Yahweh's Coming of Age

Yahweh's Coming of Age PDF Author: Jason Bembry
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 1575066165
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 176

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Book Description
In the Judeo-Christian tradition, the deity Yahweh is often portrayed as an old man. One of the epithets used of Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible, the Ancient of Days, is a source for this depiction of God as elderly. However, when we look closely at the early traditions of biblical Israel, we see a different picture: God is relatively youthful, a warrior who defends his people. This book is an examination of the question How did God become old? To answer this question, Bembry examines the way that aging and elderly human beings are portrayed in the Hebrew Bible. Then he makes a similar foray into the texts written in Ugaritic (a language quite close to ancient Hebrew), which provide a window into the ancient culture just north of Israel during the Late Bronze Age. He finds that Israel’s God shared attributes with the Ugaritic deities Baal and El. One prominent aspect of the similar attributes was that Yahweh’s depiction as a youthful warrior paralleled the way Baal was portrayed. The transformation from young deity to Ancient of Days took place at the intersection of two trajectories in the traditions of Israel. One trajectory is reflected in the way that apocalyptic traditions found in the book of Daniel recast the old Canaanite mythic imagery seen in the Ugaritic and early biblical texts. This trajectory allows Yahweh to take on qualities, such as old age, that were not associated with him during most of Israel’s history but were associated with El in the Canaanite traditions. The second trajectory, a depiction of Israel’s God as elderly, is connected with the development of the idea of Yahweh as father. The more comfortable the biblical tradents became with portraying Yahweh as a father—a metaphor that was not embraced in the early traditions—the easier it became for the people of Israel to think of Yahweh as occupying a stage of the human life cycle. These two trajectories came together in the 2nd century B.C.E., the chronological backdrop for Daniel 7, and found expression in a new epithet for Yahweh: Ancient of Days.

Yahweh's Coming of Age

Yahweh's Coming of Age PDF Author: Jason Bembry
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 1575066165
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 176

Get Book Here

Book Description
In the Judeo-Christian tradition, the deity Yahweh is often portrayed as an old man. One of the epithets used of Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible, the Ancient of Days, is a source for this depiction of God as elderly. However, when we look closely at the early traditions of biblical Israel, we see a different picture: God is relatively youthful, a warrior who defends his people. This book is an examination of the question How did God become old? To answer this question, Bembry examines the way that aging and elderly human beings are portrayed in the Hebrew Bible. Then he makes a similar foray into the texts written in Ugaritic (a language quite close to ancient Hebrew), which provide a window into the ancient culture just north of Israel during the Late Bronze Age. He finds that Israel’s God shared attributes with the Ugaritic deities Baal and El. One prominent aspect of the similar attributes was that Yahweh’s depiction as a youthful warrior paralleled the way Baal was portrayed. The transformation from young deity to Ancient of Days took place at the intersection of two trajectories in the traditions of Israel. One trajectory is reflected in the way that apocalyptic traditions found in the book of Daniel recast the old Canaanite mythic imagery seen in the Ugaritic and early biblical texts. This trajectory allows Yahweh to take on qualities, such as old age, that were not associated with him during most of Israel’s history but were associated with El in the Canaanite traditions. The second trajectory, a depiction of Israel’s God as elderly, is connected with the development of the idea of Yahweh as father. The more comfortable the biblical tradents became with portraying Yahweh as a father—a metaphor that was not embraced in the early traditions—the easier it became for the people of Israel to think of Yahweh as occupying a stage of the human life cycle. These two trajectories came together in the 2nd century B.C.E., the chronological backdrop for Daniel 7, and found expression in a new epithet for Yahweh: Ancient of Days.

Monotheism and Yahweh's Appropriation of Baal

Monotheism and Yahweh's Appropriation of Baal PDF Author: James S. Anderson
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0567663965
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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Book Description
Biblical scholarship today is divided between two mutually exclusive concepts of the emergence of monotheism: an early-monotheistic Yahwism paradigm and a native-pantheon paradigm. This study identifies five main stages on Israel's journey towards monotheism. Rather than deciding whether Yahweh was originally a god of the Baal-type or of the El-type, this work shuns origins and focuses instead on the first period for which there are abundant sources, the Omride era. Non-biblical sources depict a significantly different situation from the Baalism the Elijah cycle ascribes to King Achab. The novelty of the present study is to take this paradox seriously and identify the Omride dynasty as the first stage in the rise of Yahweh as the main god of Israel. Why Jerusalem later painted the Omrides as anti-Yahweh idolaters is then explained as the need to distance itself from the near-by sanctuary of Bethel by assuming the Omride heritage without admitting its northern Israelite origins. The contribution of the Priestly document and of Deutero-Isaiah during the Persian era comprise the next phase, before the strict Yahwism achieved in Daniel 7 completes the emergence of biblical Yahwism as a truly monotheistic religion.

The Beauty of the Lord

The Beauty of the Lord PDF Author: Jonathan King
Publisher: Lexham Press
ISBN: 1683590597
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 452

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Book Description
Why is God's beauty often absent from our theology? Rarely do theologians take up the theme of God's beauty—even more rarely do they consider how God's beauty should shape the task of theology itself. But the psalmist says that the heart of the believer's desire is to behold the beauty of the Lord. In The Beauty of the Lord, Jonathan King restores aesthetics as not merely a valid lens for theological reflection, but an essential one. Jesus, our incarnate Redeemer, displays the Triune God's beauty in his actions and person, from creation to final consummation. How can and should theology better reflect this unveiled beauty? The Beauty of the Lord is a renewal of a truly aesthetic theology and a properly theological aesthetics.

Life and Death

Life and Death PDF Author: Francesca Stavrakopoulou
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0567699315
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 231

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Book Description
Life and Death: Social Perspectives on Biblical Bodies explores some of the social, material, and ideological dynamics shaping life and death in both the Hebrew Bible and ancient Israel and Judah. Analysing topics ranging from the bodily realities of gestation, subsistence, and death, and embodied performances of gender, power, and status, to the imagined realities of post-mortem and divine existence, the essays in this volume offer exciting new trajectories in our understanding of the ways in which embodiment played out in the societies in which the texts of the Hebrew Bible emerged.

Deserting the King

Deserting the King PDF Author: David Beldman
Publisher: Lexham Press
ISBN: 1577997778
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 112

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Book Description
Readers of the book of Judges encounter a host of puzzles to be solved—everything from the book’s purpose and place in the biblical narrative to the precise nature of the historical figures involved. In the midst of so many questions to be answered, how can we allow the book to change our view of the God of both the Old and New Testament? In Deserting the King, David Beldman guides readers through the book of Judges, tracing the acceptance and rejection, the tragedy and heroism of Israel’s relationship with God and the Israelite monarchy. Along the way, he shows readers how this book—though full of bloodshed, intrigue, and conflict—can help us see God at work in our world.

Cosmos, Chaos and the World to Come

Cosmos, Chaos and the World to Come PDF Author: Norman Cohn
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300177194
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 378

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Book Description
All over the world people look forward to a perfect future, when the forces of good will be finally victorious over the forces of evil. Once this was a radically new way of imagining the destiny of the world and of mankind. How did it originate, and what kind of world-view preceded it? In this engrossing book, the author of the classic work The Pursuit of the Millennium takes us on a journey of exploration, through the world-views of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and India, through the innovations of Iranian and Jewish prophets and sages, to the earliest Christian imaginings of heaven on earth. Until around 1500 B.C., it was generally believed that once the world had been set in order by the gods, it was in essence immutable. However, it was always a troubled world. By means of flood and drought, famine and plague, defeat in war, and death itself, demonic forces threatened and impaired it. Various combat myths told how a divine warrior kept the forces of chaos at bay and enabled the world to survive. Sometime between 1500 and 1200 B.C., the Iranian prophet Zoroaster broke from that static yet anxious world-view, reinterpreting the Iranian version of the combat myth. For Zoroaster, the world was moving, through incessant conflict, toward a conflictless state—“cosmos without chaos.” The time would come when, in a prodigious battle, the supreme god would utterly defeat the forces of chaos and their human allies and eliminate them forever, and so bring an absolutely good world into being. Cohn reveals how this vision of the future was taken over by certain Jewish groups, notably the Jesus sect, with incalculable consequences. Deeply informed yet highly readable, this magisterial book illumines a major turning-point in the history of human consciousness. It will be mandatory reading for all who appreciated The Pursuit of the Millennium.

Old Testament Theology

Old Testament Theology PDF Author: Robin Routledge
Publisher: Inter-Varsity Press
ISBN: 1789740096
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
Numerous useful books on Old Testament theology are now available. However, they often give too much information - or too little. Some can seem large, and daunting to the ordinary student or pastor, and because of their layout, information may be hard to access. Others take a more introductory approach and do not deal with many of the theological issues and questions that the Old Testament raises. Robin Routledge's aim is to bridge this gap. He provides a substantial overview of the central issues and themes in Old Testament theology in the main body of the text, with more detailed discussion and references for further reading in the footnotes. His purpose is to examine the theological significance of the various texts in their wider canonical context, noting unity and coherence within the Old Testament (and to some extent between the Old and New Testaments), whilst also being aware of diversity. A brief outline of the relationship between exegesis and biblical theology within the overall task of interpreting and applying biblical material is given in the first chapter. His hope as a Christian minister is that, while this volume has grown out of a teaching context, and is intended for students, it will also be of benefit to others who want to take the theological content of the Old Testament seriously, and to apply its message to the life and ministry of the church today.

The Holy Books of Yahweh

The Holy Books of Yahweh PDF Author: Louis Ginzberg
Publisher: DigiCat
ISBN:
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 9774

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Book Description
DigiCat presents to you this unique religious collection containing the sacred texts of Judaism, history books and theological writings. Judaism is an ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. Considered to be the expression of the covenant that God established with the Children of Israel, it encompasses a wide body of texts, practices, and theological positions. The Torah is part of the larger text known as the Tanakh or the Hebrew Bible, and supplemental oral tradition represented by later texts such as the Midrash and the Talmud. Contents: Religious Texts: "Tanakh" – The Hebrew Bible "Talmud" – The Central Text of Rabbinic Judaism "Torah – Bilingual (English/Hebrew)" – Five Books of Moses "Tales and Maxims from the Midrash" – Biblical Exegesis by Ancient Judaic Authorities "The Kabbalah Unveiled" – Translations and commentaries of the Books of Zohar "The Sepher Ha-Zohar" – Zohar, or Splendor is the most important text of Kabbalah. "Siddur – The Standard Prayer Book" – The Authorized Daily Prayer Book of the United Hebrew Congregations "The Union Haggadah" – Jewish text that sets forth the order of the Passover Seder. History: The Jewish Wars (Flavius Josephus) Antiquities of the Jews (Flavius Josephus) History of the Jews (Heinrich Graetz) The Legends of the Jews (Louis Ginzberg) Philosophical Works: Kitab al Khazari (Kuzari) (Judah Halevi) The Guide for the Perplexed (Moses Maimonides) Ancient Jewish Proverbs (Abraham Cohen)

Exploring Mount Zion

Exploring Mount Zion PDF Author: James E. Smith Ph.D.
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 1105441296
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 293

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Book Description
A study of the messianic kingdom passages of the Old Testament and their fulfillment in the church of Jesus Christ.

Isaiah, a Commentary

Isaiah, a Commentary PDF Author: James E. Smith, Ph.D.
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 0359786383
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 487

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Book Description
An introduction to the Old Testament Book of Isaiah is followed by a verse-by-verse commentary on the text written from a Christian perspective.