Download or read book The Elisha Hazael Paradigm and the Kingdom of Israel written by Hadi Ghantous and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-10-14 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study deals with the most important king of the Aramaean kingdom of Damascus, Hazael, and the impact he had on biblical literature, which goes beyond the few verses that mention him explicitly in the Book of Kings and the Book of the Twelve. The extra-biblical sources reveal that Hazael managed to create a large kingdom and to expand his authority over the whole of Syria-Palestine, including the Kingdom of Israel and the House of David, during the second half of the ninth century BCE. The Bible presents that power of Hazael as oppression of both kingdoms, yet the biblical writers elaborated a much more nuanced portrait of Hazael than first meets the eye. In the Elijah-Elisha cycles, Hazael provides a theological interpretative paradigm, the Elisha-Hazael paradigm, which provides in the Book of Kings and in the Book of the Twelve (especially in the books of Amos and Jonah) the key to explain God's mysterious dealings with Israel and Israel's enemies. Hazael is presented as a faithful agent of YHWH, who fulfils the divine plan. Beyond the power Hazael yielded across the Levant in his life time, the Elisha-Hazael paradigm reveals his enduring influence in Judah and in biblical literature.
Download or read book The Elisha Hazael Paradigm and the Kingdom of Israel written by Hadi Ghantous and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-12-14 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study deals with the most important king of the Aramaean kingdom of Damascus, Hazael, and the impact he had on biblical literature, which goes beyond the few verses that mention him explicitly in the Book of Kings and the Book of the Twelve. The extra-biblical sources reveal that Hazael managed to create a large kingdom and to expand his authority over the whole of Syria-Palestine, including the Kingdom of Israel and the House of David, during the second half of the ninth century BCE. The Bible presents that power of Hazael as oppression of both kingdoms, yet the biblical writers elaborated a much more nuanced portrait of Hazael than first meets the eye. In the Elijah-Elisha cycles, Hazael provides a theological interpretative paradigm, the Elisha-Hazael paradigm, which provides in the Book of Kings and in the Book of the Twelve (especially in the books of Amos and Jonah) the key to explain God's mysterious dealings with Israel and Israel's enemies. Hazael is presented as a faithful agent of YHWH, who fulfils the divine plan. Beyond the power Hazael yielded across the Levant in his life time, the Elisha-Hazael paradigm reveals his enduring influence in Judah and in biblical literature.
Download or read book 1 2 Kings An Introduction and Study Guide written by Lester L. Grabbe and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2016-12-01 with total page 123 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lester L. Grabbe provides a concise and up-to-date introduction to the books of Kings, covering all the historical and interpretative issues. Grabbe pays particular attention to how the history of ancient Israel can be reconstructed (or not as the case may be) through the text, and introduces students to the key ways of reading the books of Kings as religious and political history. Grabbe takes a chronological approach (according to the text) and provides overviews of the key periods of Israel's history. The nature of the 'Deuteronomistic History' and how well this theory of authorship stands up in the modern day is considered, as well as issues of form and source criticism more broadly. Grabbe concludes by offering a reflection on the books of Kings in theological and hermeneutical perspective, which enables students to view not only the historical and textual issues, but also broader issues of meaning and significance.
Download or read book Life Land and Elijah in the Book of Kings written by Daniel J. D. Stulac and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-12-10 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, Daniel J. D. Stulac brings a canonical-agrarian approach to the Elijah narratives and demonstrates the rhetorical and theological contribution of these texts to the Book of Kings. This unique perspective yields insights into Elijah's iconographical character (1 Kings 17-19), which is contrasted sharply against the Omride dynasty (1 Kings 20-2 Kings 1). It also serves as a template for Elisha's activities in chapters to follow (2 Kings 2-8). Under circumstances that foreshadow the removal of both monarchy and temple, the book's middle third (1 Kings 17-2 Kings 8) proclaims Yhwh's enduring care for Israel's land and people through various portraits of resurrection, even in a world where Israel's sacred institutions have been stripped away. Elijah emerges as the archetypal ancestor of a royal-prophetic remnant with which the reader is encouraged to identify.
Download or read book Monotheism and Yahweh s Appropriation of Baal written by James S. Anderson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2015-08-27 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Memory in a Time of Prose written by Daniel D. Pioske and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-08-15 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Memory in a Time of Prose investigates a deceptively straightforward question: what did the biblical scribes know about times previous to their own? Daniel D. Pioske attempts to answer this question by studying the sources, limits, and conditions of knowing that would have shaped biblical stories told about a past that preceded the composition of these writings by a generation or more. This book is comprised of a series of case studies that compare biblical references to an early Iron Age world (ca. 1175-830 BCE) with a wide range of archaeological and historical evidence from the era in which these stories are set. Pioske examines the relationship between the past disclosed through these historical traces and the past represented within the biblical narrative. He discovers that the knowledge available to the biblical scribes about this period derived predominantly from memory and word of mouth, rather than from a corpus of older narrative documents. For those Hebrew scribes who first set down these stories in prose writing, the means for knowing a past and the significance attached to it were, in short, wed foremost to the faculty of remembrance. Memory in a Time of Prose reveals how the past was preserved, transformed, or forgotten in the ancient world of oral, living speech that informed biblical storytelling.
Download or read book Memory and the City in Ancient Israel written by Diana V. Edelman and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2014-10-31 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ancient cities served as the actual, worldly landscape populated by “material” sites of memory. Some of these sites were personal and others were directly and intentionally involved in the shaping of a collective social memory, such as palaces, temples, inscriptions, walls, and gates. Many cities were also sites of social memory in a very different way. Like Babylon, Nineveh, or Jerusalem, they served as ciphers that activated and communicated various mnemonic worlds as they integrated multiple images, remembered events, and provided a variety of meanings in diverse ancient communities. Memory and the City in Ancient Israel contributes to the study of social memory in ancient Israel in the late Persian and early Hellenistic periods by exploring “the city,” both urban spaces and urban centers. It opens with a study that compares basic conceptualizing tendencies of cities in Mesopotamia with their counterparts in ancient Israel. Its essays then explore memories of gates, domestic spaces, threshing floors, palaces, city gardens and parks, natural and “domesticated” water in urban settings, cisterns, and wells. Finally, the studies turn to particular cities of memory in ancient Israel: Jerusalem, Samaria, Shechem, Mizpah, Tyre, Nineveh, and Babylon. The volume, which emerged from meetings of the European Association of Biblical Studies, includes the work of Stéphanie Anthonioz, Yairah Amit, Ehud Ben Zvi, Kåre Berge, Diana Edelman, Hadi Ghantous, Anne Katrine Gudme, Philippe Guillaume, Russell Hobson, Steven W. Holloway, Francis Landy, Daniel Pioske, Ulrike Sals, Carla Sulzbach, Karolien Vermeulen, and Carey Walsh.
Download or read book Why the Bible Began written by Jacob L. Wright and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2023-07-31 with total page 501 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why did no other ancient society produce a text remotely like the Bible? That a tiny, out of the way community, could have produced a text so determinative for peoples across the globe seems improbable.For Jacob Wright, the Bible is not only a testimony of survival, but also an unparalleled achievement in human history. Forged during Babylonian exile after the shattering destruction of Jerusalem, it makes not victory but total humiliation the foundation of a new idea of belonging. Lamenting the destruction of their homeland, scribes who composed the Bible turned to the golden ages of the past, reflecting deeply on abject failure. More than just religious scripture, the Bible is a resonant blueprint for the inspiring creation of a nation. As a response to catastrophe, it offers a powerful, message of hope and restoration that is unique in the Ancient Near Eastern and Greco-Roman worlds. Wright's Bible is thus a social, political, and even economic roadmap – one that enabled a small and obscure community located on the periphery of leading civilizations and empires, not just to come back from the brink, but ultimately to shape the world's destiny. The Bible speaks ultimately of being a united, yet diverse people, and its pages present a manual of pragmatic survival strategies in response to societal collapse.
Download or read book The God of Israel in History and Tradition written by Michael J. Stahl and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2021-03-22 with total page 498 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The “God of Israel” in History and Tradition, Michael Stahl examines the historical and ideological significances of the formulaic title “god of Israel” (’elohe yisra’el) in the Hebrew Bible using critical theory on social power and identity.
Download or read book The Early Greek Alphabets written by Robert Parker and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-08-26 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The birth of the Greek alphabet marked a new horizon in the history of writing, as the vowelless Phoenician alphabet was borrowed and adapted to write vowels as well as consonants. Rather than creating a single unchanging new tradition, however, its earliest attestations show a very great degree of diversity, as areas of the Greek-speaking world established their own regional variants. This volume asks how, when, where, by whom and for what purposes Greek alphabetic writing developed. Anne Jeffery's Local Scripts of Archaic Greece (1961), re-issued with a valuable supplement in 1990, was an epoch-making contribution to the study of these issues. But much important new evidence has emerged even since 1987, and debate has continued energetically about all the central issues raised by Jeffery's book: the date at which the Phoenician script was taken over and adapted to write vowels with separate signs; the priority of Phrygia or Greece in that process; the question whether the adaptation happened once, and the resulting alphabet then spread outwards, or whether similar adaptations occurred independently in several paces; if the adaptation was a single event, the region where it occurred, and the explanation for the many divergences in local script; what the scripts tell us about the regional divisions of archaic Greece. There has also been a flourishing debate about the development and functions of literacy in archaic Greece. The contributors to this volume bring a range of perspectives to bear in revisiting Jeffery's legacy, including chapters which extend the scope beyond Jeffery, by considering the fortunes of the Greek alphabet in Etruria, in southern Italy, and on coins.
Download or read book The King and the Land written by Stephen C. Russell and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The King and the Land offers an innovative history of space and power in the biblical world. Stephen C. Russell shows how the monarchies in ancient Israel and Judah asserted their power over strategically important spaces such as privately-held lands, religious buildings, collectively-governed towns, and urban water systems. Among the case studies examined are Solomon's use of foreign architecture, David's dedication of land to Yahweh, Jehu's decommissioning of Baal's temple, Absalom's navigation of the collective politics of Levantine towns, and Hezekiah's reshaping of the tunnels that supplied Jerusalem with water. By treating the full range of archaeological and textual evidence available for the Iron Age Levant, this book sets Israelite and Judahite royal and tribal politics within broader patterns of ancient Near Eastern spatial power. The book's historical investigation also enables fresh literary readings of the individual texts that anchor its thesis.
Download or read book Extolling Yeshua written by James S. Anderson and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2019-04-02 with total page 84 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is the Old Testament too old to be of any use today? Reading the Gospels in light of the prophets of old such as Elijah and Elisha, Anderson's third volume offers a fresh portrait of Jesus (Yeshua) as a wise man who surpassed his predecessors because he was deeply versed in the Scriptures of his time. Like flowers, religions last if they have strong roots. Yeshua's Bible was deeply rooted in Ancient Near Eastern religions. A must-read to prepare the future of monotheism, beyond the parochial debates between religious groups today.
Download or read book Aramaean Borders written by Jan Dušek and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2019-04-09 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is devoted to the analysis of borders of the Aramaean polities and territories during the 10th–8th centuries B.C.E. Specialists dealing with various types of documents (Neo-Assyrian, Aramaic, Phoenician, Neo-Hittite and Hebrew texts), invited by Jan Dušek and Jana Mynářová, addressed the topic of the borders of the Aramaean territories in the context of the history of three geographical areas during the first three centuries of the 1st millennium B.C.E.: northern Mesopotamia and the Assyrian space, northern Levant, and southern Levant. The book is particularly relevant to those interested in the history and historical geography of the Levant during the Iron Age. “Studies directly relevant to ancient Israel and others demonstrating historical geography’s limitations make an instructive volume.” -Alan Millard, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 44.5 (2020)
Download or read book Prophet Intermediary King written by Julie B. Deluty and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2024-04-04 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Prophet, Intermediary, King: The Dynamics of Mediation in the Biblical World and Old Babylonian Mari, Julie B. Deluty investigates the mediation of prophecy for kings in biblical narratives and the Old Babylonian corpus from Mari. In many cases, the prophet’s message is delivered through a third party—sometimes a royal official or family member—who may exercise a degree of autonomy in the transmission of the words. Drawing on social network theory, the book highlights the importance of third-party intermediaries in the process of communication that lies at the core of biblical and ancient Near Eastern prophecy. Recognition of the place of non-prophetic intermediaries in a monarchic system offers a new dimension to the study of prophecy in antiquity.
Download or read book Behind the Scenes of the Old Testament written by Jonathan S. Greer and published by Baker Academic. This book was released on 2018-11-19 with total page 956 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This authoritative volume brings together a team of world-class scholars to cover the full range of Old Testament backgrounds studies in a concise, up-to-date, and comprehensive manner. With expertise in various subdisciplines of Old Testament backgrounds, the authors illuminate the cultural, social, and historical contexts of the world behind the Old Testament. They introduce readers to a wide range of background materials, covering history, geography, archaeology, and ancient Near Eastern textual and iconographic studies. Meant to be used alongside traditional literature-based canonical surveys, this one-stop introduction to Old Testament backgrounds fills a gap in typical introduction to the Bible courses. It contains over 100 illustrations, including photographs, line drawings, maps, charts, and tables, which will facilitate its use in the classroom.
Download or read book What Is This Babbler Trying to Say written by Michael S. Moore and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2016-03-03 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a collection of revised-and-updated essays about the Hebrew Bible written by a North American scholar over a period of several decades. Subdivided into three parts--Torah, Prophecy/Apocalyptic, and Wisdom--these seventeen essays attempt to model for younger scholars and students what the discipline of biblical interpretation can look like, attending carefully to literary, historical, canonical, and comparative intertextual methods of investigation.
Download or read book Jonah vs King of Nineveh Chronological Historical and Archaeological Evidence written by Gerard Gertoux and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2015-11-14 with total page 104 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Historians consider the Biblical account of Jonah's warning against Nineveh as pious fiction, but the Gospels refer to it as a real story (Lk 11:29-32). The book of Jonah, despite its brevity, gives some verifiable information regarding Nineveh, a very old city, which disappeared completely after its destruction in 612 BCE. The dimensions mentioned seem colossal, however they do agree with the accounts of Herodotus, Diodorus and Strabo. Jonah's mission coincided with Jeroboam II's accession (2 Ki 14:23-25) and Shalmaneser III's death in 824 BCE who had previously commissioned Shamshi-Adad V as new Crown prince to quell the revolt headed by his brother Assur-danin-pal, who had headed 27 cities including the renowned Nineveh. Jonah's mission was therefore a success since Assyrian expansionism to the Mediterranean coast would cease, at least for 80 years.
