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Despite the large number of well-preserved domestic contexts in Bronze and Iron Age sites, household archaeology has not been a common approach to studying the material culture of Ancient Israel. Until recently, the dictates of “Biblical Archaeology” led to a narrow set of questions that ignored issues such as gender, status and production within the household. The present volume, which grew out of a session at the 2008 Annual Meeting of the American Schools of Oriental Research, attempts to redress this issue. The seventeen papers herein reflect innovative viewpoints on the theory and praxis of household archaeology in this region. The next step in household research is presented here, ...
This book is the first to characterize the Iron Age city-states of southeastern Turkey and northern Syria, using archaeological, historical, and visual evidence to argue for a unified cultural formation characterized above all by diversity and mobility.
Winner of the 2025 Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award for Theological Promise Deuteronomy and the inscribed texts depicted within it are often called “books.” Moreover, its treatment of writing has earned it a prominent place in historical accounts of the religion of ancient Israel and Judah. Neither Deuteronomy nor its text-artifacts, however, are books in any conventional sense of the term. This interdisciplinary study reorients the analysis of Deuteronomic textuality around the materiality, visuality, and rhetoric of ancient rather than modern media. It argues that the Deuteronomic composition adapts the media aesthetics of ancient treaty tablets and monumental inscriptions to a story that is itself transformed into an artifact of the past.
The political rhetoric of ancient Israel took several literary, architectural, and graphic forms. Much of the relevant material concerns kingship, but other loci of authority and submission also drew significant attention. Mark W. Hamilton illustrates how these "texts" interacted with other political rhetorics, especially those of the great Mesopotamian empires. By paying close attention to the argumentation of the Israelite literature as well as their function as epideictic oratory building solidarity with hearers he reveals the complexity of Israelite intellectual activity both during and after the period of the monarchy. By doing this he shows that this body of thought lies at the heart of Western political thought even today.
Shows how ancient Near Eastern attitudes toward death illumine the Hebrew Bible Death is one of the major themes of First Isaiah, although it has not generally been recognized as such. In this work Christopher Hays offers fresh interpretations of more than a dozen passages in Isaiah 5-38 in light of ancient beliefs about death. What especially distinguishes Hays's study is its holistic approach, as he brilliantly synthesizes both literary and archaeological evidence, resulting in new insights. Hays first summarizes what is known about death in the ancient Near East during the Second Iron Age, covering beliefs and practices in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Syria-Palestine, and Judah/Israel. He then shows how select passages in the first part of Isaiah employ the rhetorical imagery of death that was part of their cultural context; further, he identifies ways in which these texts break new creative ground.
This volume examines the power relationships between the rulers of the Late Bronze and Iron Age and their subjects in the Levant through the lens of "cultural hegemony." It explores the impact of these foreign powers on all social classes and reconstructs the public presence of cultural control. The book serves to determine the impact of foreign control on the daily lives of those living in the ancient Levant and offers a means by which to attempt to discuss non-elites in the ancient Near East. It examines expressions of foreign ideology within public performance such as religious expressions and in public places, observable by all social classes, which assert control or dominance over local...
“My Lord! There is no one like you among the gods!” Attempting to describe the nature of God often prompts the exclamation of the psalmist—that God is unlike anyone or anything else. And yet the claim is not simply the overflow of an adoring heart: God’s incomparability is a truth lodged deep within Christian Scripture. In The Incomparable God, Old Testament scholar Brent Strawn offers thoughtful insight into this theological mystery. This volume collects eighteen of Strawn’s most provocative essays on the nature of God, several of which are published for the first time here. Strawn covers the following topics: • the complex portrayal of God in Genesis • God’s mercy in Exodus • poetic description of God in the Psalms • the Trinity in both testaments • pedagogy of the Old Testament • integration of faith and scholarship Encompassing close readings of Scripture, biblical-theological argument, and considerations of praxis, The Incomparable God is essential reading for Old Testament scholars and students.
Far from being a Judeo-Christian invention, apocalyptic thought had its roots in the ancient Near East and was expressed in its art.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The author of Zealot explores humanity’s quest to make sense of the divine in this concise and fascinating history of our understanding of God. In Zealot, Reza Aslan replaced the staid, well-worn portrayal of Jesus of Nazareth with a startling new image of the man in all his contradictions. In his new book, Aslan takes on a subject even more immense: God, writ large. In layered prose and with thoughtful, accessible scholarship, Aslan narrates the history of religion as a remarkably cohesive attempt to understand the divine by giving it human traits and emotions. According to Aslan, this innate desire to humanize God is hardwired in our brains, making it a cent...
A close look at Phoenician religion The Hebrew Bible contains a prohibition against divine images (Exod 20:2-5a). Explanations for this command are legion, usually focusing on the unique status of Israel's deity within the context of the broader Near Eastern and Mediterranean worlds. Doak explores whether or not Israel was truly alone in its severe stance against idols. This book focuses on one particular aspect of this iconographic context in Israel's Iron Age world: that of the Phoenicians. The question of whether Phoenicians employed aniconic (as opposed to iconic) representational techniques has significance not only for the many poorly understood aspects of Phoenician religion generally, but also for the question of whether aniconism can be considered a broader trend among the Semitic populations of the ancient Near East. Features: More than fifty images and illustrations Examination of textual and archaeological evidence Application of art historical methods