Protest or propaganda : war in the Old Testament book of Kings and in contemporaneous ancient Near Eastern texts /
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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.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [689]-700) and indexes. :
9789047443414 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The religious aspects of war in the ancient Near East, Greece, and Rome /
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The Religious Aspect of Warfare in the Ancient Near East, Greece and Rome is a volume dedicated to investigating the relationship between religion and war in antiquity in minute detail. The nineteen chapters are divided into three groups: the ancient Near East, Greece, and Rome. They are presented in turn and all possible aspects of warfare and its religious connections are investigated. The contributors focus on the theology of war, the role of priests in warfare, natural phenomena as signs for military activity, cruelty, piety, the divinity of humans in specific martial cases, rituals of war, iconographical representations and symbols of war, and even the archaeology of war. As editor Krzysztof Ulanowski invited both well-known specialists such as Robert Parker, Nicholas Sekunda, and Pietro Mander to contribute, as well as many young, talented scholars with fresh ideas. From this polyphony of voices, perspectives and opinions emerges a diverse, but coherent, representation of the complex relationship between religion and war in antiquity.
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Includes index. :
1 online resource. :
9789004324763 :
1566-2055 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.