cross-Cultural Perspective (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1986), 101-22.
39. Ibid., 150-58.
40. Ibid., 249-84.
41. P. Rigby, "Prophets, Diviners, and Prophetism: The Recent History of Kiganda Religion," Journal of Anthropological Research 31 (1975):116-48.
42. J. Beattie, "Divination in Bunyoro, Uganda," Sociologus n.s. 14 (1964):46; B. Colby and L. Colby The Daykeeper: The Life and Discourse of an Ixil Diviner (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981), 121, 127, 137; W. Hammond-Tooke "The Initiation of a Bhaca Isangoma Diviner, African Studies 14 (1955):20-21; E. McClelland, The Cult of Ifa Among the Yoruba, vol. 1, Folk Practice and the Art (London: Ethnographica, 1982), 97; P. Rigby and F. Lule, Divination and Healing in Peri-Urban Kampala, Uganda (Kampala, Uganda: Makerere Institute of Social Research, 1971), 28, 42, 50-54; A. Shelton, "The Meaning and Method of Afa Divination among the Northern Nsukka Ibo," AA 67 (1965) :1444; V. Turner, Revelation and Divination in Ndembu Ritual (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1975), 319, 321; Overholt, Prophecy in Cross Cultural Perspective, 93-95.
43. W. Bascom, Ifa Divination: Communication Between Gods and Men in West Africa (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1969), 87-88; C. Radha, "Tibet," Oracles and Divination, 6; E. Ramponi, "Religion and Divination of the Logbara Trive of North-Uganda "Anthropos 32 (1937):851.
44. Radha, "Tibet," 6. Divination was part of die regular duties of Tibetan lamas.
45. Colby and Colby, Daykeeper, 71, 136-37; D. Merkur, Becoming Half Hidden: Shamanism and Initiation among the Inuit (Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell International, 1985), 115; J. Morrison, "The Classical World," in Oracles and Divination, 103-4; Overholt, Prophecy in Cross-Cultural Perspective, 70-71; Radha, "Tibet," 6-7; Rigby and Lule, Divination and Healing, 50-54.
46. Bascom, Ifa Divination, 79.
47. McClelland, Cult of Ifa, 57-58.
48. Cf. the texts reprinted in Overholt, Prophecy in Cross-Cultural Perspective, 67-74.
49. Colby and Colby, Daykeepcr, 71; M. Fortes, "Religious Premises and Logical Technique in Divinatory Ritual," Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, B, 251 (1966): 414; Hammond-Tooke, "Initiation."
50. Radha, "Tibet," 35.
51. McClelland, Cult of Ifa, 57-58.
52. S. Whyte, Misfortune and Divination in Bunyole (Kampala, Uganda: Makerere Institute of Social Research, 1971), 6-7.
53. W. Bascom, "The Sanctions of Ifa Divination," JRAI 71 (1941):44-45, 52; J. Clarke, "Ifa Divination," JRAI 69 (1939):235; Fortes, "Religious Premises," 416; E. Idowu, Olodumare; God in Yoruba Belief (London: Longmans, 1962), 77; H. Junod, The Life of a South African Tribe, II. Mental Life, 2d rev. ed. (London: Macmillan, 1927), 570; Mack, "Animal Representations"; E. McClelland, "The Significance of Number in the Odu of Ifa," Africa 36 (1966):423-24.
54. McClelland, Cult of Ifa, 41.
55. Bascom, Ifa Divination, 141ff. 
56. Bascom, Sanctions of Ifa," 44-4569-70; McClelland, Cult of Ifa, 56.
57. Bascom "Sanctions of Ifa," 48-52. Such secrecy is also attested among the Arabs (Guillaume, Prophecy and Divination, 118, 126-27), as well as the Zezeru of Zimbabwae and the Navajo (cf. Overholt, Prophecy in Cross-Cultural Perspective, 94 243).
58. Bascom, Ifa Divination, 12, 60-62, 91-99, 118; McClelland, Cult of Ifa, 13, 95; G. Park, "Divination and Its Social Contexts," JRAI 93 (1963):195-209; Shelton, "Meaning and Method," 1454.
59. J. Pecirkova, "Divination and Politics in the Late Assyrian Empire," Archiv Orientalni 53 (1985):155.
60. Bascom, "Sanctions of Ifa," 53, 70-71; Junod, Life of a South African Tribe, 569; Overholt, Prophecy in Cross-Cultural Perspective, 71.
61. Bascom, Ifa Divination, 109; O. Gurney, "The Babylonians and Hittites," in Oracles and Divination, 146; McClelland, Cult of Ifa, 13, 41-42.
62. Bascom, Ifa Divination, 37-38; Clarke, "Ifa Divination," 239; W Lambert, "The `Tamitu' Texts, La divination en Mesopotamie ancienne et dans les regions voisines (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1966), 120; E. Reiner, "Fortune-Telling in Mesopotamia," JNES 19 (1960):24-25; Turner, Revelation and Divination, 274-75.
63. C. Gadd, "Some Babylonian Divinatory Methods and Their Inter-Relations," in La divination en Mesopotamie ancienne, 22.
64. A. L. Oppenheim, Ancient Mesopotamia (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1964), 207; cf. his "Perspectives on Mesopotamian Divination," La divination en Mesopotamie ancienne, 36.
65. Bascom, Ifa Divination 119.
66. Colby and Colby Daykeeper, 229-30; McClelland, Cult of Ifa, 87.
67. L. Vollweiler and A. Sanchez, "Divination - 'Adaptive' From Whose Perspective?" Ethnology 22 (1983):193-94.
68. A. Tanner, "Divination and Decisions: Multiple Explanations for Algonkian Scapulimancy," in The Yearbook of Symbolic Anthropology, ed. E. Schwimoner (London: C. Hurst, 1978), 97.
69. Bascom, Ifa Divination, 51, 118; J. Boston, "Ifa Divination in Igala," Africa 44 (1974):350; S. Dornan, "Divination and Divining Bones," South African Journal of Science 20 (1923):506, 508; Radha, "Tibet," 4-5.
70. W Eiselen, "The Art of Divination as Practised by the BaMasemola," Bantu Studies (1932):10;, Junod, Life of a South African Tribe, 561; Radha, "Tibet," 4-5.
71. Beattie, "Divination in Bunyoro," 45; Colby and Colby, Daykeeper, 223; Dornan, "Divination and Divining Bones," 505; Mack, "Animal Representations"; Overholt, Prophecy in Cross-Cultural Perspective, 74-76; Radha, "Tibet," 4-5; Shelton, "Meaning and Method," 1447-49.
72. 1 Kings 14:1-20. Cf. Colby and Colby, Daykeeper, 223, 231; Junod, Life of a South African Tribe, 550-51; Mack, "Animal Representations"; Overholt, Prophecy in Cross-Cultural Perspective, 91-94, 279-82; Radha, "Tibet," 4-5; Ramponi, "Religion and Divination," 851; Turner, Revelation and Divination, 214, 230.
73. J. Aro, "Remarks on the Practice of Extispicy in the Time of Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal," La divination en Mesopotamie ancienne, 109-17; Bascom, Ifa Divination, 51; idem, Sixteen Cowries: Yoruba Divination from Africa to the New World (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1980), 5-7; C. Blacker, "Japan," Oracles and Divination, 69; Gurney, "Babylonians and Hittites," 149-50; Lambert, "'Tamitu' Texts," 121; McClelland, Cult of Ifa, 49; Morrison, "The Classical World," 96-97, 99-100.
74. Bascom, Ifa Divination, 12, 50, 54, 68-71, 77.
75. Ibid., 11.
76. Gurney, "Babylonians and Hittites," 166-67; S. Hooke, Babylonian and Assyrian Religion (London: Hutchinson's University Library, 1953), 87-91; E. Leichty, "Teratological Omens," in La divination en Mesopotamie ancienne, 131; A. L. Oppenheim, "Divination and Celestial Observation in the Last Assyrian Empire," Centaurus 14 (1969):98, 121; idem, "A Babylonian Diviner's Manual," JNES 33 (1974):197-220; Pecirkova, "Divination and Politics," 157, 167-68; Reiner, "Fortune-Telling in Mesopotamia " 31. Cf. also M. Jackson, "Sacrifice and Social Structure Among the Kuranko," Africa 47 (1977):123-24; M. Loewe, "China," Oracles and Divination, 48-49, 53.
77. Overholt, Prophecy in Cross-Cultural Perspective, 92, 95-96.
78. Mack, "Animal Representations."
79. Overholt, Prophecy in Cross-Cultural Perspective, 92.
80. Bascom, Ifa Divination, 11, 69-71 76; McClelland, Cult of Ifa, 41-50.
81. Colby and Colby, Daykeeper, 230-33.
82. Eiselen, "Art of Divination," 28-29.
83. Radha, "Tibet," 15-16.
84. Vollweiler and Sanchez, "Divination," 199-201.
85. Cf. the text reprinted in Overholt, Prophecy in Cross-Cultural Perspective, 157.
86. Blacker, "Japan," 80-83.
87. V. Elwin, The Religion of an Indian Tribe (London: Oxford University Press 1955), 277-78; for traditional Ugandan societies, cf. Rigby and Lule, "Divination and Healing."
88. Overholt, Prophecy in Cross-Cultural Perspective, 114.
89. Along with mediums, diviners function mainly to aid the common man to order and safeguard his future, and . . . give him a means of acting to achieve these ends"; their primary orientation is toward the future. Prophets are associated with national gods at national and royal shrines. The priests at these shrines are primarily oriented toward the past and prophets speak mostly to "the king and a few senior chiefs and notables." P. Rigby, "Prophets, Diviners, and Prophetism," 131.
90. Ibid., 134.
91. Ibid., 135-36.  
92. Ibid. 139.  
93. Cf. R. Wilson, "Early Israelite Prophecy," Int 32 (1978):3-7; H. Huffmon, "The Origins of Prophecy," in Magnalia Dei, The Mighty Acts of God, ed. E Cross, et al. (Garden City N.Y.: Doubleday, 1976), 181; J. Porter, "The Origins of Prophecy in Israel," in Israel's Prophetic Tradition, ed. R. Coggins, et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 12-31; R. Rendtorff, "Erwagungen zur Fruhgeschichte des Prophetismus in Israel, ZTK 59 (1962):145-67; S. Herrmann, Ursprung and Function der Prophetie in alters Israel (Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1976).
94. M. Haran, "From Early to Classical Prophecy: Continuity and Change," VT 27 (1977):385-97.
95. Cultures may display a preference for intermediaries of a certain type. Available evidence suggests that in the Mesopotamian heartland, divination was of great importance, but prophecy was not. There were prophets at Mari on the western "periphery of Mesopotamia" (cf. Wilson, "Early Israelite Prophecy" 10), although H. Huffmon suggests that the requirement, or sometimes suggestion, that their oracles be confirmed by technical divination (extispicy) shows that they "were not regarded as a fully
acceptable means for divine revelation by the royal administration"; "Prophecy in the Mari Letters," BA 31 (1968):109; cf. 121-22. In the Hebrew Bible as it has come down to us (much influenced in the historical and prophetic books by Deuteronomistic theology), prophets appear as the preferred form of intermediary.
96. S. Moscovici, "On Social Representation," in Social Cognition, ed. J. Forgas (New York: Academic Press, 1981), 196-97.
97. H. Tajfel and J. Forgas, "Social Categorization: Cognitions, Values and Groups," in Social Cognition, 116-23.
98. R. Brown, Social Psychology (New York: Free Press, 1965), 154.
99. Huffmon, "Origins of Prophecy," 172.
100. Huffmon, "Prophecy in the Mari Letters," 103.
101. Huffmon, "Priestly Divination in Israel," in The Word of the Lord Shall Go Forth, ed. C. Meyers and M. O'Connor (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1983), 355-59.
102. K. Burridge, New Heaven New Earth: A Study of Millenarian Activities (New York: Schocken Books, 1969) 154-55.
103. J. Blenkinsopp, A History of Prophecy in Israel (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1983), 15. Cf. M. Bourdillon, who contrasts nationalistic Israelite prophets with Shona oracles, in "Oracles and Politics in Ancient Israel," Man 12 (1977):124-40.
104. Wilson, "Early Israelite Prophecy," 8.
105. For examples of consulting shaking tent shamans for the purpose of diagnosing and curing illness, cf. Overholt, Prophecy in Cross-Cultural Perspective, 63-66.
106. CE M. Hutter, "Religionsgeschichtliche Erwangungen zu 'elohim in 1 Sam. 28, 13," Biblische Notizen 21 (1983):32-36.
107. Especially in his chapters on divinatory prophecy and dreams and visions, Guillaume points to close parallcls in technique between Israelite prophecy and more recent Arabic modes of divination (omens, dreams, visions). For Guillaume, who operates within the framework of an evolutionary view of religion, the uniqueness of the Israelite prophets lies elsewhere, namely; a "more profoundly spiritual view of life" than was attained by "heathen" diviners; Prophecy and Divination, 364-65. On the general topic of shamanistic elements in the Hebrew Bible, cf. A. Kapelrud, "Shamanistic Features in the Old Testament," in Studies in Shamanism, ed. C.-M. Edsman (Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell, 1967), 90-96; and K. Goldammer, "Elemente des Schamanismus im alten Testament," Ex Orbe Religionem: Studies in the History of Religions (Supplements to Numen 22 [ 19721:266-85).
108. H. Orlinsky, "The Seer in Ancient Israel," Oriens Antiquus 4 (1965):153-74.
109. Huffmon, "Origins of Prophecy" 183.
110. Orlinsky, "Seer in Ancient Israel," 155-60.
111. McClelland, Cult of Ifa 50.