Magic and Divination in Ancient Palestine and Syria

Magic and Divination in Ancient Palestine and Syria

Author: Ann Jeffers

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 1996

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 9789004105133

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This publication is a detailed study of magical and divinatory practices in the Ancient Near East, particularly in Palestine and Syria. It combines the insights of the Old Testament with the data available from Phoenician and the older Ugaritic texts. It traces the links both historically and archaeologically.


Divining the Woman of Endor

Divining the Woman of Endor

Author: J. Kabamba Kiboko

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2017-02-23

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 0567673685

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An examination of the language of divination in the Hebrew Bible, particularly in 1 Samuel 28:3-25-the oft-called “Witch of Endor” passage. Kiboko contends that much of the vocabulary of divination in this passage and beyond has been mistranslated in authorized English and other translations used in Africa and in scholarly writings. Kiboko argues that the woman of Endor is not a witch. The woman of Endor is, rather, a diviner, much like other ancient Near Eastern and modern African diviners. She resists an inner-biblical conquest theology and a monologic authoritarian view of divination to assist King Saul by various means, including invoking the spirit of a departed person, Samuel. Kiboko carries out a Hebrew word-study shaped by the theories of Mikhail M. Bakhtin regarding the utterance, heteroglossia, and dialogism in order to understand the designative, connotative, emotive, and associative meanings of the many divinatory terms in the Hebrew Bible. She then examines 1 Samuel 28 and a number of prior translations thereof, using the ideological framework of African-feminist-postcolonial biblical interpreters and translation theories to uncover the hidden ideology or transcript of these translations. Finally, using African contextual/cultural hermeneutics and cross-cultural translation theory, Kiboko offers new English, French, and Kisanga translations of this passage that are both faithful to the original text and more appropriate to an inculturated-liberation African Christian hermeneutic, theology, and praxis.


Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament

Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament

Author: John H. Walton

Publisher: Baker Academic

Published: 2018-05-15

Total Pages: 384

ISBN-13: 1493414364

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Leading evangelical scholar John Walton surveys the cultural context of the ancient Near East, bringing insight to the interpretation of specific Old Testament passages. This new edition of a top-selling textbook has been thoroughly updated and revised throughout to reflect the refined thinking of a mature scholar. It includes over 30 illustrations. Students and pastors who want to deepen their understanding of the Old Testament will find this a helpful and instructive study.


The Command to Exterminate the Canaanites: Deuteronomy 7

The Command to Exterminate the Canaanites: Deuteronomy 7

Author: Arie Versluis

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2017-02-20

Total Pages: 449

ISBN-13: 9004341315

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According to Deuteronomy 7, God commands Israel to exterminate the indigenous population of Canaan. In The Command to Exterminate the Canaanites: Deuteronomy 7, Arie Versluis offers an analysis and evaluation of this command. Following an exegesis of the chapter, the historical background, possible motives and the place of the nations of Canaan in the Hebrew Bible are investigated. The theme of religiously inspired violence continues to be a topic of interest. The present volume discusses the consequences of the command to exterminate the Canaanites for the Old Testament view of God and for the question whether the Bible legitimizes violence in the present. Finally, the author shows how he reads this text as a Christian theologian.


Exodus

Exodus

Author: Thomas B. Dozeman

Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

Published: 2009-11-13

Total Pages: 890

ISBN-13: 0802826172

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The Eerdmans Critical Commentary offers the best of contemporary Old and New Testament scholarship, seeking to give modern readers clear insight into the biblical text, including its background, its interpretation, and its application. Contributors to the ECC series are among the foremost authorities in biblical scholarship worldwide. Accessible to serious general readers and scholars alike, each volume includes the author's own translation, critical notes, and commentary on literary, historical, cultural, and theological aspects of the text. - Back cover.


The Intercourse of Knowledge

The Intercourse of Knowledge

Author: Athalya Brenner

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2021-08-30

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13: 9004497943

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This groundbreaking book, which builds on the author's earlier work in On Gendering Texts, studies how, by what means and to what extent human love, desire and sex, and possibly even 'sexuality', are gendered in the Hebrew Bible. Following a classification and gendering of the linguistic and semantic data, the investigation looks into the construction of male and female bodies in language and ideologies; the praxis and ideology of sex, procreation and contraception; deviation from socio-sexual boundaries (e.g. incest, rape, adultery, homosexuality, prostitution); eroticism and "pornoprophetics". Finally, the work discusses some of the wider sociological and theological implications of the findings.


Prophecy in the Ancient Near East

Prophecy in the Ancient Near East

Author: Jonathan Stökl

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2013-02-06

Total Pages: 313

ISBN-13: 9004229930

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Since the 1990s there has been an emphasis on the study of ancient Israelite prophecy in its ancient Near East context. Prophecy in the Ancient Near East is the first book-length study that compares prophecy in the ancient Near East by focusing on texts from Mari, the Neo-Assyrian State Archives, and the Hebrew Bible. The author analyzes prophecy in each culture independently before comparisons are made. This method demonstrates how prophecy is a part of the wider system of divination, but also shows where scholarship has unduly imported concepts found in one corpus to the other two. This method, for example, calls into question the supposed link between music and prophecy from the Hebrew Bible to the ancient Near East. This work provides an up-to-date analysis of ancient Near Eastern, including Israelite and Judean, prophecy to scholars and students alike. "I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book, and I can highly recommend it to anyone interested in prophecy in Israel and the ancient Near East." Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer, University of Aberdeen, Review of Biblical Literature "The content of Jonathan Stökl’s book...testifies to the value of the book for the studies of prophecy in the ancient Near East." Wojciech Pikor, John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, The Biblical Annals