King Manasseh and Child Sacrifice
King Manasseh and Child Sacrifice

Author: Francesca Stavrakopoulou

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter

Published: 2012-10-24

Total Pages: 424

ISBN-13: 3110899647

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The Hebrew Bible portrays King Manasseh and child sacrifice as the most reprehensible person and the most objectionable practice within the story of 'Israel'. This monograph suggests that historically, neither were as deviant as the Hebrew Bible appears to insist. Through careful historical reconstruction, it is argued that Manasseh was one of Judah's most successful monarchs, and child sacrifice played a central role in ancient Judahite religious practice. The biblical writers, motivated by ideological concerns, have thus deliberately distorted the truth about Manasseh and child sacrifice.

The Balaam Text from Deir ʻAlla Re-evaluated
The Balaam Text from Deir ʻAlla Re-evaluated

Author: Jacob Hoftijzer

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 1991-01-01

Total Pages: 340

ISBN-13: 9789004093171

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The book concerns the inscription written on wall plaster discovered in 1967 at Deir cAlla in the Jordan Valley, and published in 1976. Using new data and the discussions about the text available to date, it deals with six different aspects of study of the text, namely the archaeological context, the palaeography, the general interpretation as well as the interpretation of several separate passages, the language used, and its relation to Old Testament studies.

The Transjordanian Palimpsest
The Transjordanian Palimpsest

Author: Jeremy M. Hutton

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter

Published: 2009-06-02

Total Pages: 468

ISBN-13: 3110212765

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This study analyzes several passages in the Former Prophets (2 Sam 19:12-44; 2 Kgs 2:1-18; Judg 8:4-28) from a literary perspective, and argues that the text presents Transjordan as liminal in Israel’s history, a place from which Israel’s leaders return with inaugurated or renewed authority. It then traces the redactional development of Samuel-Kings that led to this literary symbolism, and proposes a hypothesis of continual updating and combination of texts, beginning early in Israel’s monarchy and continuing until the final formation of the Deuteronomistic History. Several source documents may be isolated, including three narratives of Saul’s rise, two distinct histories of David’s rise, and a court history that was subsequently revised with pro-Solomonic additions. These texts had been combined already in a Prophetic Record during the 9th c. B.C.E. (with A. F. Campbell), which was received as an integrated unit by the Deuteronomistic Historian. The symbolic geography of the Jordan River and Transjordan, which even extends into the New Testament, was therefore not the product of a deliberate theological formulation, but rather the accidental by-product of the contingency of textual redaction that had as its main goal the historical presentation of Israel’s life in the land.

The Books of Numbers
The Books of Numbers

Author: Timothy R. Ashley

Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

Published: 1993-07-22

Total Pages: 700

ISBN-13: 9780802825230

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Ashley's study on the book of Numbers is part of The New International Commentary on the Old Testament. Like its companion series on the New Testament, this commentary devotes considerable care to achieving a balance between technical information and homiletic-devotional interpretation.

Dreams and Dream Reports in the Writings of Josephus
Dreams and Dream Reports in the Writings of Josephus

Author: Robert Karl Gnuse

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 1996

Total Pages: 340

ISBN-13: 9789004106161

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This volume evaluates the understanding of dreams and the form of dream reports in Josephus' writings, and it compares Josephan texts with ancient Near Eastern, biblical, and Hellenistic dream reports to discern Josephus' sources of literary inspiration and intellectual assumptions.

Writings from Ancient Israel
Writings from Ancient Israel

Author: K. A. D. Smelik

Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press

Published: 1991-01-01

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 9780664253080

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"On the walls of buildings . . . on leather and papyrus, Israelites living under the monarchy (1000-587 B.C.E.) penned or scratched texts ranging from food and crop inventories . . . to memorials. . . . Smelik . . . (has compiled these) remnants of early writing . . . in light of their historical, social, and biblical contexts".--Douglas A. Knight, Vanderbilt University.

Registers and Modes of Communication in the Ancient Near East
Registers and Modes of Communication in the Ancient Near East

Author: Kyle H. Keimer

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-09-07

Total Pages: 417

ISBN-13: 1351797034

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It is the quintessential nature of humans to communicate with each other. Good communications, bad communications, miscommunications, or no communications at all have driven everything from world events to the most mundane of interactions. At the broadest level, communication entails many registers and modes: verbal, iconographic, symbolic, oral, written, and performed. Relationships and identities – real and fictive – arise from communication, but how and why were they effected and how should they be understood? The chapters in this volume address some of the registers and modes of communication in the ancient Near East. Particular focuses are imperial and court communications between rulers and ruled, communications intended for a given community, and those between families and individuals. Topics cover a broad chronological period (3rd millennium BC to 1st millennium AD), and geographic range (Egypt to Israel and Mesopotamia) encapsulating the extraordinarily diverse plurality of human experience. This volume is deliberately interdisciplinary and cross-cultural, and its broad scope provides wide insights and a holistic understanding of communication applicable today. It is intended for both the scholar and readers with interests in ancient Near Eastern history and Biblical studies, communications (especially communications theory), and sociolinguistics.

The Early History of God
The Early History of God

Author: Mark S. Smith

Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

Published: 2002-08-03

Total Pages: 300

ISBN-13: 1467427632

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Foreword by Patrick D. Miller In this remarkable, acclaimed history of the development of monotheism, Mark S. Smith explains how Israel's religion evolved from a cult of Yahweh as a primary deity among many to a fully defined monotheistic faith with Yahweh as sole god. Repudiating the traditional view that Israel was fundamentally different in culture and religion from its Canaanite neighbors, this provocative book argues that Israelite religion developed, at least in part, from the religion of Canaan. Drawing on epigraphic and archaeological sources, Smith cogently demonstrates that Israelite religion was not an outright rejection of foreign, pagan gods but, rather, was the result of the progressive establishment of a distinctly separate Israelite identity. This thoroughly revised second edition ofThe Early History of God includes a substantial new preface by the author and a foreword by Patrick D. Miller.