The Encounter with the Divine in Mesopotamia and Israel

The Encounter with the Divine in Mesopotamia and Israel PDF Author: H. W. F. Saggs
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1474280846
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
While most of its contemporary religions have faded away, Israelite religion continues to have a major influence in the world. First delivered in 1975 as a Jordan Lecture in Comparative Religion, this volume argues that in its beginnings Israelite religion had much in common with ancient Mesopotamian religion and suggests that its endurance is due to its dynamic development of the concepts it shared with other religions.

The Encounter with the Divine in Mesopotamia and Israel

The Encounter with the Divine in Mesopotamia and Israel PDF Author: H. W. F. Saggs
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1474280846
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
While most of its contemporary religions have faded away, Israelite religion continues to have a major influence in the world. First delivered in 1975 as a Jordan Lecture in Comparative Religion, this volume argues that in its beginnings Israelite religion had much in common with ancient Mesopotamian religion and suggests that its endurance is due to its dynamic development of the concepts it shared with other religions.

Secrecy and the Gods

Secrecy and the Gods PDF Author: Alan Lenzi
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 496

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Book Description
Secrecy and the Gods is a comparative mythological study of the human reception and treatment of divine secret knowledge in ancient Mesopotamia and biblical Israel. The human royal council was the social model for ancient ideas about divine knowledge being secret - just as human kings had secrets so too did the gods. Diviners who received this knowledge from the gods in an on-going, ad hoc manner were an essential link between the divine assembly and the human royal council for whom such knowledge was intended. Scribes eventually adapted the ad hoc divinatory means of receiving divine communications to their culturally significant texts. By discursively asserting a historical connection between themselves and unique mediators with a close divine affiliation (the apkallus and Moses), the scribes constructed myths that legitimated their texts as divine revelation and claimed these were received in history through normal scribal channels. In this manner, scribes fixed the secret of the gods permanently among humans in textualized form that valorized their own position within society. Although the origin of divine secret knowledge was rooted in a common mythological idea of the divine assembly, its treatment was quite distinct. The Mesopotamians guarded divine secret knowledge through various scribal means, including the attachment of a Geheimwissen colophon to certain tablets (treated exhaustively), whereas biblical Israel published it openly. The contrast in treatment of divine secret knowledge was directly related to different mytho-political self-understandings: Mesopotamia's imperial aspirations versus biblical Israel's vassaldom. As vassals to Yahweh, the divine imperial king, the kings of Judah and Israel as presented in the biblical material were not to formulate secret orders; they were only to obey them.

Wisdom Literature in Mesopotamia and Israel

Wisdom Literature in Mesopotamia and Israel PDF Author: Richard J. Clifford
Publisher: Society of Biblical Lit
ISBN: 1589832191
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 116

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Book Description
The last fifty years have seen a dramatic increase of interest in the wisdom literature of the Bible, as scholars have come to appreciate the subtlety and originality of Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes as well as of Sirach and Wisdom of Solomon. Interest has likewise grown in the wisdom literatures of the neighboring cultures of Canaan, Egypt, and especially Mesopotamia. To help readers understand the place of biblical wisdom within this broader context, including its originality and distinctiveness, this volume offers a collection of essays by Assyriologists and biblicists on the social, intellectual, and literary setting of Mesopotamian wisdom; on specific wisdom texts; and on key themes common to both Mesopotamian and biblical culture. --From publisher's description.

Ancient Mesopotamian Religion and Mythology

Ancient Mesopotamian Religion and Mythology PDF Author: W.G. Lambert
Publisher: Mohr Siebeck
ISBN: 9783161536748
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
The late W.G. Lambert (1926-2011) was one of the foremost Assyriologists of the latter part of the twentieth century. His principle legacy is a large number of superb critical editions of Babylonian literary compositions. Many of the texts he edited were on religious and mythological subjects. He will always be remembered as the editor of the Babylonian Job (Ludlul bel nemeqi, also known as the Poem of the Righteous Sufferer), the Babylonian Flood Story (Atra-hasis) and the Babylonian Creation Epic (Enuma elish). The present book is a collection of twenty-three essays Lambert published between the years 1958 and 2004. These endure not only as the legacy of one of the greatest authorities on ancient Mesopotamian religion and mythology, but also because each makes statements of considerable validity and importance. As such, many are milestones in the fields of Mesopotamian religion and mythology.

The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel

The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel PDF Author: Benjamin D. Sommer
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521518725
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 351

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Book Description
Sommer utilizes a recovered ancient perception of divinity as having more than one body, fluid and unbounded selves.

Sin and Sanction in Israel and Mesopotamia

Sin and Sanction in Israel and Mesopotamia PDF Author: K. van der Toorn
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 900435445X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description


Cult Image and Divine Representation in the Ancient Near East

Cult Image and Divine Representation in the Ancient Near East PDF Author: Neal H. Walls
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 144

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Book Description
While biblical prophets ridiculed the notion of humans fashioning an idol that they would then worship, ancient Near Eastern theologians developed a sophisticated religious system in which divine beings could be physically manifest within the material of a cultic image without being limited by that embodiment. The four essays in this compact volume examine the intriguing subject of cultic images and divine iconography in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Anatolia and Syria-Palestine. This interesting and eclectic group of essays explores the textual and artifactual evidence for the creation and veneration of divine images in the ancient Near East. The recent resurgence of scholarly interest in the study of divine representation in ancient Israel and the Near East makes this comprehensive reexamination especially timely.

Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary: Daniel

Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary: Daniel PDF Author: John H. Walton
Publisher: Zondervan
ISBN: 0310255767
Category : Bible
Languages : en
Pages : 625

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Book Description
After a brief essay that introduces each book, a verse-by-verse commentary follows. Drawing upon linguistic analysis, archaeological evidence, history, other ancient Near Eastern literatures, and the like, the commentary provides the historical and cultural background against which the texts can be read and understood. --from publisher description.

Heilsgeschichte as a Model for Biblical Theology

Heilsgeschichte as a Model for Biblical Theology PDF Author: Robert Karl Gnuse
Publisher: University Press of America
ISBN: 9780819172464
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description
This work discusses the ongoing debate concerning the notion of salvation history in the Hebrew Bible and its relation to the ancient world. The author also proposes new directions in our present understanding of salvation history and its importance for the Israelite ethos. Contents: The Concept of Salvation; Advocates of Salvation History Theology; The Critical Theological Response; Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical Theology; Salvation History Themes in the Ancient Near East; Continuity of Basic Religious Values between Israel and the Ancient Near East; The Continuing Debate over Israel's Concept of Salvation History; Reconstruction of a Salvation History Model; Impetus for Change; General Conclusions. Co-published with the College Theology Society.

Modern Societies and the Science of Religions

Modern Societies and the Science of Religions PDF Author: Lammert Leertouwer
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9789004116658
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 418

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Book Description
This volume gathers essays written by seventeen specialists in the science of religions. It focuses on the social, cultural, institutional, and political contexts of the Study of Religions in resp. modern France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, the USA, Turkey, Israel, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Indonesia, Japan, and China.