The Installation of Baal's High Priestess at Emar: A Window on Ancient Syrian Religion
Author: Daniel E. Fleming
Publisher: BRILL
Published: 2018-08-14
Total Pages: 366
ISBN-13: 9004369651
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Sovereign Authority and the Elaboration of Law in the Bible and the Ancient Near East
Author: Dylan R. Johnson
Publisher: Mohr Siebeck
Published: 2020-08-04
Total Pages: 383
ISBN-13: 3161595092
DOWNLOAD EBOOKFive Pentateuchal texts (Lev 24:10-23; Num 9:6-14; Num 15:32-36; Num 27:1-11; Num 36:1-12) offer unique visions of the elaboration of law in Israel's formative past. In response to individual legal cases, Yahweh enacts impersonal and general statutes reminiscent of biblical and ancient Near Eastern law collections. From the perspective of comparative law, Dylan R. Johnson proposes a new understanding of these texts as biblical rescripts: a legislative technique that enabled sovereigns to enact general laws on the basis of particular legal cases. Typological parallels drawn from cuneiform and Roman law illustrate the complex ideology informing the content and the form of these five cases. The author explores how latent conceptions of law, justice, and legislative sovereignty shaped these texts, and how the Priestly vision of law interacted with and transformed earlier legal traditions.
Yahweh among the Gods
Author: Michael Hundley
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2022-01-13
Total Pages: 421
ISBN-13: 1108482864
DOWNLOAD EBOOKA redefinition of the ancient conceptions of god, the relationships between them, and the rhetoric used to exalt them.
The Oxford Handbook of Ritual and Worship in the Hebrew Bible
Author: Samuel E. Balentine
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 2020
Total Pages: 589
ISBN-13: 0190222115
DOWNLOAD EBOOK"The conceit in the title of this volume is that ritual, however expansively it may be defined, is ineluctably tethered to religion and worship. It 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. The focus of this Handbook is on ritual and worship from the perspective of biblical studies, particularly on the Hebrew Bible and its ancient Near Eastern antecedents. Within this context, attention will be given to the development of ideas in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim thinking, but only insofar as they connect with or extend the trajectory of biblical precedents. The volume reflects a wide range of analytical approaches to ancient texts, inscriptions, iconography, and ritual artifacts. It examines the social history and cultural knowledge encoded in rituals, and explores the way rituals shape and are shaped by politics, economics, ethical imperatives, and religion itself. Toward this end, the volume is organized into six major sections: Historical Contexts, Interpretive Approaches, Ritual Elements (participants, places, times, objects, practices), Underlying Cultural and Theological Perspectives, History of Interpretation, Social-Cultural Functions, and Theology and Theological Heritage"--
Weavers, Scribes, and Kings
Author: Amanda H. Podany
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2022
Total Pages: 673
ISBN-13: 0190059044
DOWNLOAD EBOOK"This sweeping history of the ancient Near East (Mesopotamia, Syria, Anatolia, Iran) takes readers on a journey from the creation of the world's first cities to the conquest of Alexander the Great. The book is built around the life stories of many ancient men and women, from kings, priestesses, and merchants to bricklayers, musicians, and weavers. Their habits of daily life, beliefs, triumphs, and crises, and the changes that they faced over time are explored through their written words and the archaeological remains of the buildings, cities, and empires in which they lived. Rather than chronicling three thousand years of kingdoms, the book instead creates a tapestry of life stories through which readers come to know specific individuals from many walks of life, and to understand their places within the broad history of events and institutions in the ancient Near East. These life stories are preserved on ancient cuneiform tablets, which allow us to trace, for example, the career of a weaver as she advanced to became a supervisor of a workshop, listen to a king trying to persuade his generals to prepare for a siege, and feel the pain of a starving young couple who were driven to sell all four of their young children into slavery during a famine. What might seem at first glance to be a remote and inaccessible ancient culture proves to be a comprehensible world, one that bequeathed to us many of our institutions and beliefs, a truly fascinating place to visit"--
Literature as Politics, Politics as Literature
Author: David S. Vanderhooft
Publisher: Penn State Press
Published: 2013-10-25
Total Pages: 585
ISBN-13: 1575068672
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis volume, in celebration of Peter Machinist, Hancock Professor of Hebrew and Other Oriental Languages at Harvard University, includes twenty-eight illuminating essays on ancient Near Eastern history and literature, which focus especially on the intersection of these fields. Contributors include one of Machinist’s teachers, several of his students, and numerous colleagues and friends. These essays probe topics for which Machinist’s work has often set new standards. And in the spirit of the honoree and his interests, these comparative studies encompass Babel, Bibel, and more. In them, Assyriologists contend with biblical cruxes and biblicists engage Assyriological research, while classicists and Hittitologists participate with considerations of their respective disciplines within a broad cross-cultural context. The volume is a must for anyone committed to the ongoing comparative study of the ancient Near East, and within that framework, the historical study of the Hebrew Bible.
The Old Testament
Author: Richard S. Hess
Publisher: Baker Academic
Published: 2016-11-15
Total Pages: 816
ISBN-13: 149340573X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKA Respected Scholar Introduces Students to the Discipline of Old Testament Studies Richard Hess, a trusted scholar of the Old Testament and the ancient Near East, offers a substantial introduction to the Old Testament that is accessibly written and informed by the latest biblical scholarship. Hess summarizes the contents of the Old Testament, introduces the academic study of the discipline, and helps readers understand the complex world of critical and interpretive issues, addressing major concerns in the critical interpretation of each Old Testament book and key texts. This volume provides a fulsome treatment for students preparing for ministry and assumes no prior knowledge of the Old Testament. Readers will learn how each book of the Old Testament was understood by its first readers, how it advances the larger message of the whole Bible, and what its message contributes to Christian belief and the Christian community. Twenty maps, ninety photos, sidebars, and recommendations for further study add to the book's usefulness for students. Resources for professors are available through Baker Academic's Textbook eSources.
Mighty Baal
Author: Stephen C. Russell
Publisher: BRILL
Published: 2020-07-13
Total Pages: 228
ISBN-13: 9004437673
DOWNLOAD EBOOKMighty Baal offers a fresh portrait of the ancient Near Eastern god Baal. Its eleven essays are written in honor of Mark S. Smith, who has been the leading historian of Baal over the last four decades.
Women in Ugarit and Israel
Author: Hennie J. Marsman
Publisher: BRILL
Published: 2021-10-01
Total Pages: 791
ISBN-13: 9004493409
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn this volume the presupposition is investigated whether women in a polytheistic society had a better position than women in a monotheistic society. To this end the social and religious position of women in Ugarit according to its literary texts is compared to that of women in Israel according to the Hebrew Bible, while the wider context of the ancient Near East is also taken into consideration. After an overview of feminist biblical exegesis, the book discusses the roles of women in the family and in society. It also provides an analysis of the roles of women as religious specialists and as worshippers. Finally, the data on the position of women in the literary texts is compared to that in non-literary texts.
Ritual in Narrative
Author: David Pearson Wright
Publisher: Eisenbrauns
Published: 2001
Total Pages: 256
ISBN-13: 1575060469
DOWNLOAD EBOOKUgaritic ritual texts are varied and, by nature, problematic. But another source for ritual understanding is found in the narrative writings of Ugarit--namely, its myths and legends. Ritual texts in myths were not simply textual inserts but an integral part of the narrative. This present study is devoted to the examination of the way that ritual functions within the context of these stories.
