Welcome to our book review site go-pdf.online!
You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
The Qumran Con
Why did Professor Norman Golb of the Oriental Institute need to be silenced? Why did a small clique monopolize access and publication rights to the Dead Sea Scrolls for more than four decades? Why does the truth matter about where the scrolls came from? In this documented memoir, Raphael Golb exposes the inside story of the Dead Sea Scrolls controversy and its scandals. He describes how he himself became involved in the controversy—and ended up fighting to stay out of Rikers Island. For over seventy years, the true historical significance of the scrolls has been obscured by the institutional influence of a threatened scholarly establishment. Never were the stakes made clearer than when pow...
Wings of the Gods
Wings of the Gods surveys the many roles that birds have played in the development of religions, from legends, rituals, costumes, wars, and spiritual disciplines to the current ecological crisis. Peter (Petra) Gardella and Laurence Krute, both scholars and birdwatchers, transcend a narrow focus on humanity to explore the agency of birds in world history.
Witches, Whores, and Sorcerers
Early Iranians believed evil had to have a source outside of God, which led to the concept of an entity as powerful and utterly evil as God is potent and good. These two forces, good and evil, which have always vied for superiority, needed helpers in this struggle. According to the Zoroastrians, every entity had to take sides, from the cosmic level to the microcosmic self. One of the results of this battle was that certain humans were thought to side with evil. Who were these allies of that great Evil Spirit? Women were inordinately singled out. Male healers were forbidden to deal with female health disorders because of the fear of the polluting power of feminine blood. Female healers, midwi...
Annual Report
None
Iron Age
None
Spirit Possession in Judaism
This extraordinary collection of essays is the first to approach the phenomenon of spirit possession among Jews from a multidisciplinary perspective. What beliefs have Jews held about spirit possession? Have Jewish people believed themselves to be possessed by spirits? If so, what sorts of spirits were they? Have Jews' conceptions of possession been the same as those of their Christian and Muslim neighbors? These are some of the questions addressed in these thirteen essays, which together explore spirit possession in a wide range of temporal and geographic contexts. The phenomena known as spirit possession are both very widespread and very difficult to explain. The late Raphael Patai initiat...
My Lots are in Thy Hands: Sortilege and its Practitioners in Late Antiquity
Sortilege—the making of decisions by casting lots—was widely practiced in the Mediterranean world during the period known as late antiquity, between the third and eighth centuries CE. In My Lots are in Thy Hands: Sortilege and its Practitioners in Late Antiquity, AnneMarie Luijendijk and William Klingshirn have collected fourteen essays that examine late antique lot divination, especially but not exclusively through texts preserved in Greek, Latin, Coptic, and Syriac. Employing the overlapping perspectives of religious studies, classics, anthropology, economics, and history, contributors study a variety of topics, including the hermeneutics and operations of divinatory texts, the importance of diviners and their instruments, and the place of faith and doubt in the search for hidden order in a seemingly random world.
Death in the Iron Age II and in First Isaiah
Death is one of the major themes of 'First Isaiah, ' although it has not generally been recognized as such. Images of death are repeatedly used by the prophet and his earliest tradents.The book begins by concisely summarizing what is known about death in the Ancient Near East during the Iron Age II, covering beliefs and practices in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Syria-Palestine, and Judah/Israel. Incorporating both textual and archeological data, Christopher B. Hays surveys and analyzes existing scholarly literature on these topics from multiple fields.Focusing on the text's meaning for its producers and its initial audiences, he describes the ways in which the 'rhetoric of death' functioned in its hi...
Yahweh among the Gods
In this study, Michael Hundley explores the diverse deities of ancient Near Eastern and biblical literature, from deified doors and diseases to the masters of the universe. Using data from Mesopotamia, Hittite Anatolia, Egypt, the Levant, and non-priestly Genesis and Exodus, Hundley explains their context-specific approach to deity, which produces complex and seemingly contradictory portraits. He suggests that ancient deities gained prominence primarily by co-opting the attributes of other deities, rather than by denying their existence or inventing new powers. He demonstrates that the primary difference between biblical and ancient Near Eastern presentations lies in their rhetorical goals, not their conceptions of gods. While others promote divine supremacy, Genesis and Exodus promote exclusive worship. Hundley argues that this monolatry redefined the biblical divine sphere and paved the way for the later development of monotheism and monotheistic explanations of evil.
Zodiac Calendars in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Their Reception
The ancient mathematical basis of the Aramaic calendars in the Dead Sea Scrolls is analysed in this investigation. Helen R. Jacobus re-examines an Aramaic zodiac calendar with a thunder divination text (4Q318) and the calendar from the Aramaic Astronomical Book (4Q208 - 4Q209), all from Qumran. Jacobus demonstrates that 4Q318 is an ancestor of the Jewish calendar today and that it helps us to understand 4Q208 - 4Q209. She argues that these calendars were taught in antiquity as angelic knowledge described in 1 Enoch and the Book of Jubilees. The study also encompasses Babylonian, Hellenistic, Byzantine astronomy and astrology, and classical and Jewish writings. Finally, a medieval Hebrew zodiac calendar related to 4Q318 with an astrological text is published here for the first time.
