The God Resheph in the Ancient Near East
The God Resheph in the Ancient Near East

Author: Maciej M. Münnich

Publisher: Mohr Siebeck

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 340

ISBN-13: 9783161524912

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Resheph was quite a popular god in the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC - especially in Syria - but during the 1st millennium his cult became extinct. Finally it was only maintained in several peripheral and isolated sites, such as in the Palmyra desert and in Cyprus. Maciej M. Munnich presents the written sources which mentioned Resheph and analyzes the features of Resheph's cult. He emphasizes that there is no confirmation for the theory that Resheph was a lord of the netherworld. Resheph was a belligerent, aggressive god who used diseases to attack people, but who could also heal. Because of the long period of the cult and the geographical range, one can notice some local features: In Egypt, for instance, Resheph originally was venerated as the deity supporting the Pharaoh in battles, but then he was summoned mainly because of illness and everyday needs.

The Storm-god in the Ancient Near East
The Storm-god in the Ancient Near East

Author: Alberto Ravinell Whitney Green

Publisher: Eisenbrauns

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 383

ISBN-13: 1575060698

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Green traces these motifs through the Mesopotamian, Anatolian, Syrian, and Levantine regions; he argues that, in the end, Yahweh of the Bible can be identified as a storm-god, though certain unique characteristics came to be associated with him: he was the creator of all that is created and the self-existing god who needs no other."--BOOK JACKET.

God's Monsters
God's Monsters

Author: Esther J. Hamori

Publisher: Augsburg Fortress Publishers

Published: 2023-10-31

Total Pages: 307

ISBN-13: 1506486320

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The Bible is full of monsters: giants, vengeful spirits, and more. If you read closely, you'll see these monsters aren't God's opponents- they are God's entourage. When we examine these strange creatures for what they are, we see how they validate the human experience, living in a world that is unpredictable, unjust, and at times monstrous.

I, You, and the Word “God”
I, You, and the Word “God”

Author: Sarah Zhang

Publisher: Penn State Press

Published: 2016-10-27

Total Pages: 195

ISBN-13: 1575064766

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I, You, and the Word “God” introduces the approach of lyrical ethics, inspired by Emmanuel Levinas’s ethical-phenomenological philosophy. Through the optics of lyrical ethics, the reader discovers how the ancient erotic poems of the Song of Songs bear ethical and theological significance for contemporary readers. Levinas’s intertwined concepts—oneself qua sensibility, otherness perceived through responsibility, and transcendence embodied in one’s love for the other—reveal themselves as lyrical colors woven into the fabric of Song 4:1–7, 5:2–8, and 8:6. More importantly, Levinas’s understanding that poetic language breaks the tautology of logocentric discourse and gestures to the outside of consciousness provides the theoretical ground for the listener to solicit meaningfulness from the Song. Through this lyrical reading of the selected poetic units, the book demonstrates that the traditional interpretive methods of representative description, narrative paraphrase, and thematic distillation fail to encounter the otherness of poetry. In contrast, lyrical ethics pays attention to that which transcends consciousness: the awakening of the reader’s subjectivity, the saying underlying the said, the sound of the sense, and the invisibility of the visible. The Song so caressed reveals in human love the purposelessly purposive encounter with God.

In the Shadow of Bezalel. Aramaic, Biblical, and Ancient Near Eastern Studies in Honor of Bezalel Porten
In the Shadow of Bezalel. Aramaic, Biblical, and Ancient Near Eastern Studies in Honor of Bezalel Porten

Author: Alejandro F. Botta

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2012-12-03

Total Pages: 481

ISBN-13: 9004240845

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Twenty nine scholars from Israel, Europe and the Americas came together to honor and celebrate Prof. Bezalel Porten's (Emeritus, Dept. of History of the Jewish People, Hebrew University of Jerusalem) academic career. Covering a wide variety of topics within Aramaic, Biblical, and ancient Near Eastern Studies, In the Shadow of Bezalel offers new insights and proposals in the areas of Aramaic language, paleography, onomastica and lexicography; ancient Near Eastern legal traditions, Hebrew Bible, and social history of the Persian period.

Fighting for the King and the Gods
Fighting for the King and the Gods

Author: Charlie Trimm

Publisher: SBL Press

Published: 2017-10-30

Total Pages: 751

ISBN-13: 088414237X

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The most up-to-date sourcebook on warfare in the ancient Near East Fighting for the King and the Gods provides an introduction to the topic of war and the variety of texts concerning many aspects of warfare in the ancient Near East. These texts illustrate various viewpoints of war and show how warfare was an integral part of life. Trimm examines not only the victors and the famous battles, but also the hardship that war brought to many. While several of these texts treated here are well known (i.e., Ramses II's battle against the Hittites at Qadesh), others are known only to specialists. This work will allow a broader audience to access and appreciate these important texts as they relate to the history and ideology of warfare. Features References to recent secondary literature for further study Early Greek and Chinese illustrative texts for comparisons with other cultures Indices to help guide the reader

Resheph
Resheph

Author: Edward Lipiński

Publisher:

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13: 9789042921078

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The excavations of the last eighty years, especially at Ugarit, Ebla, and Emar, have accumulated an exceptional amount of source material referring to the Syro-Canaanite god Resheph, whose history can now be followed during three thousand years. Chapter I deals with Resheph in the Ebla texts, already witnessing his assimilation to the Mesopotamian god Nergal, while Chapter II is dedicated to his consort Adamma. Western Asiatic sources of the second millennium B.C., in particular those from Mari, Ugarit, Ras Ibn Hani, and Emar, are presented in Chapter III, while Chapter IV concerns the Syro-Canaanite iconography of Resheph. His cult in Egypt during the second millennium B.C. is examined in Chapter V, while Chapters VI and VII deal with the first millennium B.C. and the later references to Resheph in midrashic literature. Aramaic, Phoenician, Hebrew, Egyptian, and Greek sources are surveyed in detail with a particular attention to biblical texts. Several indices help using the extensive onomastic and cultic data collected in the book, always with references to the original or most recent publications of the pertinent epigraphic, literary, and iconographic material.

The Oxford Handbook of Ritual and Worship in the Hebrew Bible
The Oxford Handbook of Ritual and Worship in the Hebrew Bible

Author: Samuel E. Balentine

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2020-09-16

Total Pages: 589

ISBN-13: 0190222123

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Ritual has a primal connection to the idea that a transcendent order - numinous and mysterious, supranatural and elusive, divine and wholly other - gives meaning and purpose to life. The construction of rites and rituals enables humans to conceive and apprehend this transcendent order, to symbolize it and interact with it, to postulate its truths in the face of contradicting realities and to repair them when they have been breached or diminished. This Handbook provides a compendium of the information essential for constructing a comprehensive and integrated account of ritual and worship in the ancient world. Its focus on ritual and worship from the perspective of biblical studies, as opposed to religious studies, highlights that the world of ritual and worship was a topic of central concern for the people of the Ancient Near East, including the world of the Bible. Given the scarcity of the material in the Bible itself, the authors in this collection use materials from the ancient Near East to provide a larger context for the practices of the biblical world, giving due attention to historical, anthropological, and social scientific methods that inform the context of biblical worship. The specifics of ritual and worship life-the sacred spaces, times, and actors in worship-are examined in detail, with essays covering both the divine and human aspects of the sacred dimension. The Oxford Handbook of Ritual and Worship in the Hebrew Bible considers several underlying concepts of ritual practice and closes with a theological outlook on worship and ritual from a variety of perspectives, demonstrating a fruitful exchange between biblical studies, ritual theory, and social science research.

The Origins of Biblical Monotheism
The Origins of Biblical Monotheism

Author: Mark S. Smith

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2003-11-06

Total Pages: 344

ISBN-13: 0195167686

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One of the leading scholars of ancient West Semitic religion discusses polytheism vs. monotheism by covering the fluidity of those categories in the ancient Near East. He argues that Israel's social history is key to the development of monotheism.