Protest or propaganda : war in the Old Testament book of Kings and in contemporaneous ancient Near Eastern texts /
:
In this study, the war stories from the Old Testament book of Kings are compared to ten extrabiblical texts. Narratological analysis is applied to deconstruct the ideology of the respective literary compositions. The Old Testament ideology of war seems to be neither typically Israelite, as Gerhardt von Rad put it, nor commonly Ancient Near Eastern, as Manfred Weippert thought it to be. This poses the question whether the reading experience of biblical war stories is so very different from, for instance, Assyrian royal inscriptions, both in terms of its literary value and its ideological bias. Narratological analysis turns out to be a strong tool for explaining the similarities and distinctive features of the respective texts.
:
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [689]-700) and indexes. :
9789047443414 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Continuity and innovation in the Aramaic legal tradition /
:
Ever since the Elephantine papyri were first published over a century ago, scholars have speculated on the origins of the well-developed legal formularies used in these documents. Since then, many more Aramaic deeds of conveyance both from Elephantine and from elsewhere have been published, especially within the last decade or so. With this expanded text base now available, the time is ripe for a comprehensive re-assessment of these legal formularies. This book endeavors to show that these disparate Aramaic documents, whose chronological scope spans several centuries, form a discrete and coherent tradition. It isolates and identifies the distinctive elements that form the core of this tradition and traces the histories of these elements back through the cuneiform record.
:
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [204]-226) and index. :
9789047442226 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Greek religion and culture, the Bible, and the ancient Near East /
:
In the last decades there has been an increasing interest in the relationship between Greek religion andamp; culture and the Ancient Near East. This challenging book contributes greatly to this interest by studying the Near Eastern background of important Greek myths, such as those of the creation of the world and the first woman, the Flood, the Golden Fleece, the Titans and travelling seers, but also of the births of Attis and Asclepius as well as the origins of the terms 'paradise' and 'magic'. It also shows that, in turn, Greek literature influenced Jewish stories of divine epiphanies and that the Greek scapegoat myths and rituals contributed to the central Christian notion of atonement.
:
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [357]-400) and index. :
9789047432715 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.