Making pictures of war : realia et imaginaria in the iconology of the ancient Near East /
:
This work brings together the main discussions that took place at an international conference on the iconology of war in the ancient Near East, a subject never addressed at an international meeting before.
:
Selected conference papers.
Previously issued in print: 2016. :
1 online resource : illustrations (black and white). :
Specialized. :
9781784914042 (ebook) :
Isaiah among the ancient Near Eastern prophets : a comparative study of the earliest stages of the Isaiah tradition and the Neo-Assyrian prophecies /
:
Focusing on the phenomenon of prophecy in the ancient Near East, this study offers a comparison between parts of First Isaiah and the Assyrian prophecies. In the first part, the material from First Isaiah and from seventh-century Assyria is investigated in its own right. The second part is a comparison of the Isaiah tradition in its earliest shape with the prophetic material from seventh-century Assyria. The topics dealt with in the comparison are the interrelation of prophetic oracles and historical events, the functions of the prophets, and the literary development of prophecy. The study shows that ancient Israelite prophecy, of which the historical Isaiah was an exponent, was much in conformity with ancient Near Eastern prophecy in general.
:
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [467]-496) and indexes. :
9789047422617 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The Septuagint South of Alexandria : Essays on the Greek Translations and Other Ancient Versions...
:
This volume presents original research on the historical context, narrative and wisdom books, anthropology, theology, language, and reception of the Septuagint, as well as comparisons of the Greek translations with other ancient versions and texts.
This volume tackles topics relevant to the study of the Septuagint and related fields of research, such as the historical context of the Greek translations and texts, their anthropology, theology, language, and reception, as well as the comparison of the Septuagint with other ancient translations and texts of its intellectual environment. The authors make contributions to the study of the texts themselves, their themes, and theories in modern research on the ancient artefacts.
:
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004521384
9789004521377
Demons in Early Judaism and Christianity : Characters and Characteristics /
:
This volume sheds light on how Jews and Christians in Antiquity understood the nature and characteristics of demons. The contributions cover a wide range of corpora and explore aspects of continuity and change as ideas flowed between groups and cultures.
For Jews and Christians in Antiquity beliefs about demons were integral to their reflections on fundamental theological questions, but what kind of 'being' did they consider demons to be? To what extent were they thought to be embodied? Were demons thought of as physical entities or merely as metaphors for social and psychological realities? What is the relation between demons and the hypostatization of abstract concepts (fear, impurity, etc) and baleful phenomenon such as disease? These are some of the questions that this volume addresses by focussing on the nature and characteristics of demons - what one might call 'demonic ontology'.
:
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004518148
9789004517141
Canonisation as Innovation : Anchoring Cultural Formation in the First Millennium BCE /
:
Drawing on case-studies from the first millennium BCE, this volume explores canonisation as a form of cultural formation. The book asks why and how canonisation works and thereby investigates the importance of the concept of anchoring to arrive at innovation in particular.
Canonisation is fundamental to the sustainability of cultures. This volume is meant as a (theoretical) exploration of the process, taking Eurasian societies from roughly the first millennium BCE (Babylonian, Assyrian, Persian, Greek, Egyptian, Jewish and Roman) as case studies. It focuses on canonisation as a form of cultural formation, asking why and how canonisation works in this particular way and explaining the importance of the first millennium BCE for these question and vice versa. As a result of this focus, notions like anchoring, cultural memory, embedding and innovation play an important role throughout the book.
:
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004520264
9789004520257
Sonnengrüße: Die sumerischen Kiutu-Gebetsbeschwörungen /
:
Dieses Buch ist eine umfassende Diskussion der mesopotamischen Kiutu-Gebetsbeschwörungen, das viele bisher nicht übersetzte Texte enthält und zum ersten Mal die literarische Typologie genau definiert und den rituellen Kontext beschreibt, in dem sie verwendet wurde.This book is a comprehensive discussion of the Mesopotamian Kiutu incantation-prayers, containing many previously untranslated texts as well as for the first time precisely defining the literary typology and describing the ritual context in which it was used.
Was sind die Kiutu-Gebetsbeschwörungen? Was sind ihre besonderen Merkmale im Vergleich zu anderen Arten von Gebetsbeschwörungen? Unter Verwendung vieler bisher unveröffentlichter Texte bietet dieses Buch die erste vollständige philologische Edition eines Korpus der sumerischen Literatur, der in der Wissenschaft oft unterrepräsentiert ist. Das Buch untersucht diese speziell an den Sonnengott gerichtete Texttypologie und ordnet sie in die breitere Geschichte der mesopotamischen Literatur und Religion ein. Einzigartig ist, dass diese Typologie von Gebetsbeschwörungen die Bewegung der Sonne am Himmel mit der Tageszeit verbindet, zu der sie vorgetragen wurde, was uns einen seltenen Einblick in die praktische Realität der mesopotamischen religiösen Praxis gewährt. What are the Kiutu incantation-prayers? What are their distinctive features in comparison to other types of incantation-prayers? Making use of many previously unpublished texts, this book offers the first complete philological edition of a corpus of Sumerian literature often underrepresented in scholarship. The book examines this textual typology specifically addressed to the Sun god finding its place within the broader history of Mesopotamian literature and religion. Uniquely, this typology of incantation-prayers connects the movement of the sun in the sky to the time of day when it was performed, giving us a rare glimpse into the practical realities of Mesopotamian religious practice.
:
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004503724
9789004503717
The Septuagint South of Alexandria : Essays on the Greek Translations and Other Ancient Versions...
:
This volume presents original research on the historical context, narrative and wisdom books, anthropology, theology, language, and reception of the Septuagint, as well as comparisons of the Greek translations with other ancient versions and texts.
This volume tackles topics relevant to the study of the Septuagint and related fields of research, such as the historical context of the Greek translations and texts, their anthropology, theology, language, and reception, as well as the comparison of the Septuagint with other ancient translations and texts of its intellectual environment. The authors make contributions to the study of the texts themselves, their themes, and theories in modern research on the ancient artefacts.
:
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004521384
9789004521377
The Star of Bethlehem and the Magi : interdisciplinary perspectives from experts on the ancient Near East, the Greco-Roman world, and modern astronomy /
:
This book is the fruit of the first ever interdisciplinary international scientific conference on Matthew's story of the Star of Bethlehem and the Magi, held in 2014 at the University of Groningen, and attended by world-leading specialists in all relevant fields: modern astronomy, the ancient near-eastern and Greco-Roman worlds, the history of science, and religion. The scholarly discussions and the exchange of the interdisciplinary views proved to be immensely fruitful and resulted in the present book. Its twenty chapters describe the various aspects of The Star: the history of its interpretation, ancient near-eastern astronomy and astrology and the Magi, astrology in the Greco-Roman and the Jewish worlds, and the early Christian world - at a generally accessible level. An epilogue summarizes the fact-fiction balance of the most famous star which has ever shone.
:
Papers edited from a colloquium The Star of Bethlehem: Historical and Astronomical Perspectives held October 22-24, 2014 in Groningen, Netherlands. :
1 online resource (xxii, 695 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004308473 :
1388-3909 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The variety of local religious life in the Near East in the Hellenistic and Roman periods /
:
A 'Near Eastern religion', along the lines of 'Greek religion' or 'Roman religion', is hard to distinguish for the Classical period, since the religious cultures of the many cities, villages and regions that constituted the Near East in the Hellenistic and Roman periods were, despite some obvious similarities, above all very different from each other. This collection of articles by scholars from different disciplines (Ancient History, Archaeology, Art-History, Epigraphy, Numismatics, Oriental Studies, Theology) contributes to our quest for understanding the polytheistic cults of the Near East as a whole by bringing out the variety between the different local and regional forms of worship in this part of the world.
:
1 online resource (xx, 329 pages, [61] pages of plates) : illustrations, maps. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 263-310) and indexes. :
9789047433538 :
0927-7633 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Homeland and exile : biblical and ancient Near Eastern studies in honour of Bustenay Oded /
:
This volume is a scholarly tribute to Bustenay Oded's distinguished career from some of the many contemporaries, colleagues, and former students who not only admire, and keep being inspired by his achievements, but who also count him as a friend. The title points to the remarkable span of Bustenay Oded 's research and research interests. Accordingly, the Festschrift's thirty original contributions deal with a wide range of topics, focusing on the Assyrian Empire, as well as on the Hebrew Bible and other cultural contents.
:
1 online resource. :
"Works by Professor Bustenay Oded": pages [xi]-xvi.
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789047441243 :
0083-5889 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
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.
"A Community of Peoples" : Studies on Society and Politics in the Bible and Ancient Near East in Honor of Daniel E. Fleming /
:
A "Community of Peoples": Studies on Society and Politics in the Bible and Ancient Near East in Honor of Daniel E. Fleming draws together a diverse community of scholars to honor the career of Daniel E. Fleming as a historian of the Bible and ancient Near East. Together, these scholars participate in a dynamic historical enterprise, each one positioning themself along a Middle Eastern spatial-temporal continuum stretching from the Old Babylonian to the Persian periods. Each contributor attempts to touch a sliver of ancient history, whether a particular person or community, a text or visual image or scribal process. They do so through a diversity of methods and disciplines, which together reflect the possibilities and promises for history writing. The Harvard Semitic Studies series publishes volumes from the Harvard Semitic Museum. Other series offered by Brill that publish volumes from the Museum include Studies in the Archaeology and History of the Levant and Harvard Semitic Monographs , https://semiticmuseum.fas.harvard.edu/publications .
:
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004511538
9789004511521
"A Community of Peoples" : Studies on Society and Politics in the Bible and Ancient Near East in Honor of Daniel E. Fleming /
:
A "Community of Peoples": Studies on Society and Politics in the Bible and Ancient Near East in Honor of Daniel E. Fleming draws together a diverse community of scholars to honor the career of Daniel E. Fleming as a historian of the Bible and ancient Near East. Together, these scholars participate in a dynamic historical enterprise, each one positioning themself along a Middle Eastern spatial-temporal continuum stretching from the Old Babylonian to the Persian periods. Each contributor attempts to touch a sliver of ancient history, whether a particular person or community, a text or visual image or scribal process. They do so through a diversity of methods and disciplines, which together reflect the possibilities and promises for history writing. The Harvard Semitic Studies series publishes volumes from the Harvard Semitic Museum. Other series offered by Brill that publish volumes from the Museum include Studies in the Archaeology and History of the Levant and Harvard Semitic Monographs , https://semiticmuseum.fas.harvard.edu/publications .
:
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004511538
9789004511521
The Manichaeans of the Roman East : Manichaeism in Greek anti-Manichaica & Roman Imperial Legislation /
:
The Manichaeans of the Roman East is the first monograph that synthesizes an enormous body of primary material to reconstruct the history of East-Roman Manichaeans, from the time their first missionaries arrived in the territory of the Roman East until the disappearance of Manichaeism from the Eastern Roman Empire. Through her systematically comparative and intertextual investigation of the sources, Matsangou provides a number of original approaches to issues such as the classification of Manichaeism, the socio-religious profile and lifestyle of East Roman Manichaeans, the triggers of the severe anti-Manichaean persecutions. She thoroughly analyses the relationship between Manichaean and Christian ascetics for the first time, suggesting a possible Manichaean impact on the rise of ascetic manifestations among Christian ascetics, monks, and individuals in society. By considering the dimensions of the phenomenon of crypto-Manichaeism and using the concept of "entryism"-borrowed from politics-as a theoretical model, Matsangou makes intriguing hypotheses suggesting an alternative explanation for the disappearance of Manichaeism from the Roman East.
:
1 online resource (550 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004544222
Studies in the cult of Yahweh.
:
These two volumes collect some of the most influential and important scholarly essays by the late Morton Smith (1915-1991), for many years Professor of Ancient History at Columbia University in New York City. Smith was admired and feared for his extraordinary ability to look at familiar texts in unfamiliar ways, to re-open old questions, to pose new questions, and to demolish received truths. He practiced the \'hermeneutics of suspicion\' to devastating effect. His answers are not always convincing but his questions cannot be ignored. The essays of Volume I center on the Hebrew Bible (\'Old Testament\'), Ancient Israel and Ancient Judaism, of Volume II on the Christian Bible (\'New Testament\'), Early Christianity and Ancient Magic. Volume II also contains an assessment of Smith's scholarly achievement and a complete list of his publications.
:
1 online resource (viii, 334 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004295872 :
0927-7633 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.