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Author: Debra Scoggins Ballentine
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 2015
Total Pages: 305
ISBN-13: 0199370257
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn The Conflict Myth and the Biblical Tradition, Debra Scoggins Ballentine analyzes the ancient west Asian theme of divine combat between a victorious warrior deity and his enemy, typically the sea or a sea dragon.
Author: Bernard Frank Batto
Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
Published: 1992-01-01
Total Pages: 264
ISBN-13: 9780664253530
DOWNLOAD EBOOK"Batto argues persuasively that biblical authors, like other ancient Near Eastern authors, used mythic traditions in composing their new syntheses. . . . His bold argument is impressive".--Richard J. Clifford, Professor of Old Testament, Weston School of Theology, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Author: Bruce Louden
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2018-11-06
Total Pages: 370
ISBN-13: 0429828047
DOWNLOAD EBOOKSince the nineteenth-century rediscovery of the Gilgamesh epic, we have known that the Bible imports narratives from outside of Israelite culture, refiguring them for its own audience. Only more recently, however, has come the realization that Greek culture is also a prominent source of biblical narratives. Greek Myth and the Bible argues that classical mythological literature and the biblical texts were composed in a dialogic relationship. Louden examines a variety of Greek myths from a range of sources, analyzing parallels between biblical episodes and Hesiod, Euripides, Argonautic myth, selections from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and Homeric epic. This fascinating volume offers a starting point for debate and discussion of these cultural and literary exchanges and adaptations in the wider Mediterranean world and will be an invaluable resource to students of the Hebrew Bible and the influence of Greek myth.
Author: David Toshio Tsumura
Publisher: Penn State Press
Published: 2005-06-23
Total Pages: 233
ISBN-13: 1575065630
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn 1989, David Tsumura published a monograph entitled The Earth and the Waters in Genesis 1 and 2: A Linguistic Evaluation, in which he demonstrated that the oft-recited claim that the early chapters of Genesis betrayed a background or adaptation by Israel of mythological terms and/or motifs from other ancient Near Eastern literature could not be supported by a close examination of the linguistic data. Despite the book’s positive reception, the notion that the Chaoskampf motif lies behind the early chapters of Genesis continues to be rehearsed in the literature as if the data were incontrovertible. In this revised and expanded edition of the 1989 book, Tsumura carries the discussion forward. In part 1, the general thesis of the original work is restated in a significantly revised and expanded form; in the second part of this monograph, he expands the scope of his research to include a number of poetic texts outside the Primeval History, texts for which scholars often have posited an ancient Near Eastern mythological substratum. Among the questions asked are the following: What are the functions of “waters” and “flood” in biblical poetry? Do the so-called chaos dragons in the Old Testament, such as Leviathan, Rahab, and Yam, have anything to do with the creation motif in the biblical tradition? What is the relationship between these poetic texts and the Ugaritic myths of the Baal-Yam conflict? Are Psalms 18 and 29 “adaptations” of Canaanite hymns, as suggested by some scholars? Among the conclusions that Tsumura reaches are these: (1) The phrase tohû wabohû has nothing to do with the idea of a chaotic state of the earth. (2) The term tehôm in Gen 1:2 is a Hebrew form derived from the Proto-Semitic *tiham-, “ocean,” and it usually refers to the underground water that was overflowing and covering the entire surface of the earth in the initial state of creation. (3) The earth-water relationship in Gen 2:5–6 is different from that in Gen 1:2. In Gen 1:2, the earth was totally under the water; in Gen 2:5–6, only a part of the earth, the land, was watered by the ’ed-water, which was overflowing from an underground source. (4) The biblical poetic texts that are claimed to have been influenced by the Chaoskampf-motif of the ancient Near East in fact use the language of storms and floods metaphorically and have nothing to do with primordial combat.
Author: Paul K.-K. Cho
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2019-02-07
Total Pages: 279
ISBN-13: 1108757545
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis book examines the long-debated issue of the relationship between the Hebrew Bible and ancient Near Eastern myths. Using an innovative, interdisciplinary methodology that combines theories of metaphor and narrative, Paul Cho argues that the Hebrew Bible is more deeply mythological than previously recognized. Because the Hebrew Bible contains fragments of the sea myth but no continuous narrative, the study of myth in the Hebrew Bible is usually circumscribed to the level of motifs and themes. Cho challenges this practice and demonstrates that the Hebrew Bible contains shorter and longer compositions studded with imagery that are structured by the plot of sea myths. Through close analysis of key Near Eastern myths and biblical texts, Cho shows that myth had a more fundamental influence on the plot structure and conceptual framework of the Hebrew Bible than has been recognized.
Author: John Day
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Published: 2020-04-20
Total Pages: 242
ISBN-13: 1532692676
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe Old Testament contains a number of interesting poetic references to God's conflict with a dragon, called by names such as Leviathan, Rahab or the twisting serpent, and with the sea. In this original contribution to the background and understanding of the Old Testament Dr Day undertakes a detailed and thorough examination of these allusions. Building on the discovery of the Ugaritic texts, he demonstrates a source for these references within Canaanite mythology. His study further explores the associations of the imagery. Sometimes in the Old Testament the dragon is associated with the creation of the world, or it becomes a symbol of a foreign nation, and in some references it is associated with divine conflict at the end of time.
Author: Chris Mulherin
Publisher:
Published: 2019-10
Total Pages:
ISBN-13: 9781925073515
DOWNLOAD EBOOK"I believe in science, so I couldn't be religious." That's the repeated meme in themarketplace of ideas. And, in churches, Christians ask themselves, "Can scienceand Christian faith live in harmony?"This easy-to-read book puts these fears to rest. There is no irreconcilable conflictbetween mainstream science and Christian belief.Written for students, teachers, clergy, parish groups and interested lay people,this is an attractive and engaging introduction to the relationship between scienceand Christian faith.Science and Christianity
Author: Joanna Töyräänvuori
Publisher: Ugarit Verlag
Published: 2018
Total Pages: 0
ISBN-13: 9783868352795
DOWNLOAD EBOOKSea and the Combat Myth examines the political use of the ancient North West Semitic myth of divine combat between the Storm-God and the Sea. The myth originated with the rise of the Sargonic Empire and was disseminated across ancient Near Eastern polities during the Amorite Kingdom period. Vestiges of the myth have also been retained in the Hebrew Bible: a myth of symbolic combat between the Storm-God and the Sea was likely used as a foundational myth by the mostly polytheistic Pre-Exilic kingship in Palestine. The study demonstrates how the myth was used in ancient North West Semitic societies to resolve the crisis of monarchy through appeal to numinous legitimacy, and how reading a selection of Biblical texts in the framework of the tradition confirms the use of the myth in the same context in the emergent Palestinian kingdoms of the Iron Age. Most of what is known of Israelite kingship and the monarchic institution is largely based on later and ideologically slanted material, making the comparison of Biblical texts to their antecedents necessary. The book discusses references to the myth in the Hebrew Bible in connection with the relevant witnesses from relevant ancient Near Eastern traditions. Different iterations of the combat myth witness to the continuation, longevity, malleability, and the capacity of the myth to transform to suit changing historical realities. In contrast to previous research, the study demonstrates three distinct sources for the Biblical traditions in addition to living local iterations of the myth. In addition to vestiges retained in the Hebrew Bible, based on the analogy of preceding, concurrent, and continuing traditions in the shared cultural sphere, the accumulation of mythic traditions suggests that it was used in the Palestinian kingdoms to resolve the crisis of monarchy and to legitimize sovereign political rule. After the end of the Jerusalem monarchy, the myth was democratized and reforged to legitimize the existence of the people of Israel.
Author: N. Wyatt
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2017-07-05
Total Pages: 124
ISBN-13: 1351546643
DOWNLOAD EBOOKMyth as a category is often explicitly denied as being present in the Bible. Studies of Israelite religion take a largely historical approach. 'The Archaeology of Myth' highlights the importance of mythological categories in discussing any religion, and especially Israelite religion. The essays explore key biblical narratives and themes - Jacob's dream, the story of Dinah and Shechem, the seventy sons of Athirat, the old men of Deuteronomy - tracing their development from primitive forms to biblical text. The book offers a theoretical analysis of the biblical treatment of myth and its role in the shaping of memories and values.
Author: Anne Katrine Gudme
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2015-06-05
Total Pages: 188
ISBN-13: 1317501233
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe Babylonian exile in 587-539 BCE is frequently presented as the main explanatory factor for the religious and literary developments found in the Hebrew Bible. The sheer number of both ‘historical’ and narrative exiles confirms that the theme of exile is of great importance in the Hebrew Bible. However, one does not do justice to the topic by restricting it to the exile in Babylon after 587 BCE. In recent years, it has become clear that there are several discrepancies between biblical and extra-biblical sources on invasion and deportation in Palestine in the 1st millennium BCE. Such discrepancy confirms that the theme of exile in the Hebrew Bible should not be viewed as an echo of a single traumatic historical event, but rather as a literary motif that is repeatedly reworked by biblical authors. Myths of Exile challenges the traditional understanding of 'the Exile' as a monolithic historical reality and instead provides a critical and comparative assessment of motifs of estrangement and belonging in the Hebrew Bible and related literature. Using selected texts as case studies, this book demonstrates how tales of exile and return can be described as a common formative narrative in the literature of the ancient Near East, a narrative that has been interpreted and used in various ways depending on the needs and cultural contexts of the interpreting community. Myths of Exile is a critical study which forms the basis for a fresh understanding of these exile myths as identity-building literary phenomena.
