Royal Illness and Kingship Ideology in the Hebrew Bible

Royal Illness and Kingship Ideology in the Hebrew Bible
Author: Isabel Cranz
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 251
Release: 2020-10-22
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1108830498

A systematic study of how royal illnesses in the Hebrew Bible are evaluated and integrated in literary and historiographical contexts.

Royal Illness and Kingship Ideology in the Hebrew Bible

Royal Illness and Kingship Ideology in the Hebrew Bible
Author: Isabel Cranz
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 251
Release: 2020-10-22
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 110890047X

In this book, Isabel Cranz offers the first systematic study of royal illness in the Books of Samuel, Kings and Chronicles. Applying a diachronic approach, she compares and contrasts how the different views concerning kingship and illness are developed in the larger trajectory of the Hebrew Bible. As such, she demonstrates how a framework of meaning is constructed around the motif of illness, which is expanded in several redactional steps. This development takes different forms and relates to issues such as problems with kingship, the cultic, and moral conduct of individual kings, or the evaluation of dynasties. Significantly, Cranz shows how the scribes living in post-monarchic Judah expanded the interpretive framework of royal illness until it included a message of destruction and a critique of kingship. The physical and mental integrity of the king, therefore, becomes closely tied to his nation and the political system he represents.

Transforming Authority

Transforming Authority
Author: Katharina Pyschny
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 360
Release: 2021-09-07
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 311064715X

Human leadership is a multifaceted topic in the Hebrew Bible from a synchronic as well as diachronic perspective. A large range of distributions emerges from the successive sharpening or modification of different aspects of leadership. While some of them are combined to a complex figuration of leadership, others remain reserved for certain individuals. Furthermore, it can be considered a consensus within scholarly debate, that concepts of leadership have a certain connection to the history of ancient Israel which is, though, hard to ascertain. Following a previous volume that focused on the Pentateuch and the Former Prophets (BZAW 507), this volume deals with different concepts of leadership in selected Prophetic (Hag/Zech; Jer) and Chronistic literature Ezr/Neh; Chr). They are examined in a literary, (religious-/tradition-) historical and theological perspective. Special emphasis is given to phenomena of transforming authority and leadership claims in exilic/post-exilic times. Hence, the volume contributes to biblical theology and sheds new light on the redaction/reception history of the texts. Not least, it provides valuable insights into the history of religious and/or political “authorities” in Israel and Early Judaism(s).

Prophet, Intermediary, King

Prophet, Intermediary, King
Author: Julie B. Deluty
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 270
Release: 2024-04-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 9004690778

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.

The Death Wish in the Hebrew Bible

The Death Wish in the Hebrew Bible
Author: Hanne Løland Levinson
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 197
Release: 2021-09-23
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1108983456

This is the first book to systematically investigate the texts in the Hebrew Bible in which a character expresses a wish to die. Contrary to previous scholarship on these texts that assumed these death wishes were simply a desire to escape suffering, Hanne Løland Levinson employs narrative criticism and conversation analysis, together with diachronic methods, to carefully hear each death-wish text in its literary context. She demonstrates that death wishes embody powerful, multi-faceted rhetorical strategies. Grouping the death-wish texts into four main rhetorical strategies of negotiation, expression of despair and anger, longing to undo one's existence, and wishing for a different reality, Løland Levinson portrays the complex reasons why characters in the Hebrew Bible wish for death. She concludes that the death wishes navigate the tension between longing for death and fighting for survival - a tension that many live with also today as they attempt to claim agency and autonomy in life.

Religious Responses to Pandemics and Crises

Religious Responses to Pandemics and Crises
Author: Sravana Borkataky-Varma
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 217
Release: 2023-08-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1000921654

Religious Responses to Pandemics and Crises explores various dimensions of the interrelations between the individual, community, and religion. With their global scope, the contributions to this volume represent reflections on the rich and multifaceted spectrum of human responses in a variety of different religions and cultures to the current SARS-2-COVID-19 pandemic and similar crises in the past. The contributions are organized in three thematic parts focusing on strategies, rituals, and past and present responses to pandemics and crises. They reflect on the intersection of personal or communal responses and state-mandated policies relative to SARS-2-COVID-19 while outlining different strategies to cope with the pandemic crisis. Timely questions explored include: How do individuals connect with or disconnect from religious and spiritual communities during times of personal and collective crises, including pandemics? How do religious practices such as rituals bridge individuals and communities? How do religious texts from past and present highlight and represent crises and pandemics? Dynamic and multidisciplinary in its inquiry, this volume is an outstanding resource for scholars of religion, theology, anthropology, social sciences, ritual theory, sex and gender studies, and contemporary medical science.

Medicine in the Talmud

Medicine in the Talmud
Author: Jason Sion Mokhtarian
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 259
Release: 2022-05-17
Genre: History
ISBN: 0520389417

Medicine on the margins -- Trends and methods in the study of Talmudic medicine -- Precursors of Talmudic medicine -- Empiricism and efficacy -- Talmudic medicine in its Sasanian context.

The Book of Amos and its Audiences

The Book of Amos and its Audiences
Author: Andrew R. Davis
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 191
Release: 2023-05-31
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 100925586X

Many studies of the prophetic books assume that a text's addressee and audience are one and the same. Sometimes this is the case, but some prophetic texts feature multiple addressees who cannot be collapsed into a single setting. In this book Andrew R. Davis examines examples of multiple addressees within the book of Amos and argues that they force us to expand our understanding of prophetic audiences. Drawing insight from studies of poetic address in other disciplines, Davis distinguishes between the addressee within the text and the actual audience outside the text. He combines in-depth poetic analysis with historical inquiry and shows the ways that the prophetic discourse of the book of Amos is triangulated among multiple audiences.

Israel and Judah Redefined

Israel and Judah Redefined
Author: C. L. Crouch
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 193
Release: 2021-08-12
Genre: Bibles
ISBN: 1108473768

Uses migration research, trauma studies, and postcolonial theory to explore the Babylonian exiles effect on Israelite and Judahite identity.